Sermons of Rebuke II: Bamidbar

by Rivka Schwartz

​Announcements
The shul dairy dinner will take place via Zoom, after Shavuot. From now on, all shul holiday events will be celebrated after the holidays, on Zoom. The rabbi doesn't expect to see anybody in shul for the Shavuot, because they haven't found a way to make the shul a Zoom physical structure.

Shavuot all night learning will take place till 1am.  

We understand the learning announcement is not important. Even so, we want to let you know what the rabbi is doing.

The Kosher Convention will take place in July, when the kids are in camp. This way, everybody will be able to enjoy themselves.
What will be at the Kosher convention? Many people have been asking that question. To answer you all, there will be kosher food.
 
The Max rule: Hearts of palm must be in every salad from now on. They brought him so much Simcha last week. To quote Max, 'My grandchildren never brought me this much joy.'
 
Rabbi Mendelchem’s Sermon Excerpts
Shabbat Shalom vShavuot Sameach...
Yes. You stay up the first night... Stop crying. Be a man... We're making up for the weak ones falling asleep before getting the Torah... And are they awake when they do get sleep? Everybody falls asleep during Torah reading... You slept twelve hours last night. The Bal Koreh starts reading the Torah and you're out like that...
We start with a census... Because we care, Bernie. We don't want the kids getting lost, like at the shul baseball game outing, when we saw kids walking in the outfield... They were lost... There was no census....
Then we had the Seabreeze Amusement Park fiasco... Not very amusing for the parents who couldn't find their kids... Their kids didn't even know their names... They were called on the loudspeaker all day. Couldn't find them... They were on the Pirate Ship Afloat. Didn't even know the name of the ride. Or their names... Very bad with names. Names help with the census... You need leaders of families and they have names... Mister is fine...

(Bamidbar 1:4) When taking the census, 'with you there shall be a man from each tribe. A man that is a leader of his father's house...' There's not one leader here. Can't even get the right number of forks... You counted the Kiddish numbers wrong last week. People had to eat with their hands. We need men to help... I have to do this myself... I can't knock on doors for Minyin. I'll get shot...
When you start, you want to make sure everybody is there...
When you start, you want to make sure everybody is there... We would never start. Nobody shows. No men. They think every shul event is Minyin...
We were looking for Gavriela for hours. She wasn’t there… She was at her friends house. She had a sleep over the night before... She didn't show up. We were looking for hours for something that wasn't even there. Not like Chametz at the Simchovitz home on Pesach... It's good if parents know where their kids are. That's why you need to know who was counted... Otherwise, we spend the whole day looking for them. Irresponsible parenting... If there was responsible parenting we wouldn't need a census. We would also have people coming to services...
Reuven had 46,500. Shimon had 59,300... Took a census. Twelve here today… If the Torah was given to twelve people...
 
Shavuot is here. Who’s going to count the grain?... Nobody takes a step up again. No leaders... 
 
Tifkod Otam. Count them... We don't count people. It's a bad omen... I don't know how we count... We do math... They counted in the desert. There were people to count. They showed up to Minyin... It's about people being together. A nation.
Not the snobby people. They don’t count. You try to include them and they give attitude. I stay away from them at Kiddish too...

Yom Yerushalaim was a great show. People came out... Next show, kids can’t be on stage the whole time. Watch your kids… There are kids up here now… Count them Tifkod Otam. That means to not let them bother other people...
 
You can't take a census on Zoom... That could be one person, three people. The person might not even be there...
 
Rivka’s Rundown
Not knowing about Gavriela was bad parenting. She's eight years old. It's the congregation counted.

The rabbi got a lot of backlash for using the word 'man.' Many people said he should've told the men to be a woman. He was just happy that there were only twelve people complaining. The rabbi said he will still quote the Torah in his sermons, as long as not too many people are in shul on Shabbat. If a big crowd comes, he's staying away from Torah, so that nobody is offended.  
Half the members were sleeping during Torah reading today. The rabbi is right. They have to stop crying when they sleep.
 
There's a big snobby group at shul. They don’t look at you. They pretend like they're too good for the people. If there was a census, I would skip them. Let them start their own census of their three cool people. 
They should count the kids though. There is a reason for the buddy system.
 
A show at shul is really just watching kids that aren’t parented.
 
They’ve been putting hearts of palm in the salads. Now, you have to be one of the first five to the Kiddish table to get it. Max didn’t get any for a few months, until the chef started making him a bowl on the side. The chef felt bad knowing it was Max’s rule, and that he was too slow at 94 to make it to the table for the hearts.

1am is all night by us.