Exchange of letters between Eli and his rabbi, Rabbi Oded Volanski

Exchange of letters between Eli and his rabbi, Rabbi Oded Wolanski. The letters are personal and they are published here to learn and get to know Rabbi Eli's enormous toil until he got to where he is. (Personal items not uploaded yet)

Cheshvan, 1969

In honor of Rabbi and my teacher, my friend and soulmate Oded Shlita,

For a long time I have wanted to talk to you, to tell you what is in my heart and mind and frequent barriers have arisen - external barriers and inhibitory internal barriers.

And really how I will tell and how I will speak and my heart is full of lots of ideas - lots of conflicting emotions and thoughts.

We haven't talked since the summer, so I was in very, very great distress, a real trouble, and even if it was imaginary, there is no trouble like the rule of imagination and the removal of opinion.

So I was encouraged, and perhaps should be said - the animal. And the days of this dark terror passed - the demon who aspired to kill me went away (so I was feeling anyway), and pleasant days came of the joy of learning and the joy of home, and also spiritual uplift,

And especially on Saturday nights - spiritual attainments were born and renewed as values ​​- the freshmen prayed to renew my ways and pave a clear and safe path in the work of God to strive to multiply well and pleasantly, to break free from all shackles of slavery - slavery to lusts, slavery to human beings - slavery to conceptual fulfillment For imagination.

And in the meantime, I made a great effort to rectify the situation at home, to create the normal normal relationship in my married life, and even so, God allowed me to make a lot of progress. And as I once told you about some good days I had in terms of the spiritual attainment that is beyond my habit, even in this Dashmia was not aided to the habit. This may be the normal and honest situation in many families, but for us it was a wonderful innovation.

Of course, for the duration of this period there were also failures and setbacks, out of years of bad habits, habits of virtues and thoughts and lifestyles, but in general there was a sense of progress and increase.

Then came the days of Elul and Tishrei in their awfulness - on the one hand an orderly and regular study, more or less, both in the Gemara and in the books of faith - and on the other a storm and tempest - powerful mental upheavals - wonderful moral and spiritual ascents and often, terrible declines.

But even in the situations of decline, I was never discouraged or depressed again, because I got used to precisely from these situations I gained intentional prayer, or study in more depth and clarity, and then I would fight against the same complication, the same mental stubbornness, and usually win and come out with great property. And also that I felt wounded in my soul (almost a physical feeling), I put before my eyes the verse "How great are your deeds, your thoughts deepened, no burning man knew ... In the flower of wickedness like grass and all the workers of evil will peek out - to destroy them forever." As he explains in human history that the appearance of the forces of evil and complication is for the purpose of their complete and complete extinction.

I really longed for some rest. A few days of quiet - but these were not partial portions. From Igra Ramha to Bira Amikata of mental complications full of savagery and imagination, nervousness and mental darkness, emotional darkness and a lack of love and God forbid. And I felt really like a struggling chick struggling to break its egg out into the air of the world - into space and into freedom.

Sometimes some corner of the shell cracked and bright light and fresh air flowed into the parrots of the soul, filled it with courage and confidence, encouragement and faith - great ambitions and confidence in the possibility of their fulfillment - a deep and true connection with those around. On the other hand, times the shell became disgusting and as if an opaque screen was unfolded between me and the light, between me and the world, between me and myself. And from this suffocation the soul cries out and weeps in silent inner weeping - praying and begging to allow the forbidden to be freed from its shackles.

Sometimes I am filled with a great sense of truth, the truth of the Torah I study and the truth of my faith in the Lord of the good and benevolent world, the truth of my love for my family and friends and gentlemen, the truth of my intentions and ideas, clarity of attainment and purity of feelings. Waves of happiness of a strong and steady reality wash over me - full of entity and sustainability I approach every business and relish it - whether it is clarifying a complicated issue or a spiritual effort to delve into the study of faith or regular prayer for the public, and rarely a prayer of spontaneous outburst from my heart.

In these moments and days there is no frustration and no complication. Everything is close, even the subject and the sublime, even all the stairs I may never reach will make me happy. I do not pretend to go big. I am happy in my part - in the part of God above me that has been planted within me, in my divine body, and in part in the world reality.

As a trained combatant on the battlefield, I am happy to perform my duties swiftly, with every desire for absolute victory, which comes from fulfilling the role of all soldiers and the depth of loyal commanders and shepherds, I feel a huge responsibility to complete my task, even if only a small part of the struggle The total. That is why I was created and I will confirm it.

Certainly this condition is the normal and normal condition of all the normal and healthy Torah workers. It is the simple natural element of the honest life of honesthearted people loyal to their people, their country and their teachings, it is the ground floor on which the special reality of a wise student develops, who during a force-to-force walk, expands and elevates all the bright spots he finds within.

If I were constant in such a situation, I would have no need to write to you, just relish the words of the Torah in all professions, dine on the tracts of her Tractates and perfume with wine, increase the love within me, expand its boundaries and deepen its penetration, pray for help beyond the smallness and privacy and hope for an official appearance. Holiness, true attainments that delight the heart and exalt and purify it, open the door to a lasting bond of connection to the nation.

But, Rahmana survived the distraction. A few hours and days pass scattered and dark, full of frustration and smallness, black bitterness and insanity from a constant lack of grip on pure God-fearing that infects all cases of life, all study sections, all multiplicity of emotions and reflections into one of the greatness of man. .

