Insights and Inspiration
from the
Holy Land
from
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
"Your friend in Karmiel"
February 21st 2025 -Volume 14 Issue 17 23rd of Shevat 5785
Dear Shiri,
I believe with all my heart that you did your best to protect your young boys... You must have warmed them with hugs in the cold and drafty tunnels. Or rationed the little food you received to feed them an extra bite or two. Over the past 500+ days, I've looked at that photo of you and your kids being brutally whisked away. You were holding both of your children, a combined weight of at least 25 kilos - and you carried them effortlessly. Some might call it adrenaline, but I know it was a mother's strength. And I will crop out the background of that picture and replace it with a tunnel - because I'm sure you were just as strong for your babies in that awful hellhole beneath Gaza.
I imagine you singing to your boys in whispers, keeping their spirits alive with stories and games even in darkness. I picture you counting their breaths as they slept, the way all mothers do when their children are ill or afraid. And I can't help but wonder about your last moments.
Did you watch your children die?
Did your children watch you die?
These questions haunt me, along with the stolen moments of childhood:
Did Kfir ever take his first steps?
Or say his first words?
Did he make it to his first birthday? Or his second?
Did Ariel get to turn 5 and hold up all five fingers on one hand for his age? Did he finally make it through the night without any accidents?
I try to suppress these questions because the more I wonder, the deeper my grief becomes.
Your final act of motherhood was perhaps your greatest - holding them close, being their whole world when their world had been reduced to nothing. We will remember you not just as victims, but as a family bound by love and a mother's infinite strength.
May your memory be a blessing, and may your children's smiles - those bright, beautiful smiles before October 7th - remain forever in our hearts.
I didn’t write the above. It was sent to me, as were hundreds of others of letters of mourning. Of sadness and grief. And of rage. So so so much rage… Of humiliation. Of the desecration of the name of Hashem. The honor of His nation. Like sheep to the slaughter.
La’ag Va’keles ba’goyim- scorned and degraded by the nations
La’harog u’labeid- to be killed and exterminated
L’makah- to be beaten
And worst of all…
L’cherpa- to be humiliated and shamed…
The pain, the shame, the horror… it’s too much. Ad masai?! Until when… How much more Ribono Shel Olam? As someone else sent me a meme. Only in Israel can 5 bombs blow up on buses in one day and that’s not the worst thing that happened.
Yet I think the answer to that question is that Hashem is asking us the exact same thing. How much longer will we not do what he has given us the command and mitzva to do. How much longer will we sit by and play politics and allow this desecration of His name to continue. We don’t even have Biden anymore to blame it on. We don’t have to worry about the world. Donald, Himself, (and yes that capital “H” is intentional) is basically imploring us to step up to the plate and do what we need to? So how much longer, Hashem is asking us? What more does He need to do? It’s like that old joke about man drowning in the ocean waiting for a miracle and Hashem sends him a lifeboat, a plank to grab on to, a helicopter and he just drowns there waiting for a miracle. When he comes up to heaven Hashem asks him what else he wanted. He sent him everything he needs.
After 2000 years Hashem has given us an army. A holy army. He gave us planes, guns and to make it sweeter a new shipment of 2000 lb bombs. Trump has told us to destroy them. To kill them all. “Not a building should be left in Gaza”. And I’m sure he really doesn’t care that much about the West Bank or anywhere else. Does Hashem need to have the entire United Nations pass a resolution that Israel should murder every single man woman and child there for us to finally act. How many more murdered and massacred red-haired babies do we need to be handed back to us pathetically in coffins by jeering scorning celebrating mobs of “innocent” civilians and their spawn, until we say we’ve had enough. Until we recognize that the shame of humiliation of our God and His nation has boiled over. That the blood of our girls, our babies, our parents, our grandparents is screaming at us from the stained earth. Ad masai… Hashem is yelling at us. How much longer will you wait. What else do I have to do for you to awaken. Wasn’t 6 million enough…?
