Insights and Inspiration
from the
Holy Land
from
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
"Your friend in Karmiel"
December 26th 2013 -Volume 4,
Issue 13 -23rd of Tevet 5774
Vaeira
The Answer
Her name was Suri. Not that little helpful guy
trapped inside of your IPhone. Suri, Sarah Rachel to be precise. She was a good
Bais Yaakov graduate, raised in a nice haymish, Chasidic-"ish"
home in New York. She went to all the right schools and now she was here in
Israel for the first time exploring the country with everyone's favorite tour
guide J. After a week of inspiration and really connecting on so many
different levels to the holy sites, the places our ancestors tread, the holy
simple people and some of our great leaders and of course lots of Shwarma and
Falafel, she was in love. She had come home. And then she popped the question.
"How come I never really learned about
Eretz Yisrael? It's important, isn’t it? I mean we learned about the
destruction of the Bais Hamikdash/Temple and praying for sacrifices to be
returned, and Mashiach and wings of eagles. But how come we never really
learned about living here. Moving here. How special it is… how important it is…
how my neshoma for the first time really feels in the right place. Why, Rabbi?
Why…?"
His name was Yankel. Now they called him Jack. I
bumped into him by the Yad Vashem museum. He was a survivor. He had a number.
8634254. Raised in the Lodz ghetto, he saw his family killed as he was taken
away. He spent a year of hell in the camps. His stories still give me
nightmares. When they were liberated, he remained observant. He felt it was the
least he could do for his parent's memory. His children? Not so much. But
although he put on tefillin most days, kept a kosher home and observed the
Shabbos, he had lost his faith. The world that he knew was run by God, didn't
make sense any more. Why, Rabbi? Why…?
Dan was pretty much raised without any religion.
Her mother was Jewish. Dad wasn't. He was Bar Mitzvah'ed, but it was more bar
than Mitzvah, he told me. He started exploring his Jewish roots in his freshman
year in college where he met up with a really "cool" Rabbi that gave
him his first real Shabbos experience. One taste of chulent and he was hooked JJ (OK that's my commentary-but with years of
experienceJ). He's been growing in his Judaism. He started
learning regularly and is considering going to a yeshiva next year. But he
asked me has difficulty understanding, why would God put him in this situation?
Why would he let millions of His children abandon the faith of their
forefathers, the ones that perhaps will never meet a cool Rabbi. Doesn't our
Father in heaven want all of His children back home? Doesn't every Jewish soul have
something special to contribute to the world? Why, Rabbi? Why…?
And finally, or more precisely originally, we
have a man named Moshe. Moses. He was raised in the home of Pharaoh, the King
of Egypt, the first persecutor of the fledgling Jewish nation, the originator
of the original "Final Solution", of whose Torah portions we are
reading these weeks and whose story we retell
each Passover Seder. That Moshe and that Pharaoh. Forced to flee his home when
he stood up for his brothers, he is recalled from his early retirement at age
80 to go down to Egypt and to take God's nation out. Moshe is not excited about
that idea. He really does not feel he is the right man for the job. He had a
speech impediment. He was not learned or even raised Jewish and he certainly was
not part of the suffering of the rest of the people. He was an outsider, a former
aristocrat, not the Spartacus that rises up from the slave galleys to lead a
revolt. But Hashem with the encouragement of a few good miracles, burning
bushes, staff changing to snake tricks, leprous arms and the water/blood
switch, convinces him to that He will be with him and he should start heading
down to Egypt. Moshe obeys and has a nice chat with Pharaoh, as per his orders
from up high, that bad things will happen if he doesn't set the people free.
Quite un-surprisingly to us and to Moshe, Pharaoh is not playing ball. Not only
does he refuse to "let them go" He doubles their workload, making
them hunt for straw to make the bricks in addition to making the bricks. The
people's backs are breaking, they have reached the lowest point. It can't get
any worse. They yell at Moshe
"You have made our very scent abhorrent in
the eyes of Pharaoh and his servants, placing a sword in their hands to murder
us with". And Moshe seemingly has
had enough as well. He turns to Hashem at the end of last week's Torah portion
and says.
"Why have you done bad to this nation? Why
have you sent me? From the time I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name he
harmed this nation, but you did not rescue Your people." Why…? Why…?
This week's Torah portion begins with the
answer. The answer, I believe not only to Moshe's question but to Suris',
Yankels' and Dans' as well.
"I am Hashem…" OK we know that already "And I appeared
to Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov as El Sha-dai, but through my name Hashem I did
not become known to them." OK
so there's something here about the revelation of Hashems name…but I still
don't get it.
