Insights and Inspiration
from the
Holy Land
from
Rabbi Ephraim
Schwartz
"Your friend
in Karmiel"
July 21st
2023 -Volume 12 Issue
41 3rd of Av 5783
Parshat Devarim- Chazon
Phoney Stuff
Yes, I am working this past week,
for all of those of you that asked. I know it’s been a rough few days for you.
The highlight of your day in galus has of course been watching Rabbi
Schwartz statuses of my Eretz Yisrael tours. The truth is, you don’t even know
what you used to do in the bathroom before you discovered them. For some of
you, it’s your daily ritual when you sit down to drink your coffee after you’ve
gotten the kids out to school. For others it’s when your spouse is in the shower
so you can sneak their non-kosher smartphone and watch them without them
knowing. You both obviously can’t have smartphones. Someone had to sign the
form for the school that your kid was lucky enough to get into that you don’t
own one. So, it’s been hard for you this past status-free few days. You’re
worried for me. Am I alright? Am I really not touring? You wish you would’ve
known and booked me. Do I have any old statuses I could posts? Things are just
not going the way they should without your daily “Rabbi Schwartz boost/ tour”.
People don’t even know if they have to say asher yatzar anymore…
Well, I’m happy to assure you that
yes, I’m fine. I’m touring. God-willing the statuses will be back soon. My
phone on the other hand… eh… it’s seen better days. I smashed it while hiking
in Tel Dan last week. Hashem though had sent the refuah before the makka
and I had already been in the “Apple store” in Israel two weeks before-hand and
had prepped my wife’s old phone to be ready to switch over and give my phone in
to get fixed. I was having microphone problems and could only hear people with
my speaker on. Now in America, you walk into an Apple store and they help you.
They give you a replacement phone for the two days it takes to fix it and they
switch over your data back and forth. Not the case in the Holy Land. They told
me I would have to wait two weeks for a replacement phone. It would have almost
no- memory and my stuff wouldn’t switch and then I would have to wait for a
month until they fixed it or decided to find me a new one. So I told them I
didn’t need their toivos and I decided to use my wife’s old phone.
It took some time until I was able
to get her phone cleared enough to work and make the switch, but when it was
finally ready and I came back to the store here, miracle of miracles my phone
and microphone was working again. Maybe it didn’t want to go to the Israeli lab
either. So I was relieved that I didn’t have to go through this frustrating
process and wait a month for my phone back. And then it broke last week when I
smashed it. But now you see, why Hashem made me go through this. Because my
nephew was going back to the States the next day. He took my phone I switched
to my wife’s already pre-prepped phone and I should be getting it back next
week all new! The problem is…. My wife stopped using her phone because it’s not
working great. My status isn’t working well.. and thus, the new minhag in Klal
Yisrael for the 9- Days is not only can’t you listen to great Rabbi Schwartz
music…but you can’t even watch his daily tours on Status… Hashem really wants
you to miss Israel. No more Phoney stuff… It’s time for the real thing.
This Shabbos is called Shabbos
Chazon. We have many Shabbosim around the year that have special titles,
many named after the appropriate special haftorah, but there is also a special
connection to the season. Between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur we have Shabbos
Shuva, as it is time when focus on repentance and returning to Hashem. We
have Shabbos Ha’Gadol, the Shabbos before Pesach when we became “big
boys” and left Egypt. There’s Shabbos Zachor when we remember Amalek
before Purim. And of course next week is Shabbos Nachamu when we are
meant to be comforted and consoled. But yet, Shabbos Chazon that is
merely the first word of the haftorah of the vision of Yeshaya seems like and
odd name to describe what we are meant to be doing this Shabbos. The Shabbos of
vision… hmmm. Maybe I should tell my brother Gedaliah to dedicate it to
Optometrists. Why is the Shabbos before Tisha B’av the one that we should see?
I got a question this week by
E-Mail from one of my former students. He asked me why we mourn the temple.
What’s wrong with what we have now? We daven. We get close to Hashem. Do we
really need sacrifices? Is that really what we are lacking in our life,
slaughtering goats and sheep and sprinkling their blood. Let’s be honest are
you really dreaming of watching a Kohen slaughter a bird with his fingernail
after your wife had a baby and squeezing out the blood and watching it burn on
the altar? Admit you were thinking a “hot” kiddush with 5 varieties of herring
and some single malt, while the women munch on pink and blue cupcakes and petit
fours would be much more meaningful. So what’s it all about, Rabbi? Why do we
miss it, mourn it, pray for it… ? Its Tisha B’Av time and I’m really looking to
appreciate what this is all about.
Don’t you love Baalei Teshuva…?
It’s why we keep them around… to have people asking the questions that we all
want to ask but are too embarrassed to.
My response to him though was that
the difference between a world with the Bais Hamikdash and without it, is the
difference between a virtual long-distance relationship and a real live flesh
and blood husband and spouse. It’s something that the world has more and more
blurred the lines of. One can even argue that it is the core of all our
societal problems. I like my cell phone and Facebook friends than my real ones.
