from the
Holy Land
from
Rabbi Ephraim
Schwartz
"Your friend
in Karmiel"
January 5th
2024 -Volume 13 Issue 13 24th of
Tevet 5784
“So is it still
possible to tour Israel?” my friend on the phone who had booked me 6 months ago
wanted to know. They had first planned this trip before Corona and that threw an
unvaccinated diseased monkey-or bat wrench into their plans. Then the
post-Corona flood wave of tourism back here made it a bit prohibitive for them
to come, as well they need to recoup a bit financially. It seems that they were
from the few frum yiddelach that hadn’t figured out how to make a bundle
off the pandemic. But they finally got everything together. We had planned a
few amazing days together. The North, the South, fun activities, inspiration,
history, connect with our roots and our land and then October 7th happened.
Now what? Are we still on? Can we still go? Are places still open? What’s the
story…
They’re not the
only ones that have called with that question. I’ve had others as well that
were planning family trips, Bar Mitzvas, Grandparent-grandchildren trips. They
all understand that things are not the same. That we are at war right now. They
know that things are going to be different. But they want to know if it’s still
l’maaseh- aktchualeet-realistic to come now. My response to them-
despite the fact that there are tour guides doing the regular thing-incomprehensibly
as it is to me right now, is that I feel that asking me for a “tour” of Israel
right now is like asking me for a tour of Manhattan a month after 9/11. Sure,
the Statue of Liberty might be open and the great restaurants, museums and
Times square, but they’re not going to be getting a tour of Manhattan anymore.
It’s a tour of 9/11. In Eretz Yisrael right now it’s not waterfalls in the
Golan. It’s not Masada and Herod the Great. It’s not tunnel tours and it’s not
jeeping in the Judean desert anymore. It’s a new world. And it’s one that you
can and have to be part of.
Since Chanuka when
my first friend remarkably called me up my life has changed. My phone thank god
has been ringing off the hook from good Jews that have been calling me non-stop
to join me on my trips around the country to give chizuk, strength, love
and money to the so, so many that are in incomprehensible circumstances. They
tell me that they feel like I did the first three days of the war. Stuck on
their couches, in their offices and kitchens in Lakewood, Five Towns, Miami, the
Midwest and around the country and feeling helpless, while their brothers,
sisters and country are undergoing the most challenging crisis in the last 50
years. They need to come here. They need to feel. They need to be together.
They can’t stay on their couch anymore.
For tours like
that I’m available-although thank God I’m getting booked up and filled up with
those requests as well. The benefit though of what I’m doing now though, is
that I’m putting families together. Whereas when my clients in the past who
were coming, I would almost never combine families or groups together. It’s
just a big headache. This one wants to do this, and that one wants to do that.
Things take longer, it’s a shlep and it’s a lot more coordination. As well I
always felt that a trip to Eretz Yisrael was family-bonding experience. It’s
something that everyone should have, discover and reveal their personal connection
to Eretz Yisrael. To find their portion, their place, their experience. But
these trips that I’m doing now are not about my clients coming. It’s about what
and how we can maximally give and help those that we are visiting. And
therefore the more people that I can bring to a place and give chizuk and help
alleviate their overwhelming financial, material and emotional needs, the more we
can do.
What will be doing
on these trips? When I was guiding I always told my clients that there four or
five ingredients that I put into every day that I toured that I had felt they
needed to get the full Eretz Yisrael experience. Each day would have some
history in it, some nature to take in the beauty of the land, some fun
activities, some holy places and of course good food along the way. Today I’ve identified
as well about six or seven different areas that I feel it’s important to try to
cover on our trips so that we and they can experience, contribute and bring
light to on their trips here. Places and people that desperately need the light
that only someone that comes across the ocean to be with them can bring.
