Insights and Inspiration
from the
Holy Land
from
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
"Your friend in Karmiel"
June 7th 2025 -Volume 14 Issue 30 10th of Sivan 5785
Shavuos is over. There's a lot of extra cheese cake sitting in my fridge. I like cheese cake. I like it a lot. In fact, it's probably my favorite cake. I'm not big on creamy, cakey cakes or even gooey, chocolatey ones. I like my protein, preferably very sweet and with a graham crackery crust with crumbs on top of it. At least that's the way I like it when there's no dead warm blooded animal alternatives around and Ben and Jerry's for dessert. Now although since my surgery I really can't eat much, my eyes still want what they want and I still buy those things that I like as I used to in the good old 275 lb. Rabbi Schwartz bottomless stomach days. Yet, when it came down to it… my eyes don't really eat much. And it turns out that besides my Berger children and twin bottomless pit grandchildren, the rest of the extended Schwartz family didn't really do much serious cheesecake damage over the holiday. So, there's lots left. And there's really no one too much at home these days to eat it.
Now leftover cheesecake is certainly better than leftover matza lasagna after Pesach, latkas and even doughnuts after Chanuka, and hamantashen after Purim. It's cheesecake after-all. And Shavuos, at least for us good Jews living in Eretz Yisrael where Hashem wants us to, is only a one-day Yom Tov. Not like for the bad Jews, in case you didn't get the subtle arrogant swipe, whom Hashem punishes with a two-day Yom Tov (check out the Yerushalmi Eiruvin 3:9). It's not seven or eight days like the other holidays over which you eventually get sick of the holiday fare. But still it's sitting there in my fridge looking at me pathetically.
The praline cheese cake, the Dubai one, the caramel coated one with oreos on it. They have this look like they're asking me what they did wrong in a previous life to not merit to get eaten in Shavuos. How it got stuck in the house of a really excited Rabbi with a stomach the size of an egg that can't take more than a few bites. They had heard about Schwartz in shamayim a few years ago and how all the good food wanted to end up on my plate. But they missed the boat. They came down too late to my plate. And now they feel like spoiled chopped liver. Like leftover chulent. What will be their fate?
Well, cheesecake, I've got good news for you. I saw an incredible insight from Rav Moshe Shapiro that pretty much takes care of you. See, you're lucky. You can still be great. You can even be greater than a regular cheesecake. In fact, the Talmud tells us that you can become like a sacrifice on the altar of the Temple. How does that work? I see you're getting all creamy and mushy just thinking about it… Well let's find out.
The Talmud in Sukka sheds new light on to a verse that we sing at the end of Hallel on Yom Tov.
Kel Hashem va'yaer lanu- Hashem is our God and He shines light upon us
isru chag ba'avosim ad karnos ha'mizbayach- tie the holiday with ropes to the corners of the altar.
The gemara tells us, and Rashi explains, that anyone that binds the holiday with good food afterwards it's as if he built an altar and brought a sacrifice on it. In the words of Rav Shapiro, in all of our prayers we ask that Hashem should give us the merit to bring sacrifices on an altar once again in Yerushalayim. Well, now you can. All you have to do is eat that left over cheesecake right after the holiday and it's as if you're in the Beit Hamikdash bringing a sacrifice…mamash! Cool, right? How you feeling about that cheesecake now?
But what does that really mean? I would think that binding myself to the holiday would be to take the messages those holidays are meant to convey to us on a spiritual level. Pesach is freedom, miracles, redemption, Sukkos, faith in Hashem, clouds of protection, lulav etrog, unity. Shavuos is Torah, Divine revelation, Chosen-ness of our nation. Cheesecake? Leftover Pesach cakes? Matza lasagna? Latkas? Post-holiday food leftovers don't really seem to be that spiritual? How are they altars?
Perhaps out of all of the holidays Shavuos is the one that we can best appreciate this concept. See, all other holidays are quite long. Shavuos though is really only the one day. As well, all other holidays have all types of rituals and symbols. Sukkos is packed with sukka, schach the four species, Hoshanas, simchas bais Ha'Shoevas. Pesach you have the cleaning, the matza, the burning, Seder, maror, korech and afikoman. Shavuos though really doesn't have anything besides the fact that it's a holiday. In fact, Rav Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev once explained that is why it's called Atzeret- which means stop. The only thing that even makes it a holiday is that there's a prohibition to do work. It doesn't have anything else to it.
