Insights and Inspiration
from the
Holy Land
from
from
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
"Your friend in Karmiel"
September 20h 2019 -Volume 9 Issue 50 20th of
Elul 5779
Parshat Ki Tavo
Am Ha’Bechirot- The Nation of Choices
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m all for elections. I think having a day off every few months to exert your civil duty of voting for someone that you don’t really like or approve of, but that have been diligently campaigning for and spending endless hours discussing is a good exercise in the futility of our situation here in galus Eretz Yisrael. It serves a few very important purposes. First of all, it gives bored yeshiva guys and secular bored Tel Aviv college students or drop outs something to occupy their time with. It’s like what one of my Rebbeim used to tell me about the function of professional football; to keep 7 foot scary looking hooligans off the street. I wouldn’t call Jews of any type hooligans, but they do have a tendency to stop traffic for demonstrations and scream a lot. So this way it would keep them off the streets.
Second of all it provides income to all of those sign-makers and poster makers. That’s not even to mention all of those Kollel wives who make an extra few bucks working for the polling and election committee overseeing and counting ballots. They pay well and it’s a good side income. Best of all though is that Reb Chaim Kanievsky gets to see the country a bit as they shlep him around the country on the campaign trail. It’s good for him to get a bit of fresh air. I wonder if he would be interested in a tour guide one of these elections…
I think perhaps the most ironic thing about these elections though, is the word in Hebrew that was chosen (maybe by Ben Yehuda) or created to call them by; Bechirot. See in the Torah there are no elections, as far as I am aware. It wasn’t really a democratic system back then in biblical times and even in Talmudic times. Either the mighty ruled, or the holy, appointed by God ruled. If you weren’t Jewish, the one that could fool the masses the most, that they were either holy, mighty or appointed by God ruled. So elections are a modern day type of phenomena. And the word selected upon creating the modern Hebrew language –or Ivrit, Bechirot means choices. We’re described in the Torah as an am ha’nivchar- a chosen nation. I think somebody must have thought that would mean that we were a people that were capable of choices. But perhaps as of late and for the near future we should be called the am ha’bechirot- the nation of choices or elections. The irony of course of all of this is that there really are no good choices. It sometimes feels like you’re in the inquisition dungeon and they ask you so what is your preferred method of going. Waterboarding, cat of 9 tails, or the good old thumbscrew and rack. That’s our bechirot… wonderful. Thank God for Democracy.
It’s interesting that there is another word that is used to describe the Jewish people that is phonetically similar to am hanivchar-the chosen nation. And that is that we are also called the bechor- the first born of Hashem. In fact, back in Mitzrayim Hashem tells Moshe to tell Pharaoh that we were chosen because we are considered His first-born. But the what does that even mean that we are the first-born? Aren’t we all, Jew and non-jew descended together from Adam and Eve. What does the term first-born of Hashem mean?
The Meshech Chochma has an incredible insight where he explains that the reason the first-born gets a double portion is because he is the one that makes the father into a father. So he takes his portion and his father’s portion as it is only because of him that his father achieves his new status in life. In the same way the Jewish people are the first-born of Hashem. We made him into our Father. We revealed him to the world as such. Anu Banecha V’Ata Avinu- We are your children and You are our Father. Until we came around Hashem was at best recognized as the Creator of the world, if even that by the idolatrous and pagan nations. We revealed Hashem as the father of the world. He has a personal, ongoing, caring connection with each of His creations. It is why we are His bechor. It is why we are his am hanivchar. It’s what we were selected and elected to do.
This week’s Torah portion begins with the fascinating related mitzva as well. It’s not a first-born mitzva rather it’s a first-fruit mitzva. The parsha is called Ki Tavo as it begins with the words
Devarim (26:1) V’Haya Ki Tavo- and it will be when you come to the land which Hashem your God gives to you as an inheritance and you will possess it and settle it.
