Land, Love and Lights- Parshat Mikeitz Chanuka 2019 / 5780

Insights and Inspiration

from the

Holy Land

from

Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz

"Your friend in Karmiel"

December 27^th 2019 -Volume 10 Issue 10 29^th Kislev 5780

Parshat Mikeitz / Chanukah II

Land , Love and  Lights

" I love Israel" he told me. I believed him. He sounded sincere. In fact, he sounded in love.

"We try to come as often as we can and every time I am moved to tears. There's just something special about the country. I don't know what it is, but it makes me emotional just thinking about Eretz Yisrael. The hills, the valleys, sounds, the streets, the history, it's otherworldly. There's no place else in the world like it. I just love Israel."

This was how our conversation on the phone started when Yossi called me for a tour. He was hoping that I could show him something new, maybe something he hadn't seen before, but he assured me that even if I didn't, he doesn't mind seeing things he had visited before. Because each time there is something new to be seen or learned. It's all amazing to him. I almost wanted him to give me a tour by the time the conversation was over.

It was refreshing to hear a 'chutznik' speak so passionately about Eretz Yisrael. It made me hopeful that perhaps despite the lack of education, indoctrination, inspiration or even mention about the incredible centrality of Eretz Yisrael in Torah and Judaism in most "frum" schools it was still somehow making its way into the hearts and souls of my yiddisheh brethren in the diaspora. It seems, much to my delight and surprise that 2000 years of longing implanted something in our DNA that couldn't be just forgotten or even replaced with a single-minded and perhaps determined Rabbinic strategic focus on a Judaism that is pretty much only about Torah study and scrupulous observance of mitzvos and rituals. Eretz Yisrael was something we "hoped for" that we "prayed for" and that we "mourned for". It was the subject of slow sad songs (veee leyirushalayim eeeerrrchaaa ah aha…) and happy messianic songs (Yeruuuushalayim Yeruuuushalayim L'Shana Haba..) But it wasn't something that we were actually taught to love. That feeling and passion was only for Torah. Only Zionists would wax on about Israel too much. We yeshiva guides were only meant to be passionate about another holy blatt of gemara, another Reb Baruch Ber, another insight, tractate of talmud or vort.

Now I understand why this is so. And even if I don't, I'm smart enough to know that I'd be stupid  to think that I have any valid opinion that is more insightful than the great leaders and sages of our people that have set the educational directives for our "system". But it makes sense. After the Holocaust when we lost the great bastions of Torah, our yeshivos our leaders, rabbis and Torah students of the pre-war generation, Torah which is the heart and soul of our nation was in danger of being lost. The refugees were too busy trying to rebuild, to support their families, to get over the trauma and to integrate or assimilate into the new society; the 'guldeneh medina'.  So the educational system became about recreating that. Rebuilding what once was. Thank God I think it is fair to say we have even surpassed it as this week's Siyum Hashas of 100's of thousands of Jews who will celebrate their 7-year completion of the entire 64 volume work of Talmud studying a page a day proves. Torah is flourishing like never before and its truly amazing.

Somehow in that targeted focus though we lost, I believe, the connection and longing our ancestors had for our land. We lost the love and the passion. We became perhaps the generation that knew the most about Eretz Yisrael; it's laws, it's history, it's geography and what was going on over there in our era of instant information and 24-hour news cycles, but the ones that felt the least for it. We had all the chochma but none of the soul or the heart.

Loving a country is so much more than knowing and learning about it. To love in Hebrew is not only to give as they teach us in all of the marriage classes we went to. It is to become one with the object of one's love. Ahava- in gematria is the same as the word echad or one. Man and woman in the garden of Eden were meant to become one; basar echad. It is through that unification that life is born.  It's the essence of the world. Our mitzva to love Hashem that we recite in twice daily is prefaced with Shema Yisrael Hashem Echad-Making Hashem echad through love. That means that when all of me is connected to Hashem, my heart, my actions, my spirit-it's all for Hashem, then I am united and Hashem is one with me. When one sees a married couple where she is always worrying about him; "is totty alright", "take care of this for him", "give him that," and he at the same time is always worried and taking care of her; "give this to Mommy", "help Mommy with that" the oneness is felt. It's beautiful. That is what it means to love. I have expanded the feelings I have for myself and projected them on someone else. I have understood that my life, my joy, my very being is bound together with the object of my love.

