Reb Shlomo had a very deep connection to Yerushalayim. He often said that when we lost the Holy Temple in Yerushalayim, we lost the melody to the Holy Torah. We lost its deepest inner meaning. He felt that in our day and age, a whole new generation of young people are moving to a different beat. They hear a heavenly melody. They’re dancing a new dance. Reb Shlomo often inspired the young people of his generation to learn some of the words that were sung in the Holy Temple, so like it says in Psalms, we could ‘sing a new song to God!’ and combining the words and the melodies we could really rebuild Yerushalayim and fix the whole world.

My dear friend, the deepest depths of Yiddishkeit is that I am longing for so much and I am so broken that I don’t have it yet. Yet I do have it. The Isbitzer says, if I need a hundred dollars it is because I don’t have it. But for G-d, if crying for the Torah, if crying for Yiddishkeit, it is because I really do have it. You know friends, G-d gave us the Torah on Mount Sinai and the saddest thing in the world is that we had the arrogance to think that we had it. So we lost it. When Moshe Rabbenu broke the tablets, he gave us the Torah again and the Talmud says that both tablets, the whole ones and the broken ones, are lying in the Holy Ark.

We need both.

So basically the laws of the Torah which we receive on Shavuot are not enough to protect us from the Golden Calf. So G-d in His infinite mercy gives us broken tablets –the deepest secret of the Torah, the Torah of Rabbi Akiva and Reb Shimon Bar Yochai. He gives them to us before Shavuot, on Lag b’Omer. And then on Shavuot what we receive is even deeper than the secrets of the Torah, the utmost heavenliness and G-dliness of the Torah. The Gemara says that G-d always gives the medication before the disease. So every Shavuot there is always a possibility of making another golden calf. Maybe last year we did it, maybe we are still doing it. So Lag b’Omer is the day that G-d gave us the secrets of the Torah. You know what the secret is?

The secret is something that fills your heart so much, it fills you with longing, and it fills you with depth. A secret is like a little bit of light beyond vessels. Basically, when G-d created the world, G-d was hiding in the world. G-d is the biggest secret in the world. He is so obvious and yet so hidden. So G-d gives us the secrets of the Torah before Shavuoth. And every Lag b’Omer Reb Shimon Bar Yochai and Rabbi Akiva are giving over to us the deepest depths of the Torah. Reb Zadok Hacohen says, How do you know how much somebody loves you? When somebody loves you, they want to tell you all their secrets. You know what is living on Lag b’Omer? He gives us the deepest depths, how much the Torah loves us, how much we love the Torah. Lag b’Omer we are telling the Torah all our secrets and the Torah is telling us all the Torah secrets. Reb Akiva was longing all his life to give his life for G-d. He had such deep longing for G-d. He was ready to die for G-d, to show that the way that I love G-d is beyond vessels, deeper than everything in the world. A few days after Shavuot we are mekadesh levanah (sanctifying the moon).

Everybody knows that the moon receives the inside light of the sun. Everybody knows that during the day we take care of the outside. We work, we do business. The night is the inside. The Gemara says the night is for learning, especially secrets; the night is full of secrets. Do you know what secrets are? Secrets are: after you hear the secrets you still don’t know them, there is so much more to them. The levanah, the moon, is so deep. The moon is always longing for more. When the moon is full, it is not satisfied. It knows there must be more in the world than just this light that fills it and it begins all over again. So we Yidden get together between the beginning of the month and the full moon to thank G-d for this new light. Every month the moon is new again; the sun is always the same. Inside people are always new. In other words, inside people are always so broken, but they are also always new.

My beautiful friends, I am inviting you all for Kiddush Levanah. The first Kiddush Levanah after Shavuot, whatever we didn’t do on Shavuot, whatever we missed out, we can still do, because it is the month of Shavuot, the moon of Shavuot. It is the light of Shavuot.

You know, Shavuot night we are up all night. We are reading the beginning and the end of the every parsha and tractate. We are connecting ourselves to the beginning and the end because we know the beginning is in G-d’s hands and the end is in G-d’s hands. We pray and hope that we’ll be able to do something in the middle.