This week’s parsha is called Mishpatim. Justice. Laws. It’s a parsha that is meant to give us the moral compass we need to navigate in this world and fulfill our role as the nation of Hashem. It’s fascinating that this parsha really divides the narrative of the giving of the Torah into two stories. Last week we read Yisro which tells us the story of the Ten commandments and the Jewish people being chosen as the special nation of Hashem. We accepted that role joyously as one man and one nation. Yet peculiarly enough I think that the two words that we would be looking to see in that parsha, that we all associate with the receiving of the Torah don’t appear in Yisro. The words are of course, Na’aseh V’Nishma- we will do and we will hear or internalize to be more accurate. Check it out! Those words are not there at all…
Rather those words appear in the second narrative of the story of Sinai at the end of this week’s parsha. Yet this narrative brings a whole new story of sacrifices and sprinkling of blood on the nation and eating and celebrating. It’s a whole different story. It is only here that Na’aseh V’Nishma appears. The sandwich in between these two stories which our parsha are all the various commandments, “justice” and social laws, as well as the more spiritual ones including the holidays. It seems that to get to Na’aseh V’Nishma from merely just blind acceptance and doing without internalizing we need to go through Parshat Mishpatim first. Only then can we reach the point where we could sit. We could eat. We could celebrate. We could be free.
Perhaps the greatest challenge to someone, to a nation that has undergone 210 years of slavery, persecution, exile and subjugation, is understanding and internalizing what being a free man is. Our hostages that are returning now after merely 500 days of being held in tunnels can explain that to you. Or perhaps they can’t… After living so long with being forced to do things, without having any ability to exert our basic human essence and expression of free will, the only thing we know how to do is take orders. The only way that we see society and others is of subjugators and servants. Man doesn’t have free-will. We don’t have choices. We are either the powerful ones that enslave or we are slaves that follow orders. The only thing that we can say after Hashem took us out of Egypt miraculously with a strong hand is Na’aseh- You are our new master. We will now do what You tell us to do.
The mountain was held over our head, as the Midrash perhaps homiletically is teaching us, and we have a new Master. But we still have a slave mentality. We still don’t understand that our servitude to Hashem is a different animal entirely. It is a partnership. It is about us making choices. It’s about us revealing His spark and essence within each of us and in all of mankind. The reason Hashem took us out, the reason He gave us the Torah, the purpose of Him bringing us to the land, is for us to reveal that divine spark that is in all of humanity. It is to bring Hashem’s light to the world. We’re not meant to be a nation that is merely slaves or servants of a new powerful Divine Master. Rachmana Liba Ba’ai- Hashem wants our hearts. He needs our hearts. He needs the “nishma”- the internalization of who we are and the understanding that our freedom allows us to preform His will and shine His light unabashedly to the world.
Thus the first mitzva in this lesson is that we can never enslave a fellow Jew. We can purchase him. We can pay his bills for his crimes and take him into our home to rehabilitate him by giving him work, while providing for his family. But he’s not our slave really. We have to set him free. We have to bring him to a point where he expresses his humanity. And if he can’t do that in 7 years because he is so entrenched in that slave mindset, then he has until the yovel year and then he is automatically freed
. This is such a critical and essential first step for us to freedom because it forces us to look at the world in a different light than we have done. It forces us to get out of the slave/ owner mentality that has been drilled into us. Because as long as we can enslave others then we ourselves are really still slaves. We’re slaves to a worldview that Egypt engrained in us that there are only masters and servants in the world. There are none that have free-choice. There is no spirit of Hashem. We have to understand that being a slave for so long creates within us a slave mentality that may prevent us from leaving that life. That even when our master throws us out and tells us to leave, we may not have the strength to do it.
That godless slave/master worldview of galus is what the entire parsha of Mishpatim is trying to knock out of us. It’s a sickness that tells us that we can’t conquer and throw out our neighbors because we are subject and slaves to the world’s judgement and opinion. The first sentence of our parsha is
Eileh Ha’Mishpatim asher tasim lifneihem- These are the judgements Hashem has commanded Moshe to place before us.
