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Tales
for the Shabbos Table
This week's section contains
the commandment of counting each of the 49 days between Passover
and Shavout. It's called Counting the "Omer" a sacrifice
that was brought in the days of the Temple on the second day
of Passover.
Since the destruction of the Temple
some 2.000 years ago we no longer have this "Omer' sacrifice
and consequently the obligation to count 49 days is only from
the Rabbis.
But spiritually this commandment is
as obligatory today as ever:
'Counting' (Sefer) is the same word
for 'illuminating'; the 49 days
correspond to the 49 different facets of the soul and the
'Omer' represents one's natural personality.
This approach is unique to the teachings
of Chassidut, as this story will, G-d willing, illustrate.
It was early Sunday morning and Rabbi
Kahn was just entering the grand Synagogue of the Lubavitcher
Chassidim at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn when he heard
someone call his name.
"Hey, Rabbi! Rabbi Kahn! Remember
me? Hey, can you help me score a pair of Tefillin for a few
minutes?"
He turned around to see a casually
dressed fellow of about thirty years old with a long pony
tail. He looked as though he hadn't slept all night; his eyes
were sunken and an unkempt stubble covered his face.
Rabbi Kahn shook the young man's hand,
but he couldn't place him.
"Remember me? I'm Yechezkel from
Yeshiva X where you gave that Tanya class ten years ago?
Suddenly he remembered. Yechezkel was
the genius of one of the "misnagid" Yeshivas where
Rabbi Kahn used to give an 'underground' Tanya class.
The misnagdim are G-d fearing Jews
that believe that the teachings of the Chabad Rebbes (Called
Chassidut Chabad) are morally destructive and totally contrary
to the spirit of Judaism. But despite the obstacles, the class
drew over 20 participants each week. Many of the pupils there
had either grown up in Chassidic families or had learned Tanya
somewhere before and knew that the opposition was mistaken.
But Yechezkel the 'genius' refused
to even step foot in the room.
In fact he would often appear after
the lecture to ask 'stumper' questions in an attempt to make
the Rabbi look foolish.
But eventually he developed a certain
respect for Rabbi Kahn that led to him accepting an invitation
to meet the Lubavitcher Rebbe privately …. What the Chassidim
called 'Yechidut'.
Why not? Yechezkel thought to himself.
As far as he was concerned he had already surpassed all the
rabbis and teachers he knew. Maybe this Rebbe had something
to teach him.
The big night arrived. It was after
two in the morning when he finally got in. Rabbi Kahn waited
outside certain that Yechezkel would be a different person
when he came out, but he was in for a nasty surprise.
After a few seconds of silence the
unmistakable voice of Yechezkel could be heard from behind
the door screaming at the top of his lungs,
"Who do you think you are some
sort of prophet or something? Go jump in the lake and take
your stupid Chassidim with you!!!
He stormed out of the room, slammed
the door behind him, threw a few curses at Rabbi Kahn and
left the building.
That was ten years ago and since then
they had not been in touch.
"Probably you want to know what
happened back then in the Rebbe's office don't you?' Yechezkel
said, "Well I'll tell you, but afterwards I want to put
on Tefillin, okay? Believe me; I haven't done it for about
ten years. Whew! It’s been a long time.
It almost seemed as though he was about
to start cryingbut he rubbed his hand over his tired eyes
and began.
"First, I want to apologize to
you for what I said and did back then, all
right?"
Rabbi Kahn smiled "No problem.
But what happened? What did the Rebbe say to you?"
"Well" Yechezkel began "I
went into that office that night certain that I
would tie him up in Talmudic arguments for a few hours. I
had a whole batch of hard questions to really impress him
with. But before I could open my mouth he asked me what Yeshiva
I learn in.
"I answered and he replied that
I had better change my place of learning to a place where
they learn Chassidut. "Because if someone learns Torah
only to inflate his own ego as you do, it might even happen
that because of a Tosefot (a Talmudic commentary) he will
leave his wife and family and even want to, G-d forbid, change
his religion".
I stormed out of the room, returned
to the Yeshiva, went to sleep and
almost forgot the whole thing, but a few months later I happened
to make a comment in public and someone caught me. "Hey,
smart guy! You forgot a simple Tosefot!! 'I guess you aren't
as smart as you think.'