The first area is
of course the Kohanim Gedolim- the High priests of our nation today, our brave chayalim-soldiers
that are doing Hashem’s work and wiping the darkness and evil that has thrust
its dark cloud over our country and the world with the great light of Hashem
that they are shining out of their M16’s, F16’s and Merkava tanks. They need
supplies, coats, scopes, gloves, helmets, boots- yes I know that army should be
providing these things, but tachlis is they’re not. Go kvetch and complain and
bad mouth the Israeli army that is overwhelmed and not only un-prepared, but
who’s last major war had about 40,000 reservists called up in the Lebanon war
and today had to in one day deal with over 300,000 that are serving. Or
alternatively, don’t kvetch and go back to October 6th conversation
and rhetoric and do something about it.
As well our boys
in green need good food. They need warm meals, they need BBQ’s after serving on
Har Dov for 40 days on the top of our freezing mountains, or after 60 days in
Gaza, or after the daily grind and terror of going into Shechem, Jenin and all
of those “peaceful” Palestinian Authority occupied areas. They need good sandwiches
for breakfast, they need Beef Jerky and protein to take with them on their
missions. And they even need the little notes that you can and will write and
send them on these packages that tell them that we are thinking about them.
That we love them. That we can’t even express how much it means to us that they
are putting their lives on the line daily for us. That we are awed by their heroism
and bravery. And that they are our messengers to wipe all of these guys off the
face of the earth and bring me a hotel in Beirut and a beachfront property in
Gush Katif.
The next group of
people that we need to visit and love are the so many that are experiencing such
trauma right now. There are families that lost someone, it could be on October
7th, it could be soldiers that have fallen, others that have gotten
killed in terrorist attacks or missile fallings. There are families who have
injured husbands, fathers, brothers and sisters that are in hospitals right
now. Some that are in serious condition, others that have lost limbs, are
undergoing trauma. They need our chizuk, our prayers, some hugs and light.
There are families of hostages who for them it’s still October 7th.
They can’t move. They’re not functioning. They don’t sleep. They’re terrified
that the world is forgetting about them. That the country has forgotten about
their loved ones. It’s happened before in Israel, where for years they’ve had
our captives. We need to hug them and tell them we’re here for them, We need to
tell the mourners that we flew in to hear about their lost one. That these children
are with us. That we want to know who they are so we can daven harder for them.
With their faces emblazoned in our hearts and minds. That we can make kabbalot
resolutions in their merit. We need to shed tears and take away some of their
pain.
As well there are
the farms and farmers whose entire livelihood and lives are going to pot. Whose
crops are dying on their trees that they planted, and invested so much into.
They don’t have workers anymore. They themselves may be serving in Gaza or at
other places around the country protecting us from our enemies. Their wives are
struggling. Their children don’t have a father and are not sleeping and all the
while their entire winter crop just sits and spoils or is not being planted and
tended to. We need to help them.
Finally it’s not
just individuals, it’s communities that need our help. That need your visit.
That need your money and support. That want your love and hugs and empathy.
That want a big brother and sister that care about them enough to come here and
be with them and hold their hands. There are over 130,000 people that have been
evacuated from their homes. They’re living in hotels and tzimmers around the
country. Many have them had events and visitors and concerts, but they haven’t
left their hotels and gotten out. Even worse are the communities that have not
been evacuated. Some are over the 6 KM line that the government has not
authorized alternate living space and they are getting slammed with missiles. They’re
in bomb shelters regularly on the Northern border. Others like the families in
Sderot are still there because they can’t or are unable to leave. They need
meals and food and visitors to be mechazek them. So so many children who’s
lives have been overturned. That are not only going crazy, but are driving
their parents who may have a husband or brother who’s serving somewhere crazy
as well. They are our brothers and sisters. We need to be there for them.
There are all of
the kibbutzim in the South as well, that need help. They literally went through
a pogrom that we thought went out of style in the times of the Cossacks, the Chmielnicki
revolution, the Crusades. The type that we read about every Tisha B’Av. It’s
heart-wrenching to walk through and still 90 days later smell the smoke and
blood and see the destruction and havoc. I’ve had visitors that have come and
told me that they didn’t want to go there. They felt it was too much. That
there was no need. That they just wanted to do “uplifting” things. I disagreed
with them. I said that as long it was an age-appropriate group that they needed
to come there and see it for themselves. Let me explain why.
