from the
Holy Land
from
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
"Your friend in Karmiel"
October 13th 2023 -Volume
13 Issue 1 28th of Tishrei 5784
(New column Rabbi Schwartz Parsha/ Prayer of
the Week!)
Parshat Bereishit
A
New Morning
We asked on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur that
Hashem should reveal Himself in all His awe and fear to the entire world and He
did. It just wasn’t anything that we thought it would be. It generally isn’t.
Lo machshavosai machshavoseichem-My thoughts aren’t your thoughts
lo darcheichem derachi- your ways aren’t Mine-is the speech of Hashem that we
heard loud and clear this past week; the week in which there is no one in this
country that doesn’t agree, everything has changed.
It’s a different world. A different country.
We’re a different people. And it’s a world and people that I believe everyone
agrees will never be the one that it was before. The world before Simchas Torah
5784 is not coming back. It’s exactly what we asked for- just not what we
thought we would get there or how we imagined it would look like.
Nishbar ha’contzeptzia- The previous conceptions have all been thrown out, is the
term I’ve learned this week. “Ha’paradigmot hishtanu”- the previous
paradigms are all gone. We thought we knew what the worst that evil could look
like in our 21st century post-Holocaust civilized world. Yet we had
no clue how much more horrific it could be. Graphic depictions and stories
don’t stop coming over the media. Children, old people, couples, soldiers,
families, babies with just a few months of breath in their short lives were
slaughtered in what some have called Israel’s Babi Yaar; our Kishinev pogrom.
It was the 1929 Chevron massacre but much much
worse, with those killed and wounded numbering more than 10 times as much making
it the worst in the history of the world and the most Jews killed in a day
since the Holocaust. An it is perhaps the most Jews murdered without the
benefit of a gas chamber since the Crusades or the Chiemlinizki Cossack
pogroms. This year Tisha B’av there will be new Kinnot that will need to be
recited. It will be the stories that I’ve been hearing every 30 minutes on different
broadcasts. And they keep coming… “Never again”- happened again…again. It
happened again worse than it ever did before. We understood what evil looks
like, as we never did before. It’s a new world...
We thought we could rely on the army to be
there for us. It’s the best army in the world. We thought we had the most
incredible intelligence agency, the best information. We knew what they were
doing and planning before even they did. We knew where they went, when they
ate, where they hung out, what they were planning. We will never be caught
unaware. We have a fence. We have cameras, drones, we have phones we can trace
to anywhere. And we now realize that we couldn’t even use all that intelligence
and those phones to get to our own terrorized victims until hours, if not days
after it was too late.
The contzeptziot are all gone. All of them.
That there is no one to rely on besides Hashem has never been clearer. The al
tivtichu b’nedivim- that bnai adam that have no power to save anyone
is something we will never trust or have any faith in again.
Yet something else changed in this new world; from
the pre-Simcha Torah 5784 world. There’s no longer me-and-them when it comes to
our fellow Jews. The fighting between us miraculously disappeared. We realized
that we’re all on the same team. The team that was losing. The team that
hurting. That was on the same boat. We realized we’re all parents. We’re all
children. We all were the targets of our enemies.
A week ago we were fighting about whether
there should be a mechitza- a “hafrada” in services in Tel Aviv. Hashem
ripped down that geder hafrada- that separation fence graphically before
our very eyes and we came together as a country and nation. A week ago some of
us didn’t daven for the army or its soldiers or for peace in the land of Israel.
They would never daven for the government and its leaders to have light and
wisdom. In this new world there isn’t anyone that isn’t praying harder that our
soldiers should wipe out Amalek and that our leaders should wake up and do what
we need to do.
I spent much of this week at various army
bases bringing food and supplies to soldiers. It was unreal. A new world.
Religious, non-religious, sefardi, Ashkenazi, black, white, Chasidim,
Chareidim, small kippas, no kippas, long skirts, pants-wearing chayalot,
we were an am echad. 300,000 of our nation’s finest all came to serve,
to put their lives on the line for the Jewish people; for Eretz Yisrael. There
was no left or right. There was no frummer or less frum. It was just holy souls
united, shining brightly, coming in jeeps, cars, bus and planes from all over
the world like a shofar was calling them to become one- an agudah echas-
one band and group- la’asos retzoncha- to do that will and mission
Hashem has given us to wipe out our enemies in this milchemes mitzva. B’leivav
shaleim-with a strong united heart. It was what we davened for- we just
never thought it would look like this.
