from the
Holy Land
from
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
"Your friend in Karmiel"
November 24th 2023 -Volume
13 Issue 7 11th of Kisleiv 5784
He didn’t think too long about the question, which was
good. I didn’t have a lot of time. I had a flight to catch to America and this
ceremony needed to get moving. I had already cut out most of my speech- which
was painful. But now I just had to move. So when the Kohen asked my son-in-law
whether he wanted his son or the 5 silver coins in his hand to redeem him with,
my Yehuda answered ritualistically and appropriately that he’ll take the kid.
And thus my grandson Shmuel Gedalia was redeemed and we were able to wash, eat
a bagel, and make it to the airport on time. My grandson’s pidyon ha’ben
had taken place. Mazel Tov!
It’s a strange unique ceremony and I pondered it on my
train ride to the airport especially in light of the times and news and discussion
and painful debates of the day. The mitzva of pidyon shvuyim- the
redemption of hostages, of prisoners, of our two hundred and forty or so
babies, children, young men, women, holocaust survivors, Bubbies and Zaydies-
or perhaps more accurately Sabas and Savtas and chayalim and chayalot from the hands
of these evil Hamas monsters- may their names be blotted and may the all die
horrible painful deaths as Hashem avenges the blood of our innocent, is on all
of our minds. And I have a lot of good
ideas for the painful deaths that I’ve wished upon these miflatzot- (monster
sounds so much better in Hebrew)- in case anyone was short on them. Stringing
them up by their tails and chopping them up limb by limb as cats and pigs lick
their dripping blood with a big sign on their backsides that says this is what
happens to anyone that spills any blood of any of my sisters and brothers,
being one of the tamer terrorist deterrent methods that’s come to mind. But anyways
I digress. The question that’s racked this country and that has been ripping
all of our hearts to shreds even in its discussion is what should we do, what
can we do, how great of a price must we pay to redeem and get our family back
home again.
The question is so painful, because we are all in such
torment. We all feel their loss. Our hearts are ripped open. There is no Jew who
hasn’t lost sleep, who hasn’t called up their own loved ones and hugged their
own children or parents a little longer, who hasn’t had that nightmare or grappled
with the pain of what if this was my_______. And there is none of us that won’t
admit that if we were in that position there would be no price that would be too
great to get our loved ones out of the hands of these baby burning, children
shooting, rapist demons.
Yet, as well we know that every prisoner we release may and
most likely will come back to kill us and wreak even more terror. The head of
Hamas himself, who was the evil behind this latest massacre, was released in a
prisoner exchange. Studies that have been documented show that thousands- not
hundreds, but thousands of terror attacks were caused by released prisoners from
previous hostage deals. Hundreds of Israeli have been killed by these repeat terrorists
whom we have put back on the streets, and that’s not counting the most recent Simchas
Torah massacre. Is that a price that we can pay? Should pay?
As well, even if we want to turn our eyes away from that
likely reality, a cease fire in of itself at a time like this, when our
soldiers are there on the ground, when the likelihood that Hamas will regroup
somewhat, will get more power, will feel invigorated and empowered and perhaps
even gain more world antisemitic world support that will try to prevent us from
eradicating this evil. That will make that clock tick faster on the limited
time the world and perhaps even the US will “allow” us to pursue this goal of
destroying them and all of our enemies. This as well endangers and puts at
great risk and will more likely cause the deaths of more and more soldiers making
their jobs that much more fatal. More funerals. More shiva calls. More families
that will have an empty place at their Shabbos table, in their hearts, in their
lives. More generations wiped out that these young men and women would’ve brought
to the world.
Yet, who can not look at those faces and pure eyes on those
posters, cannot listen to the pain and tears of the bereaved pleading families and
not be moved to do anything to bring them home? Only an animal and antisemite- of which we’re
learning that there are more and more of them and they are all around us. So
what do we do? Do we want to redeem our son or do we want the 5 coins is an
easy quick answerable question. This one though is so painful, I don’t believe
there is a right answer. Certainly not one that I can sleep with the night
after. And perhaps whoever makes that decision shouldn’t as well. What does
Hashem want from us? Is the even harder question. What does he want us to do? I
think the only answer to that question and to all of the questions that this has
brought up is that he doesn’t want us to sleep. We’ve slept for too long.
Bedtime is over.
Yet, as we do every week during this incredible period, one
needs only to look to the weekly Torah portion and at least be amazed at how
much of what we’re dealing with is there for us to delve into and to uncover.
