from the
Holy Land
from
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
"Your friend in Karmiel"
May 19th 2023 -Volume 12 Issue 31 28th of Iyar 5783
Parshat Bamidbar
The Big Ugly Five
Four out of five is not bad, I told myself. Sure, we would’ve really loved to see lions. They are after-all the most exciting of the “Big Five” animals you want to see on a safari in Africa, along with the…. Can you name the other four? OK I’ll tell you. Leopard, Rhinoceros. Elephant and Buffalo. Now to be fair we did see lots of giraffes- one even ate right out of my hand which was awesomely cool. We saw zebra, hippos, wild dogs, lots and lots of impalas with the nice M stripe on their backside as they are the McNuggets of the jungle for the rest of the predators. We saw monkeys, baboons and even crocodiles and ostriches. So yes, it would’ve been nice to have seen lions as well, but as I told my children and as I tell my tourists, you can’t see everything on one trip. You always have to save something for next time.
Now although we didn’t see all the “Big Five” of greatest animals in Safari. We did see the “other” Big Five- the five animals that have the distinction of being the five ugliest animals in the wild. Yes, there is a distinction and category of that as well. You gotta wonder who came up with that. It might be the same person that is on the acceptance committee of your child’s yeshiva or school, so be careful.
Now I have to admit, that I kind of agree with the person that came up with this list. The animals are, to be quite frank- quite ugly. It reminds me a bit of when the shadchan came over to me with suggestion about a girl back in my dating years. Being overweight I was kind of sensitive about the girls being “redt” to me, as I seemed to be a natural target to set up with girls that shall we say were not the most appealing in “appearance” or size. I guess nobody imagined that my winning personality would ever succeed in snagging me the prettiest (and skinniest!) girl in the world- like I did 😊! So this shadchan redt me this girl, whom after checking around a bit and hearing so much about her “wonderful middos and chesed and personality” every time I asked how she looked rather than anyone actually responding to what she looked like, became clear wasn’t the girl “look” or “size” perhaps I was looking for.
When I told the shadchan that I didn’t think it was for me, he understood what the problem was and told me that old cliché. “Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder”. I explained to him though, that everyone that I spoke to that had beheld her though- were quite clear that she wasn’t what I was looking to be beholding. Sometimes it’s just not meant to be. Although I’m sure Hashem found someone for her as well -probably a real stud, that was well built and knock out gorgeous unlike me at the time- so I’m sure she’s pretty happy.
So as I was saying though. I think these Big 5 “Uglies” most would agree are not the top shidduch material. Yet, as I learned on my safari, each one of them are pretty incredible and awesome creatures. Some even being perhaps most essential to the entire ecological system of the wild.
What are the top five? Let’s see one by one… Oh yeah… and while I’m doing that you can already start to think, what the parsha tie-in will be. You know there’s going to be one of course.
The first on the list, and probably the ugliest is the Wildebeest. It seems he’s so ugly that even the beast didn’t want his name properly spelled connected to him. If I had an image of the cows in Pharaohs dream- this is what it would look like. If I had to describe the way they look it would be if a horse, cow, donkey and buffalo and goat got together and had a baby with the ugliest features of all of them. Yet, despite their ugly appearance, fascinatingly enough, they are very intelligent creatures I’m told. They are very family oriented and live in close-knit communities or clans. Much like us Jews, in fact they are also very migratory traveling over 1000 miles each year back and forth across Africa. They’re pregnant for almost as long as we humans are and they give birth with the entire clan around them, so as to protect their young from predators.
Now one would think that they would be easy prey for the lions, leopards and wild dogs that like to feast on them, yet because they stick together when they are accosted by one of these predators, they all bang their feet and make lots of noise that kind of keeps the wild animals away. They seem to understand that they only way they are vulnerable is when they are divided. Ha’levai we should understand that as well as they do.
