Fruit of the Loo- Parshat Behar 2022 5782

 

Insights and Inspiration

from the

Holy Land

from

Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz

"Your friend in Karmiel"

May 13^th 2022 -Volume 11 Issue 32 12^th Iyar 5782

Parshat Behar

Fruit of the “Loo”

(you have to be English to get that title..)

 

“But why, Rabbi? Why can’t I take this peach with me back to America? I want to share this special first delicious fruit that we just tasted of the holy shemitta year with my family. With my friends. I want them to taste some of the holy fruits of this incredible land. How sweet it is. How delicious it tastes. I want them also to feel the holiness that I feel when I bite into this juicy piece of heaven. Why are you telling me that it’s forbidden to take it back to America; to Lakewood Ir Ha’Kodesh?”

 

I felt bad for my tourists. I understood their pain. After a week of trying to find the perfect Israeli souvenir to bring back to their family, they thought they had finally found it. I mean chatchkes, jewelry, art and cheesy T-Shirts that have the IDF logo or the “Don’t worry America, Israel is behind you” are all fine and good. But there’s nothing like tasting a piece of the Holy Land. This peach was truly delicious, and this was a chance to share the bounty of this holy blessed land with their family. And yet, I explained to them fruits of the shemitta year were forbidden to be taken out of the land. It was only for those that were here in Israel.

 

 But seeing how broken they were about this mitzva I figured I would try to explain it to them gently. With the great sensitivity that I’m famous for. I would try to put it in words and with a parable that they could relate to. That would inspire them. That would certainly give them a great appreciation of the incredible insight and wisdom our eternal Torah possesses. With perhaps the most important message that they would ever hear. That we needed to hear. That was given to us on Sinai.

 

I asked them if they ever heard of a Sefer Torah before. They smiled and being yeshivish from Lakewood, knew all about a Torah scroll and its holiness. I asked them then, if they perhaps could help me understand why if I wanted to study or read the Torah it was forbidden for me to take it into the bathroom. Into a toilet. They looked at me with horror. I told them that I didn’t understand their consternation. After-all I just want to learn. I just want to read the word of Hashem. I just want to take it with me in there and read from it there. Why is that a problem? Why do I have to take off my teffilin when I go into the bathroom? What’s the big deal?

 

Some of the parents were starting to chap where I was going and were hoping I would be quiet by that time and change the subject. But their poor children who had been distracted by the fruit trees in this shemitta field the entire time were now really paying attention. The word toilet and bathroom usually works to get the kids listening. If you say “poop” that really does the trick. So when one of the brighter children piped up with the correct answer and told me that a bathroom is an unclean place, I asked her why it was and she was shy. I then of course told her that it was because people “poop” in there. See, I really wanted all of the kids to hear this and I pulled out all of my anti-ADD cards. They giggled a bit and I had them.

Aha… I said. So a Torah is holy and it can’t be brought into an unclean, tamey place? A filthy hole where there is no holiness. Where there can’t be holiness. A Torah scroll is too holy to be in such an impure place. That’s the reason why it can’t be brought there. It’s why we keep it in holy places. Why we treat it with purity. Why we stand up when we read it. When we hold it. We even kiss it. Now I think I understand. Do you guys as well?

 

See a peach of Eretz Yisrael is a holy thing. It’s like a Torah scroll. America? Lakewood? Boro Park? London? Gateshead? Uman? They’re all toilets. They are all tamey. They are full of impurity. They are not places that a holy fruit of Eretz Yisrael should ever be caught dead. Should ever be desecrated being brought into. Making a bracha on this holy fruit in Chutz L’aretz would be liking blessing on your teffilin in a bathroom. It is something that obviously should never be done.

 

Did I ever mention that sensitivity was never really my strong point?

