Episode Details

 Ki
Tavo El HaAretz - When you come to the land and celebrate the first fruits. 

Our
newlywed children Mariyah and Moshe moved into their apartment this week and
were busy building plant racks for the balcony and arranging things. Mariyah
sent me a picture after shopping at Machaneh Yehuda of her new refrigerator
stocked with fruits and vegetables and it was so apropos considering the
opening topic of this week’s portion. Moving from America with the luxuries we
get used to including immediate food deliveries through Instacart and setting
up a home in Jerusalem with lots of red tape and bureaucracy, presents its
challenges. But they view it as returning home. 

And
today was our granddaughter Orly Adele’s third birthday. She celebrated at home
with her siblings and parents in the Holy Land while her oldest sister Choux
Choux brought home her homework to do, all in her native tongue, Hebrew.  

Before
there was the internet and podcasts, before there were CD’s and learning via
zoom, there were Rabbi Beryl Wein’s cassette tapes. And spending an hour or so
with the Rabbi each day going through each of his history series was a part of
my daily study curriculum. Rabbi Abittan would explain that understanding
Jewish history, and where and when each of our great leaders and poskim lived
and the socio economic conditions they lived under is crucial in understanding
Torah and halacha, 

Rabbi
Wein points out to what we refer to as exaggerated stories or fairy tales
brought by the great sage Rabba Bar bar Hana in Baba Batra 73B and clarifies
that the Talmud’s fairy tales often reflect the realities of life in a very
prophetic way. 

“And
Rabba bar bar Ḥana said: Once we were traveling on a ship and we saw a certain
fish upon which sand had settled, and grass grew on it. We assumed that it was
dry land and went up (onto this island) and baked and cooked on the back of the
fish, but when its back grew hot (because of the fire from the cooking), it
turned over. And were it not for the fact that the ship was close by, we would
have drowned. 

Rabbi
Wein tells us to look at this story and ponder how it reflects on the history
of the Jewish people. Often, and throughout time, we think that we are on solid
ground; what we call terra firma, but in reality, we’ve settled on a floating
fish, and when things get hot, the fish turns and we get thrown into the sea. 

He
recalled when he was the rabbi in Monsey, New York, they were building a new
study hall and synagogue where certain huge ceiling beams were required. He
found a company in Canada that made these beams and they guaranteed them for 80
years. One of the members of the synagogue asked why he purchased these beams
from Canada when there was a company in Finland which charged a few dollars
more, but would give a guarantee for 300 years. 

Rabbi
Wein asked: are we planning for 300 years to have a building in exile? Are we
not considering returning home? Are we thinking about building a building for
the people who will take over our synagogue. 

As
he told the story, I remembered the stories he would tell about his
father-in-law in Detroit, and how they built a Synagogue and years later when
the neighborhood changed, they all moved away. They built a new synagogue, in
the new neighborhood, while selling the first synagogue to a black minister and
his flock. 

And
then years later, when they were going to move again, and they were selling
their synagogue to the same group a second time and building a third synagogue,
the minister told them he wanted to be on the building committee for the third
synagogue because he figured eventually he would buy that too, once the Jews
moved aw