It continues with the mitzva to bring the first fruits that grow each year to the place Hashem has chosen and one makes a declaration before the Kohen that recalls our history of Hashem taking us out of Egypt and bringing us to this land of milk and honey. Reb Shlomo Gantzfried notes that in most places the Torah describes our coming to Israel as V’haya ki yi’viyacha- It will be when I bring you to Israel. Over here, it specifically describes our coming as Ki Tavo- when we come. He suggests that the reason for this is to give us a hint as to the reason behind this mitzva. This mitzva of the first-fruit is when we come to Israel and we think we came on our own. We don’t see the ki yi’viyacha- that Hashem is the one who brought and is bringing us to Eretz Yisrael.
When that happens, that means we forget that we are his bechor. We forgot that our job was to come here and to declare His name, that He is our Father to the world. We viewed our coming to Israel as settlers, as pioneers, as Zionists, as Olim. We came. Hava Nag(r)eela. We came and we planted. We feel pretty good when those first fruits sprouted. The land is flourishing. We were no longer yeshiva bachurim sitting by the feet of Moshe learning Torah all day. Those first fruits made us into farmers. We could make things grow. We can’t wait to taste those first grapes, those first pomegranates. To put our first man on the moon.
And then the Torah reminds us to go with those very fruits up to the place Hashem has chosen. He chose it, just like He chose us. Remember back there in Egypt… Remember how bitter it was, how we felt we were just numbers tattooed on our arms. Remember when no one else wanted to look at us. No one wanted to blow up those train tracks carrying our people to those camps. Remember those words we say each Pesach Seder from these verses and that we are obligated to remember a few times a day; in the shema, in our mezuzos that we kiss, on the tefillin we wear and on the Kiddush we make. How Hashem took us out. Took me out. Took his First Born out of there. How He brought us here. How he is the only King we really need. Those first fruits are our reminder. They refocus on the only bechira we really ever have. U’bacharta bachayim- We should choose life. We should choose a Father over a politician. We should be the first-borns that accomplish what He brought us here to this land to do.
Hashem works in funny ways. The last elections were Purim time. It was a time when we remember the persecution and almost genocide we suffer from our enemies while we were in the land that was not chosen by Hashem for us and that we were wayyyy too comfortable in. Purim celebrated Hashem us finding Hashem in the hiddenness. We voted this past year at that time for candidates. But Hashem said those are invalid elections. Let’s try this again. It’s Elul, the King is in the field. He’s not hidden anymore. We voted again and this time as well… He’s not letting anyone else step in His shoes. Sit on His throne. It’s good there’s no one else that we should to turn to before Rosh Hashana. There is only one person that will actually bring a real-not just a political-Unity government to the holy land. He doesn’t ride in limos. He doesn’t have big signs and fancy slogans or facebook pages or twitter groups. He’s coming on a donkey with a shofar. Is everybody ready to finally write in Mashiach Ben Dovid on their next ballots?
Have a royally redemptive Shabbos,
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
*******************************************
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S
FAVORITE YIDDISH PROVERB OF THE WEEK
“A nayer meylekh mit naye gzeyres, a nay
yor mit naye aveyres.”- A new king with new decrees, a new year with
new misdeeds..
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S COOL VIDEO OF THE WEEK
https://soundcloud.com/ephraim-schwartz/lulay-heamanti-kavey
– (My newest composition!)You have not experienced the
essence of Elul until you hear this incredible, beautiful, magnificent brand
new composition hot from the studio of mine Lulay He’amanti- Kavey El Hashem
from the l’Dovid you recite daily in this season. Listen like share… Its
truly one of my nicest compsotions. Thank You Dovid Lowy for your arrangements
and incredible hartzig voice!
https://youtu.be/MfyPLR71fWk
–
Beautiful song by Bentzion Klatzko Avi- my father. I love the words and tune..
