from
the
Oily
Land
from
Hagaon
Hagadol Doctor of Geopolitics and Musical wonder
Ephraim
Schwartz
"Your
Shnorrer in Karmiel"
PURIM 2024
Being Meshuga
(Annual Top Ten List)
This though is different. This is insane. This is Messianic.
This is over 1500 civilians dead. It’s dying soldiers every day. It’s hostages-just
like in biblical times. Its pogroms like in the Crusades and the Cossacks. And it’s
antisemitism like we’re back in Germany in 1939. Colleges, University leaders,
Swastikas on shuls, everyone needs a gun, governments that are turning their
back on us right and left- mostly left though. It’s insane. It’s meshuga. It’s
surreal. There are 19- and 20-year-old kids in this country writing out last
wills and testaments. That’s not normal. Even worse is that they’re actually
being read and put on bumper stickers after they’ve horrifyingly been needed
and read by their funerals. Hundreds of thousands of refugees, burnt kibbutzim,
daily missile barrages, the worst atrocities that aren’t even conceivable and
all from a few miles that’s shorter than Kings Parkway to 12th
Avenue or Jackson to Freehold in traffic. It’s been 167 days that what was once
thought to be one of the strongest militaries in the world hasn’t been
successful in wiping out a bunch of stupid teenagers with rockets. It’s
absolutely crazy. It’s a real war. A war on all fronts. And the war has made us
crazier then ever.
There are a lot of songs that have come out of this war. Am
Yisrael Chai, Acheinu, Gam Ha’shaot Ha’chashuchot she’balayla etc. and other
inspirational tunes, lyrics and prayers that highlight different aspects of the
war. Yet the one song that I think best “taytches’ it all up is the song
“Mi Meshuga- Ani Meshuga- who’s’ crazy? I’m crazy” song. We have the
craziest nation in the world. We’re in the craziest situation we’ve ever been
in. And thus there’s nothing like losing it in the heavy lyrics and beat and
jump up and down and just scream “Mi Meshuga? ani Meshuga”- I’m crazy I’m
crazy I’m crazy… Because we really are a crazy nation and people. We do things
that are crazy because we experience things that are crazy.
Think about it for a second. Who flies into a war zone to bring schnitzel
to a soldier? What army in the world has soldiers literally dancing and putting
up Tik Tok videos daily as they sing and dance and read from ancient books or
pray and daven in tefillin and Talit in Gaza with missiles flying all over? Which
nation has tens of thousands of little kids writing letters and praying for
above crazy soldiers and the soldiers hanging those letters on their tanks? Who
thinks about beef Jerky for soldiers and make sure they have BBQ’s pizza and cigarettes?
How not normal is that thousands of senior citizens are out and up early
morning every day picking crops for farmers they don’t know or making cheese
sandwiches for children of refugees or mothers of reservists? You realize this
is crazy right? This is not normal? People are going daily to funerals of
people they don’t know, paying shiva calls and paying random bills for soldiers
and other needy families. Mi ki’amcha Yisrael is a tame description of
our people. Mi meshuga ki’Yisrael is more appropriate.
But it’s crazy times. And crazy times makes us do crazy things. And
what’s even most amazing is that there is not a Jew out there that thinks what
we are doing is crazy. We think this is normal. We don’t’ understand even
understand how we could do it otherwise. Our barometer of what’s normal is tuned
differently. The war has done this to us. Hashem has brought us to this place.
He understands that for us to get to where we need to be right now, we have to
get a little meshuga and Baruch Hashem we are slowly getting there. The
craziness has a goal. It has a destination.
I have little patience though for everyone to get to that
destination. I don’t think Hakadosh Baruch Hu does either. He’s actually been
waiting about 2000 years for us to finally get there. The thing is, He’s pretty
sure that we’re the crazy ones that haven’t jumped on the plane yet and come
here yet. Yeah, He knew that we were stiff-necked when He hooked up with us in
the first place. To be honest it’s kind of what attracted Him to us in the first
place.
It’s like one of those stupid things that happens when you’re dating,
and you just love the fact that the woman you’re going out with is not just
some push-over but actually has a strong opinion about things. Or how the guy
that you’re seeing has such an easy-going personality and is able to make a
joke about everything and be so upbeat. And then you marry them and hit
yourself on the head trying to understand what was wrong with the woman that
would just say yes and agree to everything, or what you could possibly find
attractive about a guy that just doesn’t take anything you say seriously and
can’t have a deep emotional discussion with you. Welcome to my life. Yeah… Hashem
pretty much goes through that with us.
