Insights and Inspiration
from the
Holy Land
from
from
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
"Your friend in Karmiel"
July 22nd 2016 -Volume 6, Issue 42
16th Tamuz 5776
Parshat Pinchas
(For my Diaspora readers that are a week behind us in the Torah
reading you can click on the following link for Parshat Balak
The "Noble" Peace Prize
Rav Moshe Feinstien was aghast. He couldn't
believe how his students misunderstood him; how they had read him so wrong. Did
they really say what he just thought he heard them say? They had come to him
about his most recent controversial ruling in the early 1950's in America . It
was after the war and too many of the recent refugees and immigrants to this
"Goldeneh Medina" had thrown off the traditions of their
ancestors. Whether it was out of fear of the anti-Semitism and persecution they
had just suffered or whether it was because the challenges of keeping Kosher,
refraining from work on Shabbos and providing Jewish education for their
children was too great, the future of this Chosen Nation was certainly not
something the new generation was willing to sacrifice anymore for. To make
matters worse there were new leaders that were advocating for the renunciation
of Halacha, which and spoke publicly from their pulpits about a new, more ‘Secular
Judaism’; one that was bereft of the God of our forefathers and the commitment
and dedication to the values that have kept us a nation for 3000 years. Perhaps
most tragic of all, Reb Moshe felt, many simple Jews were being drawn into
these movements under the enticing lure of being able to have your ‘tree’ and
traditional bar mitzvah too.
So Rav Moshe issued his ruling. It was
prohibited for any Rabbi, who held the values of tradition dear, to participate
in any religious event or community panel that legitimizes any strain of
Judaism that was not true to our Sinaitic tradition. Certainly he felt that to
publicly acknowledge "alternative" definitions about what the Jewish
faith had always been, as if anyone who chose to create a new stream of Judaism
should be legitimately recognized, would be a very grave mistake and would dilute
the message of a Torah True Judaism. But his students living in
communities where all religious institutions joined together and upholding
camaraderie with varying Jewish representatives was essential to maintaining an
image of a united Jewish front, felt differently. They approached their Rebbe
and explained their position.
"Rebbe," they said "We
don't like these people as much as you do. They are misguiding people and we
despise who they are and what they are doing. But to the public we have to show
that we are together and that we get along. Isn't that the way of peace?"
Rav Moshe looked at his students in shock,
disgust and total confusion. "What are you talking about?" he
said in a sad tearful voice "Despise them?!! Hate them?!!! They are
your brothers and sisters. How can you even speak that way? First you must love
them as much as I do. You must care for them as they are your flesh and blood.
But then to the rest of the world you must show that they are incorrect. That
their self-created ideologies don't represent the Torah Judaism that we have
cherished for so long, and that their path is not one that will lead to Jewish
continuity or re-birth rather it will bring apathy assimilation and the loss of
millions of Jews from the faith of our forefathers."
Would Rav Moshe's ruling have won him an award
for political corrected-ness Man of the Year? I don't think so. Were there many
that saw this decisive position for Traditional Judaism as being divisive and
non-pluralistic? Most certainly. Yet when the Torah and the Almighty gave out its
award for the Peace Prize this weeks Torah portion shares with us an equally
unlikely figure and position to be its recipient.
The portion begins with the Hashem granting
the special covenant of Peace and eternal priesthood to none other then Pinchas
the son of Elazar and grandson of the High Priest Aharon (the brother of
Moshe). In Hashem's speech to why He felt Pinchas was deserving of this special
award we are told;
He turned back my wrath from upon the
children of Israel when he zealously avenged my vengeance among them.
For those of you who missed the end of last week’s
Torah portion this incredible act of zealousness occurred when an individual,
the leader of the tribe of Shimon publicly consorted (to be polite in this G
rated E-mail) with a Midianite woman in front of Moshe the elders and the
Jewish people. Everyone was in shock. Perhaps after 40 years in the wilderness
even apathetic. Who are we to judge? What a man does in his own private life shouldn't
be a matter for the court. But not Pinchas- He loved Hashem and the Jewish
people too much to allow this flagrant desecration and the nations silence and
therefore acquiescence to take place. He picked up his spear and miraculously
put the act to an end (see G-rating above which precludes mention of the
shishka-bobbed sinner).
