Parshat Chukat - Emunat Chachamim

This week’s parsha is jam packed with many subjects, most of which are seemingly unrelated. However a closer examination shows a common theme threaded throughout – the power of the tzaddikim and attachment to them.

The first topic is the para aduma. Rashi brings that part of the reason that davka a para is needed is to fix the sin of the egel hazahav – the mashal that a maid’s son messed up the kings palace, they said let the child’s mother come and clean up his mess. The egel itself was tied into the concept of the tzaddik as Rashi brings that the justification for making it was that Am Yisrael mistakenly believed Moshe had died and they wished to have a replacement to access the conduit to Hashem he served as for them. Thus, at its root, fixing the sin of the egel (via the para aduma) is tied to fixing our relationship with the tzaddik. Additionally Reb Noson brings in his Lekutei Halachot that the concept of the para aduma is further tied to Moshe Rabbeinu as Chazal says that all ashes of future para adumas had to have mixed in some of the ashes of Moshe’s original para aduma from the midbar.

The next event in our parsha is the death of Miriam. Rashi there cites the Gemara in Moed Katan that Miriam’s passing is mentioned right after the sugya of the Para to teach that just as korbanot (such as the para aduma) atone, so too is atonement granted through the death of tzaddikim. He additionally mentions that the water of the be’er ran out when Miriam passed away to show that Am Yisrael’s entire time in the midbar, the be’er gave water in the zchut of Miriam. This is similar to Rebbi Chanina ben Dosa, who Hashem attested lived off a few servings of carobs for the whole week, yet his merit granted sustenance for the entire rest of the world during his generation.

Next Moshe sends emissaries to the king of Edom asking to pass through his land. Later in our parsha the passuk states that Israel sent emissaries to Sichon. Rashi there cites Yiftach’s retelling of these events in sefer Shoftim where he said that Moshe sent the emissaries to show that in both cases it was actually Moshe who sent them. Why in one case is the entire nation of Israel mentioned as having sent them if Moshe did in both instances? Rashi says it is to show us “Sh’nasi hador hu k’kol hador, ki hanasi hu hakol.” Not only is the entire generation tied into the tzaddik of that generation but everything in the world is. This is as Shlomo haMelech stated, “Tzaddik Yesod Olam” (the tzaddik is the foundation of the world).

Following this Aharon haKohen passes away. Immediately afterwards the clouds of glory depart and Amalek attack. This teaches that the clouds only appeared the entire time in the midbar in the zchut of Aharon, and additionally that the zchut of the tzaddikim protects am Yisrael, however when their zchut isn’t protecting us G-d forbid we become vulnerable. There is a story that once people rushed into the beit midrash of Rav Moshe Feinstein saying that a little Jewish boy had been hit by a car right around the corner. Rav Moshe calmly told them that it wasn’t true. The exclaimed that they had seen the boy laying in the street with his kippah right next to him in the road. Rav Moshe repeated that it couldn’t possibly be as it appeared to them. Later they found out that the boy was indeed not Jewish, but had stolen the kippah of a Jewish boy who was chasing him to get it back. As he was trying to run away from the Jewish boy he ran into the street without looking and straight into the path of the car. The witnesses asked Rav Moshe if he was a navi. He replied, I’m not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, however I simply knew that in the zchut of my learning something like this couldn’t possibly happen in my vicinity. Additionally the location of Aharon’s passing on Hor haHar is significant. The Zohar hakadosh says that Miriam, Aharon, and Moshe Rabbeinu were specifically buried in the spots they were so that the three of them could be semi-surrounding the land of Israel and therefore provide a constant protective spiritual shield to it through their zchut.

Next is the story of the Be’er testifying to Am Yisrael of the miracle that Hashem had killed enemies they didn’t even know were waiting to kill them. Rashi brings of the Be’er that each nasi from the 12 tribes would take his staff and carve a line in the ground from the rock until it reached the camp of their particular tribe. The water would then flow following their line until it reached their tribe so that each tribe would have its own direct water source. Reb Noson says in his Lekutei Halachot that this is representative of the tzaddikim drawing forth the water of the “Be’er Maim Chaim” i.e. the wellsprings of Torah to draw bracha and sustenance to those attached to them.

