Sermons of Rebuke V: VaYichi

by Rivka Schwartz

Announcements
We ask all guests to follow our shul Kaddish speed, tone and volume. Your Aveilut scares our members. They’re not used to Chicago mourners, and their loud bully Kaddish.
You are passing through for a day. You are not running our shul. We are with you in your mourning. Please be with our mourners in their Kaddish. Please join in our congregation's sadness correctly.
 
The rabbi will not be here this Shabbis. Shul will end earlier. Do not get too excited. Last time members got drunk in celebration.
Please relax in your happiness. We ask that you celebrate by leaving shul earlier.
To note: We still have Kiddish. And it will be earlier. A lot earlier. Davening goes at a normal speed, an hour and fifteen minutes faster, without our rabbi.
 
The shul New Year’s party will take place on Rosh Hashana. The program committee decided that hanging out with shul members is a New Year’s buzz killer.
 
Last week, Zalmy did the full pre-Anim Zemirot Tefillahs. The first kid to ever read the silent stuff himself. The congregation is proud of you. Please never do that again. We want to get out of shul.
 
Contemporary Halacha Classes: Techniques in Taking Over a Minyin with Your Kaddish- Lessons from Our Guest Last Week. Importance of Long Minyins to Keep Congregants Out. The Blessing of a New Year Not Celebrated with Congregants- A New Year's Party Without Our Members. How To Give Your Kid More TV Time So They Don't Read All the Tefillahs and Slow Down Davening.

Rabbi Mendelchem's Drasha Excerpts
Shabbat Shalom My Pupils...
I understand the Gabai is reading the sermon this week. I'm not here... Slow him down. If he reads the sermon like he Davens, nobody will understand a word...

You think I know what Yaakov said to them? I don’t understand that. Those words didn’t make it into modern Hebrew. “Sreikah”? No idea. I don’t even understand the English.
(Bereishit 49:9) “He binds his foal to a vine, and to a tendril his young donkey. His garment with wine, and with the blood of grapes binds his raiment.” Somehow, that has to do with Yehuda. What’s he doing to his garments with wine? Staining them?!... If “raiment” means clothes, then say it!!! How am I expected to give a sermon about something I can’t understand?!

There is stuff we don’t know. But it doesn’t stop us from learning... It stops Moshe and Michael Yaakov, and Shloimi from learning, because they like to waste time. But it doesn’t stop good Jews from learning. And it never stopped our board from doing something dumb...
I don’t know if the sons understood what Yaakov said to them at the end. I do know they were questioning if their father was blessing them or cursing them. Were they Brachas or Klalahs? Very confusing... You can't not be there when your father calls you and he is about to pass away and curse you. Might be blessings. He might have blessed them...

You all make it hard. You just have to know that Yaakov was not proud of Shimon and Levi. They saved the family, stuck up for their sister, and they got blamed for it their whole life by their father. And I have to pretend like I'm proud of the shul's geriatric crime fighting security force... The only thing you have kept out are members... Yaakov was happier with Yehuda, who sold Yosef...
Some is a Bracha in life. Some is not. But you don’t let not understanding what is going to be keep you from doing the right thing.

Don't overtake a Kaddish. If you don’t know how the shul does Kaddish, you hold back.
You all noticed how the guy took over last week. Random guy passing through, all the sudden, "Where the Gehenim did he come from?"... I'm not saying his family member went to Gehenim.
The guy took over. Not a member. Loud as anything. A Kaddish tune I never heard in my life. I think the tune was "loud." It was either "loud" or "I'm the only one whose mourning counts in the US"... First time. Passing through. You follow the Kaddish... You don’t go to another shul and be loud the Kaddish guy. You're Sefardi. We’re an Ashkenazi shul Fatim. We are not switching to Sefardi Kaddishes. You're a guest. Do what we do... You’re a selfish mourner.
We want unified mourning... If you look at our congregants, you will notice unified depression... Be in unison with them. Have you heard them? They sound bad as it is. None of them are helping anybody. Even the deceased. It's just that we want to maintain a decorum of depressed people... It's a very depressing Kaddish. I understand Fatim. We're Ashkenazim. Our congregants mourn everything. Including death...
They come to our shul for a Minyin and they take over like they're running the place with their Kaddish... That other guy shocked me last week.
If you ask members of our shul what scares them the most. It's not public speaking. It's not death. It's a guy from Chicago saying Kaddish...
You will be a shul with random scary mourners passing through...