The Talmud derives from this that the laws are what Hashem tells us to do. It is forbidden to go to the gentile courts. Even if they rule like our courts and laws. Because we need to know that they are NOT our moral compass. The Torah and Hashem’s laws are. If we need to go to them then we are really still slaves. Then it’s because we are still enslaved to them. Then we can buy a Jewish slave and keep him forever. Then we can fall under hard times and think that we can sell our own daughter to the nations. Sell our children to their ideology and their judgement and their resolutions. So the second law the Torah tells us
L’am nochri lo yimhso lmachro- You can’t sell her to a goy. Don’t sell out our children, our hostages, our impoverished to them. Rather take her as your wife. Provide for her. Realize that this poor Jewish maidservant kibbutznik is a free-man, just as you are. She as well has a spark of Hashem to reveal. Don’t let the goyim enslave that. Don’t let them turn you into their slaves to their opinions or judgements. You’re free. I took you out Egypt. You’re Mine. Do what I need you to do. Be My partner in fixing the world.
How? Next law… If someone kills someone. Kill him. He’s evil. Eradicate Him. If he plots and conspires to kill him and it’s intentional then even take him away from the Bais Hamikdash and kill him. There are no safe zones. There are no off-limits places where you should feel you can’t touch them. If someone kidnaps another human being put him to death. That the old-world view of masters and slaves, that is the essence of evil. That is the squashing of the Divine spark. Our job is to wipe out that evil. Sure, Hashem could take care of it on His own. But He wants us to be His partners. It’s only as His partner, His Messenger, His nation, that His spark within us will be revealed.
In Hashem’s world we need to understand and personalize our job. An eye for eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a burn for a burn, a wound for a wound. A baby for a baby. This law although our sages tell us refers to a monetary payment isn’t described as such. The reason that it isn’t punitively literal is because it’s impossible to exactly and precisely take the perfect vengeance that’s not too much or too little. Yet, the Torah doesn’t describe the retribution as a fine, or a payment or compensation. It’s payback. It’s personal. It’s your eye for the eye that they took out. It’s not just a bill. In a goyishe world compensation, or “reparations” are just a bill and negotiation. In Hashem’s world it’s an eye for an eye. A slave mindset doesn’t allow one to do that. One can pay, but they can’t get vengeance. They can’t restore justice. There is no justice. It has to be nishma- internalized to get here. That’s what Hashem wants us to understand and start absorbing into our psyche.
There’s mitzva, after mitzva, after mitzva, in this parsha that is all about us being that partner. That hand of Hashem that He chose us to be. There is even a mitzva that we shouldn’t be an
“eid chamas”- a false witness to steal. To kidnap. To join forces in their evil by merely giving credence to their cause. To saying that anything besides death is coming to them. There is a mitzva of revenge against killing anyone that kills even a non-Jewish slave. This non-Jewish slave is someone that you took under your wing. He’s a loyal citizen of Israel. He maybe even serves in the army. He may be a Bedouin. But he was killed brutally. We are obligated to avenge their deaths. To bring justice to their murderer. To put them to death- even if the murderer is Jewish even more so when they are Hamas. In fact, it is here that we learn out that the punishment for murder is with sword. This is the source.
Yet after all of these mitzvos Hashem tells us, again right before we arrive at the narrative of Nishma, that He will bring us to the land when we follow the laws. Our borders will go down to Egypt. The land of the Philistines (Gaza), Up to the Euphrates through Lebanon and Turkey. There He will chase out and kill out or enemies. Is it only Hashem’s job though…? No. The Torah then shifts it to us, His partners.
“Don’t bow down to their gods. Don’t serve them. Don’t do like their actions.”
We’re not their slaves anymore. We don’t bow down to their values. We don’t answer to their courts. Not international ones or personal ones.
“Destroy you shall destroy and shatter and break their altars and you shall serve Hashem”.
“Do not make a treaty with them. Don’t let them live in your land, lest they cause you to sin to Me.” How???
“For you will serve their gods and they will be a mokeish- a stumbling block for you.”
(In hebrew, by the way, a bomb on a bus is called a mokeish)
This is not Donald Trump talking. Although from the way he talks and the way we talk it sounds like he’s reading the Torah more accurately than we are. This is Hashem. This is Him telling us that we’re free. That the world is in front of us. That He’s waiting for us to stop waiting for eagle’s wings and for stinging bees, or helicopters or life boats. It’s up to us to remove the chilul Hashem. It’s up to us be Nishma. To internalize these mitzvos. It’s up to us to realize that we really really are free. That we are no longer slaves. That we need to set all of that slavery free and allow our true free choice to do what needs to be done to happen.