This week’s parsha of Vayeitzei, the story of the journey of Yaakov into Galus and
the founding of the first entirely Jewish family of the 12 tribes of Israel is one
that really at its start is one that has its roots as a stranger in a hostile foreign
environment, with evil murdering liars that want only to destroy us. Hello,
Uncle Lavan. From the get-go he takes away Yaakov’s beloved Rachel from him and
replaces her with Leah. Yaakov has to “redeem” his wife by working another 7
years for her. It’s the good old last minute hostage switch. Even after that,
he doesn’t want Yaakov to leave. He’s trying to keep him there. He wants him to
keep working. He doesn’t want to let him return to Israel. He keeps him busy
with sheep, goats, real estate deals, nursing homes, mortgage brokering, nice
houses, fancy shuls. Whatever it takes to keep the Jew in galus. And it
works for a very long time. It still does. Until Yaakov gets his wake-up call.
And redeems everything.
“Tena es nashai v’es yeladai- give me my women and
children”- he cries out in this week’s parsha and its eternal call echoes still
to us today.
Even the birth of every one of the tribes comes with a
price. Leah is “hated” and only marries Yaakov with trickery. Rachel is barren.
They each have to give their maid-servants to be joint wives with Yaakov. There’s
duda’im flowers that have to be exchanged. The Jewish family comes into
existence with a price. A question. How much would you pay for a child? How
much would you pray for one? What would you give?
That question, that price, for our existence though really
becomes the fundamental question of our nation that will proceed with us for
the rest of the Book. What will we do to get Dinah, back from the terrorist in
Shechem? Will we hide our children in boxes to prevent Esau from taking them?
In bomb shelters? In migunits? Will we sell Yosef? Will we give up one
brother to save another? To save the other 12? To save the future of the Jewish
people when we perceive one of us to be a threat? What will we do and how far
will we got to get back him back after we realize how precious he is to us?
Will we all go into slavery? Will we hand over our innocent youngest brother,
Binyamin? What do you want Yehuda?- The money or the child? Your Olam Haba or
Binyamin? It’s one big story of pidyon haben. Of pidyon shvuyim.
And yet the story continues and it was even foretold to
Avraham that it would be this way. We all become shvuyim in Egypt. We
are all prisoners. Hostages. Captives. The story that was our birth as a family,
becomes the story of our birth as a nation. Hashem redeems us. He cuts the
ultimate deal. He kills their first-borns and from that moment on every Jewish family’s
first-born boy will remember that is how a Jewish family is born. By redeeming
the first-born of their family. They are holy to Hashem. They are meant to be His
representatives here to remind us and connect us to him. The Matza we eat on Pesach,
the four cups, the story is not enough. We need every Jewish family to
recognize that when their first-born son is born- he has a role to play. The
role is that first question that he will cause us to ask of ourselves. Do we
want to redeem the birthright? Are we willing to pay the price to be that
family of Israel. That will be the first-born nation of Hashem.
{By the way, it’s fascinating that the role of the bechor
was taken over and given to the Kohen who answered that call and picked up swords
and went to fight against even our own brothers that threatened that
birthright. That threatened our entire right to existence. It is to them that
Hashem granted the kedushas bechor. The first-born only gets that back when he
goes to the Kohen and tells him and recognizes that he wants that role back and
he will do anything that is necessary to restore. He will give it all up for
Hashem. To return us.}
Why is it this way? Why did Hashem make it that our birthright
has to be redeemed? Why did Yaakov have to steal it and work for it to get it
from Esau. Why did Yitzchak have to sacrifice himself to get it and prove himself
so that Yishmael wouldn’t be the one. That Avraham would have to take Hagar as
a wife and even bear a Yishmael and then painfully throw him out? That he would
have to suffer with having his wife Sarah kidnapped by Pharaoh. Why? Why? Why?
Why is this birthright and chosen people status have to be so intertwined with redemption?
With struggle. With pain. With hard painful choices.
The answer our sages tell us is because the job of the
birthright is in fact to redeem the entire world. To bring the world to teshuva.
To return them to the Father that we have been captured and distanced from in a
dark dangerous place. The word for captive, for hostage, for prisoner is shevi.
It’s the same root as teshuva. Since the sin of the Adam and Chava and the
snake in garden we have been taken out of Gan Eden where we once walked
together with our Father. The sparks of holiness are spread all over the world.
