from the
Holy Land
from
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
"Your friend in Karmiel"
August 9th 2024 -Volume 13 Issue 42 5th of Av 5784
Parshat Devarim- Shabbos Chazon
Not a Joke
It’s the most heretical joke I have ever heard. Yet, to a large degree there is perhaps no better joke to bring home the concept of what chilul Hashem is. What galus means, what we are going through right now and perhaps even hopefully and most certainly the way that we can finally be done with this thing forever. I’ve pretty much had enough already. I’m done. I can’t take much more. So, if it’s going to take a little bit of heretical humor to shake up the heavens and all of us, I’ll take it. Nothing else seems to be working, so here goes.
Yankel, the atheist, comes up to heaven after 120 years. Seeing that things don’t seem to be going his way on that final divine judgement day, he figures he’ll try to lighten the mood a bit and turns to the heavenly court and tells Hashem that he has a good joke to share about the Holocaust. When God turns to him and asks him for the joke, Yankel tells it over, however unfortunately he doesn’t seem to get any response. God turns to Yankel and tells him to explain the joke. It seems that He didn’t get it. Yankel responds wryfully,
“Well, I guess you just had to be there…”
Ouch! And that my friends is what the definition of chilul Hashem is. The word “chilul” comes from the word ‘chalal’- empty space. A void. Nothingness. When one looks at the world and imagines that Hashem is not there and they see a world without godliness in it, there is no greater chilul Hashem than that. In my lifetime, that greatest chilul Hashem took place on Shemini Atzeret, Simchat Torah of this past year. To be more accurate, it began on that black Shabbos and it has been going on since. Moshe Rabbeinu tells Hashem numerous times throughout the Torah after we sin and when it sounds like Hashem has had enough of our nation that He chose and He’s ready to wipe us out.
Lama yamru mitzryaim- Why should Egypt say that You took us out just to kill us?
King David as well repeatedly points this out to Hashem
“Lama yomru ha’amim ayei elokeichem- why should the nations say where is there God.
Moshe, Dovid and all the prophets and holy advocates throughout the generations come before Hashem with this claim. They don’t ask for mercy for our people because we’re innocent. They don’t ask for clemency because we will repent. They don’t point out the pain and suffering, the hurt, the torture, or the widows the orphans or the hostages. They turn to Hashem and say one thing. It’s a chilul Hashem. It’s a desecration of Your Name. The world will say there is no God of Israel. That no God would ever let this happen. They will say that You’re not there. And when that happens then the entire world falls apart. When that happens, Amalek has won.
Throughout our long, bloodied exile and history that has always been the claim of all the alternate religions. From Nimrod who threw Avraham Avinu into the fiery furnace, to Pharaoh who threw our babies into the Nile and made us slaves so that we would be too burdened to reveal Hashem. Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian beasts, Daniel in the lion’s den, Chananya, Mishael, Azarya as well in the furnace- seems our enemies have a thing for ovens. It was Haman. It was Antiochus and the Greeks and Chana and her 7 sons that refused to bow down to him. Titus stabbing the Holy of Holies with his spear after defiling Hashem’s sanctuary and then subsequently burning it to the ground. Yet that wasn’t enough as Hadrian had to plow it down to a field not long after, because the chilul Hashem must be complete. There can be no remnant of Hashem or His nation in this world in order for them to declare their victory.
Yet after that destruction it just got worse. Rabbi Akiva had his flesh torn from him and the ten martyrs were brutally murdered as our nation was repeatedly massacred. And then came the “other religions”. Destroying God and His nation was not enough. A replacement faith had to be created. The new narrative was that Hashem had abandoned us. He chose someone else. We were forced to convert and join them. Crusades, Muslim conquests, Cossacks. Murder, death, Stalin and Nazi’s. We’ve been “October 7th”ing it for 2000 years. Along that path millions of our brothers even bought the narrative and drank that heretical Amalekite Kool Aid. They assimilated. They converted. They intermarried. They made their own new Torahs, new absurd, ridiculous principles of faith and values. There was almost nation of God left.