That comment got me so angry and embarrassed
that I left the room, didn't return to the study hall for
several days and finally decided to leave permanently.
From then on Judaism became less and
less important to me. I got into business, dropped all the
commandments, married a non observant girl and we even had
a few children.
But each business success brought a
lust for more until one day I met this charming girl, the
daughter of a business magnate and we fell in love. I saw
it as my big opportunity. My wife figured what was going on
and it wasn't long before we were divorced but couldn't have
cared less; I was on the way up.
In fact it didn't even bother me when
the girl told me that because her
family was Catholic I would have go through the motions of
conversion in order to get their consent to marry her.
Well, this morning I was on my way
to do it. I was going to the church to change my religion
when a strange thing happened. The taxi driver got lost. At
first it was just a casual thing. Then he even turned off
the
meter and kept apologizing and mumbling about how it had never
happened to him before.
We drove and drove for hours asking
people and looking at his road maps but each time he took
some wrong turn or got on the wrong expressway until finally
I said it was enough. I told him to stop, paid him nicely
and got out. Then suddenly I noticed that I was standing….
Here; in front of 770 I don't know why but I decided to go
in and as I was approaching the door suddenly it opened and
the Rebbe came out. I looked
in his eyes and it was as though I was standing in his room
ten years ago and he was repeating the same message to me.
This time I think I'll take his advice. I'm not going anywhere.
That is the point of this week's section
when it describes this commandment that no longer seems to
exist; we must never stop counting the Omer. A Jew must always
draw thoughts of G-d and Torah in to his mind and his heart;
it is the often the only thing that will protect us from ourselves.
And just as when we left Egypt over
3,000 years ago, we counted each day until we received the
Torah so also should we count today every second.
Because before we know it we will all
be dancing together with
Moshiach NOW!!
Rabbi Tuvia Bolton
Yeshiva Ohr Tmimim
Kfar Chabad, Israel
Tales
for the Shabbos Table
This week's section begins
with a strange thing; the word "SAY" is
repeated seemingly for no reason.
"G-d told Moshe; SAY (Emor) to
the Priests and SAY to them; don't defile
yourselves" etc.
Rashi explains that it's certainly
no mistake; rather G-d is telling
Moses something very important; "The big must teach the
small".
Namely that Moses must say to the priests
to teach their children not to
defile themselves for every dead body etc.
But this is not very clear.
Education is the essence of Judaism.
The entire Torah is filled with
laws that can be derived only if the "big teach the small".
What is so
special here?
To understand this, here is a personal
story.
I once spent three days in Amsterdam
with my wife. We saw a few art
museums, visited some friends, I spoke at an Israeli Synagogue
and we
returned. Several interesting things happened on the trip.
Firstly, all the Israelis I met there
told me; "There are thirty
thousand Israelis here in Amsterdam."
I have no idea where they got this
figure from, but they all said it in
the same monotone, empty look in their eyes and half smirk
on their lips
as though to say, "It's disgusting, but I'm here to stay!!"
(For those
of you who don't know, Amsterdam is possibly as far from a
"holy city"
as you can get i.e. the spiritual opposite of Jerusalem. And
that is
why the Israelis love it.)
The other things happened on the plane
back to Israel.
The flight was in the daytime so I
decided to use the opportunity to put
Tefillin on the Jews who were on the plane. (This will be
explained in a
few paragraphs)
I took out my Tefillin and stood up,
a bit apprehensive about figuring
out who was Jewish, only to discover that my worries were
for naught.
I discovered that people from Holland
do not move. I don't know if it
was because of the plane flight or if they are always like
that, but
except for occasionally rattling their newspapers or saying
a few words
to the person next to them, they just sat in semi-suspended
animation.
Even their faces were sort of frozen.
The Jews on the other hand, especially
the Israelis, could not sit still for a moment. They were
constantly talking, making endless facial and hand gestures,
getting up or just squirming around. So I just approached
anyone that moved.
At first several refused, then one
agreed, then a few more, then one
said that he had already put on and so on. I proceeded down
the aisle
until I came to three young fellows, obviously Israelis, sitting
next to
each other. They looked like they had gotten a lot out of
Amsterdam;
their brows, nostrils and lobes were well pierced with rings
and studs,
small tattoos decorated their arms and all had hair dyed unnatural
colors.