And the foundation of everything, the lack of simple purity of heart, the natural love of Israel, true love for the immediate circle, family and friends, teachers and students, and hence the living connection to the nation as a whole, and in any case the lack of fresh and soulful Torah love, and a vicious circle of humility and darkness of noble opinion, overcoming The Khmer rudeness, the hardening of the heart and its opacity to any delicate emotion, depression and laxity from the Torah, mental and physical fatigue, immersion in a small imaginary world, lack of any faith in my strength and self, helplessness, weakness, hard bondage to all kinds of wrong spirits to meeting abysses of hell To the point) that I once knew his horror (many years before I came to the yeshiva).

All the mental shortcomings are revealed before me, all the mental deficits I have adapted to for many years. Childhood and adolescent events come before me, full of ugliness and rudeness. A sigh of heartbreak and a broken heart emanates from the depths of my heart and from it salvation.

With great effort, I renounce all these lax ideas and dive into engaging in Torah in depth. I distract myself from my lack of ideas to learn, from the thoughts of a golden nose in a pig's nose - and I go into the depths of the sacred plan In the legend and especially in the writings of the rabbi (I "recently discovered" the book Olet Raya). Without much reckoning and without hesitation and reluctance, I strive to be educated and feel the great, illuminating things, even those that are not according to my rank. I reveal the magnitude of the truth within me, buried under piles of rubbish of all kinds, but existing, alive, illuminating and warming.

I do not check carefully whether all the avenues of my life are suitable to be filled with the content studied, on the contrary, I have no doubt not, but there is no choice. I have to communicate with it, in my education and feeling. To feel and live for a moment the supreme greatness, to pray for the appearance of the currents of heavenly abundance, to give up, at least in my ideas and desires to my people. To feel, at least for a moment, how I am all flowed and resurrected from the flow of vitality that passes and flows in the whole nation. To say, at least in my heart, Israel heard with complete intention, with complete devotion.

And after a vision, the midwives give advice. Many tips, full of vital, how to elevate all the avenues of my life to this height. How to make my home happy Deep and nice joy. How to fatten the little chicks in the room (Talmud Torah Morasha) with the kindness of the patriarchs, how to expand and deepen my diligence in the Torah to its professions - to be filled more and more with its knowledge and logical depth, how to increase the love within me for my family and friends and all the good I find around me. - History of smallness and reduction - for the destruction of witnesses. How to reveal the world life that flows in the interior of the life of the hour - to discover vital meaning and content at every moment, in every occupation.

Full of peace and courage I approach the sweet toil of life - to learn and teach. To conquer and ascend, to love and be filled with the flu of Torah. To believe in a firm and solid faith in the Lord of the world, living forever, the good and beneficent who will build a world of grace - builds at all times - in his unceasing wonders and goodness - constantly flowing, delicacies and happy and saving fragrances.

But, not every time you get such an upliftment. And also go through difficult, complicated and dark chapters and periods as I have already described to you in general. And sometimes by launching the life of a great TH comes the needed comment.

Great longings for the past pass by me - for the days of the permanence of the connection and the preoccupation together with the contents of our inner teachings. Not only in times of distress - sometimes, precisely in the quiet days of study fertility, the expectation of the resumption of our study in a new and fresh edition increases. A great desire to hear and listen to be impressed and enacted in the abundance of streams of holy life, to be filled, not in styles and formulas but in the depth of morality and the greatness of love, which are the within of every truly great attainment.

Woe to a white man who finds out over his father's table! And woe to the calf that is weaned prematurely! But surely there is order and purpose in this as well - a large population from a halakhic point of view. Preparing for new tools, adapting to self-study in matters of faith and the self-struggle in the complications of life and other hidden accounts surely.

Three and a half months ago I started this letter to ask for your help in solving some problems - to light the way with some complications. And meanwhile things have changed. Old complications passed and new ones were born. And it is difficult to mark the one element that connects them. And then I want to try to detail the main points that hinder and hinder my path and maybe they have a common element that can help me discover and even I have nothing but a lack of Torah opinion and get rid of this lack, everything will fall into place. Certainly it is, but the delays in my life are delays in completing the trend of growing up in the Torah.

Sometimes I think I would like to go to a sage in the wisdom of the face or to one of the people of the Holy Spirit in ancient times who would clearly mark the clear path that suits each person according to the root of his soul (as the GRA describes in his commentary on Proverbs). But, life was probably not meant to be that easy, and clearing the road is part of the road work itself.

And even this is the first complication. The feeling that I am always engaged in searching for a way and not the way itself. The multiplicity of thought about myself. On mental correction and the alignment of the relationship with those around me, on the one hand, it seems to me that morbidity of smallness.

A healthy person lives and works with the good in front of his eyes, the clear ideal to which he aspires, without personal accounts and thoughts. Raising the individual personality is completely on the altar of the ideal - it is a seal of growth in any significant cultural enterprise and all the more so in the ideal of the ideals. But when the ideal is in fact comprehensive and penetrates all the steps of being, and is possible to be built only on solid foundations in all the simple avenues of human life. In a strong, healthy and healthy moral and personal being - so you can not be distracted from the personal situation, even for a moment.

But how to rise to the absolute sunset in public life, with all the private sand, without gaps and skips. How to refine and purify the moral level and direct it and ascend to the broad and comprehensive enlightenment in the depths of the inner divine ideals.

In fact, I see that I have not yet explained the complication fairly, since there is really no contradiction between the two. In terms of mental abstraction, there is no difficulty in randomly perceiving the unity of the stairs - in drawing the organic divisions of the various components of the psychic being.