Even the few that were left and remembered and were loyal, were so detached from their brothers and sisters who had become lost. They became so insulated. They became so divided and so protective. So focused on their own spiritual survival, at the expense of the rest of the nation and all the divisiveness and animosity even amongst their own factions that it caused. We forgot that Hashem’s revelation is only if all of us are together; only when every letter in the Sefer Torah is kosher and shines. Without one letter the entire Torah is invalid. There is no blessing to be made on it. It’s not what was given on Sinai.
Without even one Jew that wedding between heaven and earth and between Hashem and our nation that took place on the mountain can never have a home where it can shine out. Just like there is no home today in Israel for a family that has a son or daughter still sitting hostage in a Gazan tunnel, or that has lost a child. The home is broken. It’s sad. It’s more than incomplete, it’s shattered and destroyed. The empty seats at their Shabbos tables prevent any light from shining. And there are so many empty seats…. As well, Hashem’s light can’t shine out of when there are empty seats at his table. And thus the world gets darker and darker without it. That is the greatest chilul Hashem of all. It is the source of all sadness, all misery, all the angst, confusion and darkness that fills the world today. Because the world continues to say ayei elokeichem- where is Your God… and the truth is it’s a question, that in particularly years like this past one, is becoming so hard to answer…
This Shabbos we begin the final book of the Torah. Although we believe that the entire Torah was dictated by Hashem to Moshe word for word, yet our sages tell us that the Book of Devarim is different. It was not said from Hashem directly to us, rather it was Him speaking through Moshe. It is the speech of Moshe. It is called Mishneh Torah- a repetition of the Torah, or on a deeper spiritual level it is the connection between the previous four books that came from Him down to us while this fifth book is the bridge through Moshe between us back to Him.
We begin this book every single year on Shabbos Chazon, the Shabbos before Tisha B’Av. It is the Shabbos when perhaps we feel most distant and forlorn. When we look back at our long history and almost can’t picture that loving moment on Sinai even in our wildest dreams. We can’t picture a loving God choosing us, crowning, calling us His am segula, His precious treasured nation. There’s been too much trauma since then. We’ve fallen so far. We haven’t seen Him for so long. We can’t smell those sacrifices we brought to Him in His house. The music that once filled the air of His Temple. We can only see a golden pimple desecrating that special spot. We pathetically feel holy when we stand by a burnt broken retaining wall of His mountain and stick a paper in it’s crack and lean our heads against it. We’ve fooled ourselves into thinking that we are close to Him and we have a meaningful spiritual relationship in our fancy full shuls, batei midrash, yeshivos and kollels in galus, in America and the Diaspora. And not only in galus either. Even here in Eretz Yisrael, we think and feel we’re home because we’re living in the land and we have yeshivos and Torah and shuls and chesed here as well. But we are so so far… and it’s so so fake…
We feel that way because we’re so pitifully desperate to have Him. To not see Him desecrated anymore. To give Him a place. To bring Him into the world, because it’s so dark without Him. Yet, the truth is on Tishah B’Av we realize it’s all baloney. It’s all just Facebook friending Him, and social media followers with us “thumbs-upping” and “liking” Him and saying and singing ‘Thank You Hashem’ a lot. It’s a long-distance relationship that never really lives together. He’s homeless still. And all we’re doing is making fancy spiritual cardboard boxes for Him under the subway to hang out in, because He doesn’t have a house. And if in truth we believe that we are wed to Him and our destinies are intertwined then guess what? Neither do we…How’s that cardboard box feel?