Even more fascinating is that Shavuos doesn't really have a date to it. According to the Talmud it can sometimes fall out on the 6th of Sivan or the 7th of Sivan. The Torah doesn't even tell us when the Torah was given. All it tells us is that the date the Jews came to Sinai on the month of Sivan. It lets us figure out the rest. It comes after the counting of 49 days from the 2nd day of Pesach when we bring the Omer offering. But it's not a day in of itself. Truth is, it doesn't really even have a name for itself. It's just called weeks, after the 7 weeks that preceded it and we counted the Omer from Pesach
It's not just the lack of date, rituals or even special occasion alone though. Startlingly, the mountain itself where the Torah was given doesn't really have any significance to it either. Mt. Sinai or Jabbel Musa as it's known in the Sinai desert isn't a mountain that most people visit. There's no shul there. Reb Shayaleh sees more people each year in Kersiter then the mountain where Hashem revealed Himself to the world on and gave us the Torah. That's pretty strange. So if you think about it, the holiday of Shavuos doesn't really exist in time, in place, or in rituals or mitzvos. Out of all of the other holidays of a biblical orientation and even of a rabbinic one, like Chanuka or Purim, it's probably the least celebrated by marginally observant Jews, despite the fact that it would seem that it should be the most significant.
On the other hand, Shavuos is a holiday that one of the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe's once said has the longest "chol ha'moed" intermediate days. Because despite the fact that it is only a one-day holiday, yet that holiday continues and really concludes 120 days later when the second tablets were given on Yom Kippur. On Shavuos we got the Torah, 40 days later, on the 17th of Tamuz, Moshe came down while we were worshipping the golden calf and broke the tablets. 40 days after that, he went up to beg forgiveness on Rosh Chodesh Elul and 40 days after that we were given the second tablets and were atoned for on Yom Kippur. That's the end and conclusion of Shavuos when the final Torah giving concluded. 120 days.
Now this is not just externalities about that are unique about this holiday. There is a law is and even a common custom that for the entire week after Shavuos, many if not most people would bring their holiday sacrifices that could still be brought and that they didn't bring for whatever reason on the holiday itself. It's why until today we don't say tachanun in our morning prayers this week. Because the holiday on some level really is still continuing. We go to work. We drive. We tour. We make money. We wear shorts and a T-Shirt. Yet at the same time we would go to the Temple and bring our holiday sacrifice as if it was still chag? How does that work?
Rav Shapiro explains that there is a difference between Shabbos and Yom Tov. Shabbos we are told is me'ein olam ha'bah-it's a small taste, 1/60th, of what the World to Come experience will be like. It's another world. It's a world that follows this world. It's a different plane of existence. It's a world without work and toil. It's where we just bask in the glory of Hashem revealed. Yom Tov, on the other hand, is a taste of the Messianic period- yemos ha'Mashiach. That is the era that precedes the World to Come. When Mashiach comes, hopefully soon, the world will continue to function in the same way as it is today pretty much, we will just have a bais ha'mikdash. We will have world peace. We will have more opportunities to connect to Hashem and study Torah. We will have a king and the knowledge of Hashem's truth and light will be spread throughout the world as the world comes to bask in our glory as His chosen nation of priests and connectors for them to the Shechina. But everything else will be pretty much the same. Yom Tov is a taste of that experience. It's a day when we can cook, we can bake, when all travel to Jerusalem and celebrate there with song and music.
That being the case, Shabbos is not really a day that we can shlep into this world. When Shabbos is over, it's over. We take strength and comfort in its memory. We eagerly await the next Shabbos when we can again leave this world and taste the next one. Yom Tov on the other hand has the ability to be pulled into this world. In fact, our job is to bring Yom Tov into the world and our lives that are otherwise chol- mundane and unspiritual. We should live every day with that sense of Messianic times. We are meant to await it eagerly and feel it here and now.
