The last few Shabbats, the Birthright/Mayanot Program has been sending guys over to our house for the morning meal, as part of their free, ten-day tour of Israel. Yesterday, after waiting a half hour, when they failed to show up, we started to eat. I was describing to my children what happens if a child turns away from the Torah, G-d forbid, after his family has guarded it for thousands of years. Since it is a man’s mission in life to pass the Torah down to his children, if a child abandons the teaching of his father and marries out of the faith, then in a very real sense, the father has failed in his mission. Since the father has failed, then the grandfather has failed, and the great grandfather after him. I gave an example of dominoes, whereby one falls and knocks down all the others. The family chain is cut off. The line of generations upon generations is broken. Thousands of years of love and allegiance to Torah is lost.

"Yaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!"

To drive the point home, I let out a scream, the scream of generations, the scream of grandfathers and great grandfathers and great great grandfathers all the way back to Yaacov and Yitzhak and Avraham. I screamed at the table, at the top of my lungs, for almost a minute.

Just at that moment, the three young Birthright visitors arrived at my doorstep. Startled by the scream, they were afraid to knock. When the terrifying scream continued and continued, they were about to bolt. Just then, the son of a neighbor came by and knocked on the door. When I opened it, I found the three Birthrighters standing outside, tongue tied. With a warn handshake and bear hug, I herded them in. After guiding them through Kiddush and HaMotzei, and filling up their plates with mountains of home-cooked food, I explained to them why I had screamed. Repeating the story, I screamed again, just as loud and long as before, to get the point across to them what their estrangement from the Torah was doing to their grandfathers and grandmothers in Heaven.

The Tragedy of the Diaspora Jew

Then I told them about the Jungle Story, about the shipwrecked boy who is raised by apes and grows up thinking he is an ape too. That’s what happens to Jews like them who grow up in America – they think they’re Americans and forget that they’re Jews. It could be that their parents told them they were Jews, and they’ll say that they’re Jews, but they don’t know what being Jewish is all about. That’s why the Birthright founders send them to Israel – to give them an adrenaline shot of Jewishness in the hope that they won’t marry gentiles. But they don’t mention the Torah on the trip, so I have two hours with them to jam four thousand years of Jewish history and Torah down their throats along with my wife’s potatoes and chicken. (They knocked off a bottle of wine while I was at it.)

I show them my picture from Hollywood

Then, so they don’t think I’m some crazy old man with a beard, I show them my cheesecake glossies from Hollywood when I tried to look as gentile and American as Paul Newman, to let them know I was there once upon a time where they are today, in no-where’s land, and that my kids are growing up speaking Hebrew in Israel because in addition to touring the country, I deleted the movie-screen reels of American lies and refilled my brain with the hundreds of holy Jewish books on the shelves of our living room library, especially the shelf with the volumes of books written by Rabbi Kook which explain how the tiny Torah of galut has been transformed into the colossal Torah of Eretz Yisrael in our time with the re-establishment of NATION OF ISRAEL in the LAND OF OUR FOREFATHERS.  

Surprisingly, at the end of the meal, they always thank me and tell me what a great time they had learning what hapless dummies they are. Now I know that Americans are polite and they’re trained to say things like that, but these guys really mean it. Why? Because, finally, someone told them the truth. At least most of them seem to truly appreciate my efforts. There are always the diehard Americans who are totally shocked and appalled by my non-stop bombardment, which makes Israeli air strikes on Gaza look like the cheap Chinese fireworks that they are.

The truth is, even though these poor jungle boys don’t know anything, and even after four years in the best American colleges, studying all kinds of books, they have never seen a Chumash or Gemara in their lives. Most of them can’t read Hebrew, and they know nothing about the Israeli-Arab conflict, since it literally plays absolutely no part in their lives, but even with all of their innocent ignorance, they are still a lot closer to true Judaism than the readers of this blog who think they know what Judaism is all about from the mind-warping distortions they’ve learned in the Diaspora. At least the heads of the Birthright visitors are blank. Once you get them to realize that they’ve been duped by their parents and forced fed non-kosher American sausages and bacon all of their lives, once they realize they are as American as the Chinaman who runs the corner fruit stand, once they realize that they don’t know who they really are at all, at least then you have something to work with. Once you blow away the house of cards of their phony American identity and make them realize that George Washington isn’t their forefather, and introduce them to Avraham Avinu and the rest of the glorious tribe, then you can teach them what real Judaism is. But for someone who thinks he already knows, and believes that Judaism is a religion like Christianity and Buddhism with its private, ritual service of G-d, and who rejects coming to Israel because it would mess up his game plan, well you can talk to him until you’re blue in the face and write hundreds of blogs, but his head is so polluted with his solipsistic  foreign ideas and aspirations, he’ll never catch on that Judaism isn’t just another religion but a NATIONAL CONSTITUTION for a HOLY NATION that has its own HOLY LAND, and that it involves a lot more than eating bagels and gefilta fish in America and getting picked drunk after shul on Shabbat.

