from the
Holy Land
from
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
"Your friend in Karmiel"
December 5th 2025 -Volume 16 Issue 7 15th of Kislev 5786
Is-Rael Real?
It never fails to amaze me how much the entire focus of the world is on our little country here. It's fascinating, how nothing else matters to anyone else besides Israel. It's not just a figment of our Jewish imagination either. China, Korea, Africa Australia, and even these countries with names I can't pronounce or spell and have never heard of, they've only got one thing on their mind. The Jews and Israel. Or to be more biblically and spiritually precise Bnai Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael. What's with that?
I remember when I went to South Africa with my wife. We wanted to go to visit the Holocaust museum there. By the way just in case you were wondering it wasn't to visit the museum. I don't need to come to SA to do that. Yad Vashem works just fine for me. Rather it was the kosher coffee shop that was there that interested me more and that we planned to have breakfast at. Yet when we came to the museum much to our consternation, it was closed. It really didn't make sense. I had looked online and it was advertised as being open and the sign on the door even said it was the hours that it was meant to be open. So what's up with that? What is this some Israeli thing where they only open and work when they want to and it's convenient for them and signs that state hours of operation, I learned after moving here, are only suggestions of likely times you might find someone there?
Oh well… with nothing much to do, we looked across the street and saw a parade with marching people and music and drums and people dressed in African garb dancing around and so we figured we might go check it out. When we got closer though we were surprised to see that it was in fact a demonstration. What was it about? What local politics have these people singing and dancing? Now just to remind you this is about 4 years before this current Gaza war. This was even before Covid. I don't think I would've even crossed the street today, as I probably could've guessed what this was about. But back then what did I know. Sure enough we got closer and saw that it was an anti-Trump protest (this was back in his first presidency).
What's wrong with Trump, I innocently asked someone. The response shocked me. Trump is helping the Israelis kill Palestinians the kaffiyehed wearing man walked over and told me. Hmmmm… I asked him why that was a bad thing… After-all Palestinians were killing Jews in the streets, creating terror, blowing up buses. They've declared war on Israel and Jews shouldn't someone support us? I mean the Arabs have a bunch of countries all over the Middle East and all we have is this tiny little piece of land, that's 1/4 the size of Krueger national Park. Shouldn't Jews be allowed to live there and develop cures for cancer, technological innovations to transform the world with, even create water out of air and solve the water crises in Africa. He didn't really have much to answer. They never do.
But what amazed me even more then the conversation was the fact that Africa is really a country that's going to pot. Unemployment is like 30% there. 1/3 of the country isn't working. Crime is crazy. People have body guards, get kidnapped regularly, the government corruption is unreal. The place is insane. Yet, all they can protest and worry about is Trump and Israel. That's crazy. That's not normal. That though is very biblical and so Jewish. It's almost as if the entire world knows that everything depends on us and what happens here. And thus all eyes are on us. Always.
This was 6 years ago. Today with this most recent Messianic (hopefully, and almost certainly) Gaza War that's been going on it's gotten even so much more visceral. We always knew that Jews is News. Yet we didn't ever think that we would be the only channel playing!
Yet as well something that I find quite ironic is that our name Israel or "Is Real" is the perfect name for our nation and country. Because there is nothing more real than us. And at the same time there is no country that the world is debating more than if that is a statement or a question mark or an exclamation mark at the end of that word. Is Real. Is Real? Or Is Real!
On the one hand it's as real as it gets over here and were perhaps the only thing that is real in the world. At the same time, there's probably no other country that has so much fake news about the Is-real-ity of what's going on here. We're Is-real in a fake world or as our sages tell us about Messianic times in a world of brazen sheker and chutzpa. An "alma d'shikra"- fake news. What is our mission? To reveal the reality of creation, of Hashem, of Torah, of our nation from the only place reality can shine forth. The land that Hashem has chosen to reveal His glory from. Will we do that? How do we do that? Are we real. Let's see what the parsha tells us. And what better parsha then on title Vayishlach- And he was sent on a mission to find out who we are.
This week's parsha is the first time where the Torah introduces that role and name to us. Fascinatingly enough that revelation comes after our battle with the angel of Esau. A battle that the Rambam in Moreh Nevuchim writes didn't even happen in reality. It's a prophetic vision. It's not a story that's meant to be taken literally. He's not the only one with this approach either. The Ralbag describes the injury to the Gid Ha'Nashe he suffered in that battle as being psychosomatic almost. The imaginary spiritual world impacting the physical world. Now the Ramban and others take measure with the Rambam's approach and see it as a physical battle. Yet even he and many of the Chasidic masters certainly see much in this story that is taking place as being the advent of worlds beyond what we perceive as the real world.
