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Such an amazing privilege to be a part of this very special Shabbos. I think very often when it comes to these types of events, there could be a certain cynicism. So what are we doing already? Such a fancy Shabbos with such fancy foods and chashavah singers, but there's a feeling, at least the feeling I have every year when I come in for the Shabbos, of how beautiful it is that we all get together. To spend time with each other, brothers and sisters, to spend the summer working with the Eibushers' children, and to spend our time preparing ourselves and learning what it will mean to try to be people who will have an impact—that's no small thing. There's a story at the end of this week's parasha.
It's a strange story. It's not a story that many of us know much about. It's the story of the Makaloh, this nameless Makaloh, someone who curses Hashem. If we look at the story, it tells us some interesting details that seem to be largely irrelevant. Shmuel, you already read this. Know this one. I think you might. We'll see. Pasuk tells us that there was a son of a Jewish woman and an Egyptian man, and his mother's name was Shlomis Basdivri. She belonged to Shevet Dan.
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The pasuk tells us, "Hoytziy as a makalal, mikhus la machana." Makalal goes out from the machana, and in front of everybody, he's makalal the Sheim Hashem. It's not exactly clear what happens here, but it seems from the psukim that for some reason Moshe Rabbeinu wasn't exactly sure what to do, so they put him in jail. They put this mekalal in jail while Moshe Rabbeinu could ask Hakadosh Baruch Hu for guidance as to what he should do with him, and they're instructed to stone him. Go into the pesukim of Nezikin. Torah tells us the halachas of damages, seemingly out of nowhere. And then at the very end, it says that they took the makal and ichus la'machane, and they stoned him. This is the story. A story that's missing a tremendous amount of holes. We don't know what's going on over here.
Chazal tell us that this mekalal was scoffing about the lechem apanim. Should a king eat cold stale bread? This is what the mekalal said. Why that? Of all the things that the mekalal could have chosen to make fun of, why is he making fun of the lechem apanim? Why do we have hukhas nazikin in the middle of this story? So I'm not going to quote from each medrash individually, or from the Zayar Hakadosh individually. But if you look at the mafarshim, the following story emerges. There's a behind-the-scenes story about the Makalim. In 210 years of slavery in Mitzrayim, there was only one woman who was taken advantage of by an Egyptian man, only once.
In the entire 210 years, Baruch Hashem, the women were modest, and they were not taken advantage of, with one exception. The exception was Shloimeh Bas Diveri. Chazal tell us that her name was Shloimeh Bas Diveri because she would say Shalom. She would go out. She was in a certain way. A little bit too friendly with the Egyptian men. She spoke a little bit too much, and there was one Egyptian man. There was one Egyptian man who found himself very attracted to Shlaimas Basdevri, and so he devised the plan. The plan is that he shows up to the house of Shlaimas Basdevri. He wakes up the husband. It's very early in the morning. And he starts yelling at the husband, "You're late! You're late! You have to go to work!" So the husband gets up and rushes out to work. When he gets there, he sees that nobody else is there. He sees that he's early for work. So he goes home. But in the interim period, this Egyptian man came to get the husband out of the house so that he could do inappropriate things with Shlaimas Basdivri against her will.
Why is this Egyptian attracted to her? Alpi Kabbalah. We know that Cain and Hevel. It wasn't just the carbon that they were fighting over, but the truth of the matter is that Hevel had two wives, two sisters that were his wives, and Cain was jealous. Why should you get a second wife? And so, one of the reasons Alpi Kabbalah that Cain killed Hevel was because he wanted the second wife for himself. Now Rizal teaches us that the spark of Cain was in this Egyptian man, and Shlomis Bas Divri is the Nitzots, is the spark, is the soul of the second wife of Hevel, and so there was this. Behind-the-scenes story going on that there's a Gilgal, a repeat of a story, and they have a child. This Egyptian man and Shlomos Basdivri have a child together, and that child will soon become the Makal. So the Makal, the Torah tells us the ancestry of the Makal, because it's relevant to the story. This child is the product of a union that's inappropriate.
