37: Time, Space, and the Kotel

(Music) Hi, I'm Dovid Orlofsky and this is The Rabbi Orlofsky Show. And we'd like to welcome you to this week's podcast, whether you're watching on Torah Anytime or wherever you watch or listen to podcasts. And there are people who listen to the podcast. My producer just told me that our numbers on the sites where people only listen to it have been going up I guess I'm not quite as photogenic as I thought I was but there are people who actually do stuff and they just listen to the podcasts and those numbers are going up! And I had a visit from a young man this past week and, he didn't ask me to give him a shout-out, he asked me give a shout-out to another friend of his but he, he, I forgot the name, and I told him to send me an email with the name, and he didn't send it yet so... But, uh, he learns in a yeshiva in Lakewood and he says that he downloads the podcast and then distributes it to everybody in his school and from there they distribute it to the other schools in Lakewood. So there are hundreds of people listening that I have no way of knowing about, and I'm sure this is happening and being recreated in cities all across the world, and probably at this point, I don't know, three or four million people listening, I have no way of knowing but, but our numbers keep growing. The interest keeps growing and we are so excited that you can be a part of our program and the podcast this week is being sponsored l'ilui nishmas Ingeborg bas David Shlomo. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, whose yahrtzeit is chaf beis Iyar, the 22nd of Iyar, and that's her 31st yahrtzeit, What, what her daughter wrote is that she escaped from Berlin in February 1939. mamish got out just at the at the the last opportunity before the gates closed and she says she brought us up with a strong sense of Jewish identity and she says I think she would have enjoyed your podcasts and she should have an aliyas neshama, absolutely. I'm sure that the podcast is of course being broadcast at the highest levels of shamayim, so I'm sure she's listening in, so mom, *thumbs up* You know, It should just be continued to be an aliya for you, and for your children, and grandchildren, and they should all go michayil l'chaiyil wonderful, wonderful things. Okay, I I realize we only have two podcasts till Shavuos. We have this, this one that's coming out, and we have the one that will come out the week of Shavuos, and then the next one is going to be mosaei Shavuos, which for those of you in chutz la'aretz you have a three-day Yom Tov coming up (Laughing) So glad I live here. But, um, the truth is I actually had quite a number of offers for Shavuos from various communities around the country around the world this year but You know the idea of a three-day yontiff and giving shiurim for a long time. Let me somebody gave me a piece of advice once,which I found to be, to be interesting, and they said the best place to be for Tisha b'Av, if you have to go to a community for Tisha b'Av is definitely South Africa. Because since the world is upside down, and for them it's like the winter. So the taanis goes out like six o'clock. Yeah, not so late as it is in other places in the world, and the worst place to be would be Manchester - slash - Gateshead - slash - Scotland in any place that's very, very far north, because it goes out very late. Conversely, the best place to be for Shavuos, if you're being hired as a speaker is Gateshead, Scotland, Manchester, because they first daven maariv about 11 and they start getting ready for davening about 3 so it's a little more condensed. The worst place to be a speaker is where I went, which was Johannesburg, South Africa! Where we davened maariv at 6 p.m., and we started shacharis at 8 a.m. That's a very long night for someone to speak. Now, I know what you're thinking, Rabbi Orlofsky, the problem with you is to get you to STOP speaking, and yet you'd be surprised! Even I have my moments where I'm starting to be taxed, my ability to speak. So, so that's, that's where I was, but, but a 3-day yom tov, that's, that's really quite challenging. Especially if you're gonna speak on Shabbos and Shavuos, and the second day of Shavuos, it's a lot!! Yeah. So, um, so I'll be here in Eretz Yisrael. Something that might appear coincidental, but of course nothing is coincidental in Judaism, and that is the Six Day War took place just before Shavuos, and it took them a while to clean away the garbage. and the rubble that the Palestinians had thrown on the access to the Old City, something that you don't really appreciate, when you go there now. My brother Gedaliah I'm one of six boys and except for my first brother, and my last brother everyone had a choice what they wanted to do for their Bar Mitzvah. My first brother, my father said he's got to make a big Bar Mitzvah like he always wanted to make. That