Wednesday, July 24, 2013

#185 - Holy Vacation

Got a little confused at first looking at the title thinking that it reads Holy Vatican?  Actually, the part of the Vatican that is really holy are the stolen objects from the Second Temple that the Romans stole, and even though of course the Catholics are presumed to be the strictest when it comes to the Christian religion, when it comes to the commandments in the Bible "Thou shall not steal" and "He shall return the stolen item that he stole", well, that is another story.

But, for whatever else is taking place in the Northern Hemisphere, it is summer time, and people celebrate it in various ways.  While for the more affluent, this means flying out of town to exotic places, the more down-to-earth folks will hang out in town, including food places - cafes, coffee places, and pizza restaurants.

For those of you who know Hebrew, you may have noticed an interesting phenomenon.  It starts with the Hebrew number 185, which is the number of this post.  You see, this number using the letters - Kuf, Pei/Phei, Hei - also spells two popular words in Hebrew - cafe and coffee.  After all, Modern Hebrew is full of words that resemble English words, aside from like half of the shopping places in Israel which are named in English.

And as for pizza, since this was a word that was not part of the early Hebrew jargon or lexicon, it is also spelled in Hebrew the same way that it is pronounced in English.  But here is an interesting factoid - the Gematria of this word is the same as the words cafe and coffee - 185.

Coincidence?  And even if one were to say that there is a heavenly message pertaining to these three Hebrew words having the same Gematria, could it be that there is a message pertaining to this number 185 in particular?

I will get back to answering this after a little bite - I mean, after a little bit.  But seriously, there is something serious here that I have to write about first.

Actually, there are quite a few serious issues. But in order to tell you what they are, I have to note today's date - 18 Av.  You see, as mentioned in the Shulchan Aruch (Code of Jewish Law) as per a list of suggested fast days on which major tragedies occurred to the Jewish people (Orach Chaim 580), it was on this date that the "western lamp" of the Menorah (it actually refers to the middle lamp), which normally used to miraculously be lit longer than the other lamps, became extinguished in the days of Ahaz.  There is a version that states that this happened on the 17th of Av.

Now, the key to why this happened is "in the days of Ahaz".  You see, Ahaz, one of the kings of Judea, was among the most wicked kings of Judea.  It wasn't bad enough that he was one of those kings who worshiped idols, but saw to it that idols were all over the place, that is, even in his Sefer Torah (Torah scroll) that he inherited from his righteous father Yotham.  You see, at every place in the Torah that Hashem's name is mentioned, he had erased and replaced with the name of one of the most popular idols of his day, the Ba'al. However, his evil didn't stop here.  Knowing that the future of Judaism is dependent on the little ones, he ordered all the Yeshiva day schools for children to be shut down, not wishing that a religion not allowing his Ba'al idol into the picture be practiced anymore by the time that the next generation would grow up.  And so, the main light of the Menorah in the Temple that represents both Hashem's presence and the Torah became extinguished, because how could Hashem, so to speak, be comfortable in His home when His people were being trained not to follow Him or His Torah?  Finally, after 16 years of spiritual damage, he died, and his righteous son Hezekiah, who well reversed the spiritual situation of the Jewish people to the extent that even little school children were well versed in the complex laws of purity and impurity, publicly dragged his dead father at the funeral to show contempt for his father's evil deeds.

Now, let's turn to the year 5689 (1929) in Hebron, Israel.  It was at a time that Jews and Arabs lived side by side.  In fact, the Jews living there thought that the Arabs, who seemed to behave quite nicely to them, were like best friends.  But on the 17th of Av, Erev Shabbat Parshat Eikev, they were quite surprised when they saw some of these very Arabs were the very ones going around from home to home murdering Jews, quickly learning that the friendship of these Arabs was only a facade to hide their true intentions which they acted upon that day.  The bloodshed continued into Shabbat, the 18th of Av; and from the Hebron massacre, there were a total of 67 Jews murdered by these lowlifes.  It seemed to be most ironic that particularly on Shabbat on the date of the 18th of this month, this number in Hebrew being Chai (life), that this took place.

So as you can see here, two major tragedies or sad events happened on the same day(s), smack in the middle of when even the Ultra-Orthodox, or most observant Jews, especially in Israel, take off from the official Yeshiva studies from Tisha B'Av until three weeks later on Rosh Chodesh Elul.  And while tragedies to Jews during the course of a few thousand years have happened virtually on every calendar day, there are some that stand out above the others.  And the fact that the Shulchan Aruch mentions specific ones among the many more tragic ones shows that these particular events were not only lessons for the generation in which they happened, but for all future generations to learn something from them to become better Jews.

And as far as what happened in Hebron, though there were many more tragic events that happened to Jews involving many more of them being murdered, making the number 67 seem pale in significance, the circumstances in which the massacre occurred highlights how tragic this was.  For after this, Hebron, the second holiest city in the world, the town in which Abraham the first Jew spent a significant percent of his life living in, and the Mearat Hamachpela, resting place of our Avot (Patriarchs) and Imahot (Matriarchs), became desolate until the Six Day War in 5727 (1967) when we captured Hebron and the resting place once more.  Of course, thanks to Prime Monster Bibi Netanyahu and others, 97% of Hebron and a significant percentage of the resting place is under the dominance of the Moslem Arabs, who were quick this year to vandalize Jewish objects at the Mearat HaMachpela on the first Friday of this present Ramadan month that they had the place to themselves with forbidden access to Jews; and of course, as you can guess, they weren't penalized by our Pro-Arab/Anti-Jewish Israeli government for this; nay, the continued ignoring of these type of activities by this evil government if anything encourages them to continue these type of activities.

