Insights
and Inspiration
from the
Holy Land
from
from
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
"Your friend in Karmiel"
February 9th 2018 -Volume
8 Issue 18 24th Shvat 5778
Parshat Mishpatim/ Shekalim
Story
Time
As readers of my weekly E-Mail, now perhaps
one of my favorite hobbies as a child growing up was reading. I loved to read.
It was an easy hobby to have. I didn’t have to run around. I didn’t have to
jump up and down, throw a ball or even break a sweat. I could even eat while I
was engaging in this important past time. Each week my mother would take me to
the library and I would take out like 10 books and just read read read. When
asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, my answer always was a librarian.
They had the perfect job. Surrounded by books they could just tell people to be
quiet and refer them good books to read, to share their love and knowledge of
books with them. My second choice as I got older was to be the guy that sells
books in the book store- same concept, pretty much. Except I figured that I
could actually make a commission on my advice of which books people bought and
read. See I was a bit of a capitalist as well.
It’s one of the things I would say that I miss
most in my life and look forward to catching up on in my retirement- in another
million years or so unless I win a lottery- reading all the tons of books that I
have bought because I couldn’t resist, but have yet to find the time to open. Ahhh
those days were the best. Just becoming engrossed in a story, transporting yourself
through the pages to a different time, a different place, a world of ideas. It’s
incredible what reading can do for you. You escape from this world and are
totally in your mind. Nothing else is around you. It’s just you and your book.
Now I got my reading career started, probably
when my parents would read to me as a child. I would look at the pictures and the
stories would come to life. As I grew older, I graduated to reading comic
books. Each Sunday Morning we would get the Sunday funnies in our newspaper and
I would tear through them. From there we graduated to comic books, to word books,
short stories, Encyclopedia Brown and Hardy Boy mysteries and then of course to
larger and larger novels and stories. There weren’t many Jewish books back then
Marcus Lehman and the Golem and the Dybbuk were the few that were even close.
This was pre- Artscroll. Upon going to yeshiva I started for the first time
reading what had become a new Jewish genre-the Rabbi Biography books. It was
non-fiction, at least it was presented as such, although after a while some of
these Rabbi stories just seemed too wild to fathom. But that started me on
Non-fiction books, history books… learning about the “real world” not just the
fictional one. If Jewish meant being a people of the book, then there was no
question I was a member of the tribe. My hobby had been revealed to being a
religious identity. Being Jewish meant being able to escape into the mind and
expanding it via reading.
The truth is though the Jewish people were
never called a people of “a” book. We are a people of “the” Book. That’s the book
with a capital B. We are a people of one book in particular, the Torah. Now don’t’
get me wrong, the Torah has plenty of books to it. The five books of Moshe, the
books of the prophets and scripture. We have the 6 books of the Mishna which is
the oral law that was never in fact meant to be written down- but you know us
Rabbis we can’t stop writing or speaking. And if no one is going to listen to
our speeches then we will just write them out there for posterity. {Now you see
where my inspiration comes from…} We have the Talmud that is an elaboration of
that and works on the Talmud and works of Jewish law, philosophy, ethics, we
have response, we have insights and compendiums on every nuance of behavior and
idea possible. And remarkably it is all Torah. It all goes back to Sinai. It was
born there and it carries on until today. There is nothing like our people and
our Book. So besides being a nation of readers we have become a nation of
writers. The People of the pen.
Now besides reading and writing books, the
Jewish people have taken it a step further we have become a nation that doesn’t
only read and write but we study. It is our national pastime. Not baseball, not
football, not making money, not eating Falafel or even talking politics. The
Jewish pastime is studying Torah. Sitting in front of a book with ancient words
on it, usually on some obscure topic, like oxen goring, levirate marriages, ancient
planting techniques, or temple services and examining, questioning arguing,
cross referencing and comparing texts and generally trying to cover ground and
making it through the text through critical examination in order to either
review it again afterwards or begin another one. Pretty wild isn’t it? But this
is what 10’s of thousands of Jews do each day. In Israel, in America, across
the globe in every Jewish Torah community. This is true for Modern Orthodox people,
religious Zionists, Chariedi and Chasdic Jews. It is the education in every
traditional Jewish elementary and high School and the function of the education
if you ask any educator is to develop a love, a need, a habit an addiction almost
to studying. Not everyone will find their satisfaction in Talmud. Some might be
more halachically-legally oriented while others might prefer Chumash, the
texts, the narratives or the messages of our sages in the Midrash. There are of
course your “greaseballs” as we called them in yeshiva-although in today’s
world they might be called the self-help genre that find themselves drawn to
the Mussar ethical works that inspire them to refine their character traits and
there are others might find their soul connecting to the more esoteric and
Chasidic mystical works. But the common denominator between everyone is, that
there is this inner longing and soul that knows that will only find its
completion and satisfaction in “The Book” and its study.
