Dear Tribes and Temples:

As this is our time of our Redemption, I have chosen it as an auspicious moment to say Shalom to my beloved brother Judeans (Yehudim) across the river. However, I confess that I am more comfortable thinking of myself as an Israelite than as a Judean.

I know that on Seder Night, Judeans recite a liturgical text called the Haggadah shel Pesach.  And by doing so, you fulfill G-d’s command to tell the story of the Exodus on the first night of Passover, as it says (Exodus 13:8), “And you shall tell your son on that day, saying, ‘It is because of that which G-d did for me when I came forth from Egypt.’”

I have several sons of my own, and showed the Haggadah to Yisrael, one of them.  He was greatly intrigued by the section about The Four Sons, and said, “Father, it occurs to me that the Chacham (Wise Son) asks the same question as the Rasha (Wicked Son).  But the Rasha’s phrasing seems even more profound and spiritual than the Chacham’s.  The Chacham asks, ‘What are the testimonies, statutes, and laws which the L-rd our G-d has commanded you?’ and the Rasha asks, ‘What does this service mean to you?’  True, the Rasha omits G-d’s Name, but it is implied, for whom else would we be serving?”

So I asked my son, “What do you think is the intent here?”  And he replied, “I think that this comes to teach us that a Chacham (Wise son) is wise, but not necessarily righteous, just as Doeg and Achitophel were wise but not righteous, or like Esau, who asked his father how to tithe salt (how many times could he have asked the same stupid question?).  Esau was also wise but not righteous.”

I understand that there was a sage among the Judeans who suggested that there might be a fifth son, the one who does not come to the Seder at all.  I would respectfully suggest that this is not a fifth son, but the same Rasha (Wicked Son), who because his father answers him with hostility and “blunts his teeth,” says to himself, “I am out of here.”  And next year, he does not come back.  Perhaps it would be wiser to embrace the wicked son and bring him closer with love, rather than thrust him away by blunting his teeth.

But let him be considered a fifth son.  In that case, I propose that there is also a sixth and a seventh son.  The sixth son is the Tzadik (the Righteous Son), who asks, “Will you please tell me about our G-d who redeemed us from Egyptian slavery?”  This Righteous Son desires to learn the inner, spiritual aspect of the Torah, which teaches the greatness of G-d.  The seventh son is the Hasid (Pious Son), who asks, “How can we get our G-d to redeem us again, and take us out of this final exile?”

And now, we have seven sons, and the seventh is certainly the most beloved.

May you at Tribes and Temples and all your families and friends have a kosher and joyous Passover from all of us beyond the river. (Chag kasher v’sameyach).

With Torah blessings,

Ephraim

A remarkable new trend is taking place in some American universities, among them the University of California at Berkeley, Santa Cruz, Irvine, and my alma mater, UCLA.  A hate campaign is being leveled against Israel and Jewish students on various campuses.  The hate campaign includes frequent angry demonstrations and harassment of Jewish students, mostly females, and professors’ intimidation of students who do not line up behind pro-Palestinian sentiments.  A student who expresses support of Israel in these classrooms is almost certain to earn ridicule and a low grade in the course.  As blatantly unethical and academically outrageous – and illegal – as this is, school administrators and boards of regents seem to condone this behavior, or at the very least, show that they do not care.

Upon studying videos of the demonstrations (a link to one such video is found below), the reality of what is really going on here becomes clear.  The demonstrations are led by off-campus professional agitators and a few transfer students from the Achmadinejad School for the Criminally Insane.  (One of the main speakers – and I am quite sure about this – escaped from a car wash, or possibly has ringworm, or both).

These bullies rapaciously brandish placards (made by Edward Scissorhands) that label Zionists as Nazis, while openly suggesting that Jews everywhere be annihilated.  Duh!  As for the anti-semitic college professors, in the tradition of their colleague Doctor Faustus, they have sold their souls to the Devil, and for small money I might add.  As Dr. Martin Luther King said, “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews.  You are talking anti-Semitism.”

Taken as a whole, this pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist campus scene is a clear expression of the Pinchik Principle: Good guys do not wear ski masks unless they are skiing.

