Karmiel

Karmiel
Our view of the Galile

Friday, February 3, 2023

Rainy Day Funds- Parshat Beshalach 2023 5783

 

Insights and Inspiration

from the

Holy Land

from

Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz

"Your friend in Karmiel"

February 3rd 2023 -Volume 12 Issue 16 12th of Shevat 5783

 

Parshat Beshalach

Rainy Day Funds

 

It’s wet. It’s cold. It’s dark and cloudy and it’s what we native born and raised Americans might call a miserable day outside. It’s days like this that we tour guides start to scramble a bit. Uh oh! There go my plans for a nice warm day by the Dead Sea or Ein Gedi. The roads might be closed because of flash floods. My tourists are not going to be able to handle a whole day walking around Shilo or Caesarea in the rain. What indoor activities are there to do? How can I keep them warm, dry and comfortable and yet still at the end of the day give them an experience that they feel they could only get here with a tour guide? I don’t want to just take them to a museum with its own guide, or to only fun activities where they don’t need me. They’re paying me big bucks. I want them to feel that they’re getting their money’s worth for a tour guide rather than just an indoor itinerary planner.

 

Baruch Hashem, I have mazal. God seems to be madly in love with me and my tourists and I’ve been able to swing mostly dry days, miraculously enough, in this stormy week. It’s really amazing! It’s like Hashem wants to make sure that they have pleasant and incredible days and only the best experience when they’re here. Maybe then they’ll decide that perhaps its Kdai to stick around and maybe even move to His Promised land. Who knows? I don’t know… I think it might just Divine wishful thinking…Ha’levai…

 

While standing out there though that morning looking out my window an incredibly powerful, and dare I even suggest, a life-changing idea came to me. Here I was getting ready to daven to Hashem to clear those skies up for me. When I ask for V’Tein Tal U’matar L’vracha- the prayer for rain each day, I always have kavana that the blessing is that it should come when I’m not touring. Friday night when I’m home from shul and getting into bed after the Shabbos meal is a great time. During the week after my tour is over and I drop them off  at their hotel, it’s always is appreciated. Even on my tour days if You need to make it rain- and I understand that it’s important, for without rain rafting down the Jordan River this summer will be extremely painful bumping on the rocks over what will be a shallow stream at best if we don’t have more rain this year. This is of particular concern to this tour guide who has lost a lot of his padding on his backside that once served as great bumpers and protection. Just bring it down, please, when it doesn’t shterr my day too much.

 

And then it hit me. It’s a fascinating thing this rain thing. On the one hand it’s important. It’s blessing. We daven for it. On Shemini Atzeret we even put on a Kittel and pretend it’s like Yom Kippur while we daven in a special tune for rain. We understand that rain isn’t just rain, but it is for all our Parnassa- our livelihood; our gashmiyos-all of our material needs.

 

At the same time it really is pretty miserable. It’s certainly not fun- except for those few weird people that like walking or dancing in the rain and splashing and getting wet. Why does Hashem make it happen that way? Why can’t He bring down our blessing and our rain like in a nice jacuzzi type, fun, relaxing way? A little shvitz action with it. A good massage perhaps? Why the cold, wet and icky-ness of it to bring our blessing?

 

I was speaking to my Rebbi this past week, Reb Yisrael Asia, and he told me something scary and fascinating that he had heard in the name of the the great Telzer Illuy Reb Mordechai Pogoromansky Zt”l, that the greatest nisayon- the most difficult challenge that our nation ever underwent in our history, was in this week’s Torah portion. It was the test and challenge of Bizas Ha’Yam- the wealth and booty that we inherited and received at the splitting of the Sea from the Egyptians. According to some Midrashim although when we left Egypt we “borrowed” all of the fancy clothes and possessions the Egyptians had in their house, when it came to chasing the Jews to the Yam Suf Pharaoh opened up all of his storehouses and decorated the horses and chariots with diamonds and precious stones and gold and silver. According to another Midrash the splitting took place specifically by Baal Tzafon which is where the money storage houses that Yosef had centuries before placed all the money of Egypt. It was their Fort Knox. The Jews walked away from that sea mega-millionaires. And that wealth, what to do with it, how to handle and relate to it, what that could do to us, that became the greatest challenge we ever had. It was the challenge that we failed.