The Talmud says:

If all the oceans will be ink and all the leaves will be quills to write with, we still could not tell each other the holiness of that night.

And then that morning at dawn we receive the Torah with all our hearts. G-d is telling us, I am really your G-d and I am with you always, always. And you are my people. Let’s be together that night, let’s be together on Lag b’Omer and let’s be together at Kiddush Levanah. We should be together, my friends, every Shabbat and every YomTov. And I bless you that you should always have someone to tell your secrets.

Reprinted from Kehilat Jacob News

New York, 5751.

4 Iyar – Yom Hazikaron (Israel Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terrorism Remembrance / Memorial Day)
5 Iyar – Yom Ha’atzma’ut (Israeli Independence Day)
14 Iyar – Pesach Sheini (Second Passover)
18 Iyar – Lag Ba’omer
28 Iyar – Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day: commemorating the reunification of Jerusalem).

My dear friend, the deepest depths of Yiddishkeit is that I am longing for so much and I am so broken that I don’t have it yet. Yet I do have it. The Isbitzer says, if I need a hundred dollars it is because I don’t have it. But for G-d, if crying for the Torah, if crying for Yiddishkeit, it is because I really do have it. You know friends, G-d gave us the Torah on Mount Sinai and the saddest thing in the world is that we had the arrogance to think that we had it. So we lost it. When Moshe Rabbenu broke the tablets, he gave us the Torah again and the Talmud says that both tablets, the whole ones and the broken ones, are lying in the Holy Ark.

We need both.

So basically the laws of the Torah which we receive on Shavuot are not enough to protect us from the Golden Calf. So G-d in His infinite mercy gives us broken tablets –the deepest secret of the Torah, the Torah of Rabbi Akiva and Reb Shimon Bar Yochai. He gives them to us before Shavuot, on Lag b’Omer. And then on Shavuot what we receive is even deeper than the secrets of the Torah, the utmost heavenliness and G-dliness of the Torah. The Gemara says that G-d always gives the medication before the disease. So every Shavuot there is always a possibility of making another golden calf. Maybe last year we did it, maybe we are still doing it. So Lag b’Omer is the day that G-d gave us the secrets of the Torah. You know what the secret is?

The secret is something that fills your heart so much, it fills you with longing, and it fills you with depth. A secret is like a little bit of light beyond vessels. Basically, when G-d created the world, G-d was hiding in the world. G-d is the biggest secret in the world. He is so obvious and yet so hidden. So G-d gives us the secrets of the Torah before Shavuoth. And every Lag b’Omer Reb Shimon Bar Yochai and Rabbi Akiva are giving over to us the deepest depths of the Torah. Reb Zadok Hacohen says, How do you know how much somebody loves you? When somebody loves you, they want to tell you all their secrets. You know what is living on Lag b’Omer? He gives us the deepest depths, how much the Torah loves us, how much we love the Torah. Lag b’Omer we are telling the Torah all our secrets and the Torah is telling us all the Torah secrets. Reb Akiva was longing all his life to give his life for G-d. He had such deep longing for G-d. He was ready to die for G-d, to show that the way that I love G-d is beyond vessels, deeper than everything in the world. A few days after Shavuot we are mekadesh levanah (sanctifying the moon).

Everybody knows that the moon receives the inside light of the sun. Everybody knows that during the day we take care of the outside. We work, we do business. The night is the inside. The Gemara says the night is for learning, especially secrets; the night is full of secrets. Do you know what secrets are? Secrets are: after you hear the secrets you still don’t know them, there is so much more to them. The levanah, the moon, is so deep. The moon is always longing for more. When the moon is full, it is not satisfied. It knows there must be more in the world than just this light that fills it and it begins all over again. So we Yidden get together between the beginning of the month and the full moon to thank G-d for this new light. Every month the moon is new again; the sun is always the same. Inside people are always new. In other words, inside people are always so broken, but they are also always new.

My beautiful friends, I am inviting you all for Kiddush Levanah. The first Kiddush Levanah after Shavuot, whatever we didn’t do on Shavuot, whatever we missed out, we can still do, because it is the month of Shavuot, the moon of Shavuot. It is the light of Shavuot.

