Insights and Inspiration
from the
Holy Land
from
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
"Your friend
in Karmiel"
January 8th 2021 -Volume 11 Issue 13 24th
Tevet 5781
Parshat Shemot
The Right Job
So as you readers know, I try to
share with you my own personal anecdotes and life experiences as it seems that
those of you that are still here with me and haven't unsubscribed yet seem to
like vicariously living through my life. Or at least enjoy the jokes at the
end. But lately it's been pretty boring. No tours. Looks like no Shul once
again. Thank God I had a birthday to write about.
Well, my wife is always ready to
help me out when I'm in a crunch and so knowing that I was getting desperate
she decided to head off to America for two weeks, leaving me home alone with
Tully in the midst of this growing pandemic and a new lockdown within the other
lockdown, whatever that means. I guess she figured that this quality father-son
bonding time should inspire me and give me something to write about as she
escapes to the Monsey NY, where it seems nobody cares about the pandemic. It's
really been great though for us over here. We sit across from each other on the
computer, me typing, Tully playing or youtubing and we're really bonding. I
even interrupt my busy typing every once in a while to tell him to eat something-
he wouldn't otherwise- and to get me some more refills from the refrigerator
while he's at it. It's a long walk for an old man like me to the kitchen. And
Kibud Av is an important thing, if you remember last week's E-Mail.
Now it is pretty brave of my wife
to trust me with her favorite child like this. Although to be safe she took my
favorite child, Elka with her as a collateral, as if to say if Tully's not
there in once piece when I get home, you can kiss Elka good-bye. Now I don't
think she would sell her down to Egypt or anything, she likes Elka too. But
still I got the point. To be extra cautious she did tell my daughter Shani to
call me every 15 minutes or so to make sure the house hasn't burnt down or
anything and she did make sure Tully has a cell phone before she left in case I
lose him somewhere. I think he lost the phone the first day- he is my son
after-all, so that wasn't really a good plan. But she really didn't have
anything to worry about. We're really doing fine here, although the laundry is
building up…
But to be honest this whole
housekeeping thing is really not my thing. I was never good at it. Ask my
mother. Dishes are piling up. The coffee spills on the floor are growing. I
don't even know where she keeps the sponja stick or what to do with it. 10
minutes before Shabbos I was scrambling trying to find Shabbos candles and
trust me that was very weird. I burnt my hand trying to reach across the
Leichter/candelabra that she has lighting the candles in the back-which I
probably in retrospect should've lit before I lit the front ones. I'm good at
Menoras. They're straight and flat. But this leichter thing is a real
pain. There's a reason why Hashem gave this mitzva to women and Ouch!, now
I know why.
Which brings us down to Egypt. As
we know Pharaoh enslaved us in Egypt for a real long time. The slavery was
brutal. I saw the movie. Pyramids don't build themselves. And the taskmasters
in the loincloth whipping them was really painful. Once we get to the plagues
which are midda k'neged midda- Hashem's quid pro quo, we can infer how
messy it had been from the punishments that Egyptians were given. There were
animals that brutalized us, there was the constant screaming and barking, the
boils and welts on our flesh, cold nights, dark dank prisons and so sooo much
blood. Yet there is one thing that always stood out to me that it seems never
made it to either the Charlton Heston or Disney version of the story. And that
was a specific form of persecution.
Shemos (1:13-14) So the Egyptians enslaved the children
of Israel with Ba'parech-back breaking/crushing labor. And they
embittered their lives with hard labor, with clay and with bricks and with all
kinds of labor in the fields, all their work that they worked with them with Ba'parech-
back breaking/crushing labor.
Remember what we said last week
about the Torah being cheap on ink? If our Divine author decided to repeat the
fact that it was back-breaking labor there must be something it's trying to
teach us. And thus the Midrash Rabba tells us that this second back breaking labor
that the Egyptians imposed was much more insidious.
"Rebbi Shmuel bar Nachman says in the
name of Rebbi Yochanan that they switched the men's jobs with the women's job
and the women's with the men.
Now I'm not sure exactly what
back-breaking labor women do that men would have to take over. Although someone
once told me that the men would have to become PT's and OT's and all the other
"T"' therapy jobs that all these seminary girls seem to go into that
improve people's backs. The women on the other hand would take over the men's
rigorous "bench kvetching" in Kollel, breaking their backs on
those shtenders learning. But that was just the Chabad translation of
the word ba'parech. The Artscroll and I think more precise one was that
it means crushing labor. The first verse where the term is used is referring to
the physical crushing-ness of the labor. The second one on the other hand, Reb
Shmuel Bar Nachman notes is referring to the spirit-crushing one. The
psychological torture that they were put through by giving them the other
gender's tasks that they weren't suited for.