Who's the husband? Everybody in this room knows exactly who the husband is, but none of us ever knew the inside story. We all know that Moshe Rabbeinu came out of the palace on the very first day that Moshe Rabbeinu came out of the palace. We see that an Egyptian man is hitting a Jewish man. Who is the Jewish man that's being hit by this Egyptian man? It's none other than the husband of Shlaim Esbasteri. Moshe Rabbeinu comes out of the palace, and Moshe Rabbeinu sees that there's a Jewish man being beaten by an Egyptian taskmaster. Why was he being beaten? Because he came home early, because he went to the fields, and he saw that nobody else was in the fields. He comes home and he sees this Egyptian man taking advantage of his wife, and now the Egyptian man is threatened because there's a halacha in Mitzrayim. Pharaoh said, "No Egyptian men will be with any of the Jewish women."
And now this Egyptian taskmaster has violated the laws of Paro himself, and therefore he is in danger of this Jew going to the authorities and saying, "I caught an Egyptian man with my wife." So he has no choice but to kill this Jewish man. Moshe Rabenu comes out in that moment, and Moshe Rabenu sees that what's really going on, and he sees that he's going to kill this Jewish man. So Moshe Rabenu kills the Mitzri. Who is the husband of Shlaimis Basdavri? It's Dasan.
Dason and Aviram. Dason was the husband of Shlaimas Bas Devri. Dason's wife, Shlaimas Bas Devri, she's afraid of her husband. She's afraid that now that her husband has seen that she's been violated by this Egyptian man, so she sees I'm in big trouble. So she runs to her brother's house. Who's her brother? Aviram. Dason and Aviram were brother-in-laws. And Shloimez Basdivri runs to Aviram's house. Meir Shabenu comes out the next day. Again, we knew the story. The entire, of course, everybody here knows the story. Meir Shabenu comes out. He sees Dassen and Aviram fighting. Why are Dassen and Aviram fighting? Up until now in our lives, did we know why Dassen and Aviram were fighting? Dassen and Aviram were fighting. Dassen and Aviram. We see them at the like Statler and Waldorf from the Muppets. Every time you see in the Torah, you see something happening. It's Dassen and Aviram were there. Why were they fighting? They were fighting over what happened the day before.
The day before, when Dasan came home and he saw his wife Shlomis Bas Divri, who behaved in an immodest way, and now this tragic thing happened. That's what they were fighting over, and so Moshe Rabbeinu tries to get involved, and because of that, Moshe Rabbeinu has to flee and go to Medinah. Dasan ultimately divorces Shlomis Bas Divri, and he remarries, and he has another child. Fast forward, many years later. And now we're in the Midbar, and everyone has to find a place to go to camp. And where do you go to camp? You go to camp according to your father's shemit. The child of Shlomos Basdivri, whose father is an Egyptian, has no place to go, and so he decides that he's going to try to make camp by his mother's camp.
By Shevet Dan. But the problem is that the halacha is, and one imagines that the Makalal knew this. The halacha is that where do you camp according to your father's camp? So why does he go to Shevet Dan? So we know that Shevet Dan had a very special role in the Midbar. We know that when all the Shvatim were walking and they were traveling in the Midbar, Shevet Dan was last. The mila of Don, without getting into too much detail right now because it's late at night, because I landed at 4:50 this morning. The mila of Shavuot Don is that they collected all the lost objects. And Jews, we tend to drop things when we travel. You ever see the lost and found in Ben Gurion? Every once in a while, I lose something.
And I have automatic yish. Zutoshal yam. I know it's never coming back. But for histadlus reasons, somehow you think you're going to go to the lost and found in Ben Gurion, and maybe some Israeli will be helpful. There's a lot of rachstos in the entire story. But back then in the Midbar, if you dropped something, there were shevet don at the end picking them up. So here's a young man, and everybody knows his story, because everybody knew why Moshe Rabbeinu had to run away to Midyan to begin with. It was because of that fight of Dassan and Aviram. And why were Dassan and Aviram fighting? Dassan and Aviram were fighting because Shlomis Bas Diveri was with this Egyptian. And this is that child. Could you imagine what it's like to grow up to be this child? And he's hoping for a place to go. And he's looking.