Our Birthright isn’t visiting the Land of Israel. It’s living here. It isn’t reading Israel National News. It’s making Israel National News by being here.

I hope you understand the difference.       

The Hebrew meaning of the word Torah is law and instruction and teaching. We are not to read the weekly Torah portion as mere history, but as instructions on how to live. This is true not only for the commandments, but for the accounts of the lives of our holy Forefathers. As our Sages teach, “the doings of the fathers are signs for their children,” meaning that we are to derive lessons from the lives of Avraham, Yitzhak, and Yaacov, and the other great personages of our Biblical past.

We mentioned the example of Avraham. G-d could have brought things about so that Avraham be born in the Holy Land. Instead, G-d chose to have Avraham born in a foreign land, and then to command him to come to Israel, in order to teach all generations after him that like with the example of our father, Avraham, the command of “Lech lecha,” get thee forth to the Land, applies to all Jews wherever they might be born, in all times and in all places.

This teaching is reinforced in the concluding Torah portion of the Book of Bereshit when Yaacov makes his son, Yosef, promise to bury him in the Land of Israel. “Don’t bury me in Egypt,” he tells him. Because the eternal truths of the Torah speak to us today, and because “the doings of the fathers are signs for the children,” Yaacov is saying, “Don’t bury me America. Don’t bury me in England. Don’t bury me in Australia.”

Dying Out in America

One reason that Yaacov insisted being buried in the Land of Israel is that the resurrection of the dead will only come to pass in the Holy Land. He didn’t want his body to have to roll through bumpy and painful underground tunnels on its way to Jerusalem, as our Sages explain. And Egypt is close to the Holy Land. Imaging how unpleasant the journey will be for Jews buried in Los Angeles and Toronto!

The Midrash cites a few other reasons why Yaacov insisted on being buried in Israel, but the main reason was his fear that if he were to be buried in Egypt, his sons would chose to stay permanently in Egypt to be close to him. Yaacov wanted them to know that their one and only real home was in the Land of Israel, not in foreign lands, as the Psalm says, “How can I sing the L-rd’s song in a foreign land?” Egypt is a foreign land. America is a foreign land. France and England are foreign lands, no less polluted than Germany and Russia. According to Jewish law, the lands of the nations are halachically impure, possessing the status of a grave.

Yaacov was especially concerned because whereas he had come to Egypt to temporarily “sojourn” there during the famine, his sons began to “settle down” there. On the verse, “And they possessed property in it,” (Bereshit, 47:27), the Torah commentary, the Kli Yakar, condemns their behavior, explaining that, according to the prophecy to Avraham, they were supposed to be “aliens” in a land not theirs, but they sought to become landholders. He notes that the Hebrew verb form of “possessed” is passive, so it really reads, “And they were possessed by it.” The Midrash explains that the land took possession of them. That’s why a Jew in America thinks he is an American, and a Jew in France identifies with being a Frenchmen. A land has a mystical inertia or pull, like gravity, that makes a person feel like he belongs after living there for a time. Understanding this, Yaacov wanted to be sure that his sons remembered that their real home was Israel.  

Abraham was commanded to leave his birthplace and go live in the Land of Israel, Yitzhak was told not to leave the Land of Israel at all, and Yaacov commanded his sons to take him out of Egypt after his death and bury him in the Land of Israel, so Jews for all generations to come would remember that G-d wants His Holy Nation to live in the Holy Land.

Exile was a punishment. Now G-d has rebuilt the Land of Israel, opened the gates of return, ingathered millions of Jews on Jewish airplanes, and transformed the disgraced and exiled remnant into a world superpower in a land that lay farrow for two-thousand years without them – what more obvious signs do we need to realize that it’s time to come home?

But why only be buried in Israel when you we can live here? Our Forefathers are calling out to us from the Torah. Their lives are like guideposts, pointing the way.

