18 Apr SPEAK YOUR VUES WITH THE VUES MASTER

MATH ERROR
Dear Vues Master:
I davened in a shteeble where I was the gabba. It was this
past Friday night, one night after Pesach, the ninth day of
the Omer. The baal tefillah was yodeling away and finally he reached Sefiras Ha’omer. He said the bracha “al
Sefiras Ha’omer, hayoim…”. but then stopped abruptly.
It seemed he didn’t know the correct day to say. Now,
nobody is supposed to say the new number of days until
you make a brocha. He tried guessing and he said seven
and then ten. The crowd groaned. The So the Rebbe
told him yesterday was the eighth day. He said shmonah osor. The crowd groaned again. This time he froze
and stopped altogether. It seemed we would be there all
night. I had to do something; they were Counting on
me. So I grabbed the box of tissues on the table, yanked
one out and ran to the Amud. I waved it in front of his
face. He looked in bewilderment He started talking low
but then ended in a load annoying voice, “I don’t have a
cold. Why do I need a TISSUE!!” Suddenly the crowd
erupted,, “Hayom TISSUE yomim B’omer!!”
D F
Vues Master’s Note: I am allergic to this letter! This letter is nothing to sneeze at!
TIMING
Dear Vues Master:
I have a problem that I wanted to share with your readers. I’ve been davening in a shul for over twenty years.
Recently we hired a new rabbi and this rabbi davens so
much faster than the previous rabbi. By krias shema the
chazzon has to rush his davening because he doesn’t
want the tzibur to be waiting for a long time when the
rabbi is finished. It usually takes me a tleast 45 seconds
more than the rabbi to say krias shema & at least a minute
more than the rabbi for Shemoneh Esrei. What should I
do?
PD
Vues Master’s Note: Learn how to read and go back to
alef bais class!
MATZAH
Dear Vues Master:
I purchased twenty pounds of Matzah for Pesach this
year and had only 13 full matzahs. I went to a different
store over Chol Hamoed to buy another 4 lbs of Matzah
and only got 3 more whole matzahs. Did other people out
there have the same problem as me this Pesach?
GT
Vues Master’s Note: We got very holy Matzahs; they were
all whole!
FUND
Dear Vues Master:
I just want to give a big yasher koach to the Flatbush
Community Fund & the Matzoh fund for helping Klal
Yisroel make Pesach this year. I know personally many
families in Flatbush & in Eretz Yisrael that would not
have been able to make Pesach if not for these great organizations. Tizku L’mitzvot!!
RDF
Vues Master’s Note: May all those families be on the giving end instead of the receiving end!
LIVE AFTER DEATH
Dear Vues Master:
This week we commemorate Yom Ha’Shoah- Holocaust
Remembrance Day. Living in a time with so many privileges, “rights”, and even a homeland called Israel, can
make one forget the past, even while factually reminiscing about it. I recently had the privilege of reading a historical, human account of a young woman who lived during those horrible times. Like many thousands of boys
and girls her age, she grew up in an incredibly unstable
and tragic time. The most shocking part of her writings
was the clear portrayal of her struggles being so in unison with the timeless creation called human nature. She
strove to be her own individual. Many viewed her and
treated her differently, but her individuality is the reason
why we all know her name today. Her name was Anne
Frank. Anne Frank is a name that most people know of.
Many even know her story. The bravery of a 13-year old young adult to this day is so incredibly astounding.
It really is a loss that she never got to live a full life,
but the journal that made her “live after she dies”, in her
words, shows humanity at its worst but also at its best.
We, of course, don’t have the challenges of the Holocaust, nor do we have anything comparable to that, thank
G-d, but the humanity that Anne showed in her diary is
not only a lesson that people should analyze and perhaps

apply, but also a testament to our humanity.
Anne Frank didn’t only write a historical
account, she also wrote an exact and beautiful portrayal of the challenges of life. Anne
grew up in a life of privilege. Anne grew up
like any German-Dutch family. Anne had
friends, birthdays, food, clothing, hobbies,
and all the things of a normal life. The only
“abnormal” thing was that she was Jewish.