They are captured in what the mystics called kelipos. They are hidden in
tunnels under hospitals in Gaza. In Spain. In Rome. In America. Our job is to
redeem those shvuyim. Those sparks. Those lights. We need to bring them home. To
liberate those sparks. In order to bring them home we need to be acutely aware
of the pain of that Father. That parent that longs for His children. For all of
His children. For the light that was once in His House. In His world.
The only one that could do that is that bechor- that
chosen one who himself was redeemed. Who was born in exile. Born in that evil
and that experienced the joy and jubilation of the return. Someone who sips Frappuccinos
and sits in Universities and listens to lectures all day and are coddled and “protected”
and “affirmative actioned” and that click all day on Tik Tok and Insta will
never really get it. Someone that sits in the Bais Midrash all day (l’havdil)
and whose Torah learning is disconnected from the pain of their brothers and
sisters and their distance from their Father, those tinokos she’nishbu-
the captive children who never had a chance to understand how rich and special
and holy their legacy and job is, are just as guilty.
Someone who can go on with his and her life and their day-to-day
“yiddishkeit” when there is so so much pain and turmoil when hundreds of
thousands of families are incomplete, as they are refugees in their own country,
they have sons, daughters, husbands, fathers that are serving in Gaza and who
knows when and if they will come back, is not a bechor. He hasn’t understood
that our job is to be redeemers. That our job as a Jewish family is to do what
it takes to get our boys back. To bring the world back. To bring them ALL home.
Our parsha ends off with Yaakov finally leaving exile and
returning to Israel. He has redeemed all of the tzon of Lavan- all those
precious Jewish sheep that were “captured” by the lying forces of evil- that
paint themselves white and that are the predecessors of all those that captured
us. There are angels that escort him back, just as there were angels that brought
him down. They are the angels of Gan Eden waiting outside to welcome us back
into the Garden. May this week as well be the one that bring us all Home. We
all have a flight to catch…
Have holy hartzigeh Shabbos,
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
************************
YIDDISH PROVERB OF THE WEEK
“Di gantseh velt iz ain ganev..”–
The whole world
is one thief.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM QUESTION OF THE WEEK
answer below at end of Email
15.The
settlement named "Em Hakvutzot" (first of the kvutzot) is
___________.
Which of the
following settlements is a Moshav?
A. Rosh Pina
B. Alonei Abba
C. Nahalal
D. Yodfat
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S COOL VIDEO OF THE WEEK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyEqil-MfVE
– Simcha Leiner’s latest song Ki Ata
Imadi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y2laYXcBdU&list=RD6y2laYXcBdU&start_radio=1
– Koololum amazing Like a Prayer “Bring
em home edition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6K1Kh13L1K8
- The original Tzli V’Zemer Shmor aleinu
KiYeladim with Zohar for us old timers…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTcsBfy3G3w
-
mind-blowing Sounds of Sirens Swords of Barzel war edition must listen…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSCHdRMHxiw – Shwekey and Baruch Levine Refuah Shleima and Chasof at Zaka concert
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S PARSHA PRAYER
INSPIRATION OF THE WEEK
Mariv and Mashiach – We’re up to the third of our Patriarchs and the last
of our three daily prayers being established; the evening prayer of Mariv. The
parsha tells us of this prayer as Yaakov runs away from his brother Esau. He is
the first Jew to enter into an elongated Galus. As he leaves the Midrash tells
us that he passed over the place of the Beit HaMikdash and realizes that he
didn’t pray there and thus he returns. On his way back it gets dark outside, he
gets tired- not sleeping over 14 years while studying in the house of Shem and
Ever can do that to you. He puts his head down and the Torah tells us that
Hashem brought the mountain to him. Eretz Yisrael folded up underneath his
head, and low and behold he was resting his head in the place of the Temple.
There he sees the vision and dream of the angels going up and down. There is
where he davens that first Mariv.
Rav Charlap in his incredible work sees in this prayer and the
miracle of Hashem bringing the mountain to him the essence and secret of this
prayer, of all our prayers in fact and the secret of our redemption. He notes
that Yaakov’s longing when he went into Galus was obviously what all Jews
feelings are. They are of longing to come back. For the galus to be over. For
the Bait Ha’Mikdash. He returns to Eretz Yisrael even before actually leaving and his thoughts
are on the Bais Hamikdash. That’s the first Mariv. It’s a prayer that starts
off with the recognition of Hashem in the dark, when it’s not light, when
things seem bleak.
The first blessing is that even in this darkness we see Hashem as
the Kel Chai V’Kayam- the Eternal King that rules over us. The second is that
we feel Hashem’s love for us in this dark period even more than in the morning
when we say ahava rabba- a great love. By night we say ahavas olam and eternal
love. We recite the Shema and then we focus on our redemption. On our return.