"Get thee forth to the land!"

Hope to see you here soon!   

Every week, Israel’s former Chief Rabbi, HaRav Rav Mordechair Eliahu, shlita, puts out a Torah bulletin for Shabbat, called “Kol Tzofiyech,” which is distributed to synagogues throughout the country. Rabbi Eliahu has long been one of the outstanding halachic authorities in Israel. During his prolong illness, his son, Rabbi Shmuel Eliahu, the Chief Rabbi of Safed, has been delivering the weekly satellite-broadcast lecture upon which the Torah bulletin is based.  The recent lecture is on the six-week period of “Shovavim” which begins this week. We can see from the importance that Rabbi Eliahu places on “Shovavim” that it is not something limited to a few fringe Hasidic communities, but an important and worthwhile practice for Jews everywhere.

May the learning of the laws and customs of “Shovavim,” that we are translating (in a condensed version) from the bulletin, bring a blessing of health and complete and speedy recovery to HaRav Eliahu (HaRav Mordechai Tzemach ben Mazal), along with all of the other ailing people in Israel. Amen.

(Excerpted from the bulletin)

PURIFICATION FROM THE POLLUTION OF EGYPT

During the next six Torah readings, we will be re-experiencing the liberation of the Jewish People from the exile Egypt and from the 49th level of impurity to which we had sunk, to the great elevation of reaching the 49th level of purity and the 50th gate with the giving of the Torah. The revered Sage, the Shlah HaKadosh, states that this period is a time of intensified tshuva for the Jewish People, as our earlier and later Sages have written. The hardships which we suffered in Egypt came to cleanse us in the purifying furnace of the exile. So too today, during the “Shovavim” period, we strive for a greater purity from the transgressions which have blemished our souls. The famous Kabbalist, the Arizal, states that the Shovavim period comes to purify us particularly from sexual transgressions, known as blemishes to the Brit. It is thus a period in rectification, known as “Tikun HaBrit” and "Tikun HaYesod."

Just as every year on Pesach we are called to look upon ourselves as if we too had escaped from Egypt, we are also called upon to cleanse ourselves of the terrible impurity that characterized Egypt’s immoral culture. In the time of Moshe, there were people who protested against the holy lifestyle that the newly-formed Nation of Israel was called upon to lead. They longed to return to the immorality of Egypt, and in fact, were not permitted to travel on to the Holy Land. These people cried in the doorways of their tents over the Torah laws which restricted sexual conduct to married couples only. They didn’t want to give up the immoral practices of Egypt’s perverted culture.

This same immoral culture spread out from Egypt over the world and its influences are very prevalent until this day. The dominion of the nations of the world over Israel stems from this sordid source, and only when we expel this polluted culture from our midst, will Israel gain its rightful prominence. Sexual immorality was the mainstay of Egyptian culture - men married men, and women married women, and one woman took two husbands (Rambam, Laws of Illicit Sexual Relations, 21:8). This licentious behavior is what the Torah means when it tell us: “Do not conduct yourselves after the doings of the land of Egypt” (Vayikra, 18:3). And this is the moral, physical, and spiritual pollution that we are to purify ourselves from during the weeks of Shovavim, both men and women alike.         

Twice each day, in the paragraph of the Shema dealing with tzitzit, we say that Hashem took us out of Egypt to sanctify us, with special emphasis on our hearts and eyes: “Thou shall not follow after your heart and your eyes which lead you astray.” After your heart is referring to thoughts of sexual licentiousness. After your eyes refers to seeing forbidden images. For these things impair a person’s holiness and go against the goal of our leaving Egypt – to become a holy nation dedicated to serving Hashem.

STEP ONE - TIKUN AGAINST INTERNET POLLUTION

The great Sage, the Orach HaChaim HaKadosh, explains why this cleansing is dependent on guarding one’s eyes and one’s thoughts. “It is known that all of the commandments which Hashem has given to His holy nation are matters that we can do and which follow after the will to do them. One exception is separating oneself from illicit sexual conduct which a man’s nature pulls him toward with an overpowering lust if he doesn’t guard himself from two matters: seeing sexually inciting images and thinking sexual thoughts. If a man doesn’t guard himself from these two things, he cannot overcome and escape the ruling passions that stem from them. And if he tastes even a little of this poison, he will be a slave to his lusts” (on Vayikra, 18:2).