One thing that is certainly agreed upon though, is that Yaakov's name which is squeezed out of the angel, doesn't even become his real name at that point. It's rather a name, the angel tells him, that will be given to him in the future. Yet for now, he's still Yaakov. He won't get his Jewish name until he comes to Israel. For now though, he remains Yaakov. He remains the man that is only identified by someone who is grasping on to the heel of Esau. Whose entire identity is one that is defined by someone else, by the man and nation that from the womb he's trying desperately to surpass and overcome. And perhaps even to be a bit like him. To take his birthright from. To make sure that he's not squashed and smushed under that foot that he's so desperately holding on to.
If we understand this then perhaps we can appreciate the next and last piece of the conversation that Yaakov has with the angel after he tells him about his future name. Yaakov asks the angel what his name is. The angel responds, like a teenager to him.
"Why do you ask what my name is? And he blesses him there."
What the angel is in fact telling Yaakov, is that he's missing the boat. Why do you care what my name is? Don't base who you are on who I am. Don't look to identify who you are and to find yourself in your battle or even victory over me. Look into yourself. See that you are real. That you exist independent of me. You are the only and most important creation. Everything rests on you. The Kabbalists and Talmud tells us that Yaakov is the soul of Adam Ha'Rishon. The first job of Adam in the garden was to be the name-giver. He is the one that named all of creation and existence. Yaakov your job is to breathe that shem- that name- that neshoma into the world. And he blesses him there. He blesses Yaakov that he finds who he is right there at that moment. That he becomes real. That he understands that he Is-rael.
I heard this song this week about this riddle that Reb Menachem Mendel of Rimanov asked his Chasidim. He asked them who the holiest person in the world was and where the holiest place was and what was the holiest time. They answered that the holiest person is of course the Kohen Gadol, on Yom Kippur in the Holy of Holies. He corrected them and told them that they are wrong. The holiest person is each of us when we are doing a mitzva, the holiest place is where we are and the holiest time is right now. Similarly, the Kotzker Rebbe said the holiest time is when a person lets Hashem in right now and is being honest and doing what Hashem needs from him at this moment. That's what the angel blessed Yaakov with. "He blessed him there". That he should always be present. That he is there. Not the man who grabs on to the heel, but the man that is leading with Hashem and with man. Yisrael- that he is real.
It's not only Yaakov that gets his name in this parsha. The Torah as well for the first time calls us, his children Bnai Yisrael. The first time is always an important thing in the Torah. Where is the first place we become the children of Yisrael. Right here after this battle where the Torah tells us that we therefore don't eat the gid ha'nashe, the sciatic nerve of the animal, to remember this battle and that Yaakov was hit here in the leg. Again, strange. Not real. There are no children of Israel as a nation yet. There is no mitzva. There is no Torah even now at this point. Yet the Torah for the first time calls us Bnai Yisrael to tell us about a mitzva that hasn't been commanded yet, and to be truthful to a nation that isn't even fully born yet, as Binyamin is still not around and there are only 11 tribes.
Yet the message is once again the idea of what Klal Yisrael's most fundamental role in the world is. It's that when we sit down to eat and engage in the most physical of actions. It's when we show our dominion of the world and the animal kingdom. It's then when we remember why we are here. We are here not to forget who we are. Gid is to tell and to talk. Like the word Hagadda. Nasheh is to forget. We remove that forgetfulness of who we are. We remove that part of the leg that was hit. We stop identifying ourselves by that kaf yerech- that hand or palm on grasping on that thigh of Esau of that animal. We remove it when we eat and then we rise up. We lead. We stand tall. We tell the world that we don't forget. That we are eternal. Because the world is looking to us. They're looking for us. Ad ha'Yom ha'zeh- until this very day the Torah prophetically tells us. We precede time and we will be for all time.
There's one last Israel mention in our parsha that is not real that is mentioned. It's the one that happens when Yaakov finally returns to Israel- or the land of Canaan as it is always called in the Torah. Yes. I said that correctly. Do you know how we always say that there's no place called in Palestine and how it’s a fiction created by the Romans as a name for Judeah. Well, I hate to burst the bubble but there's no place called Eretz Yisrael in the Torah either. It's Canaan. It's not real. But when Yaakov returns and makes his first real estate purchase in the land. He buys the campground where he puts up his tent right outside of Shechem. There he builds an altar and he calls it/or him Kel Elkoei Yisrael. This is the first time Hashem ever gets His name as the god of Israel. And you know what Israel isn't even here yet. Yaakov isn't even called by Hashem Yisrael yet. But as with everything that is related to our name, reality isn't what we perceive it as. We're here before we're here. Hashem is our God before we're here. Yaakov is really Yisrael, even before he's named that.
