Insights and Inspiration
from the
Holy Land
from
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
"Your friend in Karmiel"
November 3rd 2023 -Volume
13 Issue 4 19th of Cheshvan 5784
Parshat Vayeira
A Mother’s
Tears- A Father’s Crown
I visited Kever Rachel last week. It was the
day before her Yahrtzeit and I had heard that because of the army’s concern of
large gatherings in any specific place, her tomb would be closed the next day. Almost
every year since her tomb was returned to us in 1967 more and more come from
all over the country and even the world to pray at our Mama’s tomb. Back in 67’
it was hundreds or thousands. Today there are tens of thousands that come.
But this year she would be all alone. This
year her children, who seemed to need her prayers most during these horrific
times, would not be by her side to beg her to continue crying before Hashem. To
ask her to not stop pleading that Hashem bring that promise that he made to her
3000 years ago that all her children would return to their borders. Mama Rachel
would be alone, and we would be mother-less once again.
Yet I thought to myself at the time, that it
is no wonder that Kever Rachel is closed to us on her yahrtzeit this year. This
is a year that started off with nothing the way that it’s supposed to be. On
Rosh Hashana which fell out on Shabbos this year, we didn’t blow shofar. On
Sukkos as well we didn’t shake Lulav and Etrog on the only day that we are
biblically mandated to- which is the first day, which also fell out on Shabbos.
Finally, our Simchas Torah had its joy taken from us in the terrible attack and
outbreak of war that we find ourselves in. Mama Rachel’s yartzeit without her,
is the cherry on top of the cupcake or the straw on the camel’s breaking back
perhaps, in a year that has been like no other in the history of our people.
Yet it was not merely Mama Rachel’s Yartzeit
last week. It was also the birthday of the son that she gave birth to as she
died; Binyamin or the son that she called Ben Oni- the son of my grief. It’s a
strange name to give your child. I know that when I was a kid one of the things
my mother- a good Jewish mother like many- would say to me was…
“You’re killing me with all of your mishigas
already…”
When I
was really bad and she had to up the ante it would be
“Why don’t you just stick a knife in my
heart already…”
(I think she said that when she found out that
I was smoking…). I brushed it off, although I felt guilty. But this is a new
level, Binyamin actually did kill his mother. She died while giving birth to
him. So how do you think he would feel walking around with a name “Son of my
grief” or the “Son who killed his mother”. What’s pshat in
this name?
Now to be fair, as we see, Yaakov quickly changes
his name to Binyamin- the son of my right hand or my strength. In fact many of
the commentaries suggest that was really Rachel’s intent as well. As we find that
in Yaakov’s final blessing of his son Reuvein he tells him that he is Reishis
Oni- the first of his strength. Besides grief the word oni also
translates as ‘strength’, which in itself needs explanation. But Yaakov was
merely explaining Rachel’s words, that her intent was to call her son the son
of her strength. Thus he called him Binyamin- the more positive translation of
the word Ben Oni. The question though is why didn’t Rachel just call him that
herself? Why leave her son with a name that recalls the grief and the period of
Aninut- the period of grief and mourning with in which he came into the
world?
The answer I heard from my Rebbi, Reb
Mordechai Alon, is so powerful and so relevant. It screams out at us today and
it is everything that we ever knew to be true. It’s an idea that we can
appreciate now more than ever. There are so many children of grief today in
Eretz Yisrael. So many orphans. So many that are still in the stage of aninut
where they haven’t even brought their loved ones to burial. They don’t know if
they are alive or dead. Or perhaps even worse, what is a better fate to hope
for- considering the alternative is that they are being held by sub-human
monsters in Gaza. There are so many bnai oni today that are grieving.
That are Binyamin. That are the children of Rachel.
Do you know what Rachel was telling her son in
giving him his name? She was telling him,
“Binyamin, I’m not going to be there for
you in your lifetime to take you to Gan. I won’t be there to kiss you Layla tov
at night and say shema with you. I won’t be at your Bar Mitzva… your chasuna..
your simchas… I won’t be in any of your family albums. You are my son that was
born in grief.
But Binyamin, I want you to know that Oni will be your strength. It will be your right hand.
It will be your light in that darkness because you will know that I will always
be with you. Even more than if I was here with you. I will be your meilitz
yosher- your divine advocate in shamayim and I will never stop
crying, davening and beseeching our Father in heaven for you and all of your
descendants. You are my Ben Oni but that will always be your greatest
strength in the darkest of times.”