Where does that longing come from? I believe
the answer can come from this week’s Torah portion. See last week we read the story
of the Ten Commandments and the giving of the Torah and Sinai. This week begins
with the word “And” never a proper grammatical word to being a parsha with (although
the Torah seems to use it a lot). Rashi notes this is a continuation of the
previous parsha.
Rashi
Shemot (21:1) And these are the laws that you shall place before them- Just
as the first ones were from Sinai- these as well were from Sinai
Meaning that our portion which lists 10’s of
commandments, 53 to be precise, almost ten percent of the total commandments is
an elaboration of the Sinai experience. What’s interesting though is that the
end of Parsha seems to revert back to that story of last week and tells the
story of what happened at Sinai again with a bit of a different take. Rather
than recounting the thunder, the lightning and the word of Hashem. This week
the Parsha tells us about Moshe bringing sacrifices, sprinkling blood on the
people, establishing 12 different altars for each of the tribes. As well it tells
us a story of the leaders feasting afterwards. We see them having an image of the
throne of Hashem and the sapphire bricks underneath it. It’s a strange
depiction and it begs the question or questions. What changes? Why these two
different stories? Why not put them together? Why is it divided up by the various
laws and mitzvos? What’s going on?
The answer is that last week we had the big
reveal, we stood as one nation with one heart. We became eternal. We became the
people of the Book. This week though the Torah tells us that although the Ten
Commandments may encapsulate it all, but each mitzva, each command will have a
book within itself. Each mitzva, each law will have a personal area that you
will be able to find your story in. The Parsha is beautiful that incorporates
every single area of Jewish life, law and insight. There are slaves, there are
family laws, marriage ideas, charity, social contracts, holidays, Shabbat,
Temple, agricultural law as, even midrashic accounts and stories of angels
bringing us into the land of Israel and rituals of blood sprinkling and
sacrifices. It’s amazing there is not a topic or an area of learning that is
not here in order that every Jew can find his place, his book of interest in
this Parsha. It is spread out for us like a set- table. Like peanut butter and
Jelly on rye or matza as my wife prefers its. This Parsha moves us from Sinai becoming
a people of the Book to each one of us becoming a Person of the Book.
But it gets even more beautiful. See the first
mitzva of the Parsha is the story of an individual who had stolen and was sold
into slavery for his debt. After the 6 years maximum of his slavery he decides
that he wants to stay. He’s not ready to leave. He loves his wife, he loves his
kids and his cushy life. So the Torah tells us that he should be taken to a
doorpost and his ear should be poked a hole into it, then he remains in slavery
until yovel- the 50th year jubilee.
Rashi notes ours sages statement that this bizarre
punishment that his ear has a hole bored into it is because
“Rabbi
Yochanan Ben Zakkai said this ear that heard on Sinai do not steal and went and
stole should be bored. Or if he sold himself into slavery this ear that heard
that ‘the children of Israel are my slaves- and he went and sold himself should
be bored”
The question though is that seemingly it was
the hand that stole, shouldn’t it be punished? Or the feet that went to sell
himself, or the mouth that decided to ask to remain a slave? Why the ears?
So Rebbe Tzadok of Lublin notes as well
something interesting, it is in this weeks portion that we see the words naaseh
v’nishma- we will do and we will hear. Although one might have thought that
this would be more appropriate in last week initial Torah Revelation narrative.
He explains that naaseh v’nishma means that not only will we fulfill the
commandments, but we will continue to hear the eternal voice that comes from Sinai.