Would he be your first choice for the Man of
Peace? He was God's. Why? The answer is that the Torah reveals to us what true
peace is. It is not two people just "getting along", "ignoring
our differences", or "putting aside our conflicts" in
order to achieve a mutually desired goal of living in a non-combative way.
That's not peace; its survival, it's comfortable. Peace is achieving a unity of
individuals in its truest sense. It is a caring and love for one another, for
the greater community and the world that seeks to bring each person to that
place of total harmony with creation and its Creator. It is very easy to sit
back and let everyone do what they want to do. To live in one’s own personal
world and worry about yourself. But it's not the path of peace and love and not
the path of responsibility for mankind that Torah has charged this nation with.
We are not Pinchases, nor are we even Rav
Moshe's. I do not believe that there are many today that can act in a zealous
fashion for the love of God and the Jewish people and know in their heart that
their actions are motivated solely for that altruistic level of peace and love.
But it’s sad, it’s something we should mourn. It’s a question we should
challenge ourselves with each night before we go to sleep. What are we doing
for the world, for the Jewish people for our family and our fellow neighbor? If
we really care about them than what are we doing to make their lives better,
more fulfilled. Are we too scared to invite someone for a Shabbat meal, too
busy to call up someone and offer them encouragement or a kind word, too cut
off to even shoot them an e-mail (or forward them a really great dvar torah
that you know will inspire them ahem ahemJ).
This week begins the three week period of
mourning for the Destruction of our two Temples that culminates on the ninth of
Av. One of the primary reasons we are told the Temple was destroyed was because
of sinat chinam- baseless hatred. Pinchas teaches us that apathy can be the
worst form of hatred. It is in our hands to bring that era of the re-building
of the Temples back again. We can do it by caring enough about heralding in
that era of universal peace by actually doing something about it. By showing
that we care about one another enough to try draw them closer to us. Only then
will our Loving Father in Heaven reciprocate by spreading upon us that sukkat
shalom- the Temple of Peace for all time. May it be soon in our day.
Have a harmonious Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
***************************
RABBI SCHWARTZ COOL VIDEO CLIPS OF THE WEEK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARikT-8lKos
– Im Eshkocheich from Lev Tahor- my favorite version
that I suse for Kabalat Shabbos in preparation for the three weeks
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S
FAVORITE YIDDISH PROVERB OF THE WEEK
“Keyner veys nit vemen der shukh kvetsht, nor
der vos geyt in im.”-. No one knows whose shoe pinches except the person who walks in
it.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S JEWISH PERSONALITY AND HIS
QUOTES IN HONOR OF THE YARTZEIT OF THE WEEK
“We cannot
agree to the White Paper. Just as the prophets did before me, I hereby rip it
in two”
“Throw our enemies out lock
the place up and throw away the key,”-To David Shaltiel in 1948 on
the military objective for the Temple mount
“Tell
London my clear knowledge that there is no reason to fear, for a victory for
the Nazis in the middle East would mean a third destruction of Jewish
settlement in our holy land and our prophets only prophesized that there would
be two destructions. The third return will be eternal”- Ti
Lord Halifax urgin him to stay in the US rather than return to Palestine.
Rav Yitzhak
HaLevi Herzog 19th Tamuz this
Monday (1888-1959)-
Rabbi Herzog
was born in Łomża, Poland, the son of Liba Miriam (Cyrowicz) and Joel Leib
Herzog. He moved to the United Kingdom with his family in 1898, where they
settled in Leeds. His initial schooling was largely at the instruction of his
father who was a rabbi in Leeds and then later in Paris.
After
mastering Talmudic studies at a young age, Yitzhak went on to attend the
Sorbonne and then later the University of London, where he received his
doctorate. His thesis, which made him famous in the Jewish world, concerned his
claim of re-discovering Tekhelet, the type of blue dye once used for the making
of Tzitzit which was ultimately proven wrong.