But the difficulty is on the psychological level. Every feeling of moral lowliness, every bad contemplation, every failure in the joy of home. And honesty in relation to friends, all immersed in animal lust, drops me into a state of depression and despair - laxity about the possibility of great things, great Torah, great correction. And even in moments of mental arrogance lurks the venomous skepticism about the truths of enlightenment.

In fact, it is related to the second complication (and perhaps they really are one), and that is the frequent agitation and oscillation between two poles - truth and imagination. And as I described above. How to discern and clarify the solid honest opinion from the imaginary hallucination, this is not an easy craft. But more than that, for me, the craft of breaking free from the shackles of the known imagination is important. ZA not only in raising the imagination but even the imagination whose imagination is clear - which is undoubtedly worthless - sometimes wraps me up and enslaves me in hard slavery, inflates the bad qualities immeasurably and seriously questions my intentions.

I'm moving and swaying

On the one hand, a life full of a strong entity, a solid happiness of fertility and creation in the halakhic and inner form. A life of intense love for my home and children, my people and my homeland. A sense of the size of the hour and the size of the job - and immense inner joy - a tremendous peace that allows the fulfillment of the great tasks in the room, sitting and at home. A feeling that I do not depend on anything - no external factor can move my spirit - even big complications that occur and come find in me a stable being of love and desire that increases in any complicated situation. Knowing that all the value of life depends only on the magnitude of my faith and the sanctity of my love and in no case and that no case is capable of undermining this value, fills my being with joy and calmness with them.

On the other hand, hours and days of emptiness and nothingness of being, the simulator forgot to rise to control me. A terrible feeling of life confusion. Lightness - lightness of mind and lightness of being - doubts and skepticism and especially the doubt about the seriousness of life and the seriousness of my factory - maybe it's all a show. What about you and such lofty ideals, you have not yet bought the basic purity - the purity of thought from everything abomination, purity from the lust of eating, the purity of the heart from the filth of pride and honor. Then the head is filled with bills - not a single treatise you have learned fairly. What have you progressed in the seven years since you arrived at the yeshiva - standing morally, the same moral entanglements that complicate you again and again.

Even the faith study that you have been engaged in for so long, did not build any building of sustainability - it was nothing but a superficial memorization that in forgetting the words we will forget everything without leaving even a faint impression in the depths of the soul. And even in the field of superficial study you did not succeed - you forgot eight and four chapters of Mishnayot that were common in your mouth and two tracts that you knew almost by heart and were as if they were not,

Even the issues you learned in solitude and immense concentration for consecutive days that you imagined that an abundance of renewal and enlightenment in the Torah applied to you, are also like a dead heart forgotten. And the inner fervor of communication in the contents of the book "Lights" has faded and is gone. And the ferment is very great - the struggle of lightness and heaviness, the seriousness and clowning, the vitality and the spiritual dryness.

And out of the smallness of mind and dryness of emotion I come to the third complication and perhaps it is the cause of the other complications. When the house is empty - a house that deserves to be full of nice and important things - then demons enter. And the main demon is the loss of self. Forgetting the almost completely stable self-position. A terrible feeling of helplessness. What I am and what my life is. A leaf swaying in the wind, a passing shadow, a tuber of petty nervousness, resentment, sweeping poison, deprived of ideal moral capacity, lacking life heroism, lacking fresh originality.

This condition can be described in great detail, but since I have not sunk in these abysses since last summer, I will confine myself to a brief description of situations that branch off from it that I have not been freed from their impurity in times of decline and weakness.

And especially when it comes to the social situation, it was difficult for me in those situations to be in the sitting room.

Almost every smart student I have met fills me with depression. They are all solid beings, built of a sustainable building - a fulfillment of a reviving and refreshing Torah, while I am immersed in smallness and idleness - shaking from all good and all wisdom and resonating in the words of Rashbaz in the mishnah that there is no way out (woman) from bad evil to beautiful And there are those who interpret that in a bad oasis there is a match between the personality and the environment, while in a beautiful oasis the ugliness of the woman is revealed in all its awfulness - on the part of the ketontrast compared to the pleasant environment. And this is how I felt about friends and especially in encounters with really great people - suffocated and sad and depressed about a minority of values.

And you would have pity on my children who did not have a good father and my wife who did not have a good husband. Jealousy of bone rot surrounded me and ugly torments took away from me the taste of life and the joy of learning. And down to the lower, I would be encouraged to hear that someone else has complications as well. That not only am I in the mud. And immediately I would be shocked to the depths of my mind by the impurity of this thought and angry at myself with great anger that I could sink to such a low. And even today the situation is much better and brighter, I shudder when I remember this, and if I feel any impression of this impurity, I am filled with anger and anger at myself, and in these difficult days the joy of home is also absent.

From my wife I do not draw encouragement and strengthening but rather, I feel a deep contempt for my personality and teachings. Not only in the realm of the material defects that make her life really difficult. But mostly relieving my spiritual value in her eyes. All efforts to encourage inner encouragement, to draw from my own springs a spirit of life and a spirit of heroism - in times of weakness - a world in chaos.

I am the end of my life - what is their value if not to fill it with joy and life, if not to be abundant in it a happy spirit and a strong reality. Full of frustration at my inability to build her a nice home - a material home in a place and conditions that are pleasant and nice and more than that, a spiritual home that she will feel its strength, from which she will be able to receive most happiness and joy. That you will not have to look for her spiritual satisfaction outside of him, that you will not think of me as a stranger and less valuable, but as a constant and stable personality that abounds in goodness and constant pleasantness without cessation and without collapse. It is difficult to describe the magnitude of the sigh and the madness of the soul when the situation is defective - all carnal lusts are nullified and forgotten in these times.

The head is full of fantasies of panic and envy.

