Message from R’ Schonfeld: R’ Yoel Schonfeld

Many years ago, in my early days in the rabbinate, in a community called Twin Rivers, New Jersey, we ran into some troubling adversity.

As you will likely recall, about a month ago, I wrote an article about my “moving experience,” whereby I described being scammed by movers, nearly resulting in the loss of my belongings. I did manage to stop the movers in time, but it cost me significant cash out of pocket for them to offload the truck back into my house.

The parshah we just read, Toldos, is undoubtedly one of the most enigmatic in the Torah. We are told of Rivkah favoring Yaakov, while Yitzchak favored Eisav due to “his game that was in his mouth” (B’reishis 25:28). Subsequently, we are told of the highly unusual story of Rivkah advising Yaakov to dress up in goat’s skin in an effort to parade as Eisav and usurp Eisav’s brachah from the unsuspecting Yitzchak.

Do any of you remember the screaming headline of the New York Post in August of 1991: “Dave, Do Something!”? That was in response to the inaction of then-Mayor David Dinkins to the riots in Crown Heights. Young Gavin Cato was accidentally killed by a driver for the Lubavitcher Rebbe and a riot by African Americans followed in the neighborhood for three days, resulting in the murder of the totally innocent bystander, Yankel Rosenbaum. Dinkins’ response? Nothing. Let them vent. Ultimately, that surfaced as an election issue in the mayoralty race, which propelled Rudy Giuliani to office.

I returned a couple of days ago from a magnificent twelve-day trip to Eretz Yisrael. I had not been to my father’s kever since his passing as Covid interfered at each attempt. My wife had also not been to her mother’s kever in Beit Shemesh since the last time we were in Israel about five years ago.

I will not blame you if you disagree with the premise of this article. I’m not even sure I agree with it myself.