was my brother Jason, alaiv hashalom, my father spelled out his name Jason in two thousand roses It was a very, very, very beautiful affair. Yeah, totally lost on a thirteen-year-old boy. But didn't matter, it was his first bar mitzvah, and he was gonna, he's gonna make it up big. My last brother, yeah, my brother Bruce, West Hampstead, He was told that you don't have a choice either, my father always wanted to make a Bar Mitzvah in Israel and his Bar Mitzvah was gonna be in Israel. And in fact, we went to Heichal Shlomo, there was no Great Synagogue at the time and that's where he lained and that's where he davened, and he had his bo bayom at the Kotel, the Western Wall, and it was, it was beautiful. Beautiful. I have a story I have to tell. (Laughing) This is, this is an Orlofsky Story, it's not, it's not one that we should learn from, but it's a lot of fun. It's like a lot of things that I do in this podcast, it's not something you should learn from, but it is a lot of fun (laughing). My mother had a very loud, and most people said, infectious laugh. She would, she would go to, people love to have her in an audience because she would start to laugh, and everybody would laugh. She had a very loud infectious laugh. Anyway, they were flying across, everybody was flying across for the bar mitzvah, fine, and she and her sister was sitting next to each other, they were talking, and they were laughing. The people in front of them kept saying, "could you be quiet, yes, stop laughing, da da da", and of course that just made my mother laugh harder, you know what I mean, anyway it was a long flight with this kind of attention. Yeah, and fine, so afterwards, this was 1975. We took all of our people on tiyulim, and we were some tiyul in the West Bank, Yehuda v'Shomron, yeah, and we've passed this minibus that broke down. And the guide says listen, you know, it's probably not safe for them, after dark, back then There was no problem before it got dark, but after dark might not be safe, you know maybe we could give them a ride. And my parents were like, of course, of course, you know. And who is it? The people stood, sat in front of my mother. (Laughing) They get on the bus, and they see each other, nervous like, you know, and they all sit down, And my mother calls me over because I brought a bunch of boys from yeshiva along on on this particular trip. And she says, "tell everybody to sing as loud as they get." (Laughing) (Clapping) And we were singing, And the people were clapping, they were having a wonderful time, evidently their position on noise changed. But, but he can't, first one party, second one in Israel. After that everybody had a choice of what they wanted to do. So my brother Gedaliah, he said that he wanted to go to Eretz Yisrael. Now, this was 1966, I think? So, it was so interesting, the things that we take for granted. He says, "we couldn't, we couldn't go to the Old City. We couldn't go to the Kotel." You went on the ROOF of Heichal Shlomo, which was at the time the tallest building in Yerushalayim and they hadn't built the Plaza yet, of course, they hadn't built what was the Hilton, now I think it's the Crowne Plaza whatever but they pretty, the fanciest hotel in Yerushalayim was the King's Hotel at the time or the King David. Yeah, but that was, was, was in a class of its own. Frum Jews didn't, didn't go there but but the way you took, you went on the roof of Heichal Shlomo. And you looked to the Old City and you looked to see the Kotel, that was, that was the access he had. I remember he told me, he says, there was a whole no-man's land with barbed wire, he says, "so I stuck my hand through the barbed wire. My hand was was at least in you know, in the part that Jews couldn't go into so, I reached across." Yeah, and he said to me afterwards that "I realized they could have probably shot it off." (Laughing) Baruch Hashem they didn't. Yeah and, and the way he describes, you know 1966, the experience in Yerushalayim was a completely different one. Completely different. It took years till Yerushalayim took on some kind of a status, I think. When I came to learn in yeshiva the first time, which was in the 70s there was one traffic light in all of Yerushalayim it was on the corner of Yaffo and King George, and it turned to a blinker at eight o'clock at night. You know, this was a, this was a real, you know, kind of backwater thing. So the war was, you know, the war was fought And they opened up the Old City, the Kotel, the devastation and destruction that they saw. So my parents came that January. It was six months later, and they were saying, still then to get to the Kotel they said you were walking over rubble, you were, it was it was a disaster. Disaster. They said they went to Ammunition Hill and you could still see the blood on the ground. The battles that were fought there, to capture Yerushalayim was a dramatic