Next on the list is the King of the sky which we in Hebrew call the Nesher- which according to most interpretations is mistranslated as an eagle but is in fact the vulture or griffin. Unlike the eagle they have a large wingspan as described by Chazal, almost ten feet wide! Disney kind of destroyed their kingly royal status by making them out to be these lazy birds that just fress all day on carcasses, but in fact they are very active and can fly up to 11,000 feet above the ground (again just as Chazal describe them- unlike the eagle) and they can spot a carcass from thousands of feet away- like a yeshiva guy can spot a chulent kiddush. Yes they’re bald and ugly but their baldness is actually a bracha because it enables them to withstand extreme heat and not get all the bacteria from the carcasses they eat stuck in their feathers.
Yeah I know it’s strange to think that Hashem promised us that we would eventually be brought home to Eretz Yisrael on the wings of these “ugly” birds. But hey… nobody’s telling you to wait until Mashiach comes to come home… You can cash in your points and come early and go first class on El Al or even on a free Nefesh B’Nefesh flight and I imagine it will be a lot more comfortable.
Our third ugly animal is also a bird. This one is nicknamed “The undertaker”, someone who is generally not a very pretty looking guy. The Maribou stork in Hebrew is called the Marvo Africani from the chasida-stork family. So he’s chasidish. Chasidim in general are not that into their appearance, but these guys take it to a new extreme. They’re black and white, like most chasidim, but they’ve got these pink heads and pimples and spots all over their what looks like psoriasis covered necks.
But don’t underestimate these chasidim- they’re fierce creatures. First of all, like the vultures they have huge wing spans, yet they don’t really travel too much. They pretty much just hang around and eat the vulture’s leftovers. And they are real fressers. They can eat 2.2 pounds of meat in one bite! Also like the chasidim they pretty much mate for life with one spouse and both parents take care of their kids. They love a good bonfire kumzitz as well- yeah a Meron bonfire would be right up their alley, as they hang around brush fires and eat all the little animals that get roasted up or are running away. Now don’t expect a lot of singing from them. They’re not that vocal as they don’t even have a voice box. But they make up for it by banging and flapping their wings and beak together a lot. Na Nach Nachman Me’uman!
Fourth on our list of these crazy ugly animals is mine and all “Lion King fans” favorite, the warthog. Akuna Matata! Now personally I never really thought that pigs or hogs are particularly cute creatures. Maybe it’s the Jew in me, or perhaps it’s the two memorable years of my life when I lived in Iowa, the hog capital of the United States that did it to me and I still can’t seem to get the stink out of my body. But warthogs are so ugly that they are in fact a little cute and funny to look at. They have these big, huge tusks which are in fact really their teeth and they just love to hang out near water and wallow all day.
Despite their hog/ chazer trayf status, there’s still a little Jewish trait in them as well it seems. They don’t like to fight. They would rather flee than flight and those short little stubby legs of theirs can run 30 MPH!. As well another rather cute aspect of these guys is that they love to have their hair done and they let mongooses and even monkeys sit on them and pick the parasites out of their fur. Touchingly if a mother warthog loses its baby, she will foster other piglets and nurse them and it seems this is quite unique amongst animals and common for these little ugly chazers.
Finally the last of the “Ugly five” and the one that we saw the most on this safari is none other than that other Disney bad-guy animal; the hyena. In Hebrew the word for hyena is tzavua which means spotted. Interestingly enough that same word is used as slang in hebrew to describe a hypocrite. He’s spotted or fake or a hyena. What I discovered is that hyenas are actually very tricky animals and one of the smartest of the jungle. In the lodge that we stayed in they told us how hyenas were able to actually open doors and locks and break into the kitchen- like the best yeshiva bochur. On intelligence tests they’re smarter than apes or monkeys which is pretty impressive as monkeys are the most similar to humans. As well they’re incredible mothers, nursing their young for over a year and a half. Even more fascinating and perhaps even Jewish that is that their packs and communities are all run by the females. The men are just that “Baal Ha’Boss”. The women are the boss. The men are even a tier down after the baby cubs who have priority over the men. As I said they’re smart animals and understand better than others- who really needs to be running the show, and if Moma ain’t happy nobody’s happy.