When does our name finally become a reality in this world? When does Israel become real? It's only when Yaakov returns to Beit El. To the place where he saw that ladder of Hashem coming up and down. It's when he builds that altar there that he had promised. It's when he comes back from exile in one piece only then does Hashem reveals Himself and tells him that his name will be Yisrael. He will no longer be only called Yaakov. He will have the name Israel.
The problem though is that right after he arises from that vision, the Torah tells us that Yaakov builds an altar to Hashem. He anoints it. He pours wine on it. He calls it Beit El -the house of Hashem. But he's not Yisrael. It's Yaakov that does this. Because Yaakov still hasn't grown into his name fully. He has the power of Yisrael. But it's latent. It's hasn't be Is-realized yet. He's still Yaakov. The Klei Yakar tells us that these two names of Yaakov and Yisrael will bounce back and forth throughout our exile. It's only in the final redemption when we will realize it. When we don't need to feel that we're coming at the heel anymore. That we need Esau's permission anymore. That we don't need the world to tell us that we are real. That we don't look to the UN for our right to existence or what our borders should be. That we no longer care what their angel's or UNgel's name is. Because we are the ones that give the names out in this world. We are the ones that breathe the neshoma in the world. And Eretz Canaan, and Eretz Palestine will finally get its true name as well. It will be Eretz Yisrael. The land of Yisrael who has come back and claimed it and built the altar in it. It's the land where the God of Israel is revealed. It's where we call home. It's back to the garden of Eden.
At the end of the book of Bereishis the Torah tells us that Yaakov Avinu expires and is gathered to his people. Rashi quotes the Talmud that tells us mysteriously that it never says that Yaakov died and in fact he didn't. The Talmud asks but then who did they bury? Whose funeral was it? It was the largest funeral in the history of mankind. But you know what? It was fake news. It wasn't real. Because as the Sfat Emet and Chidushei HaRim and Reb Tzadok Hakoehin and many of the great Chasidic masters suggest. Yaakov perhaps gets buried but Am Yisrael Chai. Yisrael is always alive. Yisrael preceded this world. And it lives on in the spiritual real world. We are reality. We are eternal. We are independent of everything and anyone, just as Hashem is. Shema Yisrael.- Hear oh Israel. Hashem is Elokeinu, When Hashem is our god the God of Israel. Then Hashem is Echad. Then we are one with him. We are no longer hidden in creation. We are one and the world will come and discover that Oneness.
The greater the darkness is, the brighter the light will shine. The bigger the lie is the more powerful the truth reveals itself. We read these parsha of the return of Yisrael and the birth of our nation in the darkest time of year. We read it in our generation where the lies, the falsehoods, the artificiality of existence is overwhelming. Men are women, women are men. Up is down and down is up. Left is right and right is left. All intelligence is artificial. News is fiction and what is happening in reality is something that feels like a dream or nightmare. When that happens the world looks for truth. It's then when Yisrael must shine. It's then when the miracles happen. When Hashem is revealed. It's when Israel will finally be real.
Have a real amazing Shabbos
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
MARIV-5:21 PM -10 minutes after tzeitz
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YIDDISH PROVERB OF THE WEEK
" An einredenish iz erger vi a krenk.".- An imaginary illness is worse than a real one.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM QUESTION OF THE WEEK
answer below at end of Email
10. The name of the entrepreneur and founder of the hydroelectric plant in Naharayim is
________
Which of the following events occurred largely as a result of the bombing of the King
David Hotel?
A. Dismantlement of the "Jewish Resistance Movement"
B. Establishment of the Etzel (Irgun)
C. Establishment of Lehi
D. Dismantlement of the Palmach
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S VIDEO AND MUSIC OF THE WEEK
https://soundcloud.com/ephraim-schwartz/haneshama-lach – My Ha'Neshoma Lach song with Moishie Goldbaum's high part composition- arrangements and vocals by the one and only Dovid Lowy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91vX9oIH8L4 – The Holiest Yid in the World- song above by Reb Moshe Auslander
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/QEzozNdiR2E – Carlebach's amazing Bas Ayin story!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2pRHjFniEk&list=RDR2pRHjFniEk&start_radio=1 – Powerful video and song "Faith" by Nuriel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1oxdgOZixU - It's Chanuka Acapella season and the first release from Kippalive Toda La'Hashem compilation is here in the Shuk!