Is Anne Frank just a story and a historical
figure? I think not because in our own ways
and forms, we are all Anne Frank. We all
have challenges in response to the different
parts of life, people of life, or even our relationship with ourselves. Anne Frank entered
the Secret Annexe as a normal 13-year-old
teenage girl; she grew in two years into a
15-year-old woman. She tackled human issues with relationships with others and oneself that some people never even think about
in life. She grew in the words of the author
Stephen Covey, from being dependent to
independent to interdependent. She physically lived a short life, but she “lives after
she dies” nevertheless.
Yours, D S G
Vues Master’s Note: May we never witness
such tzaros again and be zoche to Moshiach!
BERMUDA
Dear Vues Master:
The name “Bermuda” conjures up a variety
of images. Tourists think of it as a tropical
vacation site. Scientists ponder the disappearance of ships in the Bermuda Triangle.
But for those concerned with the history
of the Holocaust, Bermuda is remembered
as the site of a notorious U.S.-British conference, eighty years ago this week, that
was organized for the ostensible purpose
of rescuing Jews from Hitler, but instead
abandoned them. “All FDR Said Was ‘No’
” In early 1943, following the Allies’ verification of the Nazi genocide, some British
parliament members and church leaders
began pressing for rescue action. To appease the growing clamor, the Churchill
and Roosevelt administrations announced
they would hold a conference to address
the crisis. The island of Bermuda was chosen for the gathering. Nahum Goldmann,
cochairman of the World Jewish Congress,
suspected the remote setting was selected
so “it will take place practically in secret,
without pressure of public opinion.” Jewish
organizations asked permission to send representatives to the conference; their request
was rejected. They sent the State Department a list of proposals for rescue action;
the memo was ignored. Jewish congressmen
met with President Franklin D. Roosevelt to
suggest rescue steps, “but the answer to all
of [our] suggestions was ‘No’,” according
to Congressman Daniel Ellison (R-Maryland). Basking in the Sun American Jewish
groups were alarmed that U.S. Congressman Sol Bloom (D-New York) was chosen
as a member of the American delegation to
Bermuda. Bloom was a staunch defender of
FDR’s harsh policy toward Jewish refugees;
Jewish leaders feared Bloom would serve
as “an alibi” for the administration’s claim
that rescue was impossible. Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long wrote in
his diary that he chose Bloom because the
congressman was “easy to handle” and “terribly ambitious for publicity.” The Bermuda
gathering opened on April 19, 1943, which
coincided with the first night of Passover
and the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto revolt against the Nazis. The British and U.S.
governments decided beforehand that in
their discussions, there would be no emphasis on the plight of the Jews, nor would
they adopt any policies that would benefit
Jews in particular. Nearly every rescue idea
that was raised was shot down. The U.S.
refused to use trans-Atlantic ships to transport refugees, not even troop supply ships
that were returning from Europe empty. The
Roosevelt administration also rejected any
increase in the admission of refugees to the
United States. The British delegates refused
to discuss Palestine as a possible haven, because of Arab opposition. They also rejected
negotiating with the Nazis to release Jews,
on the grounds that “many of the potential
refugees are empty mouths for which Hitler
has no use.” Their release “would be relieving Hitler of an obligation to take care of
these useless people,” a senior British official asserted. The delegates also dismissed
the idea of shipping food to starving Jews
as a violation of the Allied blockade of Axis
Europe, even though Allied leaders previously made an exception for German-occupied Greece and sent food there. In the
end, the Bermuda conferees spent a large
amount of time on very small-scale steps,
such as evacuating 5,000 Jewish refugees
from Spain (who were not in immediate
danger) to the Libyan region of Cyrenaica.
After twelve days of basking in the tropical sunshine, the delegates adjourned without achieving anything of significance. The
two governments kept the proceedings of
the conference secret rather than admit how
little they had accomplished. A Cruel Mockery The failure of the Bermuda conference
provoked the first serious public criticism
of U.S. refugee policy. A large advertisement in the New York Times, sponsored by
the rescue advocates known as the Bergson Group, was headlined “To 5,000,000
Jews in the Nazi Death-Trap, Bermuda was
a Cruel Mockery.” Rep. Emanuel Celler
(D-New York) charged that the delegates
in Bermuda had engaged in “diplomatic
tight-rope walking,” at a time when “thousands of Jews are being killed daily.” In a
slap at Congressman Bloom, Rep. Celler
characterized the conference as “a bloomin’
fiasco.” The editors of The New Republic
charged that Bermuda revealed “the bitter
truth” that the U.S. and Great Britain were
unwilling to aid “these potential refugees
from murder.…If the Anglo-Saxon nations
continue on their present course, we shall
have connived with Hitler in one of the
most terrible episodes of history.” Bermuda
galvanized some mainstream Jewish leaders to speak out more forcefully for rescue.