I see more of you showed this Shabbis. I still made sure to have a sermon... I understand I'm not at the shul. And I know you are all excited getting out a half hour early. Shema will be back to normal next week. You will wait for me as always. I will also extend my Amidah to make up for lost waiting...
You will be a congregation of people who have a very long Shabbat morning Shacharit. Of upwards of two hours and forty-five minutes...

Be there for the occasion... You celebrate on Rosh Hashana... Because that's when the New Year starts, Fran. The New Year is called 2026-27. That’s how we count years. It's not 2026. It's 2026-27... 
It’s not fun partying with shul members. I’ve partied at Bar Mitzvahs with you. You can't even get the middle circle one hand hold kick right... 
Right now, we are celebrating 2025-26. That is the year. We're in in the middle of it. Your resolutions can wait nine months...
You will be a congregation of annoying members who are a bunch of heretics. Your oaths will be in of vain, inopportune times. An annoying membership...

The Anim Zemirot kid did all of the post Ein Kelokeinu stuff. First time ever the kid read it all. And that goes to show that our day school is doing a very bad at teaching our children to read Hebrew. That was so slow...
It was amazing. I was happy. It only added an extra six minutes to Davening... It's beautiful. You don't understand it, and you make the congregation wait.
You will be a people who waits for its children, and its rabbi, to finish Davening...

Not knowing what will be, they still show up...
(Bereishit 49:1) Yaakov gathers his sons and tells them he is going to tell them “what will happen at the end of days.” That's how you get a crowd.
Rashi teaches that he was going to reveal “the End, but the Shechinah was removed from him.” So, he said other stuff. (Pesachim 56a). That's a nice way of saying he forgot. Yaakov had an audience and he had to keep going. He had an attentive crowd. He had to say something. So, he started going off on Shimon and Levi. And now, I am left with congregants who have no idea what’s going on. No idea what will happen. Just really dumb ideas for renovations...
Bernie. Stop. You're wrong...

We don't always understand. At the end, not everything happens. There was no Kugel at Kiddish last week. But that doesn’t stop us. You go on.
Sometimes, we have to improvise, like Yaakov...

I want to tell you what is going to happen with the shul this year... Shoot. I forgot...
You can forget what you’re going to say, but you go on.

In the end. At the end of days, we understand. We can understand about Yehuda’s raiment.
That is what Yaakov was saying. Live your lives. Just don’t mess up like our congregants. And if you don’t have a board, things will make sense at the end... The lesson? In the meantime, don’t be idiots. Don’t think that you will ever get out of shul this early again. And where is that Anim Zemirot kid’s parents?! Tell them to educate him right and to stop him reading the whole thing. He should learn how to Daven right and skip some of those Shir Shel Yom prayers... You don't want everybody to hate him like the Chazin.
Don't let your inability to understand stuff. Don't let yourself being dumb stop you this year. Don't let not knowing what to do stop you from doing it. It never stopped the board.
He is saying. At the end. You have to be you. And I have to deal with that...
Enjoy 2026-27.

No matter what. Whether you want to be there or not. Whether you understand or you don't. Whether you have tendrils or raiment. Be there. At the end, you have to be there...
Be there and do the right thing. I have to tell you guys to do the right thing, or you'll get another chandelier for the sanctuary. Don't be like our congregants who ruin a good New Year's party. Or like our guests who ruin a good Kaddish. Our shul has a good tune. A good pace...