And in this low state of mind I mention from memory of things that have passed and not the state of life - the loneliness is terrible. And the loneliness that is felt at home spreads and expands into sitting and I feel like I have no real friend in the world.

Although I have you, that I can tell my mental anguish and also her joy and even though I am ashamed and embarrassed to write the little straits that you certainly did not believe could be sunk into, it is finally a corner of light that can be told to someone. But after all you are a rabbi and a teacher, a guide and a light of my path and it is impossible for you to be a member in the sense of equals.

According to the definition of the fathers, Derby gave that a person would buy him a friend to eat with, drink with, study with, tell him his secrets and blood he would tell him his secrets. I have many friends, good friends in the yeshiva, but the depth of such friendships without the attitude of a rabbi and a student, I did not gain.

All this, as I have said, is a complication of the past, which depends very little on objective states and almost entirely on internal mental states. While there is renewal in the study of sociability and in units, in halakhah and in faith then natural health returns. Even when the external facts do not change, but their digestion and their assessment change completely - the treatment becomes treatment, and the main thing - the main thing. The enormous charge of home and yeshiva life eliminates the diminutive minority of disadvantage, which the imagination knows how to inflate with so much talent in times of crisis.

In fact, most of my wishes now are not about these nightmares that can be said about them - Blessed is he who gives me and blessed is he who gives me. I also gained some accurate insights on how to get rid of these complications and even wrote down some of them. The time, the time of restoration of ruins and reconstruction. But even in the way of renewal there was no shortage of psychological and practical mental insistences and obstacles.

If I were now 18 my path would have been clear before. Unfortunately, I'm almost thirty (it makes me shiver to think about it) and I certainly have not used my time properly so far. Also, and perhaps especially, since I came to the meeting.

But crying over the past is of no use, and the question is about the future. I have a strong desire to be educated in our teachings, to stick to its content, and even though there are times of weakness and lack of desire, most of her words are sweet and guarantee me. is very. But precisely because of the magnitude of the desire to encompass the whole, to delve into every profession in which, to exhaust it to the end, it is precisely this multiplicity that causes confusion and restlessness, and a departure from Talmud to Talmud.

It is enough to study a midrash in the Maharal and a desire arises to study all the midrashim and even more than that, it becomes clear to me which book something from the Bible my mind is weakened by the power of my ignorance of the written Torah And the same is true of the various methods and approaches in relation to the study of the Gemara that shape the absolute and essential concentration in the profession in which I practice.

And more matter-of-factly, there are problems in the inner spiritual pursuit of matters of the laws of opinions and hearts, faith and morals:

On the one hand a very large object of daydreaming. All content and all styles. To absorb the essence of all the holy forms that come out of the gifts of the Torah for their generations and for their affairs. But on the other hand, psychological contradictions sometimes arise from the various ways in the work of God - and not necessarily in terms of lecturing the contents of faith, in which settling the various planes of clarification is a great and wonderful craft that I can engage in over time, but even if denied, for now. , This does not bother the settled business in any method by itself.

On the other hand, the moral work, the toil of purification and the effort to concentrate life in their inner intention, sometimes by the impossibility of including the various ways and styles in the personality. Through time, if at times while engaging in "lights" or "rising in sight", out of attachment to the contents of things in their depths (as I attained), I feel a certain upliftment in the direction of the challenges of life, immediately strong moral problems arise to correct and purify some vile and obscene On the more private floors of life. Then I set up a business in the books of morality and reverence, and even if I succeed in doing so, at least for an hour, and rejoice in this business, after a while I feel distressed - the desires concentrate on correcting my personal personality, fateful fate, reward and punishment, etc. fill my thoughts .

And although these thoughts are certainly necessary and important, but Egypt is the flight of the idea and the growth of the object of general benefit, and I feel that the main work - to strive to gain happiness of abolition and inclusion in all Israel - in the size of opinion and depth of emotion and desire, Abandoned.

In general, the clash of private thought and general thought causes unrest and ambiguity about the type of spiritual impact needed at any given time. And a lot of people have to rely on the emotion in it, that there are things that in one period do not affect at all, and are not even absorbed in the mind or cause frustration, and in another period fill me with immense happiness and being. The intention of prayer is uplifted and all thoughts and desires are all (now, for example, the rising of the eye elevates me with frequent greetings after years of having me as the signed book) and it is very difficult to direct the time with the spiritual content accurately. I wish there was a holy man who determines every day what is necessary for the souls of thirst.

And especially when there is a deep glimmer on some issue, exposing an inner light in content whose superficial lecture is already well known - perhaps one could say, Torah innovations in the humble sense of it - settlement and insertion of spiritual content into the depths of being, a place not yet there. Achieving in many areas, discovering it in lots of exams.

True, these moments have diminished a lot since the frequent launch of our joint study, but even today, especially on Saturday night or from studying with R. Zvi (Tao) when the wind rested on him ( In the heavens by exposing their inner strength that emerges and rises through all the complications of the times and shines in the heart of a lion who has no value for the heroism of his spirit that breaks fences incessantly.

Or from a lesson by R. Zvi Yehuda Shlita, there are such enlightening and joyful enlightenments. And how difficult it is, sometimes, to digest them properly, that they will become a permanent property, a tier inhabited in the spirit building. And they will not fade away like a ghost that sparkles for a moment and is gone, and they will not fall into superficial sermons.

Moreover, I need guidance and guidance in the three attitudes in buying the Torah. And first of all, make you a rabbi. You once told me that it is impossible to develop in a yeshiva without the living connection with the Rosh Yeshiva Maran, and indeed all the concepts of goodness and all the desire to learn and all the expectation of salvation within me from the great source stem from his lessons, smiles, roars and tears.