I don't want you to get me wrong
here. I am a big believer in equal opportunities for men and women and
certainly equal pay for equal work regardless of gender. Hey, I think most
Kollel guys think women should even get paid more than men. As well I believe
that there are plenty of women that are physically stronger or better at more
typical men jobs and there are men that might be more emotionally sensitive or
intuitive than some women for more traditional women jobs and household duties.
And then there's me that isn't really good at either so I became a Rabbi and
once upon a time ago a tour guide. But I don't believe that Pharaoh was trying
to make a civil rights statement with this decree. It wasn't about affording
people with different types of jobs experiences and opening them up to new
horizons. It was about breaking their spirit. And he knew that the way to do
that was to take them away from the jobs that they were doing that they were
good at. The jobs that they were doing that gave them fulfillment and meaning
and a sense of productivity. It was making them do tasks and jobs that they
would abjectly fail at. That's the way to destroy their spirit. That's the way
to remove any sense of life and living from them.
I think one of the most
heart-wrenching videos that I've seen that never fails to bring tears to my
eyes is the one I would watch by the Gush Katif museum (In Avney Eitan).
Besides the truly horrible story of how these incredible settlers who had moved
down to Gaza at the behest of the State in order to build, settle and develop a
strong, necessary security and buffer area for our country, were cruelly and in
one day dragged from their homes like criminals. Their houses and all they had
built and developed were handed over to the same terrorists that had terrorized
and even murdered many of their friends and family over the decades. But there
is one point in the movie where this young boy who talks about his father Chezi
who died of heartbreak after the expulsion.
"He was always a
productive person, he was successful, he built and empire of bug-free produce
in the sand dunes of Gaza that exported to the entire world. And after the
"Girush" he had nothing to do. He would daven and come home and sit
around all day. He had no life in him anymore. And ultimately it killed
him."
This past year, I can relate to
those words, as I'm sure many many other colleagues and friends of mine can as
well…. We were once running around every day in the best job ever of showing
Hashem's most special country to all of his special children from all over the
world. And now? Tully, can you get me another drink please from the fridge and
a bag of chips.
So I understand what Pharaoh's
plan was, but what was Hashem's? Why did Hashem want us to go through all of
this? What does he want from us now in yet another lockdown? The answer perhaps
lies in the name of the Book we began; Shemos- Names. It's interesting, our
sages tell us that the Jewish people who although they had fully assimilated
into Egyptian culture and lost most remnants of the traditions of their
ancestors, yet there were three things in which they remained distinguished
from the Egyptians. They maintained their holy language, their clothing and
their names.
Rav Avraham Tzvi Margulis Shlita
(Rav of Karmiel) in his sefer Mapik Marguliyos, notes that these three factors
represent different circles of identification of a person. Our language is the
way we express ourselves. It is internal. Hungarians talk their way, Italians
another, Japanese have whatever they're saying and New Yawkers speak like dis.
It's a reflection of one's inner soul and that is the first thing they
maintained.
The second, clothing, is the way
we present ourselves externally. You're familiar with the statement that the
clothes make the man? Well it seems they do. You wear a suit, tie and a button
down shirt, you’re a white collar worker. Shorts and a T-Shirt, you're a beach
bum or member of Knesset. "Power ties" are silly (red) pieces of
material we wear around our necks shaped like a triangle that really make me
sweat and that constantly are too long or too short depending on the season and
yet are supposed to command respect by others by the mere fact I'm wearing it.
Again it's a way of identifying myself.
Finally, we have the names, the
most external identifying circle. It's the furthest thing from me. It's the way
that people refer to me. It's the name I have been given at my birth. People
don't have to see me or hear me but when they mention my name they have
identified me. Our names are not dependent on our jobs, our families, our
clothing, our eating habits, or even our character traits. It's just me. Ephraim
Schwartz- Ephraim Ben Esther Baila and Yonah. That's the real me. The book of
Shemos was getting back to that bare essence. Our exile to Egypt was stripping
us of all the external factors that we may have been identifying ourselves
with.
When Hashem chose Avraham, he
told him in the first conversation with him, to leave his house, his father's
house, his homeland and go to the land Hashem will show him. Reboot. Get rid of
all of those other things that you have defined yourself to and open yourself up
to your newest identity. A child of Hashem with the mandate to share that with
the world. When Avraham asked how does he know that his children will merit to
inherit the land, Hashem forged a covenant by the Bris Bein Habesarim with him
and answered that question by telling him that his children will go down to
Egypt. They will be rebooted as well. They will be forced to give up everything
that identified them beforehand and get back their names. Part of that process
was losing their jobs. They weren't doctors, lawyers, tour guides, or even
Rabbis anymore. That didn’t have any acronyms before or after their names. They
had to take a hard look and ask themselves for the first time in a long time
who they really really were. And they found their holy language, their clothing
and their names once again and were redeemed.
