from the
Holy Land
from
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
"Your friend in Karmiel"
February 3rd 2023 -Volume 12 Issue 16 12th of Shevat 5783
Parshat Beshalach
It’s wet. It’s cold. It’s dark and cloudy and it’s
what we native born and raised Americans might call a miserable day outside. It’s
days like this that we tour guides start to scramble a bit. Uh oh! There go my
plans for a nice warm day by the Dead Sea or Ein Gedi. The roads might be
closed because of flash floods. My tourists are not going to be able to handle
a whole day walking around Shilo or Caesarea in the rain. What indoor activities
are there to do? How can I keep them warm, dry and comfortable and yet still at
the end of the day give them an experience that they feel they could only get
here with a tour guide? I don’t want to just take them to a museum with its own
guide, or to only fun activities where they don’t need me. They’re paying me
big bucks. I want them to feel that they’re getting their money’s worth for a
tour guide rather than just an indoor itinerary planner.
Baruch Hashem, I have mazal. God seems to be
madly in love with me and my tourists and I’ve been able to swing mostly dry
days, miraculously enough, in this stormy week. It’s really amazing! It’s like
Hashem wants to make sure that they have pleasant and incredible days and only
the best experience when they’re here. Maybe then they’ll decide that perhaps its
Kdai to stick around and maybe even move to His Promised land. Who knows?
I don’t know… I think it might just Divine wishful thinking…Ha’levai…
While standing out there though that morning
looking out my window an incredibly powerful, and dare I even suggest, a
life-changing idea came to me. Here I was getting ready to daven to Hashem to
clear those skies up for me. When I ask for V’Tein Tal U’matar L’vracha-
the prayer for rain each day, I always have kavana that the blessing is
that it should come when I’m not touring. Friday night when I’m home from shul
and getting into bed after the Shabbos meal is a great time. During the week
after my tour is over and I drop them off at their hotel, it’s always is appreciated. Even
on my tour days if You need to make it rain- and I understand that it’s
important, for without rain rafting down the Jordan River this summer will be extremely
painful bumping on the rocks over what will be a shallow stream at best if we
don’t have more rain this year. This is of particular concern to this tour
guide who has lost a lot of his padding on his backside that once served as great
bumpers and protection. Just bring it down, please, when it doesn’t shterr
my day too much.
And then it hit me. It’s a fascinating thing
this rain thing. On the one hand it’s important. It’s blessing. We daven for
it. On Shemini Atzeret we even put on a Kittel and pretend it’s like Yom Kippur
while we daven in a special tune for rain. We understand that rain isn’t just
rain, but it is for all our Parnassa- our livelihood; our gashmiyos-all
of our material needs.
At the same time it really is pretty miserable.
It’s certainly not fun- except for those few weird people that like walking or
dancing in the rain and splashing and getting wet. Why does Hashem make it happen
that way? Why can’t He bring down our blessing and our rain like in a nice
jacuzzi type, fun, relaxing way? A little shvitz action with it. A good
massage perhaps? Why the cold, wet and icky-ness of it to bring our blessing?
I was speaking to my Rebbi this past week, Reb
Yisrael Asia, and he told me something scary and fascinating that he had heard in
the name of the the great Telzer Illuy Reb Mordechai Pogoromansky Zt”l, that
the greatest nisayon- the most difficult challenge that our nation ever
underwent in our history, was in this week’s Torah portion. It was the test and
challenge of Bizas Ha’Yam- the wealth and booty that we inherited and received
at the splitting of the Sea from the Egyptians. According to some Midrashim although
when we left Egypt we “borrowed” all of the fancy clothes and possessions the
Egyptians had in their house, when it came to chasing the Jews to the Yam Suf
Pharaoh opened up all of his storehouses and decorated the horses and chariots
with diamonds and precious stones and gold and silver. According to another
Midrash the splitting took place specifically by Baal Tzafon which is where the
money storage houses that Yosef had centuries before placed all the money of
Egypt. It was their Fort Knox. The Jews walked away from that sea mega-millionaires.
And that wealth, what to do with it, how to handle and relate to it, what that could
do to us, that became the greatest challenge we ever had. It was the challenge
that we failed.
It was only a few months after that windfall or more
accurately sea-splash, that we took all that gold and made a calf with it. We went
from singing songs of praise to Hashem, to dancing and partying grotesquely in
front of that gold singing “this is your God, Israel”. We started worshipping
the holy dollar. We stuffed our face on it. We built huge edifices with
swimming pools and tennis courts. We wanted more and more of it and we forgot
that it wasn’t the money or gold that ever takes us out of our “Egypts”- no
matter how much we have stashed away, when the antisemitic persecuted push
comes to the inevitable genocidal expulsion and shove. It’s only Hashem. He is
our salvation. Not the billions I have stashed away or all the “power and
influence” I think I might have with all of my money and success.
