Trump, Musk, and the Waters of the Sotah Parshas Nasso

by Ner Tamid | Jun 8, 2025 | Sermons

Imagine if on Tuesday, Elon Musk picked up the phone and said, “Hey Donald, we need to talk.” Or, if he thought that would go nowhere, instead of publicly posting his displeasure on social media, he made a few calls to key congressmen and senators and explained to them why he thought the Big, Beautiful Bill was not that beautiful.

Imagine if on Thursday, President Trump would have stuck to the script of a boring meeting with the German Chancellor, and spoke about Germany, or Russia, or anything other than Musk. Or, if he had to say something, instead of saying, “Elon and I had a great relationship, I don’t know if we will anymore,” he instead said, “Elon and I had a great relationship, and I hope we can work this out.”

Imagine if a little later that day, instead of starting a dispute about how crucial Musk was or was not for Trump’s election, they both would have stayed focused on what they were actually arguing about, the bill, and not bring the past into this debate.

Imagine if Musk would not have sent out a poll about the need for a third political party and in doing so inviting others to join him in his anti-Trump crusade.

Imagine if Trump would not have shared more dirty laundry, letting the world know that he had kicked Musk out of the administration.

Imagine if Trump did not call Musk crazy, and Musk did not call for Trump’s impeachment.

Imagine if Trump and Musk would have stopped at any point in this feud and had a conversation.

But none of that happened.

Instead, astronauts in the International Space Station had to panic that they were going to be stranded in space, Tesla’s stocks dropped even further, Trump likely lost 100 million dollars’ worth of campaign contributions, Musk will likely be investigated for drug use while part of the administration, and Trump’s bill is now even less likely to pass.

And lest you say, the only losers are Republicans, that’s not true. The country as a whole is once again a laughingstock to the rest of the world, which undermines our power and security. And, public discourse has hit an all-time low.

We have all come out as losers.

Rashi in Parshas Korach comments that “Beis Din, Jewish courts, only punish adults, but machlokes, disputes, even punish little babies.” Arguments are described by our sages as an all-consuming fire. It starts off small and contained, but before you know it, it is completely out of control.

As extreme and comical as this Musk-Trump feud may sound, it’s a story that we are all too familiar with. A husband and wife start fighting about why someone didn’t load the dishwasher and before they know it, they are in a two-week spat in which no kind words are shared between them. A son feels like his father didn’t respect him and so he stops taking his father’s calls. Two siblings can’t agree on how to take care of their aging parents and years later don’t sit shiva together. A friendship is lost over a careless remark and decades of connection are forgotten about and erased from memory.

Nobody wins. Everybody loses. And it’s not just those who are fighting, but everyone around them. Whose side are you on? How could you talk to my ex? How could you say something nice about my sister after what she did to me?

“Beis Din only punishes adults, but machlokes punishes little babies.”

Most often what gets in the way is our ego. “They’re wrong, I’m right, why should I make the first move?” “They’re wrong, I’m right, why should I be the one to apologize?” “They’re wrong, I’m right, and I am not willing to move on until they acknowledge it.”

Our parsha contains one of the most misunderstood Mitzvos in the Torah, the parsha of the Sotah. It’s often framed as a misogynistic attack on women. The alleged female adulterer is paraded for all to see and is punished in a most violent and public fashion. But our Sages in the Talmud take a very different view.

For starters, they pick up on the nuances of the Torah’s text that begin the story by highlighting the inflexibility of the husband. “Ish, ish” by being overly manly, by being so domineering and not being open to the needs and view of his spouse, the Torah takes him to task for pushing his wife to look for connection outside the marriage.

What follows is an escalation where the wife engages in behavior that leads the husband to suspect his wife. It then escalates further when he includes others by warning his wife in front of two witnesses to not seclude herself with her suspected adulterer. She then goes ahead and secludes herself with said suspected adulterer with two witnesses having seen them go behind closed doors. At this point, most marriages would be over. How could they ever trust one another again? How could they ever reconcile after so much distance and distrust?

Enter the Sotah waters. G-d creates a supernatural test to clarify what happened behind closed doors. If she is innocent nothing happens to her, if she is guilty, she suffers a gruesome death. But the objective of the waters is not to punish the wife. If the suspected wife chooses, she could just say, no, I will not drink the water, this marriage is over. She is not compelled to drink the water and take this test. More than that, the Talmud tells us that when adultery was rampant, the sages abolished this entire ritual. And that’s because it was never about punishment.

So what then is the goal of these waters? Explain our Sages, it is to bring peace between husband and wife. The objective is to prove her innocence, to teach us that there is always hope, that haters can become lovers, that no matter how many years of pain and silent treatments and disgust exist between two parties, shalom, peace, is possible. The hope is that she drinks these waters and nothing happens, and in doing so, this paves the way for the husband and wife to reconcile.