One last hyena fact, and with that we’ll move into the parsha, is that for many years they thought that there weren’t even any female hyenas as the women have similar “down there” parts as men do. They’re fakers. They have an identity crisis. They’re trying to be something that they’re not and present themselves as something that they’re not. Is it any wonder than that they’re the animal that is used to describe a hypocrite? They are colored. And they are the ones that are the clean-up crew in the jungle taking everyone’s leftovers and eating it up with their powerful teeth. They’re the last stop in the jungle and circle of life. The true bottom feeders.
Which of course brings us to the book of Bamidbar- a place that is not translated as a desert as many mistakenly call it, but rather as a wilderness. We Jews spent an inordinate time in the wild. It’s where we became a nation. It’s where we were raised. It’s where we got the Torah. It’s what made us. As well, the navi even refers to all of our exiles as a midbar of sorts. We’ve spent many more centuries and millennia on the road wandering than in our home. We’re migrators. Wildebeests just trying to survive in a mean predatory jungle and most of the animals out there think we’re an ugly blight on the world. But that’s not where I was going with this…
Actually where I was going, was the fascinating Medrash and verses that describe the way that we traveled and wandered in the midbar. The Torah makes a big deal out of our “seating chart” and marching order- which to me always seemed kind of boring. As well the Torah seems to make a big deal out of the fact that we each had flags. Hurray! There were four flags for each of the four “camps” and then each of the 12 tribes had their own sign and design on their flag. Each one travelled according to their flag and according to their family and their father’s house. What’s with all the details and flags?
So, the midrash which tells us that the flags were in fact granted to us by our own request.
B’Sheim elokeinu nidgol-with the name of Hashem we will flag- we say in our davening and then followed by
Yimalei Hashem es kol mishaloseinu- Hashem fulfills all of our wishes.
What is our wish? To have a flag. When did we have this request. None other than by this upcoming holiday of Shavuot at the revelation that we had from Mount Sinai. There we are told that the heavens opened up and Hashem revealed Himself to us we saw twenty-two thousand chariots of angels, each one decked out with flags. The Israelites immediately desired to have flags just like the angels, and Hashem agreed. This request for flags, the Midrash teaches, is described in the
Song of Songs (2:4): “Hevi’ani el bais ha’yayin v’diglo alai ahava -He brought me to the wine-house, and His banner over me is love.”
What is important about flags? Why do angels have them? And perhaps even more significantly why should we be jealous of them? Have you ever suffered flag envy before?
So, the idea I discovered in the commentaries as diverse as Rav Kook, The Sefat Emet and the Oznayim LaTorah of Rav Sorotzkin is that a flag represents what one is most connected to and identifies with. When we see that flag waving, we feel we are part of a greater whole. At the same time the flag tells me that I have a unique purpose and place. When I walk or march with a flag, I’m making a statement. I’m part of this country. I have a place there. It’s mine and I’m it. When the angels had flags around Hashem, Each one of them had and saw their own unique role in Hashem’s universe. An angel after all only has one function. And each angel had its own flag that surrounded Hashem. When we saw that, we wanted to have a flag as well. We wanted to know that we were important. There was a place for us. We had something unique that we could contribute and wave in the glory of Hashem.
There is perhaps no greater cause for many of the ailments of today’s generation than the lack of an identity and purpose. Depression, Suicide, teens at risk and adults that leave Judaism, Divorce, drug use and even all of this “gender confusion” mishigas, it all has its roots in the one malaise that the world suffers from. I don’t matter. I don’t have a purpose. I’m just another brick in the wall. Another number. What’s it all worth? Nothing really matters… We don’t have a flag to wave. We have nothing unique to offer. We’re the Big Five Uglies and we don’t count.