Since we left Egypt and received
the Torah there is something more that we have that identifies us no matter
what our situation or employment or lack thereof is and that is the study of
our Torah. In the best of times and the worst of times we always carried it
with us. It always carries us with it. King David writes in Tehillim and one of
the greatest Carlebach songs ever is
Tehillim (119:92) Lulay
Soracha Sha'ashuei- If not for the Torah was my delight –az ovadti
b'onyi-I would have perished in my affliction.
I've heard that in the old
Lakewood under Reb Aharon Kotler this song would go on for hours. It's all we
have. It's the constant. It is our life blood and it is something we can always
delight in.
Someone pointed out to me that
last year at this time all of Klal Yisrael celebrated the Siyum Hashas. Tens of
thousands of people completed the rigorous 7 1/2-year program of learning of
one page of Talmud a day and hundreds of thousands of others celebrated
together with them all over the world. We sung, we danced and many were
inspired to start their own daily learning program from that evening. Three
months later when Covid-19 shut down the world and many lost everything else in
their lives it is this daily study that keeps them sane, focused, accomplished
and centered. Hashem had sent us the refuah before the makkah-
the real vaccine before the real spirit-breaking pandemic hit us. Our sages
tell us that the Torah is the sam ha'chayim- it is not just a vaccine,
it's actually a life serum. May Hashem inoculate all of us with that spirit and
may He just as then redeem us once again but this time forever.
Have a relaxing and invigorating Shabbos and a
Chodesh Shvat tov!
Rabbi Ephraim
Schwartz
***************
" Di shversteh arbet iz arumtsugain laidik" The hardest work is to go idle.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM QUESTION OF THE WEEK
answer below at end of Email
11)
A mosaic from the Roman period is found in:
A)
The synagogue in Sepphoris (Zippori)
B)
Villa Dionysaic moscaic in Sepphoris (Zippori)
C)
The synagogue in Hamat Gader
D)
Theodosius Monastery in Ma’ale Adumim
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S COOL VIDEO OF THE WEEK
https://youtu.be/It5TbGUypuI
– Avraham
Fried's latest Yiddish song Yakov!
https://youtu.be/SlcRU5Hdjcs - A year since the Siyum last year feels
like a decade ago… Let's Dance together brings us back there… to the pre-Corona
world…
https://youtu.be/VRIuVEha8M4
-Shlomo Carlebach's classic Lulay Sorascha
https://youtu.be/cP4gmcZwdEg - And of course Abie
Rottenbergs Lulay Soroscha as well..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHe-fn1Lfdc
– Top 20 Jewish singers of 2020
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S PARSHA/ ERETZ YISRAEL CONNECTION OF THE
WEEK
Rashi notes on the words
'and they will listen to you'-As soon as you will mention to them
this expression (the double use of the word Pakod) they will hearken to your
voice, for they have long had this sign as a tradition from Jacob and Joseph
that by mention of this phrase their deliverance will be brought about.
Have you ever wondered what it will take the Jewish people to
finally leave Exile? What will it take for them to make the brave move back
home to the Land of Milk and Honey? Can you imagine that all it takes is two
words- pakod pakadati and boom they're all jumping on the plane and filing
their Aliyah papers? What is the secret of these two words? Even more
fascinating is that the Mei Merom suggests that the ultimate Redemption in our
days will happen once again when we hear the idea of those two words.
So he writes that when is enmeshed and enslaved in a more powerful culture
and country there are two ways that one can get out. One is that the prevalent
culture and country are overthrown, and the second is if the ruling powers
allows their slaves, their citizens to leave and emigrate. Both of those forces
though are all dependent on the weakness of the country they are in. Either they
are too weak to maintain their power or they are not interested and their
culture is too week to impose and sufficiently influence them to remain. That's
not how the Jewish people are going to leave. When Jews see a weak country that
they come to they want to improve it. They build it up. They make them stronger
and they assimilate so much that their culture takes over the world. They make
viral songs about all the Jews on Hannuka!