Finally the parsha concludes with the war against Og. The passuk states that Hashem told Moshe, “Al tira oto,” (don’t fear him), regarding Og. However previously when battling his equally enormous brother Sichon (both brothers were roughly the height of the World Trade Center) there is no indication that Moshe was fearful. If Moshe didn’t need worry about defeating Sichon, why would he need to be afraid of confronting Og? However Rashi states that as Og had once unintentionally helped Avraham Aveinu, he was worried his zchut might protect Og and therefore he required Hashem’s reassurance that it would not. The Zohar examines the matter a little deeper and interprets the words “Al tira oto” as “Al tira ot shelo,” i.e. don’t fear his “ot”. The word “ot” is often used to refer to the brit milah. The Zohar states that as Og was a member of Avraham’s household (some opinions hold he is none other than Eliezer) he was included in those circumcised by him. Unlike Sichon, Og had received a brit milah from Avraham and Moshe was worried that such a spiritual protection might be enough to even give him victory over Am Yisrael. However the Zohar says that as Og didn’t keep the laws of sexual purity and defiled his milah, he no longer had a zchut from it and therefore Moshe had nothing to fear. This could be hinted at by the fact the word “oto” is spelled in the passuk missing a vav. In the language of the kabbalah the letter vav represents the sixth sefira of Yesod, which in turn is anthropomorphized by brit milah and Yosef haTzaddik who was the epitome of upholding the laws associated with this. Additionally his very title “tzaddik” suggests that the concept of the tzaddik is tied in with the sefirah of Yesod, and as we mentioned before “tzaddik yesod olam.” Because Og defiled his milah, he lost his connection to the sefira of yesod, and therefore his connection to the concept of the tzaddik and this removed any protection that may have prevented his being defeated.

On this parshat Chukat, may we all be blessed to have faith in and connection to the tzaddikim – true emunat chachamim - and may their merit protect us and all of Am Yisrael.

It's a very very Mad World

I think this may have been part of what Chazal had in mind when they said, "Let Ben David come... but don't let me be around to see it..."

Head of Roman Catholic Church greeted by head of Secular Zionist Church

The Washington Times had an interesting piece on the Vatican a few weeks ago which I mean to comment on but things have been a little hectic lately. However in honor of "His Un-Holiness" being in town I guess now is as fitting a time as ever. Before I begin, let's do a short word-association quiz. Please take mental note of the very first thing that comes to mind when you think of the following:

1) Buddhist Monk
2) Voodo Witchdoctor
3) Catholic Priest


Let's see if your answers resemble mine at all... 1) orange tunic & sandals 2) doll with a pin 3) child molester. I could be wrong but I'm guessing my personal #3 is a pretty common first answer these days. And indeed the WT's piece speaks about the UN's Torture Committee issuing a special report on abuse cases in the church. The findings themselves didn't seem to contain any bombshells - mainly just that members of the church have problems keeping their hands off the kiddies (wonder how much money was spent discovering that huge revelation?).

However there was one very eyebrow raising suggestion the committee included in its report: "The U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child rebuked the Vatican in February for its handling of the sexual abuse scandal and suggested that the Catholic Church update its canon to approve homosexuality, abortion, birth control and premarital sex."

Now it's nothing new that the UN supports such values, and I could frankly care less what the Church's policy on these things are as no matter what they may claim about their spirituality and holiness, they have a marked history of transgressing the 3 true cardinal sins: Murder (i.e. Inquisition), Niuf (molestation/underage rape), and Avodah Zara (worshiping a guy on a stick). However what is worrisome is that suddenly the UN feels it has a mandate to start dictating to major world religions what their policy should and should not be regarding controversial issues of tremendous moral impact. Just as they feel it's their right to re-write the rules of Catholicism, what's to stop them from attempting to make a few edits to the Gemara or Rashi on Tanach when they discuss the Jewish people's connection and G-d given rights to the land of Israel? Rav Kahane HY"D was branded a racist for trying to pass laws in the Knesset that were based straight out of the Mishna Torah. If the state's participation in certain UN committees, or it's standing in the UN in general was threatened by what the Torah has to say about our relationship to Israel I wonder just how willing today's politicians would be to try and censor rabbinic figures and books who state the truth on these issues? Given that Rav Yaakov Yosef and Rav Dov Lior were stalked and arrested like mafiosos a couple of years ago not even for any sefarim they themselves wrote, but simply for writing a haskama on somebody else's book it's troubling to speculate.