But He’s apparently pretty over that by now. It’s enough
already. It’s time for Him to come home. For us to come home. So, He pretty
much understood that for that to happen things have to get crazy. Biblical
crazy. Ten plagues crazy. Corona wasn’t enough. Dead Gedolim didn’t do it.
Shidduch crisis, tuition crisis, shechita bans, shul shootings, yeah yeah yeah…
vayter ge’gangin as they yiddish…na’avor gam et zeh… So, He had
no really choice but to go totally Meshuga. To take us back to the Crusades, to
the Cossacks, to 6 million crazy. To bring out our crazy. Because that’s the
only way He understood we could get to the end of the story. That we would
finally turn the one page of our exile that we seemed to be stuck on. We’re
kind of like Joe Biden in that way that can’t get the next sensible word out of
our mouth because we’re stuck in a stutter and just say stupid things. You just
want to slap the guy and say be quiet and read the teleprompter telling you what
the next word is. Yeah… that’s the slap we’re getting. Because crazy isn’t what
we’re doing now, crazy is not doing what He wants us to do next.
So on that order I decided this year to help out Hashem a little
bit, who sometimes because of this whole Hidden thing He has going on and doesn’t
like to say things clearly to us and prefers to let us figure it out ourselves.
I think it has something to do with this free-will concept which is really
getting out of hand and hasn’t been doing the job. So as God’s helper on this
world with a large social media following between my whatsapp statuses and
weekly E-Mails-although from your sponsorship and donations to my pleas and
cries one might debate that… - I decided to help Hashem out a bit. To say it
like it is. To reveal the craziness of not coming to Israel now and finally
making this over. So welcome to our annual 2024 PurimTop Ten list of the year. Drumroll…
baaa dumm dumm… Here we go.
The Top Ten Reasons You’re Crazy if you don’t
make Aliya now
10) Ever watch those Holocaust movies and start yelling at the
screen at those people sitting there in Poland, in Hungary, in Germany, in
Amsterdam. Dude… get out of there. They’re coming for you. Hellooo don’t you
see the parades outside your doors with those swastikas. Doesn’t the fact that
they shot up your shul tell you something? Don’t you like see how every
stinking country where we were comfortable…too comfortable… it all changed very
quickly and you couldn’t get out. Don’t you remember how you couldn’t get to Israel
over Corona? I mean even if the first guys didn’t chap. Poland didn’t get it
let’s say. But really by 1940 don’t you think Hungary should’ve stopped saying…
Oh noo… it’s not going to happen here. Our goyim are better. Crazy, right? And they
didn’t even have an Israel to come to. I mean you yourself was saying “how can
anyone stay in France” with all that anti-semitism? Duhh… remember that
conversation. 70% of your neighbors want you dead. Believe the polls. Listen to
the News. Stop banking on Trump. The game is over get out before Lakewood
becomes Auschwitz, Boro Park is Birkenau, Detroit and Denver are Dachau, and
the five towns are Treblinka and Theresienstadt. Leave now. I don’t want to
have to make pilgrimages to the mekmos hakedoshim in America of the “glory
that once was”. It’s over. Leave.
9) We need you here now.
We really do. We need your money. We’re in trouble. We need all that money you’re
wasting on your shuls, your tuitions, your building campaigns, your fancy
weddings, lawns, cars, meat boards. We need you to sell everything that you
have and built there over the past 70 years and bring that money here now. I
mean it’s really a waste because the goyim there are just going to take it from
you anyways. They’re just going to burn it all up. They’re going to confiscate
all the art you bought. They’re going to requisition all of your possessions.
They’ve always done that. It’s what always happens. And stop stop stop stop
saying Oh no… this time’s different. It will never happen here. Just stop
already. Don’t you know how stupid and crazy that sounds. It’s sounds about as dumb as a two-state
solution or a cease-fire agreement. Break that stiff-neck of yours. Sell it all
bring it here. We need it.
8) The truth is it’s more than just your money we need here. We
need your brains and your clear thinking attitude that the Israelis here don’t
have. You get it over there- just like we get your situation from over here. We’re
really smart about what other people should do. Ein adam ro’eh es mumo-
we just don’t see our own blemishes.
You guys get it over there that what’s going on over here is ridiculous.
You’ve been talking about it in the coffee room in Lakewood for months already over
your water cooler at work and at your Shabbos table. You know that we should
just stop playing games and just blow the whole thing up and kill everybody. We
need to stop with this ridiculous humanitarian aid to the animals that are
killing us. You understand that we need to literally start hanging Hamas guys
up from the gate that we have in prison and chop them into little pieces
hundreds of them each day until we get our hostages back. You see the craziness
in the fact that it’s 167 and we haven’t really done anything significant yet
in ending this already. In the 6-day war we quadrupled our country when we faced
an army ten times our size. This should’ve taken a day and a half. So we need
you here to tell them that. They can’t hear you in your coffee room. Stop
yelling at the TV screen of what you perceive as the impending holocaust here
and get into the room. It’s crazy to be over there and just watching this
happen. Do you really how stupid you look?
