NECHAMA LEIBOWITZ STORIES
as told directly to Nachum Amsel
In 1976-1977, I, Nachum Amsel, was privileged to be the first Gruss (Yeshiva University) student in Jerusalem and also, at the same time, Madrich in Beit Midrash LeTorah. Hence I attended classes given by Nechama to the BMT boys, even though I was a few years older. Nechama saw this and invited me also to attend a special Shiur by invitation only in her home, and we became fairly close. After I made Aliyah in 1988, I attended and drove Nechama to her weekly classes to the Gruss Kollel (YU) students that she was now teaching, and also attended that special by invitation only class in her home each week, now on Thursday nights with the group called ×מיתי ירושלי×. In addition, Nechama and I would speak informally by telephone or private meetings in her apartment weekly until her death in in 1997. When I opened my Seminary in 1996, Nechama gave a written endorsement (believed her only written endorsement of an institution), and was supposed to given the Opening Shiur until she became ill. These stories are based on these Shiurim and private meetings (for many more stories, contact Nachum at
namsel@netvision.net.il).
ERETZ YISRAEL
From the day she arrived in Eretz Yisrael in 1931 at the age of 26, Nechama Leibowitz never left the country. She always spoke positively about the land and the idea of the State. And especially the people. She would even praise the thieves of Israel, attributing to them Jewish learning and motives that they may or may not have possessed. Her favorite “teachers†were the taxi drivers, the “Amcha†citizens who regularly spouted their views to Nechama, with little or no prodding, and who “taught†Nechama many lessons that she then used to prove many of the points and concepts in her classes, as well as many of the opinions of the commentaries. When this writer was about to leave for home in the USA in 1977, after a year of Kollel, to resume his life and work as a bachelor, Nechama became very angry, and practically threatened to “cut off†their relationship if he were to leave Israel, even though he assured her that he intends to make Aliyah after he marries and fulfills his obligations working in the USA he had made. They parted and continued to correspond, and eleven years later, Nechama smiled from ear to her upon my Aliyah, with a wife and (then) two children.
Nechama spoke about the uniqueness of the Land of Israel, its challenges and specialness. She would quote the Rashi on Genesis 28:12, which described the angels who were going up and also descending. Rashi explains that the angels who accompanied Yaakov ascended to the heavens at the border of the Land of Israel, while other angels who descended from heaven accompanied Yaakov in the Diaspora. Nechama asked: why the need to change angels? Why couldn’t the same angels continue to accompany Yaakov? She answered that since it is known that each angel can perform only one task at a time, the angels who accompanied Yaakov in the Land of Israel could not possibly accompany him outside the Land, since these were two separate tasks, two separate challenges and two separate concepts. Thus, there need to change angels, each of whom had a unique task, since the Land of Israel, with its unique needs and issues, is conceptually different from all other lands.
The most amusing Israel story, which Nechama repeated several times, involved the occasional invites she received by large organizations in the Diaspora (mostly the United States) who invited Nechama to speak and give classes. She rejected them all and refused to ever leave Israel, but liked to read their letters of invitations. Nechama, who lived very simply without any extravagance, would quote their invite: “we will pay for your air flights, your hotel and lodging, and OF COURSE (emphasis Nechama’s) any other expenses you have.â€
MODESTY
It is difficult these days to find a truly modest person, i.e. someone who is so unassuming about self-importance, and truly cares more about others than oneself. Nechama was indeed such a person, in the way she lived and spoke. Although very fiery in her classes, she was also self-deprecating, using her great gift of humor. One might have though initially that this was “part of the act†until you got to know her and his was indeed Nechama. Since most or all of her teaching took place in her home during the last twenty years of her life, each week the adult students entered and could see Nechama’s apartment and how she lived. A one or two bedroom apartment by Israeli standards, one room (bedroom? Or dining room) was completely covered with her “Gilyonot-sheets that she sent all over the world to those who requested and paid for them (and sent a self-addressed stamped envelope to Nechama to receive her hand-written replies). Another room was completely filled with books/Seforim. A small kitchenette, and the “main†room was her “study†where she had her desk and gave her classes with a maximum of 15-20 chairs/students. Along one wall, from floor to the ceiling were neat piles her Gilyonot arranged by year and Parsha (she knew exactly where each one was), and along another wall were Seforim on shelves. She slept in a small alcove big enough only for one bed.