thing. So in 67 after the war it was Shavuos and they were opening up the Kotel for the first time, to people, on the morning of Shavuos. Everybody who had learned on Shavuous could... Now, this is one of the things if you've ever been in Yerushalayim for Shavuos, this is one of the things that people do. They, they walk to the Kotel to be able to daven Shavuos morning. A friend of mine once described it as the most inspirational walk, and the worst davening you'll ever have. (Laughing) Because when you start walking, it's late at night, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's slowly getting towards morning. But it's still dark out. And it, there's a, there's often even a little bit of a chill in the air, And you're walking from wherever your community is, and the closer you get Jews are coming from every direction ,every artery is feeding into it until finally you're coming to the road to the, it's packed, PACKED with Yidden coming. And you come to the Kotel Plaza all the way back. All the way back, it's full. Yeah, amazing thing. When you go there and it's not so full, you, you appreciate when you're there and it's full, It's, it's unbelievable. Lehavdil, it's uh, there was one, it was a bunch of years ago. We had a very heavy rainfall Baruch Hashem this year we had in Eretz Yisrael a hundred and fifty percent rainfall. So we had halftime what will usually get and the Kineret which is still filling up from the melting snows on the Hermon and the little streams that are feeding into it so it's above the lower red line, and it's almost up to it's it's shooting towards the the higher red line. Nebach that we're, you know... I remember when it was full. we went to the Kinar for Pesach with Ohr Sameach and if you've ever been to the Kinar where they have the beach outside there, the separate beach by the Kineret so you won't you there's a little area, a dressing area etc. Then you walk across gravel is a little path, and after the path for most years you have to keep walking along the gravel till you come to the water. Here, all of that was filled with water to the point that the steps leading up to the little area where you change, my a my son was little at the time I put him there and and the the waves were lapping on him. It was, it was completely full. So lehavdil, you know what it is. You, you have a little room to maneuver. I mean, we went there, we went there Chol Hamoed, it was pretty packed, but there was still room to be able to move. Shavuos, forget about it. It's packed packed packed packed. and everybody goes there, and everybody's davening, and then you hit neitz. And the whole place goes silent. And the sun begins to rise. And then the sun continues to rise. And then the sun begins to beat down upon you. And you suddenly realize, "I don't know which minyan I'm actually in." (Laughing) say Hallel They're laining Rus, this is going on over here, everything's going on, and by the time it's over it suddenly hits you, you had that nervous excitement as you were walking and now you have that exhaustion and you begin to walk back in one of the least inspiring works, walks that you will ever have. People are passing out on the sidewalks, you know, and a heat prostration you know, it's a lot less. But okay, I understand. It's a, it's a The word they use in in Hebrew is 'chavaya'. Chavaya. I knew this from a girl who's going to seminary and the girls passed down notebooks to each other with chavayot. And a guy said to me once, "a girl comes to Israel, she wants to have a chavaya, an experience. You know, there's this blind couple that has guests we want to go there. Do you know anybody who lives in Tzfat? We want to go to Tzfat for Shabbos. We wanna do this, we wanna have an experience. Guys like to find a place with a good cook and they basically move in. (Laughing) You cant get rid of em! So they're not looking for so much excitement, yeah, they have enough excitement. You know, what could be more exciting than sitting in a bais midrash for 12 hours a day? Shtaiging out a Tosfos. Ah! Ah! That kind of level of excitement doesn't get any better than that, but So so, walking to the Kotel, chavaya. It's like one of those things that you have to do. Yeah I never went to the Kotel on Shavuos and I'll tell you why. Now I said at the beginning, you know, we take things for granted. That's for true. That's for true. I lived most of my life Essential anymore, but I lived many years of my life in the Greater New York area. I Never went to the Empire State Building. I went to Statue of Liberty. I never did any of those Tourists The New Yorker type of things because I live there Oh my god Well, and then see is why and starting having to make trips and things That's the only time I ever got to see any of this stuff, you know Who does those things people who live there? Don't really do those things that's for you