The Maggid of Bergenfield

Metsora: The Evil Ooze

Vayikra: 14: 33-57

 

The house was fifty-two years old. It was beautiful, but much like its new owners, it was starting to show its age. It was only natural that a few things might need fixing. The Schwartzes repainted the walls and installed new countertops in the kitchen when they moved in a year before, but problems kept creeping up. The electrical panel needed replacing.The roof needed repairs. Nothing too surprising.

But when the brown sludge started oozing out of the bathtub drain in the children's bathroom,that was more than Penina had bargained for. It was so, so--

"Gross! It's totally gross! It's downright disgusting. Actually, revolting is the word that comes to mind."

"Penina, calm down," her husband Barry said. "You're acting hysterical."

"No I'm not! O.K., maybe I am, just a little. But let me tell you something, Barry.This stuff in the bathtub? It's like something out of a bad movie. It's the slime that swallowed Fairlawn, or something like that. It's completely awful."

"I get it. It's bad."

"No, it's not bad. It's almost like it's alive. I feel like my house is possessed by some evil force. It's like a poltergeist or something."

"What on earth is a poltergeist?"

"Actually, I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure it's really, really bad."

"You definitely need to calm down."

"Fine, I'll calm down. But first tell me what you're going to do about the brown slime that is taking over our house."

"Me? I'm a bus and two subways away. I can't do anything until tonight. Besides, plumbing is not exactly my strong suit. Do you know what I would do if I was there?"

"What?"

"I would pick up the phone and call a plumber."

"But I don't know any plumbers in Fairlawn."

"Just open the Yellow Pages and dial the one with the biggest advertisement. Hey, isn't there a plumber who goes to our shul?"

"I think you're right. What's his name?"

"I think it's Katz."

"Right. Maury Katz."

"Maybe it's time to give him a call, before the brown ooze overflows the tub and swallows the whole neighborhood."

"You so wouldn't be making jokes if you were here and witnessed first hand how vile and malevolent this stuff is. In fact, maybe I'll save some for you, in your coffee cup."

"Call the plumber."

Katz and Katz Plumbing and Heating was not the largest ad in the phone book, but it had a nice graphic  where the letters K-A-T-Z formed a bright red monkey wrench. Penina left a message on their emergency line, and Maury Katz called back ten minutes later.

She recognized him immediately when she answered the door.

"Oh, hi," Penina said. "You look different when you're not in a suit."

"What?"

"What I mean is, the only other time I've seen you is at Shomrei Emunah, on shabbat."

"Right," Maury said with a shy smile. "I hear you have a clogged drain."

"It's not a clogged drain," Penina explained. "It's an evil brown slime from the underworld that has come to possess my house."

"Um, sure," Maury said politely. "Let's have a look at the bathtub, shall we?"

Penina led Maury to the bathroom but stopped at the door, letting Maury go first.

"After you,"Maury said--ever the gentleman.

"Oh, I'm not going back in there," Penina explained. "I don't think I can bare to look at it again. Besides, it may try to suck me down the drain, or something."

"It?"

"Didn't I make myself clear?" Penina said."It's not just a clog. It's some kind of nasty ooze. It's like it's alive."

Maury walked into the bathroom and surveyed the bathtub. "Nice," he muttered.

"Am I right? Is it evil?" Penina called in the doorway.

"Well, it's unpleasant looking, I'll give you that, but to be honest, it's not really out of the ordinary. Just your garden-variety pipe clog that backed up from your toilet into the bathtub. I'll get out my snake and have it unclogged in a jiffy."

"Well I still think it's a living, breathing entity from the nether world," Penina said.

"You know, there is precedent for a house to be spiritually impure and oozing with ritually unclean slime," Maury said.

"Really? Are you talking about some horror movie?"

"No, I'm talking about the Torah. Parshat Metsora has a whole section that discusses how to manage a house whose walls are dripping with impure slime. But I think that most of the commentators suggest that it's not the house which has the real spiritual issue. It's the inhabitants of the dwelling who need to search their deeds to make sure they have been acting correctly."

