Insights and Inspiration
from the
Holy Land
from
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
"Your friend in Karmiel"
June 20th 2013 -Volume 3, Issue 34–12th of Tamuz 5773
Parshas Balak
Wow
Moments
Perhaps my most favorite part of being a tour guide is what I
call the "Wow Moment". It is that few minutes when you take your
tourists to a place and they are kind of scratching their head, and you know
they are asking themselves "Why did he shlep us all the way over
here?" I mean it's pretty and all that jazz and perhaps even
historical, but was it really worth the extra drive..? Climb…? Hike...? And then
you turn the corner and are overlooking a glorious view, or you pull out your
Tanach and describe for them that where they are standing is where this story
took place, or you ask them to close their eyes and envision something special
and meaningful and all of a sudden a change comes over their faces. "Wow!!"
"Awesome" "That's incredible" "Amazing". Those
are the moments we live for. Our mission has been accomplished. The hike and
trek to get out here was worth it. It is a moment you know they will carry with
them back to the States. You may even get a tip. Truth is you don't even need
one (don't quote me on this- we always like oneJ). The look on their faces is more than
enough.
In many ways being an
outreach Rabbi was very much the same thing. Watching new students eyes and
faces transform before you as you shared with them their first Torah insight,
their first real connection to their heritage, their first taste of Shabbos...of
chulent JJ, there's nothing better
than that. You can actually see how you have opened with a key the hidden
treasure that is their soul and it blossoms right before your very eyes. It is
a "Wow Moment" of the holiest kind. It is those that I
treasure for a lifetime and I thank Hashem for giving me the privilege to be
part of and to witness.
We have all read stories, heard
inspirational ideas and have had people tell us about incredible visits that
they have had to all types of fabulous places. Yet, none of the above has the
same impact as the power of sight. Seeing something that is moving connects
ones soul with what one sees in the deepest of ways. The images embeds into
ones soul and can connect to ones memory in the deepest of ways. It is perhaps
for that reason that the Torah warns us V'Lo Sasuru Acharie Li'Vavchem
V'acharei Einechem- don't "tour/stray" with your heart and your eyes.
The heart is open and looking to connect, the eyes are the receptacles that
transplant their images on the soul of a man. One of our great sages once said
that he felt this was the most challenging of all mitzvos; Our natural desire
is to "tour" with our eyes, to explore the world, to "check it
out". Yet as Rashi teaches us seeing can lead directly to the heart
coveting, to rest of the body engaging in activity that ultimately will bring
man to the depths. The eyes are the windows to our souls for better and for
worse.
This week's Torah portion
introduces us to what our sages considered to be the "Rebbe" of the
bad eye. The Mishna in Avot urges us to be from the Students of Avraham whose
traits consist of having a "good eye", as opposed to the students of Bil'am of the eye that sought out bad. The
Parsha seems to be full of Bil'am, who is employed by Balak the king of Moav,
touring around to see the Jewish nation so that he may place that eye upon them
and curse them. This is despite the Almighty's explicit repeated command not to
attempt to do so. This is despite the incredible Divine irony of Bil'ams donkey
being able to see the angel that threatens to destroy him with a sword which
Bil'am can't see initially. Even when Bil'am comes to different positions and
outlooks points on the Jewish people and breaks out in blessing rather than the
curses he had hoped to unleash upon our nation, he persists on trying to find a
better spot, another sacrifice another opportunity to use his eyes as a tool to
wreak destruction upon our people.
If one follows the verses
though the third time around Bil'am seemingly finally gets it.
And when Balaam saw that it
pleased HaShem to bless Israel, he went not, as at the other times, to meet
with enchantments, but he set his face toward the wilderness. And Balaam lifted
up his eyes, and he saw Israel dwelling tribe by tribe; and the spirit of
G-d came upon him.
And he took up his parable,
and said:
"The saying of Balaam
the son of Beor, and the saying of the man whose eye is opened; The saying of
him who hears the words of G-d, who sees the vision of the Almighty, fallen
down, yet with opened eyes:
How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, thy
dwellings, O Israel!
The ultimate "Wow
moment" took place for Bil'am. For the first time he states his eyes
had been opened. He saw the Jewish people as they really were. Not this
fearsome tribe that Balak and the world media were presenting him with. They
were a nation whose tents were holy. The Medrash brought by Rashi suggests that
Bil'am saw that the Jewish tents were set up with the openings not facing one
another "So that one would not see into his neighbors tent".
Unlike many of us who prefer tinted windows on our cars so that no one else can
see into our car. (As our children fight with one another, or as we yell at
them for fighting, or so that we can hide our latest purchases from prying
eyes-which is generally what our children our fighting about). The Medrash's
terminology is that they were structured such so that we would not look into
another person's tent rather than the vice-vers- others checkin' us out..
What's his is his, no one wanted to covet, begrudge or give a "bad
eye" to his neighbor. Each Jew would, as my mother used to scold us (and
to fulfill her prophesy I do to my own children as well), "keep their eyes
on their own plate". We knew that our eyes were the windows to our souls
and we wanted our windows to be faced inwards rather than upon another.
Bil'am saw that and he said "Wow!"-
Ma Tovu-how wondrous and goodly are your tents. His blinded eye that
always saw the negative, whose heart could never seem to connect to anything
but the curse that he saw was opened. With a little practice and warming up of
Hashem putting the right words in his mouth a few times and with that
incredible paradigm shifting moment he was able to find the blessing within
himself albeit for a minute for the nation that was just moments before his mortal
enemy.
