Insights and Inspiration
from the
Holy Land
from
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
"Your friend
in Karmiel"
March 19th 2021 -Volume 11 Issue 23 6th
Nissan 5781
I'm thinking, cow; a nice tenderloin, juicy, medium rare slice of prime rib.
It's been a while since I've had a good slice. The Purim Seuda doesn't count
OK… Once upon a time when tourists used to come to Israel, I would eat out all
the time with "my people". Part of the Eretz Yisrael chavaya
is feeding your favorite Rabbi/ tour guide. It's not
exactly like feeding the animals at the zoo, despite the very similar satisfied
smile and grunts of approval. You can't actually pet me while I'm eating. But I
will definitely entertain you during the meal nonetheless. If you're lucky I
might even sing you a song I composed. A nice steak and glass of wine brings
that out in me.
These days though it's been lots of leftovers.
Probably more than I've ever eaten since I moved here. Don't get me wrong I
love my wife's cooking; it was one of the main reasons I married her. That and
her Yiras Shamayim of course and her tremendous wisdom and foresight to
saying yes when I proposed to her, unlike all of those other girls that lost
out. Happy 27th anniversary dear, by the way- a week late... Oops.
In fact, I
even love her leftovers as much as I love her fresh cooked meals. Chulent gets
better with every cooking, my decades long scientific research has proven. But
I miss the whole prime rib- cow-on-a-plate experience. There's nothing like the
smell of a good BBQ. The roasting flesh of a warm blooded animal has an aroma
that just gets all those gastrointestinal juices flowing. To think this cow
spent his or her whole life grazing on grass, 'prime'-ing himself for this
special moment when he could serve as a vehicle for a Jew like me to thank
Hashem for the delicious animals He gave us. This week's E-mail is not for
ideological vegetarians by the way. Probably not for other kinds of vegetarians
either. Probably most weeks E-Mails aren't as well. You should probably just
unsubscribe now. Or just skip to the jokes.
Now if you think I'm being over-passionate about
meat then you should probably unsubscribe from the next book of the Torah that
we are beginning this Shabbos of Vayikra, because it seems that Hashem is
pretty much into prime rib as well. See, there are no vegetable or soy
sacrifices. Sure there's some flour and pastry like sacrifices, but that’s just
for the poor folk that can't afford a shwarma, Real men bring that special rayach
nichoach- that sweet smelling BBQ beef that Hashem loves so much. Once in a
while you can bring some of our fine feathered friends as well up for an
offering to Hashem. Variety is important. But as you readers know, chicken
chulent is never going to win any prizes in the Schwartz family. In fact next
Shabbos when everyone will be eating just a meat and potato pesachdik chulent
without any of the distractive beans and barley is the one my family looks
forward the most to the entire year.
Truth be told though, it really is quite
interesting this whole animal sacrifice thing. I mean, what is it really about?
Hashem certainly doesn't require any BBQ's. He's not out for our steaks. The
prophets repeatedly tell us not to get confused about this. We are not
sacrificing or feeding hungry gods. That's paganism. So why does the
slaughtering of animals and the burning them on the mizbayach play such
an essential role in the Torah with at least 20% of the Torah teaching and
telling us about it. Right from the beginning with Cain and Abel, through Noach
and all of our forefathers really until the end we are told about how essential
these korbanos are in getting close to God. In all of our prayers we ask
Hashem to return us to those days when we will once again be able to bring these
offerings. What's wrong with prayer, meditation, even learning Torah and doing
kind deeds and other mitzvos? Why do animals have to die for us to get close to
Hashem and really perfect our service of Him?
I heard an incredible story this week from my dear
friend and Mishpacha editor Sruli Besser of his grandfather the noted askan Reb
Chatzkel Besser. {Yes I still write and video for the magazine despite the
short few month hiatus through all these lockdowns, stay tuned right after
Pesach for my next two upcoming articles and videos- the most exciting yet!}.
It was after the Holocaust and he was approached by a survivor who required his
assistance. It seems that this man who had suffered in the concentration camps
had been receiving reparations for years from the German government. The only
problem was that he had "fudged" a few of the details in order to be eligible.