It’s interesting that our sages tell us that the designs of the four camp flags actually had familiar animals on them. They corresponded to the images the Navi Yechezkel saw on the throne of Hashem. There was a lion- certainly one of the big 5 on the camp of Yehuda. The tribe of Yosef had an ox- although the targum Yonasan suggests that Moshe changed it out for a ram- so as not to awaken any remembrance of the golden calf- funny that if you cross an ox and a ram you might have something that looks like a wildebeest or maybe a warthog… ok just getting carried away there. Now the next tribe of Dan’s personal tribal symbol was a snake- yet their camps flag symbol was a Nesher- our good old carnivorous vulture friend. And finally the tribe of Reuvein- was a person. What a mix of the jungle and us! We’re animals of the jungle. The wild ones, the royal ones and the ugly ones. That’s our symbols.
The book of Bamidbar begins with a count of each Jew, and as the first Rashi tells us, Hashem counts us repeatedly to show how much He loves us. Yet, at the same time that parsha follows immediately with the flags. For it’s not just us nationally that He loves, but its each one of us individually that has a specific flag and purpose as well. We’re not just a number in the Jewish people’s census. We’re each flag and banner bearers. There are some of us that may be uglier than others, some of us that may look like vultures, or warthogs, and even maybe as spotted, as hypocritical or as confused about our identity as the hyena. Yet, in Hashem’s world there are no uglies. And particularly when it comes to the Jewish nation we are all beautiful. At the Mountain of Sinai Hashem tells us V’Diglo alai Ahava- His flag for us is full of love. He gave us the Big Eternal Five that Shavuos day 3400 years ago. The five books of the Torah. Each Jew has a special letter and place in that Big Five. The Big Five isn’t complete without every letter in the Book and the world and Hashem’s throne aren’t complete without all of us.
I know this is a lengthy E-Mail this week, but I can’ resist sharing with you one more idea on this Yom Yerushalayim, when so many here have hung up flags and are marching in Yerushalayim on this special day. Sadly and tragically, there are many that are not flag-wavers on this day for whatever reason. It really doesn’t matter to me as well why. Whether you’re too frum for the flag, you don’t like the State of Israel, you feel too connected to the country you live in that’s not here or whether you’re just too lazy. Here’s an incredible idea from Rav Soloveitchik and his feelings about the Israeli flag and why perhaps you should reconsider. I certainly am…
“If you ask me how I, as a Talmudic Jew, look at the flag of the State of Israel, and whether it has any halakhic value, I will give you a simple answer. I am not impressed at all by the allure of a flag or similar ceremonial symbols. Judaism negates the worship of material objects. However, we must not ignore the law in the Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh De’ah 364:4) which says that a Jew who is killed by non-Jews is buried in his clothing, so that his blood will be seen and he will be avenged. This is in accordance with the verse,
“I will forgive, but I will not forgive their blood” (Yoel 4:21).
In other words, Jewish clothing acquires a certain sanctity when it is stained with holy blood. How much more profoundly does the blue and white flag, which is soaked with the blood of thousands of young Jews who fell defending the land and the Jewish settlement… It has a spark of holiness which flows from their devotion and self-sacrifice. We are all obligated to honor the flag and to relate to it respectfully (The Rav Speaks: Five Addresses).”
May this 56th year of our return to Yerushalyim, the Golan Heights, to Chevron and Kever Rachel which began the return of the flowering of our redemption to Eretz Yisrael be the year that each one of us finds our flag to wave and to bring home to the land our ancestors longed to return to as we hang a flag of the glory of Hashem over His home rebuilt.
Have a miraculous Yom Yerushalayim and a wildly exuberant Shabbos,
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
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YIDDISH PROVERB OF THE WEEK
“Der miesteh leben iz besser fun shensten toit..- The ugliest life is better than the nicest death..
