from the
Holy Land
from
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
"Your friend in Karmiel"
SIMCHAS TORAH EDITION
It
wasn’t Simchas Torah last year. It was 3297 years ago. It was the month of Av.
The clouds of glory had disappeared. They had protected us for forty years.
Enemies tried to attack us and Hashem was always watching over us. Their
bullets, their missiles, their arrows just bounced off while we watched them
flying over our heads through those clouds and listened to them explode back
upon them. But now Aharon Ha’Kohen had died. The clouds disappeared.
While he was alive their was peace amongst all
of us. He made sure of that. He was our Kohen. He pursued peace till the end.
He was ready to sacrifice even his Olam Haba by making the golden calf when
those clouds disappeared from us. He did it so that we wouldn’t fall to a point
and never be able to rise up from the ashes again. He did it so that we wouldn’t
kill him as we did Chur who refused, and never be able to get back up from that.
Never be able to get atonement. And in that act he saved us. He became the
Kohen. The clouds came back. Hashem
forgave us. They came back on Sukkos. And they protected us for the forty years
we wandered. But now he was gone and so were they. We were lost. We mourned and
we cried. All of us. For the peace that we didn’t see us achieving ever again.
For the protection that we would lose that achdus, that unity he brought to us which
merited us those protective clouds. And sure enough our worst fears were
realized.
It
was not long after that month of Elul after Aharon died that they came. It was
after we had our first Sukkos without those protective clouds around us. After
a Yom Kippur that didn’t have Aharon doing the service, to achieve atonement
for us. The fighting was back again, the peace was lost. Perhaps it was even Simchas
Torah. They looked like Canaanim. They dressed up and presented themselves as
if they were coming to protect and liberate their land that Hashem had promised
to our forefathers that we were on our way to claim. They didn’t want us there
at all. They wanted to keep the River to the Sea. But our sages tell us that is
not really who they were and what they were all about. They were only dressed
like Canaanim. It was fake news. In fact they were really Amalek. This wasn’t
about the land at all. This was about wiping us out. Genocide. A war against Hashem.
They didn’t want the Shechina to rest in this world. They didn’t want His
throne to be whole; His Name to be complete. They didn’t want Am Yisrael to be
Chai. Because they understood far better than we did, that it is only through
us that Avinu is Chai as well.
What
they didn’t understand was though, that what they wanted to was impossible to
achieve. Hashem can’t be killed and neither can his nation. The Torah tells us
that when Amalek came that time, they kidnapped. They took captives. Hostages. The
clouds were down. They took the maidservants, the uneducated ones, the ones
that perhaps after the death of Aharon didn’t feel comfortable in shul anymore
on Simchas Torah. They didn’t have a place close to the camp. Close to the
sanctuary. To Yerushalayim. That while Aharon was alive were part of the clouds
of glory, but since his passing we had left outside alone. We didn’t invite
them to dance with us, so they made their own. And Amalek came to kill them and
to kidnap them. They as well knew far better than us, that without even one Jewish
maidservant, one Jewish soul, one that we wrote off and they captured, the
could win the game. The Shechina needs all of us. The Name is only complete
with all of us. Israel can only be redeemed and the promise to Avraham only
fulfilled if we are all there. So they thought they could win. But instead what
they did was lose and unite us and bring the greatest revelation to ever
happen.
We
fought. We united. We attacked. We killed. We divided the nation up with some davening.
Some learning. Some bringing the soldiers schnitzel. Others making beef jerky.
There were teams of people ready to visit the wounded soldiers and others to
take care of any bereaved families. Zaaka and Hatzala were on call and the hospitals
had all made their preparations and exercises. But none of it was necessary.
There wasn’t a scratch on anyone. We won and we eradicated them and not one
missile fell on us. And we did it without any clouds of Glory. We did it
through our own achdus. We left the Sukkah of those clouds when Aharon
died, and we found them within ourselves in the real world as we headed in for
our redemption. That’s what happened 3297 years ago, my friends. That’s where
we are heading to today.
Tonight
is Simchat Torah 5785. It’s been a year since last Simchat Torah the holiday which
Rashi tells us is dedicated to the concept of “Kasheh Alai Predaschem”-
that Hashem doesn’t want us to depart and separate from Him after sitting for 7
days in His shade, in His clouds of Glory; at His table. In other years this
was a day to say our last goodbyes to Hashem as we headed out to our long winter.
To sing and dance with Him one last time and hope that energy would remain with
us and hold us off at least until Chanukah. But last year, it had an entirely
different meaning. It is/was the year preceding the redemption. It had to be
different.
Last year Hashem truly meant it when He said
that He didn’t want to be separated from us. That it was kasheh alov- it
was hard for Him. He therefore made sure that this past year that wouldn’t happen.
He made sure that this year we wouldn’t stop talking to Him, about Him, for
Him. That every Jew in the world would never go back to a regular normal
winter. That we wouldn’t just leave those clouds and go back to our “real
houses”. Rather He made sure that the entire year would be one of feeling the
temporary dwelling that He has been living in for 2000 years since the Shechina
has been exiled. That we would feel homeless. That we would be evacuated. That we
would have empty chairs at our Shabbos tables. That our children are not there,
as His are not as well. That we felt the pain and we returned to the unity. We
longed for it. We strived for it. He wanted last Simchat Torah that we should truly
feel and appreciate that we be “Ikvu od yom echad- We should want to
stay with Him for one more day. But that one more day that He wanted was a day
that would be a forever one. One of His days. A Yoma Arichta- one long
day, that so many haven’t yet moved beyond and that are still being me’akeiv-
that are still stuck on, as we await that final dance.