It wasn’t only the soldiers, by the way. It
was everyone else that kept coming. It was the cars and cars of Israelis from
all over the country that brought food and supplies to the soldiers. So so so
much food… and supplies. It was those that hosted families from the South for
as long as they need. It was the tons of calls and phone calls and money… so so
so much money that poured in from our brothers and sisters from around the
world. It was the thousands that attended funerals and paid shiva calls to
families of the fallen that they never knew but that understood that part of
ourselves died with the martyred victims and heroes that gave their lives for
our nation.
It is the thousands of yeshiva students that are
giving up their vacation time to return early and that hit the bais midrash to
learn and daven for our future, for our existence, for peace. It is the heroes
of Zaaka that will never sleep again after the horrors that they witnessed retrieving
the bodies that they spent days bringing to their proper Jewish burial. The
Hatzala members, the doctors, the nurses, the police, the so many volunteers.
We realized that we really are a family in this new world. That despite how
different we are we all share something special that no other nation in the
world has between one another. It supersedes money, politics, observance,
kippas, where we came from, or how we lead our lives. The Chasid in Meah
Shearim who danced on Simchas Torah 5784 realized that was his sister that was
dancing in the “Mesibat Teva- the nature dance” in the border of Gaza. The
secular leftist in Rishon L’Tziyon or Hertzelia who may have never stepped in a
shul and wouldn’t even spit on a religious Jew on Simchas Torah 5784,
recognized that his neighbor in Bnai Brak who was sitting in a bomb shelter
hiding from missiles holding his children tightly and praying just as he was, is
his brother. We are one in this new world.
But it’s not just about us. Or is it? For in yesterday’s
world we weren’t on the world’s most favorite country list. We were condemned
regularly. We were being lectured about moral equivalency. We were occupiers. “Nebach
the poor Palestinians…”. Restraint, they told us. They’re “lone wolfs”. They’re
“militants”. Don’t call them animals. Jewish blood was cheap. It was irrelevant.
It was ignored and an acceptable currency in the worlds moral bank. Tragically
even in many of our owns as well. It was a price we could, and some felt even
should pay for being aggressors. For being Jewish. For having a state and
laying a biblical claim to it.
The new
world for this week though-at least as we see it, is a different one. It is a
surreal one. It’s one that I don’t even think the strongest of faith believe can
be more than a short-term post-tragedy reality. It is a world turning to Israel,
to the Jewish people and saying “You were right”. You’re our representative
to eradicate evil. You represent justice. You carry the banner of light, of
truth, of values that represent the God that we believe in. Fight for us. We
will shine your flag on our White house; on our capitals around the world. In
Germany. On the Vatican. On the Arch of Titus that reignites that light we
nations of the world tried to extinguish 2000 years ago when we destroyed the
temple. We realize and understand that you are the priests of the world. That you
are our front lines. And we all want to get in step behind you.
Can you believe that this is the world that we
prayed for? Or do you still feel that Hashem hasn’t answered our prayers, and
this is just a small blip or commercial on the never-ending cycle of our 2000-year
persecution that says “oh, we’re sorry… never again.”. Are you from those that
feel we had better act fast before the tide turns, and that the pictures of the
poor, wild-animal spawn in Gaza will revert the pre-Simchas-Torah-world we
lived in to its natural state of apathy, if not latent antisemitism towards our
people? Or can you believe that Hashem has begun the final birth pangs of our 2000-year-long
exile and we are sitting in the birthing room of a new world where the entire world
has its eyes to us to herald in the final redemption- that not only we, but
they as well- at least spiritually subconsciously- has been waiting for.
If there was any doubt, then the timeliness of
this week’s Parsha and the beginning of the cycle of Torah reading that starts
with the Creation of the world should perhaps give that doubt pause. It should
give you the appreciation that we have in fact entered a new world and
creation. The world that echoes the first original world. The world we have
been davening for 5784 years.
And the land was empty and bare and
darkness over the face of the depths. The
world was dark Sunday morning.
And the spirit of Hashem hovered over the
face of the waters.
