Insights and Inspiration
from the
Holy Land
from
Rabbi Ephraim
Schwartz
"Your friend
in Karmiel"
April 12th
2024 -Volume 13 Issue
27
4th of Nisan 5784
Parshat Tazria
Time of Birth
Dear Ribono Shel Olam,
Master of the world, Abba, Tatteh, Melech… Ad
Mosai? How long…? How much more do we need to wait… to suffer… to hurt….to pray…to
cry….? When is this going to be over? When will it start? When will You come
home? When will you bring them home? All of them. It’s too much already. We can’t
anymore. It’s too much already.
Was it just a two years ago by Corona that we
sat alone in our homes that Seder night and thought that Eliyahu would really
be by our doors when we opened them up? That the worst had already come. That You
were finally ready to redeem us. That You had taken the last sacrifices You
needed. That the world had finally realized that ein od milvado- that there is no one to
rely on besides You. But when we opened that door there was no one there. No
old man with a white beard on a donkey. No shofar. It was the same empty 2000-year-old
doormat that greeted us, that has been lying there by our blood painted
doorpost telling us that the redemption is not yet here. We’re still in Egypt. Adayin
lo higiya geulaschem- the time is still not yet.
So we continued with faith. It didn’t shake
us. We vaccinated. Or didn’t. But we prayed. We shemitta’ed. We came to Israel
like never before. We learned. We davened. We did chesed. And yes, we did fall
back into our old lives somewhat, but our eyes were and still are always on the
ball since then. We were ready for it to happen. We davened that past High
Holidays that this year should be the last year that we are without You. That
we aren’t home with You.
It was the year after Shevi’is after all. A
year when our sages saw that the redemption is opportune to come. But it didn’t
happen that year, and so we davened that it should be this year. And then October
7th happened. And then that Shemini Atzeret day when the King sits
with His child and asks to spend one last day together, because it’s too hard
to separate from them after these incredible holidays that we celebrated for 7
days in our Sukkos. On that special holy day You walked out of the room. You
left that Sukkah of protection. You let them come in. You turned Simchat Torah
into Tisha B’av. All the Kinos- lamentations that we’ve said for 2000 years
happened on that day when we should’ve been dancing together with Your Torah. Since then, It’s been like the three weeks of
mourning when tragedy comes again and again, only that its been” the three
weeks” for the past 6 months, with no end in sight. With just an empty doorway
awaiting us again this Pesach.
We thought it might’ve happened on Chanuka the
holiday of miracles; when we won over our enemies and rededicated our Temple.
We finally have soldiers like the Maccabees of old, that are fighting just in
Your name. Just for Your glory. But it didn’t happen. There weren’t any miracles
of redemption, despite the so many small lights we lit around the world and prayers
we offered.
Perhaps when we read the book of Shemos; the
book of our Redemption. Maybe that’s when You would bring it. Maybe in the
month of Shevat when the sap of the geula starts to sprout up? Would it only
come in Adar? The month of Simcha would finally bring that joy we had been
waiting so long for? Would all the pain be batel- get wiped out, in the 60 days of
those festive extra month of Adar that this special year had. Would we see a
Purim miracle? We were wiping out Amalek like never before. We were united. We
got smashed and lost all our da’as. All our conceptions. We sang to You.
We danced with You. We cried and davened on Purim. Bring them Home. Come Home. Make
this over. Turn it all around. And yet Purim passed. And Adar is over. And
nothing has changed.
So I ask you Tatteh… Ad Mosai? What more can
we do? If Your plan is that if You keep squeezing us with the hope that we will
do even more teshuva, I hate to be the one to tell You, but open up the
Newspapers and turn on the News. It’s not happening. The nation is stiff-necked,
in case You didn’t chap that yet. They’re fighting again. They’re politicking again.
They’re protesting. They’re drafting. They’re pointing fingers at one another.
They’re bowing down to the seuda of Achashveirosh and taking cues and
directions from the goyim that want to wipe us out. The pain is too great. The letdown
is too much. Amalek is laughing his tuchas off. Where are You…?
Is there any of us that haven’t written a
letter like that this past year. At least in our hearts and in our prayers, I
know that you have had those thoughts and those words. I don’t think anyone of
us in my lifetime has ever been more ready for Mashiach then we are today. We’re
exhausted. We’re wiped. We’re terrified of the ramifications of him not coming
this Pesach. We see the clock turning back to October 6th. The
troops pulling out before the job is over, while threats loom over our heads. While
evil still threatens to destroy us.
