Sermons of Rebuke V: VaYishlach

by Rivka Schwartz

Announcements
We have a gambling issue in the shul. The board seems to be betting on members paying their dues to help support the shul’s electric bills. Odds are we won’t have heat in the chapel this winter.

​We will not be giving out football cards to the kids anymore. They’re too expensive nowadays. The Gabai apologizes to the parents. To quote, “The shul can’t afford for your children to believe in Gd.”

We are coming back with the shul Bingo night. A great religious tradition. One that has inspired many generations of our people.
We will not be hosting Chumash class anymore. The board voted and it turns out that Bingo is more inspirational.

Contemporary Halacha Classes: Will Congregants Pay Their Dues- A Class in Bookmaking and Working Odds. How To Teach Your Children Without Baseball Cards and Other Impossible Tasks.​ The Jewish Tradition of Bingo in the Gaonic Period.

Rabbi Mendelchem's Drasha Excerpts
Shabbat Shalom My Pupils...
When you’re satisfied with who you are you can have peace. Which is why everybody in this shul is so tense... None of you are comfortable with who you are. Always looking at Melanie's hats... The huge ones. Be happy with you are and your pathetic little derbies. 
Esav sees his brother and is overtaken by emotion... He cried. He wasn’t a board member who is ice cold and has no care for their rabbi.
(Bereishit 33:9) Upon Yaakov insisting Esav takes his gifts Esav responds, “I have plenty. Achi. Let what is yours be yours.” And to this day, we Israelis refer to each other as Achi. My brother. And to this day, that is how you get somebody to buy hats and sunflower seeds from you... We are happy with what our brothers have. Especially when they invite you for dinner and they have brisket.

Esav was content. Didn’t need to feel hatred. He was happy with himself. He is fine seeing someone else's success. Not like Simon who curses people when they do the Mishebeyrachs for all their family members... I understand some of their families are too big and it takes way too long for them to get out all the names. And the Kugel gets cold... Cursing them is fine. You’re right...

Hating gifts is what allows for peace and love. You all expect gifts and then Chanukah comes and you get gifts, and you're mad, because the gifts are real bad... Esav was thinking, "All he gives me is a herd..."
The problem is you’re not happy with who you are and what you have. And that is why you are always fighting over the armrest.
Can the shul be happy with what it has? Can we be happy seeing other people’s success? Can we be happy with Shloimi’s new fedora... Well stop talking about it Simcha. I see you cursing out his new hat every moment. During the Amidah you were saying, “Gd. Please strike down his new hat. I hate him and I hate the feather.”
And Fran’s new hat is also ugly as sin...

Who in this shul has plenty??? Well. Bernie. Nobody sees it... Because you share none of it with us. You...

Achi!!!
You’re gambling with the shul... I don’t know what to do. But depending on Harry for heat is not a good idea... And we are cancelling the shul casino night...
​
Giving out baseball cards is how you get kids to love Gd. Other than that, I’m at a loss. I say pull the kids from Jewish day school. There’s no hope... Take them Comic-Con and they will be religious. Learning Rashi has never brought a kid closer to Gd...
Giving out baseball cards was a great tradition. But. Who can afford it now?
I can’t even afford to go to a game... Football cards are expensive too. Baseball cards is what you call football cards...
How their parents can afford to buy them cards, I have no idea... A pack of cards is half of dues. Have you seen these packs. Two cards and fifty dollars. Then you got to send in a decent card to get it graded, for thirty dollars. So, you get back a four-dollar card you spend eighty dollars on, and the kid will only believe in H' if you buy him another pack...
If the Gabai would work overtime, he would be able to afford it. It’s on him. He doesn’t care about Chinuch... Jewish education is the chance of getting an Aaron Judge. A Patrick Mahomes. Or an ulcer if you're the parent buying it... It's about Shalom. When you buy people stuff. When you give, there can be peace...
Barbies are also too expensive. We don't think our shul will be making any good Balabastas.
And this is why there is no Shalom in the shul. Nobody can afford anything...

Bingo is how you get adults to love Gd.
At least people show up for Bingo. Minyin, not so much... Calling out "Bingo" is a religious thrill...
Of course, Bingo is Mutar. It’s not gambling if the money is going to shul... We host Bingo for religious reasons. Have you ever heard anyone yell out "Bingo"? It’s inspired. The Divine has come through them. Emanating into the world through that card. Has anybody ever gotten that feeling from understanding the Pshat in a Gemara...
Everybody, right now, say it with me, “BINGO!!!!” I can feel it. Can I get a "Bingo!" Yes. One more time. From the congregation...
Bingo jealousy is wrong. It makes for a noncommunal event... Menachem will always lose. Accept that. And be happy for others. Find the "let what is yours be yours" inside of you. And we can find brotherhood in this shul...

Achi!!! Yaakov's brotherhood is found in his belief. (Bereishit 33:11) Yaakov sees it all as coming from H’. We are going to need Gd’s help, because none of you support the shul... Yaakov says, “Please take my blessings that I have brought for you, for H’ has been gracious to me, and I have everything..." He may not have everything. But he doesn't have a board. And that is a blessing.

