from the
Holy Land
from
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
"Your friend in Karmiel"
November 7th 2025 -Volume 15 Issue 3 16th of Cheshvan 5786
Influencers
It was easy in the old days back in the shtetl to find a job. They didn't need career coaches back then to figure it out. You had a few basic choices. Wagon driver, water carrier, milk man, blacksmith, a shopkeeper, a shoemaker, or street cleaner. If you made it big you were an innkeeper. Really big? A moneylender to the local poritz, who didn't always pay you. But that was pretty much it. Look at any old shtetl or Carlebach story. Am I missing out on something? Worse comes to worse if you didn't have any real skills, you became a "melamed" a cheder rebbi. Yeah… they didn't have options for people like me to be a Kollel/Kiruv Rabbi or Tour guide. I dunno what I would've done. Maybe a holy beggar or what we call today a fund raiser or a Chief development Officer.
Yet today there is a whole slew of brand-new career opportunities and options that never existed years ago. Most of them really don't even require many skills or even a higher education. Mayor of New York for example. Ouch! Sorry I couldn't let that slide. There are Life Coaches, you know those guys that can't figure out what to do with their own lives, so they get a job telling everyone else what to do. There are Gamers. Yup, people that get paid to play video games. Personal and Mystery Shoppers. You get paid to shop for someone else, or even yourself and just report what you bought. My wife would be good at that.
Another whole useless and probably one of the most lucrative careers out there in my opinion is Sports players. I'm not a Sports guy at all, and never have been. But I just can't wrap my brain on why and how someone should get paid millions and millions of dollars to kick a ball around a field, throw it in a hoop, or hit it with a bat. Forget about with a gold club, or tennis racket. Why do I want to watch that? Why is that fun or interesting? What positive and productive does Sports entertainment offer for society, besides as Rabbi Avigdor Miller once said, I believe, keeping scary looking big hoodlums off the streets and in an arena. Yet, it's a job and lucrative career that I think would be incomprehensible to anyone living a few hundred years ago if they'd come here into the future and look at our world.
Mashgiachs are a huge career and industry today. You basically just sit and watch that everything is kosher, and get lots of free food along the way. Nice. It's kind of what I used to do in yeshiva, when I got bored of learning, which happened a lot. Just hang out in the kitchen and eat. The truth is there are a lot of these food jobs that I don't get. Personal chefs? Why can't people cook their own food. Baristas? We can't even make our own coffee?! Why pay for a coffee when you can just pop into any good local shtible and pick one up for free or Thank Heaven for 7/11- which in my opinion is the best coffee and it's 99 cents. We've got more fast easy and cheap food then ever. Why are people paying so much and making careers out things that our Bubbies and Zayides are turning over in their graves watching us spend money. Like that pre-salted water for Pesach Seder, or sliced fruits in the store in a bag or carrot sticks. Really?!!
Yet perhaps the most mind-blowing major new career that to me is pretty wild and useless, but it seems to be seemingly very lucrative is the job called "Influencer". What is an influencer? It's somebody that has a lot of "followers" that have nothing better to do when they're sitting in the bathroom besides watch someone they don't know talk about their cat, their dinner, the restaurant, they're at, the store that they're buying their socks or stockings at, and their latest vacation.
Now if you would meet these people in the street and they started having this conversation with them and droning on about the lunch they made for themselves, I'm sure you would "remember" an important appointment you had to get to and dash out of there "apologetically". Yet, for some reason on that smart phone you just can't seem to get enough of just swiping through all of these annoying, self-absorbed people's lives. And many of them are actually career "influencers". They get paid talking about themselves and sharing this information. They get freebies all over. They even demand them, as if they were very important accomplished people who deserve stores and vendors to give them things for free. It's crazy, but yet it works. It's today's world. Or is it?
The truth is though this is not new. Really what this is, is something called Marketing. What is Marketing? It's basically getting your name and your brand and your product out there to the market. It's the Marlboro man. It's cool, reputable people that are using your product that other people want to be like and associate with. It's subtle product placement in TV shows. It's catchy songs. It's beautiful sunsets. It's a promise of soft smooth skin that will make you beautiful. It's selling the dream of a happy fulfilled life, if you only did what the pretty model in the commercial "influences" you to do and buy. It's called selling an alma d'shikra- selling a false dream, a world of falsehood, using cool ads, and seemingly "ordinary" people who are just like you sharing with you, how much their life has been enhanced by doing what they think you should be doing as well. By doing and buying what they're getting paid to sell you.