I look at the rubble of our kibbutzim, the
carnage, the houses, the fields, the death, and I see Hashem’s spirit hovering
above it all. Hashem separated the heavens and earth. There was light and
darkness. It was clear. Until then, Rashi tells us, light and darkness were
intermingled. The creation was blurry. There was no light shining that was separate
from the darkness. Good looked bad and bad looked good. But on Day One there
was that separation. It was either-or. It was light or darkness. It was Hashem
or Hamas. It was Torah and truth or lies, distortions, woke and death. And Hashem saw that it was good. And it was
Day One.
The first word of our Torah is Bereishis. In
the beginning of what, our sages ask? It doesn’t translate well. Our sages thus
explain that the word is a reference to the Jewish people who are called reishis-
we are the first. B’shvil Yisrael Ha’Nikraim reishis- because of Israel who
are called reishis- the beginning. Rav Charlap explains in his work Mei Marom
this powerful idea- that the function of a beginning is to come to an end. The
world was created to bring and reveal the heavens down below. That heaven and
earth shall kiss. That darkness will be eradicated and that through our exercise
of our free choice we reveal Hashem as the King.
It is a world that was created with kindness. And
when Hashem created that world it was the intent that Yisrael, our nation would
reveal and bring that light to the world. All the antisemitism, the hatred, the
evil that befalls us is because we have not succeeded in doing that. They are
jealous of our role. The Satan is created in order to prevent us from achieving
that goal. He thwarts us by dividing us. By not allowing us to see the light in
one another. And if we can’t see Hashem in each of us then we can’t possibly
shine His light out to the world.
The redemption will come, he writes, when the
world will see that we are united. In the final song of the Torah of Haazinu we
are told this will happen when everyone is dancing in our blood and the world will
ask how it can be this nation? What is different about them? Where is their
God? And then we will unite and the light will shine. And they will come forth.
And they will join us. And the nations will praise Hashem. And the world will
come to its completion. And we will be back in the garden. It will be Shabbos
forever. The reishis will have reached the acharis ha’yamim- the
end of the days.
That first world and our parsha concludes with
its deterioration. It ends with what next week’s parsha tells us is a world
that is filled with Hamas- No, I’m not making this up. Hamas is the word the Torah
uses to describe a world that is full of robbery. A world, Rashi tells us, in
which the nations will claim that we are robbers. We stole the land of Israel. We
are Hamas. It is why the first word in the Torah is Reishis. That we are
in fact the beginning. That Hashem created the world and gave the land of
Israel to us. That it is from there and when we recognize and claim it
rightfully as such- and yes Gaza as well is part of that land- then they will
agree. They will sing Hashem’s praise. They will see His oneness. Our oneness. The
evil, the Hamas, the robbers that claim that its not our inheritance will be
eradicated. K’ashan tichleh- they will go up like smoke, as we said in
our prayers this Rosh Hashana. Like the smoke rising over Gaza right now. Like
the smoke that the entire world has been waiting 5784 years for us to eradicate
them with. Then and only then will we see
the completion of our prayers.
U’vchein tzadikim yiru v’yismachu- then the righteous will see and will rejoice, the
straight will sing, and the pious with song will celebrate. There will be simcha
b’artzecha- happiness in the land and in our city. And the son of Dovid
Mashiach will finally be here.
Welcome to our new world. It’s the one we
davened for. The baby is almost born. The mazel tovs are about to come
as well. We are in a war that is between light and darkness. Between not just
Hamas and Israel. It is the nations that see the light and darkness and are
fighting with us over it. It is the western countries, America, Europe,
Australia and it is Iran, it is Russia, it is China. It’s new world. Hashem is
separating light and darkness. His spirit is floating above all. And Hashem
will see that light and darkness and it will be good. Vayehi Erev Vayehi Boker
Yom Echad- It will be evening and it will be morning and it will be Day
one. The Day of Oneness will have arrived.
Have safe peaceful Shabbos and a Chodesh Tov,
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
************************
YIDDISH PROVERB OF THE WEEK
“Vifil
yor er iz gegangn oyf di fis zol er geyn af di hent un di iberike zol er zikh
sharn oyf di hintn.- As many years as he’s
walked on his feet, let him walk on his hands, and for the rest of the time he
should crawl along on his backside.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM QUESTION OF THE WEEK
answer below at end of Email
9. Hisham
Palace was built during the Muslim ___________ dynasty.