The haftorah tells us about how right before the destruction of the Temple, the prophet Yirmiyahu recalls to the Jewish people this mitzva of setting free slaves. It seems that even when we had the temple, we couldn’t shake this goyishe world view that we are enslaved. It was the reason our sages tell us that we were exiled. It’s the reason why we are still not redeeming ourselves. We are a nation that were rescued and very easily said na’aseh. We will become slaves to Hashem. We will take a new master. We can follow Torah. We can observe mitzvos. We can obey the nuances of every law and take orders well. Yet, it’s the Nishma that we haven’t yet arrived at. We haven’t internalized that Hashem isn’t looking for order-takers. He wants us to be one with Him. Nishma is Shema Yisrael Hashem Echad- that we are One with Him. That’s the second narrative of the Torah. That’s when we merit to hear the story of the sacrifices, the celebration, the atonement of the blood finally, and seeing Hashem as we sit and celebrate together with Him.
This Shabbos we bless the month of Adar. It is the last month of the Jewish calendar before the month of Nissan, the month of redemption is here. The month of Adar is one where we remember that first exile from our Temple to Persia and how the Amalekites tried to wipe us out. How the whole world turned against us. How Hashem gave us the strength to be
‘l’aamod al nafsham” to stand up for our lives.
To kill ALL of our enemies. We did that then. Can we do that today. We did that there as we fought for our lives in Chutz L’Aretz, in Iran, in Persia. Can we do that here in Eretz Yisrael as well? Hashem tells us we can. Do you hear it? Are you Nishma? The blood of our children is calling out to us. Do you hear Shiri? Kfir? Ariel? Theirs should be the last call, the last cry that we need to finally realize the time is finally now.
Have a consoling Shabbos and a blessed joyous month of Adar,
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
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YIDDISH PROVERB OF THE WEEK
“Got shtroft ober der mentch is noikem- God punishes but man takes revenge..
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM QUESTION OF THE WEEK
answer below at end of Email
9. “Anu” Museum is located in the city of ______
Who were the Black Panthers?
A. A social protest movement established in the early 1970s protesting institutional
discrimination against members of Mizrahi communities
B. A group of street artists operating in Jerusalem in the 1990s, inspired by blacks in the United
States
C. A group of poets who highlighted the absence of representation of Mizrachi Jews in Israeli
culture
D. A radical armed group operating against Israel in West Bank refugee camps
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S COOL VIDEO OF THE WEEK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ANiOJXflHs - The mourning in Israel for the Bibas loss..
https://soundcloud.com/ephraim-schwartz/avinu-malkeinu - My haunting memorial song Avinu Malkeinu composition. Composed in memory after the Har Nof massacre but that still tragically is relevant…
https://soundcloud.com/ephraim-schwartz/yizkeraim - This song Yizkereiem, I composed after the three boys were kidnapped and killed by the first Gaza War in 2012… As well May Hashem avenge their deaths and the blood of all of the Martyrs and finally herald in the Geula…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gut1jyzwFV8 – Must see hilarious and so so true spoof on BBC “Slim-tifada”. Eretz Nehedert!
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S ERA’S AND THEIR PLACES AND PEOPLE IN ISRAEL OF THE WEEK
Hostage Kings and Children- 600 BC – It’s not only our children that are taken hostage. We’ve lost our Kings as well. The navi tells us of the evil Jewish King Yehoyakim who rebelled against Nevuchadnezzar. As we mentioned last week, the world map had changed. Assyria fell to Iran as did Egypt and its leader Pharaoh Necho. Bavel was the new world leader on the block. Yehoyakim still living under the old world concept rebelled and Nevuchadnezzar. wasn’t going to let that sit. He came to Jerusalem where he took Yehoyakim, the King of Israel himself into exile to Bavel, as well as many of the vessels of the Temple. There he kept him in prison in his palace for three years. Did the Jewish people try to get him out? It seems not…
Perhaps they were too fearful. Perhaps they weren’t so fond of this king that had done so much evil and been such a goy… After all he desecrated the temple, brought licentiousness into the land and as we will see next week had it out with the prophet Yirmiyahu as well. He’s not someone that Israel was going to go up against Iran to rescue.
