Sermons of Rebuke V: Shemini

by Rivka Schwartz

Announcements
The Finkelstein family will not be at shul this week. They are still in the middle of their Seder.
 
We take back our Mazel Tov to the Tzimkin family on their daughter’s wedding. They did not sponsor Kiddish.
 
We want to thank Golda for starting the Girl Scout chapter. The only Girl Scout chapter to sell Mehadrin cookies, with Leiber’s peanut butter.
Now we need a Boy Scout chapter to shut up the boys. It turns out kids in our shul do not behave unless if they get a badge for it.
 
We want to welcome everybody back from Pesach, who didn’t care if the shul had a Minyin.
 
Please let the rabbi know if anybody was able to find a whole piece of Shmurah Matzah. He is looking for something to give him hope. To quote: "There must be somebody who found a box with a not broken piece of Matzah."
 
Contemporary Halacha Class: How to Not Stop Talking- Seder with the Finkelstein’s or Sitting with Mark in Shul. Not Sponsoring Kiddish, Uncle Morty and Other Ways to Kill a Simcha for a Community. How to Ruin the Greatest Cookie with Lieber’s. What to Do When Your Shul's Minyin is In Orlando. How to Join Matzah You Purchased for Eighty-Five-Dollars to Get a Whole Piece You Can Use.

Rabbi Mendelchem's Drasha Excerpts
Shabbat Shalom My Pupils...
(Vayikra 10:13) After the death of Nadav and Avihu, Moshe tells Aharon and his surviving sons, “And you must eat them in a holy place. For they are your portion and your sons’ portion from Gd’s fire offering. Because I have commanded this.” We might be a holy shul if we didn’t have a board... Fools. You still can't eat in shul. The fact that Norman has a bowl of choolent with him for Torah reading... Now he's eating Kichel in the middle of the sermon...
The word for portion is Chok. Chok is the same word used for decrees. Decrees we must do, even though we may not understand them. And I don't understand why I have to deal with Norman eating Kichel right now...

Rashi comments that this command is even though they are Onens, they still eat the sacrifices. Even though their relatives died today...
Rashi can comment. You commenting makes no sense. Nobody understands. It’s hard to jump into things when you lose a loved one... I am not suggesting you don’t show to the funeral. That was wrong. It was your parent’s funeral... We are focused here on the commandment. On a higher meaning that we may not know. Hence a Chok. Even if it's hard. It's their portion.

When it comes to service of H’ our feelings may be secondary... Why, Bernie? Because your feelings are not justifiable. You were hurt that you didn’t get the Kohen Aliyah... You’re not a Kohen, Bernie...
When it comes to holiness, as Aharon and his sons are. Not like this congregation who never goes to the Mikvah... There is no way you go to the Mikvah. That thing is too clean. You can see the pool tile, no residue, and it shines.
We may not fully grasp the spiritual command...

We don’t know the holiness of this world. With the Karbanot, the sacrifices, we bring the physical to a state of spiritual... You wouldn’t know, because animal sacrifice is illegal in America... I’m not suggesting to sacrifice animals. You can slaughter them and eat them... Well. I can’t explain everything. I truly do not know the difference between animal sacrifice and enjoying a decent steak at Le Marais. I do know that we see the physical...
Well. Aharon may not understand why he has to focus on his portion after his sons died! They're dead!!! Maybe he has feelings, Simcha?! Maybe he should be mourning them!!! Showing Kavod to their lives!!! They're dead!!!
And we don’t see the full plan of H’. The holiness. This is why H’ tells Aharon to not mourn. To eat of the Karabnot... Sacrifices. Karbanot are sacrifices. This is why you can’t do animal sacrifice. Bernie. You don’t understand Hebrew. This is why you’re not a Kohen... And this is why it has to be a Chok. Because we can’t understand the true spiritual correctness... It's their portion. But it's the same Chet and Koof. Maybe it doesn't mean decree. Even so...

And I don’t understand a thing you do in this shul.
How long does a Seder take? It says “The time for Kriyat SHema has come.” That means stop talking... In shul too. Stop talking. You wouldn't understand this in the back left. Yapping away. That's why it's a decree...
There are commandments. There is commentary. And then there's the Finkelstein kids reading their notes from school... If your kids had good reading skills your Seder would’ve been over by midnight...
You don’t even understand the Seder. You have no idea what you’re saying. A good Chok is for you to not talk...

I would understand if you sponsored Kiddish every once in a while. Maybe a Chok to give a little to the shul. With the amount of Kichel you eat. Maybe to give something to our congregation.
Your daughter gets married. Maybe that’s a time to sponsor a Kiddish... For you that's a Chok. For everybody else, who donates every once in a while, it makes sense...