The way that we leave a country is pakod yifkod Hashem. Hashem
commands from up high. We hear that call and realize that Hashem is telling us
that we are better than this. He has a higher mission for us that we can only
do from Israel. He will command it- for pakod also means pekuda
an order, it is the word tafkid- we have a purpose. The ultimate
redemption will come and the Jews will leave when we all realize that our
purpose, our mission, our command and fulfillment can only happen when we come
home. When the Jews hear that call, then v'shamu l'kolecha- they
will immediately hearken it. In the words of the Mei Merom
"and thus it will be in the ultimate redemption when all of
Israel will feel that they no longer have any place in Exile and the desire
will awaken withing them to flee from there and to enter the land of Israel?"
Think we're there yet?
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S ERA’S
AND THEIR PLACES AND PEOPLE IN ISRAEL OF THE WEEK
Thus he sent messengers to Dovid promising to bring all of Israel under his rule and to bring peace to the land in his acceptance of him has the true King. Dovid was still a bit skeptical and so he agreed on the condition that Avner return with Dovid's wife Michal to him. For those that don't remember Michal was Dovid's first wife who's hand he had won as Shaul had given him this daughter of his after he had killed Goliath. Dovid betrothed her as per Shaul's demand very romantically with the 100 Philistine foreskins. Ouch! Well it seems that Shaul had taken Michal and given her to Paltiel Ben Layish. The Gemara tells us fascinatingly enough that out of respect for Dovid he never came close to her. Well, now Dovid wanted her back and he sent that demand to Ish Bosheth who complied. And thus Avner returned to Dovid, before he came though he met with the heads of tribes and with the tribe of Binyamin and told them that it was time for them to join Dovid as well.
His father says, "No. You had your chance."
A minute later the boy screams, "Ta! Can you get me a glass of
water?"
Again his father says, "No. You had your chance. Next time you ask,
I'll come up there and spank you."
"Ta! When you come up to spank me, can you bring me a glass or
water?"
Univer$ity life i$ really great and I’m beginning to enjoy it. Even though I’m
making lot$ of new friend$, I $till find time to $tudy very hard. I already
have $ome $tuff and I $imply can't think of anything el$e I need, $o if you
like, you can ju$t $end me a $imple card a$ I would love to hear from
you.
Love,
Your $on
Moi$he
His father replies: -
Dear Moishe
I kNOw that astroNOmy, ecoNOmics, and oceaNOgraphy are probably NOt eNOugh to
keep even an hoNOurs student busy. But do NOt forget that the pursuit of
kNOwledge is a NOble task and one can never study eNOugh.
Love your father,
ArNOld
"I don't know, boychik. I'm still paying for it."
Her natural beauty took his breath away. "I may look like just an
ordinary man," he said as he walked up to her, "but in just a
week or two my father will die, and I'll inherit 20 million dollars."
Impressed, the woman went home with him that evening.
Three days later, she became his stepmother.
Issy thought for a while, put down his spoon, looked at Sam and replied,
"Okay, let's suppose someone comes into my shop and gives me his business
suit to dry clean. Then suppose I find a $20 bill in his jacket
pocket?"
Sam looked expectantly at his father.
"So," Issy said, "to answer your question, Sam, do I tell my
partner I found the money? That's ethics"
.Little Johnny and his family lived in the country, and as a result seldom had guests. He was eager to help his mother after his father appeared with two dinner guests from the office.
When the dinner was nearly over, Little Johnny went to the kitchen and proudly
carried in the first piece of apple pie, giving it to his father who passed it
to a guest. Little Johnny came in with a second piece of pie and gave it to his
father, who again gave it to a guest.
This was too much for Little Johnny, who said, "It's no use, Dad. The
pieces are all the same size."
"Yes, son?"
"Why is the sky blue?"
"I don't know, son"
"Why is the grass green?"
"I don't know, son"
"Why do birds fly?"
"I don't know, son"
So it went on, the son always asking questions and the father's response,
"I don't know, son."
One day, the son said to his father, "Dad,
I hope you don't mind my asking you all these questions all the
time?"
"Not at all, son" replied the father. "How are you
supposed to learn anything otherwise?"
"That's OK with me, Tully but what made you decide that?"
"Well," says Tully, "as I have to go to shul on shabbes anyway,
I figure it will be more fun to stand up and shout than to sit down and
listen."
"No, sweetheart," he answered. "Some begin with 'If I am
elected….'"
Answer is B – Another right one. I tour Tzippori a lot and the Dionasayic villa is one of my favorite places, although it's the first time I ever heard it called that. Over there it's called the Governor's mansion. The shul's there and most if not all shul's with Mosaics are from the Byzantine period 4th century and on and certainly churches didn't even exist here before then. Romans were pagans and the Dionysis which is the Greek God of wine and partying fits right into this period. So the score now stands at 9 for Rabbi Schwartz and 2 for the Ministry of Tourism on this exam.
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