Thank-You, Elie Wiesel

Elie, I know we have never met and I am not sure why this is bothering me so much. But for some reason, I feel compelled to share these words about you. You know, it’s funny because I never really had a clearly defined role model in my life before. However, looking back at your life, I have a pretty good idea as to who it might be. Your impact on me has been simply transcending to say the least.

The amount of respect I have for you is truly beyond measure. It’s not because you won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. Or even the fact that you received the highly coveted [Congressional Gold Medal]. I have deemed you my role model, because the thought of keeping your faith after losing your mother and sister in Auschwitz and hearing your father being beaten and eventually killed in Buchenwald in such a dehumanizing way is inconceivable to me.

Not too many people know this, but at one point in time, I too was angry at G‑d. So much so that I threw the whole entire way of life out the window. I couldn’t fathom how he could let so much evil into the lives of so many innocent people. Tragedy after tragedy, my despair got worse and worse. I will never forget the days before Rosh Hashanah of 2014. I was sitting with my rebbe in the beis midrash as he was trying to instill some type of inspiration for me to change my mindset right before the High Holy Days. He showed me your New York Times article “A Prayer for the Days of Awe” that was published exactly 17 years ago to the day.

I was instantly riveted after reading your first few sentences: “Master of the Universe, let us make up. It is time. How long can we go on being angry?” After reading the rest of the piece, I was almost brought to tears. Here is a man that after 50 years of having to think about those daunting memories and going through hell and back still cannot handle the unbearable pain and incompleteness that comes with not having a connection with You.

It was from that moment on that I realized the true meaning of emunah and the relationship our souls have with our Creator. Since then, I have come back stronger than ever, making sure nothing stops me from ever losing my connection ever again. As I sit here today, mourning this devastating loss, I realized that I owe you a sincere and heartfelt thank-you. Not just for saving my life, but for all the generations that would have been lost had you not done what you did.

As I close this soliloquy, I bid you a final farewell. It comforts me to know that a man whose life was never at peace will finally be resting peacefully in the Garden of Eden. May your spirit bask in the everlasting presence of G‑d’s glory. I thank you for everything you have done for me as well as for this world. You will never be forgotten.

Your biggest fan,

Menachem Mendel Davis

Shape Up
Your Eating Habits

Dear Editor,

I read with interest Esther Mann’s column (“MindBiz,” July 1) describing “Left Behind’s” issue with her husband “Sol” and his diet compulsions, and I don’t think it’s all that uncommon for dieters on various programs to have these issues.

In September 2015, I started on a health plan, spurred on by a friend who was coaching people within the plan. I lost 55 pounds in about six months, and settled at a comfortable net loss of 50 pounds when I finished the weight-loss phase and went through transition to maintenance. I have since become a coach in my own right with the plan.

At Take Shape For Life, there’s a reason our plan title contains the words “for life.” We don’t refer to it as a diet. Rather it is a plan to attain and maintain good health. And here is where I think Sol may need the help. Most “diets” fail in the long run for several reasons. First, most diets don’t come with support for the long term. Yes, someone is there for the diet phase, but after that, you’re pretty much on your own. In contrast, we provide lifetime coaching–an assigned coach, other coaches, and a company-provided nutritional-support line.

Second, most diets don’t teach you how to change your eating habits. Once people finish the diet phase and go back to eating regular foods, within two years 75 percent of dieters will regain some or all of the weight they lost. We teach you how to change your eating habits, so that you can eat regular foods with control.

Sol has a valid concern about regaining the weight, but it doesn’t seem that he learned proper eating habits (what, when, how to eat), didn’t learn control methods, and has no one to turn to for support.

I would be only too happy to speak with Sol about his eating issues. I think we can help him and his wife and pull the stress of eating issues out of their marriage. And if they choose to consult with someone, please suggest to Sol and his wife that they both learn how, what, and when to eat and they have a support system for questions and guidance

They can contact me directly through http://stevekatz.tsfl.com or at 718-757-0618.

Here’s to better health for all, for life.

Steve Katz

Courting Justice

Dear Editor,

I write regarding Rabbi Yair Hoffman’s Halachic Musings article of July 1, “How to Take a Tycoon to Court.”

“K’shoit atzmecha v’achar kach k’shoit l’acherim”–Fix yourself and then you can fix others. I don’t mean that Rabbi Hoffman needs to be fixed; not at all. I very much respect him personally, as well as his Torah knowledge.

However, although the goal he is seeking–to stop Jewish people from going to court–is totally admirable, his methods are naive and not realistic.

The real culprit of this problem of using courts for money disputes is galus. Yes, after 2,000 years of galus and the assimilation of American-style corruption and internal Jewish politics, this is what you get. The American beis din system is broken.

A major part of the American Jewish frum public senses that if they use a beis din, it’s a guaranteed losing situation and a total waste of time.

When was the last time that you heard of a p’sak din that was fair and made sense? I haven’t heard of one in my lifetime–and I’m over 70 years old.

If you want to use a beis din, it’s frustrating even to just send out a summons. You contemplate: Where do you go to have a chance that your defendant will respect and accept the summons and the right jurisdiction? You probably will discuss it with your shul rabbi, and the defendant will consult with his shul rabbi.

He will insist on a particular type of beis din, and you and your rabbi will wrangle over the choices and makeup of that beis din.

His rabbi will advise him every way to refuse and to delay getting an agreement. The rabbi will make sure that the defendant’s advocate will not be well learned but a paid professional advocate who knows how to stall and obfuscate, and, above all, to claim for the defendant every argument but not the clearly relevant law.

Then the advocate and the rabbi will insist on the choice of the deciding judge. One who is elderly, highly respected, and well known–but secretly a very good close friend of the rabbi or the defendant.

If it sounds like I’ve personally experienced these phases, it’s because I have. Three times. (If challenged on this point, I am ready to provide actual details of batei din that are travesties of law and sensitivity, as shown in the cases I was personally involved in.)

Then the plaintiff instinctively senses that even if he has solid signed documents from the defendant he will never get the full amount that he’s suing for and feels entitled to. That’s because the beis din in a p’sak din is charged to accomplish a pesharah, compromise, to achieve shalom for both sides.

The plaintiff also knows that there is no enforcement–there’s no oversight committee, appeals process, or conduct-review committee in case there’s an illegal p’sak din or political influence or perjury or corruption–and no judgment collection.

And more than likely, he’ll need to go to expensive lawyers anyway; he’ll spend 20—40 hours over many weeks because the defendant feels no need to pay the reduced amount of the p’sak din of the beis din.

Rabbi Hoffman, if you decide, as I hope you will, to respond to this letter in an upcoming column, please share the names, addresses, phone numbers, as well as the names of the people in charge, of the two or three batei din that are available to the general Jewish public, as well as the locations of a beis din that can review on an appeal and an oversight beis din.

I really thank you for your time.

Israel Ungerkammer

Five Towns

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