Excerpt of a shiur given over on Monday, the week of Parshat Yitro 5785.

(The Rav has been speaking about Purim, and about how the Jews in Bavel despaired of ever being redeemed, and so started marrying non-Jews.)

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There is the story of Rivkaleh, that she married a goy.

She had a massive cross like that, and her uncle Shmuel came to visit her. After the shoah, she married a goy. She didn’t give up [on Judaism] up until the age of 18. She was seven years old when the shoah erupted, and then her mother was sent to Auschwitz.

So, [her mother put Rivkaleh] with her brother, so that he would care for her.

And then the S.S. came, the S.S. showed up, the Nazis came, they came and took the children. This was in Lodz, or in Lublin. They took all the children to Auschwitz.

And her brother hid the children away – but they found them.

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But her [the mother of Rivkaleh’s] daughter, they didn’t find.

She was called Rivkaleh, she was concealed under the sink. There was some sort of small cupboard, and she managed to push it [forwards], and the Nazis didn’t look there, the S.S.-nikim, the essessnakim didn’t find her.

[But] the Nazis came and found his children [i.e. the children of her uncle], hidden under the bed, and in the attic, and in the boydum (storage cupboards built into the ceiling of old apartments). He put everyone in the boydum.

They said to him, why are you concealing the children? We just want to take them to school! Here, it’s the ghetto, there is no learning here, we want to help them to develop, that they should learn English, and German, that they should be learned, professors, scientists.

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Lisa Mitner (or Meitner) – she discovered the atom.

All of the atom was discovered by Jews. But in the end, the Nobel Prize was given to some Nazi, who was her partner. They wanted to appease the Nazis, [after] they’d destroyed Berlin for them.

They say, why did you destroy Gaza?!

Why did you destroy Berlin?!

They said, we made a mistake.

What mistake? [The Allies] destroyed it to its foundations, they turned it into a pile of sand. They turned the whole of Berlin into a mound of dust, they killed everyone. 25 million Germans were killed.

The Jews were also to blame for this. Tomorrow, there will be a hearing in the Hague about this.

25 million Germans were killed!

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Now, Putin said that he’s cancelling the Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), because Yom HaShoah was on January 27th.

He said: how are you talking about a ‘Yom HaShoah’?! Hiroshima was an even greater shoah!

But they put the Jews in the oven without it being the war [i.e. they were not combatants, nor living in areas that were being bombed generally as part of the war]. There, [in Hiroshima], they died in the war.

OK, so Putin said that he’s not prepared anymore to mark Yom HaShoah.

[But] kings came from all over the world, even Biden said I was once in Auschwitz, with all my children.

Everyone came to see. Even today, they show the skulls, and the shoes and the spectacles, mamash a million Jews were burnt there.

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So it’s written [in Yirmiyahu] chapter 29:10 when the malchut Bavel fulfills 70 years:

“For thus said Hashem: After seventy years for Bavel have been completed I will attend to you and I will fulfill for you My favorable promise, to return you to this place.”

But there needs to be 70 years [of galut]!

Where do they get the 70 years from?

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[Yirmiyahu continues, 29:14]

“For I know the thoughts that I am thinking for you – the word of Hashem; thoughts of peace and not evil, to give you a future and a hope. You will call then out to Me and follow [Me]; you will pray to Me and I will listen to You.

“You will seek Me and you will find [Me], if you search for Me with all your hearts.

“I will make myself available to you – the word of Hashem – and I will return your captivity and I will gather you in from all the nations and from all the places where I have dispersed you – the word of Hashem – and I will return you to the place from which I exiled you.”

This is Chapter 29.

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What is written in Chapter 25 [of Yirmiyahu]?

Also here, it’s written ‘70 years’, so we don’t know which ‘70 years’ is meant.

“The word that came to Yirmiyahu concerning all of the people of Judah, in the fourth year of Yehoyakim ben Yoshiyahu, king of Judah, this is the first year of Nevuchradezzar king of Bavel.” (25:1)

In the first year he conquered Nineveh, and in the second year, Yehoyakim.

[25:2-3]:

“That Yirmiyahu HaNavi spoke to all the people of Judah and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying: ‘From the thirteenth year of Yoshiyahu ben Amon.”