 

It was only a few months after that windfall or more accurately sea-splash, that we took all that gold and made a calf with it. We went from singing songs of praise to Hashem, to dancing and partying grotesquely in front of that gold singing “this is your God, Israel”. We started worshipping the holy dollar. We stuffed our face on it. We built huge edifices with swimming pools and tennis courts. We wanted more and more of it and we forgot that it wasn’t the money or gold that ever takes us out of our “Egypts”- no matter how much we have stashed away, when the antisemitic persecuted push comes to the inevitable genocidal expulsion and shove. It’s only Hashem. He is our salvation. Not the billions I have stashed away or all the “power and influence” I think I might have with all of my money and success.

 

When we left Egypt, Hashem commanded Moshe to please request us- Dabeir na- bi’azney ha’am- to ask the Egyptians for their wealth. Rashi, quoting our sages tell us that Hashem asked us to ask them for it so that Avraham Avinu, who was promised that after 400 years of persecution that his descendants would suffer, would not have any taynas to Hashem, that He promised us that we would go out with great wealth, and it wasn’t fulfilled. The commentaries all ask the simple question. Did we really need to be persuaded to and begged to take the billions that Egypt was offering and giving us?

 

Although Rashi answers with a parable of a prisoner that just wants to get out and will leave as soon as he can and is grateful for just being able to escape the Holocaust, perhaps there is a deeper understanding as well. Hashem understood that wealth is a dangerous thing. Easy money is the most dangerous of all. He asked Moshe to tell the Jewish people that they should take the money from the Egyptians not for the sake of the money. Rather they should take it “li’shmah”- only for the sake of the promise to Avraham Avinu and to remove his claim on Hashem. Take it because you have to take it. Not because you want it. Not because you believe it will do anything for you. Not even because it might be used for holy things like building the Beit Ha’Mikdash or a fancy shul or a thousand charity organizations. Take it because I Told you to.

 

It didn’t work though. We failed. In Egypt when we left, we perhaps took it with that intent, but when it came to the extravagant wealth that was chucked at us at the Sea, Moshe couldn’t get us away from it. The Torah tells us he had to force us to leave those golden shores. Each man had 90 donkeys full and it still wasn’t enough. It was insane. Unfortunately, Reb Mordechai says, that test will need to be fulfilled once again before Mashiach comes and this time he ruefully notes, if we’re not successful Hashem will have to “shlep us out of Galus by our payos…”.

 

Do you know why rain is cold and wet and miserable? Hashem wants us to understand that as important and wonderful and blessed this incredible material world He has given us is, we should never get too attached to it. It should feel like cold rain dripping down our necks and back and sloshing around in our wet socks and shoes. We need it. We want it. We can plant and grow tremendous things with it. But it should never be something that we want to stand outside any longer than we need to get it. It should be something that we need to put a holy umbrella over our heads to protect us from it. It can give us a cold without it. It can make us sick. It will knock you out at the end of the day if you stay in it too long. It’s not really that geshmak after all.

 

Fascinatingly enough our parsha though does give us an alternative type of existence that is quite the opposite. It’s called the Manna. Unlike rain, Mannah, which as well comes from heaven, comes to us as dew. It rises up from ground. It doesn’t get us wet. It’s parked like an Amazon package right out the door. It is the food and parnasa of faith. It’s when I go to sleep every night with absolutely nothing in the bank. Not a crumb from yesterday left in my cupboard. Is there a greater Jewish nightmare than an empty pantry? Yet that is the real clean and sweet parnassa that we ate for forty years in the wilderness. It was a school for how to eventually deal and perceive the material blessing that the Land of Israel will provide for us, that we will need to work for with our own sweat and tears and that can be dangerous to us. It is the bread of faith. It is the parshat Ha’Man that everyone was forwarding around on their whatsapp groups to all of their friends and families this past Tuesday. It was certainly to remind them, that the real good and dry parnassa that we should daven to Hashem is the one that only gives us enough that we need for each day. We don’t need more than that. Too much is scary. Too much I don’t know if I can handle the nisayon for. With too much I might forget how wet, dirty and cold this material blessing is and I might stay too long in it and catch a cold. I might forget You…

 

We are living in that era right before our final redemption. Baruch Hashem from what I can see by the multitudes that are flocking to Israel and blowing wads of gelt- in the right place and on the right people- wink wink..- that Klal Yisrael is doing better than we’ve ever done before. It’s that time of the Nisayon of Bizas Ha’Yam that Reb Mordechai foretold. Biza- loot or booty, also comes from the word bizayon. It’s something we should scorn. That should be wet and icky to us and feel that way as shiny and beautiful as it may look and as tempting as it is. Rebbi Yehudah Ha’Nasi who was one of the wealthiest people of his time lifted his small finger up before he died and said that even though there was never anything lacking from his table, he didn’t really enjoy anything in this material world. It was wet, cold and rainy to him. That’s a hard level to reach and I’m speaking to myself as much as to anyone reading; not that I have mega-millions. But whenever it’s raining, since I’ve thought of that idea, it reminds me of what geshem really is. How it should really feel to me. I don’t want rain. I want Mannah. And if we have that emuna and faith IYh we will finally rectify that first failed test and merit finally to eat from the Table of the King in His palace rebuilt!