We’ve seen the true faces of the world towards
us once again, when the Shechina is not amongst us, and we are not in our home with
Hashem shining His light out. How much they hate us. How little they care about
our blood, our children, our hostages. How little they really want us in their
country and think that we’re anything like them. It’s not just the nations
either and perhaps that’s the scariest part. It’s Israel. It’s our brothers and
sisters here that are just falling apart despite the so much we underwent and
are going through together. It’s the government, it’s the courts, it’s the sinat
chinam that’s sprouting up again. So much blood has been spilled, so much
pain and the baby doesn’t seem to be coming out. It’s stuck. It’s strangling
itself with its umbilical cord. Has this all been for naught?
The birthing analogy I just stuck in there by
the way is really no coincidence. I think all of us in Klal Yisrael finally get
a little, or maybe even a big, taste of what takes place in that birthing room
in the last final moments. The woman just has no koach to push anymore.
She’s done. Just slice me open and take the kid out already. I’ve been going at
this for hours. I can’t anymore. Make that nurse or Doula who keeps yelling in
my ear with their unhelpful words of encouragement be quiet already.
“Breathe!”
“Push!”
“Just a little bit more!”
“You can do it!”
“C’mon! you’ve got it now…”.
Well, I don’t
. Hashem just make it over. Take
the kid out and let me go to sleep. Yeah, I get what my wife felt like now. We
all do.
Well on that note, let’s take a look at the
parsha- or letter Hashem has sent us to read this week in our Torah reading, strangely
titled ‘Tazria’. I say strangely, because the majority of the parsha which is
focused on the laws of purity and the tumah of tzara’as’-the
spiritual blemishes that can afflict our people, has nothing to do with the
first verse or few pesukim which begins with the laws of the tumah
of a woman who gives birth. Or in the interesting Torah term for that word- a
woman who is mazria- she plants or “seeds”. Why is that the title
of the entire parsha and even more perplexing is why is the particular tumah
of childbirth the introduction to all of the laws of impurity. Seemingly it’s
not a major impurity. It would seem that the tumah of coming in contact with
death, or of a Niddah, or even the metzorah should precede these laws.
It even tells us that Yoledes, woman who has given birth is like a
Niddah menstruating woman, despite not even having told us what that tumah
is yet. Yet, it seems that Hashem is telling us that if we want to understand Tumah.
If we want to understand the way that we will become purified to come to the
Bais HaMikdash, then we have to first and foremost appreciate that it’s all
part of Tazriah. We’re being planted.
Now personally unlike my father who always loved
gardening, I’ve never had a green thumb. I want a burger and fries in five minutes,
well done please. I have no time to dig, to plant, to water, to hedge. I’ll
skip the tomato, thank you. Pickles don’t really come from the ground anyways…
right? Yet over the year and half or so of Shemitta where I spent a lot of
time with farmers and this year as well with many volunteer chizuk trips
to farms to help them with their crops, I’ve developed a better appreciation
and awe for this holy work. It’s really amazing the entire process if you think
about it. We take this ground. We seemingly dig it up, we plow, we overturn it,
we take seeds and throw them in and bury them in the deepest, darkest, filthiest
place. We then water them, we hedge them, we cut around them, and slowly slowly
they start to flower. They start to grow. The fruit sprouts forth. It’s magic.
It’s life. It’s a miracle.
Think about childbirth and the process as
well. It’s pretty much the same thing. We’ll skip the first steps, but just
look at the mother once she become pregnant. Just don’t tell her how she looks.
She’s fat, she’s in pain, she’s bloated. She’s stretching. And then poof. A
brand new life is on this world. There is no one that has ever been in a
birthing room and doesn’t feel that miracle. That doesn’t get all teared up
when they hear that first healthy cry. The “Mazel Tov!” Especially if it’s
a boy…
But it started so dark. So ugly. So hidden. In
a place and an act where one would think that Hashem is not present. Yet just
as the farmer knows that what he’s doing is not just burying a seed in the dirt
but rather is creating a new life, so too does that mother when she is
implanted. When she is Tazriah. Because Hashem is everywhere. Because new life
starts from a dark place where one doesn’t see Hashem. It’s how the world was
created from nothing. It’s how each life is created again in this world. It’s
how every plant and every tree and every animal that has a spirit of Hashem on whatever
level comes into existence. And it is as well how the redemption will and has
sprouted up in the past.