When Hashem gave the Torah it says it was a
Devarim
(5:19) These words Hashem spoke to your gathering in the Mountain from
within the fire, the cloud, the thick darkeness- a voice that did
not end…
It was a voice that was eternal. It was a
voice that calls out until today. The Jewish people vowed by Sinai that not
only will we observe the Torah but we will always hear that voice that is
coming from Sinai. It will continue to inspire us and it will always be there
to remind and speak to us. Rebbi Tzadok explains that is the reason the ear is
pierced. For if one were listening properly you could hear that voice still
today. It is in your soul. It is calling to you to read your book. It is in
fact reading to you from that book as it did over 3000 years ago by that
Mountain. Each mitzva, each story, each part of the Torah, from the slave, the
widow, the thief, the oxe, the dog, the first fruits and our temple and its
angels. They are all being called out and read to us today by the Master Story
reader. We just need to open our ears to hear it. If you stole, it’s not your
hands fault, it’s not your feet or mouths fault that you sold yourself. It’s
your ears. They stopped hearing the call to read the book. Open them up and get
back to our story.
Has
this E-mail inspired you to crack that book, any book? I hope so. See because one
day I’m gonna be a librarian or a book salesman. Maybe when I retire. In the
meantime though maybe Hashem’s call will have to be enough. Although it will
certainly be a hard act to follow.
Have a joyous Shabbos Mevorchim Adar,
Rabbi Ephraim
Schwartz
*****************************************
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S
FAVORITE YIDDISH PROVERB OF THE WEEK
“Der yam iz on a breg — di toyre iz on an ek.”-
The sea has no shore —
the Torah has no end.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM QUESTION OF
THE WEEK
answer below at end of Email
Q: The accepted etiquette in a
church is:
a. Not to enter with sandals
b. To remove head covers (hats)
c. Not to cross your legs
d. Answers b. and c. are correct
RABBI SCHWARTZ COOL VIDEOS OF THE
WEEK
https://youtu.be/z1EkB-5c0UA - The
Amazing Kosher Half-Time show this past week during the Superbowl with Ohad and
Meir Kay!
https://youtu.be/tMqFKcgM8-I
- Shas A Thon- This is cool Someone
just told me about this Torah Marathon for this great organization…cool!
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S HAFTORA CONNECTION OF THE
WEEK
This week we have a special haftorah reading
as this week begins the first of the four supplemental parshiyot that surround
Purim and precede Pesach. The first Shekalim, this week was read in order to
remind the Jewish people to begin to bring their money to the Temple to contribute
for daily offering that would be paid for by the half shekel contribution of
each person. So for Maftir we read the portion of Ki Tisa that reminds people
of this mitzva. The haftora though which doesn’t describe the mitzva of
shekalim is perhaps more appropriate in how we can fulfill this mitzva even
when there is no Temple and no sacrifice. It is the portion from the Book of
Melachim that describes the action of Yehoash the King of Judah who established
the first Pushka in the Jewish world. The Kohanim were originally allowed to
keep the money that would be brought in and then they would pay for the repairs
and upkeep of the Temple. Yet there were problems thejob wasn’t getting done and
the Tample started to go to pot… So instead Yehoash put up Pushkas where the
money would go directly to the workers that would fix the Temple. He cut out
the middle Kohen man. And thus the Pushka was born.
The eternal message of this Haftora read the week
that we bless the month of Adar and begin to be marbin B’simcha- increasing our
joy, is that charity is the impetus to accomplish this. We may not have the
Temple but we can still support the upkeep of our Mini-Temples. That is the way
we start to prepare for our holiday of Joy.
The prophet
Yehoyada (980-850 BC)– Our sages tell us that the Prophet
Yehoyada would have been even greater than Aharon the High Priest had he lived
in his generation this great prophet really saved much of the Jewish people
when he hid the King Yoash as a baby when the previous wicked Queen Atahliya
was killing out his whole family. He established Yoash as king- at age 7 and
heralded in a major Teshuva era with his kingship. Sadly after his death Yoash
lost it and in fact killed Yehoyadas child Zecharia ben Yehoyada in the Temple.