know, people coming to visit me Hahaha, yeah so So I know people come to it. So they just want to dive into guys Every day they go and they dive and it's a beautiful thing Now if you haven't been to the castle in 30 days So I say you go to America and you? Thirty days since you've been in Israel, you're gonna you shall I tear Cree There are ways around it. If you want you can sell your clothes to somebody, you know You can There's a minik that's brought down in the Memphis. You shall I am sitter? That's as far as I know the only macaw for it But that's one of the great things about this podcast if anybody knows anything, I'm sure I'm going to get an email on it So I could make off with this past week somebody sent me The lyrics to you shall I in? Yeah, fine, whatever David in Hebrew and in English Is it here? You can read it in English So that I have I have said what the vaudeville is this that it could be this another one But the only McCory i've been able to find for this is the mimic as usual. I'm a sitter. That was that sitter I don't even know they still make of it. But this big yeah had a map of the area of in it of usual I'm it had everything everything you could possibly imagine was in that sitter the binding broke instantly cos was just there so cheaply bounded but I Don't know if they still have those pockets it see through them like they did when I was a kid when I was a kid every kid got a pockets a little pockets about this big you've kept it in your filling bag and I am You know a little plastic with you throwing bags I didn't it smelled a yeah, and I think this is the main reason that so many people have an aversion to tockman because It's not like in art school where they have one type of print and it just keeps going forever and ever there every now and then they Take the black writing and put it on dark grey rate at writing for special occasions So you can't see it which is it's also fun. But but basically it's the same print These see Durham the print Gets smaller and larger, I guess to be able to create a contrast make it ease of you Except when it comes to the long tackling. It just keeps getting smaller and smaller and smaller looks like microscopic and you like saying that and it's Getting spoilers, but disappearing before your eye. I think that's reason that this day You know when a person gets married, nobody's happy that he got married. They're happy. They don't have to say Patman. Yeah So it's very exciting Pesach Krong tells the story, you know, he's it he's a mile so when he goes to shore so almost every day He's got a person enough. They say Totman and he says One day he's in sure and someone says to me sister, oh you have a bris today There's no I'm flying out, you know, so I'm not doing a bris. This is and what good are you? And he gets so insulted what I don't serve any purpose I know this and I said you're missing the point every one of us serves a purpose in this world whether you're Russia Shiva whether you're of whether you're Amish BIA whether you're Here whether you give millions of dollars, it's Tucker and all of that pales if you can get people to stop saying townsmen that is probably the most important goal role that any Jew can serve in this entire world that's people Nobody cares you had a baby. They Canada knows a table And I'm wondered what's the big deal why was it taken that I realize everyone was traumatized in my generation from the shrinking letters Anyway, um I'm still a little bit off the pages you can see this week We're slowly. We're slowly pulling it back together, but So the middle item it says if you go Erev Shabbos after cut ice you don't have to rice cream. You don't have to tear your biggest. So okay, there are different ways The the Shila comes up. What if you're in Yerushalayim? And you don't go to the castle so this dhinam that when you come to the Corbin of you who d'ya tear Korea we can come to Ivy Tech career when you come to it cause II think We're nog when you come to the guy so legit a creep So what have you in your line for thirty days? You need to go the guys So someone asks for cash for Lovitz if You're in Yerushalayim for thirty days, you know go to the castle. What should you do? And he said check your office A little harsh a Yid, isn't you shall I'm three days ago somebody told me he asked this question wants to rumba and He says what if you annually shall in for 30 days and you don't go, okay, so and he goes what? He struggles good as well. I guess not everybody feels it but my shapiro used to go every morning - Davin at the case'll don't have a secret and Said okay, so but you see how many potential Elvis looks at looking at the guys? So he says like this 1967 she was 1967 that morning That we're gonna open up the castle for the first time nineteen years You couldn't you couldn't go to heaven by the case. The the best we do is go on top of Hickel