Rabbi Herzog
served as rabbi of Belfast from 1916 to 1919 and was appointed rabbi of Dublin
in 1919. A fluent speaker of the Irish language, he supported the First Dáil
and the Irish republican cause during the Irish War of Independence, and became
known as “the Sinn Féin Rabbi”.
He went on to
serve as Chief Rabbi of Ireland between 1922 and 1936, when he immigrated to
Palestine to succeed Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook as Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi upon his
death.
He was unique,
different, out-of-the-box, apolitical, fearless in his views and decisions
while at the same time being humble, self-effacing and modest to the extreme in
his personal and private life.
Rabbi Herzog
was a linguist, having a grasp of a dozen languages including many ancient ones
such as Sumerian and Acadian as well as the classical Greek and Latin. He was a
biblical scholar of note, a Hebrew grammarian and a scholar of Talmud, rabbinic
writings and halachic decisions, of enormous proportions. His memory and
genius were of a prodigious nature.
He also
explored the sciences such as zoology, botany, astronomy, physics and chemistry
with diligence and perspective. But his main passion, intellectual, emotional
and commitment wise, was Torah in all of its variety and ramifications. His
many volumes of response as well as his opinions on halachic issues and cases
brought before the High Court of the Chief Rabbinate here in Israel during his
years as its head judge and Chief Rabbi are a treasure trove of Torah
erudition, hard-headed logic and a practical and yet compassionate worldview of
life, people and Jewish society.
Worldlier
than his predecessor Rav Kook, Rav Herzog was the Chief Rabbi during one of the
most turbulent and decisive times in Jewish history - from 1936 to 1959. He saw
the Jewish world destroyed and rebuilt during his tenure in office. He never
flinched or faltered in front of the pressures exerted upon him by the
non-Jewish world generally, the Catholic Church particularly, the then avowedly
and militantly secular Zionist leadership of the emerging state, the violent
zealots of Jerusalem who opposed him without truly knowing him, the British
rulers of the country and the complexities of being the Chief Rabbi for
hundreds of rabbis of different personalities, ideologies and ambitions. His
gentle personal nature belied his iron determination and stubborn love for
Torah and the Jewish people.
In May
1939, shortly before the Second World War, the British put out the White Paper
of 1939 restricting Jewish immigration to Palestine. After leading a procession
through the streets of Jerusalem, with an unusually united Jewish following
from all sects, on the steps of the Hurva Synagogue and ripped it in two.
Some 40 years
later, on 10 November 1975 Ambassador Herzog, his son, repeated his father’s
gesture with the UN resolution that Zionism is equal to racism.
During the
Second World War, Rabbi Herzog travelled with great risk to the US, and back,
not before he was able to secure a meeting with Roosevelt. Roosevelt smiled and
did not reply to the Rabbi’s pleadings for a promise to help the Jews of
Europe. His biographer records that several people noticed that his hair turned
white when he left the meeting, which he perceived as a failure.
Following
this, he immediately returned home, missing the ride on a ship that was sunk by
a U-boat, and taking what was said to be the last civilian ship to cross the
Atlantic during the war.
After the
war, Rabbi Herzog dedicated himself to saving Jewish children especially babies
and bringing them back from their places of hiding throughout all of Europe, to
their families or to Jewish orphanages. Many of these were hidden in Christian
monasteries or by Christian families, and refused to return them.
In his
biography, he tells of the difficulties he had of meeting the Pope who avoided
him, but did receive in the end assistance from the Vatican. In later years it
was found that Karol Wojtyła, future Pope John Paul II, was the contact who helped
the rabbi out.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM QUESTION OF
THE WEEK
answer below at end of Email
The aim
of “Mivtza Yiftach” (Operation Yiftach) was to free the:
A. Gilad
A. Gilad
B.
Eastern Upper Galilee
C. Eastern shores of Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee)
D. Western Lower Galilee
C. Eastern shores of Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee)
D. Western Lower Galilee
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S COOL RASHI OF THE WEEK
Generally Rashi in his commentary quotes sources;
Midrash, Talmud, his teachers. Not always does he say where he is quoting from
because that is not his role. He is coming ot explain the simple pshat of the text.