"So are you saying that this malevolent ooze is my fault because of my family's sins?"

"Not exactly. I think that the Talmud* suggests that in all of history there has never really been a house that qualifies for this distinction. It's just symbolic of inpurity and sin. Still, if  your house did have a malevolent, sin-laden ooze, I would be the one you would need to call."

"A plumber?"

"No, Mrs. Schwartz, a kohen," Maury said, coming out of the bathroom and closing his toolbox. "The clog's all gone."

"Oh thank you, thank you, thank you. That is a big load off my mind," Penina said.

"Can I pay you now?"

"No, I'll  mail you the bill. And don't worry. There's no charge for the spiritual cleansing."

"Really? How much would that have cost?"

Maury smiled as he climbed back into his truck. "You can't afford it."

*Gemara Sanhedrin, 30A

 

Shemini: The Fire

Vayikra: 9: 4, 23-24

 

Safety Warning: The Israel Consumer Product Safety Board is ordering a recall of a candle made at a factory in Be'erot Yitzchak, Israel. The company, Neirot of Be'erot, produced a candle in the shape of the Kotel Hama'aravi, or the Western Wall (also known as the Wailing Wall) that has manufacturing flaws. Apparently the candle's external coating can catch fire, and there is risk it could ignite nearby combustibles. The company has reported one incident of this candle causing minor property damage. We urge that if you have one, please stop using the candle and return it immediately.This candle is item #3425, and can be returned to its place of purchase for a full refund. For additional information, please contact beerotneirot.com or ICPSB.org.il.

Aaron had been dreaming of his trip to Israel for years. He had been saving money to go after college, but the money was never enough, and then something else always took priority. His car needed repairs. He needed root canal. His girlfriend wanted a necklace for her birthday. Sometimes he thought he would never make it.

Then Aaron heard about  Birthright Israel. Much to his amazement, this organization paid for people just like him to travel to Israel for the first time. They covered airfare, food, hotel, the works. It was like a dream come true. So he signed up for the trip with a few of his friends and was accepted to the program within a month.

Of course he wanted to see the whole country, but what most attracted him was Jerusalem. He wanted to see the old walled city and walk in the footsteps of his forefathers. The Wailing Wall held a special fascination for him, but even more than the Wall, he yearned to go on the Western Wall Tunnel Tours.

From what his friend Mark had told him, you can go through tunnels deep under the buildings of the Moslem Quarter of the Old City and explore the extension of the two-thousand-year-old Western Wall as it runs under ancient Jerusalem. It was like a live-action adventure movie (Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Jews). There are ruins there from many different periods of Jerusalem's history, all the way back to the times of the Second Temple. You even see the bedrock of Mount Moriah. Cool.

The Israel trip was everything Aaron had hoped it would be, and more. The food was amazing. Why couldn't they make falafel  like that in New Jersey? The country was beautiful. He bought gifts for everyone he knew, including the wooden camel he swore he would never buy, ever. He even bought a green IDF (Tzahal) yarmulke that he knew he would never wear, not in a million years. What could he say? He was inspired.

But as much as Aaron loved Eilat and enjoyed the Galilee and Tel Aviv, Jerusalem blew his mind. It was living history. He walked the walls of the Old City, from the Jaffa Gate to the Lion's Gate. It was so exhilarating. When he got to the Western Wall, tears welled up in his eyes, and he davened next to the Kotel with a passion he never really knew he had.

After the time at the Kotel was complete and everyone had crammed their notes into the crevices between the ancient stones, the group gathered for the Tunnel Tours. The guide explained the history of the retaining wall of the Temple Mount and the archaeologic explorations of the site in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She waxed philosophically about  the holiness of the Temple and the Jews' eternal place in Jerusalem. Aaron listened attentively and stood in awe of the giant stones  and the historical significance of the area. But despite the impressiveness of the Hasmonean aqueduct, the Mount Moriah bedrock, and the medieval cistern, it all started to feel like another wonderful artifact. Israel was full of them.