Since Nechama usually wore only two dresses, along with her beret, one year her students decided to buy her a new dress, which she reluctantly accepted. A few weeks later, one female student she was close to asked after class why Nechama did not wear that dress and the student could not find it in her closet. Nechama explained that a poor person came by the house asking for money (very common in Israel). Since this woman was about Nechama’s height and weight, Nechama gave her the dress.
Whenever Nechama wanted to know something about Chutz Laaretz, she often called me up and/or invited me over to discuss it. When I explained how many people around the world used and read her “Studies†of the Parsha books, Nechama truly did not believe it. “When would they have time?†she asked. I said “Usually on Shabbat†I replied. “Nonsense. When they are not davening or eating, they are sleeping.†She truly thought that the only people who used her materials where those students she actually taught, and then bothered to purchase her Gilyonot and corresponded with Nechama in writing, trying to answer the questions posed by these sheets. (By the way, she told me that the busiest time ever for her Gilyonot was during the Yom Kippur War in 1973, when thousands of students would learn them and write her during their down time from the front. Since during war all mail sent from the war front was given priority, she received these thousands of Gilyonot answers almost overnight, and then took the trouble to comment upon each answer, and write to each person back).
PART OF HISTORY
Nechama lived through most of the twentieth century, and since she was so astute and knowledgeable about current events, she was a storehouse of general and Jewish history. For example she said she remembered the Beilis trial as a child, which took place in Kiev in 1913, and was a world-wide event, a blood libel where a Jewish fixit man, Mendel Beilis, was accused by the government, of killing a Christian woman, which all rational people knew was a frame and untruth.
Then she remembered riots in Europe to lower the hours of the work week from 80 to 60 hours per week. Being the intellectual person that she was (and she loved to make fun of herself), she told me that she remembers thinking that if the people succeeded in working “only†60 hours per week, the government would have to then build double the number of libraries, as everyone would go there in their new-found “free†time (this was before radio and television). The work week as lowered to 60 hours (and now it is 40 or 35), but not one new library was constructed. She saw how foolish her prediction was, and said the main focus of everyone then until today was not study, but “Biddur-entertainmentâ€.
When the first telephone was installed in Jerusalem, there were serval telephones already in Tel Aviv, and some Jerusalem residents wanted to speak to their friends. So they thought nothing of simply walking into the home of the mayor of Jerusalem, where that one phone was located, and using it. This was the accepted practice, and no one thought twice about it.
In 1948, when Jerusalem was besieged for many months, there was a great shortage of all goods, including water. People had to stand in lines for hours each day in order to receive their daily allotment (5 liters per family, including bathroom needs!). Nechama explained that what was truly amazing was that the people understood the gravity of the situation and not one Jewish person ever complained about the situation, even while standing in line for many hours!
When the first traffic light was installed in Jerusalem in 1966, and the convergence of Yaffo, King George and Ben Yehuda streets (Ben Yehuda was then a street, not a pedestrian walkway), many Jerusalemites protested. They felt Jerusalem was not “that kind of city†like Tel Aviv, and would never need any traffic lights.