Yet the truth of the matter is, this last career job, that really seems to have taken off in the last decade or so-particularly in the frum world of "kosher" social media, is in fact perhaps one of the oldest careers in the world. It's actually biblical in nature. It's our job. It's why we were chosen. It's how we bring about the redemption. And it all starts with a man named Avraham; our elteh zaydie way back when in the times of the Torah.
See, when Hashem created the world in back in the Beginning, a few parshiyot ago, we're told there was one man. He had one commandment. If he would've gotten it right, the purpose of Creation would've been fulfilled. All would be good. Hashem, Whose only desire was and is to have a "dwelling place" a tzimmer, if you will down here on this world and to share it with mankind where we can walk together and hang out and He can give us the greatest kindness in the world of basking in His glory, would've been a reality. It would've been over. Yet, Adam sinned. He messed up. From there it was downhill. He had kids. It got worse. Mankind lost its way. They got sucked into false advertising. They lost it. Hashem wipes out the world with a flood and starts again with a man and a boat and a lot of animals.
With Noach once again the world has another chance. This time around we're not sharing the world with the animals. We realize we're higher than them. We can be better than them. We elevate the world. We can eat them. We're the influencers of Creation. Yet, that doesn't work well either. 1000 years later, we're back where we started. We forgot our mission. The world has gone downhill. Which brings us to Plan C. Influencers. One man, who will become one nation, who will teach and lead and influence the world and bring us all home. Hello, Avraham Avinu.
The job of Avram Avinu, isn't to just live a righteous life in "his generation" and be a tzadik. That was Plan B. That was Noach. That didn't work. That may have been nice and admirable for him, but frankly Hashem wasn't looking for just one man or one family that was frum. He wanted the whole world to get there with Him back in the garden. He needed someone who would be the "father of many nations". Avraham is named thus because there is nobody in our lives that has the power to influence us more than our father; our Av. It's aleph beis. The first two letters. It's where it and we all start from.
But as we see clearly from the two parshiyot, last week and this week of Avraham's life, his mission isn't a Jewish mission. It's a world mission. He comes to Israel, and then he's off right away to start bringing the Abraham accords to the world. He had started this job on his own back in Charan, but that was just practice. That was just tironut-boot camp, medical school, the workout gym. It's what chutz la'aretz always is and all it can be, until we come to the playing field, to the Olympics, the stadium, the battle zone. That's Eretz Yisrael. That's where the game starts and ends from. And thus Lech Lecha is where it all begins.
Once he's here though, he immediately heads out to Egypt. He's fighting World Wars. He's eradicating evil. He's teaching the world about Hashem. He's building altars and he doesn't stop posting on his spiritual social media. His Faithbook page was blowing up. He was Tik God-ding all over the place and he's getting more and more followers. His meaningful minutes are amazing. He talks about his struggles with having children. He has late night chulent farbrengens and onegs. Shabbatons. He's handing out H-phones to all of the soldiers and to everyone he meets. I-phones he teaches the world are for goyim, that are all about themselves. H-phones is talking to Hashem. It's about singing mizmor l'toda- songs of praise no matter what we go through. It's "od yoter tov". It's no yiush- no giving up hope. It's Hashem always loves me. He's with me. And the greatest thing in the world is to be close to Him. The worlds first important influencer is made and Hashem blessed him with fabulous wealth. Because he was worth it. He earned it. And most of all he knew how to use it.
Parshat Vayeira is the second and really last parsha and story of Avraham's life. Next week, Chayei Sarah and Toldos are his son's Yitzchak. Vayeitzei and Va'yishlach will be Yaakov's and the rest of the book will be the tribes; our family of influencers. The rest of the Torah will be us becoming that nation of influencers. The ones charged with elevating and inspiring the entire world. Yet, it all starts with Avraham. It's in this week's parsha that Hashem tells us Avraham that his job is not a personal career. It will be a family business and it will be a world mission. "Va'yera Hashem el Avraham." Hashem appears to Avraham. He appears to him right after Avraham signed in blood on the dotted line his contract with Hashem with his covenant and circumcision. Three days later his job and his latest contract and mission begin. It's erev Pesach. It's when our mission always begins.
