Sermons of Rebuke III: Bo

by Rivka Schwartz

Announcements
Rabbi Mendelchem will remain with our congregation. He went on some job interviews for other congregations this past week and noticed that their congregants are just as annoying as ours.
 
The board would like to apologize for the rabbi’s beard. When he was hired it was much longer. We thought we were hiring a rabbi with four chin inches. We thought he was holy. Now we question him as our spiritual leader. We will be taking the rabbi's beard length to Beit Din for faulty sale.

Aspirations are important. Our board aspires to find a new rabbi.
 
No more new tunes for Lecha Dodi. Binyamin thinks he’s educating the congregation. It’s just annoying. Everybody likes the traditional Bum BaDa Bum Bum tune... And no more excitement from the Baal Tefillah. Excitement seems to manifest itself with loud table banging and shocked people with bad hearts. Our members don’t take well to excitement. Especially the older members.

We’re asking members to greet each other. Hellos might help members feel wanted. Nobody in our shul is cool enough to avoid saying ‘Hello.’

Rabbi Mendelchem's Drasha Excerpts
Shabbat Shalom My Herd...
When it comes to worrying you run. You love to worry. When something goes wrong and you have something to worry about, that makes your day... Don't lie Fran. You love to worry. Almost as much as complaining... The best thing that happened to you is your car got stolen. That’s all you talked about for the next month.
You run to insurance. You beg them to give you money. You worry about your money and will do anything for it. Like Paroh. When it comes to loss of land, Paroh rushes. Paroh is all of the sudden religious... You shouldn’t have bought a Kia. It's a plague.

The locusts are in the fields killing the vegetation that ‘the hail left,’ (Shemot 10:16) ‘And Paroh rushes to call Moshe and Aharon, and he said, “I have sinned to H.”’
He became religious for a moment because he was worried. He worried about his money.  The same way you worry about the Forte. The same way the board became religious when I asked for a raise. ‘But we are here serving Gd.’ You were here not giving me a raise.
Sforno teaches that Paroh hurried because he was worried about permanent damage to the vegetation. He was worried about Egypt's ability to produce. Money... If you guys worried about the shul lawn, it wouldn’t be full of weeds...

(10:18-20) The locusts are hurled towards the sea and Paroh’s heart is hardened by H’ and he doesn’t send out the Jews.
When the monetary worry is gone, you have no reason to be religious or kind anymore. The board decided to not give me a raise, and they didn’t show up to shul today. A bunch of Parohs. They stop praying...
If you all rushed for your spiritual needs. If you all rushed to wash Netilat Yadaim... The way you run, Bernie, somebody would get hurt.

When it comes to money, you rush. When was the last time your ran to shul?When was the last time you said, 'Maybe they need me for a Minyin. I should head to Walmart to pick up some groceries'?...
You rush out of shul, and I don't blame you. You want to run away from conversations with Felvel and Cindy Shprintza Leah...

No. Don’t take credit for be annoying. The other shuls have annoying members. You are still annoying. You still have me questioning if it’s worth it to be Jewish if you have to be part of this congregation.

You need a spiritual leader to ensure you understand to not be annoying. To understand your spiritual needs are just as important as your money. Which is why you should give your rabbi a raise...
This is a legitimate beard. I measured it and it’s three inches from the chin. That is long. That is holy... By American standards that is holy... We are not in Israel. In Israel it's five inches from chin...

You have aspirations to get a good job that makes money, and you run to that. Be a decent person. How about that for an aspiration? Do a decent Tu BShvat Seder. How about that for an aspiration? Don't bother your rabbi. How about that... You can’t even achieve that.
Not one aspiration to do good for people and connect with H’. My beard was an aspiration at some point. Then I decided to aspire to be closer to Gd... Yes. You do need a beard for that...
What spiritual aspirations do you have?
You should run to achieve spiritual aspirations. You should run to not be like Bernie. You run to do good things. 'Zerizim Makdimin LMitzvot'... How should I know what that means?!