Girl Scouts is amazing. The girls are great. Dressed Tzanuah. Like Beis Yaakov. It's amazing how you were able to throw a sash over the Beis Yaakov outfit and save on the Girl Scout uniform... Works with Bnei Akiva too. Exactly... They have on the uniform and they're well behaved.
We need a Boy Scout chapter to shut up the boys in shul. Maybe to teach some manners and safety... The boys in junior congregation wouldn’t even know how to do a sacrifice without burning themselves...

Welcome back everybody from Pesach. Leaving our shul for Pesach is not a Chok. It's just something I would have liked to do... To get away from you...

No. I don't understand how Shmurah Matzah is that expensive. And broken?!
I am still looking for a piece of Shmurah Matzah that came not broke... It was an eighty-five-dollar box.
We found the Afikomen. Could not find a nonbroken piece of Matzah.
Do they toss it before they send it out?!
I would understand if I paid eighty-five-dollars and got whole Matzahs... Even eighty-five-dollars does not make sense. And how did the super thin Matzah come with the exact number of pieces as the thick Matzah? Were they weighing the box... I do not understand. And it's not a Chok...
The life of Matzah. It comes. It goes. We don't fully understand it. But we do not mourn it... Gd commanded whole pieces of Matzah.

And the only one who gets it is Shloimi.
I personally want to thank Shloimi for the Chazaras Hashas head nod. Excellent timing. You have it down. The Chazin looks to you and knows when to go. We are looking to you to be our next Gabai. You have the "time for repetition" nod down.
There are Choks. You do Chazars HaShas as soon and as fast as possible. The cantor gets a head nod from Shloimi, you go... The rest of you are spaced out. Wondering why nobody has started yet. Wondering why you've been waiting ten minutes... When Shloimi is not in shul, you're lost. You once waited from Shacharit till Mincha for Chazaras HaShas, because Shloimi wasn't there...

I can't explain why they didn't mourn. Cursing your dad at his funeral was probably not right. There is no Chok to wish the worst for the dead and get mad that you didn't go to Disney Land as a child. Point is you should mourn. That was their portion...
Samantha. Spiritual correctness is more important than political correctness... That’s the Chok we must live by...

Rivka's Rundown
What beautiful words about Aharon and his sons. Now. To connect better spiritually, people stopped mourning, and they started cursing their family members with death.

"We see the physical." That teaching truly spoke to me. That was my takeaway. That and the spiritual is not always seen. I am now left with a lot of questions about the spiritual. But at least I am one with the physical.

Samantha was stuck on spiritual correctness. She was trying to figure out what spiritual correctness had to do with not using the term mentally disabled. She then said handicapable is spiritual.
I told her that handicapable is spiritually offensive, as it sounds like you're mocking disabled people.
She also said that spiritual correctness meant minorities should get a better education and people should be called by how they identify.

Since the sermon, Shloimi has stopped head nodding. He doesn't want to be Gabai. He claimed it is too violent, as the last Gabai got beat up for calling up the wrong person to the Torah, when Zack wanted the Aliyah. Zack met the Gabai outside of shul and threatened the Gabai with not giving a donation.

Pesach is over, the Seder is over, and congregants are still sharing thoughts. Is there any day on our calendar where people don’t share thoughts? Tisha BAv in a community where people do a Taanit Dibur, a fast of speech. Even there, they're sharing thoughts with their looks.

The Tizimkins will never sponsor anything. They didn’t even sponsor their oldest when she was selling World’s Finest Chocolate. They refused to let their kids join Girl Scouts because of the cookies. They were worried they would have to buy some, when Pepperidge Farm had a deal on peanut butter filled chocolate cookies.

Girl Scouts in our shul. It’s one of the few Frum Girl Scout chapters. They do what they can to keep it religious. We don't call the second and third graders Brownies. They are known as Babkas. And the Babkas are doing great.
We give them pins and badges. They get badges for showing up to shul. For helping setup for Kiddish. For babysitting. The goal is to get the girls to do stuff without having to pay them. One girl received five badges for telling a woman to stop talking in the women’s section.

The rabbi is happy to see the members right when they get back from being away for two weeks. He has a short-term memory when it comes to members. After a couple of days he remembers they’re congregants. He also remembers that some of them are on the board.

How they ship the Shmurah Matzah and still sell it for eighty-five-dollars a box. They should have a truck with shocks on it if they’re shipping Matzah. I even think the delivery guy threw the box. A Frum delivery guy. Didn't get out of the truck. Just threw the boxes like he was delivering newspapers.
Next year I heard they’re selling Matzah that comes in whole pieces for three-hundred-dollars.