A T almudist and Talking to Strangers

David Eidensohn

I am a Talmudist who studied under the greatest rabbis of the past generation, Rabbi Aharon Kotler, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashev, Rabbi Shmuel HaLevi Wosner and others. On the other hand, I live in a world which is in flux, and various forces are at work to bring new elements to the control of our world. I have a friend who has spent years studying these various forces, and he is very pessimistic.

Therefore, on the one hand, I feel confident presenting my books and blog materials to the public, rooted in my ancient reliance on Talmudists and Torah. On the other hand, there are huge numbers of people who are restless and seeking and who have strong opposition to what is going on in the world today. Therefore, I have to decide whether to just talk Talmudic, or to talk directly to those who demand changes in the world, or else, and they are growing stronger every day. Do I have a right to talk about them when I surely am no expert in their grievances and ambitions?

My friend actually gave me an idea that might just work for me. He told me that in the many masses of people who are upset with our systems for various reasons, there are among them two basic responses. One holds that our masses do not have reliable attachment to spirituality and are therefore hungry for somebody to help them with it. Others have other grievances and are looking for some hideous solutions to the problems.

One person who succeeded in reaching these people big time began by talking Talmud to them and succeeding with prominent leaders! On the one hand they are seeking something new, but on the other hand, they know that spirituality is crucial for them and for the world, and they have no clue how to achieve it, after they have basically dropped faith in previous religions. But when presented with Jewish Talmudic teachings they often feel that this is closer to the truth and they want to hear more!

As my friends tells me frequently, the world is splitting into various groups who are angry at much of what is happening socially and spiritually. But these angry people have questions and no answers. They desperately want to re-connect to beliefs that can point to a spirituality that has a history and a future. There is no solution for these people other than to learn a bit of Jewish Orthodox beliefs. Here is why.

The Jewish Orthodox community is growing by leaps and bounds while other religions are disappearing. We have a solid source going back thousands of years of a G-d who is loving and caring and who wants to listen to the feelings of humans. We have a bible written by Moses with the help of G-d and we have thousands of years of great rabbis teaching and explaining so that people realize that they are involved with truth.

If anybody wants to talk to me about these matters, write to me at eidensohnd@gmail.com or ask for my phone number, which could take a bit longer.

This Morning was Special

By David Eidensohn

David Eidensohn

3 mins

This morning something happened that made me happy that I believe in HaShem! That may not sound so special, especially for all Torah Jews who worship HaShem daily. But listen to my story and then let me see if you agree with me, at least, partially.

The story begins some years ago, and I will cut to the quick, to get to what happened today, Thursday March 15, 2018. I had such a strong sensation and excitement about HaShem taking care of us even people who have great problems, that I spent hours contacting people about the great miracle, and it was only in late afternoon that I got working on other things.

Really, the story is about my wife, who realized that somebody was suffering, and decided to do something about it, even though nobody seemed available to do something about it. But my wife powered on. She said, "I live in Monsey. It is a city of kindness. If your child needs some attention, you snap your fingers and ten very busy mothers are heavily involved in kindness. There is no such thing in Monsey as a mother or a child or any individual just rotting away. There are people everywhere who see what they see, know what they know, and get to work along with a lot of other people. At any rate, that was a fact as I lived in Monsey many decades, and my wife knew it was a fact, and now, she stood alone while somebody is in a terrible situation.

After I had digested my wife's pain, I went into another room, opened up a Tanach with the entire Torah in it with no commentaries, and flipped open a passage in Yeshayeh 29, where Hashem explodes with anger and showering destruction. It was not a solution for my problem, but I took it as a sign that I keep thinking. And as I did, I realized that the solution is right in my pocket. I got to work, made some phone calls to the right people with the right suggestions, and pretty soon I had a small group of men and women who were going to devote themselves to giving broken people strength, and organizing people to help others.

Now let me go to phase two if we call it that. Phase two I am in shull, a baby is being prepared for a bris mila. The baby is shrieking. A friend tells me, "If a baby screams, that is a sign that HaShem will shower us with mercy." Okay, I was ready for that if ever I was. I went over to the Rov, told him basically that I had a problem, and I wanted Eliyohu HaNovi, who comes to everyone's bris, to some into the shull and participate to establish an atmosphere of miracle.

The Rov was happy to cooperate with my request, and I repeated my request to the Mohel and some others. Then, I went home after the bris, and I felt a great pain that my relative was suffering so much. My wife was upset. I was upset. Who wasn't upset? Surely our niece was upset.

I called up a friend and we had a long talk. He is a friend that I talk to regularly. He is very smart and we get along well. While we are talking, my wife barges into my room and shrieks, "She succeeded in going to court without a lawyer, with no money, and tangled with somebody loaded with money from him and his family, a person determined to tear the children away from our niece and afterwards to make sure that she has desperate poverty that could destroy her." And now this woman has succeeded getting a court of law to give to her her five children? Did they go further than that? How? Somebody suggested that the judge ruled that her ex-husband with his parental alienation antagonized the judge who realized that the former husband is such a wretch that the children will really suffer living with him, which they are never allowed to do, as he likes privacy.

I will stop here, after I made a lot of phone calls and talked up our group. Yes, yesterday I spoke to about six people about making a group to help people with kindness. And today the heavens opened and what a miracle it was.

If anyone has an article they want to write for my group, please do so. I can be reached at eidensohnd@gmail.com and by phone at 845-578-1917. Let's turn the world into Monsey, into Chesed.

I have long been busy studying marriage problems. One day I will discuss my findings. But the first step is to be kind, and to love people who are hurt, who need some love. And when the Satan comes over with some ideas on how to hate people, just tell him that you can hate people, but only people who are cruel to good people.