Slow-mo and look at it from a distance. I Still remember when I was here? I think it was 1975 the one bus used to go through the old city and There are these two tunnels and the buses you Know zooming towards you. Yeah, this gigantic rambling Hulk and Yet they like press yourself into one of the little doorways over there or you get flattened You just bloom just just go right to her gonna fight through your nose So much easier but back then Climbing over oh and now is the first time you can go nineteen years So hydro Leavitt spoke in the mirror, and he spoke about the importance of the case I mean you see how important he felt. It was to go dive another case and he says there's no question that That is the second best place for you to doubt The best place to dive in is where you were learning all night So There's something profound about that because Everything has to as to go into a context you have to understand what you're doing. And why are you doing it? There's a But there's a natural pull. There's a power to the caisson and When you I Know somebody this is the story. He told me this story told Reverend Siegel, he was in the old city for Yom Kippur there's any achieve in the old setting and he was there and After they finished it darling So everybody's having you Shiva All the front people diving in the issue is that I mean this shows that I really died me with a kiss So afterwards, he says I went down to the Chrysler pussy. I Find it amazing. He says it was filled with secular people They weren't Dominic they were just there It's Yom Kippur There's this connection there's this tug But they were feeling that's why there you know people like mayor Schuster used to go down Africa to the kreisel to to try to get people because they go there and they they picked up that experience they feel something they may not be able to put into words, but There's that there's an intensity of kedusha that's taking place there. I was doing a question answer once and this woman asked me she says I saw a secular, Jew and he had necklace With you'd cave of K on it The ineffable name of God, but tetragram If these things have more meaning to you I never really quite understood this because people translate to fill in as Phylacteries and you see they another say to fill in and they translate the English phylacteries Is there really anybody who knows what phylacteries are and don't know what's filling us? I was I was speaking for Rashi simon and rubella trash rabbi, Diane Rashi Simon in London and he says next Saturday night We begin the penitential prayers and I do you think there's anyone who knows with penitential prayers? I don't know what sleek OHS are just say sleek. OHS ya Know it's one of those things that that get a little a little difficult to translate. Yeah, but That there's this there's this drawer That you feel like when you go to the case of will you will you you feel this connection? I'm I'm Going there, and I'm feeling something That I may not be able to put into words and So people have this universal connected whether we realize it or not There's something inside of it there's something that's something that touches us we just have to be open to it so to be open to we have to allow it to be able to touch us and That level of kedusha There's a concentration so this woman says to me I see this guy he's wearing a good game of K Which by the way is not a Cassius assemble that you'd gave up kick somebody said to me they used to put it on Munna anyway, so the you'd gave of K the four letter name of God and He has a necklace with that So she says, you know, you can't go into the bathroom wearing that So he laughs at her. This is why God's not in the bathroom She says I don't know what to answer So I said and God is in the synagogue The answer, is that the word Olam World is related to the world word. Hey LM hidden and The world is not evenly distributed There were places where God is more revealed and less revealed and Anna Malcolm Toma. Although God can go down there He holds himself back He'll go in if he needs to but he makes his presence less seen there And therefore we have to have a sensitivity to place Parshas bahar, which is over this week or next week depending on where you are there's a distinction made between houses that are in unwalled cities and houses that are in walled cities The distinction is that a house that's in a none walled city returns to their own ax and Yeovil just like their field Says there are bond because if there's a house in this town the walled cities so Mustafa its associated with the field and that's where you live when you're working in the field then and so You need it. Just like you need your fields in order to earn a living You know you need that house, but why'd you buy your house in walled city? It's residential So illa watch you have a an emotional attachment no case you have a limited amount