"Nu? What do you say Yhudim (Jews)?"
I approached them "Want to do
something really wild? Here, put on Tefillin! It takes one
minute on the
clock and doesn't cost money! What do you say?"
From experience I know that you can
never know what is going to happen. Several times people hugged
and kissed me and once I actually had to protect myself, so
I was ready for anything.
The one sitting nearest the aisle contorted
his face as though I was
offering him a dead cat and shrugged his shoulders as high
as possible
which is Israeli for "drop dead".
I got the message and, not disheartened,
turned my attention to his
neighbor who wasn't looking at me, "What about you, my
friend?" I
asked.
Immediately he closed his eyes, tilted
his head to a side and let out a
snore, feigning deep sleep.
Only one was left. Sitting near the
window reading a magazine enveloped
in the drone of the plane he was unaware of what had just
happened, I
raised my voice in his direction, "Would you like to
put on Tefillin?"
He looked up at me suddenly and said "What!? What did
you say?"
The first fellow, the one that refused,
was following the whole thing
with relish awaiting my total defeat, the one in the middle
was still
"asleep", but I could see he was peeking. I repeated
the question as I
held up the Tefillin. "Want to put on Tefillin?"
"Tefillin?" He said incredulously,
"You want ME to put on Tefillin?! He
stood, bent over a bit because of the overhead bin, rolled
up his sleeve
and exclaimed with a smile, "Of course I'll put on Tefillin!!"
The first fellow was shocked! His best
friend! Was one of.....them!
The "sleeper" in the middle even opened one eye
to see if he had heard
correctly. Meanwhile my customer joyously let me help him
put on the
Tefillin, then sat down and began reading in a loud voice
the the "Shma
Yisroel" from the card I gave him.
But I didn't notice that we were being
watched. A well dressed non-Jew,
perhaps in his fifties sitting in the row before us had turned
around
and was watching the entire thing.
As soon as I noticed him I said hello
and asked him if he had any idea
what we were doing. He was a distinguished looking fellow
traveling
with what I assumed to be his wife and some friend, who just
kept
reading their papers and didn't even look up, and he shook
his head
"no".
He waited and watched intently as the
Israeli finished and I removed his
Tefillin, and then I began to explain.
"These", I told him holding
up the Tefillin, "are made of leather and
are a commandment of G-d to the Jews. G-d wants every male
Jew to put
them on like that man did, once a day every weekday."
Then I explained
to him that because most Jews are not observant, the Lubavitcher
Rebbe
told his followers to go out and remind and help them, and
I'm one of
his followers.
I saw that he was obviously impressed.
He looked at the Israeli then
back at me and said with astonishment, "You mean that
that young man is
not religious, and he put on those boxes just because you
asked him?!
If I didn't see it with my own eyes I would not believe it!"
His excitement was contagious. "I
asked him his name, he told me it was Peter and I continued.
"Do you know what is inside of these leather boxes? Parchments
containing the four paragraphs from the Bible that mention
this commandment. And the most important of them says Shma
Yisroel, Listen Jews G-d is ONE."
He was listening intently above the
noise of the plane as I continued.
"It means that G-d alone creates everything constantly!
Do you know
what that means, Peter?" His eyes were wide with amazement
his
traveling partners even looked up to see what was going on,
but I wasn't
finished.
"It means G-d, who can do anything,
creates YOU every second brand-new!
And He does it for free! So if G-d creates you for free, then
do
something for Him for free!" And I told him briefly about
the Seven
Noahide commandments.
We shook hands and I figured that that
was the end of it, but it wasn't.
Suddenly he unfastened his safety
belt, stood up, straightened his jacket and tie, pointed at
me and yelled at the top of his lungs. "This Rabbi is
correct!!" Then he majestically pointed up and announced:
"And I want to apologize. To publicly apologize to him
for what we have done to his people! We have taken a man and
made him god, and we have denied THE HOLY COMMANDMENTS!!"
The last three words he really belted
out so that several rows around us
were staring. Then he very warmly and officially shook my
hand again,
sat back down and returned to the book he was reading.