Hashem tells him that he will have a son. It's a family business. It's a legacy that he's starting and He tells him that he's going to start from the bottom. He's job is to influence and take responsibility for the entire world. He's Hashem's partner. He's going to be His face in this world. And thus Hashem can't wipe out Sodom, until He runs it by His marketing man, His influencer, first.
Why? Because
(Bereishis 18:18 double chai!) Avraham will become a great and powerful nation, and all the nations of the world will be blessed in him.
The entire world will only be able to find their way to me through him. They will only be blessed if they seem him as their father.
Now what gave Avraham the skills for this job. What qualifications did he have? Why was he and we chosen?
(Ibid 19) For I have known him because he commands his sons and his household after him, that they should keep the way of Hashem to perform righteousness and justice, in order that Hashem bring upon Avraham that which He spoke concerning him.
And here, my friends, is the key to it all. In this confusing pasuk, that we need to dissect a bit.. Avraham was chosen it seems because he teaches his kids and household about righteousness and justice. OK. He's a good responsible parent that has important values that he wants to impart to his children. But here's the important part, what is the motivation for Avraham doing what he does? In order that Hashem brings goodness and blessing to Avraham. Strange, isn't it? The reason why Avraham is doing what he does, is not because of some self-less mission to spread Hashem to the world. It's not about even so that his children will have spiritually fulfilled and great lives. The reason why Avraham is doing what he's doing is because, it seems, from this verse, that Hashem will give him all the blessings He promised him. So that he gets big payout at the end… Hmmm… what's that all about?
I remember when I moved out to Norfolk, Virginia after my college campus kiruv stint for two years in Iowa. It was kind of like Avraham Avinu leaving Charan and moving to the Holy Land, or at least the next frontier. I was hired to start an outreach Kollel of three other Rabbis that I had a grant to hire to transform the city that had been growing in their yiddishkeit. Having never done something like this before administratively I sought guidance from other Rosh Kollels as to how to best go about doing this. What type of guys should I be looking to hire? Do I want the most knowledgeable? The most spiritual and god-fearing? Maybe, I need people that have good personalities. That are educated. That are sociable. Are creative. Outgoing? Do I want Baalei Teshuva who themselves have undergone this journey of spiritual growth and change? Should they be college educated so people could respect and relate them. I mean I knew that their wives had to be able to make a good chulent, but what other important criterion would and should I be looking for?
I'll never forget what one very smart successful Rosh Kollel told me. He said that all of those above listed criteria are all irrelevant. None of them really make much of a difference. They're all nice and wonderful things, but they're just icing on the cake. There really is only one thing that is important for someone to be a successful Kiruv outreach professional. To be a Hashem influencer. Only one thing that I need to be looking for. That is…. Someone who is really and sincerely happy with their Judaism and their Torah way of life and they are able to exude that joy outwards to others. That's all that counts. That's all that matters. Everything else is just whipped cream.
Now he cautioned me that guys like that are not easy to find. Unfortunately, there aren't too many like that out there. So, the next best thing, he told me, is someone that can at least fake it really good. Ouch! Yeah… So much for our yeshiva and Orthodox Chariedi chinuch system.
But the truth is he's a hundred percent correct. And that's what Hashem reveals to us in the reason why He chose Avraham. Why He chose us, his descendants to be His ambassadors to the world. His influencers. He chose Avraham because Avraham was someone that didn't teach down to people, telling them about the things they need to do make themselves better. Rather he taught them by example. Showing them how everything that he did was because he felt that joy, that meaning, that fulfilment and blessing in his own life. He influenced people when they saw and appreciated how despite all of the challenges, the hardships, the kidnapping of his family members, the wars, the struggles, the moving, the anti-Semitism and even the incomprehensible tests and sacrifices that would be demanded of him and that he had to undergo. He wouldn't trade any of it for a second. Life was too good. It was all good. There was nothing better he could want.
I think that there's something that's amazing and telling about this generation that we are in today and this new phenomena of social media and influencers. The world is looking to be influenced. They're hungry. They're thirsty.