This weeks parsha is a supernatural one. There
are more angels in it than any other parsha. It starts with Avraham’s guests that
are angels. Lot sees angels that come to save him. Hagar does as well when
Yishmael is chased out. Finally, at the end of the parsha, we have once again
by the binding of Yitzchak an angel that comes to Avraham to tell him to stop. There
are things not from this world going on.
It’s a
parsha of supernatural occurrences and revelations. Hashem wipes out 5 cities
overnight. We have Sarah giving birth at age 90 and nursing babies. We have
Avraham being told he must throw out his son Yishmael, whom he loves. Yishmael
who attempted to kill Yitzchak and destroy our nation- but yet ultimately, we
find will do teshuva and is saved because Hashem only judges him as he is now. Hashem
reveals himself to Avimelech the king of Gerar- which is Gaza by the way. The
Philistines. He tells him get his hands off of Sarah whom he had taken as his
prisoner. His captive. His hostage. And finally, Hashem tells Avraham to shecht
his son Yitzchak. Things that are not normal, happen in the Parsha. It’s like
the world went crazy all of a sudden. And Avraham is caught right in the middle
of it all.
The Midrash notes that these tests of Avraham
and the dramatic transformation comes from the Bris that he just entered at the
end of last week’s parsha. Yishmael also had a bris. He had a merit. This
parsha is about separating him from Avraham. It’s about showing Avraham that the
world of Yishmael will be different than his world. For Yishmael lives in a
world that is here and now and what he defines to be his, he will take. Avraham
though is living in a world that will never be what it seems.
Our Parsha is aptly called Va’yeira- And
Hashem appeared to Avraham, because in this parsha Hashem will reveal to
Avraham, the man of kindness, that there is a world of evil, a world where it
needs to be destroyed, chased out, and even plagued. There is a world where his
children will be asked to give their lives for their faith and where our wives
might be kidnapped, and where our children’s lives will be threatened and
tempted. It’s a world where he will feel alone. Where the other nations that
might even seem more powerful might seem like they are prospering and
flourishing while he is on the run. As well it is a world of miracles and
salvation and where Mashiach can be born out of the most unlikely of
circumstances and where the mountain of that sacrifice will become the place
where Hashem will always be seen and will rest His shechina.
Avraham will learn in this world that through
out it all Hashem will be there for him. His descendants will, for 3000 years,
long for that mountain and for that shechina, after all of the
sacrifices that we indeed bring and who were martyred on Kiddush Hashem- in the
sanctification of Hashem’s name. Because we are the children of Avraham.
Because we want the shechina. Because we understand that we don’t live
in Yishmael’s world. Because we are the children of Rachel who can find our
strength in our grief and because we know that the world that we see is not the
real one.
There’s an incredible idea I saw from the Sefer
Perach Shoshana written by one of the great Moroccan mystics in the early 1900’s.
He notes that the verse tells us when the angels appeared to Avraham
“And he lifted his eyes and saw,
and behold, three men were standing upon him, and he saw, and he
ran toward them from the entrance of the tent, and he prostrated himself to the
ground.”
There seems to be an extra word there. It
tells us that he first lifted his eyes and saw and then right after that again
it tells us that he saw again. What did he see the second time that he didn’t
see the first time? Rashi gives his own interpretation, yet the Perach Shoshana
quotes the mystics of Tzfat who tell us that what Avraham saw was not only the
three angels, but he saw all of the martyrs of all of the generations coming
with them.
“For Avraham is the father of all those who
give up their lives for Kiddush Hashem- As he was the first to do so in the furnace
of Nimrod. And his soul is in the Heichal of Ahava- the divine hall of love
above. And whoever gives up their life in sanctification of Hashem’s name,
Avraham runs from the pesach ha’ohel- from the entrance of the tent to greet
them and says to them ‘Baruch Hashem you are from mine” and he places a
crown upon their head. And he bows before them and gives thanks and praise to
Hashem that he merited such descendants like them.”
When he saw the three men upon him, the Perach
Shoshana explains, it means he saw Chananya Mishael and Azarya who were
standing up from the merit of Avraham. They were Nitzavim Aluv-Standing
on his spiritual shoulders. From the world that he came from. From the sacrifice
that he implanted in us to be able to make to honor Hashem. And he ran to them
to welcome them from his tent to bring them in, to embrace them with love, and
to place that crown upon their head.
This was the welcome over 1400 of Avraham’s
children got these past few weeks. The young children, the orphans, the Holocaust
survivors of atrocities they thought they would never see again and yet they
did and even worse. The holy soldiers who gave their lives to defend the land Avraham
was promised and to defend the children that he prayed for that would inherit
the land. Avraham himself came out to greet them. He crowned each of them. They
are in the tent of love with him. They are there waiting in the real world- the
olam ha’emes for us to bring enough light that will bring Mashiach and
wash away all of the darkness. Enough faith that perhaps comes out in its greatest
and brightest form from our grief to bring the end of days. The one day we long
for that is around the corner.