Parshat Devarim is to a large degree Moshe telling us, that this is not really true, though. It begins with Moshe alluding to all our sins, through it all repeating the theme that the distance from Hashem really started and continues from us rather than from Him. Unlike that Billy Joel 80’s song, we did start the fire. He starts off with us agreeing to judges and distance from Moshe in order that we are not together with Hashem directly. We’re good with an intermediary. Even at that moment on Sinai we were too intimidated to be together all the time. It gets worse when we come close to the land. It’s us going into our marital Home. It’s to build Him a Home for us together. And we don’t feel Him with us. We cry. We complain. We hurt. We die. Hashem in His mercy understands that for this to work, we have to really want it. We have to see how bad it is without Him. We need to wander for 40 years and now for 2000 years. The old generations must die. Only the new and the fresh that truly want nothing else will be able to make it in. And that is when the parsha shifts.
Moshe turns to our nation and repeatedly tells us, Hashem is here. Hashem has started already bringing us back. He killed so many of our enemies. He’s preformed miracles. Yes, it looks scary. But that’s not real. Any fear you have is only because you don’t see Him standing next to you… standing above you. But He’s been there and He’s ready to finally make that Home that we started journeying to from Sinai. To shine out that light to the world. To make a Kiddush Hashem, by removing that chilul. But it can only happen, if we’re not afraid. If we’re not afraid to tell it to the world. We’re not afraid to come into the land, the mountain, to build the House of Hashem. If we understand that eileh b’rechev v’eileh ba’susim- they are with chariots and with horses, or missiles, drones and even nukes is not just a psalm of Tehillim that we recite as we wrap up our tefillin on the way out of shul, but that it’s for real. Anachnu b’sheim Hashem Elokeinu nazkir- we remember and will call out ‘Shema Yisrael Hashem Echad’, ‘Kadosh Kadosh Kadosh’ ‘Hashem hu Elokim’… We have one God. We have Hashem and they don’t.
A nation that has Hashem doesn’t care who the next president of the United States will be. It doesn’t care what the UN or world will say. It’s not concerned that its chayalim don’t have helmets, vests, or enough artillery or tanks. It doesn’t care if it’s a battle on one front, three fronts or against the entire world. It doesn’t even care if we are worthy of miracles, if we have smart phones, if some of us appear less holy than others, if some of us are still lost… We have Hashem. We’re coming home. He’s bringing us home. He’s shlepping us in. He’s bringing us together, putting us in the same bunkers and bomb shelters. He’s making sure that this Tisha B’Av the entire nation is in mourning and realizing how dark and homeless a world of chilul Hashem is. How there’s not a house in Israel that doesn’t understand the pain of an empty chair by the Shabbos table. He’s bringing us to the point where we see Him and only Him, because there’s nothing else worth looking at and we finally understand that there is thing else we need more.
Does this all sound unreal to you? Beautiful, perhaps, but fantasy. Stuff of dreams. Perhaps. Admittedly I’m not there yet. I’m not the Chafetz Chaim. I’m still checking the News every five minutes. But as I get closer and closer to Tisha B’av I’m getting there. Shabbos Chazon is called that because of the first words of the haftora of Yeshaya who foresaw the destruction more than a century before it happened. Yet, he is also the prophet, of who our sages tell us that all his prophecies are of consolation. Even the ones of destruction. For perhaps it is only in that destruction that we can finally see the consolation that needs to come.
This past, non-tour-guiding working week, I read a book, probably the first in years that I was able to do cover to cover in one sitting. It was by one of my favorite singers and Rabbis, Shlomo Katz, titled “The Soul of Jerusalem”. There was many stories and ideas that I found meaningful in it yet this last one I’ll share with you has been carrying me through the past days. It is a story of a couple who lived in Rome, who loved each other very much, but were always fighting. After a while they decided that they should separate. She would go back to live with her mother in Florence and he would take the time to travel around Europe. They locked up the house, but he promised that every Friday he would send her a letter.
