Bahar- Bechukotai Excerpts

בהר-בחקתי

Shabbat Shalom

 

H' gave the land in Israel to specific tribes. That stuff cannot be sold forever. It is sold for the remainder of that cycle of the 50 years. You don’t buy in Israel, you rent. And everybody in this congregation is thinking about purchasing homes in Israel. You don’t even pay dues. What is the investment, if you can’t…

It goes back to the family in the jubilee year. For the Levites, (25:34) 'The fields of the open lands of their cities may not be sold, because it is an eternal heritage.' You get something, let’s call it a shul, with a nice court yard and you want to sell it, so that the shul is more central. You want to walk less. Did you see how bad of shape you all are in? A bit of a walk is good for you. If you ever ate at the Schazel home for Shabbis, you need to walk.

Homes in walled cities are the only thing that can be sold, and then to stay with the purchaser. It stays with the person who bought it, because cities have no family orientation...It is easy to get out of shape, when you don’t walk, Bernie.

(25:36) Don't take interest. That doesn't help poor people. 'and you shall fear from your Gd, and your brother shall live with you.' Nobody is staying in any of our homes, because every one of you wants rent. You are bad hosts. You feed people and then tell them to not get exercise. And then, when they finish the milk, like in the Markowitz house, they expect the guests to pay interest on the new milk and pick it up.

We have a calling to do what is right, for people to live. And for people to live, they have to have a connection to a history. Their home. Topeka has a rich history of people who moved here 20 years ago…

(26:14) If we don't listen to Gd and follow the Mitzvot, a whole slew of bad stuff happens.

Do I have to go through this again? Do we even need the Torah to tell us how much we messed up, ending up in Topeka?...

(26:17-33)

Enemies will pursue us. Do you not see the congregants of Tikun Kloom, taking all of our members…Yes, Jews can be enemies. When they take our members, Bernie. When they occupy all the machines at the gym…

Because we act casually with H,’ H’ acts casually with us. Is this dress down Saturday at Beit Emes Sefilah?...At the day school dinner, it was country club casual…Jeans! That is why H’ is not at the country club. They didn’t ban H’ along with Jews from joining. They were casual with H.’

And you wonder why are children are learning nothing, and getting chased by rabid dogs outside of the school.

And H’ does it each time in 7 ways. Five times there are 7 ways He punishes us. And beasts are involved, our livestock is down, there will be no fruit, we wil run scared of our enemies. Even enemies that aren’t there, will be there. Pestilence will come. We will eat and not be satiated. I know that one. I have eaten at the Goldstone family for Friday night dinner.

We even eat our sons’ and daughters’ flesh. Our cities will be destroyed. Our land will be desolate. All because we dressed in jeans.

(26:34) At that point we are out of the land. H’ realizes that eating of family flesh is far enough.

(26:36) We will fall without pursuers in the lands of our enemies. We will live with other nations that will devour us.

When we couldn’t find Chaim for two days because of ‘Hide and go seek.’ We are going to ban the game in the shul now. 

We lose our children when we sell our homes. When we have no connection to the land H’ gave us, we have out of shape kids who live in cities and have no inheritance, getting chased by dogs, when they play hide and go seek…That is how we find our children.

This all happened, because people made dumb decisions in the community.

And you still want to sell the shul. Do we have the right to sell the shul. Is this a community or a city?

(26:15-16) It is because we did not follow H’s decrees and they became loathsome to us. ‘then I will do the same to you.’

Because we didn’t follow the covenant, and we have sinned all 7 days of the week. And there is pestilence in Chaim’s hair…When things become loathsome, we become causal, and that is when we make bad business deals on houses, and Chaim looks the way he does. In shul, in shorts.

(26:42) H’ remembers the Brit. At the end, the covenants and the land are remembered.

After us eating each other, it is time to bring us back. Even this congregation might take a step back and question ourselves when eating each other….

It is about keeping the Mitzvahs. Do I have to say this again? Every week, you need to hear the same message.

We are allowed back in our land now. H’ has remembered our covenant, but we still dress in country club casual. Because here, it is too easy. When it is easy and we can flip our homes, we forget H’ in our own way...And where is Chaim now?