 

Now there are some people, I continued-because in general I really never know when I’ve said too much- that like to live in these filthy places. I understand that and would never judge anyone. The pizza is better there in those cities. Gas is cheaper and when you shop in stores they bag your groceries for you and say ‘Thank you for shopping in Walmart’ and those are very important things in life. There are even some people that ironically feel and say that they can learn and study better in these bathrooms. The education is much better. I can relate to that as well. I spend an inordinate amount of time, my children complain, in my royal chambers. But who are we really fooling? I mean the whole point of studying Torah isn’t an intellectual pursuit. It’s about studying holy things and having that word of Hashem permeate your entire being. And we all know that a place that is bereft of any innate holiness is never going to really do that the way it’s supposed to.

 

But Eretz Yisrael on the other hand is the place where Torah is naturally meant to be learned. Where the air itself is holy and conducive to its study. Where it’s peaches, it’s pomegranates, and even it’s Ben and Jerry’s Chalav Yisrael Milk and Honey flavored ice cream contains the holy spiritual ingredients and vitamins that one needs to absorb as much of that holiness floating around in the air as you can. Why send a fruit that has all of those special ingredients and elements in it to a place where they could never realize their special spiritual potential. It would be like sending an electric car to a country that didn’t have any charging stations. It would be baal tashchis- wasting a holy shemitta fruit of Israel in the worst possible way.

 

Now if you think this is just Rabbi Schwartz’s personal tirade that you want to brush off or just a Yom Ha’atzmaut Eretz Yisrael hangover he’s having and therefore want to distract your children that might ask really troubling questions to you about why you’re living and raising them in such an unclean place, then I would recommend you in the Diaspora skip next week’s Torah portion. It could be confusing to them. It’s not good, some people to say, to give your children mixed messages. They’re not as prepared and honed as we adults are at living lives full of contradictions and hypocrisy.

 

We can say every day “Hashem please return us to Eretz Yisrael”. We can say whenever we make an al hamichiya, how much we wish we could live in the land where we could merit to eat the holy fruits. We can say ‘l’shana ha’ba’ah b’yerushalayim- next year in Jerusalem.’ And at the same time know that we really don’t have to wait another year.  If we really wanted it so bad we would just get on a plane with our children and move to the land that we are supposedly davening with our eyes closed really hard to live in. I mean there are over 7 million people of our brothers and sisters living there. Tens of thousands that move every year. It’s not like it was a hundred years ago, when our great grandparents who davened and cried those same words and really meant them couldn’t come. When all of the great Rabbis we read Artscroll books about and study their great works Chasidic and non-chasidic alike would’ve done anything to come here and some even tried but couldn’t. We know that if they lived today they would’ve left the bathroom long ago. But they also had a hard time living the contradictions we’ve become comfortable with. They probably still taught it back then in cheder and school as well…

 

Yes, we’re fine knowing that we are faking it and lying to ourselves. But it’s rough for kids to do that. So just have them skip next weeks parsha of Behar. I mean we already took out the mitzva of living in Eretz Yisrael from most of their Jewish education in those countries already. What’s missing one more parsha going to do them?

 

See the parsha that we are reading this week in Eretz Yisrael starts off with that mitzva of the holy fruits of Israel and the incredible sanctity of the land. The parsha though fascinatingly enough begins with the strange introduction that this commandment was given to Moshe at Mt. Sinai. In fact as I noted in the Torah portion last week in my shul the terms the Torah uses seems to feel that this a very important mitzva to pass on

 

“And Hashem spoke to Moshe at Har Sinai to say over. Speak to the Jewish people and say to them…” Did you get that? Hashem told Moshe lei’mor to say over. And then seemingly repetitiously it says to “speak to them” and then again it says “and say to them”. This is a message that needs to be repeated again and again. It was a message that was said on Sinai. In fact according to the Klei Yakar it was perhaps even the most important and primary lesson of all of the mitzvos of Sinai. It was what Sinai was all about. So maybe on the other hand you shouldn’t skip it.

