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Rabbi Yehuda {Leonard} Blank MS, BCC
Vice President of Professional Development and External Affairs
Chair of the Chaplaincy Commission
Rabbinical Alliance of America/Igud HaRabbonim
917-446-2126 rablenblank@gmail.com
= October 23, 2025, 1, Cheshvan 5786 =
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Four major events coming up, the conference with three major well known presenters to being held October 27th at Touro University in Brooklyn, NY ( if you have not seen the flyer take a look below) two afrufs (I will explain) and my forthcoming wedding November 2nd in Baltimore, MD.. Regarding the afrufs, I will be called up to the Torah, Parshas Noach at the Bialystoker Synagogue on the Lower East Side of NYC and the following week, Parshas Lech Lecha, in Baltimore, MD at Kol Torah on the Shabbos before my wedding. There are many I would love to invite to the wedding but it will be with a small attendance perhaps we could say more intimate in size. The chupah will be held in the well known Benei Jacob Sharei Zion Synagogue, whose former Rav was Rabbi Moshe Hauer zt”l and whose present Rav is Rabbi Daniel Rose. The dinner will be held in a local restaurant.
In many of my previous articles I wrote about the challenges of a husband with a wife who was diagnosed with a life threatening illness. I wrote about the work I was doing, our relationship with each other, our wonderful children but most of all of our close relationship with the Ribono shel Olam with tremendous hope, emunah and betachon in H. With the permission of my late wife Keila Lutza bas Shalom Hakohen, a”h, I shared many appropriate things so that my readership could see another perspective of how I as a husband and father and she as a wife and mother were dealing with life up to and including the progression of her illness and finally her death. Of course there were pages of sharing with my readership through the many months including what life was like for me after her death. All of our children and family were very supportive. All of our dear friends were very supportive and I shared how life can continue in many positive ways. Life does go on. One week before my late wife was nifter, she gave me permission to remarry. I have been asked why did she feel she needed to give me permission to remarry? My response was she knew I might never want to remarry another woman especially because of our relationship with each other. I received many accolades for what I wrote about our relationship and my own trials and tribulations during her illness and after her death. Many things I wrote about were eye openers to others of many backgrounds of Judaism. I wrote as I still do about Kiddush H, emunah, betachon and many related topics. All in a positive way for all of us to be. I wrote about the difference between loneliness and emptiness and how we can be the masters of our own lives making the best of it. We can find opportunities to ask H for forgiveness, for doing teshuva, for saying our bakashos and to follow in His ways. I would be remiss if I did not credit the tremendous chizuk and support from my Rebbe, Rav Dovid Feinstein ztk”l who I learned much about being a devout Jew, loving H and to always show tremendous kindness and most of all to love H and to know how much love H has for all of us. He was also a wonderful role model as a husband to his Rebbetzin. Five years have past and H has blessed me with a new Eishis Chayi, Devorah Nathan. In His infinite wisdom brought us together from totally different states a shidduch made in heaven, and in less than two weeks we will be celebrating the simcha of our wedding. We will build a Bayis Ne eman B’Yisrael, a home filled with kindness, goodness and a Torah way of life, following in the ways of Avraham Avinu and Sarah Imeinu.
Through the Yamim Noraim, the Aseres Yemei Teshuva and Hoshanah Rabba are over, being able to do teshuva, beseeching the Ribono shel Olam with our bakashos, or tefilos, our Tehillim, our relationship with H is always available. For all of us who minister to either our congregants, patients and others, we must always be a source of encouragement, a source of chizuk, a source of hope filled with constant opportunities to feel forgiven, to feel and have a positive outlook in life, to know that H loves us and only wants the best for us. We must be empathetic and supportive, never giving up hope. When a person is going through challenging times, there is always some type of hope that can help get a person through difficult and challenging times. I always mention this, that it truly is important to encourage a person when necessary and appropriate to seek medical care and not to hope certain concerns will just go away and to seek the help of a mental health professional who can very possibly alleviate many difficult challenges.
The following “Bechira Chofshis” was printed in the Jewish Vues Issue September 26-October 2, 2025, Page 34, by Rav Hershel Schacter, Rosh Yeshiva, and Rosh Kollel, YU RIETS, and also the Posek for the OU’s Kashruth Division.
