This weeks Torah portion: Hot Dogs and Wrestling?

  

HEBREW

              AL Hanisim-  mistaken transliteration-

              Torah Service-  Vayehi-  

   

HEBREW NATIONAL 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qCT5REVhfc

JS-  Parsha

Wrestling!

On the Banks of the Yabbok!

Meat, wrestling, and nerves-  Handout

Afterward

Rahcel’s tomb:  Other Side of the Wall - Biking to Rachel's Tomb - YouTube

 

 הַנִּסִּים

Hanesim

Hanasim

Hanisim

Hanasam

Hana-Maki

 

 

 הַפֻּרְקָן

Hafurkav

Hapurekan

Hafurkan

Hapurkan

Hapurttylittlekitten

 

 

 הַגְּבוּרוֹת

Hagivurot

Hajevurot

Hag’vudot

Hag’vurot

Hagi Burot

 

 

 

הַתְּשׁוּעוֹת

Hateshu’tzot

Ha’tashu’ot

Ha’teshu’ot

Ha’chu’ot

Habainibioboebeh

 

 הַנִּפְלָאוֹת

Haniflaois

Hanefila’ot

Hanif’laot

Hanif’laut

Hanif el-Rashid

 

 

 הַנֶּחָמוֹת

Hanechamoot

Hanehamoot

Hanechamot

Hanehamot

Hanachocheese

 

 שֶׁעָשִׂיתָ

Shetza’seeta

Shetza’sheeta

Sheah’sheeta

Sheah’seeta

Sheh lo yodea

 

לַאֲבוֹתֵינוּ

La’avotei’nu

Lavoteh’nu

Lavotei’nu

Le’avotei’nu

La'av'av'avoteinu

 

 

 בַּיָּמִים הָהֵם

Bayamem Haham

Beyemem Heheym

Baiyamin Haheym

Baiyamim Chachem

Binyamin Chochom

 

 בַּזְּמַן הַזֶּה

At that time

At this time

In their time

In our time

There’s no time

 

 

 

 

 Vayishlach

PART ONE (Beraysheet 32:4 –33:17)

A- Now Ya’akov sent messengers on ahead of him to Esav his brother in the land of Se’ir, in the territory of Edom, and charged them, saying:

“Say to my lord, to Esav:

So says your servant Yaakov:

I have traveled with Lavan and have gone-slowly until now.

Ox and donkey, sheep and servant and maid have become mine.

So I have sent to tell my lord, to find favor in your eyes.”

The messengers returned to Yaakov, saying:

“We came to your brother, to Esav—

but he is already coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him!”

 

B- Yaakov became exceedingly afraid and was anxious.

He divided the people that were with him and the sheep and the oxen and the camels into two camps;  he said [to himself]:

Should Esav come against the one camp and strike it, the camp that is left will be a remnant that escapes.   Then Yaakov said:

“God of my father Avraham,  God of my father Yitzhak, O Adonai,

who said to me: Return to your land, to your people, and I will deal well with you!—

too small am I for all the loyalty and faithfulness that you have shown your servant.  For with [only] my staff did I cross this Jordan, and now I have become two camps.

Hatzi’layni nah!/Please save me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esav!  For I am in fear of him,

for he may come and strike all of mine down, mothers and children alike!

Yet you, you have said:

I will deal well, well with you,  I will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which is too much to count!”

 

 

 

 

 

C- He spent the night there that night,

and took a gift from what was at hand, for Esav his brother:

she-goats, two hundred, and kids, twenty,

ewes, two hundred, and rams, twenty,

nursing camels and their young, thirty,

cows, forty, and bulls, ten,

she-donkeys, twenty, and colts, ten;

he handed them over to his servants, herd by herd separately,

and said to his servants:

“Cross on ahead of me, and leave room between herd and herd.”

He charged the first group, saying:

“When Esav my brother meets you and asks you, saying: To whom do you belong, where are you going, and to whom do these ahead of you belong?