He's looking for a sense of belonging. There's a difference between belonging and connection. I'm hesitant to say this in a mixed group, but that's where we are. Everybody in this room has Gvadika connections. You don't date to find a connection. You have millions of connections in your life. A good shidduch is when you can be yourself with somebody. When there's a deep sense of belonging and acceptance. When there's a generosity of spirit. When there's compassion and kindness. When there's a person in the world that tells you, 'This is a good place to be.' You could be yourself here, all of yourself, your good parts, your terrible parts, your tragic parts, your chaotic parts, your broken parts. When there's a person in the world that looks at all of you and says.
Whoever you are, this is where you are. This is where you should be. One imagines that this child went through life. You can imagine what it must have been like for him in Cheder. You can imagine the other boys maybe made fun of him. You can imagine that he was picked on, and that he had no father to protect him. The Torah tells us time and time again that we have to be so careful. With a yasum or yasima, because the psychology of a yasum or yasima of an orphan child is that any time you say anything to them, in their heart of hearts they say, "Would you speak that way to me if I had a mother? Would you speak that way to me if I had a father?" This kid must have been in so much pain, and now there comes a proclamation: everyone will camp with their father's camp.
It's like Rabbi Bender Shlita from Yeshiva Darke Torah. I remember when he changed. There used to be a thing in Darke called Avosubanim. It's Avosubanim when fathers and sons come to learn together. I remember when Rabbi Bender changed it. He changed it to Dar le Dar because sometimes people don't have fathers to come with them on a Matzah Shabbos to learn. Sometimes they have uncles, or sometimes they have grandfathers. Sometimes the father's not in the picture. Sometimes they come with a neighbor. Could you imagine what it's like to be the child in Avosubanim who comes with no father? To learn with an uncle, or to learn with a neighbor, or to learn with a friend. So the sensitivity of Rabbi Bender to rename it Darlador is not a small thing. It's not just a name. It's not semantics. It's the psychology of understanding that there are people that are hurting in the world.
And so he says, at least I'll go with Shiva Don because they pick up lost objects, and I'm a lost object. I have no place to be. But a man came, and he started a fight, and he said, 'You don't belong here. This is not a place for you.' And who was that man? Remember that Dason got remarried, and he had a child from the second marriage. And this one was from Shevet Reuven. So here comes a man from Shevet Reuven, and he walks into the camp of Shevet Dan, and he sees his half brother, and he sees how embarrassed he is, and he sees how scared he is that he has nowhere to be, and he starts to fight. 'You don't belong here. This is not your father's camp.' And they bring it to Moshe Rabbeinu. What's the halach?
And Meir Abenhu says he's not allowed to be there, and now he has nowhere to go. He now curses Hashem. The Makalal doesn't curse Hashem because he's evil. The Makalal doesn't curse Hashem because he has bad hashgufas. The Makalal doesn't curse Hashem because he has bad midos. The Makalal curses Hashem because that's the way he authentically felt. Because that's what people do when they have no place in the world. They turn to Hashem and they go, 'Really? There's no place for me? There's no place for me? You're not interested in me?' It's like when Elisha ben Avuya heard the baskal that said, 'Shuvu banim shayvavim chutz me'ach.' That everybody in the world could do tshuva except for you. This was the voice that the mekalal heard when Moshe Rabbeinu made that psak, which was the right psak. It was the halachic psak.
But a pesach that Makal could not possibly hear, and so he comes and he curses and he takes Hashem's name in vain. The Makal was scoffing about the lechem apanim because the lechem apanim represent the warm, fresh relationship that we have with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. We know that the lechem apanim never went still. A person would walk into the Beis Hamikdash and the aroma of the lechem aponeim was overwhelming. There are many things when you come to America that you miss about Eretz Yisrael. But one thing I think we can all acknowledge and remember in Eretz Yisrael is there's nothing like walking by a bakery in the morning in Eretz Yisrael. If you have the schuz to live anywhere in the vicinity of Angel's Bakery, sometimes.
