TheYeshiva.net - Torah Or Vayishlach - Integrating the Polar Energies of Esau and Jacob

I remember as a child i grew up on Crown Street and Crown Heights to join Schenectady I had a neighbor that NIV lived near the corner it was an elderly man Dudley gentleman and two adult sons inc alcasid him which is the Sholan Carolyn Schenectady the father would dabble with one of his sons every single morning the other son never appeared in Sheol never exchanged the wood with anybody I remember very distinctly that he would make a point of washing his car every shabbos and yom tov Anyim gibbet right in front of his house on Crown Street at the time I didn't understand it well as it turned out this was an act of defiance he was trying to upset us by deliberately being mahalo shabbos on our presence and as a child I just didn't relate to him I guess that's a fault of mine as a fellow Jew who was somehow frustrated or angry and he felt a need to get negative attention but my father told me that his father told my father an incredible story that this boy who made a point of washing his car every shabbos and yom tov in Yom Kippur the presence of many from a hidden was a mala he belonged to a group of Hasidim lived here in America in the early 30s and late 20s who I guess could be defined as fanatics that's what that's how they perceive themselves that's how they perceived by others in those days you know the America of the late 20s early 30s was very proper and very conformist and very conservative they walked around with long dishevelled beards and long not properly kempt dress and this young boy with a member of this group Malaka who could blame them they wear Jews being led by a casa de Shaheed who actually had LaBarbera roots who created in America what could be called a group of Yiddish extremists and this is a story the free decayed up has spent that tisha day toughest sadak 1929 in Crown Heights and he rented himself an apartment and he had a large sucker beside the apartment and this young Barker this mala came to see the video to get ever the sub was full of people scores of people they'd be hundreds of people in the sukkah and a flea de que debe spotted him and he called him over a young boy amala that grace aboard nab a yarmulke and the whole works and he asked him father's Gaston ishment can't I why aren't you wearing a necktie so we told her that what do you mean it's gosh Mia sand it's my sis it's materialism it's unnecessary its indulgence he's a rebel he's a defiant Jew and they're ever raised his beard that cook EF game at that thai that I beside him look I 2 i'm wearing a tie fast-forward to type 50 years this boy had no shot has neither skate at all it's a painful story but it makes a point and the point is that extreme is not always good in fact frequently extremes end this way they defeat themselves they burn themselves out there is an old Hasidic expression which at least at the moment I'm not going to give you the whole story i'm simply going to tell you the point there was a an old Hasidic expression that said calacas nish can't talk talak is a symbol of a group of sedum who took very very extreme form to their casitas and it brought about all kinds of not good ends and I see them used to say tell a Candis Cayne told it it's not appropriate it's not orderly and not constructive and not healthy and a good analytische guide to be a radical to be an extremist it doesn't mean there's no room for Mercedes nefesh for martyrdom but extremism as a philosophies on Jewish