The Shevatim Streets

I went to Baka today with a mission: to take pictures of all the Shevatim street signs. While carefully planning out my mission the night before (it was actually past midnight, so it was more like the early morning of) I was shocked and appalled to discover that there was no street for Shevet Binyamin. But I made the best of it, as you shall see. (There was also no street for Dina. Apparently, just being Ya'akov's daughter didn't rate a street sign. Sigh.)

These are in the order listen in the beginning of Bamidbar, not the order I took the pictures in.

The biological but not spiritual, territorial, or royal firstborn, due mainly to this.



The Shevet that disappears mysteriously by the time Moshe blesses the Shevatim in V'Zot HaBracha.


My Shevet!!! And the spiritual first born. And the Shevet with the most development and growth throughout the entire Torah (not that I'm biased :)


The royal firstborn. Along with Yosef, ties for the son that undergoes the most personal growth and development in Bereshit, especially here.

Don't pronounce the second "sin" lest you be implying that Ya'akov was a prostitute... Yissachar's birth is a great story. Zevulun's is somewhat less exciting. I get the impression that they hung out a lot as kids and stuck together as Leah's youngest. These two also have to go together because of the whole learning Torah/working dealie that they had. I really admire that kind of partnership - as long as both partners are in it by choice, as is the case here. Forcing someone into that kind of thing is just gonna make them mad. Someone should tell the Knesset that.


There was no Yosef street in Baka, so I am assuming that Menashe and Efrayim streets were deliberate replacements. Efrayim is the spiritual firstborn of Yosef, Menashe the biological. And of course, we bless our sons by their names. And their father, Yosef, was the territorial firstborn, as you can see from here.


I couldn't find a Binyamin street in Baka, so I walked to Rechavia... and this was the closest I could get. This guy actually did some pretty cool stuff for the Jewish people, so it's good enough for me.

Shimshon came from this Shevet, which was also the flag bearing leader of the North side of Israelite camp.

My 3rd brother! That's always the first thing I think of when I think of this Shevet. The second thing is olive trees.


English speaking Jewish youngsters love this Shevet because it sounds like God... Ha ha ha... well it was hilarious in elementary school. Big military shevet and also chose not to live in Israel, strangely...

The kids also love this Shevet because Naftali, the son, was supposed to be a really fast runner. Kids love that.

Anyway so that's it. That was my epic adventure of the day. I hope you now appreciate the natural Jewish character of Israel just a little bit more.

After all, how often do you walk down a street called Naftali?