The guy runs up to take the Amud and lead us in Davening... Has to be the Chazin. Runs to show off these new tunes... Nobody cares.
Who are you Chezy?! Trying to educate us with your aspirations to be a Chazin... No. We don't want it. We like our old tunes. That's why we do them every week. Another new tune for Kabalat Shabbat. 'Lecha Dodi.' That's the song.
Now we have to sit through a guy who thinks he's educating us.... And your table hitting and jumping doesn’t help. You’re not an athlete. You don’t need to jump in shul. It’s not a basketball game... That’s not dancing. That’s jumping... That wasn’t a beat. You were hitting the table.
Nobody in this shul is that holy, where they should be teaching other Jewish stuff... My beard is holy.
Run to grow a beard and you might become more spiritual. You might start thinking less about your money... A raise is not money. A raise is to connect to Gd. Higher. Raise.

You greet people. You run to greet people... No. It’s not cool to not say hi. It’s just uncomfortable to be here... I don’t like being the rabbi. The most exciting thing I can do in this shul is grow my beard.
If you worry more about doing Mitzvahs and not your money. If you worried more about being kind... A raise would be nice.

Rivka's Rundown
Kia Fortes are a very valuable car to thieves in our town. We know, as the two members that parked them in the shul parking lot over Shabbis did not see their cars after Shabbis. Some in our shul say it was the Shabbat Queen who took it for a Melavah Malkah. The Kia Forte owners are getting really annoyed with the new spiritual members in our shul.

The rabbi is going to stay with us. Those were the kindest words the rabbi ever said to our congregation. He wants to stay with us, because congregants at other shuls are also annoying.

The board wants a beard from our rabbi. A longer beard. They should hire rabbis based on beard length. Each inch should be a 10k raise in salary.
I do feel bad about the rabbi's beard length argument. And I do believe his shaving his beard to #1 on the clippers was called for, as food was constantly getting stuck somewhere in the thicket. However, he was hired for a longer beard length, and he has lost much respect since trimming it.

It always comes down to a raise. If we gave the rabbi a raise, he would be fine. He would probably stop giving sermons.
The idea of a raise being spiritual because it is higher. Only our rabbi could be so profound.

The rabbi said Paroh was better than the shul board. At least Paroh took care of the land. The shul lawn does need some mowing weeding. They won't even pay for somebody to do that.
We can't get anybody to volunteer to mow the lawn. That's a definite. Nobody is willing to do anything for the shul, unless if they get paid. If they get a long Mishebeyrach, they are also happy. I think they like doing long Mishebeyrach blessings for the family members in the middle of Davening because it bothers the rest of the congregation. To our membership, that is worth something.

It is annoying when these people are all trying to achieve something nobody cares about. Now we have little Samantha trying to get into an Ivy League. Her parents said it's important to them she gets in. Otherwise, she won't learn to hate Jews.

And now, these kids leading services. It has to stop. They do these new Lecha Dodi tunes, like it’s revolutionary. So now we have to sit through this new tune the guy heard at some Yeshiva in Israel. Something to a Eurovision melody. It's either a Eurovision song, or something that one of these new singers wrote, not realizing they were writing a Carlebach song that was already out there. These guys write these new Lecha Dodi songs with an Am chord, thinking they didn't hear it form Carlebach. Revolutionaries.
The Bum BaDa Bum Bum tune is the best one. It’s been the best one for fifty years. And nobody needs to learn it, because it’s good.
And then we have to deal with excitement shown in the form of jumping. If nobody else is excited about your tune, please don't jump. You're not going to sell it to me. If it's not Bum BaDa Bum Bum, you're not going to sell it to me.
The most brilliant point I will ever make to the congregation. Here it is. 'We like our old tunes. That's why we do them every week.' It's so annoying when these kids think they found a new great tune. They all sound like another Carlebach song.

The rabbi is correct again. You greet people. It is uncomfortable coming to shul. You don’t know if you’re going to get a Shabbat Shalom or not. I think we are the most unfriendly place to be.
I have stopped saying 'Shabbat Shalom,' because half the time I get no response.
A greeting committee was formed, so that our members don't have to be nice every week. Niceness is now in a cycle. It was hard, but we got a couple of people to volunteer to be nice.

Please know, our rabbi is a spiritual holy man. Due to the discussion, he did Teshuva. As he repented, he has added a minute to his Shema prayer for each inch of beard he has lost. Now, his Shema takes seven minutes. As they wait six and a half minutes for the rabbi to finish the Shema, the congregants are complaining even more now.
The board voted towards the end of the week. They have decided that they don't want a spiritual rabbi. They also said that spiritual means the rabbi isn't found in his office very often. When the rabbi wasn't seen for a three days at shul, the president asked him what happened. The rabbi explained that he got caught up in the middle of a Shema.