Now we can answer our question.
There are three types of commandments, Mishpatim, Adut, and
Chukim.
Mishpatim are logical commandments,
like the Ten Commandments.
Aidut are religious commandments like
keeping the Sabbath or the
holidays, which are also understandable.
But Chukim are commandments that make
no sense at all, and one of the
outstanding examples is the one our section begins with; Priests
avoiding defilement. This law completely defies understanding.
First of all "defilement"
itself is a Torah law that has no scientific
or logical basis whatsoever. Defilement (Tuma) cannot be measured
or
detected. It can be contracted by just being in the same building
as a
corpse and can be cured only by treatment with the ashes of
a purely red
cow. Furthermore, the law is not that priests must remain
holy and
pure. Exactly the opposite, they can and even must defile
themselves to
bury immediate relatives! All of this make no sense
Therefore one might think that it's
pointless to spend much time
teaching such strange laws; you can't really expect everyone
to accept
the absurd. Better to spend time on logical and graspable
ideas.
But our story shows that it's not so.
Just as the non-observant Israeli
on the plane irrationally put on Tefillin when asked and Peter
became so
unexplainably impressed when it was explained; sometimes the
not-understandable things in Judaism are the most teachable
of all.
This is also the message of Pesach
Sheni which is today (Those who
didn't bring the Paschal sacrifice to the Temple on Passover
got another
chance exactly one month later on "Pesach Sheni").
Namely that it is NEVER TOO LATE. No
matter how defiled a person has
become and no matter how far one is from the Torah it is NEVER
too late
to return.
And if you are "BIG" then
it is never to late to teach the "small".
As the Maimonides says in the end of
his Yad HaChazaka "The Moshiach
will teach the entire world to walk in G-d's ways."
We want Moshiach NOW!!
Rabbi Tuvia Bolton
Yeshiva Ohr Tmimim
Kfar Chabad Israel
Torah Online Site: http://www.ohrtmimim.org/torah
Tales
for the Shabbos Table
The highlights of this week are Parshat
Emor, Pesech Sheni, Sfirat HaOmer and Lag B’Omer.
Here is a story that connects them:
The Yom Kippur war (1973) left Israel
with thousands of casualties, and one of them was Mr. Sadon.
He had been lying for weeks in critical
condition in Tzrifim Hospital and the doctors weren't optimistic.
But his wife, sitting by his bedside, knew better. Somehow
she was sure that against all odds everything would be all
right.....she was writing a letter to the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
Mr. Sadon had never been an observant
Jew, but his wife had. In fact her grandparents had been Chabad
Chassidim, but she left it all when she was just a young girl;
that’s the way things went in Israel. Nevertheless, writing
to the Rebbe was not strange to her.
In the bed next to Mr. Sadon lay a
Moroccan Jew called Mr. Shapir who also had been severely
wounded and had a dim prognosis. When he saw that Mrs. Sadon
was writing to the Rebbe his eyes lit up. He motioned her
to come close and handed her a small book of Psalms (3 sq.
cm.), a family heirloom given to him by his grandfather. He
begged her to send it to the Rebbe and request that he sign
it. So Mrs. Sadon added the T’hillim to her letter and
mailed them off.
Things began to improve for Sadon to
the degree that two weeks later the hospital informed him
that he was well enough to leave! They needed the bed for
more serious cases.
After a few months at home they had
almost forgotten the entire incident, and things began to
return to normal, until one day Mrs. Sadon received a small
envelope in the mail from the office of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
Inside was Mr. Shapir’s tiny book
of Psalms inscribed and signed by the Rebbe in extremely small
print, and a letter addressed to her.
The Rebbe repeated the blessings he
wrote in the T’hillim, added a few more, and explained
that although it was not his custom to sign holy books he
had made an exception, and then signed his name once again.
But at the bottom of the letter a footnote caught Mrs. Sadon’s
eye:
"P.S. Apparently you already light
Shabbat Candles like every Kosher Jewish woman."
The next morning Mrs. Sadon called
the hospital, only to discover that Mr. Shapir had also recovered,
and left weeks earlier. She got his number from the phonebook,
but there was no answer at his house. So she mailed him a
letter telling him about his T’hillim, and waited for
a response.