Dr. Israel Goldstein, president of the Synagogue Council of America, charged that
“the victims are not being rescued because
the democracies do not want them, and the
job of the Bermuda conference apparently
was not to rescue victims of Nazi terror but
to rescue our State Department and the British Foreign Office from possible embarrassment.” Even the chief British delegate to
Bermuda, Richard Law, later acknowledged
that Bermuda was a “façade for inaction.”
Historians have come to view the Bermuda
conference as one of the era’s most vivid
demonstrations of the Roosevelt administration’s abandonment of the Jews. The many
books and films about America’s response
to the Nazi genocide devote ample space to
the Bermuda failure—with the notable exception of the recent Ken Burns documentary, “The U.S. and the Holocaust,” which
for some reason never mentioned Bermuda
at all. Perhaps one day, some interviewer
will ask him about that. An Eyewitness
Account The day the Bermuda conference
concluded, April 30, the Jewish Telegraphic
Agency published an extraordinary eyewitness account of Nazi atrocities against Jews
in the Polish city of Lvov. A 40 year-old
bank clerk named Arthur Rotenstroikin described how he and other Jews in Lvov were
“lined up and machine gunned,” but “I fainted and fell to the ground before a bullet hit
me and thus escaped death.” Late that night,
he “crawled from the mound of dead and
returned home.” Rotenstroikin recounted a
wide range of Nazi outrages in Lvov, from
young Jewish boys “forced to beat their parents,” to Rosh Hashana worshippers compelled to spread Torah scrolls on the ground
“and dance upon them.” He also detailed the
mass murder process: executions of tens of
thousands of Jews in a nearby forest where
“the cries of the victims could be heard for
miles,” and mass deportations to the Belzec
death camp. Within a year, “only 10,000
Jews were left of [Lvov’s] original Jewish
population of 160,000,” Rosenstroikin reported. Among the murdered were his own
wife and two year-old child. His harrowing
testimony offered a heartbreaking eyewitness counterpoint to the Allies’ farce of a
conference in Bermuda.
Rafael Medoff
Vues Master’s Note: Oy! I could never vacation there now!
KOL HAKAVOD
Dear Vues Master:
I am a weekly reader of your newspaper the
Jewish Vues. I really enjoy the new Parsha
Knowledge series. The Torah thoughts and
stories on Pesach were pure gems. Kol haKovod to R’ Fingerer and please continue
giving us readers more awesome content to
say over at our Shabbos/yom tov tables.
– C H L
Vues Master’s Note: Thanks for continuing
to support us and giving us chizuk!
FATHER
Dear Vues Master:
The Shimathites and Suchatites are descendants of Yisro. The name Shimathites
means, they heeded (sham’u) the advice of
their father. Jeremiah (Ch. 35) records how
Yonadav son of Reichav had commanded
his children to drink no wine, build no houses, sow no fields nor plant any vineyards,
but to live a life of complete simplicity in
tents. The Suchatites lived in booths (succos) in the desert as their father had commanded. – Sotah 11a This fits into the dictum of Rav Pappa who said, before a wine
drinker, bring wine; before a gardener, who
usually eats vegetables, bring a basket of
vegetables. Rashi says, it is wise to bring
people gifts of items to which they are accustomed. – Sotah 10a Similarly, a wise
son is someone who enjoys hearing what
his father says; he enjoys hearing directly
from his father and when others quote him
or tell stories about him. An unwise son is
someone who turns his head when his father
speaks and thus people avoid mentioning
dad in front of his son. You can size up a
bachur on how he reacts when he hears the
word dad. One who turn from his father is
unwise as it says in Pirkei Avot 4:1, “Ben
Zoma says, Who is wise? He who learns
from every man.” A yeshiva student understands this to mean that he should listen to
his rabbis and everyone else should be given
a polite smile and nod. However, Ben Zoma
doesn’t say “he learns from man” but “he
learns from every man.” Had he only said
man that would refer to one called man (like
a rabbi); however, every man comes to include everyone and the father in particular
as it says, “They heeded (sham’u) the advice of their father.” They were wise and

survived. My son, like everyone else in his
yeshiva, believes the words of their rabbi is
like the word of G-d and my words are like
the bark of a dog. I learned, in his yeshiva
from the son of the founder, that this generation is lacking men and in a place where
there are no men, strive to be a man. As
such, I don’t think the last generation will
be called the generation of the Rosh Yeshiva but the generation of the Avos as it says
in Isaiah 46:10, “I foretell the end from the
beginning” and I heard that the word תכלית
(purpose) begins with a tov and ends with
a tov because the beginning is the blueprint
and the end is the product. Therefore, G-d
started with the Avos so He will end with
them. BTW, The middle letters spell כלי ,
the vessel, the people and things, will make
it come to fruition.