A Belated Tisha B'Av Thought

On Tisha B'Av, I went to a shiur by Rav Ari Kahn which I found very meaningful. It discussed a range of topics and themes relating to Tisha B'Av and I cannot do justice to the entire shiur, but I would like to recount a small section of it as best I can. And when I say "small section", I mean that this is kind of long, so you may want to read it over dinner or something.
The story of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza is one of the few things that we are permitted to study on Tisha B'Av. It is in Talmud Bavli, Gitin 55b. I will summarize it, but I encourage you to look it up here and read it over for yourself.
There was a certain man who had a friend named Kamtza and a sworn enemy named Bar Kamtza. He told his servant to invite Kamtza to a party that he was having, but the servant accidentally invited Bar Kamtza. Bar Kamtza came to the party and the host, shocked to see his enemy sampling the hors d'oeuvres, furiously told him to leave. Bar Kamtza requested that the host let him pay for whatever he ate, but to let him stay. The host refused. Bar Kamtza then upped the ante and offered to pay for half of the party if the host would just let him stay. The host refused. Bar Kamtza then desperately offered to pay for the entire affair, if only the host would let him stay. But the host refused, and threw him out. Bar Kamtza noticed that "the Rabbis" were at the party, and that they did nothing to stop the host, clearly indicating that they were in agreement with the Bar Kamtza's unnamed enemy.
The vengeful Bar Kamtza went to the Emperor and told him that the Jews were rebelling against him. The Emperor asked how he knew this and Bar Kamtza said "Send them an offering and see if they will offer it on the altar." The Emperor sent a fine calf back to the Jews with Bar Kamtza, but Bar Kamtza purposely made a blemish on its upper lip (according to some versions, in the white of its eye) which would render it unfit for a Jewish sacrifice but not a Roman one. This presented the Jews with a very serious problem. Should they offer the sacrifice the calf despite the blemish for the sake of national security? Or should they refuse to defile the altar of the Lord with a blemished animal? "The Rabbis" took the former position, and R. Zechariah ben Avkulas took the latter. A compromise was suggested where they would refuse to sacrifice the animal but kill Bar Kamtza, thereby fulfilling both objectives, but R. Zechariah objected again, saying that such an action would lead people to believe that one who blemished sacrifices was liable to the death penalty.
The story ends with a comment by R. Yochanan, the storyteller. He says "Due to the scrupulousness of R. Zechariah b. Avkulas our Beit HaMikdash was destroyed and we Jews were exiled from our land."
The Maharsha offers a fascinating explanation of the story. "Bar" in Aramaic means "the son of." Perhaps Bar Kamtza was really Kamtza's son, and Kamtza's best friend (the unnamed host) was also Kamtza's son's sworn enemy. A strange arrangement, to be sure, but, as Rav Kahn pointed out, it makes the story far more interesting.
The invitation to the party must have seemed to Bar Kamtza like a peace offering. He probably assumed that his father had finally spoken to his obstinate friend and that this was an opportunity to end the hatred. When he was met with a chilling reception at the party by the host, all of his hopes for reconciliation must have come crashing down in an instant. When he tried to convince the host to give him a break and was rebuffed at every turn, he must have started to wonder... "My father's close friend invites me to a party only to publicly humiliate me? How can he do this to me? He is my father's friend! Unless... It can't be! My father must be in on this! He must hate me too!"
It probably seems, certainly to any parent, absurd logic. A father who hates his son? A father who would want to see his own son humiliated by a friend? But to the son, this fits in perfectly. His father, Kamtza, never tried to make peace between his son and his friend. Why not? Perhaps this is his father's way of showing his son whose side he is really on. Bar Kamtza leaves the party bearing the pain of his father's imagined hatred and is driven to destroy his entire people by his lack of faith in the love of his father.