It is interesting to note
that it is that blessing that Bil'am said at that moment that become the custom
of the Jewish people to say as they arrive in shul each morning. Think for a
second how bizzare that must be. We have no shortage of poets, lyricists and
beautiful texts that we could start off our morning with. Yet from all of that,
we chose Bil'am's personal blessing. Bil'am who after that one moment, returned
again to his diabolical plot and in fact ended up advising Balak to have the
Moabite daughters seduce the Jewish people. This in turn brought down the wrath
of God and 24,000 Jews were killed in the ensuing plague-more than any battle, plague
or Divine punishment that happened in the 40 years in the wilderness. Yet is it is Bil'ams prayer that becomes the
text of choice to start off our morning. Why?
The answer is because there
is no more powerful way to start off our morning, our day, our lives, than with
that sense of Wow! How special is our tents, our places of worship, our
fellow Jews and our nation. If even Bil'am that archenemy of our people who
intended to destroy us, yet when he actually beheld us was so overcome with the
beauty and specialness of our nation, than how much more so should our wow
be when we see our fellow Jews each morning, when we take our first breath and
steps in Hashem's glorious world. We start our morning with that Wow
because it is meant to engage our good eye to give us the vision we need to
activate our hearts and love for life, for our brothers and sisters and for
Hashem our Father in heaven.
This week we begin the
three week period of mourning for the destruction our Temple. Our sages tell us
that when the temple was destroyed the Divine presence had already departed
from it. It was sticks and stones that the Babylonians and Romans destroyed.
What caused the divine presence to depart? It was because we had let it go. We
were no longer awed by the Temple and the almost unfathomable-to-us-today
notion that Hashem had a house that He resided in where we would be able to
come and "see" his countenance and glory. It was a nice building of
which we had many. Jews also lost their awe and wow of one another. We were a
nation divided that coveted, begrudged and even hated, fought and eventually
even killed one another. Our good eye was closed and Bil'am's evil eye was
rampant. So Hashem took it away. The building destroyed, the fires burnt, our
blood flowed. And we, finally, with tears in our eyes, said sadly,"…Wow… what
have we lost…what have we done…when can we come back...?
As we contemplate over the
next few weeks let us think about that wow that we lost and start to
focus on the wows that will bring us back. If we could only see the good
in one another, the beauty of our Torah, the joy of our mitzvos, than Hashem
will surely return us to our home as He comes back to dwell amongst us. May we
very soon share in that biggest "wow moment" of all.
Have an amazing Shabbos,
Rabbi
Ephraim Schwartz
**********************************************
RABBI SCHWARTZES QUOTE OF THE WEEK
- There’s that old joke: “Why do you go to shul? Harry goes to shul to talk to G-d; I go to shul to talk to Harry.” - Sue Ellen Dodell
MA TOVU COOL CLIP ON SYNAGOGUES AROUND THE WORLD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWVasdTO0JM
************************************
RABBI
SCHWARTZES TOUR GUIDE COURSE QUESTION OF THE WEEK
(answer below)
The Haifa Central Station
"Hashmona" commemorates?
(a) the defenders of Tel Hai
(b) The people killed in the "Night of the
Bridges"
(c) Haifa residents killed in first Lebanon War
(d) Train workers killed in 2nd Lebanon War
Ramban
synagogue-Jerusalem-In
the year 1267 the Ramban/Nachmanides came to Israel. He lived in Akko at first
and than came to Jerusalem which was in ruins following the Tatar and arab
attacks on the city.He describes the city as having 200 residents most non Jews
and being that the city was destroyed anyone was free to take a building and create
a shul. Sadly he did not have a minyan and had to pay two dyers to join him
each weekend for Shabbos. In the 1400's the Bartenura visited and described the
shul with its water cistern underneath it and its arch shaped pillars. He also
mentions that there was a house next door which one can see to day which is the
remains of a mosque that was donated out of resentment by a Jewish women whose
son became a muslim out of spite. From the 1500's the turks prohibited Jews to
pray there and it wasn't until 1967 (700 years exactly from when the Ramban
first came) that it was re-captured and returned to Jewish hands. Most
archeologists today feel that it is unlikely that the Ramban shul is the same
as the Ramban describes that he lived by Mt. Zion nearby which was where the
Jewish community lived. It is more likely that in the 1400's when the Jewish
community moved to the modern day Rova (after a dispute with the Christians over
the rights to mt zion and kever david) that the congregation of the Ramaban
moved the shul here. Interestingly enough Rav Nebenzahl the first rav of the
old city established that the nusach of the shul should be open to whoever the
baal tefila is and so it is until today.
Answer is D- The Haifa train station
named after the 8 workers that were killed by a katyusha missile that hit near
the station at a depot and killed 8 workers in the 2nd Lebanon war
in 2006. A tricky question as kiryat
Shmona is named after the 8 killed in Tel Chai and there were 14 people killed
in the night of the bridges attack in independence war (the monument is by
Achziv) and the first and 2nd Lebanon war can always get confusing.
Israelis thought this one was easy as it was only named this 6 years ago most
of them remember. But for a recent oleh like myself…I got it right J
No comments:
Post a Comment