How do we do that? By eating cheesecake. By tasting that flavor of Mashiach's times that we experienced over Yom Tov the day after, the week after, the next months after. Because Mashiach's time is not another existence. It's meant to be our lives with the knowledge of Hashem and His revelation in our day to day lives, today. In our eating, in our work, our planting, our growing, our reaping, our harvesting and our touring. When we taste that Yom Tov food after Yom Tov, when we bring that holiday sacrifice in our weekday clothing, then what we are saying is that we're really building the Temple now and here in this world we are living in. We are feeling Your presence in what still from the outside looks and feels like galus, but in fact it can still taste like yom tov we just left.
The parsha that we read after Shavuos on most years, including this one, is Naso. It continues the count of the Jewish people. The word Naso, though doesn't just mean count. It means lift up. This whole count thing is very strange as most of the commentaries note. If Hashem knows how many Jews there are, then why make us go through the trouble of counting? By the tribe of Levi, whom are counted from the age of 30 days it's even more bizarre. Rashi tells us Moshe would just stand outside of the tent and a voice would come down from heaven and tell him how many babies were in each tent, so as not to disturb the mothers. What's the point? Seemingly Hashem knows how many there are, so why make him shlep and count them all.
As well counting doesn't seem to be a very uplifting experience. You're one, you're two, you're three, you're 3264 and you're 599,748. It's like when you count for a minyan and we used to say not-one not-two, not- three, as they taught us that it's a bad omen to count Jews. Why is the Torah's word for this census described as Naso?
(By the way someone told me this week that the new way of counting to ten for a minyan is no longer using the 10 words of the verse "Hoshiya es amecha…" or even the blessing of Ha'Motzi rather it is "1)Hashem 2)Yitbarach 3)tamid 4)ohev 5)oti 6)v'tamid 7) yi'yeh 8) li 9)rak 10)tov and then when you have more then ten you just continue and say od yoter tov and od yoter tov… cute!)
The answer, like most Jewish questions, is that one question answers the other. Do you know when it's an uplifting experience to be counted? It's precisely when the counter knows and you know He knows the count already beforehand. Imagine you have a minyan and then the Rabbi goes over to every person after the davening and tells them. You are number one for our minyan today. You are number two. You are number three. Do you know why he's doing that? He's not counting the minyan. He's telling each person there how important they are and were for that minyan. How holy they are. They made the count. They brought down the Shechina. They're the ones that made and make the shul. If a father, who usually knows at least how many children he has- although he may not get all of their names straight, goes over to each of his children and tells them You're my first, and you're my second, and you're my third and counts them again and again. They all know that he knows how many children they are. What they see is that he sees them and counts them just to uplift them. To show them how important they are. To teach them that they all count. That the family is not complete without them.
The parsha of Naso contains in it all types of Jews, the impure, the sinners, the wayward wives, and the Nazirs, as well as the priests and the princes of each tribe. Each Jew, at whatever different level. This is not the otherworldly nation of Hashem that stood on Sinai and whose neshomas left our bodies as we heard the word of Hashem. We saw sound and heard lights…and that for a brief moment tasted the World to Come. Tasted a world that's not here. That's beyond time and space, and calendar dates and even rituals and mitzvos. That's what matan torah was. It was a moment outside of this world. It actually even took place on Shabbos. It was Olam Habah, which is why we actually even left this world.
Rather in our parsha post-Sinai and Shavuos, we find ourselves a nation that's living back in this world. That has desires that are some times misplaced. That sin, that fall, that fail, that have temptations that have to sometimes develop ways to rise up against them and keep them in check. The post-Shavuos reading is a cheesecake reading. It's taking that Yom Tov experience, the eating and drinking that we did on the holiday, and bringing it back so I can get uplifted in this world. So that I can taste Mashiach in a world with challenges and failures and sins. But understanding that we can rise up. That we count still. That we have a number. That we are uplifted.