Let us digress momentarily and discuss R. Zechariah b. Avkulas and his actions. He was very scrupulous about Halakha, to the point where he didn't actually end up making a decision. If you look carefully at the story, R. Zechariah never actually makes a psak, or legal ruling. He only points out that the suggestions on the table are not viable. He makes no suggestions of his own. And in the end, his indecisiveness is the worst of all possible positions and leads to the destruction of the Temple.
Rav Kahn found one other place in the Talmud that R. Zechariah is mentioned. In BT Shabbat 143a there is a discussion of how to dispose of bones on Shabbat (due to issues of muktza). R. Sheshet spat them out, R. Papa threw them behind the couch, and R. Zechariah spat them behind the couch. I know, it's a strange argument, but notice - R. Zechariah couldn't decide if he should spit them our or throw them behind the couch, so he simply played it safe and complied with both positions, rather than make a Halakhic choice.
In the Tosefta on Shabbat, Perek 16, Halakha 7 (Perek 17, Halakha 4 at Mechon Mamre) there is a further discussion of this issue. Beit Hillel held that one could pick up a plate with bones on it and dispose of them. Beit Shammai held that one had to pick up the entire tray (in Talmudic times, people generally ate on separate, private trays instead of one big table) and then dispose of the bones. R. Zechariah did not act in accordance with Beit Shammai or Beit Hillel, but rather, spat the bones behind the couch. R. Yosi commented on this that due to the humility [an alternate translation, it fits the shoresh of the word better and meshes with the character of R. Zechariah well] of R. Zechariah, the Beit HaMikdash was burned.
Once again, R. Zechariah does not have the composure to choose what is right or wrong, but rather avoids the decision entirely.
The Maharatz Chiyut comments, on BT Gitin 56, that R. Zechariah couldn't poskin for his life (that's a direct quote) and that he was so worried about doing something that might not be totally Halakhic because perhaps he was not great enough to make a Halakhic decision in a dire situation. And his "humility" was so much so that he would not stand by an opinion of his own - and this was the reason that the Beit HaMikdash was destroyed.
Rav Moshe, in Igrot Moshe Yoreh Deah, Chelek 1, Siman 101 addresses the issue of hesitancy to poskin and basically says (I am majorly paraphrasing and it's a great teshuva, so if you can you should look it up) that the fear of giving psak, especially when dealing with tricky issues, especially when someone suffers as the posek continues to push off making a Halakhic decision, is exactly what destroyed the Beit HaMikdash. He even references the Kamtza/Bar Kamtza sugya!
So it seems that a lack of self confidence was the reason that the Beit HaMikdash was destroyed.
In fact, the first Tisha B'Av in Jewish history was in the Midbar, after Bnei Yisrael decided that they didn't want to go into Israel after all, thanks to an inspiring report about the conditions there from the spies (well, everyone except for Yehoshua and Kalev). They spent the night crying about how they would never succeed as Israelis. Hashem got pretty annoyed about that and declared that, due to the fact that they had spent the night crying over nothing, Hashem would give them something to cry about forever. At least that's what it says in BT Ta'anit 29a.
Let's take a slightly closer look at what exactly Bnei Yisrael were crying about. Loosely translated, Bamidbar 13:33 means: "And there we saw the Nefilim, the sons of Anak from the Nefilim, and we were like grasshoppers (chagavim) in our eyes and so to in theirs."
Anotherwards, Bnei Yisrael felt inadequate and assumed that they, in fact, were inadequate. Nothing could be further from the truth, especially considering the fact that GOD was on their side! I feel the need to call your attention to Bamidbar 22, which tells the story of Balak Ben Tzippor, the king of Moav. As it turns out, the Jewish people terrify him. So apparently, the Jewish people are only grasshoppers in their own eyes. Not anyone else's.
And now for the icing on the cake:
Targum Onkelos translates the work chagavim as kamtzin.
Yeah.
As in Kamtza and Bar Kamtza.

