from the
Holy Land
from
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
"Your friend in Karmiel"
October 28th 2022 -Volume 12 Issue 2 3rd of Tishrei 5783
Parshat Noach
Mazel Tov!
And there she sat. She was beautiful in that magnificent white chair adorned with flowers. Her gown glistened. Her pure eyes sparkled. My eyes began to tear up as I gazed upon her heavenly countenance. She looked like an angel. My angel. Oh and next to her was the bride my daughter Rivkah, of course. I was talking about my wife Aliza, who made this entire wedding. Why who did you think I was talking about?
Ok, just joking. I just needed to get some brownie points there. I’ll admit was really talking about Rivkah, my little girl. My princess. My precious daughter who had grown up so quick and was getting ready to “leave her parents and cleave to her husband” as the Torah tells us marriage is. I wasn’t ready to give her up yet. I wasn’t ready to let her go. I wanted to hold her a bit more. To hug her a bit more. To let Aliza raise her a bit more, while I popped in occasionally into her life to kiss her and bless her. I really didn’t feel ready.
Is she really getting married? Wasn’t it just yesterday when we brought this precious little child home from the Virginia Hospital where she was born on the 17th of Tamuz, when all Klal Yisrael mourns the beginning of the destruction of the Temple and hopes and davens for light and joy? She was the light and joy that came into our lives. She was different than Shani and Yonah. Shani was me-just in a girls body. Y’know, quiet, unassuming, polite, helpful and never causing any trouble or mischief. Yeah right… Shani was the fulfillment of my mothers “blessing” that I should have a child just like me.
Yonah, different than Shani was rambunctious. He was like a monkey climbing up and down anything. Fearless and all over the place and doing all the stupid things that his older sister would send him off to do for her. “Yonah- why don’t you climb on those three chairs on top of the fridge to get some candy that Mommy and Daddy hid”. “Yonah, let’s see what happens when we cook those family pictures in the aluminum pan in the microwave”. I can’t even count the almost heart attacks he gave my wife.
Rivkah, though was “deefrent et ahll” as my Savta would say. (I think that’s the Hungarian English translation of the Hebrew ‘bichlal shoneh”.) She was a princess. She cleaned her room. She played quietly by herself. She was soft spoken. She didn’t really cry. She was, like, “hi mommy, I haven’t nursed for a while and wouldn’t mind if you could feed me if you have some spare time. She was the type of baby that if she could’ve she would’ve changed her own diapers.” Not that hers smelled at all. (As if I would know… my wife is looking at me and making a funny sarcastic face). Ok I’m exaggerating but you get the point.
We moved to Israel when she was 7, after our 6-year stint in Seattle, where she left behind all of the
“tanta’s” and “uncles’ she had gained there that doted on her. She was the baby of the West Seattle TLC Mishpacha and everyone took care of her as their own daughter. Moving to Israel at that age, making friends and going to school when you don’t even have the basic language, could be daunting. Yet, Rivkah pulled through like all our other children Baruch Hashem. In her soft and subtle way she became beloved to her friends and her teachers. Loyal, faithful, respectful, caring and even fun!. She is a Schwartz after-all. She went to seminary. She shteiged. She grew. She became a mentor. A woman. And now she was going to be someone’s wife. Yehuda’s wife…. She was going to be Mrs. Goodstein. Maybe even Rebbetzin Goodstein one day.
I don’t like losing Schwartz names from my family line. It’s a good name. My father is an only child and there’s not that many of us to carry it on. Granted Hashem sent the refuah before the Makka- with the birth of the first Schwartz granddaughter a week ago with the advent of Yonah’s daughter Malka Tzirel (Mitzi?) to the world. But I just don’t like losing daughters. Especially not my “special Rikvah”. By the way, that was the first Email I address I gave to her. Specialrivkah@gmail.com. Her password was of course. “IloveDaddy”. Now she’s going to be Rivkahgoodstein@sometypeofkosherfilteredemailserver.com and her password will probably be IloveYehuda. Yes, this was not easy for me.