Places in Eretz Yisrael for a variety of reasons don't always smell the best. But if you're near a bakery, you walk by an Israeli bakery. Most delicious smell in the world. The Beis Hamikdash smelled like fresh bread. It smelled like a place that was alive. A person walked into the Beis Hamikdash and they felt the warm embrace of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. So the makalal is laughing at Klal Yisroel. You feel Hakadosh Baruch Hu's warm embrace? That's what you feel. That's your experience. That you're walking around saying, "I have a place in this world that Hakadosh Baruch Hu loves me," because the makalal never once felt it. Moshe Rabbeinu had the right pesach, and what the makalal did was a hundred percent wrong.
But it was also understandable, and yes, there has to be a psak din that he is stoned, and there has to be a psak din that the makhal is punished for what he did. But before Klal Yisrael could punish the makhal, before they could go out and stone him to death, listen to the halachos that they have to learn. They have to learn the halachos of damaging another person. Of the sensitivity of what it means that we're all living together and people are hurting each other all the time. And the halachas conclude: mishpat echod yielachem kager kezrah yekyani Hashem aleketer. There is one mishpat. There is one set of halachas for every single one of us. For the ger, for the Jew, we are all together. One set of halachas, because even though you, the mekalal, felt like you had no place here. In halacha, we never would have treated you differently. It's true you couldn't stay by Shavuot. It's true that we need to find a place for you. But the Mekalal, you should know there was a place for you. That we do see your godliness. That we do see your beauty. And Klal Yisrael, you can't stone him to death until you know that he had a place by us. And then only at the end, after this brief intermission of all the halachas of nezikin, are we finally able to met out the punishment.
And this is not academic. I'm going to say this summer, but I don't mean this summer. I really mean for everyone in this room right now, for everywhere that we go in our lives, this rule applies always. But this summer, b'frat, you are going to be responsible for young men and women. That is a massive responsibility. That is a sacred obligation that you've all taken upon yourselves this summer. And there is no doubt that there will be young NCS wires this summer that make mistakes and perhaps even bad mistakes. And there will be accountability because that's the right thing to do. But let's pause for a moment and recognize that every one of our NCS wires this summer comes from somewhere.
They come from somewhere, and let's again, we can all acknowledge it within ourselves. Some of us will say it out loud, and some of us will say it quietly, and some of us will never say it to anyone ever because we're too embarrassed to be ourselves in front of everybody. Even though every single person in this room is going through the same exact things, we're all hiding because it's deeply uncomfortable to be vulnerable. But the truth is that every one of us comes from a place of pain. Some of us have capital T traumas, and some of us have lowercase T traumas. But every single person in this room comes from a place of pain. Every single person in this room, on some level, comes from a place where they had in their life a lack of belonging. And if we behaved in certain ways in our lives that were inappropriate, yes, we should be held accountable. But what's critical, what's absolutely mission critical, is to be deeply understood. I'll share with you in the spirit of vulnerability.
I've shared this before. It's not a secret. I was expelled from school in fifth grade. People ask, 'What did you do to be expelled from school in fifth grade?' Say there. L'chaim. It doesn't matter what I did, and I have no tinas on the school for throwing me out. I understand. The truth of the matter is, I think they called me a classroom management challenge. I think that was the terminology. I have no tinas on them for throwing me out. I have one tina. The time that I spent in that school, that I was misbehaving, and I was, not once did anybody ask me why.
Not once did anybody ask me what my experience was. Nobody thought to say, 'Are you in some sort of pain? Is there something we can do? Is there something that's not going well?' I don't blame them for not asking the question. It was the '80s; we weren't yet psychologically aware. We were still holding by 'just say no.' In my new yeshiva that I went to, Yeshiva Darke Torah, the emphasis was the first time in my life that I had rebbeim that cared about me, that I had rebbeim that understood that I was a kid who was not going to be able to sit still. I remember very fondly my fifth grade rebbe, Rabbi Ben Yamin Kraus Shlitah. He had this gift that he would give me called emergency fire drill. You know what an emergency fire drill is?