We are left with the obvious question, what should we do about it?  Certainly, legal action should be taken against anyone who assaults a Jewish student and against the university that fosters such action.  Any college, particularly one supported by public funds, should be punished for allowing its campus to be used as a forum for outside agitators screaming about matters that have no relevance to the school.  Every Jewish philanthropist worth his kosher salt should stop giving money to these anti-semitic universities.  Since Jews own all the banks and control 98% of the world’s wealth, this should bring these wicked institutions to their waterlogged knees.

To continue: Jewish students can exercise the option of going to other, more hospitable schools to avoid the stress of intimidation, which must certainly diminish the quality of their education.  In fact, the smartest of the Jewish students (all Jews are smart, some are merely smarter than others) could earn their degrees online for just under seventeen million dollars from the Liverpool University of Manchester or the Bobby Kennedy College of Antarctica, while spending part of each day, for free, at a local yeshiva or women’s seminary where they might get a real education.

Also, Hadassah, a well known terrorist organization (Did you ever attend a meeting? The noise is terrifying.), could resurrect the Jewish Defense League Sisterhood and holler at the demonstrators.

Kicking it up to a higher level, rabbis could plant thousands of pigs on University of California campuses, thereby driving the anti-semites to Mexico (or Texas, a suburb of Mexico).   Note: The Torah permits Jews to benefit from pigs, but not to eat pigs.  Moslems are forbidden to have any direct or indirect contact with pigs whatsoever.  This is why we see so few Moslem football players.

There are a great many things we could do to fight against these alleged anti-Zionists and their familiars.  But what we really should do is … thank them.  These anti-semitic scoundrels are unwittingly performing a great service to the Jewish people and to the State of Israel.  The sad truth is that Jewish America has been incrementally turning away from Israel for at least a generation.  Conservative and Reform movement rabbis have recently made it an official platform to distance themselves from Israel.  American Jews are assimilating more and more every day.  Many of them have forgotten that they are Jewish and have forgotten about Israel.  So G-d is using these angry anti-Zionists to give a wake-up call to America’s Jews.  They are reminding them that Israel is an essential aspect of their lives.  In fact, they are Israel, the Children of Israel.  They may be temporarily estranged from their roots, but they are Israel all the same.

It says in Genesis 2:7: And the Lord G-d formed man of dust from the earth and blew a soul of life into his nostrils, and he became a living being.”  We are the dust of the earth, formed by the power of G-d.  The dust of Israel is holy and the people Israel who are this dust are also holy, and neither will ever be mundane.  Both have a destiny of Redemption and the responsibility of being a Light unto the Nations.  The anti-Zionists are merely reminding them of this.

So, all you would-be troublemakers at the U of C, at Rutgers, at Brandeis University, and all other miscreant institutions of higher learning – G-d knows who you are and we know who you are.  Keep up the good work and thank you.

May you be written and sealed for a good and sweet year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghT5SE3Jzcg&feature=player_embedded#!