Do you know what the difference is between a
year that we blow the shofar and a year that we don’t? On a year that we blow
the shofar, the sefarim tell us, that it only lasts as long as the sound
goes. It’s only for those few hours. When we don’t blow the shofar though then
it continues to go on and on and on. It doesn’t stop. On a year that we shake
the Lulav and do our na’anuim- then we can only throw away all the evil
spirits as far as we can stretch our arms. It only can last as long as we are
still shaking it them. It’s finite. Yet on a year that we don’t. When we give
it all up for Shabbos, for our Torah, for our faith? Then it goes on and on as far
as it can go and forever.
Simchas Torah celebration in a regular year
has a simcha that has to come to an end. The winter must start. We can
shlep out it out with hakafot sheniyot a little bit longer…but it ends.
A year when we had that simcha taken away doesn’t need hakafot sheniyot.
The joy will last and keep going, exploding and expanding. And the year without
Mama Rachel will as well be the one when her tears which never stopped falling
may finally reach the mark. They may finally bring that last prophecy and promise
Hashem made of V’shavu banim l’gvulam- her children will return from the
land of their enemies. They will return from Gaza. They will return from all
the countries that are hating and persecuting us more and more, that have never
really been our home. They were always the enemy.
And then it will be the year of the V’shavu
banim l’gvulam- her children… Avraham’s children, all our children…all of
those that are in the tent of love up above… the 6 million’s children, Hashem’s
children… all of them will return to our borders… Not just the 48’ borders, not
the 67’ borders, but the borders that are from the sea to the sea- Israel will
be free. Ne’um Hashem- thus is
the word of Hashem.
`
Have restful Shabbos,
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
************************
YIDDISH PROVERB OF THE WEEK
“Vi
zaif faren guf iz a trer far di neshomeh. -Like soap for the body, so are tears for the
soul.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM QUESTION OF THE WEEK
answer below at end of Email
12.The
"New Gate" in the walls of the Old City in Jerusalem was breached in
the ________ century.
To
what archeological style belongs the Al Jazzar Mosque in Acre?
A.
Fatimid architecture
B.
Umayyad architecture
C.
Ottoman architecture
D. Abassid architecture
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S COOL VIDEO OF THE WEEK
https://soundcloud.com/ephraim-schwartz/shomer-yisroel
– My latest moving composition-
the prayer of all of us in this horrific war- Shomer Yisrael- Dovid Lowy did an
amazing jobs on the vocals and arrangements
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w8WSTpKp9w
– I have always been an Eli Dachs
fan (Shloimie’s son) and glad to see him back with this beautiful rendition of
Shwekey’s Mi She’beirach Chayalim
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og6rxyVVWKs Fascinating Gaza War of
King David (Hebrew) what he did when they took our hostages…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HgKB4-kQdA
- Iyal Golan AM Yisrael Chai great song
that says it all…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMmYmCJbA5U – Love this song going Viral Katan Aleinu…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3oXuVBZ0Cs
–And the War Song at all bases Kovshim
et Azza!
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S PARSHA PRAYER
INSPIRATION OF THE WEEK
The First Shacharis – It’s a strange verse in this week’s
Parsha yet it contains the entire world of what our prayer is all about and the
eternal message it carries for us right here and right now. It was the day after
Avraham had argued unsuccessfully (Thank God) with Hashem on behalf of Sodom.
The angels go in save Lot. Do what they need to do, and Sodom looks like Gaza.
The story is over and yet there is an epilogue. The morning after.
Vayashkem Avraham Ba’Boker asher amad sham es pnai
Elokim- And
Avraham arose early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Hashem.
We find a few places that Avraham was an early
riser. He gets up early to send out
Hagar as per Hashem’s command to listen to his wife. He gets up early to take
his son Yitzchak to the Akeida as per the command of Hashem. What’s the early
ride over here? What’s even the purpose of this rising? What does he do on this
early morning after?
“And he looked over the face of Sodom and Gomorrah
and over the entire face of the land of the plain, and he saw, and behold, the
smoke of the earth had risen like the smoke of a furnace.”
That’s it. Story over. He gets up early to take a
look at what’s going on in Sodom. Very very strange. He knows what’s going to
happen. He knows that his prayers weren’t answered. So what is getting up for
to check out. Is he like those guys that slow up traffic on the highway to see
what happened in the accident up ahead?
