My friend Elyakeem z’l

by Hanoch Ne’eman

We lost our friend Elyakeem Kinstlinger on the eleventh of Adar Alef 5784. Always when someone leaves this world we have regrets – like that I only learned how to correctly spell his last name now. But Hashem was kind to me in that although we had not met in person for many months, I had occasion to contact Elyakeem and thus it worked out that I got to speak to him on the phone nine days before his passing.

I first met Elyakeem when I was in tenth grade and he in ninth, and we were in gym class together. But I only stayed at that school for one year, so the next time I met Elyakeem was about thirty years later on a Jerusalem evening street. Somehow we seemed familiar to each other, and after a short time, Elyakeem placed it first. We became friends.

Elyakeem was very helpful in organizing Shabbos meals when I wanted to host. He liked being in or near the Old City, though his accomodations were often sporadic. This may have been partly due to his work, which took him to different countries, but I think it also spurred from the fact that the heart, in general, does not like routine, and Elyakeem sought the heart.

I could also identify with Elyakeem’s slowness/failure to get married. I married first at age 34, divorced three years later, and then waited fourteen years before marrying again, all the time thinking, “I will get married soon”. It’s not easy, we have so many trepidations which hold us back. I hope one of the lessons all of Elyakeem’s single friends take from his loss is – make it happen today.

I encouraged him, as I do all my single male Jewish friends, to wear a tallis. Once when we were in the Old City before a trip he was going on, he said let’s go into this book store and look at tallaysim. He bought a white tallis, and several days later he sent me a photo of him in tallis and tephillin in Bangkok airport.

During COVID, Elyakeem invited me to come to outdoor Shabbos meals he helped with in the Cardo. It sounded too cold to me, so I declined. Later it turned out that my next wife was among those who went. So perhaps if I had listened to Elyakeem, I would have married her sooner. I also never took up his invitation to join him and Chaim David playing guitar at the French Hospital on Yom shishi.

In our last conversation, Elyakeem shared with me his thought that tephillin help one tap into the cosmic pattern of giving. In Elyakeem’s merit, may Heaven help us to tap into the abilities to both give and receive.

Shavuot in Jerusalem

Hanoch Ne’eman 12 Iyar 5782 Tekoa

Even though we moved to Tekoa the day before, we returned to Yerushalayim for Shabbos-Shavuot, aliyat l’regel. 

Moshe and Tzipooah Rothkoph had a minyan at their Shul in the Rova both days, and we went in on both Shabbat and the holiday, which added a lot to our yom tov. The Shavuot minyan was a netz minyan, starting at 4:45 am. They had learning there all night, which we did not participate in. We slept, but got up after four to walk in. We got there about 5:15 am. It was nice walking in with a lot of other people. Some group of teenage girls were going up the steps with us to Zion Gate. They were singing a tune from Hallel or something, it was nice. Many people were also leaving the Old City before dawn. They presumably had stayed up learning all night at the Kotel and would pray at a normal time. Moshe intersperses the prayers with some great divrei Torah. He said that his teacher Shlomo would say, what is special about the ten utterances spoken at Mount Sinai? Each one is able in itself to change the world. Imagine if everyone in the world believed there was one God, or if everyone believed it was forbidden to murder, or to steal, to take something God did not let you have? 

Eliyahu Rosenblum was Baal shacharis. We were also privileged to have him sing and play at our wedding. 

At kiddush Moshe spoke about Ruth. About how just when she was crossing the border into the land of Israel, the Sanhedrin was meeting and ruling that the Halacha was that a Moabite woman was allowed to enter the people of Israel. This shows, Moshe said, that sometimes Hashem can as it were change the Torah for one person. Moshe used that as an opportunity to make the comparison to our day, that sometimes there are poskim who are able to help pople with unique problems, and therefore one should not despair. I thought about the example of people with celiac who can’t say Grace after meals. Perhaps a posek will say it is not dependent just on bread for them. 