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM QUESTION OF THE WEEK
answer below at end of Email
22) A church in Lod, partly transformed into a mosque, is:
The name of the first martyr (=protomartyr) in Christianity is:
A) Saint Chariton
B) Saint Sabbas
C) Saint Paul
D) Saint Stephen
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S COOL VIDEO OF THE WEEK
https://soundcloud.com/ephraim-schwartz/hachaya-yehalilu -Once we’re talking about my Africa trip again- can’t resist but to give you my amazing first Africa trip composition. Hachaya/ Halilu… I just love this song
https://soundcloud.com/ephraim-schwartz/ma-rabu - and of course once you’ve heard that, then why not listen again to my latest Africa composition and newest release in case you missed it last week… Ma Rabu!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0nVBcLv9iE – Yom Yerushalayim liberation footage how can you not get teary eyed…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW1N6_nJLRM – And of course Abie Rottenberg always puts it best with his Yerushalayim tribute song..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEx_2r_hiSA – and if you really have time… Reb Shlomo Carlebach on Yom Yerushalayim..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er9G0nmTTuA – And a short little beautiful plug about the beauty of a wedding in Jerusalem with my good friend Dovid Lowy… The best!
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S ERA’S AND THEIR PLACES AND PEOPLE IN ISRAEL OF THE WEEK
Mercy on our Enemies- 680 BC- As we said last week, Elisha wasn’t scared of the army of Aram that had come to wage war on Yehoram and his Northern kingdom of Israel. Ben Hadad had sent his army to siege Elisha in Dosan, but as Elisha revealed to his student we had the army of Hashem with hundreds of fiery angels on our side. Yet, Elisha had a better plan to subdue Aram.
He merely walked over to their army and asked Hashem to blind them all, which of course He did. Then Elisha told them they were looking in the wrong location for him and told them to follow him. He took the army of Aram straight into the arms of Yehoram in the Shomron. The city of Shomron was the capital of the Northern Kingdom that was purchased by Omri and built up by his son Achav. Today the archeological park of Sebastia as it was later called which is right next to Shechem, is only open to visitors with military accompaniment and pre-reservation. It is in fact one of the largest and oldest archeological sites from this period of the 7th and 8th century BC and it was eventually destroyed by Sancheirev in the Assyrian assault. The city was rebuilt time and time again throughout the second Temple by the Chashmonaim and Herod and was in use later as well in Byzantine and Muslim periods of Israel.
But back to our story. You can imagine Yehoram’s surprise when he saw Elisha walk into town like the pied piper with his entire enemy’s army just following him, literally blindly, in to their waiting hands. It was a fitting punishment for Aram, as they had planned to surprise and ambush Yehoram and now they were the one’s caught in a trap they realized once Elisha gave them their sight back. Yehoram asked Elisha if he should kill them and finally be done with this cursed enemy, yet surprisingly Elisha seems not to blame them. He tells Yehoram to feed them and give them a big feast and then send them back home to their king. It really doesn’t seem more Jewish or even Israeli than that. This is really an incredible precedent that is worthy of discussion.
According to some commentaries Elisha wanted to make a kiddush Hashem. We’re not animals like they are. We’re not looking to shed blood. All we want is peace and quiet and hopefully by sending them back they will see that. Other’s say it was a strategic decision. Elisha wanted to stop the cycle of violence. He wasn’t nervous that they would come back because ultimately he knew he had an army of fiery angels in his back pocket. By sending the men back untouched Elisha was showing them that we’re not scared of you. Hopefully that would work.
Did it? Well on the one hand they didn’t attack us after that the Navi tells us. On the other hand they did come back not soon after. Not to fight with us, but rather to lay siege on the city of Shomron. How bad was it? Stay tuned next week for the continuing saga.
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S TERRIBLE UGLY JOKES OF THE WEEK
You’re so ugly that your portraits hang themselves
A woman gets on to a bus, holding her unfortunately ugly baby.