When we left Egypt, Hashem commanded Moshe to
please request us- Dabeir na- bi’azney ha’am- to ask the Egyptians for
their wealth. Rashi, quoting our sages tell us that Hashem asked us to ask them
for it so that Avraham Avinu, who was promised that after 400 years of
persecution that his descendants would suffer, would not have any taynas
to Hashem, that He promised us that we would go out with great wealth, and it
wasn’t fulfilled. The commentaries all ask the simple question. Did we really need
to be persuaded to and begged to take the billions that Egypt was offering and
giving us?
Although Rashi answers with a parable of a
prisoner that just wants to get out and will leave as soon as he can and is
grateful for just being able to escape the Holocaust, perhaps there is a deeper
understanding as well. Hashem understood that wealth is a dangerous thing. Easy
money is the most dangerous of all. He asked Moshe to tell the Jewish people
that they should take the money from the Egyptians not for the sake of the
money. Rather they should take it “li’shmah”- only for the sake of the
promise to Avraham Avinu and to remove his claim on Hashem. Take it because you
have to take it. Not because you want it. Not because you believe it will do
anything for you. Not even because it might be used for holy things like
building the Beit Ha’Mikdash or a fancy shul or a thousand charity organizations.
Take it because I Told you to.
It didn’t work though. We failed. In Egypt when
we left, we perhaps took it with that intent, but when it came to the extravagant
wealth that was chucked at us at the Sea, Moshe couldn’t get us away from it.
The Torah tells us he had to force us to leave those golden shores. Each man
had 90 donkeys full and it still wasn’t enough. It was insane. Unfortunately, Reb
Mordechai says, that test will need to be fulfilled once again before Mashiach
comes and this time he ruefully notes, if we’re not successful Hashem will have
to “shlep us out of Galus by our payos…”.
Do you know why rain is cold and wet and
miserable? Hashem wants us to understand that as important and wonderful and blessed
this incredible material world He has given us is, we should never get too
attached to it. It should feel like cold rain dripping down our necks and back
and sloshing around in our wet socks and shoes. We need it. We want it. We can
plant and grow tremendous things with it. But it should never be something that
we want to stand outside any longer than we need to get it. It should be
something that we need to put a holy umbrella over our heads to protect us from
it. It can give us a cold without it. It can make us sick. It will knock you
out at the end of the day if you stay in it too long. It’s not really that geshmak
after all.
Fascinatingly enough our parsha though does give
us an alternative type of existence that is quite the opposite. It’s called the
Manna. Unlike rain, Mannah, which as well comes from heaven, comes to us as
dew. It rises up from ground. It doesn’t get us wet. It’s parked like an Amazon
package right out the door. It is the food and parnasa of faith. It’s
when I go to sleep every night with absolutely nothing in the bank. Not a crumb
from yesterday left in my cupboard. Is there a greater Jewish nightmare than an
empty pantry? Yet that is the real clean and sweet parnassa that we ate
for forty years in the wilderness. It was a school for how to eventually deal and
perceive the material blessing that the Land of Israel will provide for us,
that we will need to work for with our own sweat and tears and that can be
dangerous to us. It is the bread of faith. It is the parshat Ha’Man that
everyone was forwarding around on their whatsapp groups to all of their friends
and families this past Tuesday. It was certainly to remind them, that the real
good and dry parnassa that we should daven to Hashem is the one that
only gives us enough that we need for each day. We don’t need more than that.
Too much is scary. Too much I don’t know if I can handle the nisayon for.
With too much I might forget how wet, dirty and cold this material blessing is
and I might stay too long in it and catch a cold. I might forget You…
We are living in that era right before our final
redemption. Baruch Hashem from what I can see by the multitudes that are
flocking to Israel and blowing wads of gelt- in the right place and on the
right people- wink wink..- that Klal Yisrael is doing better than we’ve ever
done before. It’s that time of the Nisayon of Bizas Ha’Yam that Reb
Mordechai foretold. Biza- loot or booty, also comes from the word bizayon.
It’s something we should scorn. That should be wet and icky to us and feel that
way as shiny and beautiful as it may look and as tempting as it is. Rebbi
Yehudah Ha’Nasi who was one of the wealthiest people of his time lifted his
small finger up before he died and said that even though there was never anything
lacking from his table, he didn’t really enjoy anything in this material world.