There is so much dirt and darkness in the
world from where new life sprouts up every single day. It’s the only places
that it comes from if you think about it. But do you know how it comes up from there?
It comes when it is planted with love and knowledge that there is life being
born. The farmer is working that field and he doesn’t see earth, he sees life.
He sees the fruit that will sprout up. The mother doesn’t look at her belly and
see fat. She doesn’t see veins. She sees and feels that heart of a new baby
being developed inside of her. The Torah is telling us that when we see
blemishes, when we see tzora’as, when we see Tumah, when we see death,
when we see blood of life that hasn’t flourished and “seeded” in a niddah, it’s
all Tazriah. It’s all part of a process of birth and a new life. It’s Toras Ha’Yoledes-
it’s the Torah of the creation of a new world, that comes from that darkness.
That’s why by the way, it’s only the Kohen
that can tell and determine what tzara’as is. For only the Kohen who blesses
us each day with love, who the Torah goes out of it’s way to tell us is a child
of Aharon and his sons, and whose mantra was to be oheiv es ha’briyos-
to love everyone. Only he can look at that tzora’as and see and convey the
love that is there, the life and purity that will come from it. Only the Kohen
can tell us that it is the way for us all to come back to the Beis Ha’Mikdash.
This past week as well we read the last of the
four supplemental parshiyot we started before Purim. It’s parshat Ha’Chodesh,
the reading of the first mitzva given to our nation prior to our Exodus from
Egypt; prior to our birth as a nation. It’s a parsha that Chazal and the first
Rashi in the Torah tells us should’ve really been where the entire Torah
started from. And what is this mitzva? It’s a mitzva that tells us that there
is a process in creation called Rosh Chodesh that begins with the Bnai Yisrael.
We count the months. A new frame of reference of time begins. Until now the
world ran on a 7-day week and 365-day year. Now there’s something new. It’s called
Chodesh- which means new. Something that didn’t exist before. Something that will
be revealed by this new nation that’s about to born out of the darkness and
slave pits of Mitzrayim.
Rav Moshe Shapira, in an amazing piece
explains the concept of Rosh Chodesh, that as opposed to a year which is called
Shana, doesn’t work on the same system. Shana- also means repetition.
We say Vi’shinantam li’vanecha- we have to keep repeating and teaching
the same words of old, of Torah, again and again. The world was created in 6
days and on the 7th day of Shabbos Hashem rested. Since then that
process continues again and again. There is nature. The sun rises and the sun
sets. Chodesh though is another framework of time. It’s the moon that gets
smaller and smaller as each month ends and then it is reborn again. There is a molad.
A yoledes.
It is in the darkest night that it restarts
again. We call it a new moon, despite the fact that it’s the same old moon,
because we see in it a birth of a new framework of existence. We see that time
doesn’t have to work as it always did, as the rest of the world sees it. With
sunrises and sunsets like clockwork. Rather it’s a framework of time that
Hashem said Klal Yisrael will establish and reveal to the world that reveals to
us that there can be a new world; a new Creation that has never been before.
One that is not teva- natural, but rather one that is of revelation of
Hashem creating anew every aspect and every moment of our existence, that is
not bound or limited by the hiddenness of a natural world that was created in 7
days and put into place. For just like a newborn baby, the whole world is
before him, He has the potential for everything.
That recognition of this new framework of time
is the prelude to our birth. That’s what Rashi is telling us where the Torah should’ve
really started from. Because that’s the real reality. That’s the birth and
creation of the world that Hashem really wants to bring us to from the beginning.
We start off our Seder with the strange phrase of
Yachol Mei’Rosh Chodesh- we might think that already from the Rosh
Chodesh of Nissan we could celebrate Pesach. This is even though we were still
in Egypt and our enemies were still around us. They hadn’t been destroyed yet. It
was still dark. We were still hostages. The redemption, the Temple, the land of
Israel seemed so far away. They had a huge army. There was a sea that stood
between us and our promised land. In the seven day a week, 365 day a year world
that just repeats itself, it didn’t seem possible we would ever get there.
Yet, on Rosh Chodesh we realized that world
and that frame of reference wasn’t the real one. We were in a different zone.
