Insights and Inspiration
from the
Holy Land
from
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
"Your friend
in Karmiel"
April 23rd 2021 -Volume 11 Issue 28 11th
Iyar 5781
Parshat Acharey Mos- Kedoshim
I'm not thinking of changing careers. I love tour guiding, I love being a
Rabbi and I love writing. Hopefully this Corona thing will be over soon and I
can go back once again as I did in the past. Yeah, I know that I, as well as
everyone, never dreamed it could last this long. But Hashem has His plan, and he
wanted me to have a year off-a shemitta year if you will; although now
we've entered into tosefeset shemitta time frame (that's the overlap
that goes into the year following the sabbatical year). But I'm still not
changing jobs. Once you're doing what you love for too long… it's hard to find
anything else that even comes close.
No, it wasn't any earnest desire to find out what else I might be qualified
for that motivated me to click on that link in my E-Mail to take a quick career
quiz. It was merely boredom and curiousity. Can they really peg me in 15 or 20
questions or so? Are there other job options out there that might give me the
same inspiration? So I gave it a try. I didn't like what it said. So I googled
and found another quiz and tried that one. I didn't like what that one said
either. Nor the next 6 that I spent the next hour taking. Hmmm…I really do have
too much time on my hand, maybe I should get a job? But these quizzes were certainly not the
solution. I don't care how many quizzes tell me I should be an Environmental
Health officer, Dietician, Credit adviser or get this … Driving instructor. Is there anyone out there that thinks that is
me? Who writes these things anyways? One of the quizzes did say I would make a
great Senator. Which I guess in Israel the equivalent would be running for
Knesset. I'm not taking that as a compliment either… I'll stick with my
unemployed day job thank you…
I recently did a great tour for Mishpacha
on the Sanhedrin trail (check out the link below). One of the exciting
discoveries along that site in the Mishnaic city of Usha that I wrote about was
the solving of the riddle of what the job of one of the Tanaim, Reb Yitzchak
Nafcha was. See, the last name Nafcha could either be translated as glassblower
or blacksmith. Interestingly enough tools for both vocations were found. So I
guess we'll have to wait for Eliyahu Ha'navi or the techiyat ha'meisim-resurrection
to ask him personally.
But that tour got me thinking about the
different careers our sages in the time of the Mishna took for themselves. See,
back then, certainly according to the Rambam, almost all of the sages worked
for a living. It was pretty rare for the average yeshiva guy to sit and learn
as a career. Bills had to be paid, food had to be put on the table and in fact
most of them (again according to the Rambam at least) felt it was more
honorable to be supporting themselves than to rely on the community or family
members to support them. No one made jokes back then like the one I heard last
week. What's the difference between a Yeshiva guy and a cell phone? A cellphone
comes with a plan! Ouch! Ouch! And Ouch again!!!
But that's really not the point I'm
trying to make either. Today it's a different world perhaps, different
opportunities and each generation has its Torah leaders to guide us as to what
we are meant to be doing. Rather my point is that the fact that Chazal feel
it's important to share with us what various jobs each particular Rabbi had is also
Torah. As much as we can learn about our Rabbis from their personal teachings
and dictums particularly of Pirkey Avot that we learn this time of year, we also
can learn and appreciate who they were based on their chosen occupations. Certainly
as a tour guide who takes people to graves of tzadikim I believe that
part of that pilgrimage and the prayers we say to Hashem we recite at these
holy sites is to connect to the personality of the specific tzadik and
their inspiration. If we don't do that than we may as well just daven in shul
or at the Kotel. So I always try to look for angles, anecdotes and teachings to
share with my tourists and what better place to start then with their career
choices.
This week we read the parshiyot of
Acharey Mos and Kedoshim. The old yeshivish joke is that when someone is alive
there are always people that will try to knock them. After they die though- acharey
mos- they become kedoshim- holy people we forget all of the past.
There is certainly an element of truth to that. As well, by the Torah
introducing the laws of the Yom Kippur service with these words and the
recounting of the death of Aharon's children, our Rabbis derive that the death
of the righteous and the learning from their lives can serve as much of an
atonement as Yom Kippur can. It's the reason why we recall the 10 martyrs who
were killed in the period of the Mishna as part of our Yom Kippur davening. And
it is perhaps why as well this parsha is followed with the laws of forbidden
relations and all of the basic mitzvos recounted in parshat Kedoshim in the
second parsha. It's the simple mitzvos, actions, and everyday observant
lifestyle of our tzadikim that we are meant to learn from and become Kedoshim
ourselves.