Let's pray the UN and the rest of the world just leave us alone and keep their attention focused on the guy in the bathrobe and Bar Mitzvah kipah.

Arutz Sheva links - Radio Interview and Expulsion Video

Just wanted to share two interesting links from Artuz 7:

The first is an interview I did with radio host Ari Louis further discussing the Vatican and it's efforts to take over Kever David: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Radio/News.aspx/5372#.U3khiXfWbe0


The second is video of the recent home destruction last week. In the middle of the clip you can view the cousin of our friend I wrote about getting beat up by police on her roof:
http://www.inn.co.il/wap/Item.aspx?type=0&item=276240

The "Miracles" of Secular Zionism

Not nearly as much coverage as is deserved is being provided as to the recent home demolitions and essentially mini-expulsion that took place yesterday. Ynet reports that several residents ascended  to the tops of the houses to protest the destruction and "were removed and the demolition went ahead using tractors and engineering equipment." I find "removed" a somewhat insufficient description of what happened. My wife has a friend whose relative happened to live in one of the homes that was destroyed. The family only received notification the night before that the following day their home was going to be bulldozed to the ground. The mother while protesting her home being destroyed was apparently thrown off the roof and broke several of her ribs.


A week after the big fanfare of "Yom HaAtzmaut" it's amazing to see the miracles secular zionism and their "independence" has wrought. Throughout the ages of this long hard exile Jewish mothers were forcibly converted to Islam, those resisting dying with the words of Shema on their lips. Jewish mothers were raped and subsequently slashed to pieces in European pogroms. Jewish mothers held on to their scared naked children as the Germans filled their lungs with Zyklon-B in the death camps. But through it all we held on so that these heros of the Jewish people could bring us back to our homeland, build us a state, and form an army of our very own - an army for the Jewish state filled with Jewish soldiers. At last we could be a "nation like all other nations." And after so much suffering at the hands of others in foreign lands at long last Jewish mothers can be thrown from the rooftops by Jewish soldiers instead of by anti-Semitic non-Jewish ones.

Har Tzion and the Vatican - the Backstory

Rumors of a secret government plan to relinquish properties sitting on Mt Zion, including the tomb of David HaMelech have been in an out of the news for probably at least a year now. Recently they seem to have been picking up steam and getting a lot of mention in the blogosphere as well. However many people may not be aware of just how deep the historical and spiritual roots of this controversial deal go. While the spiritual analysis is my own, the follwing historical information is based off the book "Where Heaven Touches Earth," by Dovid Rossoff. It's an incredibly well written and finely documented book of the Jewish history of Jerusalem, and I highly recommend reading it on the "inside" for the full account of this story as well as many others.

In 1898 Kaiser Wilhelm the second of Germany visted Jerusalem to great fanfare from all the city's communities - Jews, Christians, and Muslims, which involved extensive preparations that would forever change the face of Jerusalem. When entering the old city through Sha'ar Yaffo have you ever wondered why there is the actual gateway - i.e. "Jaffa Gate", but then right next to the gate it is a much larger passageway?

It turns out the Kaiser specifically wanted to ride into Jerusalem on horseback, however Ottoman law forbade anyone who wasn't a citizen of the empire from doing so through the city gates. In order to appease the Kaiser while still keeping within the letter of the law a compromise was reached whereby the city walls would be breached and the Kaiser would be able to ride his horse through the hole - thus not riding through the gate itself.