7) Besides your money and your world-view we actually need your
hands and man and woman power as well. There are sandwiches that needs to be
made, there are jobs that need to be filled while everyone is out fighting for
our lives. There are crops that need to be picked that are just heart
wrenchingly dying on the trees wherever I drive in this country. We need
doctors, nurses, therapists… so so many therapists OTs PTs and every other T. We
need smart computer people, we need developers, construction guys. We need bus
drivers or even people that can just drive a car and deliver things to people. The
lawyers can stay there though. The politicians as well. When I say we need you,
I don’t mean for a four-day mission so you can go back to the States and show
everyone pictures of the chayal you sponsored a bbq from or the one you
visited in the hospital. We need you here for good. This isn’t ending. Your four
day missions are cute and very inspiring, invigorating and chizuk
giving, but it’s not enough.
The truth is it’s really not even anything. It’s like giving your
kid a nice breakfast and telling him to fend for himself for lunch and dinner.
Are you really areivim zeh la’zeh or not? Do you really feel that what we
are going through is your tzarah, your kid, your brother, sister or
mother or not? If this was your brother and he needed you to move here-which we
do and you didn’t come and you sat back and watched it happen, wouldn’t that be
crazy? Meshuga?
6) Now, if your doing the Jewish thing now, you’re telling
yourself that you really don’t have money, so that one doesn’t count. You don’t
have any particular skill set that you can bring, you sell stuff on Amazon. You
don’t even feel you have an opinion that will make a difference with by coming
here. So you’re really not that crazy. Well hope about this one? We need your
body. We need to populate this country. We just cleared out the whole North of
Gaza that needs to have Jews in it before the maggots come back. We need you in
the West Bank and need to make that as populous as Jerusalem. Don’t tell me
that you only can live in those large Jewishly populated places like Lakewood
or Boro Park. You moved to Jackson, Tom’s River, Century Village, down to Mill
Basin and stinking Waterbury. So move to the Shomron. Move to the Gush. Move to
Karmiel, the Galil, the Golan. Fill the country with Jew so that there’s a
humanitarian and housing crisis that will require we take over every Arab
village. Settle the land. Is it your home or isn’t it? Hashem is screaming this
at you. He gave half of you and really every Jew a natural draw and nack for
the real estate and construction industry. Do you really think He did that so
you can build a new neighborhood in Freehold? Another condo in Phoenix? What
don’t you get about this?
5) Ok let’s start getting a bit spiritual here as well. You know
that joke… everyone does, about the guy on the sinking boat. Where Hashem sends
him the rescue boat, the helicopter, the life preserver and he keeps saying
Hashem will save me… Hashem will save me… and then he comes up to heaven and
God says who do you think sent you all of those things? Well that loser is you.
You literally daven three times a day to return to Israel. You say it every
time you bentch. You say l’shana ha’bah bi’yerushalayim at your Pesach Seder
and even really mean it. You get down on the smelly floor on Tisha B’Av and mournfully
tell Hashem how much you want to come back to Israel. Ummmm… yeah… helicopter,
life preserver, rescue boat… He gave it to you buddy. Wake up. We’re here.
There are flights. There’s plenty of land. There’s opportunity. There’s
yeshivos, falafel stores, there’s even Heinz ketchup and in some places you can
even find American cheese. What the heck are you wating for? Your prayers have
been answered. How crazy is it to stay
on that sinking boat when Hashem has literally sent you everything you need and
more. How can you even get up tomorrow morning and say v’li’yerushalyim
ircha b’rachamimm tashuv- and not think you’re the guy on that boa in the joke?
Crazy… right? Except it’s not and really never was a funny joke in the first
place.