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S ERA’S AND THEIR PLACES AND PEOPLE IN ISRAEL OF THE WEEK
The Writing on the Wall- 374 BC – When we talk about the redemption coming, the term we use is to "see the writing on the wall". Yup… It seems that the way Hashem lets us know what's happening is by the writing on the wall. Check out those swastikas and Free Palestine writings all over the worlds walls these days. On all the Social media "walls" and on frighteningly enough too many synagogues and Jewish neighborhood walls in graffiti. Or as Simon and Garfunkel sang the "the words of the prophet are written on the Subway walls and Tenement halls." Yup..
Well that concept starts right here with the first redemption story beginning with Belshatzar. After Hashem reveals to Daniel all those amazing future prophecies about all of our exiles and ultimate redemption. He starts to share that light with the world. The King Belshatzar- grandson of Nevuchadnezzar in his third year had just successfully won an attack from Darius and Cyrus of Persia and he makes a cheshbon- which is always a bad thing. He remembers he words of the prophet that we will be exiled for 70 years and he starts that count from when Babylonia first rises to glory. Those 70 years are over. He beat Persia. It's time to party. It's time to celebrate the victory of his nation over the prophecy of it's demise. So he makes a party. He's going to show the world. Bavel will be great again.
Except that it's not. See, he brings all the vessels of the Temple out and begins to use them to show that the Temple will never be rebuilt and that's when the party ends. For all of a sudden a hand comes out from heaven and starts writing on the wall… Uh oh. What does it say? What does it mean. He calls in all of his advisers and as generally happens in these stories no one can figure it out. I don't know why they don't just call in the Jew in the first place. The King offers all types of rewards and sure enough Daniel gets called in to the King to read and explain the writing on the wall. What does it say? What does it mean? Stick around next week…
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S TERRIBLE ARTIFICAL JOKES OF THE WEEK
What’s the opposite of artificial intelligence? Natural stupidity!
Who would steal an artificial leg? I'm stumped
I've always wondered why lemonade is made from artificial flavours. .....and furniture polish is made from real lemons ?
A SHORT HISTORY OF MEDICINE:
"Doctor, I have an ear ache."
2000 B.C. - "Here, eat this root."
1000 B.C. - "That root is heathen, say this prayer."
1850 A.D. - "That prayer is superstition, drink this potion."
1940 A.D. - "That potion is snake oil, swallow this pill."
1985 A.D. - "That pill is ineffective, take this antibiotic."
2017 A.D. - "That antibiotic is artificial. Here, eat this root!"
What do you call immigrants to Sweden? Artificial Swedeners
Why are artificial intelligences in movies always female? Because they're never wrong
A guy walks into a bar and orders a beer. "I picked up a bag of gummy worms today. I've got to say I don't really understand their marketing strategy. The bag says 'no artificial flavors.'" the guy says. "I'm just curious who buys a bag of gummy worms hoping they taste as close to real worms as possible?"
An amputee found a cheap artificial arm for sale on Amazon... It was secondhand.
You shouldn’t make fun of pets with artificial limbs. It’s a faux paw
My cow just got artificially inseminated. No bull.
What do you call a luxury automobile with a built in artificial intelligence? Alexus.
An old man is sitting quietly at a bar drinking whisky. After an hour of steady drinking, he leans over and says to the young man next to him, "I bet you 20 bucks I can bite my eye."
Obviously this is impossible, and seeing an opportunity to take an easy 20 off a drunk, the young man says, "Okay. You're on."
The old man, whips his artificial eye out and bites it. The young man sighs at being so easily fooled and hands over $20. The old man finishes another drink and then leans over again and say, "I bet you 100 bucks I can bite the other eye."
Now the young man knows the man can see him and doesn't have two artificial eyes. So again he says. "You're on."
The old man then whips off his dentures and bites the other eye.
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The answer to this week's question is A – I'm so much better at story and history questions like this then the trivial information dates and Arab or Christian stuff. This one was fairly easy. Pinchus Ruttenberg old Russian man who was a big dreamer came up with the idea of powering the entire Israel with Hydroelectric energy. This week's parsha talks about Yaakov crossing the Yabok river into Israel and the Yarden into Israel. So what better place then where these two rivers meet then to harness the rivers to make electricity and it worked and lasted for years. Part 2 of the question is also pretty easy as I speak about Begin's blowing up the British King David hotel. The ramifications of course were that the three armies joint coordinated attacks on all of the British entrance points to Israel in response for the Jewish immigration restrictions of the White Paper laws. So I got this one right and the new score is Rabbi Schwartz having a 6.5 point and the MOT having 3.5 point on this latest Ministry of Tourism exam.