I have always been
against the March of Living, Holocaust tours. I’m a positive guy. I feel we
need to focus on the future. We are blessed with Eretz Yisrael. We can’t look
back. The whole thing of “Never Again” happened again and it was never more
than anything but a cool mantra and slogan, because it is Hashem that will decide
what we will go through our not, and His decrees which we can never understand,
are more about the way that we behave towards one another and the light we are
successful in bringing out to the world, and the true desire to return to Eretz
Yisrael where He wants us to live, so that he doesn’t throw us out of the
places that He never wanted us to feel comfortable in. Yet this is different.
This is now. This is the present.
Every soldier
before going out to Gaza is brought to these Kibbutzim and terror zones. The
army understands that the soldiers in order to truly fight the way that they
need to fight they need to understand the extent of the atrocity that took
place, the chilul Hashem that has happened, the vengeance that needs to be
taken in order to restore the light to the world. The immensity of the evil
that they will be facing. They need to see it with their own two eyes. It needs
to penetrate their souls. In the same way all of us our soldiers as well. Our prayers,
our resolutions, our Torah study, our charity, our unity and love is the
firepower behind the bullets, missiles and bombs that we are leveling on them.
We can’t fight with Pre-October 7th spiritual ammunition. It’s not
enough. We need prayer and Torah and charity and love on steroids to conquer
this evil. Because we are not fighting just to wipe them out. It’s not about
bringing security to Israel for the future. It’s about bringing Mashiach. It’s
about the final redemption.
Which of course
brings us four pages into this E-mail to this week’s Torah portion as we begin
the Book of Redemption. To be honest, I thought Mashiach would be coming this
week already. We finished the story of our family. We’ve fixed it all. It’s
time already. Yet of course it seems that we’re still not entirely there. The
Parsha begins with the story of suffering under Pharaoh, of the torture and
senseless murder and enslavement of our nation and with the murder of our
babies. It’s bad. It’s 210 years of October 7th.
And then there is
Moshe. He’s our shepherd and our savior. He’s the one that turns it all around.
For 210 years Hashem has hidden Himself from us in the darkness of Egypt. And
it all changes when Moshe does something remarkable. He called Rabbi Schwartz
and left his cozy safe palace in Monsey, Lakewood, Cedarhurst, Los Angeles,
America Egypt and he went out to his brothers to see their suffering.
Vayigdal Moshe- and Moshe got older,
Vayeitzei El Echov- and he went out to his brothers
Va’yaar b’sivlosam-and he saw their suffering
What was the
purpose of Moshe Rabbeinu’s trip? Rashi tells us it was in order to “focus
his eyes and heart to be distressed over them.” Moshe knew what was going
on. He watched the News every night. He read the papers, he surfed Yeshiva World
and even watched my daily status posts. But it wasn’t enough. He needed to go
there and see it for himself. He needed to feel the pain and suffering. It
needed to hurt so much that it would become his own pain where he would do
anything to relieve that pain. So he got off his couch and came.
What made this
even more incredible was that the verse tells us that Moshe went out to “his
brothers”. Were these really his brothers? Moshe since being an infant was
raised in Pharaoh’s palace. He was aristocracy. He had a big 8-bedroom house
and backyard. These were slaves. They were different than him. They were in Egypt
“shlav beit “kids- not just second-class citizens but almost sub-humans.
Yet, Moshe went out to his brothers. There was no disconnect. There was no
Moshe saying yeah, but those Kibbutzim were left-wing secularists that brought
it upon themselves. There was not but they were festivaling and violating
Shabbos and Simchas Torah. There was no I’m better or frummer than they are, or
I’m only connecting to those that are like me. He went out to his brothers. He
wanted to know who they were and what they were going through and he needed to
feel the pain. It’s just five Hebrew words, “He went out to his brothers and he
saw their suffering” and yet it’s a whole world and it’s what brought the
redemption.