Seas could split in this new world. First Borns could die. Pharaoh could come
running and begging us to leave and to even bless him. We could destroy every
idol they have and slaughter it in their face. Every humanitarian principle,
every politically correct convention, every resolution and hypocritical “ethical”
Geneva code that a godless Amalekite world created for themselves that never
applied to the am ha’nivchar, could finally be shown and declared to be
the empty antisemitic standards that it is. Because the real world that was
revealed to us on Rosh Chodesh is one of miracles. One that is born anew. One
that although it looks dark, that looks blemished, that looks bloody, and tamei
understands that it’s just a birth canal, a wheat field, an orchard, that is
about to sprout new life. A new life
that could do and become whatever it wanted to.
Yes, you might think that already from Rosh
Chodesh we could celebrate, we start off our Magid by the Seder saying. But the Torah tells us that we can’t. We need
to wait just a little bit longer until we have matza and maror in front of us.
We need to wait until that Seder night, which is our birthing room for those
last final pushes. When we feel and taste that bitterness, like we’ve never
felt it before. And at the same time drink those four glasses of wine and have
our bags packed and our matzas with no time to bake on our shoulders ready to
go and leave.
The baby never comes when you expect it. It’s
always either early or late. It comes when you’re too tired to push. When you’ve
had enough. But it comes at that moment when every mother turns to Hashem and
says I’m entirely in Your hands. I can’t anymore. It’s not physically possible.
That is the moment when the moon rises and is born. That is when it shines the
brightest. As we saw in the most recent Solar Eclipse, which is certainly not
coincidental, the power of the moon can even blot out the sun. The symbolism is
so much deeper knowing that the moon is Israel’s frame of reference to overcome
the natural teva of the world run by the sun. It’s when we become new.
It’s when the whole world will celebrate. That is when it will all finally be
over and when the New world will finally for the first time begin. Mazel Tov it’s
a boy!
Have
a new Shabbos and a redemptive month of Nissan,
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
************************
CHIZUK/TZEDAKA
OPPORTUNITY OF THE WEEK
Chesed Shel Emes- Nacham Ami- “True kindness”-The initiative to support the families of those murdered in the “Iron Swords” war.
One of my greatest resources in the
Chesed and Chizuk trips that I’ve been doing is meeting with families who have
lost someone in this war, is with the help of this incredible volunteer organization.
Started by a few Kollel wives and Chareidi women in order to help these
families in the first days of the war , the organization has expanded from
beyond giving information for Shiva and consolation visits, but to helping financially
the families that desperately need assistance.
In
the “War” room of the project in Jerusalem sit 25 ultra-Orthodox women and
girls who work in shifts: they scan the web, receive information from various
institutions about the times of funerals and Shiva, and update it according to
regions of the country for the sake of approximately three thousand volunteers
who are active in seven WhatsApp groups. The volunteers come to the homes of
the bereaved families, take part in the pain, listen to the stories and to the
needs of the families, and honor the memory of those who murdered. We hope that
the grieving families feel that the people of Israel surround them with love
and share in their pain.
Now the initiatives seek to reach out to
more people around the world. Make the story of the 1400 murdered accessible to
them. Allow them to share in the pain from and send consolation.
You can also take part from afar and
contribute to this project. The donations will be transferred to the needs of
the bereaved families and distributed to them according to their needs as soon
as possible.
PARTICULARLY BEFORE PESACH THERE ARE NINE
FAMILIES WHO LOST LOVED ONES IN THE NOVA FESTIVAL THAT REQUIRE YOUR FINANCIAL
HELP FOR THIS FIRST PAINFUL YOM TOV. PLEASE PLEASE FIND IN YOUR HEART TO
CONTRIBUTE TO THEM AND LET THEM KNOW THAT THEY ARE OUR FAMILY AND WE ARE THERE
FOR THEM.
PLEASE SEND ME SCREENSHOTS OF YOUR DONATIONS so i can forward
to these holy women and let them know
that we appreciate and are one with them in all that they are doing.
https://nachamuami.com/about/
– Here’s A LINK FOR THIS ORGANIZATION
And here’s the link to donate * PLEASE VERY IMPORTANT WRITE FOR THE “NOVA FAMILIES” IN THE NOTES OF YOUR DONATIONS SO THAT YOUR
CONTRIBUTION CAN BE DIRECTED TO THEM*
https://impactcubed.org/give/
YIDDISH PROVERB OF THE WEEK
" Vus
brentzach-Vet moshiakh geboyrn vern mit a tog shpeter.”- What’s burning? So the
messiah will be born a day later
RABBI
SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM QUESTION OF THE WEEK
answer
below at end of Email
2. The Christian holiday that is comparable to the Jewish Shavuot is called_____.
Which of
the following figures is considered to be a “Protomartyr” in
Christianity?