What’s even more fascinating is that the previous
verse tells us how the angels had told Lot that they shouldn’t turn back and
see what’s going on. In fact Lot’s wife is turned into a pillar of salt just
for violating that command. So what’s the point of Avraham’s looking out. And what
does it mean that he went to pray specifically in the same place where Hashem
had spoken to him.
The Radak quotes the Talmud that derives that what
was taking place here with Avraham was in fact the establishment of the morning
prayer. That word that he came to the place where he had “stood” before Hashem
is the word Amida- like our shemona Esrei. As well the Talmud derives that this
is the source that a person should have a set regular place to daven. It’s the
source and reason why we have shuls. What is this first prayer of Shacharis all
about? What inspires it and what should inspire us?
The answer perhaps can best be understood in what
Avraham saw. He sees a furnace and smoke rising up. For someone who himself was
thrown in a fiery furnace and who’s brother was killed in one by the wicked
King Nimrod this had to have special meaning. This must have brought all of
that back. He had davened, he had prayed, his nephew was in this wicked city.
He thought that the world had perhaps moved on since Nimrods barbaric days after
he had wiped him out. Never again was happening again. Evil was still there in
the world. All his prayers hadn’t helped. The media and press are sitting there
next to Avraham in that same place and laughing at him. What are you doing
here? Who are you talking to? Hashem is not listening.
Yet, Avraham gets up early because he believes that
it is a new morning. That every day is a new morning. That everyday we have to
take on the challenge of the morning and wake up the morning with our prayer to
Hashem. His faith is unshakeable. He will stand and keep standing between dark
and night and morning and light and daven to Hashem and welcome that new light
and day. That’s the kindness of the morning. That’s the faith of Avraham of
every morning. That’s where and why we permanently establish our prayer. Because
prayer needs to be permanent as our faith. We don’t need to move around, we don’t
need to travel from here to there. Bilaam and Balak are running from place to
place to curse us. We stand our ground and daven every day in the same place
and with the same faith. That’s Shacharis and that’s our prayer.
What happened with that prayer? The next verse tells
us that Hashem remembers Lot and saves him. That salvation is the birth of
Mashiach, who descends from Lot and his daughters with the nations of Moav and
Ammon. It’s Ruth, It’s King David, it’s the lineage of Shlomo through his wife
Naama of Ammon. It’s our redemption today. Not bad for a new morning and that
first Shacharis… May Hashem also answer our prayers and herald in a brand new
morning as we look towards the destruction of Sodom and remember the furnaces
of Aushwitz and recall our captives. 6633
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S ERA’S AND THEIR
PLACES AND PEOPLE IN ISRAEL OF THE WEEK
The War that led to
division- 620 BC – Our screen flashes back to the southern
kingdom of Yehuda for this week. Yoash is king up North and
with the death of Yoash the righteous who was ultimately murdered by his
servants in Jerusalem his son Amatzia takes the reigns. He starts off
avenging his father’s death by killing all the murderers of his father. Yet,
unlike in past incidents he doesn’t take revenge against their children and families.
He quotes the Torah that children shouldn’t be killed for their father’s sin.
In doing so he shows he is righteous. As well the Navi tells us he follows in
the ways of his righteous father and keeps out the idolatry yet, sadly he was
not successful in getting rid of peoples personal altars that were forbidden to
worship on as the service should be was only permitted in the Mikdash in
Yerushalayim. That would cost him ultimately.
I want to just share
some relevant thoughts about the Bama/private altar sin. The essence of the sin
really is not idolatry. The nation believed and worshipped Hashem on them. The
sin is that they couldn’t get together and give up their personal worship and
come to the one place in Yerushalayim where we all need to come together
to. They didn’t do this because of a distorted sense of religious self-righteousness.
What do I need a Kohen for? I like my nusach, my own devotion, my own rebbe.
What do I have to go to the kohen who is perhaps less educated or yeshivish
than me… That’s called a bama. That’s what Hashem wanted us to wipe out.
That’s the opposite of the purpose of the redemption. That’s perhaps what we’re
suffering still from today.
With that division
between us still standing, our enemy rose up. Amatzia is faced with the
enemy in the South of Edom. Amatzia raises an army of 300,000
from Yehuda and Binyamin. By the way that’s about how many Miluimnikim-
reserves that have been called up for the ongoing battle here. Yet, he feels
that’s not enough. So he goes to the Northern Kingdoms and he hires
100,000 men from the tribe of Ephraim to join them. The fact that you
have to pay Jews to come fight for one another is mind-blowing today. Baruch
Hashem. Yet, that was the rift between the two kingdoms. Yet, in the end the
prophet comes and tells Amatzia that this is a mistake. Ephraim
are sinners. They won’t help us. Our wars are won from Hashem. We can do it
without them.