https://youtu.be/ECy3CMxShIQ -Yishai Ribo singing an incredible new
song Seder Ha’Avoda the service and feelings of Kohein on Yom Kippur…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3JR-j3gR8whttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3JR-j3gR8w
– Incredible story of
Reb AL Shteiman on boyfriend girlfriend relationships. Powerful insightful,
holy and totally unconventional…Must watch…
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM QUESTION OF
THE WEEK
answer below at end of Email
Q The
“Theodotus inscription” is related to:
A) Prohibition to enter the Temple Mount
B) A synagogue from the Second Temple period
C) Robinson’s Arch
D) The New Church of the Theotokos (The Nea)
A) Prohibition to enter the Temple Mount
B) A synagogue from the Second Temple period
C) Robinson’s Arch
D) The New Church of the Theotokos (The Nea)
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S “LOMDUS” CONNECTION OF THE
WEEK
Parshat Ki
Tavo– OK This week we’re going all out with a real lomdisheh
piece. It has all the necessary components and puts together all of the tools
we have spoken about until now. It’s a diyuk in rashi, it’s halacha,
its understanding in a mitzva and its two denim- the breaking down of a concept
to its core components and dividing the laws and applying them appropriately.
Are you excited? Here we go.
So this
week we have the mitzva of Bikkurim- the bringing of new fruits to Yerushalayim
to the Kohen there. What fruits are part of this mitzva. Is it all new fruits?
So let’s read the pasuk and accompanying Rashi.
Devarim (26:2) You shall
take from the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you will bring from
your land, which the Lord, your God, is giving you.
So the
verse doesn’t tell us to take “the” first of all, rather it says “from” the
first of all, which Rashi tells us teaches us that not all fruits are required
to be brought for Bikkurim.
Rashi (ibid) of the
first: but not all the first, because not all fruits are subject to
[the mitzvah of] “first fruits”-only the seven species [for
which the land of Israel is noted]. Here, in our verse, it says the word
“land,” and there [in the verse describing the praise of Eretz Israel], it
says, “A land of wheat and barley, vines and figs and pomegranates, a land
of oil-producing olives and honey” (Devarim 8:8). Just as the earlier verse
(Deut. 8:8) is referring to the
seven species through which Eretz Israel is praised, here too, [the verse
is dealing with] the praise of the Land.
Seems
simple enough. We learn out the 7 speices are the only ones obligated in
Bikkurim from the usage both here and there of the word “eretz-land”.
Land means the 7 species. Now however Rashi does something strange. He
continues and explains something that is seemingly irrelevant here.
(ibid) “Shemen Zayit-Oil-producing
olives” [refers to] “aguri” olives,” olives that retain their
oil, keeping it gathered-agur [as it were] inside it
Now our
verse doesn’t mention olives here per say. It doesn’t mention any of the 7
species. If Rashi wanted to explain what olive oil means he should have done
that over there in the parsha of Eikev where it lists the 7 species. Why does
he explain that olive oil is only aguri oil here? Even stranger is that
over there when the verse there says olive oil Rashi explains that it is
“olives that make oil” end of story. It doesn’t mean specifically aguri oil. So
what is going on? Why over here does he specify it means specifically aguri
olive oil?
The answer
the Avney Shoham derives from these two Rashi’s must be that whereas in regards
to the 7 species all olives are included, when it comes to Bikkurim only aguri
olives are obligated. That is why Rashi specifically mentions them here and
not there. The question is of course why that would be?
The
answer he suggests is that there is a law that all fruits are obligated to be
brought whole and not squeezed into a juice form. (based on Mishna terumos 11:3
and Chulin 120J). Olives and grapes though one is permitted upon arriving in
Jerusalem in squeezing them and turning them into oil and wine, while the other
fruits have to be consumed whole. The reason for this halacha- law is
that when fruits are squeezed they become something else; they’re juice. Olives
and grapes on the other hand since the wine and oil are just stored inside of
them- and those are the primary purpose of those fruits, then even when they
are whole they are viewed as oil and wine already and squeezing them doesn’t
change anything. You are just removing the oil or wine from within them. That
being the case, he suggests that would only be true for aguri olives-
where the oil is not absorbed in the fruit, “it is just sitting waiting to
be removed”. Regular olives, one would be prohibited from squeezing as well
as the oil is part of the fruit and squeezing them would change the fruit.