DG
Vues Master’s Note: Once again you have a
one track mind!
YOM HASHOAH
Dear Vues Master:
Yom HaShoah/Holocaust Remembrance
Day is this week. Please take a look at the
OpEd copied below about how a classic
1960s American novel offered a unique
perspective. I have been studying the
American reaction to the Holocaust in the
1950s and 1960s for several years now.
HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY &
JEWISH SELF DEFENSE
The best-selling novel Fail-Safe was
brought to mind with the recent news headlines about the observance of Yom HaShoah [Holocaust Remembrance Day] and that
a high school in Florida removed a graphic
novel adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary
from its library with the school administration quoted as saying it is “not age appropriate” There is a section of Fail-Safe that
talks about the story of Anne Frank and her
family in a way unseen before or after in
American literature. The book was written
by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler.
It was later made into the 1964 film of the
same name by Sidney Lumet and it starred
Walter Matthau as Emil Groteschele and
Henry Fonda as the President of the United
States. Hank Azaria played Groteschele in
the 2000 television remake. Here is the unedited excerpt- “One of the few times that
his son had seen him angry was when the
subject of the Diary of Anne Frank came up.
Emil Groteschele had offended the Jews of
Cincinnati by arguing that Anne Frank and
her family had acted like imbeciles. Rather
than hiding in an attic and clutching their
Jewishness to them they should have made
plans to escape. Failing that, they should
have been prepared to fight the Nazis when
the final day came. “The steps leading up
to that miserable attic should have been
red with Nazi blood-and that of the Frank
family,” Dr. Groteschele argued bitterly. “If
each Jew in Germany had been prepared to
take one SS trooper with him before he was
sent to the camps and the gas ovens, precious few Jews would have been arrested,”
Emil Groteschele argued. “At some point
Hitler and the SS would have stopped.
Face it. If every Jew who was arrested had
walked to the door with a pistol in his hand
and started shooting at the local heroes,
how long would the Nazis have kept it up?
At around a few hundred they would have
started to think twice. At a few thousand
they would have started to shake a bit. If
it got to twenty thousand, they would have
called it off. But the first Jews who shuffled
quietly off to death camps or hid like mice
in attics were instruments of destruction of
the rest.” This call for Jews to take up arms
in such a manner must have shocked readers. This was years before Rabbi Meir Kahane and his JDL made headlines for their
militant attitudes and actions. In 1941, a
Jewish partisan leader named Abba Kovner
issued the following statement. “Jewish
youth! Do not trust those who are trying to
deceive you. Hitler plans to destroy all the
Jews of Europe…We will not be led like
sheep to the slaughter! True, we are weak
and defenseless, but the only reply to the
murderer is revolt! Brothers! Better to fall
as free fighters than to live by the mercy of
the murderers. Arise! Arise with your last
breath!” The leaders of the 1943 Uprising
in the Warsaw Ghetto were moved Abba
Kovner’s words and took up arms. When
Israel fought for its liberation in 1948 the
entire world saw Jews using firearms for
their own defense on page one of newspapers. The problem now is that since Israelis
have become so adept at combat, too many
anti-semites at the UN want to see Jews
put down their guns and return to the ghettos and attics. Fortunately, we know well
enough where that leads.
ZR
Vues Master’s Note: But why only one day
all of the year we should be studying!