You know, Shavuot night we are up all night. We are reading the beginning and the end of the every parsha and tractate. We are connecting ourselves to the beginning and the end because we know the beginning is in G-d’s hands and the end is in G-d’s hands. We pray and hope that we’ll be able to do something in the middle.

The Talmud says: If all the oceans will be ink and all the leaves will be quills to write with, we still could not tell each other the holiness of that night.

And then that morning at dawn we receive the Torah with all our hearts. G-d is telling us, I am really your G-d and I am with you always, always. And you are my people. Let’s be together that night, let’s be together Lag b’Omer and let’s be together at Kiddush Levanah. We should be together, my friends, every Shabbat and every YomTov. And I bless you that you should always have someone to tell your secrets.

Reprinted from Kehilat Jacob News

New York, 5751.

Machshava means what I’m thinking with my head.

Hirur the Gemara always says, is what king in my heart.

In my head, my thoughts change every split second, and even if I think the same thing, I don’t think of it the same way. Then there’s “hirhur be libo” – you know I can walk around with one thought in my heart my whole life, and the more real I am, the less it changes. And this is so deep, like the Gemara says; my heart is only telling my heart.

Now let’s talk about the tribe of Issachar – they know what to do in the moment. This is very important. A lot of people know what they have to do always – but what do you have to do in this moment? We were learning it at Purim – why is the megillah called a book and a letter? If I love someone very much, do I send them my book? A book is for the whole world … but a letter – this is from my heart. Remember what Amalek said to us just after we left Egypt. His vibrations made us so cold; only 40 days since the miracles of Egypt and we were so cut off that we made the golden calf. Amalek says to you, “Yeah, religions beautiful, G-ds beautiful, the ‘always’ you have, but the moment…” I know what G-d is telling to all the Jews, to the whole world, but what is He saying to me?

The truth is the Ribbono Shel Olam is sending each of us a letter every moment but you’ve got to know how to read it. And this is Issachar. Somebody says, “I don’t know what to do.” Watch the signs. How do you know how you are to somebody? It’s how well they read your signs.

The Izbitzer asks,” What’s the letter Vav?” Most of the letters need other letters to pronounce it – aleph is aleph lamed pe, gimmel is gimmel mem lamed. Vav is the one letter that I only need the same word to pronounce it. This means that nothing foreign gets to the inside of my heart. The two Vavs represent Emet and Tiferet. The Vav starts up in heaven and comes straight down, non- stop because the truth is non-stop. We have to know the truth in our heart and know the beauty in our hearts. But did you ever see anything uglier than someone talking about their own beauty? How do you make somebody else beautiful, by giving them honor, right? Kavod knows no words, it comes from the heart. When the students of Rabbi Akiva couldn’t make each other beautiful, so to speak, the month itself couldn’t bear it. This month, Nature is mamish us how beautiful the world can be.

We have to work our whole life on this one letter – the Vav – truth and beauty. When Moshe Rabbenu came down from Mt. Sinai he knew Am Yisroel’s neshamahs were very high, but their heads were in the wrong place, so he had to break the tablets. But what did the Golden Calf teach us? It was the end, and Moshe Rabbenu went right back up the Mount, back to the beginning. Gevalt, Hashem, I don’t want to learn from the Golden Calf this year; teach me how to learn right from the beginning.

Pesach and the redemption from Mitzrayim is G-d’s revelation. Sefiras ha- Omer means, what am I doing with it? Everybody has to count in order to fix his own neshamah. In one ways waiting for G-d’s , His revelation, and in another I have to search and trust my own heart in the deepest way. lyar is the fixing of the heart. Nissan is the fixing of the head – a slave is listening only to his head. What does it mean to be in exile? It’s being so petty. Every year we are fixing again leaving Egypt until we receive the Torah. But this year I want to receive the Torah without making a golden calf.

Originally published in Kehilat Jacob News New York, Iyar 5746.