 

Have a dry and blessed Shabbos,

Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz

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YIDDISH PROVERB OF THE WEEK

 

“A gast iz vi regen az er doi’ert tsu lang, vert er a last.- A guest is like rain: when he lingers on, he becomes a nuisance..

RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM QUESTION OF THE WEEK

answer below at end of Email

9) "The Knights' Halls" in Acre are a part of a compound of a Crusader order known as "The___order".

Khan al-Umdan in Acre was built by:

A) Ahmad al-Jazzar

B) Dahir al-Umar

C) Suleiman the Magnificent

D) Mahmud Abu Nabut

 

RABBI SCHWARTZ’S COOL VIDEO OF THE WEEK

 

https://soundcloud.com/ephraim-schwartz/shiras-hayam-the-song-of-the-sea-vayosha – Shabbos Shira is not complete without singing and at least listening to my Shiras Ha’Yam song. If it sounds familiar to you,  it’s because its most likely the tune we all sang when we left Mitzrayim and crossed the Sea.. I just remembered it 😊

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E2de20wrPQ    -Another amazing 8th Day hit! King David, Eliyahu and Devorah Ha’Neviah… really beautiful lyrics…

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmEXlHUhzmM   – A new hit from my latest tourist! Reframe it!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM6zs91Khns  -  And once we’re on the subject of money- Why not Lipa’s Gelt…

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4_8A3MmNqA If you’re my ag, you can’t possibly listen to this weeks haftorah without singing Yigal Calek’s London Boy’s Shimu Melachim

 

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

Ovadiah’s Wife- 704 BC After the incredible miraculous victory over Meisha and Moav, the Navi tells us that there was a prosecuting angel and claim against us. Meisha had sacrificed his son- as crazy as that sounds, in order to calm down the wrath of Hashem. Yet, although Hashem is not a fan of child-sacrifice, he does turn to us and asks “what have we done for Him lately?”. The Navi thus tells us right after the story of the wife of the prophet Ovadia, that converted servant of Achav who himself had become a prophet. He personally hid and fed the prophets of Hashem that Achav had tried to kill. This is not a cheap undertaking and Ovadia quickly went into debt. But prophets have to be fed and thus with no choice he went to Achav’s son Yehoram and borrowed money to feed the prophets. Yehoram however charged exorbitant interest for these loans, which Ovadia having no choice undertook. When he died though and there was no money to pay back the debts, Yehoram threatened to take his orphans as slaves in exchange for the debts. This is a bad thing.

 

Ovadia’s wife cried by his funeral to Hashem, the orphans raised their voices asking Hashem to take care of them. And it is in her merit that Hashem had mercy on the Jewish people. Yet, the Father of all orphans, widows and converts Hashem told her not to worry and sent her off to Elisha to help her. When she came to Elisha, he heard her prayer and ordered to take all the vessels and jugs and jars that she could round up and take the little bit of oil which is all she had left and to bring them to a closed room with her family. There she should pour continuously from the flask to all of the jugs and it would miraculously fill up and continue to pour until she was done. Not bad…

 

We have a similar story our sages note by Eliyahu and the widow of Tzarfat that he had helped in a similar way. Yet that woman it seemed had more merits than Ovadia’s wife. See Ovadia’s wife our sages tell us was in a worse situation she didn’t have any flour whereas the tzarfat widow did. As well, Eliyahu’s miracle provided her with an endless supply of both flour and water, here this woman could only fill up as much as she could this one time in one straight pour. As well she could only use borrowed vessels. The reason for this is because Ovadia had agreed to pay interest which is in itself is a sin, despite it being for holy purposes. Thus his vessels and house was tainted. They couldn’t have any gain from anything that belonged to him.

 

Well, she did what he told her and miraculously she filled up tons and made a fortune selling it all, paying off all her debts. Not bad! Once again Elisha shows he’s up to the task and another a miracle notch on his belt as he continues to lead the Jewish people in miraculous ways.