The children of this shul do not bring Bracha. Maybe the next generation will be decent...
Sometimes there will be a Bracha. A year of Bracha. And Yaakov did give a Bracha. We do know that the Efraim and Menashe got a blessing. He liked his grandkids...

Rivka's Rundown
"Don't let you not knowing what you're doing stop you"??? Why did the rabbi empower the board like that?!

The Gabai got through the sermon in three minutes. He speed read it. It's amazing how everybody paid attention.
It’s amazing how our rabbi knows what we're thinking. He can be not here and not even give a sermon, and he's giving a sermon and responding to what we're saying.
The rabbi gave a sermon and he had no idea what he was talking about. It didn’t stop Yaakov and it never stops our rabbi.

I believe we just saw the rabbi work through an existential crisis. At the beginning of the sermon, the rabbi was having a rabbinical crisis. He was stuck with stuff he didn’t understand. But then he triumphantly turned his inability to understand Torah as a rabbi, into a lesson. That’s what makes our rabbi great. He won't stop his sermon, even if he has no idea what he's talking about.

The rabbi blamed the security team for the lower membership numbers this past year. He is starting to blame those guys for everything. Volunteering is truly not worth it.

This was the first time our rabbi told off a guest. The whole congregation was relieved. Rachel was so happy. She shouted, "It's not just us. He's mad at all Jews."
We have too many selfish mourners.
I am going to start standing up to these Kaddish bullies. These guys come and take over. They think every shul is theirs. They’re a member of a shul in Chicago and now they can control Kaddish everywhere. Like all shuls are controlled by Skokie. Skokie people are scary.
It's a Chutzpah to come to a shul and take over like that. Selfish mourners. Thinking about their loved ones who passed away.

Rabbi wasn't here. Davening only took an hour and forty minutes. Everybody was out a half hour earlier. And that's how Hashkama Minyins start. The people realize things go much faster without a rabbi, and they start to think not having a rabbi is a pretty good idea.
Like usual, most of the people showed up at 11am and were shocked to see we were already at Kiddish. Some were even mad. Like it’s a Chutzpah we Daven on time. Davening starts at 9am. They show up at 11am. They get mad when the people who pray don't have to be there for an extra hour waiting for them to show. They want the people who show up on time to feel the pain of serving Gd.

So, as Jews, we celebrate New Year's with circle dancing and a very complicated way of saying the years. Celebrating 2025-26. The rabbi makes everything complicated. Even the year.
That New Year’s 2026-27 idea is messed up. Let us just say we don't celebrate. I think we can accept that we don’t have cool congregants who want to go out and drink.  Some do, but not with other members. Friday night Oneg is the extent of our partying together. Somebody opens a bottle of schnapps and we don't have to pay, that's how we party.
The rabbi ended up writing everybody to wish them a Happy 5786. For some reason, I can't remember the years since creation. The two thousand or so years is hard enough. Adding another thirty-seven hundred is too much for me focus on. I can’t remember it. I'll stick with the 2026-27 idea, even if I have to wait another nine months to wish people a good year.

The rabbi's message to Zalmy about his Anim Zemirot was a bit confusing. "Go slow, but don't go slow."
Supporting Zalmy saying the words to the prayers. That’s too much. Total pain. Almost as bad as a long sermon. We have to sit and watch this?! It's like watching childhood education fail.
The rabbi has no problem staying in shul for hours. He’s talking. It’s good times for him. Yet, he did take into account the congregants. I guess he feels that if it's not him talking, the rest of the services should move fast. It turns out, the rabbi is now adding six minutes to his speeches. I think that's why the end of his sermon turned that message around on Zalmy, telling him to go faster. It's like when they raise the price on milk, it never goes back down.

The class on Taking over Minyin with Kaddish was interesting. We learned to be loud. It was a kind of shul self-defense class. The rabbi insisted the security team be present at the class, to learn how to protect our shul. In the class, the rabbi made it clear that the security protected nobody from the scary guy from Chicago, mourning. Scariest morning I experienced in this shul.