As is the common custom nowadays of naming babies after relatives or great people who have died, a number of babies have already been named after Rav Michel Yehudah Lefkowitz who was buried just yesterday.

Yesterday morning an interesting shailoh was asked of Rav Chaim Kanievsky by a father who was going to be having a bris for his baby boy and naming him a little bit later on in the morning.

The father went to Rav Chaim Kanievsky after davening and asked if it is ok to name the baby "Michel Yehudah", considering he already has a daughter named "Michal"? Is it the same name or different?

Rav Kanievsky responded that there is no problem with it, and he can name the baby Michel Yehudah, as the names Michel and Michal are different names. (source: Bechadrei)

My son came back a little while ago from the levaya of Rav Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz zt"l in Bnei Braq. His yeshiva, like many yeshivas, got a bus and took the boys to the levaya to show respect to one of the great roshei yeshiva of our generation and escort him to burial.

My son told me about the sheer masses of people, the number of buses from different yeshivas, who came to pay their respects.

However, I like the more human touches to such events, rather than just the bland, albeit impressive, reports of what happened. Interestingly, my son told me that only his two sons eulogized him, as per his wishes, and then only briefly with minimal praise.

Another interesting point he said is that according to his wishes, the only people allowed to be pallbearers, to help carry the body, were men over the age of 30, and they had to have gone to the mikve before the funeral. He told me that his friend was near the body at some point as it was being carried. The friend saw someone let go of the meeta, the stretcher upon which the body rests, so he maneuvered his way in to grab hold and have the  zchus of helping carry the rosh yeshivas body. As soon as he got hold of it, people started screaming, hitting and pushing him away, as his grabbing hold was against the wishes of the rosh yeshiva. he immediately let go as he was pushed aside.

Picture of The Day

a view of the crowd at Rav Lefkowitz's funeral today in Bnei Braq

It seems the desire to play God's accountant and "know" the reasons behind different "natural" occurrences and disasters, is not unique to the jews, specifically the frum community, even though it sometimes seems like that.

Shortly after the disastrous earthquake and tsunami ripped through Japan wreaking horrible devastation, people were looking for why Japan deserved such a punishment. The most common of the reasons given that I saw is that it was payback for Japans attack on Pearl Harbor. To me it seems like a major stretch to come to Pearl Harbor and is totally illogical. Why should that be what they get punished for 60 years later in an event totally unrelated to the United States? And that after you can say they already received their punishment in their loss of WWII and the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If you want to be God's accountant, at least find a more relevant and likely suggestion. If you cant find anything bad a country did and have to look back 60 years, the country must be pretty good!

So, it is not just frum Jews who try to play God's accountant.

One thing good about the attempt to be the bean counter is that it means people are trying to find meaning in the disaster, and apply it to real life behavior. That is what we are supposed to do, except we are supposed to look to learn lessons for our own behavior, and not look to find ways to blame and accuse other people.

To that end, Rav Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz told a group of rosh yeshivas that regarding the earthquake and tsunami in Japan that as of right now Hashem is doing chessed with us and is only harming the non-Jews. He quoted the passuk in Tzefanya that says "Look to Me and learn a lesson" and explained that Hashem first pays the non-Jews for their actions, and expects that via that the Jews will "wake up" before he has to pay us for our actions. This is a warning "hit", like a father who hits his son to educate him.

Rav Lefkowitz added regarding the murder of the Fogel family in Itamar, that if we dont seek out what Hashem wants from us, we will keep getting hit until we do complete teshuva. (source: Kikar)
This is the way to be God's accountant - to discuss what we have to do to improve, each individual for himself, or each community. Not to say what other people do wrong and how they should improve. We should learn the lessons and improve!