 

RABBI SCHWARTZ’S TERRIBLE RAIN JOKES OF THE WEEK

 

Q: When does it rain money? A: When there is "change" in the weather.

Q: What do you call it when it rains chickens and ducks? A: Foul (fowl) weather.

Q: What did one raindrop say to the other? A: Two's company, three's a cloud

Q: What's worse than raining buckets? A: Hailing taxis!

Q: How can you wrap a cloud? A: with a rainbow.

Q: What does it do before it rains candy? A: It sprinkles!

Q: What goes up when the rain comes down? A: An Umbrella.

Q: What do you call two straight days of rain in Seattle? A: A weekend

Q: What do you call a wet bear? A: A drizzly bear

Q: What does daylight-saving time mean in Seattle? A: An extra hour of rain.

Q: Can Bees fly in the rain? A: Not without their yellow jackets

Q: What do you call a months worth of rain? A: England

Q: Why was the blonde standing outside the department store in the rain? A: She was waiting to cash her rain check!

 

A man and his wife are awakened at 3 o'clock in the morning by a loud pounding on the door.

The man gets up and goes to the door where a drunken stranger, standing in the pouring rain, is asking for a push.

'Not a chance,' says the husband, 'It is three o'clock in the morning.'

He slams the door and returns to bed.

'Who was that?' asked his wife.

'Just some drunk guy asking for a push,' he answers.

'Did you help him?' she asks.

'No. I did not. Its three o'clock in the morning and it is pouring rain outside!'

His wife said, 'Can't you remember about three months ago when we broke down and those two guys helped us? I think you should help him, and you should be ashamed of yourself!'

The man does as he is told (of course!), gets dressed and goes out

into the pouring rain. He calls out into the dark,

 'Hello! Are you still there?'

'Yes,' comes back the answer.

'Do you still need a push?' calls out the husband.

'Yes! Please!' comes the reply from the darkness.

'Where are you?' asks the husband.

'Over here on the swing!!' replies the drunk.

 

Izzy and Jacob are walking down the street when it starts to rain, and in no time at all, it’s raining quite hard. Luckily, Izzy is carrying an umbrella.

"Nu," says Jacob. "So when are you going to open the umbrella?"

"It won't do us any good," says Izzy. "It's full of holes."

"So why then did you bring it?" replies Jacob.

"Because," Issy says with shrug, "I didn't think it would rain."

 

A store manager overheard a clerk saying to a customer.

No, ma’am, we haven’t had any for some weeks now, and it doesn’t look as if we’ll be getting any soon.”

Alarmed by what was being said, the manager rushed over to the customer who was walking out the door and said…

“That isn’t true, ma’am. Of course, we’ll have some soon. In fact, we placed an order for it a couple of weeks ago.”

Then the manager drew the clerk aside and growled,

Never, never, never say we don’t have something. If we don’t have it, say we ordered it and it’s on its way. Now, what was it she wanted?”

The clerk smiled and said, “Rain…”

 

Sadie had died and today was her levoyah. Her husband, Nathan and many of their family and friends were standing 'round the grave as Sadie’s coffin was lowered into the ground. Then, as is the custom, many of the mourners picked up some spades and helped fill the open grave with earth.

But, on their way back to the prayer hall, the sky suddenly darkened, rain started to fall, flashes of lightening filled the sky and loud thunder claps battered their ears.

Nathan turns to his rabbi and says, "Well rabbi, she’s arrived OK."

 

 ********************************

The answer to this week”s question is  A – I do Akko quite a bit…or at least did in the warmer months and longer days when tourists were more game to come up North. Now although I do Akko, I don’t really do much Crusader stuff. I have no real interest in those cursed Christian “Nazi’s” that murdered about 1/3 of our nation in Europe. And I really can’t stand how they get romanticized. But I did know that the Knights Order were the Hospitaliers, which sounds helpful and caring for people which is what they were established as. Until they became Priests with swords and knives to murder and kill us. In regards to the second part of the question I got that right as well, although Akko was built by Dahr el Ohmar who was a pretty good Turkish Governor of the North, El Jazzar who followed him was known as the Butcher and would regularly hack off peoples limbs with the guillotine he would walk around with just for fun. He built the big mall where the pilgrims would come in from in the port. So I got this one right and so back on track with the score being 6.5 for Schwartz and 2.5 for Ministry of tourism on this exam so far…


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