Pinchas Excerpts

פינחס

Shabbat Shalom

Every day that is holy is a day that you don't do work. I know the Chazin feels very strongly about this, and treats each day as a holy day.

I can tell you that the Bergensfeld Pharmacy also feels that the whole summer is holy, as they have been closed for the past 3 weeks. Committed to vacation...

By Pesach (28:18 & 25), the first and seventh days 'shall be called holy...all the laborious work, you shall not do.' If it is 'laborious' then not doing it is holy. That is what matters. Laborious. What we know as Melacha, work of creation. The Chazin has never done an once of creative work. All of his songs are stolen from Klezmer and Carlebach. He doesn't even know traditional Cantorial melodies. 

Shavuis (18:26), Rosh Hashana (29:1) And the same for Sukkis and Shemini Atzeret; no labor, as it is holy.

The two things all holidays have in common is holiness and not doing work.

Your work is not holy....Running a gambling site. 

Work is not holy. You all glorify the work. It was what the work allows for.

How do you glorify working in a factory?...Got to be honest. The Max's Renovations and Tire Repairs outfit is quite funky and stylish.

What we do is to make the world good, but who we are is holy. Your pharmacy is holy in the sense that you don't work. But without any good, it is not holy...You are not holy because of your lack of being. You still have to be something that is 'called holy.'

What you call holy, is holy. What you call annoying is annoying. And the Chazin's tunes are annoying.

Time is holy. Who you are is holy. Being part of community is holy. That is what the holidays allow for. It is what you do when you are not working. It is how you act at work, and every single one of you is an abusive boss. That is what will be said at your funeral. 'A not holy boss, who also screamed at the Ba'al Koreh when he was Layning...' On the holidays, we come together to 

Yom Kippur (29:7) adds to the no work and the calling the day holy with a 'you shall afflict yourselves.' 

Affliction is added to the holiness. That is what makes my work at this congregation a higher level of holy. I have been afflicted by the Chazin and the congregants, the board and the Gabai, since I moved to Topeka...Summer here is holy. We have afflicted everybody, because the investment committee put the shul into debt and there is no air-conditioning in the chapel this summer. A full summer of Yom Kippur...But we still work, and that it was why it is not holy.