HEBREW LANGUAGE
Nechama was a stickler for learning Torah only in Hebrew. If a student wanted to study in a class with her and did not know Hebrew, Nechama would refuse this person entry, and would tell him or her to go to an Ulpan and come back in six months (and only with a Tanach in hand as well). Nechama claimed that more hours are spent teaching Limudei Kodesh (Jewish studies) in the United States Day Schools than any other country in the world, including Israel (about 3 hours daily). But the students come to Israel after high school for a year of study, and know “nothing†because they do not learn Hebrew well, and, thus, did not study Torah and the commentaries, for the most part, in the original Hebrew language. Nechama only recommended in writing the Seminary I opened in 1996, if I promised that all regular classes would be taught in Hebrew, which we did, even though most of the teachers and all of the students were native English speakers.
Nechama truly viewed Hebrew as Lashon HaKodesh. One day, when driving Nechama in my car in 1990, I was approached in Jerusalem by a pedestrian who asked for directions in English. Afterwards, Nechama told me that she was “shocked†that this person would speak English so loudly on the street. She explained that when she moved to the Land of Israel in the 1930’s, no one ever spoke a foreign language on the street. Everyone considered it a sacred duty to learn and speak only Hebrew. And it was an unwritten, forbidden “rule†that no one ever speaks any other language than Hebrew in public, on the street. When she spoke to her friends in her native language, it was only privately or in whispers on the bus.
TORAH AND TECHNOLOGY
Nechama appreciated technology, but from afar (for example, she said she “enjoyed†reading my doctorate where I use trigger video clips to teach Jewish values, but said “it was not her styleâ€). Nechama invariably taught some classes to the ×מיתי ×™×¨×•×©×œ×™× group in her home, more than one time. One famous class concerned the verse in Exodus (2:23) that says the King of Egypt died. Rashi explains that he did not actually die, but Pharaoh became leprous. When Nechama asked her students how Rashi knew this, novice students in Nechama’s class inevitably shot back, quoting the Gemara (Nedarim 44b) that says that there are four kinds of people are considered dead, even though they are physically alive. One of them is a leper. But then Nechama tried to teach these students how to think properly. She said. “It is true that ‘The King died’ allows for the possibility that the king became leprous. But how did Rashi know this for sure? Death is also considered dead! (i.e. maybe Pharaoh actually did die).†Nechama then explained the commentary of the Vilna Gaon on the verse Kohelet 8:8 “וְ×ֵין ש×ִלְטוֹן ×‘Ö¼Ö°×™×•Ö¹× ×”Ö·×žÖ¼Ö¸×•Ö¶×ªâ€, “there is no rulership on the day of deathâ€. The Vilna Gaon says (I never found the quote in the Vilna Gaon, but did find it in Rashi on Kohelet 8:8 and Rabbeinu Bechaye on Genesis 47:29) that no one ever dies as a king, cloaked in royalty. He or she dies only as a plain human being. The Vilna Gaon explains that there is no place in Tanach that says a person dies as a king (I Kings 1:1 says King David became old, but one chapter later in I Kings 2:1, it says David died, not “King David diedâ€). Therefore, when it says in Exodus that the King of Egypt died, it could not possibly signify actual death, and, therefore Rashi, who knew this principle, had to explain that Pharaoh became leprous.
After hearing this class, I did a computer search, and lo and behold, I found a verse (I Kings 22:37) that says “The King diedâ€. I brought it to Nechama and showed her the computer printout of the verse. She looked at the verse, then looked at me, again slowly looked at the verse and then shyly said to me: “I guess the Vilna Gaon did not have a computer.†But Nechama got the last laugh. About a year later, she came back to this verse in class, and again explained the Vilna Gaon’s commentary on Rashi – why Pharaoh had to be leprous and not actually dead – and then said: “Nachum asked me a good question about this explanation a few months ago. But I checked the source that says ‘The king died’ in Melachim. There it is a speaking about a king who was so unimportant and so nondescript, that the Tanach never even mentions his name in the first place. So when he died, it had to say “The King died†since no name was ever given, and the verse could not say that he died with just his name, like all other kings.†Thus, this is the exception that proves the Vilna Gaon’s rule!
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/21/2016 06:49PM by mlb.