That all changed when they arrived at a location opposite a group of burning candles. "This place is the closest spot on the Kotel to the Kodesh Hakadashim,the Holy of Holies. In fact, the Foundation Stone of the Temple Mount is directly east of this position.This is where Hashem rested His presence," the guide said. "It is perhaps the most hallowed place where a Jew can stand in the entire world today . If you would like to stop here for a moment and say a personal prayer, feel free."

Aaron lingered with a few members of the group and started to pray. He prayed for the health of his family. he prayed for personal success. He prayed for world peace. He prayed that he might meet a nice girl, someday. He got so involved in his petition, he didn't notice that the rest of the group had moved on. Yet still he prayed.

When he opened his eyes, he saw a fire before him. One of the candles in the alcove between the stones had suddenly flared up, like a small fireball, and its orange flames lapped against the already charred wall. The whole candle, a small model of the Western Wall, seemed to be melting in front of him. Did his prayers do that? Suddenly he felt like his namesake Aaron as he went to serve in the Tabernacle for the first time, or like one of the High Priests in the Temple. He felt like he was in G-d's presence.

Should he take off his shoes?

"Aaron, come on. Everyone's waiting for you," someone from the group called from down the passageway.

"I'm coming."

The candle burned itself out. The moment was gone.

-"in fact some of the stones were added after an earthquake in the year 1033," the guide was saying when Aaron rejoined the group. "Oh,there you are. We thought we'd lost you."

Everyone laughed.

"Sorry,I guess I lost track of the time."

"That can happen down here," she said with a smirk. "As a matter of fact, all kinds of unusual things happen down here. Come, let's see a section of a Herodian street from the Temple period."

The moment began to pass as Aaron continued with the group, but for just a second, all of time had stopped. He doubted he would ever feel that way again.

"Neat tour, huh?" one of his friends said to him.

"Yeah," Aaron said with a smile.  "Neat."

Tzav: The Prince and the Prayer

Vayikra: 7: 11-20

Once there lived a young prince named Harold who was rather accident prone. His father, King Ronald, was worried for his son's safety and assigned his trusted viceroy, Ralph, to keep him safe.

Truth be told, Harold wasn't actually accident prone. In reality, he was almost accident prone. By that I mean that he was never really in any serious danger. He was just involved in more close calls than any young man should be in the course of the average day.

One day Harold was riding his trusty steed, Thunderbolt,  down a country lane with the ever cautious Ralph trailing not far behind with a first aid kit, an emergency medical technician and the phone number of a good neurosurgeon in the memory of his cell phone. As Harold turned a corner at a slow gallop, a small garter snake slithered out from behind a rock and startled Thunderbolt. The horse stopped short and let out a loud whinny.

Before anything could happen, Ralph trotted up, leaped from his horse and shooed away the somewhat-dreaded snake.

"I say, that was certainly a close call," Harold said.

"Yes, I suppose," Ralph agreed, a bit out of breath.

"That snake could have bitten me and caused a life-threatening reaction."

"Not really, my liege," Ralph replied politely. "It was merely a small garter snake. It couldn't hurt a fly, let alone a brave prince such as yourself."

"Yes, but it could have spooked Thunderbolt and I could have been thrown to the ground, to be trampled under the hooves of my own horse. How ironic."

"Prince Harold, Thunderbolt would never have thrown you. He is the best trained horse in all the land. He would have allowed the snake to bite him and unflinchingly suffered the consequences before he would have allowed any harm to befall you."

"Still, it was a close call."

"I suppose," Ralph agreed.

Prince Harold rode back to the castle with his entourage and regaled the court with his harrowing experience and how Ralph had bravely risked his own life to repel the snake. Ralph smiled politely and said nothing.

After dinner, Prince Harold gathered his friends and read a paragraph from Tehillim, the Psalms, to thank G-d for his good fortune. To be exact, he read psalm 100, Mizmor leTodah, A Psalm of Thanksgiving. It was what was recited  in the time of the Beit Hamikdash when a person survived a particularly dangerous situation and brought a Korban Todah, a sacrifice of thanksgiving, to celebrate his or her deliverance. Ralph watched from outside the room as Prince Harold fervently recited the prayer.