Then say:

—to your servant, to Yaakov, it is a gift sent to my lord, to Esav,

and here, he himself is also behind us.”

 

 

          Warmup:  Limericks- Wrestling.

                             The moves make the whole ring quake

                            Holds and grips that could make bones break

                             But ask those in the know

                             They will all tell you so

                             Professional wrestling is ____________________.

 

 

                             Sumo wrestlers huge and rarely hyper

                             So sweaty they could use a window wiper

                             at the next basho or tourney

                             make an ettitqute jour

                             they wear mawashi  not a _____________________.

                            

 

 

                             Olympic sports may start or cease

                             Some new sport may get a lease

                             But some sports are classic

                             Like from  the era Jurassic

                             wresting goes back to ancient _____________.

 

 

                             Separated the wrestlers begin

                             And then fight until one gets to win

                             The hard way to go

                             Is to win with a throw

                             Most wrestlers win their match with a _____________________.

                            

 

                            Separated, Sumo wrestlers begin

                             And collide with a terrible din

                             Only foot soles touch floor

                             But there is one rule more

                             Step out of the ring and you don’t _________________________.

 

                             Professional wrestlers adore

                             Drama and costumes and more

                             But it’s not just in the US

                             There’s pro wrestling success,

                             In Mexico they cheer the _______________.

                                                                       

  

D- In that way he instructed the second, and also the third, and all that were walking behind the herds, saying:  “This what you will speak to Esav when you come upon him:

you shall say: “Indeed, your servant Yaakov is behind us.” For he (Yaakov) said [to himself]:

I will wipe [the anger from] his face

with the gift that goes “ahead of my face;”

afterward, when I see his face,

perhaps he will lift up my face!

The gift crossed over “ahead of his face,”  but he spent the night on that night in the camp. He arose during that night and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children to cross the Yabbok river crossing. He took them and brought them across the river; he brought across what belonged to him.  And Yaakov was all alone—

 

DON’T BE IGNORANT OF YOUR RUMP,

OR, KASHRUT AND HINDQUARTERS

Often enough,  we  here in the USA see that this is what is kosher on a kosher, four legged animal: the hind quarters are not listed as kosher.

However, when you go to Israel, the situation is  totally different

Meet the Shoshani Brothers.  They run Jerusalem’s best known butcher shop,  Shoshani and Sons, Inc., which is under top-level Kosher supervision.  The shop was started by their father before the state of Israel was established!

        

Jerusalem’s top restaurants buy their meat here, and lovers of good food order from them.  And their store has a meat map like this :

Kosher butchers like the Shoshani’s, as well meat stands at the supermarkets throughout Israel  show the whole cow!  All those cuts that are normally not available as Kosher in the USA are sold there:  Sirloin, Tenderloin, Flank, Top Round.   In Israel, kosher hind cuts are common and affordable.   In the USA,  we rarely see them, if at all. What is going on here?   It all has to do with our ancestor  Ya’akov.

BEREY’SHEET (GENESIS) 32: 22-32

And Ya’akov was all alone— then a man wrestled with him on and on until dawn.  When the man saw that he could not win against Ya’akov, the man struck at the socket of Ya’akov's hip so that it was dislocated as they wrestled.  Then the man said, "Let me go; it's almost dawn!" But Ya’akov answered, "I won't let you go until you bless me!"  So the man asked him, "What's your name?" "Ya’akov [Heel-Twister]," he answered. 

 The man said, "Your name will no longer be Ya’akov but Yisra’el [wrestles God] because you have struggled with God and with men--  and you have won."  Ya’akov said, "Please tell me your name." The man answered, “You need to ask my for my name?” Then he fled from Ya’akov.  So Ya’akov named that place Peni-el [Face of God], because he said, "I have seen God face to face, but my life was saved."  The sun rose as he passed Peni-el. He was limping because of his hip.  Therefore, even today the people of Yisrael  do not eat the Gid Ha’nashe [Sciatic tendon/nerve] because Ya’akov's hip was dislocated at the thigh muscle.