What was the
capital of the Mamluk Sultanate?
A. Cairo
B. Baghdad
C. Jerusalem
D. Acre
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S COOL VIDEO OF THE WEEK
https://soundcloud.com/ephraim-schwartz/yizkeraim
– A memorial prayer for the brutal
murder of the kedoshim demanding their blood be avenged by Hashem and the Rosh
Hashana prayer. I composed this after the kidnapping of the three young man by
Gaza and it’s first war.
https://soundcloud.com/ephraim-schwartz/avinu-malkeinu – Composed this
after the Har Nof massacre for those kedoshim- sadly it’s still relevant and
its wishes for Hashem to avenge our martyrs remains with us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLDUu1NEiQ0
- The world shows Solidarity with
Israel!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbdoCyC9r4E&list=PL7kw44li4gT_OFxduGnd2yfUVq910ilrP&index=4
– Avraham Fried prayer for Chayalim
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuItxC0fb2c&list=PL7kw44li4gT_OFxduGnd2yfUVq910ilrP&index=2
–Ari Goldwag Ana Hashem Hoshia Na
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFjLQkNp4as
– Shlomo Carlebach Od Avinu Chai
to soldiers going out by Yom Kippur War
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S PARSHA PRAYER
INSPIRATION OF THE WEEK
(NEW COLUMN)
LAST YEAR I LEFT OUT THIS COLUMN OF THE WEEK. IT’S TIME TO DO
TESHUVA IN THIS SPECIAL YEAR WE WILL CONNECT AND FIND INSPIRATION EACH WEEK WITH
A LESSON ON PRAYER
The 40 day prayer- Although I plan to dedicate this column towards a connection
between each parsha and the prayers that we say and what davening is all about,
this week I want to start off with the prayer we recited each day for the
entire last month and that we concluded the day when the “New World” and the
Simchat Torah war began. The idea and its relevance and its message to us right
now are too powerful and mind-blowing to not share with you.
The prayer of L’Dovid Hashem
Ori which is psalm 27. We began it at the beginning of Elul and we read it through
the holidays. The reasons why we read it is because it contains secrets and
messages for the season we are in. It contains the name of Hashem 13 times in
that correspond to the 13 attributes of mercy which we recite in selichos in
this month. As well it contains in the first word of verse 13 a hint for the name
of the month Elul.
Lulay He’amanti li’ros b’tuv Hashem B’Eretz Hachayim- Had I not believed in seeing the
good of Hashem in the land of the living. The word Lulay contains the
letters of Elul.
The first sentence represents the high holidays or days of awe that
we enter.
Hashem Ori V’yishi mi’mi erah- Hashem is my light and my salvation; whom shall I
fear?
“Our light,”
our sages, tell us is a reference to Rosh Hashana. “Our salvation” is
Yom Kippur. It continues with verse 5 which references not only Sukkos but even
Shmini Atzeret.
Ki Yitzpineini B’Sukkah- That He will hide me in His Sukkah on the day of
calamity;
Yastireini B’seser ohalo- He will conceal me in the secrecy of His tent. On Shemini
Atzeres we are alone with Hashem. It is just us and him. We are be’setirah.
And that’s the last day that we recite this prayer. And now what comes after.
This year on that day we began the new world with the terrible war
and the massacre that took place in “Peace dance” on Simchat Torah in a place
called Re’im. Would you believe that those words and many more messages for us
right now are in this psalm as well…
B’karov alai me’reim le’echol es basari- When evildoers draw
near to me to devour my flesh, my adversaries and my enemies against me- they
stumble and fall. The word me’reim means friends but in this context it is evil
doers that are friends. And they came to eat our flesh. To kill and murder.
It continues in the next verse speaks of war
Im takum alai Milchama b’zos ani bote’ach- If a war comes up against me in
this I have faith.
When does this happen as it says Ki Yitzpineini B’Sukkah -
when you will hide me in your Sukka and then right after is Ba’Yom ra-
the day after we left the Sukka became that day of Ra- of evil.
Who will do this evil? Verse 12 tells us
Ki kamu bi eidei sheker v’nefayach Chamas- Do not deliver me to the desires
of my adversaries, for false witnesses and speakers of evil have risen against
me. It is those that have spread lies about us those that are Chamas!
