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Qitzur Shulchan Arukh - 62:9

Posted: 07 Aug 2009 06:13 AM PDT
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Aspaqlaria/~3/gkAJYmlwp-s/qsa-62-9.shtml

ט:צריך למדוד ולשקול בעין יפה, שיהיה עודף על המדה, שנאמר, איפה שלמה וצדק  
יהיה -לך. מה תלמוד לומר וצדק. אמרה תורה, צדק משלך ותן לו  בבא בתרא פח: חושן  
משפט סימן רלא סעיף יד

One must measure and weigh with a generous eye, so that there will be a  
little more beyond the measure. As it says a full and just measure you  
should have. The Torah says, be just at your own expense, and give to him.
As we already established erring in a measurement in ones own favor is  
particularly odious. The Torah considers it so bad that owning the tools  
for it, without even using the dishonest measures, is enough for Hashem to  
brand the owner a toeiavah to Hashem!

Since its impossible to measure product without erring, and since erring in  
one direction is so wrong, we are advised to play safe and overestimate a  
little in the counterpartys favor.



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Chevron

Posted: 06 Aug 2009 04:36 PM PDT
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Aspaqlaria/~3/zK_TtgAjtPw/chevron-80.shtml

Yeshivas Kenesses Yisrael (Slabodka), Chevron 1911
This Shabbos, 18 Av, marks the 80th yahrzeit of those killed in the 1929  
massacre in Chevron.
The message of Slabodka, the yeshiva that relocated there before the  
massacre, is realizing the potential and dignity of every person you  
encounter. Dan Slonim Hyd not of the yeshiva, although he was always there  
when they needed assistance. As he was for every one, both the Jews, the  
local Arabs, even the very members of the mob who slaughtered him, his wife  
Hannah, his little son Aharon, and 19 others in his home.
The message of Slabodka is also the dignity of oneself, knowing ones true  
worth, and how to strive for the kind of greatness Hashem Yisbarakh created  
you capable of acheiving. Whether it was the constant learning of Simchah  
Yitzchak Broide, who was killed in the yeshiva, his blood spilled across  
the gemara; or the chessed of Alter Ashpooler Sher, one of the students who  
founded a gemach within the yeshiva; R Moishe Warsawer Grodzinsky, a talmid  
of the Chafeitz Chaim who was known to greet every person first, and with a  
smile  whether the yeshiva student in his bording house, the sheikh or the  
Arab waterboy.  (Reb Moishe Warsawer was killed just weeks before his sons  
wedding.)
These are just a few portraits of those who were killed that day. All of  
them very distinct, made in different molds. And yet each led a life of  
reaching for greatness.
The Alter of Slabodka with Students, Chevron

The following was written by Rabbi Leo Gottesman of the West Side  
Congregation and a Yeshivas Chevron Alumnus, on the occasion of the first  
yahrzeit in 1930. He spoke of those who came to Chevron, and told stories  
of those he knew who were murdered there. I used that section as one of the  
sources for the quick sketches I wrote above. However, I chose to include  
Rabbi Gottesmans closing words of hope in full  that G-d is still with us,  
and it is for us to continue the ideals for which they lived.