What was it that
Moshe saw? He saw an Egyptian man hitting a Jewish man. He saw the blows. HE
felt each whip on his own back. He saw that the poor slave was an “ivri”.
He was a “Yahud”. He hear Allahu Akbar. He smelled the smoke. He walked through
the blood-stained sands and ash-filled rooms. He left with the stench of the
death of babies on his clothing. He looked to the right and to the left. To the
United Nations, to the all of those Me-Toos, to the civilized world, to the Universities
for Social justice, to the Red Cross and he saw- ki ein ish- there’s nobody
there. No one cares. That we are a nation alone. And saw he took action. He
couldn’t not. He realized that everyone else was sitting comfortably and just talking
and pontificating, but no one was smiting the Mitzri- Egyptian. So he
did it. Because he understood that it was his brother that was getting hit and
no one else was going to be there for him.
Yet he left with his
faith shattered. How could this happen? How could this be? Why am I the only
one that is here. Where’s the world? The next morning he got his answer when he
returned. Because a one-day mission with Rabbi Schwartz is never enough. Because
despite the fact that yesterday was exhausting and draining and emotional and
took everything I had, my brother is still suffering. And I have to go out
again tomorrow. Because there’s still something else I have to and can do. And
there’s no one else that can or will.
Yet on day two. He
got his answer. He understood it all. He said
“Achein noda ha’davar-
Now the matter is known to me.”. What did he see? Two men fighting. Two Jewish
men that just didn’t get that it was October 8th and not October 6th
anymore. Two men that didn’t chap that we’re all in this together. That didn’t
understand we’re all on the same boat. They didn’t appreciate that the only way
to remove that hiddenness of Hashem in this dark world is if we bring his light
his One-ness into the world by us coming together. By us stopping to hit our
brothers. By not falling back into that fight that brought us down here in the
first place between Yosef and his brothers. That’s the davar- the matter
that started it all. It’s the davar that Yosef spoke about his brothers.
It’s the davar that Yaakov sent Yosef to find and return the peace from
his brothers and it is the davar that Yosef was able to reestablish in
the house of Pharaoh at the end of the last parsha with his forgiveness, reconciliation
and even support for one another. But now Moshe realizes that the davar
is back again.
The world doesn’t
care about us if we are divided and don’t care about one another. They can’t
care for us, because when we are at each other’s throats, when we sit on our
own coach and not there for one another, then we are not the nation that will
shine the light to the world. Then the opposite happens. Then they have to
remind us and persecute and pain us until we get back to where we need to. To
where the light can shine from.
Moshe sees that
and flees. And he waits until the tide changes. Until the pain gets so great
that we have one voice and cry out to Hashem. The hiddenness is too much. We
need You. And Hashem hears it finally. He looks down on His children and
remembers His covenant. He remembers Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov.
Va’yar Elokim es
Bnai Yisrael- And Hashem saw the children
of Israel. He saw us a nation. He saw what the pain had brought us to. He saw
that Moshe even far away in Midyan was still connected to his people and that
it was time to come back for a second trip. He saw that the men who had sought
out the life of Moshe were gone. The fighting was over. The pain was too great.
Va’yeida Elokim- Rashi tells us Hashem put His heart and did not hide His
eyes from us anymore. The redemption can come. We can move forward with the
miracles. We can head home and wipe out the evil. We can finally finish the
mission of Yaakov of Shema Yisrael Hashem Echad revealing His One-ness through
our Achdus. We can finally go back and have the good old-fashioned Rabbi
Schwartz tour of Eretz Yisrael once again. I’m booking them now for Pesach. So
don’t wait too long for this once in a life-time achdus tour to bring
that day sooner. It’s time to come out to your brothers.
Have a inspiring Shabbos and an
uplifting Shabbos Mevorchim.