Maybe it was his age or country of origin. Whatever… He needed the money to
live after the war and felt that after all he had suffered he was entitled to
receiving compensation. He didn't feel guilty at all.
Regardless
it seems that those punctilious Germans finally caught up with him. They had
told him that he needed to come down to the consulate and that not only were
they stopping payment on his monthly reparations checks, but he they were
demanding that he make back payment for the 15 years that he had been receiving
the money. He didn't have the greatest English and he had come to ask Reb
Chatzkel what he should do. How would he be able to get out of this. Reb
Chatzkel reassured him that he had nothing to fear and that he would accompany
him to the meeting.
As they sat down with the consul who glared at
them and threw accusation after accusation at this poor survivor Rabbi Besser
began to speak.
"You accuse this man of being a liar and
of falsifying information, but I first would like to ask you a question. When
he was a young boy, he was brought to the camp and saw two lines form as people
were being divided. He was asked by the Commandant glaring over the prisoners
as they dismounted from the train whether he was older than 16 or not. He
somehow intuited that if he was younger than 16 he would not be allowed to live
and would be sent to his death, so he stood up straight and lied and was sent
to the line for those that were able to work."
"A few weeks later an officer came into
the Barracks and said that they were looking for electricians. If anyone had
experience or had worked as an electrician they should step forward. Now,
Yankel- let's call him that, barely knew what a positive or negative wire
looked like. He was all of fourteen and was a cheder boy. But he understood
that to be an electrician meant that he would live. So Yankel stepped forward
and told them assuredly that he was a great electrician and had apprenticed as
well to be one. It was a lie, but they believed him and he survived.
There was another time one day when he was
walking around in the camp and he saw that there was a treasure on the floor.
It wasn't gold, or diamonds, they weren't worth much in the camps. It was a
ration of bread that someone had dropped that was seemed to have fallen in the
bushes. Those were the treasures of the camps where people died of starvation
daily. He quickly crouched down to pick it up when suddenly a guard caught him
and asked him if the bread was his. Once again Yankel knew that the wrong-but
true answer to the guard's question would end his life. He knew what he needed
to do in order that one day he would be able to get out in one piece from this
gehenom. So he lied. He said it was his own ration that he had dropped.
Miraculously the guard believed him and let him go."
"Now I ask you Herr Consul," Rabbi Besser told the German government representative.
"You're upset at this man because he lied to you; because he was
dishonest? Who do you think taught him that to lie is to survive? Where do you
think he developed those skills that you are now holding against him? Before
what your people did to him, this person was a holy, pious young boy that would
never lie. You made him this way. Now you cannot hold it against him!!"
Rabbi Besser would say this story over by the
Pesach Seder as he would interpret the words we recite describing what the
Egyptians did to us homiletically. The verse says
Vaya're'u osanu- which literally means and they were bad to us, from the
word 'ra'-evil. Yet the word can also be read as va'yarey'u- they
became our friends- like the mitzva v'ahavta l'rayacha kamocha- love
your friend like yourself. They exposed us to a way of life that turned us into
them. That taught and trained us in all of the abominations and idolatry that
they engaged in. They made us into who we were never meant to be. To leave that
world we had to bring a sacrifice. We had to take that evil and the lies and
false gods that we had served and even identified with and slaughter them. The
statement we were making before our Creator and the world that judges us is
that it wasn’t me. It was that foreign influence. It was the blood out there-
outside of my doorpost that made me do it. But my soul is holier. My soul is
not an animal one. Mine can reveal Hashem's presence in this world and can
elevate it all. That statement and that BBQ redeemed us. It showed us who we
really were and what was never really us.
The essence of all the animal sacrifices is really
the same concept. When we sin we come to Hashem with an animal. We shecht that
animal and roast that meat and recognize that all of the distance we have had
from Hashem is really because there is the warm blooded animal part of us or as
the Kabbalists refer to as the nefesh ha'behami, that has dominated us.
It has taken the steering wheel from the hands of the holy neshoma inside of
us. It made us think that's who we are. That's all we are. Highly developed mammals.