A) Stephen
B) George
C) Peter
D) Paul
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S COOL VIDEO OF THE WEEK
https://soundcloud.com/ephraim-schwartz/vehi-shemada
– My latest new release in honor
of Pesach… You gotta hear this… It’s amazing, beautiful and Dovid Lowy knocked
it out of the park…especially the shticky harmonies… You want to sing this by
your Seder.
https://soundcloud.com/ephraim-schwartz/melech-rachamon
–
Composed this hartzig Pesach song two years ago… But you have to suffer through
the first 17 seconds of me singing to earn the right to hear the whole song…
but don’t worry it’s so beautiful you won’t even remember afterwards my singing…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nINk8uj0sXE
– and Joey’s latest with Ka’eileh, You know you’re excited that we’re
gonna lein that soon right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U-rbugZHOw
– I remember this song from my
Bachurishe yohrnin in yeshiva. It’s from Reb Baruch Ber Zt”l… Appropriate for
Pesach’s Shir Ha’shirim Kol Dodi Dofek done beautiful by Duvy Meisels
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9e4DreXvgo
–
Benny Friedman with a new take on a Yid never (like a moon) in honor of
Chodesh and the Eclipse
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S PARSHA PRAYER INSPIRATION
OF THE WEEK
Heart Words- For many of us the biggest challenge of our prayers is thinking
about what we say. The words just flow out of our mouths. It’s like a magic ritual
that we just recite. Three times a day, again and again. The blessings we make
before we eat, afterwards. Prayer is called Avoda she’belev- it is work
of the heart. There are two things that are important for it to work. Number
one is to understand that it is work. And the second is that it has to come from
and penetrate our heart.
Now although this challenge applies to all of our prayers, but
particularly when we are in such an elongated period of prayers for this war its
hard to keep it fresh and not just say the words. And that’s even with the knowledge
that we need our prayers now more than ever. So perhaps this column and insight
this week from our parsha might help with that a bit.
There is a fantastic midrash Shochar Tov in the beginning of the
book of Tehillim, I’ll just quote the part that’s relevant to this lesson
“Rabbi Yehoshua ben Karcha said that it says the word
Ashrei twenty times in the book of Tehillim that correspond to… Rebbi says it
says it twenty two times corresponding to the letters of the aleph beis… and on
all of them King David said
“yehiyu l’ratzon imrei fi v’hegyon libi lifanecha- may the words
of my mouth and thoughts of my heart be desirous before you”
That they should do this for generations and it
should be established for generations and they should not be read like the books
of “Moryus”- (Homer?). Rather they should read and contemplate them and receive
reward like the laws of nega’im blemishes
and Ohalos -the purity of tents.”
There are a lot of fascinating insights in this midrash. I just
want to focus in our limited space on the insight of the Sefat Emes who asks what
does Tehillim and Dovid’s request specifically have to do with Nega’im and
Ohalos? After-all there are a lot of different areas in the Torah that this
could be compared to. What’s unique about these laws that our recitation of
Tehillim, Dovid asks, should be compared and rewarded to.
He explains that the law is that the rules of blemishes and purity of
a tent is only done through a Kohen. And if there is no Kohen available that is
knowledgeable then one must bring a scholar to tell the Kohen what the law is
and the Kohen merely must recite whatever the Talmid Chacham tells him. The
Kohen’s words work even though he doesn’t really understand them. Similarly,
Dovid requested that although there is so much depth in the words of Tehillim,
yet we simple people don’t always understand what we are saying or how to say
them precisely. Thus he asked Hashem that the mere recitation alone should be
able to give us and achieve our desired requests alone just like the laws of
blemishes when the Kohen doesn’t know what he’s saying.
The truth is each prayer of Shemona Esrei we conclude with
those words of Dovid Hamelech that our thoughts and the words of our mouth
should be desirous before Hashem. There are two conditions though, there has to
be thoughts and there has to be words. Many times our thoughts are not really
thoughts. We’re dreaming. We’re traveling the world. We’re thinking about where
we need to go next. But at least we said the words of our mouth. Other times it’s
the opposite, we recited the words but we didn’t pay any attention to them.