Are you content enough to cry?!
It is contentment that brings Shalom, and an electric bill that gets paid for. It's contentment that allows you to pay the mortgage... That may bring tears.
Wherever it comes from, if you are content, if you are happy with who you are and not Rachel the shul president, you can have peace. You can express emotion. You can be vulnerable. You can cry.

It's about hating gifts. It is that one who hates gifts who is content and ready for Shalom... No. The shul loves gifts. The shul needs gifts to pay for heat. And to give the rabbi a raise... So your rabbi can be content... Not getting a raise can also make one cry...

The lesson is Bingo. Bingo is a more important tradition to our people than learning... Even more important than baseball cards. Bringing generations together...

Be it wealth or belief in H'. We must find kindness and giving in our hearts.
The point is to be happy with what you have. Even if you can't yell out "Bingo." To have that kind of true happiness, where you can cry with others. A Shalom where you can be honest and let Shloimi know how annoying that feather in the hat is... Feathers don't belong in hats...

Rivka's Rundown
I think that feather in the fedora message brought the whole sermon together.

​The whole shul started calling each other Achi. It felt like I was around a bunch of Arsim.
Our congregants are very tense. You can see they don't have Shalom. They don't even say it to each other. Just a bunch of tense angry people who grunt and think somebody else is going to take their armrest. When you don't have an armrest that you know is yours, you're not happy for other people and what they have. Especially when that's your armrest.

I'm not going to lie. When Gideon gets up there and goes off for ten minutes with family names after his Aliyah, I'm cursing him out. I wouldn't mind if there were less births in that Mishpuchi. Maybe I mean less family members he cares about. If he chose the family people he loved and just said their names, I would be fine. I can't imagine he loves them all. Especially his oldest daughter. 

The Achi thing stopped after Kiddish, when people realized they had expenses to pay on their homes. It was a quick lived communal expression of peace.
In my shul nobody calls anybody Achi or Achot Sheli. They just curse each other under their breath. The problem is way too much hat jealousy in our shul.
Many people had a problem with the rabbi calling people Achi. They had a private meeting with the rabbi. It was an intervention. They had to remind him that he was the rabbi. They also said he couldn't go by Tzachi. When he asked if he could go by Chuck, the intervention team said no. The rabbi insisted that Chuck is an Achi kind of name. It didn't work. The congregants insisted their rabbi be somebody who is not personable. Somebody they could look at and say, "He is not my friend."
They also told the rabbi that he shouldn't support people's gambling addiction, even if it makes the shul money.

Thanks to the rabbi, the day school folded. It turns out the rabbi is a bitter baseball card collector. He was mad the Gabai stopped giving him cards.

People argued that if the casino is in the shul, it should be fine to take people’s money with slot machines. To which the board felt like they were onto something and decided to open a non-for-profit casino. The idea had every happy, knowing that the electric bill would finally be paid. And they all agreed that gambling is wrong, and for that reason, betting that Harry would pay his dues was Asur.
Huge arguments were had, until it was decided that slot machines do belong in shul, as people pray at them. 
In the end, the rabbi agreed that we can restart the shul bingo night.
Thank Gd for heat and Bingo.

The rabbi turned Bingo into the most religious experience anybody in our shul has ever had.
And now we know how to get all Jews to love Gd. Adults is Bingo. Kids is Barbie and cards. And the women's section is to throw out Melanie and Fran's hats.

The rabbi's new Kiruv through Cards program is revolutionary. Many shuls are now opting for this over NCSY. 
All the kids are into collectibles. To quote the rabbi: "Making Frum kids is more important than charity." And for this reason, all money that was given to the shul for the Toys for Tots drive was used to purchase cards for the children of our shul. Who are now much happier than the poor kids.
Our congregants are also into collecting Barbies. Records. Matchbox cars. How you light a cigarette with those cars, I still can’t figure out. The shul has planned collectibles show for Gd.
Between us, I don't know if it's collectibles or the fact that nobody in our shul likes to throw stuff out. The kids at our shul are now a bunch of hoarders.

So, Bingo is Mutar. The only Jewish tradition our community keeps. Shabbat. Not so much. But the casino night and Bingo.
The Psak of the rabbi is that it is all fine if the money is going to the shul. They also had a shul person auction. Mutar to auction off people for the shul.
Being casino night was banned by the local casino, with concern that money coming out of slot machines would be used for something positive, we are back to simple Bingo night. And to this day, all religious communities agree that Bingo is for religious people. "People of Gd play Bingo."
Plans were in for Bingo night. After hearing they had to volunteer, the congregants voted to ban bingo night.
It’s on the schedule, so now the crowd comes, runs it themselves. Basically, the congregants come and play the game. Best social event the shul has ever had.
It turns out that since the congregants started playing the Bingo, they've been calling more Bingo wins than ever before. The congregants come to shul, smoke and take the shul’s money. And they still don't pay dues.
I have suggested that having Bingo in the shul may not be the greatest idea. My membership was revoked. The Bingo Committee said that all members of the shul should be fine with indoor cigarettes and to not be party poopers. One time, they called for Mincha Minyin during the full card play. Everybody booed the Gabai and said he was a bad Jew.
I am happy to see that our shul is connecting to one great Jewish tradition.

Bingo in the Gaonic Period was a meaningful class. It was so inspirational to hear how Rav Sadia Gaon shouted "Bingo," which inspired a whole town to return in Teshuva.