It's the "Meat Too" movement.
The service of Hashem tells us that we need to
slaughter that concept. Every step of getting closer to Hashem, every lifecycle
event, every unintentional sin, every holiday, every bonding with the Almighty
comes back down to shechting a bit of the animal. Sometimes we eat the cow,
sometimes we give it all to Hashem, sometimes we share that flayshig meal with
the Kohen too. By the sin offerings we don't partake we are making the
statement that we were too dominated by our animal side. By other sacrifices we
are allowed to eat from the offering because we are shaleim- we are
whole and have elevated that animal side and properly allowed it to be guided
by the neshoma. But the one constant that remains is that we are recognizing
that the animal is being slaughtered.
Perhaps even more revealing is that unlike most of
the laws of the Temple that are only done by the priest. The slaughtering of
the animal is kosher when it is done by the layman as well. Everyone has that
little bit of animal that tries to disconnect us from Hashem and be guided by
our purely physical drives and desires and we each have the power to slaughter
it. The sweet smell of the BBQ is perhaps the smell of those false ideas going
up in flames. It is the Jew recognizing that we have a higher purpose. It was
them; that force that kept us down. But now we want to rise back up. That is
the rayach nichoach that Hashem loves smelling. That is the sweet smell
of the Bait Hamikdash grill.
This morning the Schwartz family had a simcha. My
Einikel, Yoel Eliyahu, had his upsherin his first haircut at three years
old. Now his birthday was a few weeks ago, but my daughter, it seems, wasn't
ready to part with his cute little curls yet. I guess for new mothers this is
like the final cutting of the umbilical cord. I told her husband that it's a
good thing she wasn't in charge of his bris! We took him to the cheder where
the Rebbi placed honey on the letters of the aleph bet for him and he licked
off each one. He asked him where his eyes were and then told him that his eyes
were there to learn Torah with. Where his ears were-and told him that they were
there to read the holy words of our texts. His mouth was given to him to study
and teach its words day and night- I added and to eat chulent with. He then
noted that the first words of Torah we learn with a child is the first pasuk
of the book of Vayikra; this week's Torah portion. We start them off with the
portion of the sacrifices.
The first
lesson we teach our children as they start to talk, is that they have reached
the age when they are no longer part of the animal kingdom. That power of
speech that we have been given differentiates us from them. It reveals that
spark of Hashem inside of us. Until age three baby children are not very
different from a baby sheep. They grunt for food, they eat frolic and play and
they are driven by their instincts. When we cut their hair and teach them the
sweetness of Torah and they begin to make the blessings we teach them that we
are not like them. The animal kingdom was given to us to elevate and bring us
closer to Hashem. We have been redeemed from Egypt. Hashem showed us we are
different than the nations. We are there to lift them up as well. Cute little Nadiv the Kohen of the 1st
grade class where we took him, was called up by the Rebbi to give our Yoel his
priestly blessing.
Yevarecha Hashem V'yishmeracha- may Hashem bless you and watch over you
Ya'eir Hashem panav eilecha vichunencha- May Hashem shine His countenance upon you and show you
grace.
Yisa Hashem panav eileicha, v'yaseim lecha
shalom- May Hashem shine His face upon you
and place upon you peace.
A tear rolled down my eye. My cute little meatball
of an einikel was now a boy. Not a hamburger. Not even a steak or a
piece of flanken in a chulent. He is our little tzadik. He will
elevate the entire world with those brachos he makes. May Hashem bless
him and all of the Jewish children with only peace and may this Pesach we merit
to realize that prayer and blessing that we say by the seder cup of wine that
we drink, that we merit to eat from the zevachim and the Pesach
sacrifices in the Temple in Jerusalem rebuilt.
Have a real festeh flayshigeh Shabbos!