To change the subject:  My wife and two sons and I spent a very pleasant year and a half in south Florida in 2007 and 2008.  We loved it very much.  It does not have the holiness of Israel, but other than existing on the wrong plane of existence (for me), it was great.  One day, while driving home from the local Publix supermarket, my wife, Ariela, asked me, “Where are all the orange trees? There are supposed to be orange trees in Florida.”  I looked around and thought, and kept looking as we drove, and sure enough, though it was mid-February, when orange trees are normally laden with fruit, there were no such trees to be seen.  For the next several days, every time I went out and drove somewhere, I searched the horizon for orange trees.  And still, there were none to be seen.  A few days later, we visited a friend who lived in the area.  I asked him, “Oscar, where are all the orange trees.”  He laughed a lusty Honduran guffaw and said, “You don’t know? The State of Florida discovered a worm that threatened all the plant life here and had to destroy all the privately owned orange trees, 800,000 of them.”  ”Wow, that is terrible,” I exclaimed.  ”Yeah,” Oscar continued, “but strangely there was not one single orange tree owned by the Tropicana corporation or any of its feeder farms that was affected by this worm.”  ”Really?” I asked innocently.  Oscar thrust the metaphorical spear home, “Do you know how much orange juice can come from 800,000 orange trees every year, with freshly squoze Tropicana selling for $5.00 a half gallon?  I will tell you how much because I researched it.  The average south Florida orange tree can produce two and a half gallons of freshly squoze orange juice every year.  That is $25.00 per year worth of orange juice.  Now, you cut down 800,000 orange trees and you get to sell and extra twenty million dollars worth of orange juice a year.  Multiply that by the ten years that the state of Florida was chopping down orange trees and you get two hundred million dollars.  If you extend that to the life of the average orange juice consumer who lives 78 years, it comes to a little more than one and a half billion dollars.  Well worth the $50,000.00 or so that they had to pay off state officials to commit herbicide on all those innocent little orange trees.”  ”Oh,” I said, adding, “Now, I understand why Tropicana’s logo is an orange with a straw stuck in it.  They suck.”  ”But wait,” Oscar said, a cruel and twisted smile forming on his lips, “That is not the best part.  It’s not only about money.  Oh no, it is far more diabolical than that.  Do you know what grows up out of fallen orange tree stumps?”  My eyes widened from fear and anticipation that I was about to learn one of the great secrets of the universe.  ”Left wing college professors and Palestinian agitators.  And the State of Florida sends them annually to the San Francisco Bay Area, to the University of California at Berkeley, to San Francisco State University, and as far south as the University of California at Santa Cruz.  They appear to be human, those professors and agitators, but in reality they are demons.  Take off their shoes and you will see…chickens’ feet.  This is how Florida is waging war against California.”  ”Really?” I asked.  ”Would I lie to you?” Oscar answered.

Some of you out there might be wondering what all of this has to do with either tribes or temples.  I am getting there, but I want to savor it.  So please be patient.  Savlanut, as they say in south Florida.

From the Zohar (Balak 187a):

Man is compared to the Menorah in the Holy Temple which provides the light of G-d to the world.

It says in Ecclesiastes (2:14): The wise man’s eyes are in his head and the fool walks in darkness, and I know that one event happens to them all.

The Yanukah (the child) teaches: Where else should a man’s eyes be except in his head?  Perhaps they should be in his body or arms?  And why is the wise man singled out more than others in the world to say that his eyes are in his head?

But this is definitely its meaning: We already learned (112b) that a person should not walk four cubits (two meters) with his head uncovered. Why not?  Because the Shechina (Divine Presence of G-d) rests on his head.  And every wise man’s eyes and words are in his head, meaning that he contemplates his words and his actions and considers that he stands before the Shechina who rests on his head.

And when his eyes are there, always contemplating that the Shechina rests there and that a light is always burning and it is the Shechina, he will need to receive oil, that is, the holy anointing oil of wisdom through the good deeds performed by man, since the body of man is the wick and the light of the Shechina burns and shines above to give him life.

About this King Solomon cried (Eccles. 9:8): At all times let your garments be white and let not oil be lacking upon your head, for the light of the Shechina upon one’s head requires oil, and the Children of Israel draw down blessings and lifeforce (shefa) from the supernal oil of wisdom, which come through good deeds.

Therefore, Solomon says: A wise man’s eyes are in his head, always gazing at the Shechina rather than elsewhere, such as upon material things and mundane pleasures.

The verse goes on to say that the fool walks in darkness, not considering what is upon his head.  And he stumbles.

And one event happens to them all. The wise man learns from the fool who stumbles and, therefore, the wise man walks safely even upon the same path.

And in this we see that man – the wise man – is compared to the Menorah in the Holy Temple.

And now a brief and timely message from Rabbi Dr. David Silverware:

The three weeks will soon be upon us.  This is the time when we mourn the destruction of the Second Temple.   Let me tell you a bit about this Second Temple that we have been mourning.  It was built by a wicked man named Herod.  In order to build his Temple, he ruined a Temple that glorified G-d (Haggai 1:8), and instead built his Temple to glorify himself and Rome.  Herod’s Temple stood only 80 years (from 10 B.C.E. to 70 C.E.).  Things went downhill the day it was built.  After 30 years, the Kohanim (Jewish priests) stopped saying G-d’s Name as spelled (Y-H-V-H).  The red string that miraculously turned white on Yom Kippur stopped turning white.  Then total corruption set in.  Rome ran everything.  They sold the office of the High Priest like a bag of tomatoes.  Then the sages pulled the Temple down.  First came Kamsa and Bar Kamsa.  In that episode, the cowardice of the sages caused the Roman Emperor to accuse Israel of rebellion.  Then came the incident with Agrippas (a nice but not Jewish king of Judea).  The sages pandered to him and said he was their brother, and the decree to destroy the Temple was signed in heaven.  Then one of the leading sages came to Vespasian, the new Roman emperor, and traded about two million people living in Jerusalem as well as the Temple for a few of his fellow sages. After the Temple was destroyed, the sages put G-d and Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus in cherem (excommunication).  Then Rabbi Akiva abandoned Bar Kochba at the critical moment in his revolt against Rome (Bar Kochba may not have been Moshiach, but he was, after all, Jewish).  And then the sages ruled that we should start fasting for the destruction of the Temple because we caused it through sinat chinam (baseless hatred).  This was a collective guilt trip second only to: “You killed our lord.”  And for the past 1900 years, we have been ruining our summers by three miserable weeks of mourning, which has produced little more than a collective distaste for the Temple.  Therefore, I suggest that we listen to the words of a King Solomon, a wiser sage than all the others put together.  He wrote: “Everything has its season, and there is a time for everything under the heaven. There is a time to destroy and the time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to wail and a time to dance (Eccles. 3:1,3,4)”  Fast, if you must, but do it as a protest against ignoring the Third Temple (Messianic Temple), not because of mourning the loss of the Second Temple.

The time for building the Third Temple has come.  We can begin by bringing the light of the Third Temple into the world by learning how wonderful it is, and asking for it in our prayers….and really meaning it!  The starting point is for us to study its meaning and design.  I advise everyone to buy and read the book, The Messianic Temple (Understanding Ezekiel’s Prophecy).  It is the first book to impart a true understanding of the future Temple (it has lots of pictures).  I am not being paid for this plug.  I just believe it is a great book.  That’s it for now from yours truly, Rabbi Dr. David Silverware, Congregation Rodfei Nashim, Kenilworth, Illinois.  Happy three weeks. Hasta lavista and shalom.  P.S. You can find the book, The Messianic Temple on www.thirdtempleworld.com

Note: The opinions expressed in this posting are not necessarily the opinions of the blog itself.  But they are also not necessarily not the opinions of the blog itself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOSWaJPC2yY&feature=related

The Holy Temple is the place where G-d causes His Name to dwell (Deut. 12:11).  G-d’s Name is the Shechina, the revelation of His Divine Presence.  It is taught in the Zohar that King David prayed to G-d, saying, “Master of the Universe, just like the water covered the earth and You collected it into one place to reveal the dry land, Your Presence fills the entire earth and I am asking You to collect it into one place alone, Your Holy Temple, and not for a brief time, but forever.”  And David’s prayer was answered.  G-d caused His Divine Presence, the Shechina, to be revealed in the Holy Temple and only in the Temple.  How do we know this?  We know this through His Name, which is the Name heard at Sinai when He said: Anochi Hashem Elokecha, I am the Lord your God. He did not say Hashem nor did He not say Ado-nai, but He pronounced His Name as spelled Yud-Hay-Vav-Hay, and it permeated all existence.  Since then, who has heard the Name of G-d?  Only one who came to the Temple to hear the blessing of the Kohanim or to hear the singing of the Leviim, for nowhere else is it permitted to pronounce G-d’s Name as spelled.  This Name has not been heard for 1941 years.  Rashi never heard it.  The Rambam never heard it.  The Arizal never heard it.  The Vilna Gaon never heard it.  The Baal Shem Tov never heard it.  Hillel and Shammai did hear the Name and did see the Shechina because they lived in the times of the Temple and they came to the Temple.  Every man, woman, and child who came to the Bet Hamikdash heard the Name of  G-d and were blessed with it.

It says in the Talmud (Shabbat 22b) that the light of the Menorah shows that the Divine Presence dwells in Israel.  But we cannot light the Menorah unless it is standing in the Bet Hamikdash.  The State of Israel has chosen the Menorah as its symbol, but it cannot light this Menorah because Israel does not have the Temple.