G-d conveys this message in the most powerful way. The third commandment is not to use G-d’s name in vain. Jews are hyper-sensitive to writing G-d’s name on a piece of paper because it might end up in the trash, there are no shortage of laws that reflect the reverence we must give G-d. And G-d says, “Take my name, that really holy name, Yud, hey, and vuv, hey, and erase it in the waters that you will give to the Sotah.”

What Hashem is trying to tell us is that His dignity is worth negating if it means bringing peace between two parties. If His dignity is worth negating, what does that tell us about ours? Parshas Sotah is G-d’s way of telling us to get over ourselves, to stop waiting for the other party, to stop standing on principle, to stop holding back just because you might be right.

The Chofetz Chaim related a story that took place in the late 19^th century. Two men in a Jewish community got in a fight. One of the men was wealthy and used his wealth to help Jewish boys avoid the Czarist draft. Back then, being conscripted to the army was a death sentence for Jewish boys. His disputant, we’ll call him Reuven, threatened to go to the authorities and let them know that this leader had used his influence illegally. The only problem was that Reuven’s son was saved from the draft thanks to the efforts of this leader. Reuven’s wife turned to him, “Are you crazy? If they go after this guy, that means that our son will be conscripted to the army?!”

Reuven’s response was, “I don’t care.”

We may be right, we may be owed an apology, we may have every justification in the world. Donald Trump and Elon Musk would tell you how it’s important to double down because that’s how you show how strong you are. But they’re wrong. They are destroying themselves and everyone around them.

Making ourselves vulnerable is not a sign of weakness. It’s a sign of G-dliness. Apologizing, breaking the silence, taking the first step forward, getting over our dignity, “erasing our name,” these are signs of greatness.

גדול השלום”

Great is peace,

ששם הקדוש ברוך הוא ימחה על המים להטיל שלום בין איש לאשתו

for the Name of the Holy One Blessed be He, is erased to bring peace between husband and wife.”

A Memorable People Shavuos

by Ner Tamid | Jun 4, 2025 | Sermons

In the early 18^th century, there was a fabulously wealthy and powerful Polish family known as the Potocki’s. Count Potocki and his wife were devout Jesuits and used their wealth to support churches all over the continent. They had one son, Valentin; he was bright, handsome, and curious, he had everything going for him. His parents, the religious people that they were, had high hopes that he would one day join the Jesuit order as a priest.

Valentin was sent to Paris where he studied under the greatest Christian teachers. In Paris, he once happened to visit a tavern owned by a Jew. The details are murky, but what we do know is that Valentin was impressed with this tavern-owner, something about him sparked his curiosity. This encounter inspired Valentin to start learning Torah, and after about six months of secretly learning Torah from a Parisian rabbi, Valentin came to the conclusion that he could not in good conscience become a priest. Instead, he wanted to convert to Judaism.

Despite this Parisian rabbi discouraging him from converting – doing so was a capital crime and one which would also endanger the Jewish community, Valentin disguised himself so that his family would not know what happened to him, traveled to Amsterdam, a country in which there were religious freedoms, and converted.

For reasons unknown to us, Valentin, who at this point was renamed Avraham ben Avraham, chose to move back to Poland. We could surmise that one of the things that drew him back to Poland was that the greatest Jewish sage, the Vilna Goan, was living there. The two of them, the towering leader of the Jewish world, and this recent convert met, and the Vilna Gaon walked away from the meeting immensely impressed by the dedication and devotion of Avraham ben Avraham.

Tragically, Avraham ben Avraham’s life was cut short. A Jew informed on him to the authorities. He was first given the chance to ‘repent,’ as the Christian authorities offered him the opportunity to renounce his Judaism, but he refused. His wealthy and powerful family managed to get the church to agree that if Valentin would live his life in a castle on one of their estates, away from the public eye, he’d able to practice Judaism in private and be spared. He refused.

Valentin Pototzky, Avraham ben Avraham, was burned at the stake on the second day of Shavuos, today. For two hundred years, until the Holocaust, a Keil Malei, a memorial prayer, was said for him, in all the shuls of Vilna. And to this day, in shul around the world, including this one, people still tell his story.

This past September I had the privilege of visiting the grave of the Vilna Gaon. There is a sign over the structure of his grave, ‘Here lies the great Vilna Gaon, and here, in the same structure, lies the ashes of Avraham ben Avraham.’ Side by side. This was done with the Vilna Gaon’s directions. It was his way of saying, “Avraham ben Avraham, you may have lived a short life, you may have died without children, historically, you did not have had the same impact as I did. But your life made a difference.”