 

The Klei Yakar writes that when Moshe went up to Mt. Sinai it was after 49 days that the Jewish people counted from our exodus from Egypt to the mountain where the Torah was given. Har Sinai, that holy mountain became forbidden to be plowed or planted on that fiftieth day. It was the ultimate moment of our redemption. A time of freedom for every Jew. In the beginning of our Exodus story when Moshe asks Hashem why He was taking us out of Egypt and what merit we had, Hashem responded that it was all in order to come serve Hashem on this mountain. We heard the sound of the Shofar then and we blow it every 50^th year in order to declare and remember that freedom and herald in the national and individual redemption once again for each Jew. In the word of the Klei Yakar it is because Hashem wanted Moshe to understand that the holiness that we experienced at Mt. Sinai is the holiness of the land of Israel. The land of Shemitta. The land whose, “air -avira, machkim -makes you wise”.

 

He continues and writes that just as the Torah we received there at the Mountain at that moment was because it was the holiest place on earth where the shechina descended from heaven. So too there is no holier place for Torah than in Eretz Yisrael. It is Sinai. In fact, it is greater than Sinai because Sinai wasn’t a holy mountain after that moment. The holiness of that mountain and land were transported to Eretz Yisrael. It is here that one can feel that experience daily. Can live it. Can taste it. Can breathe it. It’s here we are free because we are living in the Land of Hashem. It’s not the Egyptians. Not the Spanish, Not the farshtunkeneh Europeans or the Americans. It’s the land where every Jew has a plot of land, a mini Mt. Sinai waiting for him. For him to keep the Torah. For him to eat the fruits. From him to be free. In Yovel- the Jubilee year, even if someone is living in your land it returns to you for precisely that reason. Because the land wasn’t his to keep. He was just watching it an occupying it for you until you came home. Until you find your place at Sinai. Until you realized that you can only eat your fruits in your home. Because your really not living in your home until you get here. And you can’t make a bracha in the bathroom.

 

We don’t have the laws of the fiftieth year of yovel anymore today. We haven’t had them since the time we were exiled from Israel after the first Temple. During the 2^nd Bais Hamikdash the Jews liked their Babylonian and Persian Walmart customer service, pizza shops and their really great chareidi school systems that only allowed smart phones with filters and they were therefore much frummer and so they didn’t come to Eretz Yisrael. See, the laws of yovel only apply when the majority of Jews are living in Eretz Yisrael. The land, as Mt. Sinai back then, only really work to it’s maximum when we are all there together. Like one man, one brother and one sister saying we are all ready to be redeemed and take our rightful place on the mountain. The place that only I can fill. The letter in the Torah that only I can shine forth. The plot of land and fruit tree with mine and my families name on it. We didn’t have that by second Temple and we still don’t have that today. But we’re getting close. We’re closer than we have ever been since the first Temple, with more Jews here than ever before.

 

Each day of Omer that we count we are meant to be building and getting closer to that Mountain. To Eretz Yisrael. We mourn the students of Rabbi Akiva during this period to remember not only their failure and death, but perhaps to remember what Rabbi Akiva was trying to accomplish when he inspired that revolt against the Romans that led to their deaths. Rabbi Akiva was trying to bring us to the Messianic era that he felt was so close. We were approaching 70 years from when the 2^nd Temple was destroyed, when we were thrown from our homes and our holy mountain, and he felt it was time to come back once again and reclaim it. It wasn’t a fight and war that was started because of religious persecution. He had established a huge yeshiva with 24,000 students who were studying Torah day and night. It was a war that was started in order to return us to our holiest place. To be free. To blow the shofar of freedom once again in the land and restore a country where all the Jews that had been exiled could return to. It was a fight so that the land could once again have a rest for Hashem. But he didn’t merit it and neither did they. And it is that which we mourn. We even mourn it in Israel today as well rebuilt and restored because it’s still not Sinai. You’re still not here and the shechina therefore has not yet returned either. Our Na’aseh V’nishma is not complete. The mountain is still awaiting.