With
this understanding it’s beautiful why Rashi over here brings the law of
aguri olives, whereas over there he says all olives are included in the 7
species. All olives in Israel are blessed and special and are even obligated in
Bikkurim, yet the only oil that one can bring is of the aguri olives.
Thus when Rashi brings down the verse of the 7 species that mentions olive oil
he has to qualify that by bikurim that is only aguri oil.
Amazing! See how much fun and truth one can reveal by just pausing at Rashi and
recognizing when there are words that stand out and don’t seem to fit in…
Awesome!
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S ERA’S AND THEIR PLACES AND
PEOPLE IN ISRAEL OF THE WEEK
Gideon and Midian 1084 BC –Terrorism
is not a new thing for our country. It goes back to the beginning. Tanach
teaches us that it comes as a result of us not following the mitzvos and
“doing evil in the eyes of Hashem”. Well thank god that’s not a problem anymore
for us. We’re all doing what we should be doing right? We all voted Gimmel this
week right? Just joking…-Thank god that’s over already… right? But seriously we
Jews are very hard struck to make that connection that the Torah tells us we
should always make. Terrorism comes as a result of sins. Not because we stole
their land, not because they are persecuted or raised on hate, not because of
checkpoints. Plain and simple if we followed the commandments and didn’t do
evil in the eyes of Hashem we wouldn’t have problems. We wouldn’t even need an
army. But we don’t get it and we never really got it. The period of Gideon is a
classic example I’d like to talk about it in a few weeks to really give it its
due…and not make it too long weekly.
This week let’s focus on
what the Navi tells us what they did to us and our typical useless Jewish
responses that it tells us we tried doing. Let’s take a look at the fascinating
verses
Shoftim/Judges (6:2-5) And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel.
Because of Midian the children of Israel made for themselves the minharot- hideouts dens
which are in the mountains and the caves, and fortresses. And it
was, when Israel had sown, that Midian came up, and Amalek, and those of the
east; and they came up upon it. And they encamped against them, and they destroyed the produce
of the earth, until you come to Gaza. They would leave no sustenance
in Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor donkey. For they and their cattle came
up, and their tents, and they came as numerous as locusts; both they and their
camels without number, and they came into the land to destroy it.
Ok so a few things first lest talk geography. Midian
is in Saudi Arabia south of Jordan and the Dead Sea. It’s really
not Gaza or most of the settled parts of Israel. Not then and not now.
Amalek is even further south. They came to Israel to terrorize us, plain and
simple. We didn’t take their land. They would come to our fields with their
animals after we planted in order to destroy them. They attacked us,
interestingly and familiarly enough all the way to Gaza which is the western
side of our country from the east. What did we Jews do? We built minharot-
hideout dens. Kind of like our bomb shelters today. Other commentaries
suggest they were hidden underground storage houses that they couldn’t find our
grain that we hid. We built fortresses. Take a look at Kever Rachel
today and you will get a feel for what a fortress is. Go to Mt. Bental
and you can see a mountain where there are bunkers underneath, or the various
trenches we have dug throughout the borders of Israel and the miklats-
safe shelters we have in every settlement. Some things never change.
But none of it helped. They came anyways. They
weren’t out for our wealth. They were out to “destroy it”. To burn it down, to
destroy our fields, and to persecute our people. We would work we would plow we
would plant and make the land flourish and much like today when they send over
fire balloons just to wreak have they destroyed our land back then. All our defensive “shields” and “domes” don’t
help. They were out to destroy our economy and they were successful.
Now what’s fascinating over here the commentaries
note, is that the salvation began not even with an act of repentance, or any
repentance for that matter as we will see. The Jews continued to worship idols
and not be observant. They still did evil. Yet they were saved when they did
one thing.
Shoftim
(6:6-8) And Israel was very impoverished because of Midian, and the children
of Israel cried to the Lord. Now it was when the children of Israel cried to
the Lord concerning Midian, that the Lord sent a prophet to the children of
Israel…
Do you know what changed the tide? We stopped
believing in our shelters and our “defense tactics” and our army and maybe even
in our “friends” in the White House. We cried out to Hashem. We realized only
our Father in Heaven has the ability to stop the crazy. To stop the terror.