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
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" A shtik fleish mit tsvei oygn.."- The piece
of meat with two eyes" (Jewish insult)
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM QUESTION OF THE WEEK
answer below at end of Email
20)
The Church of the Holy Sepulcher was extensively damaged by the:
A)
Mamluks
B)
Ayyubids
C)
Ummayads
D)
Fatimids
https://youtu.be/DZyJhRgpwCQ
–
ThankYouHashem-
great Yiddish song remake and story by Lipa- Yiddish with ENGLISH
subtitles-wish more Yiddish songs did this
https://youtu.be/prTs2rH8Ihg - Mordechai Shapiro's latest
release Vehi She'amda like you've never heard it before
https://youtu.be/7yu9lnkJ-hw
- Ilan by Yitz Waldner with Yaakov Shwekey
duet composed for Shlomie Werdigers' 70'th birthday..
https://youtu.be/JjRSBBu2El0
- Wake up Yidden by 8th Day fresh
and fun!
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S PARSHA/ ERETZ YISRAEL CONNECTION OF THE
WEEK
The Maharil
Diskin answers that the Midrash is noting the order of all of the mitzvos of
the sacrifices here that were given (unlike Rashi's opinion) before the Mishkan
was actually inaugurated, which will only happen in the end of next week's
parsha. The reason for this is because Hashem wanted the Jewish people to
appreciate and know the laws of the sacrifices before it was open for business
what it was all about. Moshe explained that the function of the Mishkan was for
the good of the nation. That whenever we sinned we would have a place to come
and atone. Where we could come close to Hashem. This idea works until we reach
the sacrifice for the sin of coming to the Mikdash impure. For by this mitzva
it seems that the Mishkan is putting an extra burden on us. It is creating a
plaee and way we can sin that we didn't have before and it forces us to have
extra care about our purity status when we come there.
Dovid's
Conquests - 870 BC- with the building of the Temple taken off of Dovid's
list of to do things for Hashem he recognized that the time had not come yet
where Israel can finally be relaxed from our enemies that surrounded us. As
well Dovid understood that to build the Temple would require a lot of money in
the national coffers. Thus he decided to embark upon a series of conquests
eradicating Israel's neighbors who he felt would pose a threat to us, to avenge
the Jewish people upon the enemies that had attacked us and to raise some
capital in the form of war booty for new nation. These wars our sages tell us
were done without consultation of the Urim V'Tumim and are considered
permissible wars that a King has the authority to declare, yet they do not rise
to the level of the mitzva wars that the conquest of Israel or the defensive
wars of Israel had until that point fought.
My friends invited me to barbecue night yesterday. I said no but now I'm regretting it. That was a missed steak.
Sometime
in the 1970s, on an absolutely freezing day, a shipment of meat arrives in a
town in the Soviet Union. The townspeople, bundled to their eyeballs, line
up outside the town store to wait to be given their rations. After about an
hour, a man comes out of the store and announces, "Comrades, I'm sorry
to tell you, but there isn't enough meat for everyone, so the Jews have to
leave." The Jews in the line leave grumbling.
About an hour later, the man comes out of the store and announces, "Comrades,
I'm sorry to tell you this, but there isn't enough meat for everyone, so anyone
who is not a member of the Communist party will have to leave." More
grumbling as the non-Party members depart.
Another hour goes by and the man comes out of the store again and announces,
"Comrades, I'm sorry to tell you this, but there isn't enough meat for
everyone in the line, so anyone who wasn't a member of the Party before 1956
has to leave." More grumbling as all the younger Party members leave.
A few old people remain in the line.
Another hour goes by. It's now getting dark and it's cold. The same man comes
out of the store and announces, "Comrades, I'm sorry to tell you this,
but there isn't any meat. Go home."
One old lady in the line turns to her neighbor and says, "See? It's
like I told you. The Jews always get the best treatment ..."
*********************************
Answer is D –Easy. I didn't stand a chance with this
one. The first thing I deleted out of my brain after I passed my exam was all
the Muslim mishegas. Right after that was the churches and the Christian
chazerai. This question would've been a definite skip had I taken the exam (you
have to skip 5 out of the 50). I guessed Ummayad because I know they were busy
by the Temple Mount and their palaces there by the southern wall I always tour.
But the right answer is Fatimid. So I'll count this as wrong. And the score is
now 14 for Rabbi Schwartz and 5 for the Ministry of Tourism on this exam.
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