The world knows that Nero ((Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (December 15, 37 – June 9, 68), born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, also called Nero Claudius Caesar Germanicus, was the fifth and last Roman Emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great uncle Claudius to become heir to the throne. As Nero Claudius Caesar, he succeeded to the throne on October 13, 54, following Claudius’ death. Nero ruled from 54 to 68, focusing much of his attention on diplomacy, trade, and increasing the cultural capital of the empire. He ordered the building of theatres and promoted athletic games. His reign included a successful war and negotiated peace with the Parthian Empire (58–63), the suppression of the British revolt (60–61) and improving diplomatic ties with Greece. In 68 a military coup drove Nero into hiding. Facing execution, he reportedly committed forced suicide. Nero’s rule is often associated with tyranny and extravagance. He is known for a number of executions, including his mother and adoptive brother, as the emperor who “fiddled while Rome burned” and an early persecutor of Christians. This view is based upon the main surviving sources for Nero’s reign—Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio. Few surviving sources paint Nero in a favorable light. Some sources, though, portray him as an emperor who was popular with the Roman people, especially in the East.)) the meshugganer Roman emperor set fire to the city of Rome and then fiddled as the city burned. The story goes that he then commited suicide. Our Jewish version of the story has a different ending. He went to Jerusalem, converted to Judaism and was the grandfather of Rabbi Meir the Mishanic Tanna, whose Yahrziet is on Pesach Sheni the Yom Tov of the second chance.

Men came to Moshe Rabbeinu in the wilderness in the second year after our leaving Egypt, they were members of the Chevra Kadisha ((A chevra kadisha is a loosely structured but generally closed organization of Jewish men and women who see to it that the bodies of Jews are prepared for burial according to Halacha (Jewish law) and are protected from desecration, willful or not, until burial. Two of the main requirements are the showing of proper respect for a corpse, and the ritual cleansing of the body and subsequent dressing for burial.

The task of the chevra kadisha is considered a laudable one, as tending to the dead is a favour that the recipient cannot return, making it devoid of ulterior motives. Its work is therefore referred to as a chesed shel emet (a good deed of truth), paraphrased from Genesis 47:29 (where Jacob asks his son Joseph, “do me a ‘true’ favor” and Joseph promises his father to bury him in the Land of Israel).

At the heart of the society’s function is the ritual of tahara, or purification. The body is first thoroughly cleansed of dirt, body fluids and solids, and anything else that may be on the skin, and then it is ritually purified by immersion in, or a continuous flow of, water from the head over the entire body. Tahara may refer to either the entire process, or to the ritual purification. Once the body is purified, the body is dressed in tachrichim, or shrouds, of white pure cotton garments made up of ten pieces for a male and twelve for a female, which are identical for each Jew and which symbolically recalls the garments worn by the Kohen Gadol (High Priest). Once the body is dressed, the casket is sealed. When being buried in Israel, however, a casket is not used.

The society may also provide shomrim, or watchers, to guard the body from theft until burial (although in some communities this is done by people close to the departed). At one time, the danger of theft of the body was very real, now it has become a way of honoring the deceased.

A specific task for the burial society is tending to the dead who have no immediate next-of-kin. These are termed a meit mitzvah (a mitzvah corpse), as tending to a meit mitzvah overrides virtually any other positive commandment (mitzvot aseh) of Torah law.

Many burial societies hold one or two annual fast days and organise regular study sessions to remain up-to-date with the relevant articles of Jewish law. In addition, most burial societies also support families during the shiv’ah (traditional week of mourning) by arranging prayer services, meals and other facilities.

While burial societies were, in Europe, generally a community function, in America it has become far more common for societies to be organized by each synagogue. However, not every synagogue has such a society. )) carrying the bones of Joseph, which as you remember, Joseph had made the Jewish people swear they would carry out of Egypt with them when they left. They said ” Why should we be left out of the sacrifice of the Paschal lamb?” You see! said Sholmo, they were hurt by the lost opportunity. Even though they were not at fault and they would be credited with the mitzvah for their desire to perform it, still they felt that they would be left with the scar. The fact that a wound heals does not mean that there will be no scar. They said, ” We don’t care that we are not culpable, that our Pesach is and was a part and parcel of that celebrated by the whole Jewish people. We want to do our own”
Do you know my friends what Amalek is always saying to us? He is saying, “Your contribution counts for nothing” Who needs your Seder night? who needs your Hallel? So he attacks on Pesach Sheni.

