Chaim Elchanan Idan lives with cerebral palsy. He cannot walk, eat or speak on his own.
A few years ago, when he tried typing on a computer as usual, he felt once again that his fingers weren’t responding quickly enough. His nose, on the other hand, tapped out letters in rapid succession.
“Right now I’m typing to you with my nose,” he wrote when I reached out to him on WhatsApp. Then he sent me his weekly newsletter on the Torah portion, called “Ohr HaTorah” (“The Light of the Torah”), which he began publishing back in seventh grade.
He sends the texts and printing instructions to the print shop himself, and also distributes the newsletters through the streets of Jerusalem in his motorized wheelchair, dropping them off at shul.
“I have to stay busy,” he explained, “otherwise I get depressed.”
This is what he wrote in his recent Passover edition: “Many people ask about the meaning of ‘V’hi She’amda,’ the famous passage from the Haggadah. Who or what is ‘hi’ — is it ‘she’ or ‘it?” I heard a beautiful idea: ‘she’ is our faith. What has stood by our ancestors and by us throughout all generations is faith, even in the hardest moments.
There exists within us an inner capacity to believe that things will be good. When a person holds onto faith, he is already on the path to freedom!”
Throughout Passover, the Kotel plaza was nearly empty because of the war; only 50 people were permitted to enter at one time, and Chaim was one of them. He wrote:
“Thank you for the special privilege of being your messenger and praying here. My advice to everyone is to pray, to speak with G-d always — not only from the prayer book, not only in Hebrew, but even in your own words. I speak with Him a lot, and I highly recommend it. He is there, He is listening. And you don’t need to type to Him with your nose. . .”
Ahuva Schorr is a party planner living here in Israel. She wrote to me that all her events from March through June had been canceled, with the exception of one, the Bar Mitzvah of Yehudah Buxbein of New York, that took place on an intermediate day of Passover.
The parents, Ilana and Aryeh, came with the family to Israel in the middle of the war, determined to celebrate Yehudah’s Bar Mitzvah in Israel, no matter what.
“The family of five flew in from New York two weeks ago, at the height of the war, and celebrated Passover here as well,” Ahuva said.
“I updated them before their arrival that their return flight home had been canceled, but despite everything, they chose to come on a one-way ticket. They didn’t know how or when they would get back. The main thing, for them, was to be in Israel. And the smiles never left their faces.
“So on Sunday night , while everyone was talking about Trump’s ultimatum, I had the rare privilege of producing Yehudah’s Bar Mitzvah celebration in Gush Etzion, in full accordance with the Home Front guidelines.
“To me, this is a deeply inspiring story. Mazal tov, Yehudah. You are joining the Jewish people at a very special time.”
Thoughts on the New Month of Iyar
This Friday and Shabbat mark the beginning of Iyar. Iyar is considered a month of healing for both body and soul, and in fact, the word “Iyar” is an acronym for “Ani Hashem Rofecha, I am G-d, your Healer.
The Jewish people left slavery in Egypt during the month of Nissan, and in Iyar went through a process of recovery and strengthening. May we merit to feel this healing even today.
We mark a few special days this month:
• On the 14th, we mark Pesach Sheini, which offered a second chance for those who missed the first Pascal sacrifice. This day teaches us that it’s never too late to rectify things.
• On the 18th, we celebrate Lag b’Omer, the anniversary of the passing of towering Talmudic luminary Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, author of the Zohar.
• In our generation: on the 5th of Iyar 5708 (1948), 78 years ago, the State of Israel was established, and on the 28th of Iyar 5727 (1967), 59 years ago, we merited the liberation of Jerusalem.
Another feature of Iyar: It is the only month of the year during which all the days are counted. The counting of the Omer began in mid-Nissan and will conclude at the beginning of Sivan, but only in Iyar do we count every single day of the Omer.
It’s a month that helps us live with a heightened awareness of time, reminding us how special and unique each day of life truly is.
Tazria-Metzora: ‘I Don’t Know’
Three words that are especially hard to say: “I don’t know.” We are so used to being absolutely certain, having a clear opinion about everything, from politics to the war with Iran, without letting the facts confuse us.
It is rare to hear someone in the middle of an argument say, “Honestly, I have no idea,” or, “Let me think about it.”
Rashi, the greatest Torah commentator of all time, stops in the middle of his commentary on this week’s parashah, Tazria-Metzora, to write: “I don’t know the explanation.”
He could have chosen to simply say nothing, but instead he chose to let us know, 900 years later, that he did not know. Generation after generation of students read each year anew that there was something Rashi did not know. There is not only honesty here, but also an invitation: perhaps you do know? Perhaps you have an idea?
Translated by Yehoshua Siskin and Janine Muller Sherr