Two of the most famous and greatest of
our Rabbis were Hillel and Shamai. Their disputes are legendary, the differences
in their personalities are discussed in various places in the Talmud and their
students were the future leaders of the Jewish people. Although they both lived
at the end of the period of the second Beit HaMikdash, they set the tone and direction
for the nation for the next 2000 years, placing Torah study as the central
focal point of the Jewish people rather than the Temple and its service which
by their era was already in serious spiritual decline. In essence that legacy
of theirs is what has kept us a nation in our Exile through the persecution and
dispersion we suffered to all corners of the earth. Who were these great men
and what did they do for a living?
Now some of you may be familiar with
Hillel's occupation from the famous story in the Talmud of how he was a
woodchopper who would bring half his earnings to pay for entrance to the Beit
Midrash. Remember how he didn't have money once and he climbed up on the roof
and almost froze to death under the snow trying to listen in to the Torah
discourse? I just want to focus on the part of that story that gets glossed
over. He was a lumberjack, as we called it back in the day. Y'know, with those
flannel plaid red and black shirts and overalls with an axe slung over his
shoulder. Think Jewish Paul Bunyan. Lumberjacks are not small people. I hate to
shatter that image of Hillel as this long white bearded short skinny frail
Rabbi. He wasn't. He climbed up a roof, because he could and figured he
wouldn't die. I don't do that and that's even before Corona had me sitting on a
couch for a year.
Shammai, on the other hand was in a
decidedly more Jewish occupation. He was in the "cunstrukshin bizness"
as my friends in "Muhnsey" like to call it. He was a builder.
Now I'm sure like most Jews in the field, he didn't actually do the manual
labor part. He contracted and oversaw. Yet, I do believe that it's important to
recognize and appreciate that Chazal tell us these occupations to let us know
that they had, what my mother would call, "Day Jobs". They 'woiked'
for a living.
There's an even deeper reason, though,
why we are meant to know what each their occupations were. As all these quizzes
on the internet and the entire industry of coaches and guidance counselors show
us, our jobs fit our personality types. On an even deeper and more spiritual
level, the jobs that we do should reflect and connect with the essence of each
of our souls. Hashem gave each of us kochos ha'nefesh- inner strengths
and natural skills. The successful person finds the job that maximizes, develops
and utilizes those skills. Hillel and Shamai were certainly successful. So to
understand them, let's understand the skills and differences between the
lumberjack and the builder.
Perhaps we can best understand and see
the difference as it played out in the three famous stories the Talmud in
Shabbos shares with us about the prospective converts that came to them. Let's
call them Joe, Jack and Bob. Joe, the first one to come, wanted to convert on
the condition that he only be taught the written Torah. He didn't believe in
the authenticity of the divine nature of the 2000-year-old tradition of its
interpretation that had been passed down along with it. Shamai threw him out in
anger. Hillel on the other hand took him in. On day one he taught Joe the first
four letters of the aleph beis. On day two though he switched around the order
and told him the opposite. Joe objected. This wasn't what you said yesterday.
Hillel showed him from this that even to learn the written law one needs to
come onto some form of Oral tradition. So once Joe already had to buy into the
concept of a tradition, he may as well go the full nine yards.
Jack was next. He came to Shamai and
demanded he convert him on the condition that he be taught the entire Torah
while standing on one foot. Shamai, once again naturally refused. This time
though the Talmud tells us that Shamai yanked out his measuring meter stick,
that all these guys in the construction industry carry with them in their
pocket, and pushed him away with it. This seems to be an extraneous detail. But
let's see if we can put it together. Hillel on the other hand took him in and
seemingly paraphrasing the golden rule of Rabbi Akiva that is in this week's
Parsha of 'Love your fellow man like yourself' Hillel told him '
"That which is hateful upon you
don't do to others- this is the entire Torah, the rest is commentary upon this
go and learn it."
I'm sure Jack was quite relieved that he
didn't pull out his axe, right? But perhaps in a way he did. For rather than
quoting him the Torah's verse that is the positive sense to love your friend.
Hillel chopped it down to the negative sense. Don't do bad. Or as the first
rule of Doctoring is 'not to do any harm'.
Finally, we have the last story where Bob
pops on over to Shamai's place. Perhaps this story and all of them took place
by his construction site, where he had his measuring stick handy. Bob wanted to
be converted on the condition that he be able to become Kohen Gadol He had
heard that they wear really cool threads and wanted to get in on the scene.