It was wet, cold and rainy to him. That’s a hard level to reach and I’m
speaking to myself as much as to anyone reading; not that I have mega-millions.
But whenever it’s raining, since I’ve thought of that idea, it reminds me of
what geshem really is. How it should really feel to me. I don’t want
rain. I want Mannah. And if we have that emuna and faith IYh we will
finally rectify that first failed test and merit finally to eat from the Table
of the King in His palace rebuilt!
Have a dry and blessed Shabbos,
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
************************
YIDDISH PROVERB
OF THE WEEK
“A gast iz vi
regen az er doi’ert tsu lang, vert er a last.- A guest is like rain: when he
lingers on, he becomes a nuisance..
“
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM
QUESTION OF THE WEEK
answer below at end of Email
9) "The Knights' Halls" in Acre are a part of a compound
of a Crusader order known as "The___order".
Khan al-Umdan in Acre was built by:
A) Ahmad al-Jazzar
B) Dahir al-Umar
C) Suleiman the Magnificent
D) Mahmud Abu Nabut
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S COOL VIDEO OF THE
WEEK
https://soundcloud.com/ephraim-schwartz/shiras-hayam-the-song-of-the-sea-vayosha
– Shabbos Shira is not complete
without singing and at least listening to my Shiras Ha’Yam song. If it sounds
familiar to you, it’s because its most
likely the tune we all sang when we left Mitzrayim and crossed the Sea.. I just
remembered it 😊
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E2de20wrPQ
-Another
amazing 8th Day hit! King David, Eliyahu and Devorah Ha’Neviah…
really beautiful lyrics…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmEXlHUhzmM
– A new hit from my latest tourist! Reframe
it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM6zs91Khns
- And
once we’re on the subject of money- Why not Lipa’s Gelt…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4_8A3MmNqA
– If you’re my ag, you can’t
possibly listen to this weeks haftorah without singing Yigal Calek’s London Boy’s
Shimu Melachim
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S
ERA’S AND THEIR PLACES AND PEOPLE IN ISRAEL OF THE WEEK
Ovadiah’s Wife- 704 BC After
the incredible miraculous victory over Meisha and Moav, the Navi
tells us that there was a prosecuting angel and claim against us. Meisha
had sacrificed his son- as crazy as that sounds, in order to calm down the
wrath of Hashem. Yet, although Hashem is not a fan of child-sacrifice, he does
turn to us and asks “what have we done for Him lately?”. The Navi thus tells us
right after the story of the wife of the prophet Ovadia, that converted
servant of Achav who himself had become a prophet. He personally hid and
fed the prophets of Hashem that Achav had tried to kill. This is not a
cheap undertaking and Ovadia quickly went into debt. But prophets have to be
fed and thus with no choice he went to Achav’s son Yehoram and
borrowed money to feed the prophets. Yehoram however charged exorbitant
interest for these loans, which Ovadia having no choice undertook. When
he died though and there was no money to pay back the debts, Yehoram
threatened to take his orphans as slaves in exchange for the debts. This is a
bad thing.
Ovadia’s
wife cried by his funeral to Hashem, the orphans raised their voices asking
Hashem to take care of them. And it is in her merit that Hashem had mercy on
the Jewish people. Yet, the Father of all orphans, widows and converts Hashem
told her not to worry and sent her off to Elisha to help her. When she came
to Elisha, he heard her prayer and ordered to take all the vessels and
jugs and jars that she could round up and take the little bit of oil which is
all she had left and to bring them to a closed room with her family. There she
should pour continuously from the flask to all of the jugs and it would
miraculously fill up and continue to pour until she was done. Not bad…
We have a similar story our
sages note by Eliyahu and the widow of Tzarfat that he had helped
in a similar way. Yet that woman it seemed had more merits than Ovadia’s
wife. See Ovadia’s wife our sages tell us was in a worse situation she
didn’t have any flour whereas the tzarfat widow did. As well, Eliyahu’s
miracle provided her with an endless supply of both flour and water, here this
woman could only fill up as much as she could this one time in one straight
pour. As well she could only use borrowed vessels. The reason for this is because
Ovadia had agreed to pay interest which is in itself is a sin, despite it
being for holy purposes. Thus his vessels and house was tainted. They couldn’t
have any gain from anything that belonged to him.
Well, she did what he told
her and miraculously she filled up tons and made a fortune selling it all,
paying off all her debts. Not bad! Once again Elisha shows he’s up to
the task and another a miracle notch on his belt as he continues to lead the
Jewish people in miraculous ways.