Week of 17 Shevat 5782 News commentary

Hanoch Ne’eman – commenting on articles in his weekly Hamodia English newspaper

Article on a Draft Bill – to draft charedim. Bill calls for lowering exemption age for charedim from 24 to 21, but to go up to 22 in two years, and 23 in three years. The rationale being that maybe people would go to work earlier. The bill also sets forth annual recruitment targets, requiring chareidi enlistment numbers to gradually increase.

Comment: This is a sad play which is reenacted every few years. Of course I am of those who believe every Jewish man who can should serve at least a little, but it is hard to force people to be soldiers if they don’t want to, they will not be good soldiers if they don’t believe in it. Setting “target numbers” is similar to governments taxing big gulps to get people to be healthier. We can try to convince, but can’t force. 

However, what I wanted more to respond to was some quotes from chareidi MKs. Uri Maklev said, “The army is not a value, but a security need; the Torah is a value, and when there is Torah study, the need for an army is small.” Not a value? Guarding our lives and guarding our land are values, they are mitzvot. Mitzvot are values. Regarding the need for an army being small if there is Torah study, that may or not be true, but you can’t expect others to accept that as a reason why you are not serving in the army. As always, I say that this ongoing comedy of draft law legislation is exacerbated by our system of choosing representatives. We choose parties, which lets everyone have their lunatic in the Knesset. If we elected individuals, we might have a better chance of getting more balanced people, who also would have to appeal to a diverse voter base. 

Article: Israel Renewing Contact With Hungary. Comment: The Hungarian leader is a Jew hater and we should have nothing to do with him. It was a travesty that NSO sold them spyware too. 

Article: Bedouins riot in Negev because Israel plants trees on State lands. 

Comment: Israel has every right to plant trees on State land. Why they are doing so during a Shmittah year aroused my curiosity, but the JNF website says their planning is under the Chief Rabbinate’s supervision. Maybe it is outside the shmitta boundaries. The Bedouin in the South are a problem in that they squat everywhere without permission. Rioting against use of State lands means they don’t recognize State lands. Need to be firm with them or they will squat everywhere. 

Finally, Hamodia Magazine did an excellent feature on the efforts to reform the Conversion System. This is also a recurring question which I have a lot of feelings about. Not a simple issue, but the bottom line is I hold by our Rabbis who say you really have to be mitzvot observant to convert. It’s true that in some instances in Israel there might be reasons to be lenient, but only great Rabbis like Rav Shlomo Goren could decide when that would be. Therefore the reforms being pushed are bad, because they would let any old Rav make these decisions, whereas the current rules give final authority to the Chief Rabbinate. 

It’s hard because non-observant people object to being told one has to be observant to become Jewish. We have, I think, to say it’s okay to be a citizen but not Jewish. Of course the problem is when people want to marry. The best we can do perhaps is to encourage them to marry other non-Jewish Israelis. If they intermarry, we need to love them all the same, but not pretend they are officially Jewish. Not an easy issue. 

Value Pricing

Hanoch Ne’eman 5 Shevat, 5782 Yerushalayim, Israel

To my dear lawyer, may his light shine:

Just following up on our earlier correspondence about my surprise over the (to my mind) high price for helping me with the title transfer. I asked you for a breakdown of the costs, to which you demurred except to say it includes court costs and the outside opinion about New Jersey law, and that more experienced lawyers take more. That was indeed helpful but what I was driving at more was what is your pricing structure and how do you arrive at it? You probably know already what I will write here, but I for myself anyway like to articulate it. 

Any reputable business or service provider, should be able to define both for himself and his customers, how he arrives at his price. This price is basically made up of two factors: overhead and profit. Let’s take a simple example. Let’s say someone has a business where it’s him and one employee. His overhead consists of what he pays his employee, plus rent if he has it, and other expenses. Let’s say that comes to thirty thousand shekels a month. He and his worker, together, work on average three hundred and twenty hours per month. So his overhead per hour of work is 30,000 / 320 = 93.75 shekels. So for every man hour the company works for a customer, they have to charge him 94 shekels. Let’s say this company values their work at 400 shekels per hour (what they want to profit). Then their hourly rate should be 494 shekels per hour. If the work takes ten hours, then the customer’s bill should be 4940 shekels plus tax. With this information, the customer can have some idea of the value he is getting. 