There never has been permanence on the land without the Temple.  Destruction of the Temple is synonymous with the exile of the people and chaos in the world.  Joshua entered the land with the Tabernacle (Mishkan) and it stood for 440 years and was replaced by Solomon’s Temple, which stood for 410 years.  When Solomon’s Temple was destroyed, the people were exiled to Babylon and the land lay desolate.  70 years later, the people returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple and they remained on the land with the Second Temple for 420 years.  When it was destroyed the people were exiled to Babylon and throughout the world.  And now 1941 years (this writing) after the Temple was destroyed, the people have returned to the land and await the building of the Third Temple, as prophesied in the last nine chapters of the Book of Ezekiel.  Any Jew or peace-loving gentile who seeks anything other than the rebuilding of the Holy Temple should consider rearranging his or her priorities, for until the Temple is rebuilt there will be no peace or good will towards men.  When the Temple is standing once more, the Divine Presence will be revealed in the world, and not for a brief time, but forever, as it says in the Book of Ezekiel (43:7), “And He said to me: This is the place of My throne and this is the place of My footstool, where I will dwell in the midst of the Children of Israel forever.”

This all seems so simple.  Why don’t more people get it?

The middle pillar reaches higher and descends lower than the right or the left.  In the Holy Temple, this is the central path of the Holy Ark, the Golden Incense Altar, the Great Sacrificial Altar, and the Music Platform of the Levites.  In the person, this is the path of balance and mercy.

King Solomon said (Eccles. 7:16,17),  “Be not overly righteous and be not overly wise, why bring desolation upon yourself?  Be not overly wicked and be not a fool, why should you die before your time?”

Concerning secular affairs, Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Every actual state is corrupt.  Therefore, good men should not obey laws to well.”

With respect to all human endeavors, Ivan Turgenev wrote to Leo Tolstoy, “People who bind themselves to systems are those who are unable to encompass the whole truth and try to catch it by the tail.  A system is like the tail of truth, but truth is like a lizard; it leaves its tail in your fingers and runs away knowing full well that it will grow a new one in a twinkling.”

Alan Watts told the following anecdote: One day the Satan and a friend were walking along and they saw a person bend down to pick something up.  The friend said to the Satan, “What did that person just pick up?”  The Satan answered, “A piece of the truth.”  The friend said, “Oh, that’s bad for you.”  The Satan said, “Oh no, I am going to help him organize it.”

Be spontaneous with G-d and include yourself in His Oneness.  There is only one existence and you are it.

We have asked the highly esteemed Rabbi Dr. David Silverware, spiritual leader of Congregation Rodfei Nashim of Kenilworth, Illinois to say a few words in honor of the upcoming Jewish holiday of Shavuot (which coincides with the newly instituted African holiday of Lamaa’loh).  Dr. Silverware…

Thank you, Bill.  There was this nasty old Jewish man who died.  Nobody was sorry that he died because everybody hated him.  But even though they hated him, people from the community went to the cemetery because it is a mitzvah to accompany the dead on their way to the grave.  However, when it came time for someone to say a kind word about him, no one came forward because no one had anything nice to say about him.  Several minutes went by and the people started getting nervous.  A buzz went through the crowd.  People whispered to each other, “This is embarrassing.  Can’t somebody say something?”  Finally, after a few more minutes went by and the tension became intolerable, another old Jew piped up and said, “I can say something nice about him.”  Everybody breathed a sigh of relief.  They pushed the man forward by the side of the grave and he said, “His brother was worse than him.”

Er uh…Dr. Silverware…

What do you want?

Is that your Shavuot address?

That’s it.

Can’t you say something inspirational?

Of course, I can.

Then…maybe you’ll…

All right.  On the 6^th day of the Hebrew month of Sivan, 3323 years ago, G-d came down on Mount Sinai and said the Ten Commandments to the Children of Israel.  Nothing more and nothing less.  Tomorrow night we celebrate this event with the holiday of Shavuos because this was the only time in the history of the world that G-d ever spoke to an entire people.  Some people seem to have a problem with this.  They want to tell you that G-d did not say all Ten Commandments to all the people.  They have the nerve to say that G-d said only Two Commandments to all the people, and then He said the next Eight Commandments to Moses and Moses said them to the people.  Do not believe those people.  They are fakers.  All the medical specialists in the world could not find out what is wrong with them.  That’s it.  Happy Shavuos.  I am not taking questions and I do not intend to say another word.