We approached this little girl of mine as I escorted the chasan with his father to her for her badeken where he would take the first step of the evening of making her his forever. I let go of my son-in-law-to-be (in a few minutes) and handed the candle I was holding to someone and stepped up to that chair and closed my eyes and gave her my blessing. I offered my prayer to Hashem, Who had so thankfully brought me to this day. I looked down at her pretty veiled head and face and I lowered my head into what I felt was the halo that encircled her. “I love you”, I chokingly whispered. “I’m so proud of you” I sobbed. I’ll miss you… I said to myself. Yisimeich Hashem k’sarah Rivkah Rochel V’Leah- May you be like our Matriarchs. May Hashem watch you protect you, may He shine His light through you and may He only bless you with peace… And then she was his. I stepped back. I had done my part. Her life would be starting in a few minutes. I looked at my next daughter Elka as I walked away and I decided right then that I was locking her up in her room for at least another 5 years. I needed to recover from this, before I let the next one go…
OK. It’s time to write this E-Mail. I open up the parsha. The first words are about the generations and descendants of Noach. His three sons. His entire world. Unlike me his children didn’t always give him nachas. Well at least not his third youngest son, Cham. In fact the Ramban mentions that the only reason his children were saved was because of the merit of Noach. They were riding on their fathers’ coattails. Or perhaps sailing would be a better metaphor. Interestingly, at the end of the Parsha we have Avraham our Patriarch who is leaving to Eretz Yisrael. There, his father Terach accompanies him leaving to go to Charan together. Fascinatingly enough though the Ramban tells us that Terach eventually did teshuva and has a portion in the World to Come in the merit of Avraham. He derives that from the promise Hashem made Avraham that he would be buried at an old age and be “returned to his father in peace”. Sometimes it’s the children that bring back the parents and sometimes it’s the parents that bring along the children.
Yet there’s a deeper connection between fathers and children, between husband and wives and even of marriage and yiddeshe Nachas. It’s time to take a peek into one of my favorite commentaries none other than the Klei Yakar,written by the great 16rh century sage whose first name I share, Reb Ephraim Lunshitz. He notes that there are a lot of numbers and dimensions given in our Parsha, whenever you see that in the Torah pay attention. The Torah doesn’t give random details, and Hashem doesn’t just “stam” order things to be a precise size. There are hidden secrets and lessons in those numbers and if you dig really deep, you’ll discover whole new worlds. Sometimes you have to dig 15,000 amos deep to really really get it..
He notes that a repeating number in our Parsha is the number 15. The water of the flood was 15 amos high. It lasted for 150 days. The length and width of the Ark was 300 amos x 50 amos making it 15000 square amos total. If you multiply that by each of the three floors that were ten amos a piece high then you’re looking at 150,000 amos for each floor of space and on and on and on…
The number 15 he notes in Hebrew represents half of the name of Hashem. Yud and Hei- Like the last two letters of Halelu-yah. We are told that Hashem created the world with these last two words of his name. Ki b’y-ah Hashem tzur olamim- with the letters yud and hei of His name, He formed the world. The Yud- the small letter that’s high up in the sky-that’s the world to come. The Hei is this world. It’s closed on top, open down below with a little window to climb in through on the top. Interesting. When Hashem wants to create the world, He uses the number 15. And thus when He wants to destroy the world with the flood, He uses the number 15 again and again.
It’s not just for building and destroying worlds though that the number 15 and the yud and the hei play a role. We are told that a marriage between a man and woman also only works with the yud and hei inserted in it. A man, of course in Hebrew is Ish- spelled aleph, yud, shin. A woman is Ishah spelled aleph, shin, and hei. If you take the yud out of the man and the hei out of the woman we are left with eish- which means fire. The only way the two fires and passions of marriage can survive or be whole and complete is with the yud and the hei. With Hashem’s name between them. When Hashem’s name is there though, then the three “partners” together can create a new world. They can create life; a child.
The generation of the Flood’s sin was the breakdown of the marriage structure. They were illicit, intermingling, interbreeding the name of Hashem-the ‘15’ of yud and hei that hold the world together was disappearing. Hashem decides Emcheh es ha’adam- I will wipe out man from the world. The word emcheh is the opposite of mechayeh- to give life. The difference is that the ‘yud’ has been removed. Without that spark of Hashem, it’s destruction. There’s no life.
The Ark would be life built anew. It was a place where not only humans, but even animals for the only time are referred to not only as male and female but even as Ish and Ishah- man and woman. These were animals that didn’t intermingle and that understood that the sanctity of their role in the world was to bring Hashem into creation. The dimensions of the Teiva are all about 15. It’s all about bringing Hashem back into this world. Its creation born anew. Mazel Tov!
There is another fascinating time that he mentions where we see this number play a role. It is when Dovid Ha’Melech is digging the foundations of the Beis Ha’Mikdash. It says that he struck the waters of the depths that had been held back since the flood. They threatened to rise and once again flood the world. According to the Talmud he threw in an earthenware shard with Hashem’s name on it and then composed the 15 psalms of ascents to set everything in place once again. He derived this method of erasing Hashem’s name from the mitzva of Sotah. It is permitted to erase the name of Hashem to bring peace between Ish and Isha. It is placing Hashem’s name back into the picture that may have gotten erased from the formula when there may have been some infidelity. Dovid as well was concerned that perhaps his sin with Batsheva would drown the world and not permit the foundation of Hashem’s temple and Home to be built. So he composed Shir Ha’Maalos. The song of raising Hashem’s name up; Revealing Him from the depths.