I’m busy with status watchers and “followers” and influencers and I’m missing
what’s right there before my every eyes. I want the quick fast and easy swipe
to right or left relationships and I’m not really that interested in bringing
the sheep, goats and birds and making any real sacrifices to make it into
something meaningful. Something that is eternal. Something that is embedded in
me forever experientially and not something I will ever feel I can walk away
from.
Shabbos Chazon is about seeing the
real vision of the world. It’s about stopping to be satisfied with mere
glances. It’s about taking a hard deep real look and getting a vision about
what it’s all really about. Do we realize that all our holidays without those
sacrifices are really just virtual experiences? They’re just watching Rabbi
Schwartz statuses without coming to Israel. Do we realize that as holy and as
spiritual as we really feel when we touch those old sacred stones of the Kotel,
that in fact it’s really just in our mind? It’s not meant to satisfy us
spiritually and give us our “holiness- connection to Hashem” fix of the week,
month, year or however often you/ I visit and pray there. It’s just the
retaining wall of the Temple Mount. It’s not the Beit HaMikdash. It’s not a
real relationship. It’s not me really intimately connection with my Father in
heaven. It’s phoney. So I don’t have a problem if you wanna pull out your
camera and take a picture. I think it’s appropriate. As long as you realize and
this even helps you realize that we still need…NEED… the real thing. Our real
shidduch. Not just the online friend or pen-pal (remember those…?) in
Jerusalem.
The truth is it’s not only
fake-Israel relationships with Hashem that we need to see beyond and not be
satisfied. It’s everything that we do- “ritually” or “religiously”. Marriage
isn’t a ritual that brings us closer. Marriage isn’t religious rules for each
spouse to follow to make their relationship work. It’s not a legal agreement.
You wash the dishes, do the laundry, watch the kids and cook the meals and I
take out the garbage and…hmmm what else do I do? That’s not a marriage. That’s
not a relationship that’s real. It’s a convenient working relationship between
two people to propagate their species, avoid conflict and experience an orderly
life. Well guess what? The same thing is true about Judaism. It’s not about we
put on tefillin, we eat kosher, we daven three times a day. We do what we’re
commanded. We celebrate together on holidays and weekends, and we sing Thank
You Hashem a lot. It’s not even about studying Torah a great intellectual
pursuit and even a holy one, after-all it is the word of the Hashem. Yet,
that’s just seeing the outside. That’s missing the real vision of what it’s all
about.
The Bais Ha’Mikdash is the place
and home where Hashem resides in our midst. It’s His way of being here always
amongst us. He’s in our home. He’s in our lives. It’s like your wife, your
kids, your puppy- l’havdil. Hopefully it’s not like your Mother-in-law
living in your basement. It’s a relationship that is part and parcel of
everything I do as our marriage which is two souls completing one another is
meant to be. Just as I can’t separate my identity from my arm or leg, I can’t
from my wife. She’s not the person I just see on the nights I come home. She’s
with me always. That’s what our relationship with Hashem is meant to be. REAL.
Always.
Yisrael, v’Oryaysa, V'kudsha brich
Chad hu- Israel, the Torah, and Hashem are one.
The Torah is not just a study that
we do, it’s renewing our vows and reading our wife’s love letters, her E-Mails,
her little emojis, her shopping lists fondly, warmly and filling a connection
with her each time. Deepening that relationship further and further. That’s
vision. That’s Chazon.
The parsha we read each year and
the book we start on Shabbos Chazon is the book of Devarim. It is the words of
Moshe that begin with a whole slew of contradictory locations where this took
place. If you’re not a tour guide (or don’t look at Rashi) then you have no
idea of this. But really, everyone should now that the banks of Moav are not
near the Arava, Paran is somewhere else entirely. What’s Chatzeiros?
What’s Lavan? Tofel? Rashi tells us that none of these are meant
to be places you should put into your google maps. Rather do you know what
Moshe is doing. He’s telling us to look beyond the names. What do they hint to?
What does it sound like? What sins am I going to rebuke about that this brings
to mind. Chazon- See behind what’s in front of you. What it appears like. See
what your mission to Israel is really going to be about. Don’t make the same
mistakes again.
The entire parsha and much of the
books is about this theme. It’s Moshe’s final speech. He’s no longer going to
be with us. Or at least that’s what it will look like. But the words of Moshe
will always be with us. He’s still here. We just need to see that redeemer and
long for the world that he describes for us. A real world. A world that
understands that statuses aren’t real. That it’s not healthy for us to watch
and see these things if it makes us feel fulfilled. It’s like spiritual holy
Israeli pornography. (Ouch! Did I really write that..?)
We need to take a break and change
our lives for at least a week and understand that there’s no real music without
the Bait Ha’Mikdash. There’s no real weddings without it. There’s no really
clean clothing that doesn’t smell. There’s no shower that will clean the real
shmutz of galus that’s holding us back from our real relationship with Hashem.