of time to redeem it and then buy another house, you know, you'll be You know, you'll have an emotional attachment to that. Yeah when I grew up in a house, I don't want so Recently, I had some of my kids around America. I drove them past my old house. This is where I grew up so I grew up then my parents moved to West Hampstead they were and that has for over 20 years and There was an emotional attachment to it And then we sold it when my mother passed away So now you move onto another house People get an emotional attachment they move on But that's not what you're getting you land back weekend you land back for because I needed to be able to make a living not Because I have an emotional attachment Yeah, there are certain places Yeah that have more of an intensity So the psalmist says but it's more than that because the city that had a wall around it when it came into air It's so it has an inherent kedusha for example you read Magilla on Tess love and Cities that had a wall around it from the time of yahshua when we came in and captured it Or a city with a wall around it From the time of Yahshua. It has a higher level of conducive holiness. You send out abuts or you send You know certain certain dhinam applied to it if it's a city with a wall around it so says it's fast MS because the kedusha is not distributed evenly and the Kanani Who understood spirituality because they worked hard to cancel it out whenever they found the concentration of Kedusha of holiness of spirituality they built a wall around it to lock it in So that it shouldn't hospital them spread and they used that to concentrate all the tumour in to try to counteract it So we came in we saw the walls around the cities. We knew what we were The remains of Elie Cohen Finally being returned to the Jewish people. He was a spy he made his way up in the Syrian military And one of the things he did is he? said in the Golan Heights They had these built-in bunkers and he says that they become boiling hot this cement things out in the Sun he says plant these trees around them so that you'll be able to give shade to the soldiers and He passed this information on to the Israelis So in the 67 war when we went up into the Golan Heights, they just looked forever There were these trees and that's where they threw their grenades to be able to knock the people out They were able to identify him right away when he came in there. It's true any place We saw the canal had built a wall we knew this was a place that had concentration of kedusha of holiness So the mission and calum tells us there are 10 levels of kedusha number one is the land of israel Number two a walled city is from the time of Yeshua And the third one is your shall. I am the fourth one is the heart by is the Temple Mount and Within the Temple Mount it goes more and more intense till it reaches the Holy of Holies, the Kodesh Hakedoshim. There's a concentration of kedusha. So when we we understand that there's a concentration of kedusha in place, there's a concentration of kedusha in time. And the sefiras haomer, the seven weeks that we're spending are building ourselves up to that day of Shavuos, which is the 50th day 50 is like that yovel which is outside of time and space, and this is going to take us someplace outside of time and space to be able to get the Torah, to be able to appreciate it in a way (Deep breath) "Ki mitzion tetze Torah." Says the Ramban: why is the building of the Mishkan in the end of Sefer Shemos? Because the purpose of going out of Egypt was to get the Torah, and the purpose of the Mishkan was to be a traveling Har Sinai. And that's where the Sanhedrin sets themselves up on the Har Habais the Temple Mount by the Beis Hamikdash. The relationship of the Torah of Har Sinai and the Har Habais and the closest we can get to it today Hakotel, the Western Wall, so that's the concentration in space. Just as Shavuos is that conclusion and concentration and time of the build up of the seven weeks. So im yirtze Hashem, we should conclude our preparation and we should be able to go in to the into Shavuos with the proper mindset and those of us who are here we should make an effort certainly to have that same appreciation for the kedusha of Eretz Yisrael and Yerushalaim. And take that opportunity to be able to feel that power at the Kotel. That's it for this week. If you'd like more information on this show in general go to rabbiorlofsky.com/podcast If you'd like to make a comment on this particular show go to rabbiorlofsky.com/podcast/37 If you want to find out about upcoming events rabbiorlofsky.com/events As I mentioned I'm gonna be in America the last two weeks of June If you'd like to contact me go to rabbiorlofsky.com/contact And if you'd like to sponsor a podcast go to rabbiorlofsky.com/podcast. Click on the sponsor and episode button. I'm Dovid Orlofsky, this is The Rabbi Orlofsky Show. (Music)