Lo ra'av la'lechem, v'lo tzama la'mayim- it's not a hunger for bread, water, or even chulent and certainly not meatboards.
Ki im li'shmoa es dvar Hashem. The world wants to hear the word of Hashem.
They want His posts. They want His truth. They want to be fulfilled, meaningful, in the Garden again. This is not only in the Jewish world. It's in all mankind. And what's fascinating is that they are all tuning into our channel. They're all reading our "story". They're looking and scrolling down our page. Our job, our real only Divine occupation are to be the one's that step up to the plate and share with them the beauty of our lives. But to do that we need to feel it ourselves. We need to pass that down to our children as the things that have meaning to us. It's not hard to do. What it takes is getting off of all of their fake news media. It's seeing the false hood, the misery, the emptiness of the world of falsehood. And then finding the joy and fulfillment that can only be found in our books of truth. In a lifestyle with Hashem. Together with Him in His country that he first brought Avraham to. It's the only platform that supports that real deep essence and internal happiness. It's the only place where the message can come out from. It's time to get online. It's time to link in. It's time get the only "Real" job we were ever given.
Have a perfectly amazing Shabbos,
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
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YIDDISH PROVERB OF THE WEEK
“Az s’iz nito in top, a nito in teller." If there’s nothing in the pot, there’s nothing on the plate.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM QUESTION OF THE WEEK
answer below at end of Email
6. The largest concentration of hiding complexes from the time of the Bar Kokhba revolt is
located in the geographical area called ___________
The city of Zippori was the center of activity of which of the following figures?
A. Rabbi Yehuda (Judah) ha-Nasi
B. Josephus
C. Rabbi Akiva
D. Eleazar of Modi'im
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S COOL VIDEO OF THE WEEK
https://soundcloud.com/ephraim-schwartz/hinei-lo-yanum-israel – WOahh!!! Hot OFF THE PRESS Another amazing new composition of mine.! This one is for all my friends in New York and NJ after the bad and scary news about your new elected officials… Don't worry. Hinei Lo Yanum. Shomer Yisrael… Amazing arrangements, hook, and vocals by the one and only Dovid Lowy.. what a song!
https://on.soundcloud.com/cEeqiAvnM3Ine5wZOf - And if you missed out last week on my other Latest Composition and the best most fun song you will sing this Shabbos and every parshat Noach at least with your kids at your meal. Yona Motza! Great arrangements and vocals by Dovid Lowy and you MUSt Listen until the very shticky ending!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ3q-X70jZs – Joey Newcomb's latest in honor of Reb Shlomo's Yartzeit yesterday… whada song.. holy of Holiest… Back to Mt. Sinai.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-wcK5y5vzw – A brand new recently discovered Carlebach niggun… Wow… V'Taheir Libenu
…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVaw_S5zA-U –I can't get enough of this Medley. It's the greatest stroll down memory lane Miami Boys Choir singers back then and today singing the same songs.. Awesome!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0bkXGN8BdM – Eitan Katz does it again with such a pretty Kavei El Hashem brand new release… almost as nice as mine..:)
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S ERA’S AND THEIR PLACES AND PEOPLE IN ISRAEL OF THE WEEK
I Had a Dream- 580 BC – So after the great miracle that Nevuchadnezzar witnessed with Chananya Mishael and Azarya being saved from the fiery furnace he cast them in. And Nevuchadnezzar 's great song and praise to Hashem, much like Pharaoh he went back to his stubborn egotistical ways. But Hashem wasn't letting up. This was going to go the endgame. And thus he gave Nevuchadnezzar a dream. The Navi tells us about this dream that he had in the form of a letter that Nevuchadnezzar writes describing it. It's "I had a dream" moment. And it's a fascinating one and message for our time as well.
In his dream he describes a huge tree that went up to the heavens and that could be seen all across the world. It was laden with all types of delicious fruits that could feed all of mankind. All the wild beasts took shelter under its shade and all the birds of the world could nest and sing in its branches. And then an angel came down from heaven and chopped down the tree, scattered all its fruit and knocked off all its branches and bound its roots down to the grass in iron shackles. It's heart and core would be turned into that of a wild beast and it would remain like that for 7 years. Boom!