 

So we count and we count and we count. 49 days until Shavuous. 1952 years of exile that we have been counting from when we lost saw our Bais Hamikdash. 2442 years (420 of the 2^nd Temple plus 70 years galus) since we were all in Eretz Yisrael together and felt that freedom and had our homes and the mitzva of yovel. We’re counting in this year of shemitta and hopefully the count this year will have a different culmination. This time it really will end at Sinai in Eretz Yisrael. This time we will all come home. This time Mashiach ben Dovid will finally be here. Your fruits are growing. They’re delicious. There will be a lot in this blessed year. Do you want to come home and taste them with me?

 

Have a Eretz Yisraeldikeh-Shabbos

Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz

 

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RABBI SCHWARTZ’S FAVORITE YIDDISH PROVERB OF THE WEEK

 

Der remez shlogt shtarker vi der emess.- A hint hits harder than the truth.

 

RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM QUESTION OF THE WEEK

answer below at end of Email

 

27)  Two ancient settlement points on the Nabataean incense trade routes (darchei ha’besamim):_ ________________

 

The Nabataean people belonged to which culture?

A)  Arabic

B)  Sassanid

C)  Edomite

D)  Philistine  

 

RABBI SCHWARTZ'S PARSHA/SHABBOS CONNECTION OF THE WEEK

 

Born Anew -Parshat Behar -  The Mitzva of Shemitta is a fascinating one that is intricately connected to Shabbos. In fact from the reading of the Torah it is precisely like Shabbos. The 7^th day of the week is Shabbos for Hashem and the 7^th year the land rests and it is Shabbos for Hashem. Even more fascinating the Nesivos Sholom points out that both mitzvos are seemingly described backwards. By the ten commandments the Torah tells us we should remember the day of Shabbos and keep it holy and only after does it tell us that we should work for 6 days. As well with Shemitta the Torah tells us that the land should have Shabbos for Hashem and then it tells us six years we should work the land. Why is it this way? Shouldn’t it first tell us to work and then after that rest?

 

The answer, he explains is that the entire purpose of the Creation of the world is for Shabbos. It is the day when we reveal that Hashem is the world’s Creator. All that we are and that we have is from Him and to serve Him and reveal His glory in the world. Our sages tell us that if the Jews would not observe the Shabbos the world would cease to exist. It would have no function. Thus Shabbos is the neshoma of the world. It is its soul.

 

Similarly the land of Israel is only given to us to reveal Hashem’s ownership of the entire world. That is the reason we have and were given the land and it is that idea that is the land’s life force and neshoma and without it we would be exiled from it. It would cease to be ours. When we observe shemitta than the land has meaning. It reveals Hashem in the world. It then gives strength to flourish and grow and produce for the next years. It’s neshoma has been charged and renewed. It’s good to go and so are we.

 

Shabbos works the same way. When we observe Shabbos we are charging up our neshomas and our week for the coming week. We understand that our 6 days of work that we enter aren’t about “making a living” rather they are about revealing what life is all about. Where it comes from. Why we are here and what we are working to accomplish. That is what happens every Shabbos. Not all of us are farmers or even merit to live in the land of Israel and we can’t fulfill that mitzva of Shemitta. But each weekend we get a taste of that holiness. We recharge our spiritual batteries. We are refocused on the coming week. We have rested for Hashem.

 

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

 

Baasha- God’s Willing Executioner -740 BC Having discussed the King of Yehuda, Asa, we go back to a brief recap of what was going on in the Northern kingdom of Israel. Yeravam who broke off from Rechavam the son of Shlomo died after 22 years of leading the North. In that time three kings of Israel had reigned: Rechavam, his son Aviyam and Asa. In Asa’s second year Yeravam dies and his son, who was also no great winner Nadav becomes King. The prophet Achiya had told Yervaam that his descendants would be wiped out and sure enough Baasha who was from the tribe of Yissachar in the North is ready to take up that “holy” job. The tribe of Yissachar’s portion is in the area south of Mt. Tavor which includes the city of Afula, the Jezreel Valley all the way up to the Jordan River north of Beit She’an.  