What made these people carrying Joseph’s bones have the conviction that it was up to them to demand a second chance? that they could bring Pesach Sheni down into this world? Just who was Joseph whose bones they were carrrying? He was the son of our mother Rachel. You remember the story. She was engaged to be married to our Father Jacob. He, knowing what kind of a man was Laban his father in law, arranged a secret code and password with Rachel so that at the wedding he could make sure it was she he was marrying. Rachel, seeing that Leah was being prepared as the bride, gave over the secret password to her sister Leah so she would not be embarrased at the last moment. So what would have been so bad, if Leah had not been given the secret password? So she would have been hurt, so she would have been broken hearted. But would’nt she have gotten over it? Time would have passed she would have met someone else. But you see: the scar! she would have been scarred for life, The scar never goes away and Rachel did not want to see her sister scarred. So look at what she was ready to give up for her sister. Everything, this world and the next world. Everyone knows that the world said; Issac has two sons, Laban has two daughters, the older one goes for the older one and the younger one to the younger one. Rachel knew that she would now end up being married to Esau! What she didn’t know was that she was bringing down the “second chance” into the world. She too was married to Jacob and her son Joseph whose bones the Men were carried, was the child of the second chance. So they felt moved to ask for the second chance.

But Rebbe Akiva says these men were Mishael and Elzafon, the pallbearers of Nodov and Avihu. Nodov and Avihu who died in HaShems Name in order to add to the Torah. And Rebbe Akiva, master of the Torah she-bal-peh, the Torah of Adding-To, surrenders himself to die in HaShem’s Name and connected to the neshomos of Nodov and Avihu. To connect to the Torah of More, you must be ready to enter the Holy of Holies and die in HaShem’s name a million times.

Pesach Sheini is always during the fifth week of the Omer ((Counting of the Omer is a verbal counting of each of the forty-nine days between the Jewish holidays of Passover and Shavuot. This mitzvah derives from the Torah commandment to count forty-nine days beginning from the day on which the Omer, a sacrifice containing an omer-measure of barley, was offered in the Temple in Jerusalem, up until the day before an offering of wheat was brought to the Temple on Shavuot. The Counting of the Omer begins on the second day of Passover and ends the day before the holiday of Shavuot.

The idea of counting each day represents spiritual preparation and anticipation for the giving of the Torah, which was given by God on Mount Sinai on the fiftieth day, Shavuot. The Sefer HaChinuch states that the Jewish people were only freed from Egypt at Passover in order to receive the Torah at Shavuot and to fulfill its laws. Thus the Counting of the Omer demonstrates how much a Jew desires to accept the Torah in his own life.)). Everyone knows that the Sfira that is fixed this week is Hod (distinction). “Hod v’Hadar Livusho”, the priestly garments are connected with Hod. What is Tferes (beauty)? It balances the first two sfiros, Hesed (kindness) and Gvura (judgment). And what is Hod? “Hod v’Hadar Livusho”. Hod is the beauty of going back, of Tshuvah. Why did Aharon the High Priest make the golden calf? Because only a High Priest can connect to Hod v’Hadar. Only a High Priest could fix the sin of a golden calf by serving in a Mishkan ((The Tabernacle is known in Hebrew as the Mishkan. It was a portable dwelling place for the divine presence from the time of the Hebrew Exodus from Egypt through the conquering of the land of Canaan. Its elements were made part of the final Temple in Jerusalem about the 10th century BC.)). Gevaldt, a second chance. Everyone knows that during this week the neshamos of Nodov and Avihu are being fixed.

Shlomo Carlebach

Coming in touch with death, a person can’t help thinking, “What kind of God makes a world with death in it? If I were God, I’d do things very different; I’d do things better.”