The driver laughs and says "what an ugly baby!"
Fuming, the woman sits down and turns to the man next to her. "That driver was so rude to me. I should really give him a piece of my mind."
The man nods sympathetically. "You go tell him, I'll hold your dog."
A guy picking up his kids at school sees another kid and says loudly "sheesh, what an ugly kid!"
The person standing next to him says "he's my son..."
The guy, pretty embarrassed, replies "oh man, I'm sorry, I didn't know you were his father"
"I'm his mom..."
If i had nickel for every time a woman thought i was ugly, They would find me attractive
How can you tell a woman is really ugly? A cannibal takes one look at her and orders a salad.
Three women die together in an accident and go to heaven.
When they get there, The angel says, "We only have one rule here in heaven: Don't step on the ducks!"
So they enter heaven, and sure enough, there are ducks all over the place. It is almost impossible not to step on a duck. And although they try their best to avoid them, the first woman accidentally steps on one. Along comes The angel with the ugliest man she ever saw. The angel chains them together and says,
'Your punishment for stepping on a duck is to spend eternity chained to this ugly man!'
The next day, the second woman steps accidentally on a duck and along comes the angel, who doesn't miss a thing and with him is another extremely ugly man. He chains them together with the same admonishment as for the first woman.
The third woman has observed all this and, not wanting to be chained for all eternity to an ugly man, is very, VERY careful where she steps. She manages to go months Without stepping on any ducks.
But one day The angel comes up to her with the most handsome man she has ever laid eyes on. Very tall, long eyelashes, muscular.
The angel chains them together without saying a word.
The happy woman says, "I wonder what I did to deserve being chained to you for all of eternity?"
The guy says, "I don't know about you, but I stepped on a duck."
You’re so ugly even Ripley couldn’t believe it.
You’re so ugly that when you sits on your iphone, it unlocks!
Always marry an ugly woman, a beautiful one will leave you... An ugly one will too, but you just won't care as much.
I tried to enter an ugly competition and was told sorry no professionals!
A bus full of ugly people crashes. Everyone dies and goes to heaven, forming a line at the pearly gates. The Angel of Heaven is there and says, "Before you get into heaven, you get one wish."
The first person in line says, "I wish I was beautiful!"
Poof, they're beautiful, they get into heaven. The second guy says, "I wish I was beautiful too!"
Poof, they're beautiful, they get into heaven. The guy at the end of the line starts to chuckle. The line gets shorter and shorter with everyone asking to be beautiful. Poof, they're beautiful, they get into heaven. The guy at the end of the line starts to laugh harder and harder until he's finally at the pearly gates with the angel. The angel asks the man, "What on earth is so funny?" And the man, through his tears of laughter, finally manages to say, "Make 'em all ugly again!"
You’re so ugly that the world faked a pandemic just so you have to wear a mask
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The answer to this week”s question is D – Yeah… I got this one wrong. I wonder if I would’ve gotten it right even 12 years agon when I took the course. Lod is not a place I have toured more than a number of times. I think the only place I’ve gone there is there’s some indoor boating experience in the basement of some old fortress. But anyways the correct answer is the big mosque or the Al Omari mosque built by the Mamluk king Beibers on the remains of the Byznatine and Crusader churches that were there. Not that you care… As far as the Part 2 of this question the answer is not Paul like I guessed, but rather Stephen who was a Jewish guy that actually Paul was part of the “Sanhedrin” that killed him according to their fake Bible. Stephen was playing up the yoshka thing and cursing out the corruption of the Kohanim and the Temple and they stoned him to death for kefira. As I said this is not my area of expertise all of the Christian bubbeh maysehs… So I have no problem getting this wrong although I probably would’ve skipped this question as there are 5 questions you’re allowed to skip on the exam. But anyways we’ll count it as wrong so the score as of now 16.5 for Schwartz and 5.5 for Ministry of tourism on this exam so far…
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