Sure enough two weeks later she heard
a knock at her door and it was none other than a beaming Mr.
Shapir. He had been in a recuperation center for the last
few weeks, and as soon as he arrived home and saw her letter
he took a taxi to her house. It wasn’t long before he
was joyously reporting the stages of his miraculous recovery,
and marveling over the Rebbe’s inscription
in his little book.
But the Rebbe’s footnote still
burned in her mind.
On one hand, she left Jewish observance
years ago for very good reasons; it was old-fashioned, closed
minded, unpopular etc. why should she start now? Who needs
it??
But something inside her kept repeating:
"Light candles like every Jewish
woman".
Little by little she warmed up to the
idea. After all, the Rebbe did write it to her, and it was
the same Rebbe that just helped her and so many others...so
it can’t be THAT bad.
After a few weeks of this she decided
that she would do it! This Friday she would light Shabbos
candles!!
She even went to the store and bought
candles and two small candleholders. But when she arrived
home she realized that she didn’t know what to do.
She didn’t know when to light
them, or where to put them. She didn’t know the blessing,
and most embarrassing of all; she didn’t even know whom
to ask!
She stood there confused for several
minutes and she felt a tremendous urge to just put it off
for another week, when suddenly the phone rang.
It was her oldest son calling from
the army; his weekend leave had been cancelled, and before
he could continue she said, "Oh that’s too bad,
I was looking forward to seeing you. Tell me son, is the Army
Rabbi there? I want to ask him something."
A few minutes later the Rabbi had gladly
answered her questions, dictated to her the blessing, and
even promised that he would mail her a "Kitzur Shulchan
Aruch" (Jewish Law book). Mrs. Sadon hung up the phone
and did what he said.
She lit the candles, put her hands
over her eyes, slowly said the blessing and just stood there.
When she uncovered her eyes suddenly
everything was different. Suddenly everything was so pure
and quiet.
She was so happy...She cried.
Of course it didn’t stop there;
little by little the flames began changing their lives.
The next Friday, after lighting the
candles she felt that some of the pictures and statues in
the room sort-of "clashed" with the Shabbos lights.
So she moved the offenders to a different room altogether.
Then they bought a few Torah books
for their bookcase, and the T.V. became silent on Shabbos.
Finally she decided to contact the
local Chabad House to make her kitchen Kosher.
Then things really began to move. It
wasn’t long before there were Mezuzas on all the doors.
Mr. Sadon bought himself his first pair of T’fillin,
and even began attending Torah classes a few times a week.
And that was only the beginning.
The Rebbe and the Shabbos candles made
the change.
This is also the message of "Pesach
Sheni", "Counting the Omer", and "Lag
B’Omer":
"Pesach Sheni" teaches, "IT’S
NEVER TOO LATE".
In the time of the Holy Temple one
who missed the most important sacrifice of all; the Pesach
Lamb, could make it up a month later on Pesach Sheni
Like the Sadons, we should also remember
that it’s never too late to begin something good; begin
NOW.
"Counting the Omer" teaches
that, as in our story, we must improve constantly. It also
teaches that "light" and optimism is the best vehicle
for this change. (The word for Counting (Safar) is the same
as "Shining"; as we say; "HaYom Yom" -
"Today will be Day")
"Lag B’Omer" teaches
that the world depends on Tzadikim.
Just as Rabbi Shimon illuminated the
world (that’s one reason the holiday is celebrated with
huge bonfires) so also the Rebbe illuminated the Sadon’s
lives, and continues to illuminate the entire world today
with the light of Moshaich.
Finally, this week’s Torah section,
Emor, besides containing the commandment of the Omer (22:15)
puts special emphasis on Shabbos calling it "All the
holidays of G-d." (23: 2,3).
Because, just as Mrs. Sadon learned
when she began with Shabbos lights, all holiness begins with
the Shabbos.
That is why the coming of Moshiach
is also called the "Day that is totally Shabbos".
Because from it, the entire world will be illuminated with
holiness.
It’s never too late for.....Moshaich
NOW!
Rabbi Tuvia Bolton
Yeshiva Ohr Tmimim
Kfar Chabad Israel
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