Let’s put it this way. When you come in contact with death, you can’t help being a little angry with God. And if you are a Cohen, how can you be angry in your heart with God, and then go into the Holy Temple to serve Him? It just doesn’t go. So the priest had to wait until sunset, and take a mikvah, a ritual bath, and then he could return to serve God the next day.

These laws of the priesthood regarding serving God became the basis for many of the Jewish laws of mourning. If your father or mother, brother or sister, son or daughter, husband or wife died, from the time of their death until they are buried, you are technically exempt from most positive commandments. For example, you don’t have to say blessings, because that’s a form of thanking and serving God, and right now, you may be in a frame of mind of being a little bit angry with God. So you aren’t obligated to say those blessings.

And you know, my sweetest friends, today we don’t have a Beit HaMikdash, a Holy Temple, and although we still have Cohanim, priests, we don’t have animal or incense offerings to serve God in the Holy Temple. Today we serve God through offerings of words of Torah study and words of prayer. Today our rabbis are like our priests, serving God through teaching Torah. But if you are angry with God, you can’t teach Torah. You can say the words, but the love and light within them do not flow through them.

So please open your hearts. The saddest thing is that today our teachers and rabbis haven’t just touched one dead person. They’ve been touched by Six Million dead people. And they are so angry with God, so angry with God. Gevald, are they angry with God! And because they are so angry with God, all their words of Torah are just that: words. There’s no light, no taste, no meaning, no melody in them.

But young people today are so hungry for that light, for that meaning, for that melody – for the deepest inner dimensions of truth. And if they can’t get it from Judaism, they’ll go anywhere that love and light are to be found.

Thank God our hungry, searching, younger generation found some traditions that weren’t so angry with God, and they could get the love and light and meaning that they so craved. And today in Judaism, Baruch HaShem, thank God, we have a whole new generation of teachers who haven’t been touched directly by the Six Million. Or maybe they have taken Six Million mikvahs from tears of sadness and then another Six Million mikvahs from tears of joy. And their words are filled with light and joy and love.

God willing, now people can come back to Judaism to quench that deep, powerful, longing for God’s love and from our own tradition. I bless us all that we should find that beauty in Torah, in Shabbos, and in the deepest depths of the heart of our holy and ancient and living tradition.

Thank you so much. God bless you all. Good Shabbos, Good Shabbos.

Transcribed by Rabbi David Zeller, Berekeley 1974

Shlomo Carlebach

Can you imagine?, Today everyone is selling the deepest secrets of instruments of destruction! Back then, they would rather die than let these powerful musical instruments wind up in the wrong hands.

But my sweetest friends, worse than losing the musical instruments is that we lost the melodies. The Prophets, when they gave their prophecies, didn’t stand on a soapbox and give a little speech! They sang their message to the people. Yes, we still have a musical chant for the basic words of the Torah and the Prophets, but it’s not the same. Every word of Torah was sung, every psalm and prophecy was sung. When we lost the Holy Temple, we lost the melody to the Holy Torah! We lost its deepest inner meaning.

The saddest thing today, friends, is that we have an older generation that knows all the words. They know every word, and they guard every word, and they teach every word. But, they don’t know the melody! They don’t know the inside of the inside of the words.

Today, a whole new generation of young people seems to be so far away from Judaism. But are they? They’re moving to a different beat. They hear a heavenly melody. They’re dancing a new dance. But, they don’t know the words!

If we could just get the guardians of the tradition to listen to the new melody, and if we could just get these inspired young people to learn some of the words, then, like it says in Psalms, we could ‘sing a new song to God!’ We could really fix the whole world.

Transcribed by Rabbi David Zeller zt
Berekeley, 1967

It would’t be so terrible if God answered the next day. I want you to know something so deep: sometimes you have an awakening in your heart, and you want so much to do something good, but at that time, on that day, it doesn’t work. Sadly enough, the next morning you wake up and you don’t want it anymore.

I have seen so many young people who mamash wanted to be on fire, or wanted to go to a Yeshiva or to maybe go to Yerushalayim, wanting to do something for the whole world, but on that day, it was impossible. The next day came and their luck turned.

So, “Master of the World, if You answer me, I am begging you, answer me the same day.” I can assure you too, I have seen thousands, thousands, who could have been the highest yidden in the world.