While virtually the entire Jewish community of Jerusalem, Sefardim, Chassidim and Perushim, attended the welcoming ceremony, Rav Yosef Chaim Zonnenfeld was a notable exception. He quoted a mesorah from the Gra that the Germans are descendants of Amalek and that therefore the Kaiser didn't have a din of a non-Jewish king that one should make a bracha on seeing.

During the Kaiser's visit to Eretz Yisrael the Turkish Sultan gave him a gift of property on top of Mt Zion. However, living in Germany, the Kaiser didn't have much personal use for Jerusalem real-estate so he in turn gave it over to the Catholic Church. Presumably the Church retained control of the area until the formation of the modern state of Israel... and it's a likely reason why on the face of it they desire to have it back.

I'm no professional archeologist but the idea that the room above the kever is where the "Last Supper" supposedly took place is preposterous. Even supposing such an event did occur, according to their own narrative Yashka lived at the time of the second Beit HaMikdash which was roughly two thousand years ago. Now over the ages dust and rubble and garbage accumulate up slowly raising the level of the ground - hence the need for archeological "digs." If you want to study a previous era in Israel you need to literally dig it up as the current ground level always belies past ones. An obvious example would be the Kotel. Due to the enormous size of the structure it still juts out from the ground quite a ways, however anyone who has ever gone on one of the Western Wall Tunnel Tours has seen first hand just how far down the retaining wall actually goes and just how much altitude the sands of time have covered up.

Now the building which lies upon the site of Kever David is level with the perimeter wall of the Old City - however this wall was built by the Turks long after the fall of the Roman empire which itself came about several hundred years after the destruction of the Temple. Therefore the current structure which supposedly contains the room of this famous meal must have at its earliest been built over a THOUSAND YEARS after the event was supposed to have taken place! Thus we're left with two possibilities - either the claim is entirely false or perhaps this room is the "second coming" of the original room.

Now maybe I'm just being a little overly silly and your average Catholic priest would counter that the current room is simply a maker or the original location - I can buy that. However what I have a hard time swallowing is given the relatively generous religious freedom said average Catholic priest could have praying at the site, what exactly necessitates the Church retaining official control of the site? As there's several quite large active churches in the vicinity it's not like they can claim that we're running them out of town. However looking at the story with Kaiser Wilhelm, things start to fall a bit more into place. The Catholic church is the traditional religious institution of Europe which is populated by the spiritual descendants of Eisav. Indeed according to Rav Zonnenfeld and the Vilna Gaon the Germans are the epitome of Eisav - Amalek. And here we see that an Amaleki king psychically breached the walls Jerusalem after which he handed over Kever David to the spiritual clutches of Eisav via the church. As the blemish in Jerusalem continuously gets fixed by the city growing faster and faster by the day, they wish to regain what they are losing by focusing on the tomb of David HaMelech - the very king from whose line the Mashiach will come to finally vanquish their power once and for all (perhaps vainly hoping to forestall their inevitable spiritual defeat). May it be G-d's will to save us from losing our spiritual as well as physical connection to our holy tzaddikim, and in King David's merit may his true descendant finally come for the FIRST and FINAL time to redeem us once and for all.

Hashem, just please bring him home!

I'm getting so burnt out on this latest media frenzy concerning Jonathan. I just can't take all the theories, speculations, backtracking and rumors. All I know is that I deeply need him to come home to us now. This country needs it. The Jewish people as a whole need it. On a deeper spiritual level perhaps the whole world needs it. But besides all that I come back to the fact that I need it. Though I mourn over the yearning for a brother whose been in prison almost as long as I've been alive, and one whom even if freed I may never merit to actually meet in person, none the less I have a hole in my heart that will never be healed until I know he is walking a free man in the same streets that I do.

Rav Mordechai Eliyahu said that Jonathan is the Yosef HaTzaddik of our generation. A rav of mine whom was a close talmid of Rav Eliyahu told me once that the Rav additionally said just as Yosef rose to greatness when he was released from prison, so to when Jonathan is finally released he will return to Israel and rise to greatness as well.