It means we're all sitting in the class, and I'm wandering around the back of the class. And Rabbi Krauss would go, 'Berg, emergency fire drill,' and I was allowed to go for an emergency fire drill. What do you all hope? We all hope for fire drills in the middle of school, no? I had emergency fire drills all the time. I was allowed to go. I had a rebbe in eighth grade who understood me very much. He understood that I needed to get out. The Darche campus is quite a large campus. This particular Rebbe was a large man. I remember when the boys used to bring around. They still do this. They bring on bar mitzvah when they get bar mitzvah, put on tefillah, and they bring on donuts to the rebbeim. Is that still a minig in Klal Yisro? So this Rebbe, when the boys would come with the boxes of donuts. If you know.
So this Rebbe would say, 'I need to take three because I have a shilavah bracha chrona because there's so much air in the donuts.' He used to send me across the campus. There was a kitchen across the campus, and he used to ask me to bring back an enormous popcorn cup of diet soda with ice. He spoke Yiddish, so the Rebbe would say to me, 'Berg, mit ice,' and that was my cue to get up and run across the campus and bring him back a soda. Did he need a soda? I don't know if he did or he didn't. I think he knew that I needed to run across the campus. The truth of the matter is that Rebbe threw me out of class very often. In fact, he threw me out so often, I used to have to go to a different Rebbe's class. And there was a two-week period where I didn't get thrown out. And this other Rebbe called my mother, and he said, 'Mrs. Berg, I don't know how to tell you this, but I haven't seen your son for two weeks, and I'm concerned.'
And my mother's like, he's not in your class. I had just gotten thrown out there so often that he assumed that I was in his class. But I never—it never bothered me that the rebbe threw me out of class because I knew that he loved me. I knew that he cared about me. I knew that he was trying to figure it out. It was the first time that I had a deep sense of belonging. And it took me a very long time in my own life to forgive myself. It wasn't a simple process. To be able to look inside of myself and say, you weren't a bad kid, you weren't a troubled kid, you weren't a classroom management challenge. I was a classroom management challenge, but you know, you get that report card, and the report card, if you were a good, I'll speak to the girls for a second. I know you guys didn't get good report cards. You get that good report card, and you feel like I'm a good girl. You know that feeling? Who's expectations are you living up to? That report card doesn't tell you you're a good person.
And the bad report card doesn't tell you that you're a bad person. And for the five of you that were like, I got a good report card. That's your own stuff. He's like the guys around NCS. Why call us since they were fetuses? They did good. But we raise children in a society today where we tell them you are your grade. So kids walk around with this sense of insecurity that I'm not enough for anybody. And then we wonder when they get to the summer after tenth grade, which is apparently when it all goes haywire. As if up until that moment nothing happened, but the summer after tenth grade, every boy loses his mind. Like every boy is like, and all the rebbeim, all of tenth grade, no, we have to make sure that you have a good summer because this is the summer. And then you go on a good program, and then your madrich tells you which yeshiva to go to so that you can get on the circle of life, so that you can do the exact thing that your madrich did.
Which is a whole other story. So it's a trigger for me. But I'd say that we can work on my own. We should work it out in group. We could all do it together. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah. You've heard this rant before. It didn't go haywire in tenth grade. That's not where it started. To think that it began in tenth grade is to not understand the history of the Macau. That all of a sudden that kid started getting. All of a sudden, I don't know where it came from. He never spoke to a girl in his life, and all of a sudden, we always say it that way, right? We always say he never spoke to a girl in his life, as if the girls did nothing, right? They happened to be there, tangential in the background. The godless of NCSY is that this is an opportunity to actually listen to what they have to tell us.