The next day, Prince Harold went on a nature walk with a group of his courtiers. Naturally, Ralph came along with mosquito netting, sunblock, a compass, a survival guide, and an epinephrine pen, in case of a royal allergic reaction.

All was going well. Ralph could foresee no source of danger anywhere on the horizon, and the prince and his friends seemed to be having a good time. There were no predators in these tranquil woods, the land was flat and devoid of any threatening terrain, and short of a meteor falling from the sky, Harold could not possibly muster up a crisis.

It was then that Prince Harold picked the mushroom.

"I say, would anyone care to share a taste of this wonderful fungus with me? It looks downright delicious."

"Noooooooooo!" Ralph hollered as he ran forward. He politely but firmly scooped the mushroom from the prince's hand and threw it to the ground.

"What did you do that for?" Harold asked.

"My liege, many mushrooms that grow in the field are poisonous. I confiscated this particular specimen to save you from hurting yourself."

"Ralph, you have done it again!" Prince Harold declared. "Three cheers for Ralph!"

"Huzzah huzzah, huzzah!" the royal courtiers cheered.

Ralph smiled politely but stepped away from the group of young men. He was beginning to tire of the prince's utter carelessness.

That night, at  King Ronald's table, Prince Harold once again regaled the king's entourage with the tale of his near brush with death and his rescue by the hand of Ralph.

"If I had eaten that mushroom, I could have died," Prince Harold declared.

"Actually, there was very little chance of that," Ralph said.

"What do you mean? You told me the mushroom was poisonous," the prince said.

"No, I said it might be poisonous," Ralph interjected. "Actually, I checked my survival guide, and it turns out that mushroom wasn't dangerous at all. As a matter of fact, it is in the soup that we are eating right now."

"Kudos, Ralph, kudos," the king said, chuckling under his breath.

"Still, it could have been lethal, nonetheless," Harold stammered, and without further ado, he went off to recite the Mizmor leTodah again. But before he left the room Harold announced, "Tomorrow we go skeet shooting."

Ralph followed Prince Harold to the room where he recited his Tehillim. He waited until Harold completed his fervent recitation of psalm 100.

Ki tov Hashem leolam chasdo

Veyad dor ldor emunato

For Hashem is good, His kindness endures forever

And from generation to generation is His faithfulness

"You know, Prince, I truly appreciate your need to thank G-d every day for His wondrous rescue of your life," Ralph said.

"Thank you, Ralph," Prince Harold said. " Not everyone understands how important it is to acknowledge the  daily surprises He grants us. If not for these frequent miracles that I have experienced, I'm not sure I would have the proper opportunity to thank Him."

"Well, you know, you don't need to be rescued from an almost burning building, or pulled out of the way of a very slowly falling tree, or even protected from a charging tortoise in order to appreciate G-d's daily miracles and to thank Him."

"You don't?"

"Why no. Just living every day is a miracle. I think that's why the Mizmor leTodah is part of our daily morning prayers. There's something spectacular to thank G-d for every day."

"Do you really think so?" Prince Harold asked, his eyes full of wonder.

"Why yes, I do," Ralph said, putting his arm around the young prince. "I would stake my reputation on it."

And so, Prince Harold began reciting the Psalm of Thanksgiving daily in his morning prayers, and the near mishaps that had befallen him previously could no longer be found in the royal archives.

That is except the time the royal bunny rabbit bit him on the finger. For that truly was a bit disconcerting.

Birkat Hachama: Here Comes the Sun

Mirriam's early morning routine did not waver. If the weather was good, she would rise from her bed, perform her morning libations, then wrap herself in her red terry cloth robe, slip on her furry slippers, scurry into the backyard, sit in the lotus position on the ground under the old oak tree and meditate. She had been meditating since college, in one form or another, and it had become an essential part of her day. It was no big deal, really-- just fifteen minutes of serenity in the morning. She wasn't a Buddhist, or anything like that. If forced to classify herself--and she hated being pigeonholed-- she would have described herself as a modern orthodox Jew, or perhaps an egalitarian Jew. But who needed labels?