Remarkably after three years Yehoyakim was released. He was returned to Israel. Nevuchadnezzar thought he could trust him. Yet to hedge his bets, the prophet Daniel whom we will discuss as well soon and who starts to tell us about this time frame as he lived in Bavel, tells us how Nevuchadnezzar kept all of the children and many princes there in Iran with him. He wanted educate them and assimilate them into their culture. He wanted to turn them against their people, make them into Chamasnikim…
Yehoyakim returns to Israel, yet when he comes back it seems he doesn’t learn his lesson. He continues in his evil ways. He ignores the prophet Yirmiyahu. He emboldens himself to rebel once again against Nevuchadnezzar. This was a bad move. It was signing his own bitter death warrant. His ignominious and violent end is a message for us today. Stay tuned as we continue to learn about this last era before our Temple is destroyed and we head out to the story of Purim in Persia with this exile. Yet it is here already that the first exile begins at the 70 years of exile’s that the prophet foretold of was mistakenly first calculated from. (Those that are learning Oraysa’s Amud Yomi of Megilla this past week know what I’m talking about…)
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S DEAD GAZA BABY JOKES OF THE WEEK
(DISCLAIMER- I REALLY WASN’T IN THE MOOD TO WRITE JOKES THIS WEEK, BUT THEN I FIGURED YOU GUYS WOULD GET ALL UPSET…SO THIS IS THE TOPIC THAT CAME IN MIND… ) THE ONLY THING THAT MAKES ME SMILE…BUT DON’T READ IF YOU’RE TO DELICATE…YOU’VE BEEN WARNED….)
What is the best thing about dead Gaza baby jokes? They never get old
How do you make a dead Gaza baby float? 2 scoops of ice cream 1 scoop of dead Gaza baby
What's better than 2 dead babies in a dumpster? One dead Gaza baby in two dumpsters
Q. whats more fun than spinning a dead Gaza baby around at 50mph? A. stopping it with a shovel.
I was going to cover my bathroom floor with dead Gazan baby skin... but my wife told me that would be infant tile.
How many dead Gazan baby’s do you need to fix a lightbulb? Apparently more than 11 cause my lightbulb is still broken
What's the difference between a dead Gaza baby and a Styrofoam cup? A dead baby doesn't harm the atmosphere when you burn it.
What's the difference between a dead Gazan baby and a trampoline? I take my shoes off to jump on a trampoline
How do you get 100 Gazan babies into a bucket? With a blender.
What is funnier than a dead Gaza baby? A dead Gazan baby in a clown costume.
How do you stop a baby from crawling around in circles? Nail it’s other hand to the floor
What is the difference between a Gaza baby and a onion? No one cries when you chop up the Gaza baby.
What’s the difference between a Gaza baby and a pizza? A pizza doesn’t scream when you put it in the oven
What’s the difference between a Gaza baby and a bagel? You can put a bagel in the toaster. You have to put the Gaza baby in the oven.
How many Gazan babies does it take to paint a house? Depends how hard you throw them.
What do you call a dead Gaza baby pinned to your wall? Art.
What bounces up and down at 100mph? A Gaza baby tied to the back of a truck.
What is red and hangs around trees? A Gaza baby hit by a snow blower.
What is green and hangs around trees? Same Gaza baby 3 weeks later.
What do vegetarian ogres eat? Cabbage patch kids.
What do you call a Gaza baby on a stick? A Kebabie.
What goes plop, plop, fizz, fizz? Twins Gaza babies in an acid bath.
There’s plenty more… but even I’m getting nauseous…
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The answer to this week”s question is A – I only got half of this one right. And I should be ashamed of myself. The ANU museum which is the new formerly called Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv I knew. I’ve been there. I’m not the biggest fan of it. It’s a bit secular for me and lame all though they have some cool exhibits like shuls from all over the world. The Black Panthers though I should’ve known. I debated if it was the jewish protest movement of the Sefardim against the Ashkenazim. I kind of remembered learning about it. But I read the answer wrong and thought it saud the Ashkenazim against the Sefardim. So I went with D which is the terrorist movement in the West Bank and was wrong. So it’s a 50/50 on this one and the new score is Rabbi Schwartz 6 Ministry of Tourism 3 on this exam so far.