Yet occasionaly we get an insight into Rashi’s chiddush- his own thought. When
that happens and he lets you know that it is his idea, then it is certainly
worthwhile taking a second look.
In this week’s Torah portion we have such an example
on a seemingly innocuous verse. It says in th list of the children and families
of Israel. That the children of Gad were
Bamidbar (26:16) Azni to the family of Azni-
Rashi there makes a fascinatingly humble comment.
“I say that this is the family of Etzbon and I
don’t know why they are not called after their family name.”
How many people could write that? I don’t
know. As simple as that. He could’ve avoided explaining this verse and the can
of worms by just skipping the text. But he doesn’t he shares with you his interpretation
and leaves the question hanging. Perhaps he learned from Moshe who in this
weeks verse as well tells the daughters of Tzelafchad he doesn’t know the law
and turns it to Hashem.
The Shela Hakadosh suggests that Rashi’s
rationale perhaps between Etzbon and Azni. Is that Azni is from the word ozen-
ear. Etzbon on the other hand is from the word etzba- finger. The Talmud
tells us that the finger were created long and thin in order that if one hears lashon
harah or inappropriate talk he can place his fingers in their ears.
Thus Rashi notes the similarities between the
names and their Talmudic connection and suggests that they are one and the
same.
Yet just the mere fact that we see the
humility of this great man is in itself perhaps the greatest lesson that is
worthwhile cleaning out our ears and hearing once again. I don’t know….
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S COOL HISTORICAL EVENT THAT
HAPPENED ON THIS DATE IN ISRAEL OF THE WEEK-
Crusader capture of
Jerusalem- 17th-
22nd Tamuz July 15th 1099- 917 years ago, one of the most heinous and barbarous war
crimes in the long bloody history of the human race occurred on the soil of
perhaps the most contested place on planet Earth: Jerusalem. After a siege of a
little more than a month, European knights of the First Crusade forced the
Muslim Fatimid governor of Jerusalem, Iftikhar al-Dawla, to yield the
city. When the Crusaders entered their holy city on that blazing afternoon, the
bloodbath that resulted still has the capacity to shock the world today, even
against the backdrop of the horrific brutality of the Middle Ages that makes our
own nuclear era look like a paragon of peace. The Christian crusaders proceeded
to slaughter thousands of Jews and Muslims within the walls of Jerusalem
in cold blood, possibly killing as many as 10,000 innocent people.
The story of the First
Crusade is an extremely long and involved one, as you might expect from so
complex a topic in medieval history. The idea of a coalition of Western
European knights, with papal blessing, carrying out a military expedition
against the Muslim world was originally hatched by the Byzantine Emperor
Alexius Comnenus, who appealed to Rome for European military help against the
Seljuk Turks who had recently delivered a terrible blow against the Byzantines
at the Battle of Manzikert. Pope Urban II, however, decided to think bigger,
and suggested instead that Christian knights should set their sights on
Jerusalem, the holy city that had been held by Muslims since 614 C.E.
Essentially, it was a war of religious conquest by a coalition of French,
German, English and Italian nobility, held together more by convenience and
religious ideology than by nationalism, seeking to encompass a crucial part of
the Middle East into the Christian, rather than Islamic, world.
Nearly four years after
the Crusade was called in 1095 the armies of Raymond of Toulouse, Godfrey of
Bouillon and several other knights drew up against the walls of Jerusalem,
after a long series of battles and massacres across europes where they wiped
out the Jewish communities with the promise of atonement when they would reach
and liberate Jerusalem. The Crusaders believing this was divine mandate thought
to conquer the city as Joshua had and circled it seven times and blew Shofars.
Surprise! It didn’t work. Al-Dawla, anticipating the siege, had already
expelled the 5,000 civilian Christians from the city before the siege began and
poisoned wells in the area to deprive the Crusaders of water. Indeed, the siege
was initially harder on the Europeans than it was on the Muslim and Jewish
defenders of Jerusalem. In sweltering desert heat with limited food and
dwindling water, it didn’t seem that the Crusaders could hold out for long.