I’m already castigating you, because Yoshiyahu, it’s written ‘behind the doors is your recollection’[1] – behind the doors, that’s where they concealed them [the idols they were still worshipping].

The messengers [sent by King Yoshiyahu to root out any household idols] would open the doors, to see if there were any idols there, on the table – and the idol was behind the door. They open the door – and the idol [is hidden from sight] behind the door!

They didn’t check, they just glanced in for a moment. They didn’t want to root out the avoda zara.

And so, the churban (destruction of the Temple) was decreed.

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[Yirmiyahu] said this – I am already setting out [in the] thirteenth year of Yoshiyahu, I am rebuking you, I am explaining to you.

Yoshiyahu was king for 31 years, from the age of 8 he was the king until age 39. The words of Yirmiyahu were written in Anatot in the days of Yoshiyahu ben Amos, in the 13th year of his reign. The exact date was written, that day, that moment, everything was written.

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Yoshiyahu the king, it’s written he was king 31 years.

And everyone was serving avoda zara, because he was the son of Amon [who caused the Torah to be forgotten]. There was no Torah, he didn’t see a Sefer Torah in his life. [Yoshiyahu only discovered a forgotten Torah scroll when he was 18.]

Today, there’s Chumash Bereishit, Chumash Shmot. Then, there wasn’t Chumash Bereishit, there was nothing. Kids grew up hefker (without oversight), they didn’t know there was such a thing as the Torah in the world.

He was eight years old, he already smashed all the idols – but he left the horses [the chariots of the sun]. The horses he left, because it appears these were the horses that Ahashverosh used to groom. He used to groom them each time, he was a horse-groomer, he was making progress in his life. He was making good parnassa, dafka. He had a salary of 10,000 a month, he had 10 children, he was sustaining them.

He managed to support his children, so he was a horse-groomer, so it appears that these were the horses of Ahashverosh, so he returned them.

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So it’s written that at age 18, he killed the ‘sun horses’.

There used to be horse-drawn chariots, in honor of the sun, each year….

Now, it’s the Year of the Snake, it’s the Year of the Snake in China, the year of the snake. There is such a thing as ‘the year of the snake’, ‘the year of the pig’, ‘the year of the dog’, ‘the year of the scorpion’. They have 24 new years, every six months they do a new Rosh Hashana in China. So then, it was the Year of the Snake.

So, at the age of 18 he burnt all the horses.

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All of this is written in Kings II, you need to learn a chapter every day.

Here, Kings II, verse 23:11:

“He also abolished the horses that the kings of Judah had designated for [worship of] the sun, [which would race] from the entrance of the Temple to the office of Nathan-melech, the officer in the outlying area of the city. He burned the chariots of the sun in fire.”

This was already at 18 years old

“And he let the horses live.” He left the horses, you don’t burn horses. Then, he broke all the idols, except for the horses, which were the chariots of the sun.

[Kings II:12:]

“And the altars that were on the roof of the upper story built by Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had set up, and the altars that Menashe had set up in the two courtyards of the Temple of Hashem, the king smashed. He eliminated from there and threw their dust into the Kidron Valley.”

All of the kings.

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Menashe [was king] for 55 years.

Now, Yoshiyahu came along, and he didn’t know anything. He never saw a book. At the age of 18, he found a Sefer Torah in the genizah, there in the middle of the stuff, in the middle of the wall. Someone had put it in the genizah.

When he went to Hulda Navia, she started off with curses, she read it to him, and he was aghast.[2]

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Hulda HaNavia was from [the descendents] of Rahav,[3] because Rahav hid the spies.

She concealed 200 families beneath the second ‘thread’, the thread of truth.

I want truth, I want to convert!

For Chana was the gilgul of Rahav,[4] and so she was barren for 130 years.

[Hulda HaNevia] was the wife of Shalom ben Tikvah. Shalom ben Tikvah was her husband, and he came from Rahav.

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[The Rav is now switching to the story of the relative of he Prophet Yirmiyahu, who came to sell him a field just as the Babylonians were literally breaching the walls of Jerusalem.]