It's very cool that there is one other parsha in the Torah that has the root word Naso, to lift up or count, in its title. It's Parshas Ki Tisa. The parsha that contains the story of our nation from after Sinai through the debacle and sin of the Golden calf and that concludes on Yom Kippur when Hashem forgives us with the second tablets. It's the end of the 120 days that started with Shavuot. It's a parsha of yemos ha'mashiach; of a world that realizes us and our sins and tells us that we are still loved. We still count. We can still be uplifted. Do you know what the conclusion of that story and narrative is right after the golden calf in Ki Tisa? Get ready… It's cheesecake.
Yup, right after that the Torah tells us of the mitzva to enter the land, to come three times a year and have holidays. I want to see your face. I want you to see Mine. Eat matza. Bring the first fruits on Shavuos and your first animals to Hashem. Work for six days and don't plow on Shabbos. Live in this world and enjoy this world and uplift it. It's Mashiach's times. And finally
"Don't cook a goat in it's mother's milk".
Eat cheesecake. Ok it doesn't really say eat cheesecake, but some of the commentaries explain that the reason why we eat cheesecake on Shavuos is because the Jews didn't have the ability or time to kosher their vessels and slaughter animals that first Shabbos when we got the Torah. Afterall we only became Jewish five minutes before. The only thing we could eat was milchigs. Cheesecake.
According to others the reason why we eat cheesecake is because it’s the first time we ever really drank milk. See, since milk comes from a living animal and it's forbidden to eat anything from a living animal. The prohibition of eiver min ha'chai is a Noachide law they were prohibited in eating, drinking seemingly anything that came from an animal while it still breathed before it was killed or slaughtered. It's only after the Torah was given when Hashem revealed to us that milk was permitted. The Talmud actually derives that law from the pasuk that describes Eretz Yisrael as an Eretz zavas chalav u'dvash- a land that is flowing with milk and honey. Only then did we found out we could even drink milk! So they had cheesecake to celebrate! The last source for this delicious Shavuos staple to make this even more fun the Zohar writes that each one of the 365 days of the year corresponds to a corresponding negative commandment in the Torah. Guess which one the holiday of Shavuos is? Yup milk and meat. Goats and mother's milk. It's why we eat one flayshig meal and one milchig one, to show that we eat them separate. Cheesecake altars…
Cheesecake and Shavuos are intertwined and baked together. Is there anything that you have better in your fridge right now then that leftover cheesecake? That's not cheesecake after Yom Tov, it's a taste of Mashiach. It's tying ourselves to that Sinai experience and bringing it into our real world. Our world of Sotahs, of impurity, of mistakes, of wars, of soldiers, of politicians, of Jews not yet living in Eretz Yisrael. It's saying I haven't koshered all my "keilim" yet. But yet, I still am uplifted. I still count. I'm heading to Yom Kippur. I'm bringing a cheesecake offering and building a temple within me.
Naso concludes with the sacrifices of the dedication of the Mishkan by the nesi'im- the princes of each tribe. Did you hear that word? Nasi is Naso. It's the people whose job is to count the ones in their tribe and lift them up. They each bring an identical sacrifice on the outside and yet each one sees in it a unique meaning and message. How appropriate that they did that, as their job is as well to be the "Nasi" of each Jew in their tribe. To see them as one and yet at the same time to look beneath the surface and see each one's hidden spark. Their inner cheesecake. Their holiness of the days of Mashiach. That's how the Temple was inaugurated and the Shechina came down. That's how it will be again in this Messianic era we are entering and tasting. May our cheesecake offering merit us so that we may we as well very soon bring those real sacrifices as well.
Have an delicious Shabbos,
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
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YIDDISH PROVERB OF THE WEEK
" Mit shnei ken men nit makhn gomolkhes.." .- You can’t make cheesecakes out of snow.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM QUESTION OF THE WEEK
answer below at end of Email
20. Which sea does the Amud stream (Nahal Amud) flow into? ______
What is common to the types of springs we refer to as “Maayan Shekva” and “Maayan He’etek in
Hebrew?