If you are interested, I can give you two examples of work I had done for me, one where I felt I got good value, and one where I felt somewhat taken. About a year and a half ago, I had two things done in my apartment; I had a small A/C unit put in for the first time, and I had my triss cords replaced. I had actually replaced one or two of my triss-cords myself in the past. Wanting to save time, I called someone to do it. He and his worker came. I had one actually broken, but he convinced me it was good to proactiviely replace the cords in all seven windows in the apartment, which I agreed because they were like twenty years old, and could also go. The price for one, he told me before coming, was a hundred shekels. Seven would be seven hundred. Okay I say. So they start to do them, and in about twenty minutes, including borrowing a screwdriver from me, they replace all seven cords. 

Afterwards, I felt I did not get good value in this transaction, because I felt his overhead was low and his profit was very high for the time spent. I felt I should have asked for a deal of like 450 shekels. 

The AC folks, on the other hand, I felt did give me good value. The AC unit itself, was about 1250 shekels, and they brought it from the dealer. The installation cost about 850 shekels, which took them about two and a half hours to do, including drilling a hole through about 30 cm of my exterior wall, mounting the condenser outside, and the wall unit inside, involving all sorts of tools, copper tubes, and electrical work. Plus they had come before that to give me an estimate and help me plan where to put it. I was so impressed with the quality of their work, and the value I was getting, (especially compared, I felt, to the triss guy) that I surprised them by giving them a six hundred shekel tip. 

In short, I appreciate quality work, but I like to know what I am paying for, so I can judge the value I am getting. It’s a different feeling when you know what you are paying for, and you don’t feel the merchant is simply charging you something because the guy down the street is charging that, or because he thinks he can get away with it because the customer is ignorant. 

cartoon credit: webstockreview.com

Could we please have some self respect?

Hanoch Ne’eman 4 Shevat 5782 

As is my custom, I like to comment on some of the news items in my weekly paper. Here are some from last week, Parshat Vaera.

Israel plans to give natural gas to Gaza. Here’s the whole article from Hamodia:   

Multipartite Gas Deal for Gaza Inked By Zalman Ahnsaf Sunday, December 26, 2021 כ”ב טבת תשפ”ב
After several years of negotiations, a complicated deal to supply Gaza with Israeli natural gas has been reached, The Times of Israel reported on Sunday.
Qatar, the Palestinian Authority and Gaza’s electrical company signed a memorandum containing a Qatari pledge to invest $60 million in laying the pipeline for Gaza’s only power plant.
The so-called Gas for Gaza initiative, involving Israel, Hamas, the PA, Qatar, Egypt and the European Union, among others, has been delayed repeatedly due to wars with Hamas.
The plan calls for natural gas to be piped from Israel’s Leviathan gas field, which lies off Gaza’s coast, to a power station in southern Israel. The EU and Qatar will then fund extensions to the pipeline to Gaza’s power plant.

Comment
Nu? Are we nuts? Does anyone else besides me think it’s nuts to sell gas to a city which continuously tries to kill us? In my humble opinion, we should not sell anything to Gaza for many years. Can one imagine the US selling gas to Mexico if Mexico was continually starting wars with her? I suspect corruption here. It’s the same thing with our giving them electricity now, which they often do not pay for. Someone is making money on this. 

Title transfer legal costs in Israel

Hanoch Ne’eman 25 Tevet 5782 Israel 

I have been having a problem lately in that I am upset over how much money I am paying my lawyers to transfer the title of my parents apt. to me. Let me explain. I am not saying that they are charging me more than the going rate. I am saying that I think the going rate is too much. Here’s the deal. 

My parents, of blessed memory, had a small apt. here in Jerusalem. Now my sister and I want to transfer the title to me. 

Because of the way land is registered here in Israel, one must file two inheritance orders, one for each of my parents, the dual owners. 