The
holiday of Simchat Torah or Shemini Atzeret is the only biblical holiday with nothing
besides us. There’s no Lulav, no Etrog, no Shofar, no loaves of bread offerings
of Shavuos, no Matza and not even a Sukka. For 7 days in the Temple they
brought 70 cows for all of the nations. We were bound together all Jews with
our four species that correspond to each of us. We were tied together and shaking
away all of the evil spirits. It was the sacrifices on behalf of the nations
that brought us together. It was the protection of clouds of glory. Yet today
on Hoshana Rabba we removed the ties from our Lulav. We picked up the Hoshana
that simplest of all Jew that’s been beaten to the ground, but that is closest
to the waters of life. We don’t need ties to bind us anymore. We don’t even
need Sukkahs to protect us. We leave those clouds of glory as we did 3000 years
ago and we are ready to conquer and enter the land and realize the promise of
Hashem and we don’t need clouds to be makif- and surround us from the outside.
We make our own hakafot. Our own circles of life. We have the Torah, but we don’t
even open it up as we dance, we may have not even learned it yet. We are not
celebrating its study or completion. We are celebrating our unity with it. With
it, with Hashem and with one another.
Unlike
other holidays when the Torah reading is the sacrifice of the day the reading
of Simchat Torah is the blessing of Moshe.
Vayehi Byishurun Melech b’hitasef roshei am – and in Yeshurun
there is a King when the head of the nation gather
Yachad Shivtei Yisrael- United the tribes of Israel.
We are the Torah reading of the day. It is the day that we read how
Hashem showed Moshe the entire land. He showed him all of the wars. He showed
them Shimshon fighting the Philistines and King David. He showed him the land
of Naftali and Dan. He showed him the Temple, it’s destruction. He showed him
the Holocaust and Hezbollah and Hamas. Moshe saw last Simchat Torah. He saw Be’eri
and this final battle of history when we finally return to our borders. “ad ha’ayam
ha’acharon- until the final sea,” which our sages tell us is the yom ha’acharon-
the final day. The ikvu yom echad- the day of Simchat Torah that last day,
which the Ran refers to as the “last of the holidays.” Hashem tells Moshe in the last verse to him
Zos ha’aretz asher nishbati l’avraham l’yitzchak u’liya’akov leimor – this is the
land that I swore to Avrahma Yitzchak and Yaakov to say over
l’zaracha etnena- I will give it to your descendants that which you have seen with
your eyes.
The
Midrash tells us that Hashem told Moshe to go to the Patriarchs and tell them that
the promise has been fulfilled. The children have returned. The problem though
is that is hasn’t. We haven’t. Last year Simchat Torah over 1200 of our brothers
and sisters were killed in one day, the most that ever has been killed since
the holocaust in one day. The day we lost the clouds of glory and it was the
day as well that we start to build our own hakafot. Our own circles of
unity around each other, around the Torah around Hashem. We realized how kasheh
our pereidah – our divisions are.
We were able to do that, the sifrei chasidus
tells us because Moshe saw it all and gave us that eternal vision on that last
day. That was what Moshe was told to tell the Patriarchs. That we saw it all
and we 3297 years later all see that all of this is the process to that
fulfillment. That Hoshia es amecha- that Hashem is saving our nation.
That He is never separated from us. That the Simchas Torah will come when He
will remove the clouds of Aharon and we will find them within ourselves; within
one another. That we will not need the nations to bring that out within us.
That we will wipe out Amalek. That we will build that home and that we will
dance and dance and dance, not at peace festivals on fake borders of Eretz Yisrael
that hasn’t been redeemed yet where the Canaani and Amaleki still live. Not in batei
midrash in Lakewood, shtiblach in Boro Park, in houses of Torah in France or
shuls in England, all in countries that hate us and where the Shechina will not
ever shine fully out from as long as we are all not home. As long as there is
even one maidservant that hasn’t returned home. We will dance in the Bais Ha’mikdash.
There will be no Canaani left in the land. That is the vision and last message
of Hashem to Moshe. That it wasn’t really 3297 years ago. That it really is today…
Have
an amazing joyous, festive, redemptive Simchas Torah,
Warmly
Rabbi
Ephraim Schwartz
This week's Insights and Inspirat
*********************************
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S FAVORITE YIDDISH PROVERB OF THE WEEK
" Az di kalleh ken nit tantsen, zogt zi az di klezmorim
kennen nit shpilen.”- If
the bride can’t dance, she finds fault with the musicians..
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S COOL MUSIC OF THE WEEK
https://soundcloud.com/ephraim-schwartz/dovid-melech-r-ephrayim - and of course on the Ushpizin of Dovid Ha’Melech you have to sing my famous Dovid Ha’Melech song that was surely sung when he was corronated
What do ghosts dance to? Soul music
What do cars do at the disco? Brake dance
What kind of dance do mothers like best? The Mom-bo
How many dance teachers does it take to change a light bulb?
Five!...Six!...Seven!...Eight!
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