The first week she got his letter and was very surprised. He wrote about how after he left, he had flown to Paris and met a very nice lady. To make a long story short, he fell in love with her and they were getting married. She was obviously hurt and devastated. But she knew their relationship had been on the rocks and bitterly accepted the bad news. However much to her surprise when the letter came the next week, it seems that things had changed, although not for the better.
“Hi, I know that I wrote you last week about this woman that I met in Paris, but that was not the real thing. We broke it off quite quickly. On a positive note though, I flew out to Hamburg this past week and there was this lovely woman that was sitting next to me on the plane, and I think she might actually be the right one. We have started dating seriously.”
And so it continued week, after week, after painful week. One letter after another. Each week a different woman. It reached a point when she couldn’t take it anymore. She’d had enough. Things weren’t good with her parents anyways. They kept asking her when she was going to get a divorce already? What is she waiting for? So she decided to return to Rome to the house where she lived with her husband.
When she got home she walked around from room to room wistfully. Every corner was full of memories. Of conversations she had with her husband in each place. Jokes they shared, happy times they had and love that they felt and expressed. The memories kept flooding back and she understood and remembered how much they had and what they had lost. She thought to herself, at least here I’ll be safe from his letters, I can’t take them anymore.
Yet as she made her way to the study, she saw a candle burning from his room. Lo and behold she sees none other than her husband there sitting and writing these crazy letters from his desk. When he sees her enter, he jumps up and embraces here. He’s so happy to see her. When she asks him what he’s doing there, he responds.
“You know something, I never left… I never left. I could never leave you or here. I was just making up those letters so that you shouldn’t think that I’m sitting here waiting for you. I fabricated them so that you wouldn’t know that I was still here. I even got people to send them to you from all over the world, from all of those cities. I’ve been sitting here waiting for you the whole time…”
How deep this story is… We’re in exile, in NY, in Rome, Africa and we get crazy letters from Hashem that seem to say I’m not taking care of you. I’ve moved on. So many letters, so much destruction; the Temple, the Inquisition, 6 Million, October 7th. It seems He’s not there. So we cry out “Ma’ayin yavo ezri- from where will my help come?”. But the Shechina has never left. Hashem is sitting waiting for us. Waiting to bring us home. We just need to walk into the study. We just need to say we’ve had enough and leave our foster nation parent’s house who keep asking us when we will get the divorce, when will we stop waiting.
This year those letters of Hashem started getting written to us with the book of Bereishis on Simchas Torah. The joy and levity of that day was taken from us in what hopefully, or perhaps certainly was the final bitter letter that Hashem sent us in this year of mourning. May this Shabbos and Tisha B’av be the beginning of our final letter back to him with the Book of Devarim that we are not afraid. That we know He will fight for us. That we are ready to come home. That instead of the question, heretical joke and chilul Hashem of “Eicha- where are You Hashem” that we read each year, that this year we finally have the answer, that we know You were here the whole time and now we are too. All of us. Together.
May we all a miraculously spectacular Shabbos followed by a very very happy Tisha B’av,
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
************************
YIDDISH PROVERB OF THE WEEK
" Oif morgen zol Got zorgen.”- Let God worry about tomorrow.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM QUESTION OF THE WEEK
answer below at end of Email
17.The book that is read on Tisha B’Av is_____.
What other names are used for the “Litvak” Haredim?