 

Baasha heads over to the city of Gibeton which is in the South not far from Beit Shemesh area by the city of Tirtza and he kills Nadav in the second year of his kingship. Today the modern settlement of Gibeton is not far from the city of Rechovot. After he kills Nadav he then takes it a step further and wipes out the entire remaining family of Yeravam. This was of course justified as a holy mission. Hashem had told Achiya that the house of Yeravam would be destroyed and Baasha was jut fulfilling that Divine will. The problem though was that he wasn’t much better than Yervaam. He closed the borders again. He didn’t let the Jews go to Yerushalayim and he was engaged in war with Asa the king of Yehuda as we mentioned last week. It’s a huge lesson for many of these rebels and protestors that feel that they have holy causes replacing the government that they feel is corrupt. The problem though is when they come to power they just continue doing the same thing.

 

In an incredible sign of Divine justice though Hashem tells a prophecy to Yeihu the son of the Navi Hanani that Baasha will also suffer the same fate. His family will be wiped out as well. What goes around comes around, we say. And sure enough after Baasha’s death when his son Elah becomes king in an extraordinary glaring non-coincidence a new evil rebel rises up by the name of Zimri his own officer rises and kills Elah in Tirtza the same place where Baasha, Elah’s father had killed Nadav his predecessors son in the second year of his kingdom. To add even more shame and scorn on his family Elah was killed while in a drunken stupor while the army of Israel was fighting off their enemy in Gibeton. Nobody missed the Divine retribution here. Unfortunately, though it didn’t really change their ways. Zimri as we will learn was not great shakes either.

 

RABBI SCHWARTZ’S TERRIBLE TOILET JOKES OF THE WEEK

Why do people fall asleep in the bathroom? Because it's also called a restroom!

Why did the toilet paper roll down the hill? To make it to the bottom!

Why were there candles on a toilet seat? Because there was a surprise birthday potty!

What do you call a dog that you find in your bathroom? A poodle!

Why couldn't the police officers find the toilet thief? Because they had nothing to go on!

If you're an American in the sitting room, what are you in the bathroom? Euro-pee-an!

A man turns to a toilet paper and says "You look awful. What's wrong?". The toilet paper replies "Nothing really, I'm just feeling wiped today."

There are two reasons that you should never ever drink toilet water. They're called number one and number two.

 Did you hear about that film called constipated? It never came out!

A Frenchman was asked if he'd like to use the bathroom. He said, "oui, oui!"

A boy asked his teacher if he could go to the bathroom. She said yes of course, but only if you can tell me the entire alphabet. So he said, "abcdefghijklmnoqrstuvwxyz".

"Where's the p?" She asked. "

Halfway down my leg!" He answered.

 What is the toilet's favorite sport? Bowl-ing!

What does superman call his toilet? The Superbowl!

Where do bees go to the bathroom? At the BP gas station!

I've got a book in my bathroom that I write my feelings and personal thoughts into while on the toilet. I call it my diarrhea!

What do you call a fairy that uses the toilet? Stinker Bell!

Why did the baby put quarters in its diaper? It needed to be changed!

.What happens if you fall into the toilet? Well, you either stink or swim!

Where do sheep like to play? In the baaa-throom.

How many people does it take to make the bathroom smell? Just a phew

And Finally… Pooping jokes are not my favorite, but they're definitely a solid number two. OYYY…

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Answer is D -This is one of those questions that a tour guide has to know as they are important sites in Israel despite the fact that I don’t know too many people that are interested in visiting them. The Nabatean cities from the trade routes from Yemen and Saudi Arabia through Israel that sold all of the spices to them are UNESCO recognized World Heritage cities. They are after almost 2000 years old and are in pretty good shape. They’re just not really Jewish sites or have much to do with Judaism which is what my tourists care about. So the cities are Ovdat, Shivta, Nitzana and Mamshit. The last one by the way Ben Gurion who loved the Negev even considered making the capital of Israel instead of Jerusalem at one point. The Nabateans came up from Saudi Arabia after the Edomites fled the land so of course they are Arabian. So another one right and the  score is now Schwartz 22 and 5 for MOT (Ministry of Tourism) on this exam.