On the Bait Ha’Mikdash. It’s where all our prayers are meant to take us to.
When we do that, Rav Charlap writes, when all of our hearts and
prayers are focused on that makom, that place where heaven meets earth and
where the shechina comes down from. Then Hashem will bring the Mountain to us.
He will return the Bait Ha’Mikdash. He will bring us home. Va’Yifga Ba’Makom-
all of our prayers have to be about getting to that place. That’s where the
gate of heaven is and that is the day we are waiting for.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S ERA’S AND THEIR
PLACES AND PEOPLE IN ISRAEL OF THE WEEK
Eilat- 600 BC – Today the city of Eilat is swamped with refugees from the Gaza
border settlements and from families from the North of Israel that had
to leave their homes from the attacks of Hezbollah and fear of
incursions. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard tourists say to me that Eilat
is really not part of Israel. They think it’s a “Zionist” modern city. Israel’s
“Miami beach”. It’s not a holy city. So, let’s slow down a bit and talk about this
city, which we’re up to in our Navi study that was conquered by the king of
Yehudah that followed Amatzia, who we learned last week was
assassinated in Lachish by servants of his who were upset that he went
to war against the North and had their children taken hostage as a result of
that. Already while Amatzia was still living and hiding in Lachish
his 16 year old son Azaria was anointed King. The time that he ruled
until when ultimately Amatzia was killed is a subject of dispute, yet it
seems that Azaria’s kingdom lasted 52 years which is quite long.
The major and singular accomplishment mentioned
over the reign of Azaria is his conquest of Eilat and the
expansion of the Kingdom of Yehudah down south to the Red Sea. By
the way why is it called the Red Sea? The reason is because it was in
the land of Edom which means red. I’ll bet you didn’t know that… See,
there’s always a parsha connection in this column. Edom of course is Esau.
Now it is true that Eilat is not in the biblical borders of Israel
and thus it is not subject to the laws that are dependent on the biblical
borders such as shemitta and terumos and maasros according to many of the
halachic authorities. As well it is even a subject of debate whether it should
even have two days of Yom Tov as they do in Chutz L’Aretz although the
overwhelming consensus is that they celebrate only one day.
Yet, there seems to be overwhelming opinion that
the laws of settling the land of Israel is a separate mitzva from the laws of
the sanctity of the land. And thus since Eilat is certainly within the
borders that were promised to Avraham, and that seemingly not only that
he “walked through”, but was even conquered by King David and Shlomo and
settled during the first Temple period, as well we see that Azaria
conquers and again later settles the area and even fortifies it tells us that
in regards to Yishuv Eretz Yisrael this certainly is a fulfillment of the
mitzva. The Tzitz Eliezer rules this way as do many others. There are certainly even many opinions that
view a battle by the Kings of Israel historically and as well by an army
of Israel even in modern times on behalf of strengthening Eretz Yisrael as well
is part of the mitzva.
So as you see Eilat besides being one of
the most beautiful parts of Eretz Yisrael is one of the 10 nations that
originally Hashem promised to Avraham that we would ultimately inherit. Those
days are here as we once again return to our borders. The ones in Gaza as well
as the other three nations we were meant to inherit on the other side of Jordan,
up to Syria and Damascus and even up in Lebanon. The time for the
fulfilment of that promise is here.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S FUNNY
GAZA MEMES/ JOKES OF THE WEEK
Of Course the Jews
agreed to a 4 day cease fire pause that just so happens to coincide with black
Friday and Cyber Monday…
Incredible that Hamas
can immediately locate and count 10,000 dead civilians but can’t find 25% of
the children they abducted 45 days ago.m
If “Queers for
Palestine were in Palestine their pronouns would be
Was/ were
The answer to this week”s
question is C – So I’m going to
count this on as right because I think that they messed up the question. The
first part was easy. Degania just south of Tiverya is of course the first and
oldest Kibbbutz in the world That was easy. The second part though was a bit
tricky. See I knew that Nahalal was a Moshav and thus I got that right. The
problem was thought Yodefat is as well. And the question really asked for which
of the following which could be understood as a singular question. They really
should’ve asked plural form which would be eizeh instead of mi which It does in
Hebrew. But there are really two correct answers her. So I’ll count it as
right. And thus the new score being Rabbi Schwartz at 11 point and
the MOT having 4 point on this latest Ministry of Tourism exam.
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