STORY
Dear Vues Master:
Rav Yitzchak Abarbanel was very close
with the king of Spain; of course, he was
therefore hated by the other advisers. To
undermine him, they told the king to test
him to see if he was really honest and trustworthy. The king agreed, so they told the
rabbi to write down all his personal wealth
and they would see if he tries to hide anything. After three days, the rabbi came back
to the king with a parchment upon which
was written that his whole fortune was
seven hundred thousand reals ($). When
the advisor saw that, they laughed and
said his home alone was worth twice that.
Also, he has fields and vineyards. The king
was furious and wanted to have the rabbi
killed but didn’t want a public outcry, so he
planned to do it quietly. On the outskirts of
town was a brick refinery that had a constant fire burning. The king wrote a letter
to one who maintained that fire with the
instruction that whoever hands him this paper should be thrown into the fire. He sent
for the rabbi, gave him the sealed envelope,
and told him to deliver it to the brick refinery immediately. The rabbi went with his
servant to do the King’s bidding. As they
were leaving the city, someone flagged
them down at the crossroads. He pleaded
with the rabbi to come with him, for his
wife had given birth eight days earlier but
the mohel became ill and couldn’t perform
the bris. Could the rabbi come with him to
do the bris so it would take place on the
eighth day? The rabbi was in a quandary.
He was on a mission from the king, which
he had to complete. Yet the mitzvah of bris
milah had to be done! How could he pass
up a mitzvah that Hashem gave, in order to
fulfill the commandment of a mortal king?
He gave the letter to his servant and told
him to deliver it while he went to do the
bris. After the bris, he went to the refinery
to meet his servant. When he got there, the
head of the refinery told him that the letter
that his servant had given him was a death
sentence from the king. Not only that, but
before his death the serving admitted that
he had been stealing from the rabbi all
these years. When the rabbi realized what
had happened, he said about himself, “He
who believes will know no evil (Koheles
8:5). The next day, he went to the king.
When the king saw him, he was shocked
and asked him if the Rav had fulfilled his
command. When the rabbi told the king
what had happened, the king said, “Now
I see that you are truly righteous, but tell
me, what was the number you wrote?” The
rabbi told him, “Yes, I have many more
possessions, but those can be taken from
me at any time. The number I wrote was
the sum I gave to charity, which cannot be
taken from me.” This teaches us that while
we don’t understand Hashem’s ways, we
must never stray or try to make up excuses
or even frum cheshbonos (be overly pious).
We must know what we are supposed to do
and know that he who obeys the commandment will know no evil! – Yitzy Adlin How
much more so when the commandment is
relatively easy and there is a good meal.
How many evils befall a person for not going to their father for Pesach.
DG
Vues Master’s Note: Nice story!
BRIS
Dear Vues Master:
Before a bris milah the father says the following blessing, “Blessed are You, Lord
our G-d, King of the universe, Who has
sanctified us with His commandments and
commanded us to enter my son into the
Covenant of Avraham our father.” Everyone responds, “Amen, just as he has entered into the Covenant, so may he enter
into Torah, into marriage, and into good
deeds.” The question is how come “good
deeds” is placed last and not at the beginning as good deeds are the prerequisite for
Torah and for getting married? The reason
is because the father, with the mother’s
support, trains him from the very beginning to have good deeds and the blessing is
to remind him (and us) of that. Why would
the boy forget that his father raised him?
He can forget when others (us) do not remind him. For instance, when he goes to
Yeshiva and there is no talk or interest in
kibbud av v’eim he slowly forgets about
him as he gets “wiser” and loses respect for
his father. When he gets married, he thinks
to himself, “Now I am an adult and I have
care for my wife.” so I don’t have to honor
my father so much anymore. The people
confirm the covenant by claiming that the
boy should survive the rigors of life (i.e.,
yeshiva and marriage) and grow in his respect and honor of his father. This can be
seen in bentching (the prayer after eating
bread). When he inserts a small prayer for
his family he starts with his father/mother,
wife and then children. The reason is because he is obligated to grow in his obligation in kibud av v’eim. Additional reasons
are that he can’t divorce his parents, but he
can his wife and “certainty” takes priority
over “doubt.” Also, as a child becomes wiser he has to become wiser in how he does
kibud av v’eim and not less.
DG
Vues Master’s Note: Oh cut it out