Sermons of Rebuke V: VaEtchanan and Tu BAv

by Rivka Schwartz

Announcements
The Tu BAv single people event is happening for all the divorcees. Old single people who have never been married cannot come to these events either. Or any shul events. We want to be clear. You also scare divorcees.

The wall will be renovated for security. It will be a secure structure. This will keep out terrorists. The wall we have now does not keep out terrorists and it is always falling down. We will call it "The Terrorist Wall."
 
We want to commend Camp Rachok MeiHorim for not letting the kids write letters to their parents for first two weeks. It’s good Chinuch. Kids learn that their parents don’t want to hear from them.
 
A Kosher slushy stand is opening. That’s the best we’re going to get. It’s a place to go to and sit outside when 7-Eleven is too packed.
 
Contemporary Halacha Classes: How to Build a Wall Correctly to Keep Out Singles. What To Do When Your Kids Try to Contact You and the Mitzvah of Honoring Your Parents Not Your Kids. Where to Move to When 7-Eleven is Your Best Kosher Restaurant. 

Rabbi Mendelchem's Drasha Excerpts 
Shabbat Shalom My Pupils...
H’ made a Brit with you at Sinai... No. It wasn’t a communal Brit Milah. I’m dealing with idiots. A covenant... A Bris is a covenant and a Brit Milah. This is too complicated having to explain Ashkenazi vs Hebrew pronunciations... If you would know some Hebrew the sermons would be much quicker.
After hearing he can’t go into Israel, Moshe tells the people it’s their fault, and then tells them they better practice the Mitzvot... Yes. It's your fault. How we end up with a Kosher slushy stand is your fault. That was not in Gd's covenant when He gave us choolante... Brain freezes are a curse. Not a covenant. Though they happen all the time, there's no Slurpee covenant that you shall drink it and feel like you are dying every time.
(Devarim 5:1) Moshe says to them, “Hear Israel the decrees and the ordinances that I speak into your ears today.” Moshe doesn’t say to talk Bernie... Listen. Listen to your rabbi’s sermons. I am giving over H’s word and you don’t even hear it... Because you talk. There was never a commandment to talk. Because you say stupid stuff.
This is why H' has to talk right into the ear. Because you guys don't hear anything unless I scream it in your ear...
“And teach your children.” Or they end up like the kids in our shul who are athletes... Apikorsim. Same thing.

No commandment to talk. There are Mitzvahs to listen to H’. To believe in H’. The only time they talk is when they are like “Moshe. Do it for us. Go up there and get the commandments for us. You do the work.”
When you guys talk, you mess things up. Like your kids... At least teach your kids correctly... OK. First listen and then teach. The problem is you don’t listen. Then your kids end playing softball like a bunch of fools, kicking the ball... I know that's kickball. But you guys are coaching them and they think they're playing a different game, because you don't listen.
When you don’t hear Gd’s commandments, and you’re in the back talking about how your new air-conditioner just kicked on, you end up messing everything up for your religion...

You don't listen. You end coming up with messed up Shidduchim. You share dumb ideas. Then your kids don't get married to these people. You bring them into the shul, and I have to deal with it. It's your fault...
And what about listening to the message of Tu BAv?! Maybe we have to think about older people who never got married. They’re not allowed anywhere. They can't go to parks. They can’t be neighbors. They can't be youth directors.
They can’t even go to singles events. Those things only run up to thirty-five. They're even too old to be single.
How do we help these scary old singles, other than quarantining them from other people. And I get that you want to keep your kids away for safety...
Divorcees have done something. These old single people have never done anything. They are useless. And they can't educate kids or they'll get locked up...
You educate to your kids go out with ugly people. Look at the back left. All married in... Exactly.
Listen to what the single people are saying. They want to do something. They want to be married. They don't want to marry into your family. And I get that. I see you guys every week...
The decree is to get married. But if you don't meet anybody. If you can't go to events... That's how you end up here.