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
T
************************
YIDDISH PROVERB OF THE WEEK
“Kirtser
geshlofen, lenger gelebt”.- The
less you sleep, the more you get out of life.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM QUESTION OF THE WEEK
answer below at end of Email
21.
According to the Bible, the first month of the year is ___________.
Which
of the following characterizes the customs in a Reform Synagogue?
A.
Women sit in front of men
B.
Women will read from the Torah
C. The
Temple will not be mentioned
D. The
reading of the Torah will be in English.
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S PARSHA PRAYER
INSPIRATION OF THE WEEK
No Words – It’s the one thing that every one says after they see and hear
about the atrocities perpetrated against us. The death, the destructions, the
horrors, it’s just too much. It’s incomprehensible. We walk out and they all
say they same thing. Ein Milim- there are no words. Words haven’t been created
to encapsulate it all. It’s too much it’s overwhelming. It’s just tears and
sobs.
To a large degree the Netziv notes in our parsha this
week is the essence of all our prayers. To move beyond words. The Torah tells
us that after the 210 years of exile finally Hashem saw what we were undergoing
and
Vayishma es Koleinu- He heard our voices.
It doesn’t say He heard our prayers. It wasn’t the
words. Perhaps we had even reached a point when we couldn’t even pray anymore.
We just cried from pain. We were hurt and we were broken and we turned to Hashem
and said hear our broken voice and our sobs. It wasn’t refa’einu- heal us, It
wasn’t forgive us, it wasn’t even redeem us. It was just pain and hurt and a
connection from the depths of our souls that Hashem is the only address to turn
to with that pain. And then he answered us.
That is the prayer that we are looking for today. And
just as then that is the voice that is getting louder and louder. And the day
when the redemption from Egypt will be forgotten because the redemption that
awaits will come soon and be so much greater. We just have to awake that voice.
We just have to move beyond the words.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S FUNNY NEW YEARS JOKES OF THE WEEK
“My New
Year’s resolution for 2023? I will be less laz.”— Jim Gaffigan
“Now there are more overweight people in America
than average-weight people. So overweight people are now average. Which means
you’ve met your New Year’s resolution.”— Jay Leno
NEW YEARS PRAYER FOR THE ELDERLY
God, grant me the senility to forget the people
I never liked anyway,
The good fortune to run into the ones that I do,
And the eyesight to tell the difference.
DIETING NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS
2019: I will get my weight down below 180
pounds.
2020: I will follow my new diet religiously until I get below 200 pounds.
2021: I will develop a realistic attitude about my weight.
2022: I will work out 3 days a week.
2023: I will try to drive past a gym at least once a week.
“New Year's Day: Now is the accepted time to
make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell
with them as usual.” -Mark Twain
Cindy was taking an afternoon nap on New Year's
Eve before the festivities. After she woke up, she confided to Max, her
husband, 'I just dreamed that you gave me a diamond ring for a New Year's
present. What do you think it all means?'
'Aha, you'll know tonight,' answered Max smiling
broadly.
At midnight, as the New Year was chiming, Max
approached Cindy and handed her small package. Delighted and excited she
opened it quickly. There in her hand rested a book entitled: 'The meaning of
dreams'.
**********************************
The answer to
this week”s question is B – So first part is
easy. Rosh Hashana the first of Tishrei is the new year. Although it is pretty
cool you have to admit that this is the question that comes up right after the
secular New Years day… The second part of the question is interesting I’m sure
the correct answer is the wome reading from the Torah. Yet there certainly is a
removal of the Temple in many of reform prayer books as well in old times and
even still today, and there are some that have Torah reading in English.
Interestingly enough in ancient Mishna times we had a translator that would translate
the Torah for the community as well during the reading. I would give
explanation in between aliya to aliya back in my Seattle TLC days as well. Yes,
it was a long davening. But we’re there to learn the parsha not just ritually
read it and especially today when there’s so many messages for us. So this
is another one right making the latest score is Rabbi Schwartz at 15.5
point and the MOT having 4.5 point on this latest Ministry of
Tourism exam.
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