But with all this, I feel a lack in the vitality of the connection - how do you really get to be a student of the rabbi - to serve him and really stick to him. How do you get to be idle in his face, to absorb all the streams of his holiness. How to bridge the abysses that separate the big and the small.

And on the second level - buy yourself a friend. Although I have good friends in the yeshiva. Friends to negotiate with them in halakhah and also in faith - but the depth of friendship of the island of Zoga Durban - a friend in heart and soul, how hard it is to buy, and how to buy. Most of my acquaintances in the yeshiva from my first years there, are bigger than me in wisdom and rank and the gaps between us are noticeable and sometimes a distress of loneliness strikes my spirit. And as ridiculous and petty as it is, the joy of learning is impaired and I feel a lack of courage and a lack of vitality in life, which is hard for me to deal with.

And indeed when I strive to learn much and the thirst for knowledge and absorption is great within me, there is no noticeable shortcoming in this plane, rather I feel full of love and generosity for all around me and in general I can not understand the smallness of decline, and how to spend thought and spirit on vain imaginations. And in any case in times of weakness, distress exists and evokes life.

As for the treatment of my students in the room (Talmud Torah Morasha), there are not so many problems in BH, just many, many things I have to teach myself from my attempts, from my failures and from the purity of intention and the serious diligence in Torah - and correcting and perfecting the other components of life in this letter. Blessed am I that I have received these Messiahs, from whom in vain a courage is established and may they be blessed to teach that it is a little worthy to sit with them and engage with them in the commandments of God whose hearts will gladly rejoice.

And perhaps the most important and most obvious and least obvious issue is the building of the house - and especially the peace of the house and the joy of the house.

Maybe if I had left my house and been locked up in some yeshiva for six years I would have become a wise student (an important person in the Tosafot language who explains in some places that a person who leaves his home and studies Torah in another country for several years, becomes an important person). But certainly not for that I was created, but for such a Torah I was destined for.

Precisely Torah Shlomo - an entire moral and spiritual building, capable of influencing the abundance of the Torah blessing and the magnitude of its joy on the entire house - to build the building on all its floors, I am called. And any deviation in the solidity of the foundations, endangers the whole building. And that is my heavy responsibility - to be good, to be sensitive, to remove any innocence of heart, to be a kind of overcomer of renewed love every day without limit. Do not weaken and do not fall small.

But, if our sages said that the words of the prophets Icha in the commentary of Miliyahu and with Dala Mifarshan, then in this issue Miyahu does not interpret at all and is the whole as a book signed before me - secret secrets. That even after much experience and after much failure, the revelation is void in the sixty-four on top of the hidden. And although it is impossible to say these things in detail, in this I need your very, very elongation.

Not an easy life A domestic oasis, since we met, outwardly incessant shaking, without a permanent company and without a stable anchor, and even now, even though no one is evicting us from our home, it is not necessarily to Ma'aluta.

It is rightly full of bitterness about the difficult situation in our ancient housing, where we are completely isolated, strange and strange in the eyes of all our neighbors (in the Paji neighborhood). Every time you return home from somewhere, feelings of depression and despair break out, you get real expression.

Even in terms of longing for life, breastfeeding, raising and educating children, we did not enjoy normal normal enlightenment like most of her friends. And in general the horror of serious illnesses and health complications always accompanies it, sometimes openly, sometimes below the surface, and more priest and priestess.

Admittedly, the external reality certainly has gloom and difficulty in it, but it is accepted that God does not bring anguish except to the extent that it is possible to deal with them and rise from them - and that is the point. The question is not whether we live in a dark house or not, it does not depend on us, - but the question is whether there is someone who will expose his arm and radiate light inside this house. If the arm of Oz Torah will fill the house with solid light and abundance of life, constant love and boundless security.

I have a brave feeling that the thorough and urgent renovation should not be on the outer shoulder of the house (and even the renovation of the Stalactite Cave, as our private mikveh is called, is not so burning), but rather in the cracks in our relationship.

And although our situation is good and bright, at least in relation to the past years, it is precisely the objective difficulties that need more and more constant congestion of love and contentment and joy of life than hitherto. More maybe than possible.

It can not be complicated. Every little frustration, every vain imagination, every hardness of heart, every little opinion - immediately hurts, and the little flaw expands, swells and complicates, to the point of great quarrel. Harmony is completely violated and in its place nervousness and tension - which further increase the frustrations and imaginations - such a vicious and depressing vicious circle.

And BH, we also overcame such situations out of great inner spiritual efforts. But they also said that the Rosh Yeshiva Maran - and love your neighbor as yourself ... and on the other hand means. That is to say, all Torah study is a long interpretation, guidance and explanation for the foundation of this love.

And this interpretation I want from you to learn, or at least to illuminate the path of self-study - straighten and direct my way, help me to concentrate all ideological scattering to the great central goal full of courage and joy.

I have noticed that there is a connection between lack of vitality in the study of faith and a feeling of lack of independence, social frustrations, and complications in peace at home, and perhaps all the problems are in my life, dry spring and tree truncated, and all correction is frequent renewal of fresh spring from the depths of the Torah. But there is no equal time from time to time, and the multiplicity and scattering of mental states require me to turn to you.

The letter should have been copied, and I really prepared to do so while writing, but I'm afraid it's a few more months before I do, and I want to give you the letter already - to hear your words in writing or orally, explicitly or implicitly. So forgive me for his very disrespectful form.