That your NCSYers come in the summer and they will talk if you listen, if you create a safe space, because you're not a teacher and you're not a rebbe, and you're not coming with an agenda. I hope you're not trying to flip them out or get them to go to a certain yeshiva in two years from now or a seminary. You could just be there and listen to their story and hear what it was like to grow up for those. For those kids that did everything right, listen for the pain of perfectionism. And for those kids that are doing things wrong, listen to the pain of not belonging. It's two sides of the same coin, by the way. It's true that there's a time in our lives where we have to be held accountable. But every person has to know that there's one set of halachas for every one of us. For those of us that belong, and for those of us that feel like we don't belong.
The opportunity this summer is to change lives, and I mean that sincerely. I don't know if I'm allowed to say this publicly, which means that I will. Rav Lapianski Shliita came on NCS Yikolo. This past summer, I had the opportunity to talk to him in Ramapey Chaimish afterwards. His son-in-law and daughter live right next door to me, and I went over to him and I said, 'Rebbe, I got such good feedback from Rebbe Shira that he gave on Kol. The boys were so excited about it.' And for those, I assume everybody in the room is familiar with Rav Lapiansky. If you're not, you should definitely become familiar with Rav Lapiansky, one of the most complex thinkers that we have in our generation.
Reb Elpiansky said to me, "I really loved it. I really loved it," and he said it in a really enthusiastic way. I asked, "What did Rebby love about it so much?" He said, "In the yeshiva system today, we focus on just keeping kids in the program. It's like be a good kid, stay in the program. But it used to be, back in the day, it used to be when camp wasn't just considered the natural thing to do. When the yeshivas were fighting with kids to make sure that they would go to camps in the summer." That encamp is when you would mamish become excited about learning, and that it would spill over into the year. And he said it's been so long since I felt that way, but I felt that way on NCIS. I felt like this was old school, like we're here to inspire, to excite, to create a passion. And I haven't felt that in so long. So I said maybe Rabbi could join for an entire summer, and I never followed up.
But the truth of the matter is that I've been a part of NCYS Summer for many years now. It's a tremendous privilege. In fact, as I look out on this side of the room, how many of us were products of NCYS Summer that are now within the fold? It's a beautiful thing to see. The truth of the matter is that my summer inspires my entire year. That when you go on TJJ and you see boys and girls that are keeping Shabbos and that are committing to try to do their best to keep Shabbos during the year, under circumstances that are difficult to say the least, when you see boys that are challenging themselves to take the next step in their learning, and they're avaidus Hashem and they're davening, when they start looking up to a madrich or a madricha. The truth is, mitamidayayshimikulam, I'm there giving the shir. But the truth of the matter is, it fills me up with chayas for the entire year. It could be this summer. I know you're probably working on preparing your sessions and kolakavod, and we'll make very nice, very fancy, color coded ones like we'll be able to put it on the website and show everybody exactly what you did. And I'm sure you spent many hours preparing your chaburos and kolakavod.
But I want you to know, and please don't take this the wrong way: 99% of the things that you teach, they will not remember. But they'll remember the time that you sat next to them on the bus and said, 'How's it going?' That they'll remember. Weinberger tells the story. Probably many of you have heard of it. There was a man who learned under the Beis Yakov of Vishpits. And he spoke about how he couldn't remember any of the Torah that the Beis Yaakov taught, but he remembered the way the Beis Yaakov would kiss his Sefer. We remember not so much content, but we remember the context. And even if your NCSYer in 20 years from now doesn't remember the exact conversation, they'll remember the warmth. That's our obligation.
And B'frat, for those NCSYers this summer that are the most challenging, the ones that are sarcastic, the ones that roll their eyes, the ones that when you're trying to make a matzah are standing on the outside and they're not a part of it. Those kids need our love more than anyone. And you should know that if you give that time and devotion and energy to those children, it'll be information to the other NCSYers that you're a person who cares. And even if they're getting less attention, the attention that they're getting tangentially by being around those other people will be enormous for them. Which is not to say Chassar Shalom that we should ignore those kids that are doing the right thing. But our strongest message to every single one of our NCS wires is: we're as strong as our weakest link, and that every one of us makes sense, and that every one of us belongs. Beis Hashem, this summer should be a life changing summer, not only for our NCS wires, but Beis Hashem for ourselves as well.
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