Looks like if we all try to have a little more faith in ourselves and the fact that God is on our side,
the next Tisha B'Av might be a happy one.

The Lishkat Giyus in Be'er Sheva

On Thursday, I finally hung out with some people my age...
I went to the draft office in Be'er Sheva to try and volunteer for the army. This was about 10 in the morning. I walked in and asked to volunteer and after the expected waiting period they told me to fill out a form and put it in a box and maybe they would call me in 3 months. I did that, and then thought the better of it and pulled out the letter I had from Yael Keinan, who was probably their boss' boss and showed it to the person at the reception desk. Her eyes widened considerably when she looked at it and that's when I knew that something good might happen.
She sent me to Room 6, where I waited for a while and finally spoke to Idan. Idan is the man. He wrote down my details and told me that he was going to check with the specific unit that I wanted to be in and let me know in a week or two if everything was in order. He then gave me white card (which is something you put in the different machines at the different stages of testing at the lishkat giyus) and sent me off to station one.
Station one was an interview with a female soldier. I was asked about my name, ID number, address, phone number, family members to contact in case (chas v'chalila, the female soldier assured me) something bad happened, and immediate family members in general (I told her that I had four older brothers but gave them no names, for those of you invested in this process). She asked me if the Be'er Sheva address they had on file was relevant, and I laughed and said that my parents hadn't lived there since 1973. She also made me sign some stuff. It was in Hebrew. It mostly had to do with not leaving the country 30 days or less before I was going to get drafted and only going to army doctors once I was in the army, etc.
She tested my level of Hebrew by asking me to explain a few vocabulary words (I didn't know any of them) and then asking me to read and explain a couple of sentences (I didn't do very well with the explaining, the reading was OK) and then write down a few sentences that she said in Hebrew (this was OK but not great).
Then she asked me why I had wanted to move to Israel and volunteer for the army. I explained it to her in Hebrew as best I could and got a little teary eyed. It was something like how my life would be much easier but much less meaningful in the States and that I wanted to get engineering experience in the army but also felt I had something to contribute. She asked me some more personal questions as well, but I'm not going to talk about that... Needless to say, at the end of it, I asked her if there was a rule about being rejected from the army if one cried in the lishkat giyus and she smiled and said no.
Then she asked me what I liked to do. I told her that I liked to read and she asked me to explain something about a book that I was currently reading to her (I assume this was to test my level of spoken Hebrew). I had taken The Little Prince along, because it always helps me feel brave and it was all I could think of. So, I took a deep breath and started explaining (in pidgin Hebrew...) how everyone thought that it was a little kids book but that really it contained some truly deep ideas and that the relationship between the fox and the prince was actually a metaphor for the relationship between Hashem and Bnei Yisrael. Especially Chapter 21.
I kid you not. That was the first thing I could think of! And then she asked me to keep going...
So I went on, explaining how it talked about taking time off from everyday things to be together, which was like Shabbat, and the importance of thinking about a relationship and not just being in it. And how the wheat fields meant nothing to the fox before he met the prince, but afterwards, they always reminded him of the prince, whose hair was gold in color, like the wheat fields. At that point, she told me to stop, so I didn't get a chance to explain how that was the whole point of tzitzit.
To her credit, she did not laugh or smirk at me a single time and was absolutely polite and respectful to a T. And she was almost certainly only 18 years old! She also told me that I would have to come back with my original diploma to prove to them that I had a degree. I had debated, back in Yerushalayim on Wednesday night, if I should bring my diploma. I decided not to, in the end, but apparently I should have.
Then she sent me upstairs to station 2, the medical testing part. After waiting around for a while, I peed in a cup and put a stick in it and the female soldier who was supervising the pee stick process checked off a few things on a form and told me to wait some more. While I was waiting, I got into a conversation in Hebrew with a modern Charedi guy (black pants and white shirt but he was talking to me -that kind of Charedi). He could see that I was religious and he asked me why I was volunteering for the army etc. I asked him to speak a little more slowly and did my best to explain. He told me that he was waiting for his friend, who was getting drafted, and that he himself planned on getting an exemption because he wanted to learn. I found out that he lived in Be'er Sheva. We waited together in silence a little longer, and then, because I was bored, I decided to needle him a little. "So," I asked him "Where's your book? Why aren't you learning right now?" "Well," he explained "one can't focus his mind on learning 100% of the time." "I see." I said and then pulled out my Tanach to read while I waited. Then he asked me a riddle, which was "Where does 'Avraham, Avraham' appear in the Torah?" I pondered it for a while, suggesting the Akeda and Brit Bein HaBetarim, and he said the Akeda was correct but there was one more place. I puzzled over this until his friend showed up and he asked his friend the riddle as well. Neither of us got it, so he said "In Parashat Toldot - Eleh Toldot Yitzchak ben Avraham..." and I finished "Avraham Holid Et Yitzchak!" We laughed and then his friend nudged him that they had to go. He turned to me and said "So, can I have your number?" I was amused, but said "No, sorry." His friend, really embarrassed now, nudged him again. But he persisted, "C'mon, we should be in touch." I shook my head and politely declined. He shrugged, and they left. So I got hit on by a Charedi guy (who was probably 17!) at the lishkat giyus. Weird things happen in Israel.
Then they gave me a medical form to fill out and it was, of course, in Hebrew. Having no clue what any of the diseases were in Hebrew, I threw myself upon the mercy of the 18 year olds running the medical station and they all gathered around in a circle and we did the medical form together. Plus I called Ima and Abba to ask about any family diseases we might have. Then I waited some more.
I finally got weighed (56 kilos!) and they measured my height (dunno how much, but for any of you who know me, not much at all) and I had to wait a little longer for the doctor. I finally got examined by her (she told me to take off my shirt and I misunderstood and started taking off my skirt and she rolled her eyes and repeated the instructions) and she spoke both Hebrew and Russian, but no English whatsoever. She called in a few of the soldiers to help translate and we managed to communicate. In the midst of this, the Misrad HaKlita called about my ulpan voucher, which I need to switch (that's a whole other story...) and of course I had to answer and talk to them and explain a rule about Jewish Agency ulpans that they should have already known, and the doctor was annoyed. Plus the women who run the phones at the Misrad HaKlita are mean! The doctor gave me two forms to fax back which had to be completed by a regular doctor and an eye doctor.
Finally I was finished with the medical stuff, but I was starving. All I had eaten that day was an apple and two cookies for breakfast. Anyone with a white card could get a free sandwich but all the sandwiches were meat. So no food for me... So I went straight into the computer tests. The first two were patterns (I think they were psycho-technical tests) and were in English. The last one was sort of a personality test and it was in Hebrew so two female soldiers sat with me and explained everything. Then they said I was free to go.
I called my man Nimrod, who is my contact in the army itself, and left him a message that I had gone to the lishkat giyus so he would know what was going on.
I also want to say that throughout the entire process I was presented with a variety of forms in Hebrew that I did not understand or given instructions that I didn't understand and that every single soldier that I encountered (remember, these are all kids between 18 and 21!) was extraordinarily patient and kind to me. And several of them spoke English pretty well. I don't know where they put all the mean people in the army, but everyone at the lishkat giyus in Be'er Sheva is very nice. When I finally left the lishkat giyus around 5, one of the guards asked me, in astonishment "Were you really here that whole time?!"
Thankfully my dear friend Anna fed and watered me when I got back to her apartment in Be'er Sheva and I went back to Yerushalayim with a full stomach and a newfound love for the Israeli expression "Chaval Al HaZman!" That probably isn't funny to anyone except for me. But it's a good expression.