The Klei Yakar notes that the concluding verses of the 15 Shir Ha’Maalos is about a wife and mother. Eshticha k’gefen poriya- your wife is like a fruitful vine. The word eshticha is written with the three dot “segol” ‘eh’ sounding vowelization. The three dots, he writes represent the three partners in a child that comes from the woman; the father, the mother and Hashem. The Mishnas Yosef takes this even a step further. There is Isha which is woman with a one dot, eee-sounding chirik vowel under it. There is an Eishes Ish- a wife of a man which has the ‘eyy’ sounding tzeirei sound under it with two dots. And finally when she has a child it is eshticha- as it says in Shir Ha’maalos. The three partners together. And thus a world is born.
As I walked away from the Badeken of my Rivkah, I wasn’t walking alone. I felt accompanying me as I walked her down the chupah to her Bashert, the neshomas of all those souls that brought us here today. That brought me here today. That brought my wife here. They were all walking her down with me. My saba, my savta, my Babbie, my Zayidie, their parents, their grandparents, all of those generations that had built foundations for us to build upon. To bring the shechina a little bit closer to this earth. I look over at my parents, at my in-laws, at Aliza’s grandmother B’h who was sitting in the front row shepping nachas. I look at my other children and grandchildren surrounding the chupa looking on at their sister becoming an Isha. At their new uncle. The shechina was resting there and my song praising and thanking Hashem for bringing us to this day was playing in the background. Like Noach after the return of the dove with the olive branch waiting another 7 days to exit, my Rivkah circled her chasan 7 times building those spheres of holiness around her husband. Another home has built in klal Yisrael.
A glass has been broken. The crowd remembers Yerushalayim. We may have built another home and brought Hashem into this world in this new couple, but His real home is still waiting to be rebuilt. On the head of our simcha we remember our third Partner who is still awaiting his bayis ne’eman. We cry for Him. We channel our emotions towards Him. And then we shout Mazel Tov!
They’re off and we sit back and shep nachas. Nachas- true yiddisheh nachas, is also in our parsha the last letter of the word ToldoS Noach is the letters Nachas. Nachas is our generations that follow in the footsteps of all of those that came before us. It’s when the children take the role of their parents and begin a new home. Noach’s “toldos” were not just his children, they were his good deeds that his children built their homes upon. It was the world of Hashem they would begin the process of creating. May Hashem finally have that nachas He’s waited so long to shep from us. And may once again the sounds of the bride and the groom rejoice in the rebuilt halls of the Temple in Yerushalayim.
Mazel Tov!
Have a incredible celebratory Shabbos,
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
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YIDDISH PROVERB OF THE WEEK
“Der “harey-at” iz a kurtser prolog tsu a lange drameh. “The wedding vow is a short prologue to a long drama.
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S COOL VIDEO OF THE WEEK
https://soundcloud.com/ephraim-schwartz/tefilas-kallah - The most beautiful Chupah song you ever heard for my daughters wedding this coming week. Yitz Berry did the arrangements and the great Dovid Lowy on the vocals… Listen again and again!!
https://soundcloud.com/ephraim-schwartz/samayach – And the second song I composed Samayach for the dancing which is of course the happiest wedding song you will ever hear and will have you dancing with me!
https://soundcloud.com/ephraim-schwartz/mi-adir – one we’re on the subject this was my son Yonah’s composition for his Chupa
https://soundcloud.com/ephraim-schwartz/mi-van-siach - And my composition for Shani’s wedding Chupah
https://soundcloud.com/ephraim-schwartz/asher-bara – And the leibidik Dance Song Asher Barah I composed for Shani’s wedding!
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM QUESTION OF THE WEEK
answer below at end of Email
15) For most of our history Jewish settlement in the Golan was centered in the _________ region
This was because
A) The Terra Rosa earth is uniquely good.
B) The relative security that was in the periphery far away from the center of the country
C) Deep covered Basalt earth in a flat region
D) An abundance of Dolomite rock that is good for agriculture
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S ERA’S AND THEIR PLACES AND PEOPLE IN ISRAEL OF THE WEEK
The Final Battle - 718 BC – With the completion of the reading of the Torah and the new cycle of Torah reading, in this column as well we come to the end of the Book of Melachim Aleph/ Kings I. The last chapter picks up three years after Achav’s teshuva and true remorse after the story and murder of Navos and the taking of his vineyard inspired by the rebuke and dire punishment that was foretold for him by Eliyahu Ha’Navi. For three years he did righteous in the eyes of Hashem, but ultimately his pride and desire overtook him.