Look at the reactions of sages to this last verse:

The Bechor Shor (Oleans, France, 12^th cen.):  It is to be a commemoration for them that their forefather fought with the angel, and [the latter] could not conquer him. And so [the angel] wounded him in the rear-facing section of his thigh, in the place where there is the sciatic nerve. And it is a commemoration of glory and greatness.

 

Chizkuni (France, 13^th cen.):  it would be right and proper to punish the Israelites not to eat that particular sinew as they should not have allowed their founding father to be exposed to hostile forces at night! Yaakov’s sons were physically strong, and they should have been at hand to assist their father if the need arose to do so. Seeing that they failed to do this, the blame for the injury sustained by their father was theirs. From now on they would have learned their lesson and would practice the commandment to accompany their father, or for that matter, any older and wiser person, especially at night. 

 

Ibn Ezra (Spain, 12^th cen.) :The meaning of the term gid ha-nasheh (the sinew of the thigh-vein) is known from the tradition received and transmitted to us by the Talmudic sages. The rabbis interpret gid ha-nasheh to mean the sinew that slipped from its place. No one but those lacking in understanding and knowledge of nature have any doubt as to its definition.

 

Tur HaArokh (Toledo, Spain, 14^th cen.) :    The Jews not eating this sinew are comparable to sons who make a point of fasting on the anniversary of their father’s death. Another way of looking at this law? In the future, the Jewish people would be commanded not to eat this sinew in order that they should remain aware of the miracle which had occurred when a mortal man, their ancestor Yaakov, had been able to prevail against a celestial force trying to wrestle him to the ground.

 

So Jews who observe Kashrut won’t eat this part of an animal, and that sometimes means not eating parts of the hindquarters. So what do they do for meat headed to Israel that we don’t do here? 

A trained kosher butcher will  cut out the forbidden tissue from the meat,  a process called Nikur.  There used to be many people in the United States who were Menakerim,  experts in Nikur,  but due to a number of reasons, there are only three left in the entire US!  So aside from three stores here,  you have to go to Israel to find a kosher sirloin, as in Israel there are still many Menakerim.  However,  as we try and eat less meat-  and waste less of the meat we do eat, there may be a return of these cuts to the kosher market in America. 

(See-  it really stands out!--> ) So when we look at this week’s Torah Portion and ask “what does this have to do with being Jewish today,”  the answer is clear, no butts about it!  What we eat, when we follow the discipline of kashrut, anchors us to the lives of our ancestors and their struggles.

 

 

 

 Avot d’Rabbi Natan, v. 2, ch. 37, s.v. עשרה נקודות

Why are there dots over all these letters? This is what Ezra said: If Elijah comes and says to me, why the heck did you write this down? I shall say to him, I made marks over them. And if he says to me, You wrote it well, I shall take the marks off them.

 

PART THREE CH. 35 vv 16-21

They moved on from Bet-El/House of God.
But when there was still a stretch of land to come to Efrat,
Rahel began to give birth, and she had a very hard birthing.

It was, when her labor was at its hardest, that the midwife said to her:
“Do not be afraid,
for this one too is a son for you!”

But was, as her life was slipping away
—for she was dying—
that she called his name: “Ben-Oni/Son-of-My-Suffering!”
But his father called him: Binyamin/Son-of-my-Right-Hand.

Thus Rahel died;  she was buried along the way to Efrat—that is Bet-Lehem.

Yaakov set up a standing-pillar over her burial-place;
that is Rahel’s burial pillar of today.

 

 

PART FOUR CH. 35 vv.27-29

Yaakov came home to Yitzhak his father at Mamre, in the city of Arba—

that is Hevron, where Avraham and Yitzhak had sojourned.

And the days of Yitzhak were a hundred years and eighty years,

Then Yitzhak passed away.
He died and was gathered to his kinspeople, old and satisfied in days.
Esav and Yaakov his sons buried him.