You see, the Knesset, the main body of this government, was busy focusing on its anti-Jewish side lately, between reducing the amount of money that it will be giving to Yeshivot, regardless of religious level; and now, the enacting of what is called the Haredi draft law, which basically states that the Ultra-Orthodox young guys learning in Yeshiva must draft in the army, or will be severely penalized.  Of course, if the IDF (Israeli army) heads wouldn't order its soldiers to evict Jews from homes, run away from Arab boys throwing stones at them, shoot in the air instead of at the Arab attackers until the latter start attacking, have females sing in public - a big no-no in Jewish law; then perhaps, the government who gives the orders to the IDF heads, would have a point in wanting everyone possible to join an army that will truly fight its enemies and respect Jewish religion.  But of course, with its already double standards of helping Arabs while hurting Jews, this type of logic, or rather, illogic, is nothing new.  So, this government is not blunt about stamping out religion as was King Ahaz, but it is sure cleverer than him.

The truth is, if the Knesset members who just voted for the young Torah learning students were a little more clever, they would realize that attempting to force these ones to join an army that they don't believe in joining would cause less of them to join.  You see, at this time, there are a couple thousand of young Ultra-Orthodox ones who willingly joined the army.  However, with the call from the rabbis of their camp to not follow the orders of this anti-Torah edict, even the ones who would have willingly joined on their own will now not join.  Actually, to come to think of it, the purpose of this edict is not to get more people to join an army that is not seriously fighting our enemies anyways, but to discourage Torah learning from the young ones by penalizing them if they don't join the army, because these evil Knesset members, headed by the anti-religious Yair Lapid of the Yesh Atid party, already know that the Ultra-Orthodox have already publicly demonstrated, and will continue doing so, until the Knesset is forced to back off interfering with Torah learning students, some of whom will be the leading rabbis of the next generation.  The only question is, what is the price that the Knesset will be willing to pay before it realizes that in fact, it is fighting Hashem, Who will be certain to give the Knesset warning signals until the Torah - via being learned from these students, and has been the main force in protecting Jews in Israel from rocket attacks and all which will NEVER be recognized by the evil people in the Knesset claiming that only the joke army can protect Jews - will reign supreme once again without being threatened of its books being shut.

With this said, let us get back to the number of this post - 185, the Gematria of the words in Hebrew - cafe, coffee, and pizza, pleasure foods that didn't always exist a nice few thousand years ago.  In any case, a good Jew is one who follows Halacha (Jewish law), and so, let us turn to another chapter within the same part of the Shulchan Aruch, the Orach Chaim "Path of Life" section that deals with daily life from prayers to eating to Shabbat and holidays - Chapter 185.   This chapter deals with some laws pertaining to Bircat HaMazon (Grace after Meals),  which is a Mitzva which is mentioned in this very week's Parshat Eikev, in the last verse of the first Aliyah  "You shall eat, be satisfied, and bless Hashem your G-d for the good land that He has given you".  Anyways, it is on this very chapter that the Chofetz Chaim in his Mishna Berura commentary quotes the Sefer HaChinuch (one of the book with details on the 613 Commandments): Whoever  is careful with Bircat HaMazon, will have his food available to him for all his life in dignity.  One who is careful about this Mitzva should see to it that he recites it from a book, rather than by heart.  Next, the Mishna Berura quotes the ethical book Sefer Chasidim: The story is told of one who died and came in a dream to a relative, telling him that every day, the Heavenly Tribunal judges him for not being careful to recite all the blessings with concentration.

True, vacation is an opportunity for many to recharge even their spiritual batteries.  However, the vacation that we take is temporary both in its immediate form being that it is of limited time until we have to get back to work and school, and in terms of our ultimate eternal life which will be a vacation for us, so to speak, if we worked properly in serving Hashem, which includes focusing our thoughts on how we relate to him.  For many, the fresh delicious smell of pizza coming straight from the oven when having an empty stomach may distract him from everything else (perhaps he needs to be mindful of his wallet when paying for the pizza), and while one will automatically say the blessing on it before eating because he has been well trained to say blessings before eating, thinking of the meaning of the blessing on this pizza may be a bit challenging.

And of course, a vacation for a good Jew is not complete without learning some Torah each day.  The truth is, taking time off from work (when allowed by the boss if an employee) to learn Torah may be a sort of relaxation, which is the purpose of vacation to begin with; but when we take a physical vacation, it is harder for some to focus on their spiritual activities, unless their mindset to begin with is in order to be more refreshed in serving Hashem, or is out with one's family so his children especially can have some fun at the children's games.  But in our own adult lives, not focusing on our purpose is in essence playing children's games.  So the next you have a coffee with your meal or having a good time with friends at the cafe, remember the Hebrew word for coffee or cafe, and then since this word is also the number 185 in Hebrew, it will lead you to think of Chapter 185 of the Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim which consists of laws about the Mitzva of Bircat HaMazon, whose purpose is for us to constantly have gratitude and thank Hashem for the food that He constantly feeds us.

18 Av, 5773


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