I have now read all the pages, and I see that I have not been able to express what is in my heart, even its zero end, and my heart about it fades, but what shall I do? I can only hope that you understand what is between the methods, and are hidden between the capillaries of the heart.

Many other issues need enlightenment - the order of preparation for holy times in order to absorb the fullness of their enlightenment, issues in the Maharal, issues In the book of Genesis that require further deepening, connection, etc., etc. And in any case, I have seen these things, more private, precede them immediately. .

Your student,

Eli Horovitz

Thursday

28 Kislev 5769

Dear Eli, peace and light on the Feast of Lights!

I received your letter yesterday, about two minutes before I left for the guard in the evening. The cold was intense and my eyes wandered in the dark by the light of the flashlight, with covetousness and eagerness for your words. The letter itself was important to me, imagine, I was no longer alone in the freezing cold - I think it was below zero degrees - because you, and you were standing and selfish with you.

And in general, my dear Eli, I wanted to thank you, to thank you for crediting me with your letter, that I am considered in your eyes a bad-truth and a friend that everything can and should be said before him. You do not imagine the intensity of the pleasure and happiness you caused me and you won me over.

Man has certain corners in his life, corners .. and the grace, which he longs for and desires and opens, these are the elements of pure love, true love that does not depend on anything, man's love for his God, love of wife and children, love of others, love of the nation for those who deserve and are entitled to it. - Love of evil. To be a friend, a good friend, loving and helping, listening and feeling - this is the love of evil, a special value and taste for her and not every person deserves it. Not many realities I can define as such, but in relation to us, I have long thought, that evil is the main thing, only I have seen it so respected and thought it a pleasure for me if it develops.

They are known to know me, because you are very appreciative, but even more, everything you go through does not make my life easier, all your torments - your torments spend days in hope and constant anticipation of security when you go out into space.

I can not always express the truth of my feelings towards you, especially in the midst of the difficulties of the last few months, and I apologize for the truth in her request that I did not always allow you to say what is with your heart. I have known for a long time what is in your heart and your desire to say and your letter did not surprise me, but before I went to the reserve, in the turmoil of my personal suffering, I did not sharpen my ears to hear from you and for that I regret - I apologize.

And here, comes the letter, at the end and the hailstorm has risen on the wings of evil for the rest of their lives, and I will rejoice, I will rejoice greatly that there is one who thinks evil for me close to him, to tell the upheavals of his soul.

The light of evil will exalt us even to increase soldiers in the building of our Torah. And when I get back to you, EE in peace, they open vigorously with a new program of learning to believe in the depths of the idea and its joy.

From this, I hope that in the oral discourse, things will be clarified and the mists will be clarified and the difficulties and obstacles that surround them will be eliminated, and you and your household will live, renewed, fertile and fresh, and he will tell the categorizer constantly.

And the blessing of the devotees will delight you in a river, as it comes and is expected and promised as its faithful word, from the sources of heavenly heavens, holy of holies, a rum bone and a good original source, the alms of life. And we will meet happily in the best of life, ready and thirsty for a supreme momentum, because we, my dear Eli, are called to space, to exalt and ascend to the highest, and to work the work of God and Israel with him more than you, more courage than we have done to this day.

Right, me, right to toil. And all that you have written and expressed in relation to your help that you will live and more and more, we will help a force and we will come out armed with a high hand to be masters working our world heroically, and from dark worlds precious light will grow, in time and time to the glory of life.

And Oz is blessed with the blessing of God, the blessing of worlds for his people, from the source of his treasure to the perfection of the glory of his appearance, and the private heel will straighten, so we will know, so we will trust, so we will whisper forever and so it will be !!!

Yours, yours, with true love and constant prayer for your happiness and health,

Encourage

post Scriptum. It's hard for me now to prolong things, or to sort them out, and I'm sorry, but I'm exempt from nothing - I could not, and at least they knew you would know that there is someone who listens and feels and cares very much about everything with you. And that person is also the one who is sure and knows your salvation, and always strives for closeness and adoption.

The above

Wednesday, 29 Adar 5769

In honor of R. Oded and his family, peace and blessings,

A few hours ago we got married and now we are making our way to Europe and from there to America. We took a deep breath of the atmosphere of Lod, absorbed the vitality of its land and went abroad.

True, for the purpose of a mitzvah we set out, but some doubts and apprehensions accompany us, some ambiguity as to the possibility of our success. Some technical insistences are before us.

True, the necessity of the journey must have been, but with all this - to the stranger we go out - to the land of stupidity and corruption of morals - and more than that, from our mother we part and go to a foreign mother. And also that we are raped, finally there is no place for us again.

But I did not come to talk about the difficulty today, on the contrary, I want to talk about things that are difficult for me to express orally, and even in writing, the craft is not easy.

And really it may not be necessary, but I feel our friendship with you, and I strongly want to express to you the burglar from my heart

Between times of sorrow and crisis - in which my weaknesses and failures are revealed, the basis of all of which is the venomous despair that lurks within me, which casts doubt on the value of my life, which is a hidden pride inherent in a lack of understanding of Israel in general.

Between times of relative peace and tranquility, in which the joy of life is revealed, and at times, even forces of absorption and creation are happy and fresh.

And of the latter I am writing today. And in my mouth, not supreme words of study, investigations and spiritual simplicity, because the heart knows the mistress of his soul, and only he who labored and purified himself much, may and is able to speak and renew in the soul of Dauriyta, may his words be words of truth and honesty and be penetrating and influential. The yeshiva (Rabbi Zvi Yehuda ztl.) Shortly after the covenant of Abush [Avi Wolanski the 14th, son of Rabbi Oded who was murdered with his wife about six months before the murder of Rabbi Eli and Dina the 14th]

No. Short things I will write simple emotional words.