That’s when Gideon steps into the picture. It is his unique style of leadership
we will study about next week that provides for some of the unique lessons in
Tanach.
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S ELECTION JOKES OF THE WEEK
So the new Israeli Prime Minister just got word from the
elections committee that he had been re-elected. Very excited he called his
mother right after he hung up from them to share with her the good news
“Ima, I wanted to be the first to tell you, I was just
elected to be the Prime Minister of Israel.”
“B’emet (Truthfully?)” the
proud mother asked
“Well it was more with sheker (lies) than truth, but
Ma why do you always have to spoil the moment with questions like that?”
A few months later the proud mother was talking to her friends
and bragged that her sone was elected to the Knesset. Her friends very
impressed asked her what does he do there?
“Nothing, he was elected already!”
It was the first week of school and the teacher was going around
her first grade class asking the children what their father did for a living.
“He’s a doctor” said Moishe
“My father is a lawyer” said Avi
“My dad is in hi tech” said Noah
“My father is a tour guide”
said Tully very proudly J
“And what does your father do Shlomo? “Asked the teacher to the boy that was sitting quietly in the
back
“My father is a dancer, he wears funny clothing and goes to
parties and people throw money at him, sometimes he works as a garbage
collector when he can’t get enough jobs dancing.”
The teacher very quickly moved on to the next child and after
class called in Shlomo.
“Tell me, Shlomo, is that really what your father does for a
living?”
“No” Shlomo confessed, “Really he’s a member of
Knesset. I was just to embarrassed to tell everyone.!”
Little Sarah asked her father the Prime Minister one night when
he was putting her to sleep after reading her a story.
“Abba, do all fairy tales begin with the sentence ‘Once
upon a time’ ”
“No dear,” he responded, “Some begin when I become
elected I will…”
So the young religious man (shas’nik) meets his secular anit-religious by the polls and as they were waiting in the long lines to vote he tells him.
“Listen every year we come here. You vote for the
anti-religious, I vote for Shas the religious party. Our votes just cancel each
other out. Why should we both sit here and wait to vote. Let’s just both go
home and then neither vote makes a difference anyways.”
His neighbor thought about it for a minute and agreed.
There was another yeshiva bachur listening in and he turned to
his friend and he said
“Wow that seems like
an easy idea imagine how many people could save time and not voting.”
“Not really” his friend the shas’nik said. “I work for
the Shas committee and I get a hundred shekel for every one I convince to go
home! He’s my third today…”
So the chief Rabbi arrives up in heaven
after 120 years and he sees that there are pictures of each of the world
leaders and underneath there is a clock and every so often a different ones second
hands jumps a few minutes. Puzzled as to what this was all about, he asked the
local angel. The angel told him that these clocks were there to tell us when a
member of candidate lies. Each time they lie it jumps by minutes.
“Hmmmm…”
the Rabbi said, “so where is the clock of the Israeli members of Knesset?”
“Ahhh… those the Angel of death keeps in
his office as a fan!”
***********
Answer is B– I don’t think a lot of the questions on this test are
legitimate but this one certainly is. The inscription is a pretty important
Jewish one. The inscription found in the City of David in Yerushalayim is one
of the only ones that gives us insight into what Synagoguges were originally
established for. It should bother most people if they thought about it. Why are
they called Beit Knessets rather than Beit Tefillos; houses of gathering rather
than houses of prayers. Well the Theodotus inscription which dates back to the
2nd Temple period tells us that the Beit Kensset was established as
a gathering place for Torah, teaching mitzvot, for guests to stay and even has
washing facilities there as well. During the times of the Beit Hamikdash there
was no organized prayer. Everyone worshiped in the Temple with sacrifices.
Shuls were gathering places. More like JCC’s of today. Yeah this is an
important one and a legit question, which of course I got right. So the score
is Schwartz 36 and 8 for MOT (Ministry of Tourism) on this exam so far.
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