In honor of Pesach approaching and all this talk of Jonathan's potential freedom in the air, I'd like to repost "Yehonatan's Song" I originally put on the old Kumah blog several years ago. It's a parable both of Jonathan and his relationship to Am Yisrael and his wife, as well as our national relationship to G-d while in the galut. May we merit to see his happy and healthy return home as well as Rav Eliyahu's words come true - ken yehi ratzon...


Behind the bars within my heart
My thoughts begin to stray
With all this pain I start to ask
Why it has to be this way?
But then my thoughts, they turn to you
And suddenly I’m free
I never have forgotten you
So please don’t forget me

Father won’t you take me by the hand?
And lead me straight to your promised land
And all that we’ve done wrong
Won’t you please set right?
The road is hard and oh so long
Traveled by singers of a solemn song
But within all this darkness
You’ve shown me the light
Please bring redemption, set me free!!
And let the whole world proclaim and see
That there’s a G-d in Israel tonight
Yes, there’s a G-d in Israel tonight.

Stuck inside this concrete pit
Underneath the ground
My enemies, they never stop
To try and bring me down
And the flame of hope lights up my heart
From deep within this hole
They may have trapped my body
But they’ll never trap my soul

Father won’t you take me by the hand?
And lead me straight to your promised land
And all that we’ve done wrong
Won’t you please set right?
The road is hard and oh so long
Traveled by singers of a solemn song
But within all this darkness
You’ve shown me the light
Please bring redemption, set me free!!
And let the whole world proclaim and see
That there’s a G-d in Israel tonight
Yes, there’s a G-d in Israel tonight.

Another week, another month
The years go on and on
It’s sometimes hard to smile
After being here so long
My love for you is strong enough
To always show a way
To not give up and hold on tight
And live another day

Father won’t you take me by the hand?
And lead me straight to your promised land
And all that we’ve done wrong
Won’t you please set right?
The road is hard and oh so long
Traveled by singers of a solemn song
But within all this darkness
You’ve shown me the light
Please bring redemption, set me free!!
And let the whole world proclaim and see
That there’s a G-d in Israel tonight
Yes, there’s a G-d in Israel tonight.

You Can't Make this Stuff up

I think I'll officially stop reading the news for the sake of staying informed and only check it for entertainment purposes. In order to properly prepare for Purim this year I started reading perushim on Megilat Esther a couple of months early to really be in the mood when the chag comes around. However, I wasn't expecting the rest of the world to do the same.

As if a Women of the Wall breakaway minyan wasn't enough, now Hamas is fighting to stem rocket fire towards Israel and setting up security checkpoints to the effect of curbing anti-Israel violence. Say what?!? Apparently they are quite upset at the prospect of ambitious rocketeers from Islamic Jihad dragging them into a conflict with the IDF before they are ready for one and therefore "announced that they will resolutely operate against anyone who attempts to launch rockets towards Israel." Maybe we could have some shrewd Jewish lawyers haggle them into agreeing to have their resolution apply equally to Iranian ones carrying nuclear payload. However I'm wondering if this whole outsourcing of our security concerns to our very supposed enemies could really be a new strategy. Every time we so much as try to put a manhole over a tunnel from Gaza to stop terrorism and smuggling the world screams of persecution. However the Egyptians apparently get a free pass to have somebody shout down the hole, "Hope ya can swim!" before they proceed to flood every last one of them. Now I realize why Boogy Ya'alon was so opposed to replacing Israeli soldiers in the Jordan Valley with American ones - an experienced tactician like him obviously appreciates the fact that the most effective option is to have the Arabs themselves protect us from... errr... themselves. 

Tehillim perek 59 passuk 9 states, "And You Hashem will laugh at them. You will ridicule the nations." I had personally always taken this pussuk to be speaking of Hashem's unrivaled power - that whomever rises up against Him and His people Israel, it is so inconceivable to think they could defeat Him that such an idea would be laughable. However perhaps we should read the passuk more literally that Hashem really does actually make jokes and get a good laugh out of them.