The purpose of
this article is not to make judgments; rather, it tells how frum life was back–in-the-day and how
things have changed over the past 70 years. There have been some very positive changes
and some negative ones. Let the reader draw his or her own conclusions.
* * *
In the 1950s, I
was a student of Talmudical Academy, my sister was a student at Bais Yaakov, and
our family was a part of the very small and close-knit Baltimore Orthodox community.
Our home and my parents were very frum, with
many minhagim (customs) and special
music for all Yom Tovim that were based
on a strong German mesorah (tradition)
passed down by our avos (ancestors) from
generation to generation. Our home was one of hachnasas orchim, chesed, and tzedaka. Limud Torah was
not visible in the home and was centered, instead, in our schools and our shul.
Granted, there was no ArtScroll back then. Still, how was it that our home had
practically no sefarim?
We had siddurim, of course, and one set of Chumashim with Rashi’s commentary in
Hebrew and English. We also had a Kinah
and Machzorim for all the Yomim Tovim
with all the yotzros. Most were products
of the famed Rodelheim German publishing house. At some point, we got a Kitzur Shulchan Aruch in Hebrew and
English. For my bar mitzvah, in 1963, my aunt offered me a TV, but I requested
a Shas instead. Our Rav, Rabbi Mendel
Feldman, complimented me on the very wise choice in his drasha. (What he didn’t know is that we already had three TVs.) I
got many sefarim for my bar mitzvah,
so now our home had a well-stocked supply of all the major sefarim.
It was not from
learning Torah and halacha in the home that my parents did chesed and tzedaka and
kept the mitzvos but, rather, because of the strong mesorah they had inherited from their parents and grandparents. My sister and I, in turn, were taught through
example by our parents and grandparents. I remember how my grandmother would
daven with her sick husband, my grandfather, and not miss a tefillah. We were taught to always
follow daas Torah from our rabbanim, to
whom my parents were always very close. (Interestingly, my grandmother’s rav in
Ichenhausen, Germany, in 1933, was Harav Shimon Schwab. Rabbi Schwab then
became our family rav here in Baltimore, when he was hired by Shearith Israel. And
Rav Moshe Heinemann’s father, Beno Heinemann, was my father’s teacher in Feurth,
Germany.)
The advent of the
Holocaust is the reason my dad never attended a yeshiva. As a child, he learned
in a Hebrew school, but he left Germany in 1937 to escape to Palestine. When I
was growing up, my dad never missed a minyan and attended shiurim regularly. My dad was a “shul Yid,” and my mother worked
for many chesed organizations. My mom
knew the nusach from her dad, both in
tefillah and laining. She instructed us to say many brachos, and she taught us to say krias Shema before going
to sleep. When the 17-year locusts came out, we were summoned to the garden to
say a bracha. When the geese flew above, going south or north,
we were instructed to say a bracha.
Lightening, thunder, fruit trees blooming – we learned the brachos for each occasion. Music and nigunim (songs) were also an important part of our chinuch.
* * *
My wife Ronnie’s
parents davened at Far Rockaway’s White Shul. Her father was one of the six
rotating chazanim of the shul under
its morah d’asrara Harav Ralph Pelcovitz.
Her father, Bernard Schwartz, also ran the tape library of shiurim for the shul. Like my father, he did not attend a yeshiva
as he lost his father while in his teens and needed to work to help support his
mom and two younger siblings. He, too, was a shul Yid, and very frum, as was his wife, who was from the chashuve Trenk family. They owned and
ran a frum summer camp and worked for
many chesed and tzedaka causes. Their home, too, had very few sefarim. Once again, they were influenced by their family mesorah. Both our parents were members
of Hapoel Mizrachi, so they were strong supporters of Israel. The communities they
lived in were not yeshivish. Except
for those who intended to go into rabbanus,
most of the young people did not attend yeshiva
gedola. Later, as more boys and girls attended yeshivos and seminaries, the
communities moved to the right.
* * *
Never in the
history of klal Yisrael has limud Torah been so strong – with a
multitude of wonderful yeshivos and kollels for our youth and a myriad Daf Yomi
and other shiurim for balabatim. Walking through a Jewish bookstore
today, the number of sefarim and books
in English with Jewish content is overwhelming. Our homes are full of sefarim, and Torah learning is stressed
in our homes. Yet, in some ways, I would say that Jewish values were better
expressed in the years of my youth.
For instance, parenting
from 1950 through 2000 had advantages over today’s parenting. While most
fathers worked very hard, the moms mostly were not in the workplace and spent
most of their time raising the kids. Back in Gan Eden, the apple was the forbidden
fruit that caused man to sin, and today the Apple iPhone is a serious problem,
distracting both parents and kids from tuning in to each other. We are tied to
our phones and laptop computers, all too often to the detriment of communication
between spouses, parents, and children. Social media is the snake, seducing and
occupying our lives with much unimportant trivia. Too many of us worship our iPhones.
Another example is
the shidduch process, which was much
simpler back then. In today’s world, between the investigations, resumés, and
availability of shadchanim, the
process is very intense. The questions asked are often ridiculous, and the middos of the boys and girls are,
unfortunately, sometimes secondary to less important issues. When I was growing
up, frum people led a more relaxed social
life, and boys and girls got together under supervision in a more natural
social environment. In our chareidi
world, the single young men and women are seated separately even at weddings. How
do they get to meet? With all that, we have the so-called shidduch crisis, divorce is much more common, and many young
couples have very troubling shalom bayis issues.
* * *
Just as our Jewish
homes of the 1950s had few sefarim, our
frum world had few talmidei chachamim, a result of the
horrendous, unexplainable Holocaust, which wiped out most of European
Yiddishkeit. What our homes did have were parents whose commitment to the Torah
was unswerving, parents with an emuna peshuta
(simple faith), and a mesorah so
strong that they were able to create the foundations of klal Yisrael today. Communities
like Lakewood, Baltimore, the Five Towns, and elsewhere are boom towns of frum growth. The day school movement is
growing, and yeshivos and seminaries are opening up at an unprecedented rate.
So, from the terrible destruction of the Holocaust, a techi’as hameisim
(resurrection) of Yiddishkeit is occurring. Torah learning and chinuch have never been stronger, baruch Hashem.
This is a blessing
and a nes (miracle), and will, iy”H, make Yiddishkeit stronger in the
future. But the emuna peshuta (simple
faith) of the last dor (generation) –
a dor that learned Yiddishkeit from parents
setting an example for their children – should be a lesson to parents of today.
Our children and grandchildren are taking note of all our actions. Our mission is
to add to that emuna peshuta our
incredible Torah learning and our wonderful chinuch.
If we can accomplish that, our future will, iy”H, be a blessing for yemos
hamashiach, bimheira b’yameinu.
Eli W. Schlossberg is a Baltimore community askan and author of the book, My Shtetl
Baltimore.