Want to be a good acquaintance. Simple, no less and no more.

Friday, Monday, Nissan 5769

I was bothered to complete my intention on the plane and my thoughts had already moved away from the content that washed over me at the beginning of my writing, and yet I will try to remember and write things down.

Not to be compelled to do good - not to be obscure and confined in the private selfish concept - not to deny all the good that is affected by us - for the immediate reasons and hence to the good source - the goodness of God for all and his mercy for all his deeds.

It is the foundation of the moral building of all man, and more than that - not only the negation of egoistic opacity, the removal of the fornication of the heart, but from it, a working positive value of gratitude - recognition of knowledge and connection, connecting to the good, communicating and clinging to the divine good source as it goes, Flows and flows through his angels, his doers.

And in this sense, the last, I want to acknowledge you and the word of God that is in your mouth.

On the day of the alliance of Avi Shi (Avi Wolanski 14), after you demanded the value of honesty as expressed in the unifying trinity in the Knesset of Israel, which opens the door to infinite transcendence and infinite elevation of all reality, a request from the Shlita to say some things, And as usual he did not demand and contented himself with a short sentence: "Encourage as his name implies." The words were said casually, but I kept the thing and got to enjoy their existence in me.

And I do not wish to thank you and not to say your praise to you, that the latter is forbidden and the former is permissible, but to acknowledge goodness - to express in words, as far as I can reach, the thoughts and feelings vibrating within me at this time.

There are many approaches in the world in relation to being communal .....

Eli Horowitz

To Rabbi Oded,

Although the time is rife and you in particular have a terrible and very heavy responsibility in flowing encouragement and life to our beloved nation tormented by the twists and turns of adolescence, and most of all to the center of its vitality in the struggle for freedom .

I will write the things for the sake of being clear and whitewashed, and also for the sake of choosing you an ancient desire to engage in them, in common sense and proper advice.

Regarding the bulk of Torah toil, I feel that after years of swaying and lack of clarity, I have come up with a very right path, and especially in the present time, that I have found some companies right for faithful diligence in a serious plan, and I just have to try to deepen and come back properly.

And on Monday I feel the growing vitality of the arrival of halakhah as fair, and from day to day and order to order, a lot of knowledge dies and the depth of Hasbra - and blessed are we that we came that way.

I do not have many hesitations in the study of faith either - I now receive most of the enlightenment of my life from the rabbi's letters, and I must surround them all with "moderate agility", go back many times and deepen as far as I have reached, do not fall in my spirit when for some time their inner voice is not listened to. Comes, but to hold the page in any case, to shred and memorize, to multiply population, until the times of desire return and the mental exaltation of the quality of depth.

And on top of the self-study to keep an ear open to do many, to remove the inhibitors of listening, and to let the voice penetrate into an entity depth, to exalt towards them, and to continue a stream of flow into the bowels of life to all their steps.

I also have to deal with morality, in a different style from the rabbi's letters, and I will probably start with the Maggid's Sefer HaMidot from Dubna, even though his reading is heavy on me - I will try to defeat him, because this is what Ratzi (Rabbi Zvi Yehuda HaCohen Kook) advised , And I did not exist.

And with all this, and perhaps precisely at this time, which is clearly clear to me from my academic point of view, a great deal of practical and spiritual confusion and confusion arises in me, the worries of the general and the individual multiply within me in a stirring turmoil, and my mind goes wild everywhere. In it, and out of it to overcome, to rise above everything.

I will not know where to start, because that is the main problem, to put the main thing and take care of it. In the same act as the one that comes to mind today in my mind and aqua that before you will be painted a picture in its entirety, from my words and from what you have known and helped me since.

The main thing, I think, is the inspiration of Shechinah in the foundations of the house, or as you defined it, "a multi-year minority issue." In the ten years I have known Dina Shathi, there was a lot of bitterness over the pleasant. Not in grievance towards Shamia, God forbid, I come, but in rummaging through my parts in these bitterness and with a great desire to engage in sweetening them.

A year ago, in the month of Av, we talked and reassured me with simple things about the tendencies that are embedded in everyone, not to feel sorry and feel guilt and constant frustration that my qualities are not illuminating and corrected as a failure and the like. It has helped me a lot to set close goals according to ability, to be patient (with myself, first of all) and to start paving paths for correction.

Today, given the magnitude of the problems, a more radical radical overhaul is needed. This is how at least I felt, the shortcomings of the tendencies and paths of virtue, hinder not only the exaltations of attainment, but also the normal flow of life in its naturalness.

We are at the end of a pregnancy whose first day was full of stubbornness and complications - bleeding, anxiety, high blood pressure, and priesthood and priesthood. Until Purim Deprazim we have endured, since the death of the rabbi (Zvi Yehuda), as if a Shechinah had left our house - as if we were living in a foreign house. The coziness of living in a permanent place (for more than three years!) Has faded, and day by day the feeling of loneliness and suffocation increases.

I, of course, do not suffer from it, for most of the day in the company of friends in the business of Torah, sharing feelings, etc., but Dina, who is always at home, and the house is full of neighbors and children, suffocates. It is no longer always possible in the company of people who think upside down and feel upside down - that is how she feels. It is impossible, while cutting parts of our land of life, to hear the indifference and ignorance of one who feels none of this. And while our army is fighting a sublime and mighty holy war, to be surrounded by neighbors for whom all this does not exist.