It's a mitzva that we have not only for our spouses and our God, but for every Jew. To love them. To become one with them. To see their differences from me, not as things that differentiate them from me, but parts of the oneness of our people that I haven't yet incorporated into myself yet and expanded my sense of self to include in my own essence yet. In the same way the differences between ourselves and our spouses are just part of ourselves that are undiscovered and unrealized until we become one with them. Torah achas l'kulam- one Torah for all of them doesn't mean that we all connect to Hashem through Torah the same way. Sefardim, Ashkenazim, Israelis, Americans, Chasidim, Litvaks each might have different paths and different expressions of their own spirituality but ultimately it is one Torah that is large enough to unite all of those paths. To see in the differing expressions of it just other aspects of Hashem echad.

That unity can really only be achieved in Eretz Yisrael. It's where it is meant to be achieved. We are all able to become united when we all live and are connected to the one country of Hashem where we reveal His oneness to the world from. We are gathered from the four corners of the world back to our home. We are no longer Americans, Ethiopians, Russians, Germans, Yemenites, Indians, Canadians or Australians. We are Bnai Yisrael. The children of Israel. The love and feeling that we each had for Hashem's chosen land for us overtakes the feelings that we may have developed for centuries or millennia for the countries that may have given us refuge while we were away from home.  We have a Torah that has united, we have a country that unites us and we have a God that is Echad that we all feel we possess and it is our greatest expression of our own self, and love. Once we have established that, the world will then unite. For they are also part of that oneness of creation. They will be drawn to our unity, to our love of the world's Father and creator. Bayom Hahu Hashem Echad u'shmo echad.

Chanuka is the time that we tap into that game plan. It is the only "made in Israel" holiday. Pesach, Shavuot, Sukkot and Purim are all galus/exile holidays; established to commemorate events that took place before we entered the land. Chanuka is the last of the holidays historically. It was established when we were in Jerusalem and Israel and we had a temple, but we lost sight of the function of it all. It was in fact the beginning of the era of our exile and downfall which followed a few decades after the miracle and victory of the Maccabees. Pesach we became a nation that became one with Hashem, Shavuos we united around the Torah by the foot of Mt. Sinai, Sukkot we are all joined together with Hashem and with our families and with all Jews symbolized by our 4 species in our Sukkahs. Chanuka is when we bring all of that home and dedicate our Beit HaMikdash in Eretz Yisrael. Light finally reigns and shines out to the entire world. The darkness of Greece and the nations and culture that have assimilated into is finally vanquished. Candle by candle we are mosif bi'kedusha- we add our holiness and expand it. The love fills the world.

But we failed. We became divided and as we were divided the unified light fractured and the darkness seeped back in. We went back to the beginning when all of this started in the parshiyot that we always read this season to remind us of that problem. We read last week how our Patriarch Yaakov, as well finally came back to Israel and wished to finally settle in peace. But it didn't happen. The brothers fought, Yosef was sold down to Egypt. We fell into different stories. Yehuda had his saga of Israeli politics. And Yosef was simultaneously busy with his Egyptian galus politics and dramas. Divided we fell.

This week's parsha which heralds in the end of Chanuka leaves us on a cliffhanger. Will we reconnect again. Can the brothers see past the different clothing and customs that they have? Can they put behind them the jealousy or perhaps even more significantly the sense of religious supremacy that sent us all to Egypt in the first place? That sent us out of our land. For what's the point of being in Israel if we're not going to unite there and shine out the presence of Hashem from there anyways. We may as well stay in galus and observe the galus holidays there until we can all get back together again and realize the ultimate goal and point of them all. Until we remember that the realization of all of the love we need to fulfill in this world needs to be connected to Eretz Yisrael.

It's interesting that the holidays in the Diaspora always have an extra day. The reason for this was because since the establishment of the new month was by the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, the word of which day the new month was established took too long to get to them in those ancient pre-whatsapp message days. So they always observed another day out of doubt. I heard an interesting question from Rabbi Daniel Glatstien that noted that Chanuka should therefore also be 9 days in the diaspora for that day in doubt. Many other Rabbis are busy with the famous "Beit Yosef " question of why is it even 8 days as the miracle was only that the oil lasted an additional 7 days for they had enough for one day. That's a question for grinches that want one less day of Chanuka. I prefer Rabbi G's question of one extra day of latkas and sufganiyot. But it certainly seems strange.