After her meditation she would go back inside, daven, have breakfast with the New York Times, and leave for her morning commute to work. The meditation was worth it just to keep her blood pressure down on the clogged, competitive highways of northern New Jersey. It would take the cosmic calm of a yogi not to get upset when people were cutting you off at the bottleneck known as the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel.

In many ways her morning routine was Mirriam's favorite part of her day. If she timed it just right, the sun would be rising as she sat beneath that majestic old tree, and its rays would warm her as she sat there. In the fall she would have to push the fallen acorns out of the way to find a comfortable place to sit. In the spring the leaves would be budding and then sprouting. In the summer she had the shade and the birds chirping. In the winter she meditated inside her house, in her sun room. She simply wasn't hard core enough to go out there when it was below freezing and the ground was hard as a rock.

Today's meditation session was special. On this particular day, the Jewish people would be reciting birkat hachama, a blessing on the sun. To Mirriam it sounded rather pagan, but the rabbis had discussed it in the times of the Talmud, so obviously it was legit. Once every twenty-eight years the Jews would go outside and make a blessing on the sun, Blessed are you Lord our G-d, King of the Universe, who makes all  things in creation. It was the same blessing you made when you saw lightning or other beautiful acts of nature. Except this time it was being said to appreciate a sight you see every day.

According to tradition, every twenty-eight years the sun assumes the exact position in the sky that it had on the day G-d created it. It is like a reenactment of the heavens from the beginning of time. To Mirriam the concept held great spiritual energy. Clearly birkat hachamah was a great symbol of renewal and rebirth. A lot of Jews got together and celebrated the event with a community wide recitation of the blessing, but Mirriam decided to celebrate privately, in her own way.

The alarm clock went off fifteen minutes earlier than usual. Mirriam showered and dressed quickly; she was on a tight schedule. Her morning recitation of the shacharit service normally took her about twenty minutes, but that day she compressed it into fifteen. When she finished, she went outside and sat under her tree. The glow of the sun was clearly visible on the horizon.

She was in full meditative mode when the sun rose over the hills in the distance. She was focusing deeply on her breathing and keeping her back arrow straight. Mirriam could feel the warmth of the rays on her skin. She was one with the moment. She was certain she could sense the very moment that G-d had--

A fire engine's siren pierced the peace a few blocks away, but she tried to stay in the zone. What could she do? Despite her best efforts, she still lived in suburban New Jersey.

Mirriam stood and recited the bracha. Oseh Ma'aseh bereishit. She had done her best.

To complete her ritual, Mirriam rose from beneath the oak tree an walked to the corner or her yard. She reached beneath a hemlock bush and pulled out the trowel from where she had left it last week when she had planted tulip bulbs. She dug a small hole, reached into her pocket and pulled out apple seeds from an apple she had eaten the day before. Red Delicious. Her favorite.

Mirriam dropped the seeds into the hole and covered them with soil, working hard not to get her slippers too dirty. On April 8, 2037 , the next recitation of birkat hachamah, she would recite the blessing and eat an apple from the tree that had grown on this spot. Satisfied with her efforts, she dropped the trowel and headed for her house.

Three steps from the back door, Mirriam stopped in her tracks and turned around. She looked at her yard. She looked at her oak tree. She looked at the sun.

Mirriam cinched up her robe, marched back to the oak tree and scooped up a lone acorn, stranded since the previous fall. She walked back to the corner of her yard, picked up her trowel,  and ten feet from the apple seeds she dug a new hole. She dropped in the acorn, filled the hole, and returned to her house.

In 2065 her grandchildren would make the bracha under the shade of this oak tree. Would they meditate?  Who knew? They would have to choose their own path, just as she had.

Mirriam smiled. It was a good day to bless the sun.