"And I also established My covenant with
them to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their dwelling where they
dwelled." So now it's becoming a
little clearer. This has to do with the ancient promise to our forefathers
about inheriting the land of Israel. And I do remember that Hashem had foretold
to Avraham at that treaty that his descendants will go down to a foreign land
and be persecuted there and they will be redeemed and get the Land with great
wealth. But why do we need this whole process?
"And I also heard the wailing of the
Children of Israel in whom Egypt enslaves and I remembered my covenant" We did
our share, it seems, we suffered and we cried out. We fulfilled our part of the
plan, although we're still not sure why we had to. But it seems that it is up.
"Therefore, say to the children of Israel:
I am Hashem and I will take you out from the burdens of Egypt, And I will
rescue you from their servitude; I shall redeem you with and outstretched arm
and with great judgments. I shall take you to Me as a nation and I shall be a
God to you and you shall know that I am Hashem your God who takes you out from
under the burdens of Egypt."
And there we have it the first four cups of wine
by our Pesach Seder, the four aspects of our redemption. After being ground
down to almost nothingness, when there is almost no spirit, no body and no soul
left, we are to become rebuilt and rebooted. We are first removed from all of
our burdens. We may not recognize God at that point. We seemingly may not even
be expected to as that doesn't seem to come till later. But the process has
begun.
Hashem
then rescues us from our servitude. What is a slave? A slave is a number. A
slave has no identity. A slave is chattel, property. It has no self, no future,
no hope. That's what we were and had become. We had been erased. Hashem will
rescue us from that and he will save us from our oppressors destroying and
punishing them for every blow that they gave us, for every child that they
killed, for all the inhumanities they levied upon us. We witnessed that
salvation and with every judgment we learned that we counted for something. We
are people too. We have a Redeemer.
It is then and perhaps only from that point on,
once we have been freed and once we have been given a sense of dignity and
special-ness for the first time in all of their lives, that Hashem takes us as
His people and we forever will know that it is He who took us out. He is ours
and we are His.
And then we come to the next verse, the fifth
cup, the one that we have not yet drunken from, the cup of Eliyahu.
"And I will bring you to the land which I have
raised my hand to give it to Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov; and I shall give it
to you as your heritage-I am Hashem"
It was always about the Land. It was about
creating and making us a people that could inherit the land. Avraham, Yitzchak
and Yaakov were geirim/ dwellers, strangers in the land.
(Note- the 400 year exile calculation starts
with the birth of Yitzchak, who never even left the land. He was a stranger in
his own land). We were receiving and earning it as an eternal inheritance. Our
very souls were wiped clean of us having any inkling of inheriting, living,
thriving and certainly not fulfilling our Divine mandate in any other place.
Egypt, our first Exile, was the place, like so many others in our history, which
we initially flourished in. Yosef-our guy, literally saved the entire country
and built it up to the grandeur that this Pharaoh inherited. We were settled in
Goshen. And then one day it was all wiped away. We were wiped away. We lost our
homes, our freedom, our humanity, our souls and perhaps even our faith. For it
was faith, that was never redeemed, never taken as God's nation and never
connected with its land.
Moshe asked Hashem, why? The answer Hashem tells
Moshe is because to become a nation we have to be built from the ground up. To
become a people that would bring the world to its fulfillment we needed to
appreciate that we would be strangers anywhere else. Our souls and our future
were bound, wed, to Hashem and would than ultimately achieve their completion
in the Holy Land he has promised to us. It is that knowledge and that process
that has made us eternal. From that moment on Hashem has promised that our new
souls and the eternality of the Jewish people is as eternal as His own is.
Nations may come and go. But the Jewish people are now hardwired with souls
that will last forever.
We are mandated to remember Egypt and our Exodus
daily. It's not just one of those know-your-history and where-you-came-from
type of exercises. Our sages tell us
that each one of us has to go through their own personal exodus and redemption
until we will merit the return to the land of the Divine presence united with
us once again. Some of us like Dan, are at the stage where they were born with
a soul, much like Moshe's that needed to find and discover and be returned and
redeemed with words of inspiration. Others, like Yankel, were born as many of
our ancestors in periods of time when we had to experience death, suffering and
pain only to experience a physical redemption and rebuilding of their lives but
not necessarily as of yet their souls. There is no judgment. Just as there was
none of our forefathers who were not expected to listen to Moshe, as a result
of "the shortness of spirit and the hard labor" of their Exile. They
may have not reached a point where they feel that they have been taken in
Hashem's loving, comforting arms. That He was there with them. But it will come
and they will be born anew. But they will never disappear. There is still the
fifth cup to come.