The 9 Days are like a much needed intervention. It’s taking away our phone for
a week and forcing us to “see” to have a “chazon” to take a long hard look and
appreciate what we are missing. What is right around the corner if only we want
and feel we need it enough and stop settling for less.
So yes, perhaps I hope my statuses
are done for good. I hope these E-Mails are done for good. I’d much rather
everyone be here together with me forever. I’d rather hear torah from Moshe
Rabbeinu himself. From the shechina. Ok… I’ll be honest… I don’t really
feel that way… I miss posting my statuses as well. I miss my phone. I miss my
virtual world. It’s easy. It’s good and it’s fun. But I know I’m wrong. I know
it’s not what it’s supposed be. Shabbos Chazon is the time when we are meant to
try to finally and really get the vision, just as Shuva is the time when
we are meant to repent. May Hashem bless us all with that vision. And may we
already this Shabbos see the 33- the redemption and the realization of
the eternal vision of our nation and our forefathers by what will god willing be
the holiday of Tishah B’av, celebrating redeemed.
Have an insightful Shabbos,
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
************************
YIDDISH PROVERB OF THE WEEK
“A sach
mentshen zehen, nor vainik fun zai farshtai’en.- Many people see things but few understand them.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM QUESTION OF THE WEEK
answer below at end of Email
31) An Alawite
village which lies in the northern border of Israel is:
Near which
latitude line is Israel located?
A) 30
B) 40
C) 50
D) 60
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S COOL VIDEO OF THE WEEK
https://soundcloud.com/ephraim-schwartz/al-eileh-acapella
- It’s
the three Weeks. Acapella time again… and start off your three weeks with my
mournful Al Eileh Composition that hopefully we won’t have to sing this Tisha
B’Av
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S ERA’S AND THEIR
PLACES AND PEOPLE IN ISRAEL OF THE WEEK
Crazy Driver-. With Yehu being anointed King by Yonah
the messenger prophet of Elisha and given the mandate to take out the Yehoram,
the king of Israel and son of Achav he began to plan his revolt. Yehoram
who had been injured in the battle against Chazael in Ramot
Gilead on the other side of the Jordan River had returned to recover
in the palace in Tel Yizrael. Meantime his brother-in-law Achazya the
King of Yehudah came to visit him. Achazya was bad news as well.
According to our sages he erased the name of Hashem in his personal sefer Torah
and replaced it with idolatrous names. Big mistake.
So Yehu thus makes sure no one leaves Ramot
Gilead to warn Yehoram and he heads over there to Yizrael to
carry out his mission. The Navi tells us that he is a crazy driver. As he
approaches the city, the lookout spots him and identifies his crazy driving
habits and tells Yehoram that the troops of “his” general Yehu are
approaching. Yehoram, a bit suspicious sends out messengers to find out
what’s going on. But Yehu keeps sending the messengers away. He wants Yehoram
to come out to him, away from his protection and army. He needs him the field
of Navot. Remember him? He was the one who Jezebel had killed in
order that Achav could take his vineyard which he didn’t want to sell.
Although Hashem had decreed payback from Achav but he did teshuva, but
his son who continued the evil of his father and Jezebel chips had
finally come in.
So Yehoram exits the city towards Yehu.
He calls out a friendly hello and boom Yehu tells him the game is over
and he shoots him straight through the chest with his arrow as he is fleeing.
He then tells his officer to chuck his body in the field of Navos. Let
it be clear what this was all about. Next he went after Achazya who had
fled. He chased him not far away from there to the city of Megiddo and
he had him brought to him and killed there- although the account in Divrey
Ha’Yamim- Chronicles differs and says that he fled Meggido and went to Shomron
where he was killed. Achazya being the King of Yehuda and not
liable for the sin of Navot was given an honorable burial sent back to
Jerusalem where he was buried in the city of David. Today in the Ir
David one can visit the burial place of the Kings that they
discovered there. It’s a bit off the beaten track and to be honest, I’ve only
been there in my tour guiding course. Generally I just like to do the water
tunnels instead.
There’s one more payback and that’s Jezebel.
Stay tuned next week for her graphic death.
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S TERRIBLE JOKES OF THE WEEK
NO JOKES IT’S THE NINE DAYS…. SHAME ON YOU FOR EVEN LOOKING FOR A
QUICK LAUGH…
********************************
The answer to this week”s
question is A -. What a stupid
question. I hate stupid trivia questions that theres no need to know. Who the
heck cares what its’ latitude is from the Equator? I guessed 40 an was wrong.
The answer was A,- 30 degrees. Whoopee! I probably would’ve skipped this one. I
did get the first one right though. The answer is of course Rajur or Ajjar or
however you want to call it. I talk about it all the time when I’m at Tel Dan
and you can look over towards this former Syrian village that decided that they
wanted to be part of Israel after the 6 Day War. Lately I actually go in there
with tourists as I have an amaing contact there that shares the incredible
story of the kfar. So I got this half right and score is now at 23 for Schwartz and 8 for Ministry
of tourism on this exam so far.
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