They just came out, but deep in our hearts we have desires, we have fervent
thoughts. Thoughts about redemption, about the return of our hostages, about a refuah
shlaima- complete healing for all those injured, for those suffering,
thoughts for parnasa, for help, for our children and our families. We
had the thoughts in our hearts but never connected them to the words. Thus we
ask Hashem that He should put them together. That he should accept them. That
He should answer them, like He answered Dovid. That’s how we conclude each prayer
and that’s why as well, many have the custom to recite this specific verse at
the end of every prayer that we recite.
There’s no reason to feel helpless when Davening if we didn’t have
complete Kavana. Dovid already prayed that it should work for us even without
the complete intent. It’s our blemish, it’s our purity of tents. That’s what
connects us to Hashem. We’re trying to get close and get purified. In that merit
alone Hashem will answer us.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S ERA’S AND THEIR
PLACES AND PEOPLE IN ISRAEL OF THE WEEK
722 BC-The Pesach Sin of Chizkiya- So last week we discussed the Pesach offering of Chizkiya’s generation which the Navi tells us was the greatest one since the times of Dovid and Shlomo. I presented it as two Pesch Sacrifices, the first being in Nisan and the second being in the following month where those that didn’t make it from the other tribes, the first time around or those that were unpure- or tamei came and did it as a Pesach Sheini- 2nd month make up offering. Well, that’s not necessarily the entire story. Like all good Jewish things this 2nd Pesach of Chikziya seems to be up for debate and interpretation.
The Talmud tells us that there were a few things
that Chizkiya did that we will learn about that the Rabbis of his time were
happy with and others that they weren’t. You can’t please all the people all
the time, I guess. One of those things was the fact that they say he made the
year of this Pesach offering into a leap year. He added a month. The question
is though what that means? Now to explain before the establishment of the set
calendar that we currently have, which dates back to Hillel in the 2nd
Temple period, the months were established by the court and the king. They were
able to make an extra month when they felt it was necessary for agricultural or
even political reasons. We have that extra month in order to coordinate that Pesach
always falls out in the spring. That extra month though is always at the end of
the winter in the month of Adar like we have this year.
According to one opinion Chizkiya added that extra
month though in the month of Nissan already making a second Nissan. He did that
in order that the rest of the tribes could come and bring their offering of Pesach.
That would seem to explain why when the Navi describes the holiday for the
second time around it’s why they celebrated it for 7 days when usually Pesach Sheini
in Iyar would only be for one day. Other opinions similarly with that same
rationale say that the ibur leap year was added on the last day of Adar
but it was also after the time it was meant to be added. These opinions follow the
rule that even though the nation was impure, yet it’s permitted to bring a
Pesach offering when the majority of the nation is in that state. Tumah
hutra b’tzibur- for the sake of the congregation it’s permitted and thus it
shouldn’t have been pushed off.
According to other opinions though, Chizkiya
only pushed off and added a second month of Nissan after the first offering was
brought. This was done only after he realized that so many weren’t tahor
or hadn’t come to do it the first time. The problem is that as we said the
extra month has to be added at the end of the year rather than the beginning of
the year. So it would seem that the month when they brought the sacrifice wasn’t
a Pesach Sheini offering at all. It was Nissan take II. The sages weren’t happy
about that as well, as Chizkiya had missed the boat. He shouldn’t have made a
second month for this. And the truth of the matter is, fascinatingly enough, it
didn’t work… sort of. You see the people weren’t ready the second time either.
There were many that even the second round also were still tamei. They didn’t
believe it would really happen. And so they sinfully ate as well. No one
stopped them. No one threw stones at them. They were violating the law and
eating impure and yet it happened seemingly against the Rabbis will.
What makes this most incredible is that we find
that Chizkiya davened to Hashem after this offering and Pesach and begged
forgiveness for the people. They had meant well. They were trying to get close.
They didn’t sin out of spite but rather out of love, out of teshuva. Hashem
please forgive them. And he did. Unlike the offering of Nadav and Avihu who
sinned on that first day of the coronation of the Mishkan in Nissan that Hashem
killed, here he forgave. Here he didn’t allow it to upset the simcha. Here he
finally accepted us. It’s an amazing story, with so many perspectives and
lessons, that I want you to think about. Look it up. Learn it. And perhaps maybe
in that merit we will once again merit to have that offering this Pesach again.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TERRIBLE CHILDBIRTH JOKES OF THE WEEK
Watching your wife in childbirth...Is like watching your favourite pub burn down.