Amatzia is hesitant, for he has already paid them. Yet,
in the end he listens to the prophet. Writes out off the 100,000 talents of
silver he had paid and he goes to war without them. And he wins! He chucks 10,000
Edomites that he took captive off the rock from their fortress in South
by Gai Melach. I’m going to end on that note. We took 10,000 captives
and we threw them off a rock and killed them. What do you think about that? Stay
tuned next week.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S FUNNY GAZA MEMES/ JOKES OF THE WEEK
We switched the clock
this week in Israel so anyone that thinks that we can have peace here with our
neighbors has another hour to dream
25% of Liberals are on
medication for mental illness. That’s scary because that means that 75% are
walking around untreated.
What happens when a
fly falls into a coffee cup?
The Italian - throws
the cup and walks away in a fit of rage
The Frenchman - takes
out the fly, and drinks the coffee
The Chinese - eats the
fly and throws away the coffee
The Israeli - sells
the coffee to the Frenchman, the fly to the Chinese, buys himself a new cup of
coffee and uses the extra money to invent a Device that prevents flies from
falling into coffee.
The Palestinian -
blames the Israeli for the fly falling into his coffee, protests the act of
aggression to the UN, takes a loan from the European Union for a new cup of
coffee, uses the money to purchase explosives and then blows up the coffee
house where the Italian, the Frenchman, and the Chinese, are trying to explain
to the Israeli why he should give away his cup of coffee to the Palestinian in
exchange for peace
A drone that was sent
in from Yemen to Eilat was just blew itself up when it realized how much a room
costs for a night there.
I don’t know what’s
wrong with Israeli intelligence these days. Any child could’ve told you that if
the Teimanim- Yemenites were going to try to come into Israel they would come
to Eilat first because of it’s tax’ duty free status
You could tell a lot
about a woman by her hand motions. For example if she’s holding a gun at you,
it means she’s angry.
Muhammed calls the
Israeli Electric company: “Hello, this is Muhammed I live in the Riamel neighborhood
in Gaza and it seems that we don’t have any electricity”
Electric company ; “You
still have a neighborhood?”
Good idea for Nasralla’s
speech tomorrow. Israeli hijacks the feed and plays Manny Matara instead the
whole time…
The Wizard of Oz is 84
years old this week. If Dorothy were to meet creatures with no brains, no
courage and no heart she wouldn’t be in Oz. She would be in Harvard
Mother to Child in
2023- “If you don’t stop lying all the time the only thing you will grow up to
be is a BBC reporter.
The Iranian foreign
minister has announced that Hamas is open to releasing all of the hostages and
transfer them to Iran. Please tell him that we will as well release all of the
Hamas prisoners and release them to the hill-top youth in Yitzhar.
For the last eight
days the media has been reporting that there is only enough gas in Gaza to last
for one more day. It’s a modern Chanuka miracle.
In World War I when
the men returned from battle they discovered that the women had taken their
places in the factories and companies and the world changed never to go back. A
similar phenomena will occur after this war when the men will return and
discover that women know how to set the Shabbos clock by themselves!
OK so Bolivia has announced
that they are cutting off all Diplomatic ties with Israel as a result of the war
in Gaza. I’m happy to know if anyone has any recommendations where I can get salmonella,
herpes, cholerea, and chlamydia from drinking water from?
The answer to
this week”s question is C – Got this one totally
wrong. I probably would’ve skipped it as there are 5 questions you’re allowed
to skip on the exam. Architecture is not my strong point, Muslim architecture
even less so, and all of the different Muslim dynasties and their names and
years is perhaps the least interesting to me and I don’t know if I ever got it
straight. So the New Gate in Jerusalem I has no clue. I guessed 12th
century and the answer is 19th century. I probably should’ve gone
with that in the first place, as all of the old city walls really date back to
the Turks which only started after the 16th century. So that part
wasa wrong. The second part the truth is had I read the question correctly I
probably would’ve got it right. I got thrown off talking about Jerusalem and
thought it was asking about Al Aktza mosque on the Temple Mount and went with
Ayubbid. Only when I saw the answer did I realize they were talking about El
Jazzar in Akko, which in fact I did know as I guide a lot in Akko and El Jazzar
was there in the Turkish period. So anyways this one is totally wrong yet I’m
still ahead of the game with the new score being Rabbi Schwartz at 8.5
point and the MOT having 3.5 point on this latest Ministry of
Tourism exam.