4) Taking spiritual to the next level though is really more than
about being honest with your prayers. It’s about doing the mitzvos and
experiencing your Judaism the way that its meant to be felt. Let’s be honest
here. Let’s look at the Torah, at Chazal, at the commentaries, at the basic
premise that literally every single great Rabbi and leader of Klal Yisrael
since Moshe Rabbeinu understood to be true. The mitzvos were given to be
observed here in Eretz Yisrael. The function of Klal Yisrael we are repeatedly
told since the beginning is that we all move to Israel and keep the mitzvos
here and thus the shechina will reside with us and shine out the light to the
rest of the world. If Hashem wanted us to just keep the mitzvos and Shabbos,
and Sukkah and Tefillin and listen to His commands He could’ve saved us forty
years in the wilderness and just cleared out Mitzrayim for us. He’s not the Israeli
army, He doesn’t have a hard time clearing out a country for us. If He wanted
us in Europe, in Poland, in Lakewood to just build shuls and Beit medrashes, if
He wanted just a lot of acolyte followers that does what He wants, He could’ve
just left Avraham Avinu in Charan. Our first Patriarch was doing great there
with his kiruv organizations. But it was never about that. It was about
fulfilling the mitzvos here.
You know this. Stop playing dumb. Stop pretending that your
Sukkah, your fancy “mikdash me’at’s that you build, the matza that you eat and
even the tzedaka you give there are anything more than Splenda mitzvos. They
taste like sugar and our sweet and even drinkable in your coffee and you even
get lots of credit in shamayim for keeping the biblically and
rabbinically commanded mitzvos- as the Ramban says- so that when you merit to
live in Israel, you’ll know how to do them, but they’re not the real thing. You
get that right? It’s why you daven that Hashem brings us home. It’s why pretty
much every gadol always wanted to come here. Forget about the shemitta,
the terumos and maasros, the mitzva to settle the land, that your
really can’t even pretend to do over there. So c’mon. you’re a religious Jew.
You follow the Torah and “give up” so much and sacrifice so that you can do
things properly. You pay fortunes of money for “hiddur mitzva” so that it’s
only done the best and fanciest way? So, isn’t it crazy that you wouldn’t just
actually come here and do it in the place where you really get the most out of
it?
3) Next up that is particularly relevant and that you should
think long and hard about this week during Torah reading is that only in Israel
now you can fulfill the mitzva of wiping out Amalek. I know a lot of you have
gotten their gun licenses already. You’ve been practicing on the range. Are you
really saving those bullets for the dumb pink haired college Free Palestine
loser that’s going to come knocking on your door. He’s not Amalek, he’s just a
loser without a job, a life and a brain. Here with Hamas and Hezbolla we have
the real thing you can kill. That we need you to kill. We’ve been waiting a
long time for this milchemes mitzva. We’ve had to satisfy ourselves with
twisting a gragger by some of the Haman’s that the reform gabbai in your supposedly
chareidi shul allows you to bang and make noise by. Come to Israel now and you
can hear the sweet bloodcurdling sound of bullets smashing through and
exploding in their heads. You can hear Amalek’s screams pierce the heavens as you
chop them into little pieces. You can have fun dropping bombs on their heads. That
sweet whizzing sounds as you launch RPGs at their hospitals. It’s a real purim
party! It would be really crazy to stick around and just write Haman and Amalek
on the bottom of your shoe and dance on him when you can actually be stomping
on their baby’s heads. Wouldn’t you agree?
2) Getting to the end now of our Top Ten List and it’s time for
Jewish guilt. Think of how disappointed all of your ancestors for thousands of
years are in you. Think of them all sitting their next to Hashem by His throne
of glory and literally not being able to get over how pathetic it is that the
dream that they all had their entire lives of being able to move, to settle, to
live and breathe every day the holy air of Eretz Yisrael is being squandered by
their children and grandchildren because they like the Pizza better in America,
or because they’re scared that they don’t know the language well enough or won’t
have the same customer service they’re used to and might have to god forbid bag
their own groceries. Think about how Moshe is sitting up in Shamayim
remembering his 515 prayers non-stop to Hashem to be able to have the opportunity
that you have and how really ticked off he must be at you. I mean if you thought
he got angry at Gad and Reuvein and they just wanted to stay in the Golan Heights,
imagine if they would’ve told him that they prefer Cedarhurst or Baltimore! Really?!
Can you imagine how aghast the Gaon of Vilna and the Baal Shem
Tov must feel that people that are claiming to be their students or chasidim won’t
even teach their children about how central our return to Israel even before Mashiach
comes was to them and how much they gave up just to be able to do that. Or how
about the Rambam, what he must be thinking about those guys that spend all day
mulling over his every letter, but don’t get how he literally established a yom
tov for generations in his family just because he visited here and how he
mourned and felt miserable each day that he didn’t come. Forget about the 6 million souls that sang ani
ma’amin what they must be thinking. I mean you gotta admit, that you can’t
really have many fans in heaven right now that are proud of your “lifestyle
choice of dwelling”. To disappoint daily every single holy soul that came
before you and brought you to this era where Hashem has given us the bracha and
dream that they only wished they could have is really a little bit meshuga don’t
you concur?