However, two Genoese ships arrived at Jaffa just in time, bringing fresh
supplies. More important were the ships themselves. The Crusaders dismantled
them and used the wood to build siege towers. On the evening of July 14, 1099,
they sent them against the thick stone walls of Jerusalem.
When Flemish knights
crossed over the walls into the city and Muslim and Jewish resistance began to
flag, the end was in sight. Each group–Muslims and Jews–retreated to their holy
shrines within Jerusalem to wait for expected death. They didn’t have long to
wait. Rampaging Crusaders tore through the streets, slashing, spearing and
bludgeoning warriors and civilians alike. A terrible slaughter of Muslims
occurred inside the Dome of the Rock mosque, spilling blood across the floor
and walls. Traditional histories of the siege speak of thousands of Jews being
barricaded inside their synagogue, which Frankish knights then set on fire. This
massacre was completely senseless. With the city in Crusader hands there was no
military need to kill all the defenders who’d already surrendered, much less
civilians. Religious fervor and the desire to loot, pillage and kill drove the
Crusaders to commit this horrifying war crime.
When the dust settled
and the bodies stopped moving, ironically the Crusaders had some trouble
finding one of their commanders who wanted to be King of Jerusalem. Raymond
refused the dubious honor. Godfrey of Bouillon agreed to become the secular
political leader of Jerusalem, but refused the title “King,” claiming that only
their “saviour’ could be a king in Jerusalem. He lived barely a year, dying in
1100 and was succeeded by his brother, Baldwin of Boulogne, who became King
Baldwin I of Jerusalem. Jerusalem itself remained in Christian hands until
surrendered in another siege in October 1187, where French knight Bailan of
Ibelin yielded the city to the Sultan Saladin.
It’s hard to know
exactly how many people died in the Jerusalem massacre of 1099. Casualty counts
from medieval battles and massacres are almost always grossly inflated in
surviving sources, but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that 10,000
people died. As we begin to mourn the Roman capture of Jerusalem and massacre
of Tish b’Av this week as we enter the three week period it behooves us to
remember as well the destruction of
Jerusalem a little over a millennia later once again by the Christian descendants
of that Roman empire. May all our enemies be wiped out and may hashem avenge
the death of our people returning once again the city of Yerushalayim to the
city of peace it was meant to be.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S NOBEL PRIZE JOKES OF THE WEEK
The man who made knock knock
Jokes should get the no-bell prize
A man is driving down a
country road, when he spots a farmer standing in the middle of a huge field of
grass. He pulls the car over to the side of the road and notices that the
farmer is just standing there, doing nothing, looking at nothing.
The man gets out of the car, walks all the way out to the farmer and asks him, "Ah excuse me mister, but what are you doing?"
The farmer replies, "I'm trying to win a Nobel Prize."
"How?" asks the man, puzzled.
"Well, I heard they give the Nobel Prize . . . to people who are out standing in their field."
The man gets out of the car, walks all the way out to the farmer and asks him, "Ah excuse me mister, but what are you doing?"
The farmer replies, "I'm trying to win a Nobel Prize."
"How?" asks the man, puzzled.
"Well, I heard they give the Nobel Prize . . . to people who are out standing in their field."
An unidentified person nominated Donald Trump
or Hilary Clinton- insert your candidate of choice. for the Nobel Peace Prize.
I was not aware you could nominate yourself.
**************
Answer is B – I got this wrong. I was never good at remembering the
names of each and every battle. There were sadly too many of them. Now most of
them you can figure out by their names. Kades, from last week was down south,
Hiram near Lebanon where the biblical Hiram was king. Yiftach I assumed was
near Gilad which is across from Beit Shean which is today in Jordan so knew it
wasn’t that, so I thought it might be the lower Kineret not far from there. The
truth is though the name Yiftach is really an acronym for the General who led
the battle of cleaning out the upper Galile including Rosh Pina and Tzfat in
1948. His name was Yigal Allon or as he was born Yigal Feikiovitz thus the Yud
Feh of Yiftach the ta”ch is Tel Chai. So there you go. Now remember
it… or not.
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