It was a meeting with his brother in law the King of Yehuda, Yehoshafat the son of Asa (who was the grandson of the first king of the Divided Kingdom Rechavam). Yehoshafat was righteous king despite his not so righteous wife Athalia the sister of Achav and daughter of the wicked Omri. It was a political marriage and united the kingdoms somewhat-which is a good thing. At the meeting between these two brother-in-laws Achav bemoaned the fact the land of Ramot Gilead on the other side of the Jordan River had been left in the hands of Ben Hadad and Aram that had conquered it under his fathers rulership. Today Ramat Gilead is located according to most in the city of Al- Salat in Jordan- the fifth largest city in that country that is currently illegally occupying the biblical portion of the tribe of Gad and about 30 KM from Amman. When driving up the Jordan Valley one can see the city.
Yehoshafat was wary of going to war and breaking the peace treaty that Achav had made with Ben Hadad over the city. He knew that the Arameans hated Israel and the Israelites victory was only a miraculous one. Hashem wasn’t happy with Achav’s sparing of Ben Hadad in the first place. Best not to get involved with them and poke the hornets nest. Achav was insistent though and they asked the prophets of Hashem to tell them what they should do. The nevi’im all said that he was good to go. But that made Yehoshafat even more suspicious. You know the old rule- if it sounds too good to be true… than it is. He asked to be brought to speak to the prophet Micha. Remember him? He’s the one that on the one hand foretold about the original victory against Aram. Yet, on the other hand he rebuked Achav for sparing Ben Hadad.
Achav, needlessly to say- is wary of Micha and Micha as well is unimpressed with Achav. He at first tells Achav that he should be blessed with success, avoiding giving a prophecy. But ultimately when pressed he tells Achav. It’s a mistake. He will get killed. They shouldn’t go forward. Yet Achav and Yehoshafat listen to the false prophets who were tricked by the spirit of Navos our sages tell us and they convince him to move forward with battle. It’s the beginning of the end for Achav. Next week, we’ll conclude with battle and the death of Achav
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S TERRIBLE MARRIAGE JOKES OF THE WEEK
“Love may be blind but marriage is a real eye-opener.” .
Just remember, Yehudah never laugh at a choice my daughter makes. You were one of them, after all!
A wedding ring may not be as tight as a tourniquet, but it does an equally good job of stopping circulation.
After a quarrel, Hindy said to her husband Moishe, “You know, I was a fool when I married you.” Moishe replied, “Yes, dear, but I was in love and didn’t notice
Did you hear about the notebook who married a pencil? She finally found Mr. Write.
Did you hear about the two spiders who just got engaged? I hear they met on the web.
Did you hear about the bald man who married his comb? He promised, “I’ll never part with it!
Did you hear about the two cell phones who got married? The reception was terrific.
I just saw two nuclear technicians getting married. The bride was radiant and the groom was glowing.
It’s been ten years since the invisible man married the invisible woman. Their kids are nothing to look at either.
Sadly, hydrogen and helium broke things off. But they still think of each other periodically
“I think men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage. They’ve experienced pain and bought jewelry.
The best way to get most husbands to do something is to suggest that perhaps they’re too old to do it.”
Even though there was a blizzard raging outside Yankel made it the half-mile to the bakery, where heasked the owner for six rolls.
“Your wife must like rugelach,” he said.
“How do you know these are for my wife?” I asked.
“Because your mother wouldn’t send you out in weather like this.”
Berel noticed that his 60-year-old father seemed to be losing his hearing, so he mentioned it to his mother. “Things haven’t changed that much,” she said. “Only difference is, before, he didn’t listen. Now, he can’t.”
First, a man is not complete until he is married. Then, he’s FINISHED!
Second, a man does not know true happiness until he is married. And then, it’s too late!
In the first year of marriage, the man speaks and the woman listens. In the second year, the woman speaks and the man listens. In the third year, they both speak and the neighbors listen.
A husband said to his wife, “No, I don’t hate your relatives. In fact, I like your mother-in-law better than I like mine.”
A wise man spoke at his son’s Sheva Berachos. He said, “Son, now that you’re married, it’s time to learn the fine art of compromise. Let me give you an example. Let’s say that it’s time to paint the kitchen. Your wife wants to paint it pink, but you prefer white. So you compromise – you paint it pink!”
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Answer is B There was a lot of debate about this question. I mean certainly the second part of the question. That life was in central western part of Golan or what is called the Southern Golan today everyone seemed to agree. In fact 30 percent of synagogues from Mishna Talmud period in Israel where found in that region, Gamla, Natur, and others. The question was why there? I’m not a big agriculture guy and I went with the far from center for safety thing, which I still believe is the right answer and confirmed by my Mihspacha magazine interviewee archeologist guy Mickey Orbach. Yet, some og the guides found something on line about the Terra Rosa land thing, which I still don’t think is correct. So I’m giving myself the right answer here. And thus the score now is Schwartz 12 and 3 for MOT (Ministry of Tourism) on this exam.