A. Mitnagdim
B. Neturei Karta
C. Subbotniks
D. Hasidim
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S COOL VIDEO OF THE WEEK
https://soundcloud.com/ephraim-schwartz/al-eileh-acapella – For the month of Av my Al Eileh Acapella Vocals and arranged by Dovid Lowy, a song hopefully we will not need to sing this year…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9Bg5H2ipeI - Ari Goldwag’s latest Acapella prayer for Israel Hinei Lo Yanum
https://soundcloud.com/ephraim-schwartz/achainu – My latest release Acheinu or even better please click on this 24/6 link and make me go vira if you have an account - https://24six.app/app/music/content/191798
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PzeRZLNGzA – Habeit Acapella Benny Friedman and Schwebel one of the most moving songs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84QMxzqpFzI – Hashiveynu- Reb Yitzy Staum moving… powerful…
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S PARSHA PRAYER INSPIRATION OF THE WEEK
Mashiach Tears- Our sagest tell us that the gate in heavens of tears is never closed. Many times what we can’t accomplish with our prayers, our tears have the power to achieve. This week Moshe recounts that fateful night of Tisha B’Av when we cried for naught about the evil tidings of the spies that were sent to Israel, and we rejected the land of Israel, preferring to stay in the “comfortable” wilderness with Moshe. Because of that night for all time Hashem decreed Tisha B’Av will be a night of crying and mourning. And He wasn’t kidding. Tragedy after tragedy occurred on this night throughout our history even after the destruction of our Temple. It is an eternal night of tears, yet at the same time, it is also a night that has the most power to bring the redemption as the gateway of tears is always opened and it is the one that is closest to Hashem.
Rav Moshe Shapira asks an interesting question. Why is it that Hashem created man different than all other creatures, in that when he feels sadness it is expressed with salty water coming out of his eyes that cloud his vision. Why is that the physical reaction that should reflect sadness and empathy? Animals also might tear, but that’s a mere physical reaction to the need to clean out their eyes or for lubricative purposes, it’s not sadness or emotional. It’s why they’re called crocodile tears. What’s the connection and message for us?
He explains brilliantly that if we want to understand a word or concept we have to look the Hebrew word in lashon hakodesh. He notes that the word dimah- tears also means mixture. The word bechi- cry comes from the word mevucha- a confusing maze. Yelala- mournful crying is from the word layla darkness. Erev-evening as well means a combination, choshech- darkness is associated with lachsoch- withdrawn or disconnected. All sadness related terms are connected to a sense of lack of clarity.
What makes us sad is when we can’t see straight anymore. The world is incomprehensible. It seems random. We don’t see a future. We don’t see any light. We’re lost and we’re stuck in a moment, and thus our body responds appropriately by clouding that vision with water. We’re drowning. Another aspect as well is crying and sobbing. The essence of man’s creation is our ability to speak. Hashem blew into us that spirit of life which the Unkelos translation defines as the godly power of speech. It is the same power that Hashem created the world through His speech. When we speak, when we study, when we pray, when we announce Hashem’s presence in the world we become like Him. Yet, when we don’t see that we can’t speak. Our words are broken. They’re crying. We’re sobbing because we can’t say words that will reveal Hashem, because we can’t see Him. We don’t feel Him.
We have been suffering Tisha B’av for 1954 years of our exile because we shed tears for no reason. We had it all. We were about to enter the land. We had the Torah. Yet, we brought upon ourselves tears when we should’ve had the most clarity that we ever had. From that time on all the tears that we have and continue to shed are tears and sobbing to get that clarity back. To see Hashem. To finally wipe them off of our face forever. Tisha B’av is the day when we taste those tears the most. It is the holy of the holiest, from the lowest of the lowest place. May this year those finally be wiped away.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S ERA’S AND THEIR PLACES AND PEOPLE IN ISRAEL OF THE WEEK
Iran!- 701 BC -Just when you thought there wasn’t enough timely learning in this weekly E-Mail even in the random chronological columns, Hashem kicks in and sends me a message that this is “inyana d’yoma””. Learning our history and places in Israel is not just becoming knowledgeable about who what happened to us, rather its learning and seeing the lessons of the past as they unfold before us as they repeatedly do, today. And with that introduction it’s time to talk about Iran. Hello Bavel, welcome to Israel…
Last week we learned about Chizkiya’s miraculous healing. We mentioned how he asked Hashem for a sign and time turned backwards and there was 10 extra hours of daylight. Well this according to some of the opinions in the Midrash and commentaries was not just a miracle that took place only in Israel but it went across the entire region, if not world. According to others it was a local miracle, but rather the fact that Chizkiya was healed from a sickness that no one ever came back before from in a miraculous way made the headlines everywhere. It even made to the Iranian version of Al Jazeera. The king of Bavel/ Iran at the time was none other than the grandson of Sancherev the former disgraced king of Assyria who was killed by his own sons when he tried killing them. Yeah, stuff like that goes on in the Middle East from our neighbors. Well his einikil Berodach Baladan was impressed by this miracle and sent messengers to Jerusalem to Chizkiya to hear about it first-hand. And here’s where Chizkiya gets himself in trouble.
