Bechukotai Excerpts

בחקתי

Shabbat Shalom

(26:14-39) You don't follow the mitzvot. That is where it starts and then it goes down hill from there.

Need I say more? I do not think so. 

But I have to constantly bring this point home...You don't get it. You do random stuff all the time, but never Mitzvot. You go to the Jewish Seniors Home, using the pool...These people are way past high school. You are lapping them and then getting mad that they are not sticking to the right...Did you ever think to notice that they are all standing them with floaties on their arms. Yes Bernie. That is exercise for them. You consider walking exercise Bernie...I don't understand why they walk in a pool.

Constantly. Even with the admonition and punishment, 'and despite this...'if you do not listen, if you do feel the rebuke, refuse to hear Gd's word...

And because of all of this, we act 'casually.' The problem is acting casually.

First we don't keep the mitzvot, then it is all casualness. And H' repays us by acting casually Himself. We do not get the blessings. H' does not protect us. Protecting takes a little more work than just standing by. I remember my friend Mark. Never helped out. He had my back. The guy grabbed onto my back. He was hiding behind me. I was standing there getting hammered...He never understood what it meant to have your friend's back. Not a casual, 'I will talk to him when it is over.' It is about living that moment...Kind of like when I got splashed in the Seniors Home pool, and told them mixed swimming is asur (forbidden). 15 ladies attacked me and nobody had my back...'We are too old to care about this. We are wearing one piece bathing suits.'...That is the kind of casualness that leads to mixed swimming. That is the kind of casualness that makes you think twice about visiting the sick...

Age breeding casualness. Lack of care for mitzvot. And you wonder why I constantly get ganged up on...

Listen to the commandments. How many times do I have to tell you Bernie? You can't talk when we are reading the 10 commandments...

All of Jewish history of the diaspora, it ends off with the punishments, the weakness of our people, and your rabbi getting hurt real bad.

Then (26:40-41) we will confess our sins, once we are weak in our enemies' land..We will run away from ruffling leaves...Yes, we are weak like that.

This congregation is sooo weak, and yet, no confession. Yom Kippur, in and out...Nobody says a thing about the ladies in one piece floatie bathing suits. Casualness breeding casualness...We have to confess our sins. So many other Jewish communities have. But us. We remain weak...

Why? Beacuse we acted casually. It wasn't important to us. We are weak, because we are casual...When the anti-Semites started yelling, 'Watch the car, you are crossing on their green,' did anybody say anything? No. Because we are weak. Menachem just stopped right there and went back to the light. When Michal wanted to go swimming and her mother said, 'You don't know how,' did she go walking in the pool? No. She didn't even go out of her way to find floaties. Casualness... And when your rabbi was getting beaten up in fourth grade, did his friend jump on his back and bring him down, so that he would get wailed on even harder? Yes...Casualness breeds hurt...

I told Malcolm to not have casual Fridays. Do you know how much business you have lost on Fridays Malcolm?...Because nobody wants their staff at Electronic Outlet to be dressed in pajamas? It looks like your staff is stealing the stuff.

You are all casual in this congregation. What is with the jeans in shule? It is not casual Saturday...The one place that gives you a chance to wear a suit and...

(26:42-45) H' will not obliterate us. He will remember his covenant with Yaakov, Yitzchak and Avraham...As we go into this coming week of Yom Yerushalayim, may H' remember our forefathers. The people H' liked. The people who followed his Torah. The reason Menachem has a huge inheritance...

As we enter Yom Yerushalim, may we do our part and remember the mitzvot and keep them, so that Menachem will pay his dues.

***These are excerpts from the sermon. For the sermon in its entirety, come see David Kilimnick perform at the Off The Wall Comedy Basement, in downtown Jerusalem.
David also tours as a Maggid with very few stories, and is booking his America tour as a Comic-in-Residence for June and October.

Shabbat Shalom