One of the greatest dangers today of falling prey to these base passions is via the Internet. Thus, the first rectification during the days of Shovavim is to rectify this damaging agent. If someone has Internet in his home and does not have a filter that prevents entering forbidden sites, and seeing erotic images, he or she must correct this immediately before any other tikun. This includes cancelling access to Internet via cell phones. Everyone must make sure that these steps are taken. Everyone! Today and not tomorrow!

So you see – it’s not just a former Hollywood screenwriter who’s encouraging you to grab the opportunity, but also the respected Chief Rabbi of Safed. 

For the last several years, come this time of year, I try to invite friends to an uplifting night of "Shovavim" prayers designed to cleanse a person from the stains of sexual transgression. The people who come along always have a great time, but others reject the idea outright, saying, "That's Kabbalah," "That's Hasidut," or "Where is it written in the Shulchan Aruch?"

Others say they will consider it, but never call back. My question is, why are so many people afraid when it comes to facing up to their sexual errors? It is like finding a spring of water in a desert and offering a drink to a friend, who shakes his head and says, "Who says that it's water?”

I'm in perfect control of the situation

On billboards throughout Israel, posters announcing the commencement of "Shovavim" are beginning to appear in an assortment of bright, attractive colors. According to the Kabbalistic tradition, this six week period, paralleling the Torah's account of the Exodus from Egypt, is especially conducive to rectifying sexual transgressions, known as transgressions to the Brit (Arizal, Shar HaYichudim, 4:3). These transgressions include masturbation, pre-marital sex, sexual relations with non-Jews, violations of niddah laws, adultery, Internet pornography, and marital mishaps which bring about the spilling of semen in vain.

An in-depth article on Shovavim can be found on our jewishsexuality.com website.

The elder Kabbalist, Rabbi Leon Levi, shlita, will be leading the first all-night tikun of the Shovavim season this coming Thursday night, January 7, in the city of Holon, at the Challelei Tzahal Synagogue, 7 Savion Street, commencing at 11:00 pm. Bring a towel for pre-dawn mikvah, and tefillin for morning prayers. Women’s section open.

This blog is for Jews. It’s a Jewish blog. There’s no reason for non-Jews to read it. I write about the importance of Jews living in Israel and matters concerning the Brit between Hashem and the Jewish People. It’s a Jewish blog on a Jewish website. My purpose is to share Torah insights with Jews, not with our good gentile friends. Some non-Jews complain that my blog is offensive, but the simple truth of the matter is that the blog is not for them.  I am sure there are plenty of gentile blogs in cyberspace. Our non-Jewish friends should read them instead.

While there is definite value in teaching non-Jews, the seven commandments of the children of Noah, which G-d expects them to perform, this is not the goal of this blog. For those of you who may not be familiar with these seven commandments beholden on the gentiles, they are: not to engage in idolatry, not to murder, not to steal, not to engage in sexual immorality, not to blasphemy the Name of G-d, not to eat the flesh of a living animal, and to set up a court system to enforce these very basic laws.

Thou shall not worship idols!

Most non-Jews these days don’t murder, steal, or eat the flesh of living animals, so they are doing all right on those counts. They pretty much have court systems, though not necessarily concerning all of these issues. Of course, there is still a lot of murder and theft, both individually and among nations, but the majority of gentiles are not guilty of these transgressions on a regular basis. The commandment not to blasphemy the Name of G-d is more problematic, given all the false forms of worship that they practice, and the general hatred of Israel among the nations, for, as Rashi teaches, anyone who hates Israel, hates G-d. As far as idol worship, that’s another stickler with all of the river gods, monkey gods, voodoo gods, fertility gods, Buddhas, holy ghosts, and plastic statues standing on the dashboards of cars. Immorality is another big problem too with all of their pre-marital activity, adultery, homosexuality, pornography, and the like, but all of these things, for non-Jews who are interested in learning more, can be found elsewhere on the net, not on this blog.

No Jews Allowed!

I realize the difficulty in selective screening on the Internet, but just as Jews were barred for thousands of years from gentile country clubs, businesses, organizations, and restaurants, and from traveling to places in Israel controlled by the Arabs today, this blog is persona non-grata regarding our good friends, the children of Noah.

No Jews in the West Bank!

This week, the beginning of “Shovavim,” we will be dealing with some deep family issues concerning the Jewish People, and therefore, it is important that our non-Jewish friends respect their borders and not intrude.

Shavuah tov!