Now today we can send messages pretty quickly and the truth is we have a set calendar so it would seem that even in chutz l'aretz they shouldn't have two days for all of the holidays. But our sages see in the extra day perhaps a reminder to those living in the Diaspora that the holidays, the Pesach, Shavout, and the Sukkot are not really being observed there the way they are supposed to. They're doubtful. Hashem doesn't just want us to shake a lulav, eat some matza or even just learn Torah in the Diaspora, despite the fact they are commandments that need to be observed. The point of it all is to bring us all together. To make us echad and then return to Eretz Yisrael and take our unified love to the Beit Hamikdash, the home that binds us that we long for to express that unity of Hashem out to the world. The extra day is there to remind them of that. To remind them that they have to turn their eyes to Jerusalem and ask if the temple has been reestablished yet. If they can come home.

Chanuka, though is different. Chanuka, there is no doubt. There is no reminder necessary. We are lighting a menorah. We are shining that light and it's all about Yerushalyim. The temple. We are transported in that lighting to the holies. We are all priests. We are actively pushing away that darkness. We are celebrating the destruction and victory of the galus and culture that has been defining us and separating us from each other. We have found our way back to that little flame that we all share and we are growing it together. And we are filled with love.

I just came home from morning services and I noted in davening the conjunction of the blessings before we recite the shema.

Ohr Chadash al tzion tair vnizkeh kulanu meheir l'oro- a new light shall shine on Zion and all of us should merit speedily to its light.

 And then right after that we say

 Ahava rabba ahavtanu- a great love You have loved for us

Habocher b'amo Yisrael b'ahava- He chooses His nation Israel with love.

Only once we have the light and the love can we say Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad. Only then can we truly recite the mitzva of V'ahavta es Hashem Elokecha- Loving Hashem with all your heart. The original Shema was recited by Yaakov in Galus to the tribes before he died with the blessings that they would return. They would unite all of their different personalities and traits into one glorious flame of redemption. His last promise and request was that he should be brought back here to the only place where we can reveal echad. The country he loved. The one he told his children to love. Yerushalayim, our home.

All oils are permitted to light your menora. Some use oil, some use paraffin, in the holocaust some used the butter rations they had and others use colored wax candles. I use olive oil, which is what they used in the Beit Hamikdash, but all are kosher. There is a message in this law too. All oils are kosher. They all have the fuel we need to light the flames of Hashem. They all can bring out light. They just need to be lit with love. They just need to make us think and remember the Beit Hamikdash, the house of love and prayer where we shined that light out to the world from. May we all merit to feel that love as we light our remaining candles this Shabbos Rosh Chodesh and may we merit to see them let in our home once again this year.

Have a lichtigeh Shabbos and Chanuka,

Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz

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RABBI SCHWARTZ’S FAVORITE YIDDISH PROVERB OF THE WEEK

“Zey hobn zikh beyde lib; er zikh un zi zikh"– They are both in love: he with himself and she with herself.

RABBI SCHWARTZ’S COOL VIDEO  OF THE WEEK

https://youtu.be/PDWlCM_BmQs   – Hands down winner for the coolest and most absurd unexpected Chanukah Video…but you got watcha through the end.. Hillariously funny..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Dp4aUwIvl8 – Check out the waterfalls and rivers of Israel filling up and gushing rains of blessing this Chanuka!

https://youtu.be/FFJeT7G6Imo - One of the most beautiful songs in the world that I have been singing the entire Chanuka for some reason Yehei Raava Kadomoch by Eitan Katz- it literally reaches the heavens

https://soundcloud.com/ephraim-schwartz/al-hanissim  - And for those of you that didn't hear it last week or that need to hear it again My latest composition in honor of Chanuka, sung and arranged by Dovid Lowy Al Hanissim

RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM QUESTION OF THE WEEK

answer below at end of Email

6)  Anemones in a variety of colors can be found mainly in:

A.    The Gaza Envelope

2. The Judean Mountains
3. The valleys
4. The Negev

RABBI SCHWARTZ'S PARSHA/MITZVA CONNECTION OF THE WEEK

Lo Sasur Mei Hadavar Asher Yomru lecha– Rabbinical commandments (Chanuka candles – We light our Chanuka candles each night and we make a blessing upon them.