(Except for one neighbor who came every day to hear what was going on, full of anxiety about what the Gentiles would do to us. "I remember in the Six Day War we were in Paji alone. All the soldiers went to the north and to Sinai).

In practical terms we made every effort to sell the apartment, and even then the burden was on Dina, to tidy up and wash every day, to show the apartment to all sorts of people, among them the most bizarre - and all without results. We are now looking for a rental apartment, although it will involve an additional job that I will have to take on in the evenings and thus significantly impair my efforts at Hoshen Mishpat.

In any case, Dina's mood is in a state of depression, constant depression, nervousness, anger, and so on. In a week and a half, her parents will stay with us for about five months. There is no happy expectation of birth and myself in all this, I do not find. Instead of being strong and enlightened, full of confidence and encouragement - I surrender and am controlled by the gloom of the house. A feeling of despair gnaws at me from not being able to get out.

I have resentment for those around me - for my wife and children. Full of nervousness and laxity every time I enter the house. The joy of learning is disabled. And even when I manage to rise for a moment, to grow stronger in the face - it is not regularly and I can not find the right thought to hold on to, to overcome it - and for that I will ask for advice, enlightenment - how not to give up. How to bring the sacred and sublime grace of time to fill its air space.

I have described above our realistic situation now which is the background to certain problems, but it is clear to me, (not only mentally but also emotionally) that beyond the intensive technical treatment of the above situation, a thorough internal correction is required, or at least a serious start in that direction.

I will therefore add, that the state of sadness and physical weakness, and the spiritual fatigue I have described as surrendering to a state at home - this state sometimes appears without any external stimulus at all, and even when house affairs are conducted happily and happily, I am attacked by weakness and weakness, to the point of black bile (maybe I exaggerate, I do not know exactly What is black bile).

Sometimes, for no apparent reason at all, a sense of emptiness and internal inequality, and since no cause is known, treatment and correction is doubly difficult. And although it is accepted that sadness and irritability in all the forbidden dimensions and in any case are given to the field of choice - I do not know how to choose well.

In this, another question related to the above - how does the sanctity of the Sabbath continue on weekdays. I mean, there are times (not necessarily on Shabbat) of great condescension - the thought rises, the emotions are refined, the desires turn and strive upwards, and the heart is filled with the joy of the stronger and purer ideals, filled with love for all, near and far, people and being - , Get their deep meaning, the beast.

I am full of confidence in the success of my path, full of thoughts and advice on how to increase soldiers with frequent transcendence, without stumbling.

But how to elevate the rest of the times to be enlightened from these moments of happiness - how to absorb their enlightenment in the depths of being, until I am saved from the ugly falls I described above. This requires advice.

Another issue that bothers my spirit very, very much is the building of the family, beyond the mitzvah of "and rejoice," that is, raising and educating the children. I miss using this topic. Everything I acquired from the lessons and the work in the room (Talmud Torah Morasha), is not applied at all in the reality of the house. I find myself, often, behaving as I was treated. And in my opinion, my education was extremely poor.

My two daughters, however, are developing properly, happily and cheerfully, without any special problems. I have private questions regarding education for modesty, greetings, reading aloud on the bed, etc., but in general they are good and pleasant.

In contrast, with deer there are very many problems. Internally, he has tendencies of kindness and compassion that I have found in only a few children, but openly, his condition is very poor, and he seems to be in retreat and deterioration. At home he is very nervous (maybe just lately) making an overly stressed impression, crying and getting upset from every little thing. Hyder has no progress in his studies - he does not learn to read, he does not receive anything from Mr. Israel.

He has been violent since the age of three to any expression of learning at home, even if I tell a story to Batsheva he opposes. Admittedly, lately he sometimes wants me to tell, but no more than a few minutes. He often presents himself as dumb or retarded, though he has a good mind, and even a sharp one.

These are all external symptoms and there are many more - but beyond all these, I feel a cry coming from the depths of his personality, a demand and a demand - especially from me - to be a good father. To be his friend. Play with it, have fun without formality, without distance.

Then I discover that what is easy for most people, even (and perhaps especially) for the most simple people - for me it is almost impossible. I lack some naturalness of kindness in relationships with those closest to me, a kind of toughness, roughness, such opacity that inhibits the flow of love and friendship from being revealed. Tenderness, temperamental defect, which interferes with sharing the harmonious vitality of penetrating all, filling the house, pleasing the family.

Sometimes, I feel that the strange and stupid pride, which is in my heart, hinders me from the naturalness of healthy feelings and perfect love, from the real feeling in the suffering of others, from listening to the cries of the coming souls - why not say in words.

And I want to purify myself, to purify myself, to free myself from it. And the way of ascension and correction is not clear to me - and to that end I lay out my words before you, and expect and hope that you will illuminate my path, that you will interpret what is obscure to me in the essence of my soul - that you will tell me what is important and what cares. Fulfillment of the aspiration. And what is more wonderful than me, whose demand is a long-awaited expectation from a word of heart. On what matters now to concentrate my forces. In what order and degree.

Knowing this, I can quietly and confidently labor without always regretting the lack of labor in something else. And most importantly how to get rid of the impurity of sadness and nervousness. Weakness and inner turmoil - how to develop a good eye and learn true right. How to buy true humility and fluid love. How to absorb the noble sacraments in the depths of being a moth that will act on all life, on all powers, on all times.

Maybe daring is asking you so much, but so much has helped and encouraged me so far. I am sure that even now, when the thorough repair begins and the orderly and solid building - I will not return empty-handed.

Apologies for the length and dispersal

Your student who expects light in your words.

Eli