Once again Shamai yanked out that measuring stick and pushed him away, while
Hillel embraced him and took him in. In Bob's case Hillel started learning with
him the laws of the High Priest. When they arrived at the verse that prohibits
even King David from wearing the Kohen Gadol's clothing, the man understood
that if a regular Jew who is like the child of Hashem can't wear the garments
than certainly a convert, who just joined the party, wouldn't be entitled to
wearing them. Bob then headed back to Shamai and pretty much shared with him
that all Shamai needed to have told him was that he couldn't be a Kohen Gadol.
It seems he would've been fine with that. The epilogue of the story is that it
seems that Joe, Jack and Bob all met up one day and recounted their stories and
they came to the conclusion that
'the strict nature of Shamai sought to
deter them from the world, while the humility of Hillel brought them under the
wings of the Shechina".
Three stories, three almost opposing responses
and we are introduced to the process or MO of the woodchopper Hillel and the
builder Shammai. What is difference between those two jobs? A builder or
construction guy's job is primarily to make sure that everything fits nicely
into its place. There are no discolored tiles or bricks, the beams and roof all
fit nicely into one another. Everything must measure up. If part of your house
or building's foundation is made with faulty or defective material, the entire
thing will collapse. The character trait that is most essential is to be a
details person; to see in their mind the big picture that is being built and
how everything falls into place.
A woodchopper or lumberjack on the other
hand has almost the opposite job description. His job is to cut those trees
down to the right size. As long as the trees are strong and have the necessary
ingredients, then with a little bit of trimming here and a few chop chops there
it can be made to fit nicely in the building. The woodchopper does not really
care about how the tree looks now. It may be tall, short, thin, fat, lots of
leaves or fruits hanging from it. That doesn't bother him. His only concern is if
it has the necessary qualifications to fit into the building needs or not. His
job is merely to estimate the potential.
When Joe, our first convert comes in and
doesn't want to accept the oral tradition, Shamai doesn't even need to pull out
his measuring stick to that this guy can't fit. The written Torah without the
Oral tradition is like using styrofoam to build a brick house. Of course the
contractor is just going to be angry at his supplier and send it right back to
the shop, along with a few choice words in Yiddish. Hillel on the other hand is
not looking at the house. He's looking at the material. The material wants to
be in the house. Joe, believes in Hashem. He believes in the Torah. Hillel
doesn't see a world being built as Shamai does. He sees wings of the Shechina
that one is being brought under. Sure, we will have to find the right place for
this person. We need to show and explain to him that this is not a styrofoam
building. It's an eternal nation that he will be part of. But he can also have
a place in it if he wants. The lumberjack will get him to where he needs to be.
The next two converts really come down to
the same idea. Whereas Shamai understands that they are willing to accept the
Torah and become part of the world we are building. But they want it to be one
stripe, one dictum that all are bound by, one set of clothing for everyone.
Shamai yanks out his measuring meter, the Chasam Sofer explains, to show them
houses aren't build that way. There are Kollel guys, there are builders, there
are falafel makers, there are tour guides, there are kings and Kohanim. Each
has its own size. Each has to have a place. You can't use the same tile you use
for the bathroom in the kitchen. He pushes them away. Ideas like Jacks's or
Bob's will ruin the house/world he has been contracted to build. They don't
measure up
Hillel on the other hand doesn't see a
house. That's not his job set. He sees potential. The potential is premised on
the most basic of human emotions; self-love and self-worth. Why is V'Ahavta
L'rayacha Kamocha the greatest rule in the Torah? Why is the love that I am
obligated to have for others premised on the love one has for oneself? The
answer, suggested by almost all the commentaries, is that one can only truly
love someone when we have an appreciation of how loved and special we are
ourselves. Sure, we can do things for one another out of a sense of compassion,
guilt, or obligation. But that's not love. Love comes from a place that I
appreciate that I am child of Hashem that was placed on this earth by my loving
Father because I have an essential role in creation. Hashem put me here because
I have a job to do that no one else can do. He planted that seed specifically
because he wanted me to grow and be part of his building. That is the way the
woodchopper looks at every tree in that forest.
He explains that Jack by telling him that
if there are things in life that bother you, it is because you have a sense of
love for yourself. You may not even appreciate that yet, but that's alright.
Just utilize that self-understanding on its lowest level and then learn more
and more about who you are. What are the things that make you feel good in
life. Take a career quiz, a life quiz. Discover what inspires you. What role
you have to play and the tree that you need to be to where your loving Father
can rests its loving wings.
We read these parshas of Acharey Mos-
Kedoshim always during the days of sefirat ha'Omer. More than any time of year
this is the period that we are meant to be focused on our daily personal
growth. On the one hand we have the vision of Yom Kippur and its service and
the highest spiritual aspirations. Yet, at the same time we have parshat Kedoshim,
of the day to day laws that truly make us holy through the multitude of mitzvos
we fulfill and sins that we avoid.