“The Gemara (Pesachim 54a) tells us that the ability of man to do teshuva was one of the seven things that H instituted before He created the world. The whole purpose of the entire creation was to create man to serve Him. Man’s service only has meaning if man has bechira chofshis, so man had to be created with the ability to choose sin.
This is assumed to be the meaning of the passuk that says man that was created “b’tzlem Elokim”- he was created with total freedom of choice. Just as there is nothing forcing G to choose one thing or another, so too man is completely free his decision making.
The Torah (Breishis 2:7) tells us that H took sand from “Ha adama- the earth” to form man. Rashi in his commentary quotes the understanding of the medrash that the word “adama” is an allusion to the earth of the altar in the Beis Hamikdash. Man has built into his being the ability to do teshuva. Freedom to choose which path to proceed on is essential to the make-up of man. Even after having made his initial choice (for the good or the bad), and choose a totally different route.
In the weekday shemoneh esrei the first request we make in the middle section (containing all of our bakashos) is for intelligence and wisdom, i.e. that we should be able to function as normal human beings. What distinguishes the humans form the animals is our sechel. The very next request in the shemoneh esrei is that we should be able to exercise our ability to do teshuva. This too is integral to the human condition. All people are prone to sin, but H built into all of us the ability to do teshuva.
The medrash (Breishis Rabb 3-9) says that H originally created other worlds and destroyed them, until He finally created this world that we are familiar with. Certainly if H had willed a beautiful and wonderful world in the first place, that would have come about, so why did He initially will several imperfect worlds into existence just to destroy them and then start all over again? Apparently H wanted to teach man the lesson of “starting all over” (see Nefesh Harav page 68).
Some have the attitude that by sinning and going against the wishes of H they are exercising their bechirah chofshis to the greatest degree! From a perverted perspective this is certainly correct. But also included in the concept of tzelem Elokim is using this power of bechira for a creative, positive, and productive purpose.
H chose freely to create an entire universe, so we should emulate His ways by using our bechira chofshis for positive purposes – “u” bacharta ba’ ba’chaim (Devarim 30:19) – to choose to go b’derech H. Even after having already made and improper choice, we must use our bechira chofshis to scrap “our world” and “start all over again, just as He did.”
From : Living Emunah on Yamim Noraim. Gaining faith from the Days of Awe. By: Rabbi David Ashear. Artscroll, Mesorah Publications . Page 17-18. Introduction. “H gave us the wonderous days of Yamim Noraim, during which there is an outpouring of love and compassion from Him. He wants us to succeed. He wants to forgive us. He wants us to grow spiritually. We must take the first step and say “H, I want to come back to you.”
These days are prefaced with the month of Elul. Our rabbis (Abudraham, Tefilos Rosh Hashanah) have taught us that the word Elul, stands for Ani ledodi vedodi vedodie li. A pasuk in Shir HaShirim (6:3). It means”I am to my Beloved and my Beloved is to me,” describing our relationship with H. However, Rabbi Ephraim Wachsman asked: Doesn’t there seemed to be a word missing here? What am I to my Beloved? Shouldn’t it say, I’m dedicated to my Beloved” or I’m a slave to my Beloved” or “I love my Beloved because The rabbi explains that Ani Lidodi, means: Everything that I am, my entire existence, is to my Beloved. There cannot be a word between Ani, I and ledodi, to my Beloved because that would imply that I have my own existence and I’m giving something of my own to H. All of me is to H is my talents, my abilities, that I of me is to H-. Everything that I am, my entire existence, is to my Beloved because that would imply that I have my own existence and I’m giving something of my own to H. All of me is to H -my talents my abilities, my everything.
This is how we are supposed to live our lives, using all our strengths in the talents the service in the service of H. How do we do that? The pasuk continues, Ve dodi, my Beloved is to me, which means, H , with all that He is, encompassing the billions of galaxies and upper and worlds ( and we only know a tiny of His fraction of His greatness) all of Him, the Ani ledodi is Li, is also dodi li . It’s given back to us. All our spiritual accomplishments and service of Him benefit us for all of eternity.”
My blessings to my readership.
May you have good health, simchas hachaim (much happiness) a life filled with goodness, kindness, emunah and betachan and to be successful in all of your positive and meaningful endeavors.
Sincerely, Rabbi Yehuda Blank