WHAT shall we derive from all this?
Shall we allow the hopes and dreams and prayers of over eighteen centuries  
to be washed out by the blood of the martyrs of last August? Shall we throw  
up our hands in discouragement and call ourselves defeated.
No! That is unthinkable!
Reading over what I have written before; reading the account of the  
wonderful, the pure, the noble souls whose earthly careers were snuffed out  
in the twinkling of a gory, degraded passion for which the Arabs will never  
be able to forgive themselves when they have grown more enlightened, it  
might seem indeed that we are in a helpless situation. It might seem that  
in addition to our own helplessness we are faced with an absence of divine  
sanction; that God, Who permitted that unspeakable atrocity, has not cared  
to look with favor upon our efforts to reestablish ourselves spiritually  
and materially in the land of our forefathers. But to think so woud be to  
fall into an enormous error.
It would be wrong to hold in mind only the few score martyrs who fell  
beneath the weapons of the mad mob—who fell thus and thereby rose so high  
that it is given to few to hold rank with them in their greatness. It would  
be wrong not to give thought to those who were saved. And by this I mean  
not the vast multitude, the whole Jewish population of  Palestine, more  
than 150,000 souls, whose survival may be ascribed to the purely natural  
cause that the danger did not come very close to them. I mean rather the  
hundreds who, though engulfed by the flames, were nevertheless drawn out of  
the fire; and were saved by such means that it is hard not to say— miracle,  
hard not to perceive the hand of Providence in it, hard not to realize that  
their being saved means that God has not averted His face from us but  
stands by yet to spare His children and speed us on the road to victory.
Yes, a few died; but many more were saved. Let us not make the mistake of  
looking only upon the little heap of sacred ashes. Let us gaze with  
understanding eyes upon the survivors, the living evidence of our ultimate  
victory. Because I have said so much in detail about those that died, let  
me say something about those that were saved; and I will leave it to many  
others to build up the remainder of the encouraging picture. I will content  
myself by concluding this brief record with a few accounts of how some of  
our fellows escaped the fate that threatened alt.
I have already written of some that survived, the manner of it being  
nothing short of miraculous. There were Lezer Yanishker and the young  
sister of Hannah Slonim, who were hidden in a closet. Whence came so much  
strength to the arm of a single youth, holding a door shut against the  
efforts of a mob——?
And there was the wife of Zaimon Welan-sky who, clinging to her husband,  
fell beside him in a swoon as he was stabbed by many knives, and was  
covered with his blood—so that the Arabs though they had stabbed her too.  
By this her life was saved. How much less than a miracle is it?
And there was William Bermans younger brother. Who can say by what miracle  
he was permitted to live even where his brother and his friends were  
murdered. What stopped the Arabs, who thought him dead, from making sure of  
it?
Not all the Arabs in  Hebron  participated in the massacre. Some remained  
aloof, and some helped the intended victims to escape. Many hid in pits, in  
trees, in bushes—anywhere to be out of sight when the torrent broke loose.  
And many were concealed by friendly Arabs. One Arab gave shelter to thirty  
people, including the old Rabbi Slonim.
Two young boys were caught alone in a house when a mob began to break in  
the door. They ran up to the roof. The mob entered and plundered what they  
could. Then they began to look for persons—and were soon bound for the  
roof. The trembling boys sought a way of escape. They looked down into the  
yard, and there was an Arab—beckoning to them to jump down. They declined  
at first, being afraid of him. But seeing the mob about to come up, they  
were forced to take the leap—the height not being great. The Arab below  
took them by the hand and led them to a safe place and guarded over them  
until the worst was over.
Among those whose escape borders very close upon the miraculous is Rabbi  
Mosheh Mordecai Epstein, the venerable Dean of the Yeshivah. He was in his  
own house when the attack began, and there were twenty-five people with  
him. The doors were fastened. They were not molested at first. But late in  
the day, when the Arabs were finished with their horrible work elsewhere,  
they turned to the Rabbis house.
As they were actually breaking in the door, some trucks transporting  
soldiers from Beer Sheba to Jerusalem passed through Hebron and though the  
street where the Rabbis beleaguered house stood. These soldiers had not  
been sent for by anyone in  Hebron. They had no business there and had no  
knowledge that anything was wrong in the city of the patriarchs. They were  
merely passing through on their way to  Jerusalem . But they arrived in the  
nick of time. Five minutes later would have been too late to save many  
lives.
The soldiers, not knowing what was going on, but seeing a violently  
behaving mob, fired a few shots in the air—and the cowardly pack dispersed.  
They were in no mood for anything but the murder of the defenseless men and  
women and children. Thus, at the last moment, at the very moment of  
resignation, the Dean, and over a score of people with him, were saved.
Too numerous are the escapes, natural and, in a sense, miraculous, for me  
to write of all that I have heard about, though many of them are so  
extraordinary that it is hard to resist putting them on record. But I will  
content myself with giving just one more here—that of my own brother—whose  
escape was hardly less noteworthy or miraculous than any.
My brother was studying in  Hebron . Having received a check from home, he  
was in  Jerusalem  on Friday, August 23, purchasing a suit. Late in the  
afternoon he took the auto that runs between Jerusalem and Hehron,  
intending to return in time to be in  Hebron  for the Sabbath.
The locality was in a hum of excitement. Many rumors were afloat—among them  
a rumor that trouble was brewing for the Jews in  Hebron . My brothers  
friends tried to dissuade him from returning to  Hebron . They begged him  
to stay over in Jerusalem for the Sabbath and if things remained quiet in   
Hebron  he could return to the Yeshivah on Sunday. But my brother, like the  
other American boys, was not afraid. He was confident that no harm would  
befall them. He insisted on returning for Shabbos to Hebron and, against  
the wise counsel of his friends, took the auto for  Hebron  and was soon on  
his way.
It happened that he was the only Jew on the auto. All the other passengers  
were Arabs. As soon as they were on the road, he began to feel most  
uncomfortable. The Arabs were whispering among themselves, and casting  
peculiar glances at him, and pointing to him when they thought he was not  
looking, and smiling in an unpleasant way. He began to feel that his  
friends in  Jerusalem  had been right.
What if indeed some horror was afoot? The Jews in  Hebron  were not  
ignorant of the danger. There was nothing his presence could contribute if  
trouble really came. And were not these snickering Arabs pointing to him as  
another customer riding carelessly into the jaws of death? He began to wish  
he had not started out. He wished he could go back. If only there were some  
way of withdrawing from this unfriendly company! Might they not attack him  
on some lonely part of the road? But what excuse could he offer for having  
the car stopped? And if he began to run, woud they not chase after him?
Suddenly a great gust of wind arose and carried his hat off a good way back  
on the road. He began to shout to the driver to stop—he must recover his  
valuable hat. The driver was in no hurry to hear him. He took his time at  
it, and slowly, very slowly, brought the car to a stop. In the meantime the  
car had gone on a considerable distance and the hat was far, far back. My  
brother alighted and loudly requested the driver to wait there with the bus  
until he got his hat. Was there not a malignant grin upon the drivers face  
as he promised that he would certainly wait for him?
My brother hastened along after his hat. What with the distance the car had  
gone, and the velocity of the wind, the hat had been left very far behind.  
When my brother got it, he was practically out of sight of the auto. Not  
stopping to dust it, he fixed the hat firmly upon his head and began to  
walk at a very rapid pace—back towards  Jerusalem —and let the automobile  
wait there for him.
And so it happened that the next morning, Saturday, August 24, the day of  
the massacre at Hebron, my brother was not there, but safe in  Jerusalem .  
Had it not been for that blessed gust of wind that carried his hat off, my  
brother would have been in  Hebron  together with Bennie Horowitz and  
William Berman, and the others—and who knows what might have been?
One of my friends, to whom I told of this miraculous escape, remarked that  
that was no ill wind which blew Friday afternoon on the road between Hebron  
and  Jerusalem. Indeed it was not an ill wind but a wind of Providence, of  
that same Providence Who has watched over the Jewish people and preserved  
it throughout the long night of the exile, Who watches over it still in the  
dawn, and will continue to do so through the bright new day that is  
speedily coming.

תהא נשמתם צרורות בצרור החיים
May their Souls Be Bound in the Bond of Life

  and may we follow the path that it was  not their lot to complete.





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