The total cost, the lawyers estimated, will be between fifteen to nineteen thousand shekels. In US dollars today, that’s about $4,800 to $6,000. Yes! Am I crazy or is that a lot of money? I know I live on the simple side, but this is the most expensive thing I have ever bought or paid for. The next biggest thing being airline tickets between the US and Israel. In fact, if I didn’t have inheritance, I could hardly pay for this, it would be such a large part of my annual earnings.

Of his sum, about 1100 shekels are fees to the Israeli land registry. Fine. Then about 4200 shekels, including our too high 17% tax, is for a lawyer’s opinion about which law applies. This is because my parents, like many apt. owners in Israel, were foreign residents. Therefore, it has to be clarified if New Jersey or Israel law applies. A new Israeli law says this has to be ascertained by an Israeli lawyer who is also licensed in the foreign jurisdiction. My lawyer arranged for this from another lawyer. 

While I recognize the need for this question being addressed, I can’t help feeling a bit taken advantage of by this, paying like 1200 dollars for simply an opinion about a legal fact. I understand it costs these lawyers something to maintain their foreign license, but still. I think someone could put together a niche business of keeping track of the laws in the main places foreign residents live, and providing the opinions for them, at a lower price, if the State allowed them too. Something to work on. Entrepreneurs take note. 

But the above costs aside, we are still left with ten to fourteen thousand shekels in legal fees. How so? 

I don’t know. This is the question. How much time does it take them to do this? How difficult is it? I suspect it is a bit of a rip. 

When I was is high school, I read a business book by a fellow named Mark McCormick, which had ideas I use until today. Then when I was in college, I read his next book about lawyers. His basic message, which I remember, is to work with your lawyers to use them only when necessary, because they may have a tendency to make things more complicated than necessary. I followed that when I sold my parents’ house in Arizona. I did not use a lawyer. I can read and understand English, and that was adequate to read the contract. The buyer may have got me down more than I should have on the price, but I am glad I did not overuse legal services in that instance unnecessarily. 

If fact, I would try doing this myself too, and am a bit sad I did not, except that my sister asked me to get it done as soon as possible. 

There are also probably less experienced lawyers who would take less, but might not get it done as fast.

But still, it seems like too much. I want to know the details. I have done my taxes myself, so I know how long that takes, and what I am paying for if I use an accountant. Here I don’t know. 

I think part of it is like, well the apartment is an expensive thing, so we will take a lot of money. 

Ben Shapiro, the talk show guy, once said that poor people are often bad with money. That is true. But rich people can be bad with money too, meaning they waste more of it than they should. 

When Am Yisrael went out of Egypt, they had a lot of silver and gold. They thought they had so much they had surplus, and could waste it on golden calves, etc. But the truth is, Rav Kook explains, they did not have extra, but rather what they would need to serve Hashem properly in Israel, as a great nation. 

So no one should think they should waste money. Any money we have is because we need it to serve H’ properly with it. Dentists need livelihood, but I will floss my teeth and save on dentistry. Lawyers need livelihood, but I will try to do what I can without them, when possible. No offense.

Still Paying for the PA

Hanoch Ne’eman 30 Tishrei 5782 Yerushalayim 

Our Brothers’ Blood

On the sixth day of Sukkot this year (5782), which was the first day of the week, IDF soldiers carried out arrests of suspected terrorists in Yehuda and Shomron. In one of three operations, they were fired upon. and two soldiers were wounded. One was struck by nine bullets. It seems hopefully, he will survive, though one of his lungs was damaged and lost! Another near miracle that took place was that a grenade he was carrying was hit by a bullet, but it did not explode, because it was a special type of grenade made by Israel which does not explode when hit by bullets. 

The bravery of these soldiers is what, with help from Above, keeps us safe from our enemies within our borders. The ridiculous thing is, that when our soldiers go into these areas, they are operating in the Palestinian Authority. That is part of the Oslo Accords, that Israel has “overall security responsibility” for these areas. Which means, in practice, that when we feel we need to, we go into these areas to try to make arrests, etc. But when we do, oftentimes, the locals resist. That is what happened last year when a soldier was killed by a block dropped from a roof on soldiers operating in a town in the territories. The PA legacy, bequeathed to us from the 2nd Rabin Government, gives us the worst of both worlds. We have overall security responsibility, meaning we are defending them for free, but they feel they are somehow in control of their areas, so we have to work to keep order there at great risk and difficulty. 