And Hanamel ben Shalom, he came to sell the field,[5] and the Kasdim had already broken through the wall, the enemies were on the wall [of Jerusalem].

He said, buy the field tomorrow, now it’s cheap! Now, a field that is worth a billion dollars is now worth 10,000. Bring $10,000, bring the book and the seal.

From this, we learn [you need] a book and a seal, that you need a book of purchases, we learn everything from Yirmiyahu.[6] You need to know everything by heart, all the chapters.

“The word of Hashem came to me, saying: ‘Behold, Hanamel the son of your uncle Shalom is coming to you to say: ‘Buy for yourself my field that is in Anatot, for the law of redemption is upon you, to buy it.’” (Yirmiyahu 32:6-7.)

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This was Shalom ben Tikvah, this is the same ‘Shalom’ that’s written here [in the story of Yirmiyahu’s field], Shalom ben Tikvah.

This is Shalom ben Tikvah, the husband of Hulda. He was the son of Shalom.

Why?

Because he used to stand with a barrel of water. Once upon a time, there didn’t use to be [running water]. Once, it wasn’t like Savyon[7]. They have there kiosks, restaurants, bars, a bar that’s like a pub. The Leopards Pub, the Eagles Pub, the Wolves Pub.

Once, there was no such thing as this.

People used to walk for a week, and they didn’t drink a drop of water. So, he would stand, Shalom ben Tikvah, he would stand with a barrel of wine.

It’s written in the Pirkei de Rebbe Eliezer, verse 33 [16], that he used to stand with a barrel of water, and distribute water for free.

This was Shalom ben Tikvah.

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TBC

Translated from Shivivei Or, 400.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] See Midrash Rabbah Eicha, Introduction to Chapter 22.

[2] Kings II:22, 8-14.

“Hilkiah the Kohen Gadol said to Shaphan the scribe, ‘I have found a Scroll of the Torah in the Temple of Hashem.’ Hilkiah gave the Scroll to Shaphan and he read it. Shaphan the scribe came to the king and brought a report to the king and he said, ‘Your servants have counted the money that was found in the Temple, and have given it into the hand of the workmen-in-charge in the Temple of Hashem.’

Shaphan the scribe then told the king, saying, ‘Hilkiah the Kohen has given me a Scroll.’ Shaphan then read it before the king. It happened that when the king heard the words of the of the Scroll of the Torah, he rent his garments.

The king commanded Hilkiah the Kohen, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Achbor son of Micalah, Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah, the king’s servant, saying, ‘Go and inquire of Hashem on my behalf, and on behalf of the people and on behalf of all of Judah, concerning the words of this Scroll that was found; for great is the wrath of Hashem that has been incited against us, because our fathers have not listened to the words of this Scroll, to fulfill all that was written for us.’

So Hilkiah the Kohen, Ahikam, Achbor, Shapan and Asaiah went to Hulda the Prophetess, the wife of Shalom ben Tikva, ben Harhas, the keeper of the [royal] garments, who dwelled in Jerusalem, in the study house, and they spoke to her.”

[3] See Tractate Megillah, 14.

[4] See Homat An’ch Shmuel, 1-15.

[5] Yirmiyahu 32:6:

“Yirmiyahu said: The word of Hashem came to me, saying: ‘Behold, Hanamel the son of your uncle Shalom is coming to you to say: ‘Buy for yourself my field that is in Anatot, for the law of redemption is upon you, to buy it.’”

[6] Yirmiyahu 32:9-12:

“So, I bought the field that was in Anatot from Hanamel, my cousin. I weighed out the money for him, seven shekels and ten silver pieces. I wrote out the deed and sealed, and I designated witnesses. I then weighed out the money on a scale. I took the bill of sale, the one that was sealed [according to] the ordinance and the decrees, and the unsealed [bill], and I gave the bill of sale to Baruch ben Neriah, ben Mahseyah, before the eyes of Hanamel, [son of] my uncles, and before the eyes of the witnesses who signed the bill of sale and before the eyes of all the Jews who were sitting in the Courtyard of Confinement.”

[7] One of the most upscale, rich and ‘elite’ towns in Israel.