What will they do to us. Avi v’Imi Ya’azvuni- we will lose
fathers mothers, we will suffer hiddenness
but Hashem will gather us in.
What will be of that war?
Kavey el Hashem- we shall hope again and again for Hashem. And as it says earlier
in the psalm Hashem will uplift us over our enemies and we will dwell in the
House of Hashem in the Eretz Ha’Chayim in the Bait Ha’Mikdash.
For forty days we recited this prayer. 40 days are the days of birth.
Its Moshe bringing us the Torah. It’s 40 years before coming into the land. It’s
the 40 day prayer that we recited that will hopefully herald in that house of
Hashem so we may sing this psalm there very soon.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S ERA’S AND THEIR
PLACES AND PEOPLE IN ISRAEL OF THE WEEK
The War from the North- 650 BC – Learning Navi in the Book of Melachim is like watching news
broadcasts here in Israel these days. We keep flipping back and forth between
Kings and Kingdoms. Between the North and the South. That’s what I’ve been
doing here as well this past week. But with the conclusion of the story of Yoash
the King of Yehuda and his assassination we flip back to the Kingdom
of Israel this week. The king there after the death of Yehu was his
son Yehoyachaz who took over during the 23rd year of Yoash
in Yerushalayim’s Judean Kingdom.
Yehoyachaz took us back a step by as his father Yehu in not only allowing the
Mikdash of Yeravam in Beit El and Tel Dan and his worship
of Hashem via the golden calves he established. As well the Ashera worship of
Achav and Izevel started to sprout back up. Hashem wanted this stopped so he
brought in our friend from Aram/ Syria to wake us up. This was already
prophesized by Elisha it would happen. And it did for 17 years. They
wiped us mostly out. Yehoyachaz was left with an army of 10,000, 50
cavalry soldiers and only ten chariots- the ancient equivalent of tanks. It was
bad. It was really bad. It was like Gaza today. Yet Yehoyachaz did
teshuva. Hashem had mercy and with his death in the era of his son Yoash
of the North- not to be confused with Yoash of Yehuda Hashem saved
us.
It seems war is our fate. As we know this column
has a tendency to be connected to our daily news. And this war cycle seems to
have gone way back. It’s a matter of listening to our prophets before the fact,
rather than paying the consequences afterwards. Next week we conclude with the
death of our prophet Elisha and the amazing story of his final miracles.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S FUNNY
GAZA JOKES OF THE WEEK
The good thing about Biden is that after he
gives us artillery he forgets a few minutes later
and sends us again.
For sale in Gaza a 4 room apartment
3 room
2 room
One
Not relevant.
Coming soon Beit Chabad of Gaza
I ask all those that “Stand with Gaza” to
stand in Gaza… and the world will be better a place
Because of the serious parking crisis
(chaniya) in Israel we are happy to announce the establishment of a new parking
area Chani-younis
I’m worried about the entire system falling
apart tomorrow when tons of the Chariedim bring pots of chulent to families of
the south…
Yesterday the Pikud Ha’Oref sent us to the
supermarkets to buy all of the food, today they’re sending us to the shelters
to eat it all.
I’m starving does anyone know where I can go
to get drafted.
The sefardic soldiers in the South are asking
the Ashkenazim to stop sending food, they’re having a hard enough time as it is.
The Army has decided to disconnect Gaza from electricity
and water. I think it would be better if they connected them to Electricity in
water.
Be careful Hamas is infiltrating the Tehillim
whatsapp signup groups and are taking all of the short perakim.
The city of Tel Aviv has finally decided to
open up the public bomb shelters. 40 Shekel for the first hour and 15 shekel every
hour after.
The answer to this week”s
question is A – Another half
right half wrong one. Muslim history and the various meshugeneh Arabs that
lived and their “dynasties” don’t interest me or any of my tourists or frankly
really anyone in general. I guessed it was the Abassisds the answer was the
Ayummites- who cares? The second part I got right as I do know that the
Mamaluks were like these Asian arab slaves that rose up from Egypt and rebelled
against Egypt and took over the Middle East. That being the case Cairo the only
choice from Egypt was the right answer. So half right/half wrong makes the new
score Rabbi Schwartz having a 6.5 point and the MOT having 2.5
point on this latest Ministry of Tourism exam.
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