The same day our brave brothers were carrying out these arrests, Arabs throughout Israel were doing things to protest our protecting ourselves. I mean violent things. I was out in Gush Eztion, walking across a crosswalk with my companion near Kfar Etzion, and a white utility vehicle with PA plates sped up toward us to scare us. We jumped out of the road. 

The junction there at the Gush Junction is manned by armed soldiers, helmets on their heads, because of all the stabbing and driving attacks which take place there. 

Creating the PA was a mistake we pay for every day. 

Road Safety: Rights and Privileges

Hanoch Ne’eman 28 Elul 5781, updated on 9 Shevat 5782

Last week, up North, a bus with a Bnei Akiva group hit some other vehicles. A mother and three children were killed in a cab which was hit by the bus. 

An article in the news says the bus driver had 51 traffic convictions. Later I learned that they were from many years, and included running red lights. Though they were from several years before this accident. The driver was about seventy years old. 

We need to internalize deeply that DRIVING A CAR IS A PRIVILEGE, NOT A RIGHT. It is a privilege you earn by obeying the traffic rules. To get a ticket for running a light, how many times do you think someone did it and didn’t get a ticket? Doing it once should be enough to lose one’s license. Massive fines. 

This is a heart breaking story. Kids on the bus said the driver sped up several times and slowed suddenly to get the kids to stop screaming and making noise. No doubt it was highly disturbing to him. Too bad he did not just park and refuse to drive until it was quiet. The bus driver was killed too in the crash. I am sure he was a nice guy, as family and friends attested, but he was not a responsible enough driver, and should not have been driving. He is not alone. There are thousands like him. It’s our job as a society to get them off the road, out of drivers’ seats. Remember: privilege, not right. 

And kids will be kids, if we let them. We should let them, but not in buses. We have to say this is also unacceptable and dangerous, that youth scream and make ruckus on buses. The Bnai Akiva group in my neighborhood meets near me. Often on Shabbat they get together, and it seems their main activity is screaming. I would not enjoy that as a youth, but if they do, that’s their business. My friend’s son, who his family made Aliyah nearly two years ago, goes there, and he says “it’s crazy there”. Again, that’s their business, but this accident I hope will serve to be a warning to them and other youth on buses that the road is not the place for screaming at all. I know all this is obvious, but just remember it anytime you may be involved with kids and buses. 

Cartoon credit: Sanskritischools.com

Shmitta in the Supermarket

Hanoch Ne’eman 23 Tishrei 5782 

5782 has started, and as you know it is a sabbatical year, “Shmitta” in Hebrew, for the Land of Israel. That means, as you know, that all the fruits and vegetables which grow are ownerless, and can be eaten by anyone and everyone for free. In fact, it is forbidden to sell them. 

So how do we get our produce this year? Do we have to go and forage? No. There are four main ways we deal with this challenge.I will describe them and their relative merits, in my opinion. 

One, HETER MECHIRA, Permitted by Sale, is the device by which the produce does not have kedushat sheviit, sanctity of the seventh year, because the farmland it comes from has temporarily been sold to a non Jew. This is similar to the device used to sell expensive leaven to a non Jew before Passover. This device is used because the mitzva of Shmitta in our day is rabbinical, so there is room to be lenient, especially when it is weighed against the mitzva of settling the Lamd of Israel, which is a mitzva of biblical status. This device was devised by leading rabbis eighteen Shmitta cycles ago, and is endorsed by the Chief Rabbinate. I hold by rabbis who believe this is the best way to observe Shmitta today, as it does not hurt the Jewish farmers. Most of the supermarket chains have certification on their produce under the heter mechira, but you need to check. 