It’s a fascinating tale of the intellectual honesty of Avraham ben Avraham and the honor and respect given to him by the Vilna Gaon, but there is one person in this story who does not get enough credit and that is the tavern-owner in Paris. We don’t know what he said to Valentin, we don’t know what Valentin saw, but this tavern-owner clearly made a powerful impression. Perhaps he kindly greeted Valetin at the door, looked him in the eyes, and gave him attention like he never received before. Perhaps he saw this old man pull out an old book to study from in between customers. Perhaps he saw how ethical he was in his monetary dealings. What we do know is that this man lived in a way that inspired good, positive, and uplifting change, in those who saw him. And in turn that person’s actions inspired change in all who learned his story.

Today, we read the Book of Ruth. We read this beautiful story today on Shavuos because Ruth exemplifies a deep commitment to Judaism and because Ruth is a convert and we too all converted to Judaism and committed ourselves to G-d at Har Sinai on this very day. But the real heroine of the story is Naami, Ruth’s mother-in-law, and not Ruth. Because you see Ruth did not convert due to any intellectual exercise; she wasn’t a philosopher or a scholar. What drew her to Judaism was her mother-in-law, a person whose name exemplified her character, Naami, from the word neimut, pleasantness, sweetness. Ruth, having witnessed this pleasantness up close for all these years, recognized that Naami possessed something that she did not possess, the Torah. Derache’ha darchei noam, its ways are pleasant, v’chol n’sivoseha shalom, and all its pathways are peace. And Ruth wanted a piece of it.

Listen to the celebrated, poetic words of Ruth, “Where you go, I go,” she says to Naami. “Where you live, I will live, your people, Naami, are my people.” And only then Ruth ultimately says, “Your G-d is my G-d.”

And the amazing thing is that Naami wasn’t perfect. Far from it. She, with her husband, deserted the Jewish People at a time of need during a time of famine. Her sons both intermarried. She describes herself as bitter! And perhaps that’s exactly it. Naami’s greatness perhaps lies in her ability to overcome. To hold her head up high despite the losses she endures. To be loving despite the scorn she receives from others. To hold onto her faith despite her many mistakes. Naami is so pleasant that Ruth cannot imagine a life without her and the value system that Naami is drawing from. (Rabbi Moshe Miller, Rising Moon)

Yizkor is a day not only to remember others, it’s a day to ask ourselves, how we will we be remembered? How are we remembered right now by those around us? Do they see us, do they interact with us, and come away uplifted? Do they wonder what value system is this man or woman drawing from? What magic formula do they have because I want a piece of it? Or do they simply walk on by?

There is an incredibly troubling increase in anti-Semitism these days. Can we take an ounce of the energy we are using yelling and screaming at the anti-Semites and turn it inwards; how are we contributing to a positive version of Judaism? How are we creating a different narrative? Are we a Naami, are we such a pleasant person that when someone meets us, they are so taken that they want to throw away everything they have away to be close to us and our Torah? Are we that Parisian merchant who a future priest can meet and be inspired to give up a life of riches and prestige?

That’s what today is all about. That’s what Shavuos is. It is a day to reflect upon the mission of every Jew, which is that every person who sees us, who speaks to us, who interacts with us at work or at home, or anywhere, would say, Mi k’amcha Yisrael, who is like you among the nations!

A few years ago, a man by the name Levi Welton visited his parents in Sacramento, California. Levi and his wife were living on the East Coast, but his parents just moved to a new community and he decided to visit them for a weekend. Shabbos morning, he went with his father to the shul in their new community and after davening there was a kiddush in honor of a Bat Mitzvha. He decided on a whim to strike up a conversation with the father of the Bat Mitzvah girl, who introduces himself as Chaim Valentzia.

In the course of the conversation, he learned that Chaim was a convert. And so Levi asked him, how did you pick the name Chaim? Most of us are given names at birth by our parents, but a convert has the incredible privilege to name themselves, and Levi was curious how Chaim Valentzia chose his name.

Chaim told him the following story. “I know this going to sound strange but a number of years ago, I was living on the East Coast. I was interested in Judaism, I was studying and exploring what it’s all about. One Friday night, I ended up at the Lincoln Park Jewish Center in Westchester, New York. During services, at the end of L’cha Dodi, the congregants started to dance and so I joined them. And I found myself,” said Chaim, “between the rabbi and an old man. He wasn’t just any old man, I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. He was dancing with such joy, with such purity, with such evident faith, I was smitten.”

“And then, and then I noticed the numbers on his arm. A survivor. A survivor of the Holocaust to have such faith, such joy….! I turned to this old man,” said Chaim,” and I asked him, what’s your name? And he told me his name was Chaim. And I knew right then, that if I convert this would be the name that I would live by, this is the man who I will always look up to. I will perpetuate his greatness.”

Levi, who was listening intently, turned to Chaim, and said, “Tell me, is his name Chaim Grossman?”