We read this during the spring as trees
are growing around us and that feeling of love and potential is in the air. We
remember those students of Rabbi Akiva that didn't keep that golden rule of
his. They didn't find the innate kavod and honor that each person
possesses. They didn't see that potential. They saw themselves as builders, as
our sages tell us Torah scholars are meant to be (al tikri banayich ela
bonayich). This is the time of year
when we should all be finding our inner potential. In a little over three weeks
we will remember how Hashem spoke to each of us on Har Sinai. He didn't just
speak to all of us. He spoke to each of us. We were all important. We all have
a letter and place in the Torah. And we all have a place in building that Home
where the Shechina will rest its wings once again in Yerushalayim.
Have a stupendous Shabbos,
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
**********************************
Hello Rabbi Schwartz Fans!
Its finally here!
After a few month hiatus I'm excited to tell you that I
return to
MISHPACHA MAGAZINE
With what might just be my most
Exciting tour
yet
SHVIL HASANHEDRIN
The Sanhedrin Trail
Together with Doctor Chagi Amitzur
Check it out and share and like at
https://mishpacha.com/sanhedrin-stopovers/
Feel free to E-mail them and tell them how much you have
enjoyed
And how much you've missed me…
And stay tuned for the accompanying video for this tour
in the coming week
***************************************************
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My weekly 10 minute or less video short last week's
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Here's last week's Video
HOLY HOUSES
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***************
" Ver
es hot di hak, git dem knak " –
He who has the ax gives the whacks
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM QUESTION OF THE WEEK
answer below at end of Email
25)
A settlement that was destroyed in the War of Independence:
A)
Nataf
B)
Mishmar Hayarden
C)
Efrat
D)
Bnei Yehuda
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S COOL VIDEO OF THE WEEK
https://youtu.be/yjD6vJEPhkE – Hear what 500 yeshiva students can do at
an incredible Cantorial Acapella song event Shochen Ad!
https://youtu.be/-o5eY17vG90 – Ah Yiddishe Mama…Chasidish
Acapella
https://youtu.be/hEaVZ_DaT40
- How to get your
brother out of bed Acapella!
https://youtu.be/J6UcozPpJvs
– Maccabeats-Megilat Ha'Atzmaut song?
https://youtu.be/iAhgI7TYZmg -Singing this song all weeklong. Benny
Friedman a Yid never cries acapella version
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S PARSHA/ ERETZ YISRAEL CONNECTION OF THE
WEEK
A Sensitive Land – Parshat Acharey Mos- Kedoshim – The end of Parshat Acharey Mos tells us something special and unique about Eretz Yisrael that is not like any other country in the world. It seems our holy land has a very sensitive stomach. After telling us about all of the prohibited incestuous and forbidden relationships and abominations that we need to refrain from that the previous Canaanite nations engaged in, Hashem tells us that if we partake in any of them the land will vomit us out. Whereas the other nations engaged in everything bad and they were being vomited up, if we only partake in even a portion of these acts we are at serious risk of being chucked up and out.
" Don't you know that the Torah tells us that if we are metamey and contaminate the land as the Cannanites did, that it will spit us up and we will be forced to go into exile once again?! If it was just me that would be tragic, but I will have no choice and I will go. But my Rebbetzin has a broken leg and is not well. How will she make it? How could she go?"
Not long after she got remarried. Her second husband wasn't the top guy in yeshiva, in fact he was pretty average. But he was nice, he learned he just wasn't extraordinary. But for a second husband he was just right. The only problem is because of her past trauma, she would get very nervous if her husband hung out too late, or of he didn't go directly to davening or if he wasn't so meticulous about his mitzvos. When the young man complained once to her father about this annoying trait of hers. His Father-in-law told him that he had to give her a break. It was only because of what she underwent with her first husband that she was so sensitive about his behavior. She didn't want it to happen again.
But when the boy persisted and asked why he would have to suffer for the first guy's sins. His father explained, that it was only because she had already been married that he even got through the door in the first place. Otherwise she would never have looked twice at him. So he should accept it gracefully
Dovid and
Batsheva; The Cover-Up- 866 BC – You know how they say that what gets
people in trouble more than the crime is the cover-up. That rule seems to go all
the way back to the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve said "Huh, what tree?