Blessed are You Hashem, our God the King of the world who sanctified us with His mitzvos- commandments and He commanded us to light the candles of Chanuka.

 Now I don't know if it ever bothered you when you made this blessing, but is it really true? Did Hashem command us to light Chanuka candles. We received our commandments from Hashem at Mt. Sinai about 1100 years before the story of Chanuka which took place in the second temple in the 2^nd century BC. So what does the blessing mean that this is a commandment from Hashem? This is a blessing and even holiday that was conceived by the Rabbis of that generation.

So this question is in fact one that is posed by the Talmud and it becomes a revealing principle into the stature of the rabbinic commandments. See there is a prohibition in the Torah to add mitzvos to the Torah. The way that the rabbis can add decrees and mitzvos is that the Torah has a clause that the sages are meant to build a fence around the Torah to protect the laws. So although meat and milk is prohibited only if its cooked together, the Rabbis prohibited eating it uncooked. As well, they prohibited poultry with milk or cheese as it can get confused with regular meat. These are fences, that the Torah gives the Rabbis authority to add. They can also put in decrees or gezeirot to prevent infractions, for example, the cheese or milk of a non-Jew or drinking wine handled by a gentile in order to prevent excessive fraternization. Now here's where it gets interesting there is a mitzva in the Torah to listen to the words of the Rabbis and not divert left or right from what they tell you. This would then mean that every Rabbinic decree is also a biblical prohibition, for the Torah commands one to listen to the Rabbis.

This logic the Talmud tells us is the rationale for us reciting in our bracha that Hashem has commanded us to fulfill His commandments, although Chanuka (and Purim for that matter) are Rabbinic inventions. For since we are obligated biblically to listen to the Rabbis, when we light our candles we are fulfilling the mitzva Hashem commanded us to follow the laws of the Rabbis. The Talmud brings two sources for this mitzva, one is the lo sasur a prohibition turn away from what the Rabbis tell you to do. And the second opinion says it’s from the verse of She'al Avicha 'vyagedcha- you should ask your father and he will tell you the sages and they will direct you. The Rambam is of the opinion that therefore one who violates a rabbinic command is then in essence violating a biblical command as well. Nachmanides, the Ramban, disagrees and suggest that this is only by a mitzva that the Rabbis derived by using their power of derush, extrapolating via the means of the 13 principles with which the Torah can be derived.

The Chasam Sofer suggests an even more interesting idea whereas he suggests that the mitzva of Chanuka candles and Megilla reading on Purim are both ways of praising Hashem for the miracles of our salvation. He suggests that this concept is in fact a biblical obligation. The Talmud tells us in Megilla that if we are obligated to sing praise to Hashem when he saved us from slavery to freedom by Pesach, then we are certainly obligated to do so when it comes to life and death by Purim. If that follows then the basis of the obligation is indeed a biblical command and thus even the Ramban would rule that it is a biblical command to listen to the Rabbis in this case, as the mitzva the Rabbis decreed to light candles has its basis from logical extrapolation of the mitzva of Pesach.

I know it feels like we have moved back to last years lomdus of the week column this week for this mitzva, but hey Chanuka is the holiday of light which of course is Torah, and so I imagine that Torah light gave you the extra boost to appreciate this mitzva that we will fulfill each of these nights and give it an even biblical significance.

RABBI SCHWARTZ'S ERA’S AND THEIR PLACES AND PEOPLE IN ISRAEL OF THE WEEK

Chanukah - 165 BC- OK Let’s break for a week from our chronological sites and eras to talk about the holiday of Chanukah. So in the year 165 about 100 years or so after Alexander the Great comes to Israel and spares the country and Greek culture enters the Jewish world, the country is once again in turmoil. The generals of Alexander divide up the country and the Northern Syrian Greeks, known as the Selucids, led by Antiochus passes laws against the Jews and the revolt begins. It ultimate culminates with the liberation of the Beit Hamikdash and the lighting of the Menorah which miraculous oil that lasted for eight days. You learned all that in kindergarden. But where can you experience and relive that in Israel.