When you don't listen and hear, you end up believing false gods. Like a security wall that doesn’t work... You didn’t even think Trump’s wall was a good idea...
A wall for security? We’ve had a wall forever... So, we’re going to have Scarface now popping in the back of our shul. Shooting everybody up from behind the non-bulletproof wall?!
And what makes the wall bulletproof? Concrete? The walls we have are made of concrete. Why not just listen to the people who used to make walls?!... That's what happens when you don't listen and you teach kids wrong. Drywall. 
Maybe get a wall that doesn't fall down. That's all. plaster it right... I believe in security. Not stupidity. Not congregants who don't listen... How about a wall that keeps out congregants?!
How does a wall keep out terrorists? It didn't keep out any of our congregants... Immigrants can get through the wall.
Ein LDavar Sof. There is no end to safety when you don't listen to Gd... Every single one of the renovation ideas is messed up. Beforehand it was because people will die, rolling down a ramp that has an incline of one inch. That didn’t sell. Now it’s security.
And kids are educated in youth groups which are on the other side of the wall. What about them...
The Terrorist Wall is not a good name for it. It sounds like an invite. Like a wall made for them. It will only draw terrorists. And how do we keep out congregants? That should be the discussion... You don't deal with them. Congregants are just as bad.

Security in sanctuary??? What about in the hallway? Do you not care about the kids? Did we not learn to educate them... I understand, you have done an excellent job of educating them that their parents don't care. "The kids can go. If they must go, they must go. would’ve been better if they didn’t come back from camp"... How much security in a sanctuary where you are praying. Do you not believe in Gd...

You send your kids to summer camp, when you don’t listen to H’s word. H’ was talking about encamping. Encamping around the Mishkan... The Tabernacle was not the name of a Machane Kayitz.
So, the kids can’t write home for two weeks? They come home after three... Michelle. Your kids can't write.
And if your kid has an emergency. "Excellent. Great. It’s a shame the bear got them. It’s a shame the buddy system didn’t work out." This way at least you don't get blamed for The Terrorist Wall.

It's about educating your children correctly. They don't get that from you, because you don't listen. They don't get it from the Camp Rachok MeiHorim... They come back thinking "Bang Bang Clap" is a Jewish song...
And now the divorcees have no money for dates, because your kids should be encamping. Not in camp. And you would know that if you listened to H'...
So. You want that wall to keep your kids away. You are fine if they go
You'll be calling the cops with your kids in youth groups. "We're OK. We're behind the safe wall in the sanctuary."

When you don't listen, you end up with no Kosher restaurant... Because you didn’t listen to H’ telling you to eat Kosher. You’re supposed to eat Kosher. Bernie. Your kids can’t eat without a restaurant. You think Mrs. Schwartz’s kids are eating her food?! It’s disgusting. Let's have spaghetti and cottage for dinner again.
We worked on finding a restaurant. We now have a slushy stand... How is that a restaurant. If there is nothing that is being heated up, it’s not a restaurant... You don’t heat slushy’s Bernie.

If you all listened, this shul wouldn't be so messed up... Yes. To listen to me. Cheryl.

When you don’t hear H’, you covet stuff. Because your stuff is messed up. Like a slushy place. You covet a regular restaurant. Maybe if you got a decent restaurant, single people would want to go on dates there. And then they wouldn't come to shul coveting your families... You don't go to 7-Eleven on a date, because kids hang out there and you can get locked up.
You covet because you don’t view it all as H’s. You believe in other gods. To not covet is the last commandment, because not following H’s ways leads to people being congregants of Beis Knesses Anshei Emes uSefilah. And it leads to single people...
(Devarim 5:18) “You shall not covet your fellow’s wife, you shall not desire your fellow’s house, field, slave, maidservant, ox, donkey or anything that belongs to your fellow.” I understand nobody is coveting our congregants. That is the one positive about looking at the back left. There is no desire... And your cattle are messed up too...
H’ has to list this stuff because you don’t listen. If you just listened to “Don’t covet,” it wouldn’t all have to be spelled out. When you don’t listen the first time...
"Not to desire" adds even plotting against a friend. Not necessarily just action. To fantasize a plot, even if he won’t do it (Ramban). And I am guilty for plotting to get the other rabbi fired, so I could get out of this shul...
I am not plotting. I am planning against you, because I can’t stand you. I am planning on ruining your ideas which will mess up the shul with a new wall. We don't put up walls in this shul. We put up with annoying board members and committees...
And this is what you get when children are educated by people who don't listen.
And that is why you have no love in your life...