Okay, this is the story. I had the privilege of hearing this story from the holy Modzhitzer Rebbe, zt“l. Of all the Rebbes, he was a Rebbe for the longest time. Finally, he came to Tel Aviv and he passed away. A Rebbe doesn’t pass away; it means he’s not visible in this world any more. He became Rebbe when he was 17 years old, and I think he passed away when he was 92 or 93. He came to New York, nebach he was sick, and it was too much for him. He wanted to have a little farbrengen Friday night. I had the privilege of being there that Friday night. Right after the davening, this is how he told the story. He said, “I heard this from my father, who heard it from his father, who heard it from his heiligeh Tateh‘s heiligeh Tateh, Rebbe Yisroel. Rebbe Yisroel heard it from his Tateh, the heiligeh Rav Yankev, who heard it from his father, the heiligeh Rhizhyner.”

In the year 1490 there was a big gathering of all the congregations of all the yidden in Spain, near Barcelona. You know, the yidden were at the peak – since the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash, yidden hadn’t had it so good. They all had the biggest positions in the government, and they were all rich, so they where talking to each other, asking, “What can we do to make yiddishkeit stronger?”

So one of them said, “You know how rich we are? We are so rich! Let’s send a message to Istanbul that we want to buy the land of Israel back from the Turks. Of course, whatever price they want, we will pay, and we will build the Beis Hamikdash! We’ll go back!! We’ll return to the Holy Land!”

After he said that, there was so much simcha! Gevaldt, they were going to build the Beis Hamikdash again. Do you know what they did? First of all they appointed three outstanding people. In those days, to go from Spain to Istanbul and back would take a year. They decided that those three people would go talk to the Pasha in Turkey, and they gave them a year to come back. In the meantime, they decided, they would mamash opened new yeshivas for Kohanim to learn Kedoshim, for Levi’im to study music, and their simcha was up to the high heavens, ad hashamayim. Then they decided that the next year, on Rosh Chodesh Elul in the year 1491, they will all meet again.

The time came for the simcha, every body came, all the Kohanim knew the laws of Zevachim – sacrifices, the Leviim knew b’shira v’zimra. So they all get together, the door opens, and the three delegates come in. “We got a great price! We are buying the Holy Land!” Pssssshh! Not to be believed! The simcha was gevaldt. Suddenly a yid gets up and he says, “Who gave us the right to buy the holy land? The Ribono shel Olam drove us out from the holy land, so we don’t have the right to go back unless we have a sign from heaven! So the people said to him, “Are you crazy or what? Do you need a bigger sign? We have the money! The Pasha wants to sell it to us, and we want to go!”

So, sadly enough, do you know what poison is? There were already two parties, one said, “White,” and one said, “No! That’s red!”

They decided to wait another year, until Rosh Chodesh Elul, 1492, and everybody knows that on Tisha b‘Av that year they where driven out of Spain. Do you know what the problem is? Ki Va Moed. When the time comes, Don’t wait, Don’t wait…

Transcribed by Benyomin (Benjie) Steinberg, Tel Aviv

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Reb Shlomo and the Rebbe of Modzitz, Rebbe Shmuel Eliyahu Taub (1905-1984)

Rebbe Shmuel Eliyahu

Rebbe Shmuel Eliyahu was born in Lublin, Poland on 9 February 1905. In 1935, Rebbe Shaul Yedidya Elazar and his son Rabbi Shmuel went on a pilgrimage to the then British Mandate of Palestine. While they were there R. Shmuel fell in love with the Land of Israel and asked his father if he could stay there. His father agreed and within a year Rabbi Shmuel’s wife and their child came over to Israel. After his father’s death in 1947 he succeeded his father as the Modzitzer Rebbe, to be known later as the Imrei Eish (“Words of Fire”). He continued the traditions of Modzitz both as a composer and Torah scholar. He died on 6 May 1984 (4 Iyar 5784), when he was succeeded by his only son, Rebbe Yisrael Dan Taub. His teachings have been recently published in a sefer under the title Imrei Eish.