So obviously the places to relive these battles would be where they took place. Mod’in where the revolt took place is today a big city, but Umm al Umdan right outside of it a shul was found there from the Herodian post Maccabee period and underneath it another Chashmonean period shul was found, so perhaps it was there. There is nearby as well a great place the Chasmonean village that has been created as well as Neot Kedumim that have all types of activities including olive oil making for Chanukah.

The battles of the Maccabees are certainly sites that we are familiar with. At Latrun by the Ayalon valley, Yehudah fights off miraculously Nikanor. I like to play lazer tag with my tourist kids there, that’s really reliving the action. A little north of that by Beit Choron you have the amazing battle fights off the general Seron. Even as far South as Yavneh which is right above Ashdod you have the final battle when we threw off the yoke of the Greeks. On the other hand, in the Gush Etzion area by Tel Zekariah right outside of Elazar is when the Maccabees suffered a defeat and Elazar was crushed by an elephant. The yishuv is thus named after him. Further down as you head to Chevron the village of Karmei Tzur is named after the Chashmonean city Beit Tzur where they sent the Syrians and their general Lysisus back to Syria.

The truth is though everywhere you go in Israel everyone is trying to get in on the action all of the museums have Chanukah activities, the parks have games and period-era costumes, and everyone is getting in on the action. But of course the most important Chanukah experience is to walk through the streets of the old city of Yerushalayim at night and see the neiros b’chatzros kodshecha- the candles, just as they were 2000 years ago lit in the courtyard, streets and window of our holy city. Am Yisrael Chai!

RABBI SCHWARTZ’S ISRAELI TERRIBLE CHANUKA JOKES  OF THE WEEK

The Maccabees were definitely Farsim (Persian Jews) who else could have a little bit of oil and make it last for 8 days.

Why do Yemenites celebrate their birthdays on Chanuka? In order to save money and move the candles from the Menora to their cakes

Sufganiya- Shniya shel osher V'sahana b'cheder cosher- (a second of enjoyment and a year  in the excersize room.

Chanuka is the one holiday when you can have white powder under your nose and a police officer tells you b'tayavon! (with a hearty appetite).

Even Albert Einstien can't explain how a doughnut which weighs 150 grams adds to Kilos to my weight when I eat one.

How can you recognize a Hanukkah hippie? He’s the one with his hair in dreidel-locks.

The biggest miracle of Chanuka was that they found one flask of oil with the signature of the Kohen Gadol and everyone agreed that it was Kosher enough.

One of the fun things  I like to do is to go into a restaurant and ask if they are Kosher for Chanuka and see the waitress go and ask the manager, who calls the owner, who calls the Rabbi…

What did the person with allergies say on Chanuka Al Hanissim Al Hapurkan V'al Haaaachhooooo- os!

What did the dictator of China sing on Chanuka Mao Tzur

What song does Timon and Pumba sing when they light their menora? -Chanuka Matata?

We eat Sufganiyot to celebrate the miracle that they have clogged our lungs for 2000 years and we have still survived.

Why on your dreidel does it have a picture of Bernie Sanders instead of the letter Shin? Because you have to share your wealth with everyone on the table.

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Answer is C–  This question led to a lot of discussion on my tour guide whatsapp group when I posted it ther for assistance. The problem is that the Anemome or whatever it is called in English- I knew it as Kalanit in Hebrew can be found in all of the above places. Certainly in the Negev and Judean Hills there are plenty of Kalaniyot that I personally have seen. I wasn't sure about the Gaza strip but I googled that and there are there as well. I wrote valleys because that was the only one that really could cover all of the regions. But at the same time I wasn't sure because they also grow on hills. This was a strange question and as I suspected it was a mistake of theirs in translation. The Hebrew version of the question was a variety of different colors or types of Kalaniyot can be found in which region. So the answer to that question is still puzzling as the south and Judean hills are mostly red. But there is another mistranslation for "The Valleys" with a capital 'V' would be translated as the lower Galile valleys by by the Jezreel valley and Gilboa where in fact there are a lot of colors. That was my guess, but I imagine that all the answers would have been correct as they translated the question wrong.  So we continue with the score being Schwartz 4 and 2 for MOT (Ministry of Tourism) on this exam.