And now we call up the Bat Mitzvah...

Rivka's Rundown
At the end of the sermon, the rabbi called up the Bat Mitzvah girl, who nobody wished a Mazel Tov to. She wasn't even in the announcements. They even skipped Kiddish. It was like day of mourning in our shul for Tu BAv and the girl's Bat Mitzvah. Well. The rabbi called her up and spoke right into her ear. 
At my Bat Mitzvah, I wasn't called up to terror and the idea of somebody coveting my parents. I am sure the Bat Mitzvah girl will remember what she heard from the rabbi.

The rabbi spent the first half hour of the sermon going off on how people’s grandparents in the Pale of Settlement didn’t necessarily pronounce Hebrew words the same way Moshe did.
Later in the week he gave a class on how people should at least learn a little Hebrew, even if they get it wrong, so he doesn’t have to explain everything he says in the sermon. Mid-class, after dealing with constant questions about the meaning of what he was talking about, the rabbi said, “You are a hopeless people.” He stopped the class, left, and said, “I would never want to take you to Israel.”

The rabbi spoke on the hearing part of what Moshe said, because he thought that people would stop talking during his sermons and listen. That didn’t work.

The rabbi blamed us for heresy and the golden calf. Stating Beis Knesses Beis Emes uSefillah is the reason.
The basic message... Our kids are messed up because their parents don’t listen to H’s commandments or the rabbi.

I think the rabbi called the back left of the shul very not good-looking people. He did take a lot of complaints for his comment about the cattle. To quote Dr. Lipman, "Say what you want about my wife. But never put down my oxen."

I feel bad for the old singles. They can’t go anywhere. They're quarantined at every event. They come to the events and they have to sit at a table with themselves. No interacting with regular community members, known as "the normals." Or as the rabbi knows them, "congregants who I want to put on the other side of the secured wall." 
And now they are even too old for singles events.
They have to stay in their homes and stalk people on the internet. That’s their only hope.
One family has all the singles over. This way we at least know where to stay away from with our children. They send their children away to different homes for dinner, just in case the old singles see what younger people look like. Which old single men shouldn't know.

One of the singles hugged a kid yesterday. The shul was in an uproar. I don’t care it was his niece. It was wrong. And people kicked him out. B"H.
The board did make a correction in the announcements, after push back from the community. They said they are happy to take dues from the old single people. They still can't go to events or show up anywhere, but they can be part of the community by giving money.

If we need a stronger wall, secure it. Now, everybody is afraid the walls of the shul are going to fall on them. I thought I saw some congregants leaning on one of the walls last Shabbat. They were trying to hold it up.
They’re going crazy with the security thing. I think they just want to spend money, because they haven't given any of it, and they need an argument to spend it.
You can’t argue against security. It’s like you’re heartless. You can't say anything to it. “What? You don’t care about security? What about people's lives?” "Well. I don't care."
They even have members on patrol now. This is the next Police Academy. Melvin, who needs two people to help him up while he grabs the chair in front of him, is on the security team.
If they had money to do renovations on their own house, we wouldn’t be talking about this. They would be focused on spending their own money, and the shul would be safe. They would have no alarm system in the shul, because they had one in their house.

They really don’t care about the kids. The sanctuary, which doesn’t allow kids inside, because they disturb, is the only safe place. 
My parents sent me to camp because they didn’t want to see me. This no letters for two weeks, at least the kids know where their parents stand. Truth is, if I was a one of these kids, knowing what my parents are hoping for me, I would stay at camp. In the end, these parents in our shul will probably spend 500k for college, just to get their kids out.
The followup class on what to do when your kids try to contact you from camp was a series on How to Hide from Your Children.

A slushy stand. A place to get headaches. Our community is pathetic. I need out. I need a community where I can get a Boureka. At least Bourekas heated up in a microwave. That's all I am asking for, a restaurant where somebody does the microwaving for me. At least that. Can't even get a restaurateur to press buttons here.