What fruit?" Well in Dovid's case that was certainly true. Our sages tell
us that just as the sin of the golden calf could only have happened with some
supernatural involvement and power the satan was granted in order to teach the
Jewish people the concept of Teshuva. Dovid's sin with Batsheva as well was an
irresistible force in order to teach each Jew that they can repent. So although
Dovid's sin with Batsheva may be able to be explained and lightened as we
described last week by the fact that her husband Uriah had technically given
her a Get as all soldiers that went to war did. But Dovid's elaborate cover-up in
the aftermath of their illicit relationship and her pregnancy certainly got him
into much more trouble.
Understandably, Dovid as the King of Israel would be concerned for the scandal that would come out. So therefore his first step was to try to remove any suspicion of wrong doing on his part or Batsheva's part by getting Uriah to come home and return to his wife ASAP. If he could pull that off then once Batsheva's pregnancy would become known it would be assumed the father of the baby would be Uriah. Things however did not go as planned. Dovid sent a message to Yoav to send Uriah home as he needed to talk to him. When he visited Dovid, Dovid asked him about the war and then told him to go home to his wife even sending with him a nice romantic "King's feast" special to bring him with him. Uriah though, a true soldier however didn't go home that night. Perhaps Hashem didn't want the story to end this way. This however wasn't just a mistake on Uriah's part, his not heeding the King's directive technically and halachichally was an act of "rebellion" punishable by death.
"The Ark of Hashem, the soldiers of Israel and Yehudah as are my
master Yoav, and my master Dovid's servants and I should go home and eat and sleep
and be with my wife. By your life I cannot do such a thing."
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S TERRIBLE
LUMBERJACK JOKES OF THE WEEK
The other lumberjack says “that’s not possible”.
The lumberjack says “It may seem impossible but I saw it with my own two
eyes.
The
lumberjack responds, "Good. Then you will dialogue."
"How much wood would Chuck chuck if Chuck could chuck wood"
2 foreigners want to immigrate to Canada. They go to the immigration office. First guy goes in and the immigration officer asks “alright you want to come into Canada, what do you do for work?”
The foreigner says “oh I a pilot, I a pilot “
Immigration officer goes “alright a pilot sounds good welcome to Canada”
Second guy walks in and is greeted with the same question about his occupation.
He replies “oh I a chop a da wood, I chop a da wood”
Immigration officer replies “oh no sorry we already have enough lumber jacks
in Canada”
Clearly sad, the foreigner asks “That's not fair, how come you let my buddy
in ?
The Immigration
officer says “Well he told us that he was a pilot!”
The foreigner replies “oh no! I chop a da wood, he a pile-it!”
A lumberjack
chopped off my teeth. But later he apologized and said it was axedental.
After a few
days of doing this, he realizes he is simply not fit for this type of job. On
his final day of trying to chop down trees, he notices an old scrawny man
chopping down trees as if he was a woodpecker, the amount of hits he made grew
more and more each swing. The first swing was one hit, the next, ten hits, the
next one, a hundred hits, and the next one after that, a thousand. He kept
swinging until the tree he was swinging at was chopped down. Amazed, the young
man walks over to the old man and asks, "Sir, what is your secret, how
do you chop them down so quickly?"
The old man turns and says, "It's all about the rhythm."
Puzzled by the old man's answer, the young man returned home pondering what he
said.
The next morning, he was motivated to keep trying to be a lumberjack. "If
an old scrawny man can do it, so can I!" he thought.
So he went back to the forest, and tried to use his advice.
Trying to time each swing, he realizes this simply doesn't work. Later in the
day, he sees the old man again, comes up to him, and asks, "I tried to
time my swings, but it does no more than just chopping normally. How do you do
it?"
"You can't just make up any old rhythm and follow it, you have to find a
very specific one," he says,"you have to find the Logger-rhythm."
(OYY IM huritn by now even writing these…)
As a lumberjack starts his chainsaw he hears the tree begin to cry. “Please don’t cut me down!” The tree pleads, “I’ll do anything!”
The lumberjack says, “Fine! If you can solve this impossible riddle that has fooled some of the greatest minds from doctors, writers to philosophers, I’ll spare you.” The tree was stumped.
Did you hear about the lumberjack who got a promotion? Now he's a branch manager
Answer is B- This one was fairly easy as well. The answer was obviously not Efrat which was only founded in the 80's by Rav Riskin and Benei Yehudah which is in the Golan didn't even have any Jews in it until after the 6 Day War (although there were some early attempts to settle it in the early 1900's that failed. I wasn't sure about Nataf, but I pass Mishmar Hayarden (or I did when I toured) all the time and the memorial for those that died in the fierce battles there in 1948 and even before that are legendary. It also has the yichus of being the only settlement that the original settlers didn't return to rebuild but rather and new group settled it. So I was right and the score is now 18 for Rabbi Schwartz and 7 for the Ministry of Tourism on this exam.