Thank you, Rabbi Dr. David Silverware.

Mmmmf.

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Disclaimer: The management of Tribes and Temples assumes no responsibility for the opinions of its guest blogsters.  We hasten to add that Rabbi Dr. David Silverware is a member of R.I.P., the International Brotherhood of Rabbis, Imams, and Popes, Local 156.

Yesterday, I listened to a shiur (Torah lecture) on my little mp3 player as I walked around Tsfat (Zefat, Safed, or any one of 12 other accepted English spellings for צפת, the holy little mountain village in the north of Israel) given by one of the leading rabbinic proponents the Lithuanian persuasion of Orthodox Judaism.  The lecture was about Chanukah, which for most rabbis means only one thing: the mitzvah of lighting the the Chanukiah (eight-lamp Chanukah Menorah) in commemoration of the miracle of the Menorah of the Maccabees.  The rabbi said many profound things, but the one that struck me full force was what he said about what happened right after the Maccabees defeated the Greeks.  He said that if we (his colleagues, other rabbis) would have made a committee to run things at that very moment, they would have differed in priorities as to what should be done first after religious freedom had been returned.  (Just to recap: the Greeks had forbidden the Jews to observe the Torah on pain of death and the Maccabees, a family of Jewish priests, rose up and defeated the Greeks).  This hypothetical committee of rabbis (according to the Lithuanian-type rabbi) would have disagreed as to what they needed to do first.  One would have said that we need to build yeshivas to start learning Torah again.  Another would have said that we need to build cheders so little children could begin to learn Torah again.  And yet a third would have said we need to establish daf hayomi shiurim (where people learn one page of Talmud a day).  And so forth.  What this committee would never had suggested (so said the rabbi) was to light the Menorah.  And yet, that is what the Maccabees did.  They kicked the Greeks out and lit the Menorah.  And that was the right thing to do because the Menorah gave spiritual light to the darkened eyes of the Jews and the entire world.  The funny thing is that the rabbi failed to mention that a few years ago the Greeks were kicked out of Israel again.  This time they were in the guise of Jordanians, who on the 28^th day of Iyar in the year 5727 (June 7, 1967), were beaten and ejected from Jerusalem.  At that time, the Old City of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount returned to Jewish hands after almost 1900 years of being in everyone else’s hands.  And do you know what was the first thing we did?  The secular Jews cried out, “Who needs this Vatican!” and they gave away the Temple Mount to the Wakf of Islam.  And the rabbis built yeshivas, cheders, and established daf hayomi shiurim.  And they are still doing it today, 44 years later.  In just seven more years, Israel will have had sovereignty on the land for the same length of time that the Temple was down during the Babylonian Exile.  At that time, they returned from Babylon to Judea only to rebuild the Temple so they could light the Menorah and enlighten the eyes of the world.  They realized that there could be no kiyum (permanence) on the land without the Temple. We have not come to realize that yet.  Maybe, tomorrow.

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Methinks faith is unreliable.  I was driving my car around Chicago in the summer of 1991, listening to a talk show on the radio.  A woman called in and said that she had been in the hospital with an incurable disease and she prayed to Frank Sinatra (who was alive at the time) and she was healed.  And now, she was calling in to tell people to pray to Frank Sinatra. She told people that they must have faith in Frank Sinatra. After hearing that, it occurred to me that organized faith, viz., religion, is a very scary thing and should be viewed with a critical eye.

The Temple is not religion.  It is more like feeding the poor and showing respect for one’s parents.  It should be obvious, even to the secular Jews, even to the Wakf, and certainly to the rabbis, that we need the Temple.  Assuming that the G-d of Israel, and Allah, and our Father which art in heaven are the same G-d, then we can all agree that we need the Temple, not religion.  You see, religion depends on the concealment of G-d.  And the Temple brings the revelation of G-d.

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What we can learn from all this is that is better to walk around Tsfat than drive around Chicago.