See we Jews always have a problem when goyim are impressed with us and our God. We really can’t believe that they truly hate us and want to kill us. We attribute it to social media, them being brought up on hate, or check points or our colonialist aspirations. We make excuses for them. So when we see that they show some sign of interest in what we are doing we let our guard down and we welcome them and show them everything. This is a problem. And Chizkiya falls right into that trap.
The Navi tells us that Chizkiya took them into his palace, he should them all his wealth and treasure houses, all the hi-tech stuff that we invented. He showed them the beautiful buildings and then he even took them to the Temple Mount and showed them the Beit HaMikdash opening up the Ark itself and showing them the tablets of Hashem. He stepped over the red line. One can’t show the goyim, particularly our cousins from Yishmael our wealth, our success and our Temple and how Hashem has chosen us and not expect them to be jealous and hate us for it. Although Chizkiya had the greatest intentions, yet by bringing them up to the Holies and showing them everything he stepped over the line. It was a statement about how much Hashem loves and blesses the Jewish people, yet he didn’t message that same God also was in charge of the world and even he Chizkiya was not free to do and show what he wanted. He was praising the great army of Israel that Hashem “helps” and “saves”. But he didn’t realize or let them know that it was truly all Hashem…
The prophet Yeshaya comes to Chizkiya and rebukes him. He tells him that this act of friendliness to Iran was a mistake and a costly one at that.
“Days are coming, when everything in your house and what your fathers had gathered will be taken to Bavel. ‘There will be nothing left!’ says Hashem. And of your children that will come forth from you that you will bear will be taken and become ministers in Bavel.”
Chizkiya repents, Hashem decides to spare the Ark itself from being taken, but Chizkiya’s descendant Daniel and Chanania, Mishael and Azarya will in fact be ministers in Bavel. The Iranian exile gets it start with this prophecy. It is the last act of the life of Chikizya and the last prophecy he will receive. It is from this week that the prophecies of Yeshaya of the exile and ultimate redemption that we begin to read this week begin. May that long exile finally be over this Shabbos and the vision of Yeshaya of redemption be fulfilled.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S JOKES OF THE WEEK
Yeah… not this week guys… If you can’t take a shower, listen to real music, or wear fresh clothing or even eat meat and you’re still checking this column for a joke still- you’re still not mourning enough… So sit down on the floor and cry. Mourners don’t check joke columns… Next week though iyh will be happy again like never before…az yimalei sechok pinu- then our mouths will be fill with joy!
**********************************
The answer to this week”s question is A– Admit it. You’re just as impressed as I am at how Hashem makes it that so many times the tour guide question of the week turns out to be timely. I don’t plan it this way, but it really is cool! It’s like Ruach Hakodesh almost…. Or not… Anyways this question is and easy one. We all know that we read Eicha and as well we know that the Litvaks are generally Mitnagdim- or antagonists as to their opposition to the Chasidim. Although there are not too many Litvishe yeshivos where you won’t find Chasidim there today. Although I don’t believe the reverse is true. Chasidic yeshivos are generally only chasidim. Why do you think that is? Well anyways got this one entirely correct- for a change- and thus that makes the correct new score Rabbi Schwartz 11 and Ministry of Tourism 6 on this exam so far.