Boker Tov! Nevuchadnezzar freaked out… What does this mean? What is the message? Baruch Hashem he had a handy prophet called Daniel on hand who was quickly brought in to interpret the dream and tell him what it meant. Once again the connections here between Pharaoh and his dreams are pretty amazing.
Daniel told Nevuchadnezzar that the tree who had risen so greatly was in fact himself. He had made himself too big. He forgot Hashem. He needed to be humbled. The world needed him to recognize where his power and greatness came from. From Hashem the King of all Kings. As a result of that he would be exiled, himself. He would live like a beast in the field. They would eat his flesh. He would be rained on, and eat grass and dirt, until he gets the point. There is good news though. The roots will still be there. He will be able to rise again. He can do teshuva. It may take him 7 years, but in the end if he will recognize and acknowledge Hashem, he will regain his office. He will be "re-elected" for a second mandate. And he will rule once again, but this time in the name of Hashem.
The dream was fulfilled, Nevuchadnezzar writes. Word for word, for 7 years he was exiled. He came back home and took his throne and recognized Hashem and he died in a state of teshuva.
We live in a world with egotistical leaders. They have ups and downs in their faith in Hashem. They have dreams of grandeur and of Nobel Prizes and legacies, dynasties and world recognition from the idols and statues they make for themselves. Our job is to direct those dreams, not to bow down to their statues. To tell them the truth. To tell them what happens if they don't recognize it. To tell them how to bring the redemption to the world. Nevuchadnezzar is our first national entrance to Galus. His end is the way that all galuses must end. With us interpreting and directing their dreams. With the name of Hashem being blessed on their lips.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TERRIBLE INFLUENCER JOKES OF THE WEEK
What do pimples and social media influencers have in common? They both start off small, randomly grow huge, explode, then leave a nasty scar until one day we forget they were ever there.
What's the difference between a social media influencer and a philosophy major? The philosophy major needed a degree to be useless.
I'm not sure where all the racist antisemitic influencers are going to go when social media platforms kick them off. They can't all go to Congress.
How much does an Influencer weigh? An Instagram.
Do you remember how before social media nobody cared what, where and with whom you ate?
Still nobody cares.
What did the French army general do on social media? Retweet!
What do you call an influencer with the corona virus? An influenzer But only if it goes viral...
Did you hear about the influencer who became a suicide bomber? At first he had barely any followers, but then he blew up.
A new Jewish social media site is sweeping over college campuses. Mysafespace.
For a while now, I always wondered how my parents passed the time in the 80’s and 90’s without social media. I asked my 32 other siblings and they’ve got no idea either. (Ouch!)
whats the difference between a social media influencer and a bench? One can support a family.
Someone people are good-looking enough for others to assume they must be an Instagram influencer...People take one look at me and assume I have reddit.
Facebook wants to know "What's on my mind?"
Twitter wants to know "What's happening?"
Google wants to know "Where I am?"
Siri/Alexa wants me to "Say something"!
The internet is turning into an online wife!
The influencer was diagnosed with paranoia. He believed nobody was following him.!.
Why do Instagram influencers enjoy shopping at Walmart so much? They just can't get enough of the self-checkout.
Three Instagram influencers walk into a bar. ...I know this because I just saw their story.
Yankel asked his just graduated granddaughter, Shaindy "So what will you do for a living now that you earned your bachelor's degree?"
Shaindy "I'm a frum model during the week, I'm a sing in the women's group and an influencer by contract.
Yankel: Don't worry Mamaleh.. I remember when I just graduated I was also unemployed, be patient
How does a Muslim influencer wish for sponsored posts? Installah
My doctor refuses to post my diagnosis to social media...He says my disease is untweetable...
I hate it when people outright copy and paste somebody's joke on Twitter and post it on a different social media platform. Retweet if you agree
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The answer to this week”s question is A – This one was easy. I've done the Bar Kochva caves a lot in the Beit Shemesh/Lachish/ Shefela Judean lowlands area region. As well In the past three weeks I've been to Tzippori at least 3 or 4 times and of course it's where Rebbi Yehuda Hanasi lived and wrote much of the Mishna. So got this one right and the new score is Rabbi Schwartz having a 5 point and the MOT having 1 point on this latest Ministry of Tourism exam.