Whoever coined the term ‘delivery’ for
childbirth made a big mistake. It should have been called takeout instead.
A woman walks into a library and asks for a
book on childbirth. The Librarian says "Try over there in the C
section."
God created childbirth to give women the
chance to experience what it's like...For a guy to catch a cold....
I said to my wife, "They say that
childbirth is the most painful thing someone can experience..."
"Now, maybe I was too young to remember,
but I didn't think it hurt that much."
A blonde gave birth to two beautiful babies,
twins, however, she cries endlessly! The nurse then tells her "But see
madame! Why are you crying ? You are now mother of 2 beautiful babies, in good
health!
- I know, says the blonde, but I do not know who the father of the
second one is!
She was a new nurse in the maternity ward in
Israel, not aware of the miraculous births that take place here. As she entered
the first room she saw a new mother with 4 newborn babies lying next to her in
their hospital bassinets. “Wow” she said “are all of these yours?”
“Yes”
said the new mother. “I just had quadruplets last night, but actually…”
she said “that’s quite common. You
see, I come from the city of Kiryat Arba (the Israeli community translated
as “village of four) and a lot of my friends have four children.”
“Pretty amazing” the nurse thought as
she went to the next room. Much to her surprise the next patient was lying down
with 7 little infants around her. “Are these all yours?” she again asked
in shock. “Certainly” the proud mom exclaimed, “I’m from Be’er Sheva
(the well of seven) and many of us have septuplets”.
The next room had a mother from the city of
Kiryat Shmona (the city of eight) and sure enough 8 adorable little babies were
pleasantly cooing around the mother’s bed. When the nurse came to the next room
though, she immediately turned around and started running out of the hospital.
On her way out the doctors asked her where she was going. With a sign of total resignation,
the poor lady said “I quit! There’s no way I am going in the next room”.
“Why? What’s the matter?” the doctor
said.
“Don’t you know,” the exasperated and clearly overwhelmed nurse
responded. “The lady in the last room is from Meah Shearim!
What do you call a group of baby soldiers? An
infantry
What’s a group of chubby newborns called? Heavy
infantry
A woman in labor suddenly shouted, “Shouldn’t!
Wouldn’t! Couldn’t! Didn’t! Can’t!”
“Doctor, what’s going on?” asked the
concerned father-to-be.
“Don’t worry,” said the doctor. “Those are just contractions.”
What do you call a cow that had a baby? De-calf-inated
What do
you call a group of baby garbage bins? A litter
Mrs. Goat: “Honey, we’re going to have a
baby!”
Mr. Goat: “You’re kidding.”
Did you hear about the mother who gave birth
to her baby while she was in the sky? I guess you can say the baby was airborne.
Did you hear about the lady who had her baby
while on an Ocean Cruise? She needed a sea section
Little Berel’s new baby brother was screaming
up a storm. He asked his mom, “Where’d we get him?”
His mother replied, “He came from heaven, Berel.”
Berel exclaimed, “Wow… I can see why they
threw him out!”
How did the baby tell her mom she had a wet
diaper? She sent her a pee-mail (sorry couldn’t resist..)
How can you tell the gender of a baby?
If he cries it’s a boy
If she cries, it’s a girl
I sat next to a baby on a ten-hour flight. I
didn’t think it was possible for someone to cry for ten hours straight. Even
though the baby was impressed, I pulled it off
I requested the flight attendant to switch my
seat as I was next to a screaming baby. Apparently, you are not allowed to do
that if the baby is yours
**********************************
The
answer to this week”s question is A– I
just have no kpoach for these dumb Christian questions. Really… Hopefully
Mashiach will be here soon and we can just blow up all of these idolatrous
churchs in this country. I got this one half right. The first part is easy Pentacost
is an easy holiday to remember because penta is 50 and Shavuos is 50 days from
Pesach. The second part though I really had no clue, nor do I care who the
first martyr is of these ridiculous Christians made-up faith. I guessed George
the answer was Stephen. Like I said who cares? Os it’s a half right for
me. And the score is Rabbi
Schwartz 1.5 and Ministry of Tourism .5 on this exam so far.
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