A. Both derive from the point of contact between a permeable layer and an impermeable layer
B. Both are the result of a geological fracture which exposes the aquifer
C. Both are only found in the Dead Sea Rift Valley due to the Syrian-African Rift
D. Both flow only when the water level reaches a certain height in the
rock cavity
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S COOL VIDEO OF THE WEEK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCAXg6Qu4SA - Benny Friedman and Joey Newcomb's latest colab… lively Freilach all the Time!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDINBV_N8t8 – Lipa and Jerusalme Choir Aliya La'Torah awesome…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MesGkUotmHI - So excited Eitan Katz has a new album… Here's the teasers…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIVEyPHHb0w – Gorgeous Shweky V'Seiaarev Yitz Waldner song really really nice…Watch out Rechnitz….
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S ERA’S AND THEIR PLACES AND PEOPLE IN ISRAEL OF THE WEEK
586 BC -Siege- With the last hope of Egypt coming to our rescue down the tubes, the Siege and famine on Jerusalem began to take hold. If you think Gaza looks bad… there was no one sending in humanitarian aid back then to us. In fact quite the opposite. The general Nevuzadran, who was ordered by Nevuchadnezzar to destroy the city, made sure that we would collapse. Not only was food not allowed in to the walled city of Yerushalayim, but he would daily roast animals outside of the walls increasing the hunger inside. Kind of like the BBQ's we make for our soldiers today.
Inside the walls as the Torah predicts in the curses we just read before Shavuos, parents started to kill their children and eat them. There is nothing more primordial then the need for food and the suffering of starvation. Story after story, family after family suffered from this brutal hunger. As well, one needs to understand that Jerusalem was where the besser mentchen lived. It was the upper class of Israel, and with the starvation and poverty their entire existence fell apart and they were not built or made for such conditions.
Nevuzadran himself, the Talmud tells us was nervous of his ability to conquer the city of Hashem. He was scared the nation would do teshuva and then he would suffer and lose like Sancherev before him did. He even made sure to kill and disturb anyone he thought would be davening. Yet, it seems he had nothing to fear. As the end of the three year siege approached he started to measure the walls of Jerusalem and he noticed that they were sinking each day down and down. This was sign from Hashem that the destruction was imminent. On the 9th day of Tamuz the walls finally came tumbling down. The city was breached. Even then according to many they did not yet enter the city. It's why the fast day is on the 17th of Tamuz rather than the 9th day. Others suggest that they did in fact even enter on the 9th, yet since by the second temple it took place on the 17th and that was a day that had many tzoris like the golden calf, so the fast was pushed off until then.
With the walls breached the period of the three week massacre until the 9th of Av begins. The era of the once glorious first temple of Shlomo Ha'Melech is almost over. Our first national exile is soon to begin.
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S CHEESECAKE JOKES OF THE WEEK
An ice cream, a creme brulee, and a slice of cheesecake joined the army, but they abandoned their fellow soldiers on their first deployment. They are wanted for desertion
You know what they say about New York Cheesecake? If you can bake it there, you can bake it anywhere.
I am passing this on to you because it definitely worked for me. We all could use more calm in our lives. By following the simple advice I heard on a Dr. Phil show, I have finally found inner peace.
Dr. Phil proclaimed the way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you have started. So, I looked around my house to see things I started, and hadn't finished; and, before leaving the house this morning, I finished off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of Scotch, a package of Oreo's, a pot of coffee, the rest of the Cheesecake, some Saltines, and a box of Godiva Chocolates.
You have no idea how amazingly good I feel.
What is a cheesecake’s favorite app? Insta-gram cracker
.
Every year I like to share my easy shmeezy best cheesecake recipe with only 4 ingredients. 1) keys 2) car 3) wallet 4) Bakery
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The answer to this week”s question is ? Ok This was a very cheap one… See, the first part was easy. I know Nachal Amud purs into the Kinneret from up by Meron. Ive hiked it a bunch of times. It's nice. The second part thought threw me. I thought there were a few answers that were common to both springs. I went with the Geological one of C. But the truth is all the answers were correct. But I didn't know and don't remember them ever letting you give an all of the above choice. But hey… I'll take the hit and lets make it 50/50 So the score is. Rabbi Schwartz 12.5 Ministry of Tourism 7.5 on this exam so far, which should me back in passing range.