Two, OTZAR BET DIN, is produce which is marketed by a third party, under rabbinical auspices, to the consumer. The farmer is not paid for his produce, but for his labor. This produce does have kedushat sheviit. This method was devised by a rabbi known as the Chazon Ish, in the past century. Many people like this method, though it is based on a number of novelties. Others also question why if the produce is supposed to be sold at cost, by labor, why some produce costs more than produce of the same kind, like different kinds of wine.

Three, GENTILE PRODUCE, Yuval Nochri in Hebrew. This method was used by many in the Old Yishuv in Eretz Yisrael, and is still used by many in Jerusalem. It is based on the same idea of the heter mechira, namely that land owned by a gentile does not have Shmitta applying to it. But here, they just buy from a Gentile farmer instead of a Jewish one. Of course this is harmful to the Jewish farmer’s livelihood. My rabbis are against this method for that reason. The produce could be imported from abroad too. 

Fourth, MATZA MENUTAK, “raised platform” agriculture. This method relies on the idea that if it is not actually growing from the ground, Shmitta does not apply. Raised greenhouses are built which are also enclosed. I think this method is pretty good too, though it may take away business from one Jewish farmer, it is giving it to another.

In the Diaspora – Shmitta only applies in Israel. Produce which has kedushat sheviit is not allowed to be exported, according to Halacha. If you see Israeli produce in your diaspora supermarket, you should try to find out if it had kedushat sheviit or not before buying it. 

Let us pray that by keeping the sabbatical year, even in this abridged form, we should be attuned to the great dream of the social equality of the sabbatical year as it will again some day be, just as we remember the hope of a restored kehuna-priesthood when we separate halla from our baking dough. 

Parshat Shoftim and the Lod Riot

Hanoch Ne’eman 15 Elul 5781

Some months ago many young Arabs participated in riots in various Israeli cities. One of the worst, it seems was in the city of Lod, where our international airport is located. Lod has both Jewish and Arab residents. One precious Jew was killed in the riots. During the several days of riots, residents complained that the Police were not showing up, and when they were, were not doing anything to stop the riots. In subsequent Knesset hearings, the Police claimed they lacked the proper equipment to respond. They said they had shortage of stun grenades. Some border patrol people eventually were able to do a little, but they too said they were lacking direction. 

Parshat Shoftim is a parsha about authority. It starts by saying you must about judges and police in all your gates. Later it also talks about the King. When you have a kingdom, you also have wars, and the parsha talks about going to war too. It talks of how before the battle, the Cohen goes out to exhort the troops not to be afraid of the large number of the enemy. And the Cohen gives certain people the chance to go home, including the faint-hearted. Rashi brings Rav Yosi HaGalili who says the other exemptees are really just a cover for the Rach Levav, the faint-hearted, to leave. 

Rabbi Zev Hayim Lifshitz, (HaZachal) zt’l, writes, that in his opinion, there are two types of people who can respond to a highly challenging situation like war with what is called today Battle Shock הלם קרב. One is a person who is fully involved with his own personal inner world, to the extent that he is barely aware of what is going on around him. The second is the person who is just like a cog in the machine, who relies exclusively on the system, to tell him what to do. The surprised filled atmosphere of battle (may we not know it) can cause both these people to be depressed and incapacitated. 

What is needed instead, HaZachal says, is שיקול הדעת, balanced or proper judgement, which is a result of being aware, at the same time, of what is going on around you, and what is going on in your heart. And this judgement is really a subset of the category of Yirat Shamayim, Awe of Heaven, which consists of asking oneself, in any situation, “What is expected of me now, by Heaven?” 

One of the reasons the small Israeli forces were able to stop the Egyptians during the War of Independence, was that the Egyptian forces lacked judgement. When their plan did not work, they were at a loss. 

I hate to say it, but I feel the performance of the Israeli Police in Lod bespeaks a force which is typified by what Rav Lifshitz calls the second category: people who are left at a loss when something out of the ordinary happens. People who only operate when the system is running as usual, and who are paralyzed by unforeseen circumstances.  

Both Judges and Police need to be people with balanced jugement, who can react properly to each new unique circumstance.