Insights and Inspiration
from the
Holy Land
from
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
"Your friend in Karmiel"
June 15th 2012
-Volume 2, Issue 32 –26th of Sivan 5772
Parshat
Shelach
Time
Travel
I hit
Enter and I wait… and wait… and tap on some keys…I’m still waiting. It’s not
downloading. Why is this taking so long? Maybe if I pull out the plug and start
all over again it will work faster. I reach for the plug and all of a sudden it
finally goes. Nothing like a little fear tactic of disconnecting your computer
from its electrical life force to kick it into shape. Kind of like
technological water-boarding, I guess. Now if only I could figure out what to
do with the long waits in the post office or the motor vehicle department. But
for some reason I don’t think any amount of plug pulling will speed up those
lines.
I know
I really shouldn’t be that impatient. It is amazing that with a click of a
button on our computer we are sending messages all the way up to outer space
and back and it seems kind of silly to be upset if it takes an extra
nano-second or so. But having lived in that great city that never sleeps, New
York , for many years, you somehow develop a lack of tolerance for anything
that you can’t beep with your horn and get an instant response. Yet I don’t
think New Yorkers are the only ones who have this experience. I think for most
of us at different times the clock just seems to be ticking verrrrryyy
sssslllooowwwlyy… As a Rabbi friend of mine once said –I don’t mind if people
look at their watches during my sermons. It’s when they hold it up to their
ears to see if it’s still ticking and checking the batteries that I begin to
get nervous.
This
weeks Torah portion teaches an important lesson about the passage of time in
one of the more tragic stories in the Torah. For those of you who have been
keeping up with our journey you will know that the Jewish people have left Mt.
Sinai and are marching off preparing to go to the Land of Israel . In order to
find out what the challenges that lie ahead are, they send out spies to check
out the land. Unfortunately these spies come back with a very scary report
about giants and wars, how it’s a land that will eat up its inhabitants and
then they show them these huge fruits to demonstrate the scariness of the land.
The nation becomes terrified, they weep, they mourn, they long to return to
Egypt and they lose faith in God. They have accepted the Lashon Hara-the Evil
talk of the Holy Land , and they have forgotten that their God in heaven
promised them this land as their birthright. Hashem, once again disappointed by
his nation and their lack of faith issues the consequences. For saying Lashon
Harah the spies will die immediately. (According
to Rashi who quotes the Medrash their tongues stretched out until their bellies
and worms crawled in- just in case you needed a visualJ).
The rest of the people from age 20-60 would die in the wilderness, never to
enter Eretz Yisrael. And their children the Torah tells us
–
I
shall bring them; they shall know the land that you have despised… They shall
roam for forty years and bear your guilt until the last of your carcasses in
the wilderness. Like the number of days that you spied out the land, forty
days, a day for a year… Forty years.. and you shall comprehend straying from
me.
Wow!
I’m sure your saying. This seems like a very harsh punishment. The truth of the
matter is there is something very perplexing about this punishment. First of
all why are they punished at the rate of 1 year to 1 day? Seemingly in heavenly
punishments we have a concept of the punishment fitting the crime Mida
K’neged Mida- Quid pro Quo (for all you latin speakers). Why would they
have to pay such a steep price and exchange rate? Also it seems that the
children under 20 are not culpable for the sin, as they were not included in
the decree of death, so why would they have to suffer and wander for forty
years? Seemingly only the sinners above 60 should have died and not entered the
land of Israel (an appropriate punishment for their lack of faith and desire to
fulfill the Divine mandate to live there). What point was there in them
wandering?
The answer,
I believe, has to do with our perception of time. We all know the old adage
“Time flies when you're having fun”. The Torah even tells us that when Jacob
was working for his wife Rachel for seven years it was as if it was only a few
days. When you are engaged in something meaningful the hours feel like minutes
and the months like days and the years like weeks. It flies by. On the other
hand when you’re doing something you dread, sitting in a class you don’t want
to be in, waiting in the dentists office, or just waiting for your computer to
log on then it seems like hours. Each day that those spies were in the Land of
Israel should have flown by; marveling in the wonder, beauty and holiness of
this God Promised Land. But it didn’t it felt like a year. When they conveyed
that message back to the people they cried and mourned and transmitted that
message. Israel is horrible, each day there is as painful as a year. Children
who witnessed this needed to learn a different message. They had been
traumatized- they “bore that guilt of their parents”. It would take
forty years of hearing their parents long to step foot in the Land of Israel to
change the impact of that 40 day tragic trek through the land of Israel.
There
is a powerful in message for us in this story. None of us can control how much
time we have here on this world. We only know that it is limited and the clock
is ticking from the moment we are born. What we do have control over is how we
will experience that passage of time. Will we be engaged in meaningful,
inspirational activities that gives us an appreciation of every precious moment
that we have- so much, that we don’t even realize that its passing by. Or are
we going to be staring at our watches counting the minutes as they schlep on
our march to the grave. The summer months are here and as a parent of children
I know that there will be moments that I am spending our quality vacation time
and it will be amazing and go so quickly but will be captured for eternity.
Then there will be those days that my children will inevitably say “what do we
do today Dad??? I’m so bored”. Children know that each day of summer vacation
is precious and shouldn’t be wasted. The truly righteous and accomplished
understand that we should approach every day of our lives with that same
perspective. So maximize those moments when your sitting in front of a
computer, or waiting on line. Say a prayer, learn a little bit. Maximize your
time with something meaningful and watch how it just flies by.
Have a inspirationally long Shabbos,
Rabbi
Ephraim Schwartz
*******************************************
RABBI SCHWARTZ YOUTUBE VIDEO OF THE WEEK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvwpNkJd82w
Lipa- Hang Up The Phone J)
RABBI SCHWARTZ COOL PLACES IN ISRAEL OF THE WEEK-
Mitzpeh Revivim- The year was 1945 the vision of a Jewish state was already starting to be actualized and three dreamers came out to the Negev to expand the borders of Israel in the South. Revivim was one of 11 points in the Negev that were established before the State of Israel as “agricultural scientific expeditions” as it was illegal to open new settlements under the British mandate. The small group lived in old byzantine caves without water and electricity with the sole purpose of creating “facts on the ground” that when the state of Israel would be established the negev would be ours providing an important and strategic border with Egypt. Today one can visit Revivim have a tour with actors dressed in the time period (English and Hebrew) as well as see the planes that fought in the independence war, see the incredible water irrigation tunnels that were made and hear the story and feel the inspiration of the those early settlers who gave their lives to build us this land.
No comments:
Post a Comment