1) and so here we’ve arrived. I mean literally arrived. The
number one reason why you’ve gotta be crazy not to make aliya right now is
because there is no experience in the entire world that will be more amazing
and powerful then getting off that plane and knowing that after 2000 years you’ve
finally come home. The tears will flow. Your heart will explode. Walking down
that tarmac will literally feel like you’re walking down the chupah to the shechina.
All your bubbie’s and zaydie’s neshomos will be standing in the aisles
waiting for you, shepping nachas. The air you breathe will all of sudden
start to change you. You will see that flag waving, that blue and white magen David
on a talis and you will feel a holy love for a land that red stripes and stars
could never make you feel. 3000 years ago, there were prophets that saw that
scene. They told people about it. They saw you. They saw those El Al wings of eagles
that you landed on. The sun is shining brighter than it ever did before. The
Shechina is coming as well, because all of His children are around the table, waiting
for Totty to come down. We realize then and experience what normal real was
meant to feel like. That everything until that moment was crazy. Tikun Olam has
happened when you come. The world isn’t broken anymore. It isn’t crazy anymore.
The nations are all coming. Crazy is over. It’s not meshuga. It’s Mashiach. And
you brought him. The crazy is over and new world has begun.
Have a safe flight and fraylechen Purim
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
This week's Insights and Inspiration has been sponsored by my
children who love me, who appreciate all my hard work for them, who think I’m
the smartest father in the world, who want to be just like me when they grow
up, who wish my E-Mails would be longer and longer. My parents chipped in as
well because they love when I mention them and share all the personal details
of my upbringing with the world. Even Rivky and Gitty my sisters wanted to kick
in some money just to tell the world hwo lucky and proud they are to have me as
their brother. Gedalia as well and Jodi can’t thank me enough for marrying them off and making
them live in Norfolk Virginia and preparing the whole city for them.
Needless to say once again I lack a sponsor and so I just make things up so I don’t look bad… Yeah… you know how that goes..
************************
CHIZUK/TZEDAKA
OPPORTUNITY OF THE WEEK
Just when you thought that
I had shnorred enough I’ve come up with a new way to hit you up for money with
this new column… Yes I think that there are no causes in America worthy of any
of your charity. I kind of feel its like Mitzrayim over there that I
singlehandedly have the job of emptying out so that you can finally get out of
galus already. See how much I care about you
YIDDISH PROVERB OF THE
WEEK
" Fun
shikker and fun shenker shtinkt mil bronfen. The drunkard and the
bartender both smell of whisky.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM QUESTION OF THE WEEK
answer
below at end of Email
97
Yoshka pished at the site of the church located in ___________.
Chareidim
don’t serve in the Army because?
A.
They’re too fat
B.
It’s a gezeira that they might come to vote
C.
The Army is scared that Thursday night chulent gas is against international
rules of War
D.
They do serve, who do you think comes up with all our winning strategies in the
coffee room of Zichron Moshe?
https://soundcloud.com/ephraim-schwartz/yiddelach – In Honor of PURim MY latest new release… Its; the only song I’m posting this week. You just have to listen to it five times… If You want the Rap at the end… IT’s amazing… Tell me how much you love it…
Happy Purim, have fun!
Obviously it was a long flight and many of them hadn’t had shwarma in a long time so they stopped off at Halo Teiman on their way over to Gaza with their driver in the minibus. They fressed there for a few hours because they knew that they needed extra energy and then they headed over to the border. Of course they stopped a few times along the way to get snacks and take pictures with some chayalim, but eventually they had kfituzus haderech and made it over to the border. Once there they quickly took out their gartels and davened Mincha and were then ready for action. They climbed on the nearest tanks. Took some more pictures. Video chatted with their friends back in Boro Park and then got off the tanks and went back to the minibus to get some more food.
The chasidim finished their phone calls and sang songs to Hashem about Rebbi Nachman and Reb Shayaleh that had saved them from all their troubles as he always did. They even included Rebbi Shimon Bar Yochai into the song too. It was greater than the song of Moshe at the sea. We had been saved once again. Immediately the Chasidim started to look at the new real estate development opporotunities that were on the new beach front properties available now from the river to the sea. And thus Shneller’s Gaza Estates were founded.
V”NAHAPOCH HU!
NO JOKES TODAY…
HA HA HA….
OK I told you that there would be jokes and I lied. Eleven pages
is long enough.. you’re not getting this far down in the E-Mail anyways… So
enjoy. Bentch and send me money quick!
Fraylichen Purim
Your favorite Rabbi
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