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S TERRIBLE
RAIN JOKES OF THE WEEK
Q: When
does it rain money? A: When there is "change" in the weather.
Q: What do
you call it when it rains chickens and ducks? A: Foul (fowl) weather.
Q: What
did one raindrop say to the other? A: Two's company, three's a cloud
Q: What's
worse than raining buckets? A: Hailing taxis!
Q: How can
you wrap a cloud? A: with a rainbow.
Q: What
does it do before it rains candy? A: It sprinkles!
Q: What
goes up when the rain comes down? A: An Umbrella.
Q: What do
you call two straight days of rain in Seattle? A: A weekend
Q: What do
you call a wet bear? A: A drizzly bear
Q: What
does daylight-saving time mean in Seattle? A: An extra hour of rain.
Q: Can
Bees fly in the rain? A: Not without their yellow jackets
Q: What do
you call a months worth of rain? A: England
Q: Why was
the blonde standing outside the department store in the rain? A: She was
waiting to cash her rain check!
A man and his wife are awakened at 3 o'clock in the morning by a loud
pounding on the door.
The man gets up and goes to the door where a drunken stranger, standing
in the pouring rain, is asking for a push.
'Not a chance,' says the husband, 'It is three o'clock in the morning.'
He slams the door and returns to bed.
'Who was that?' asked his wife.
'Just some drunk guy asking for a push,' he answers.
'Did you help him?' she asks.
'No. I did not. Its three o'clock in the morning and it is pouring
rain outside!'
His wife said, 'Can't you remember about three months ago when
we broke down and those two guys helped us? I think you should help him, and
you should be ashamed of yourself!'
The man does as he is told (of course!), gets dressed and goes out
into the pouring rain. He calls out into the dark,
'Hello! Are you still
there?'
'Yes,' comes
back the answer.
'Do you still need a push?' calls out the husband.
'Yes! Please!' comes the reply from the darkness.
'Where are you?' asks the husband.
'Over here on the swing!!' replies the drunk.
Izzy and Jacob are walking down the street when it starts to rain,
and in no time at all, it’s raining quite hard. Luckily, Izzy is carrying an
umbrella.
"Nu," says Jacob. "So when are you going to open the
umbrella?"
"It won't do us any good," says Izzy. "It's
full of holes."
"So why then did you bring it?" replies Jacob.
"Because," Issy says with shrug, "I didn't think it would rain."
A store manager overheard a clerk saying to a customer.
“No, ma’am, we haven’t had any for some weeks now, and it
doesn’t look as if we’ll be getting any soon.”
Alarmed by what was being said, the manager rushed over to the
customer who was walking out the door and said…
“That isn’t true, ma’am. Of course, we’ll have some soon. In fact,
we placed an order for it a couple of weeks ago.”
Then the manager drew the clerk aside and growled,
“Never, never, never say we don’t have something. If we don’t
have it, say we ordered it and it’s on its way. Now, what was it she wanted?”
The clerk smiled and said, “Rain…”
Sadie had died and today was her levoyah. Her husband, Nathan and
many of their family and friends were standing 'round the grave as Sadie’s
coffin was lowered into the ground. Then, as is the custom, many of the
mourners picked up some spades and helped fill the open grave with earth.
But, on their way back to the prayer hall, the sky suddenly
darkened, rain started to fall, flashes of lightening filled the sky and loud
thunder claps battered their ears.
Nathan turns to his rabbi and says, "Well rabbi, she’s
arrived OK."
The answer to this week”s question is A – I do Akko quite a bit…or at least
did in the warmer months and longer days when tourists were more game to come
up North. Now although I do Akko, I don’t really do much Crusader stuff. I have
no real interest in those cursed Christian “Nazi’s” that murdered about 1/3 of
our nation in Europe. And I really can’t stand how they get romanticized. But I
did know that the Knights Order were the Hospitaliers, which sounds helpful and
caring for people which is what they were established as. Until they became
Priests with swords and knives to murder and kill us. In regards to the second
part of the question I got that right as well, although Akko was built by Dahr
el Ohmar who was a pretty good Turkish Governor of the North, El Jazzar who
followed him was known as the Butcher and would regularly hack off peoples
limbs with the guillotine he would walk around with just for fun. He built the
big mall where the pilgrims would come in from in the port. So I got this one
right and so back on track with the score being 6.5 for Schwartz and 2.5 for
Ministry of tourism on this exam so far…