We remember that sin on Tisha B’av when we talk about the destruction.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S ERA’S
AND THEIR PLACES AND PEOPLE IN ISRAEL OF THE WEEK
Rachel’s Tomb 1550BC- Where is the tomb of Rachel? Most people would seem to say
that is quite obvious right outside of modern day Beit Lechem where it says
here tomb is. The truth is upon looking at the sources it might seem not so
simple. On the one hand the Torah tells us that Rachel died on the way to Efrat
which is Beit Lechem. In the South of Jerusalem. On the other hand in the book
of Shmuel it mentions that the tomb of Rachel is on the border of the tribe of
Binyamin which would put it in the North of Jeursalem. As well the Midrash
notes that Rachel was buried ther to cry for her children when they would be
exiled from Jerusalem by Nevuchadnezzar. If that were true then she would be in
the North of Jerusalem as that is the direction they were exiled- not South. So
there are those that place it near Har Choma in the North of Jerusalem. Earliest
sources for our location of Kever Rachel are Christian interestingly enough
that mention the tomb there. We have some of the Rishonim and early journeyers
to Eretz Yisrael that describe the building as having 12 stones according to
the tribes of Israel that were established there and how visitors would write
their names on the walls.
The Ramban- Nachmanides is perhaps
most interesting in where he originally felt it was in the North of Jerusalem
but upon coming to Israel and visiting the site, he changed his mind. Maybe he
felt her spirit. Regardless Kever Rachel today is certainly one of he most holy
places to pray in Israel. I always like to point out to people that Rachel is
buried there to pray for the redemption. That is what she is crying for. It is
therefore only appropriate that when we come ther to pray for whatever it is
that we daven for, that we as well pray for the GEula, the redemption, Mashiach
and the return of our people to our home. That is what the Mama is crying for,
shouldn’t we….
RABBI
SCHWARTZ’S TERRIBLE BOOK JOKES OF THE WEEK
Librarian: can I check you out?
Me: sure [spins around]
Librarian: I meant your book
Me: oh yea, that makes way more sense.
Me: sure [spins around]
Librarian: I meant your book
Me: oh yea, that makes way more sense.
Why are first books afraid of their sequels? Because they
always come after them
Why did the Romanian stop reading for the night? To give his
Bucharest.
What's the best thing to read in the woods? POETREE..
What do you call Tom Sawyer's friend after he lost a
lot of weight? Huckleberry Thin
Why does an elephant use her trunk as a bookmark?– Then
she NOSE where she stopped reading!
What do planets like to read? – Comet books.
Why was the dinosaur afraid to go to the library? – His
books were 65 million years overdue.
What do librarians take fishing?– Bookworms!
Why didn’t the burglar break into the library?– He was
afraid he’d get a long sentence!
Top Funny Book Quotes
I just got out of the hospital. I was in a speed
reading contest. I hit a bookmark. - Stephen Wright
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside
of a dog it's too dark to read. - Groucho Marx
Always read stuff that will make you look good if you
die in the middle of it.- P.J. O’Rourke
Sure reading a book under a tree is peaceful but
imagine how stressful it is for the tree to see a bunch of it's dead friends in
your hand.
I heard that Amazon has started a program to try to get
people to trade in their old bound books to get an electronic reader. They call
it “Kindling.”
If someone says they just love the smell of books, I always
want to pull them aside and be like, to be clear, do you know how reading works
I’ve been reading a book on antigravity. It’s so good I
can’t put it down.
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S SHABBOS CARTOON OF THE WEEK
**************
Answer is D – Now I wasn’t totally positive about this but I guessed right.
See I knew about the uncovered heads thing. In fact, it’s quite strange how I knew
that. See in Virginia there was reform synagogue and the rule there used to be
that it was prohibited to wear a Kippa in the synagogue. There was a new cantor
there, a friend of mine, Jennifer. She refused to lead the services without a
Kippa. She almost lost her job for this. The synagogue rule was established
because the original reform was imitating churches. And just as churches one
had to be bare-headed in synagogues as well. Now- I told her that she should say
that women were always allowed to cover their heads in churches and she should
be permitted to according to the original takana… But anyways. I wasn’t sure
about the crossing the legs thing. But it sounded familiar and in fact it is a
no-no to do in church as well. Now it is bad Jewish ettiquite, as well as halachically
problematic, if not forbidden to go into a church, or any house of idolatry but
that’s not a question I think they would ask..