Our ancestors eventually received, and
understood the answers to their question. We achieved that loving unity with
Hashem when we received His Torah. It didn't last long. The ultimate eternal
redemption still awaits us. In Hebrew the word for answer is Teshuva, a
return. Hashem tells us the answer we are seeking is ultimately in our hands;
in our teshuva, our return to him. Each Pesach we recount by our Seder
how we are meant to feel that each of us has personally left Egypt. We've all
gone through it together, all of us in different forms. All of us have our
questions. The only thing left is our Teshuva. Hashiveynu Hashem
V'nashuva-Return answer us Hashem and we will return, Chadiesh Yameinu
Ki'Kedem- renew our days like those of old.
Have a blissful Shabbos,
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
This end-of-the-secular year weekly Insights and
Inspirations E-Mail is dedicated to all of you who have generously sponsored and
contributed to our inspirational E-mail which helps to support our projects and
Synagogue here in the Holy Land. Thank you so much and may all the merits of
your dedication and the Torah that is studied, the inspiration that is shared
and even the smiles that are occasionally shining from our weekly Torah
thoughts and inspiration serve as a source of blessing and reward for your
families and loved ones.
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RABBI SCHWARTZ'S NEW YEARS QUOTES OF THE
WEEK
"New Year's is a
harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a
scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions"-Mark
Twain
"May all your troubles
last as long as your New Year's resolutions!"-Joey Adams
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S COOL GEMATRIA OF THE WEEK
The first two letters of this weeks Parsha
Vaeira is Vov and Alef=7 corresponding
to the 7 plagues that are in the portion. Next week Bo is Beis and Alef which =
3 for the last three plagues.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S FUNNY SNOW ANECDOTE OF
THE WEEK
During the recent snowstorm the 5th
Grade Rabbi got a call from the Principal of the yeshiva where he
teaches telling not to come to work, because only 6 kids showed up due to
the snow. He said he's coming, because at home he has 15. JJ
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM QUESTION OF THE
WEEK
(answer below at end of Email)
(This was our midterm exam but basically
questions that were takem from former years exams)
Alexander Zaid was:
a) From the 2nd Aliyah and one of the founders of
Bar Giora and HaShomer
b) A trailblazing engineer and one of the
developers of the field of engineering in Israel
c) the "redeemer of lands" in
the Galile
d) One of the leaders of the 1st
Aliyah in settling the south of Israel
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS JOKE
OF THE WEEK
Now there are more
overweight people in America than average-weight people. So overweight people
are now average… which means, you have met your New Year's resolution.
AND A SHORT PRAYER FOR THE
NEW YEAR
God, grant me the senility
to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the
ones that I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S FAVORITE YOUTUBE CLIP OF THE
WEEK
I thought this was pretty cute!
New Years resolutions by cats
RABBI SCHWARTZ COOL PLACES IN ISRAEL OF THE
WEEK-
Mt. Hermon- After last weeks snow storm this is definitely the time to go
visit Israel's tallest mountain and perhaps many Israeli's favorite get away.
Interestingly enough we only have about 10 percent of the mountain. The
majority of it is in Syria, but because of its slanted shape towards Israel we
get all of the water that flows down which eventually leads in to the Jordan
river and Kinneret. The Hermon which we originally "liberated" in
the 6 day war was lost and recaptured
again in the Yom Kippur war after many challenging battles. Today the glorious
mountain top is Israels premier ski resort and a lot of fun to go with your
kids sledding and playing in the snow as you can take a cable car up to the
top. In the summer there are free rides to see the beautiful flowers and hike
along the many trails and streams. But now it is just gloriously snow-capped
and white. Our little piece of Switzerland
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RABBI SCHWARTZ' S EXAM ANSWER OF THE WEEK
Answer is A: Zaid was a pretty interesting guy. He was a
Russian immigrant who came to Israel and was one of the founders of the original
cowboy Bar Giora and Shomer boys. They're objective was to try to get the jews
living in Israel to use Jewish labor and protection which they offered. (many
times causing damage on the non-jewish helps watch-so they land owners would
only use them. These guys would dress like arabs but they learned how to shoot
and were the precursors to the eventual army. Zaid is also famous for
discovering Beit Shearim the ancient Jewish burial ground during the 3rd
century and on including the grave of Rebbe Yehudah HaNasi the editor of the
Mishna. There's a big statue of him on a horse there.