Chaim’s eyes popped out, “How did you know?!”

And Levi explained, “I am now the rabbi of Lincoln Park Jewish Center, I know Chaim, or should I say, I knew Chaim very well. But what you don’t know,” Levi added, “and you had no way of knowing is that Chaim – Chaim the survivor – never had any children. He had no one to name a child after him. And now Chaim’s legacy will not be lost. V’yikorei sh’mo b’Yisrael, you have his name, and one day, your great-grandchildren will be named after you, and this legacy, Chaim’s legacy, the life he lived, will be perpetuated for all of time.” (Rabbi Yoel Gold)

Whether you have children or not, whether you have family or you do not have family, we are all charged with one mission – to be memorable people; to never forget that we stand in the presence of G-d and that we represent Him to all who see us. To live an inspired life, and to be an inspiration. To live a devoted and loving life. To live a life that will not be easily forgotten. May we perpetuate the memories of those who came before us and may we, like Naami, like Avraham ben Avraham, like the tavern owner of Paris, and like Chaim the survivor, be worthy of being remembered.

Flowers for G-d Erev Shavuos

by Ner Tamid | Jun 1, 2025 | Sermons

Back when I was newly married, I used to get my wife flowers every Friday. I’d get a ride with a friend from Ner Israel to what was then called Shopper’s and we’d both go and buy flowers for our spouses. He would walk in and do what I call, the no-look-flower-grab. As he’d be walking to the milk section, he would just stick his hand out and without breaking his stride, pick up whichever bouquet came up in his hand. Voila, he is done. He has just picked out flowers for his wife.

For me, on the other hand, it was not so simple. First, I had to make sure that the flowers were not dying. Then I would search for a bouquet with a nice array of colors. That narrows it down but then I had to figure out what color is appropriate. Is this week a red rose week or a white rose week? Should I be getting something springy to go with the weather? But it’s rainy this weekend, what’s the right color for a rainy weekend in the summer? And then if you’re a real pro, which I was, I had to remember which dishes were being served over Shabbos so that the flowers could be color coordinated, not only with the napkins but with the squash kugel. Needless to say, I’d spend at least twenty minutes choosing flowers for my wife.

Eventually, Hindy told me to stop buying her flowers. Both because we had no money, and because my friend kept on leaving me at Shopper’s because I took so long and this whole thing was a colossal waste of time.

I make one exception and that is Shavuos. For Shavuos, I go to Trader Joe’s, I elbow my way to the flower section through tens of Jewish women all doing the same. I typically pick out a bouquet, stand in line to pay, and then go running back to switch bouquets at least once, usually twice, and finally come home with a beautiful bouquet, only to find out that my wife made flowers with the Sisterhood on Thursday night…

Where does this minhag come from? Why do people buy flowers especially for Shavuos? And why do many shuls decorate the shul with flowers specifically on this Yom Tov?

As we’ll see, this may be the one holiday, I should not be buying flowers for, as there are those who argue that flowers on Shavuos is not only not a good custom but it is forbidden. So let’s jump in. (Sources from a wonderful shiur by Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb on YUTorah)

The earliest source that discusses this minhag is someone known as the Maharil, Rav Yaakov Moelin, a 15^th century highly influential German scholar. He writes that there is a custom to put fragrant greenery, asavim, on the floors of the shul on Shavuos.

The most famous explanation is that Har Sinai was covered in grass and flowers. But how do we know this? There’s a beautiful depiction of Har Sinai that you can see in the new lobby – thank you to the Chernikoff family! – you’ll notice that the mountain is brown. Which makes sense as the Sinai desert is a… desert. Where does the idea that the mountain was covered in grass and flowers come from?

Rav Mordechai Yoffee, a 16^th century scholar known as the Levush, directs us to a prohibition found in relation to the giving of the Torah. When the Jewish People arrived at the Sinai desert, G-d gave them a number of laws to prepare for the giving of the Torah. One of them was that it is forbidden for sheep to graze on the mountain. Sheep do not graze on sand. It must be, says the Levush, that the pictures my 5-year-old came home from school with, are correct, the mountain must have miraculously become covered with grass. There are other explanations, but this one is by far the most famous one.

But here’s where things get interesting. In the 17^th century, a scholar known by his book, the Magen Avraham, records this minhag, but he does not talk about grass, he mentions trees. “It is the custom to place trees in one’s home and shul on Shavuos.” Now he wasn’t making this custom up, he was reporting on a widely-practiced custom.

Why trees? He explains that there is a Mishna in Rosh Hashana that tells us that although humans are judged on Rosh Hashana, trees are judged on… Shavuos. Says the Magen Avraham, we place trees in shuls to remind us to pray for a good crop.

Comes along the Vilna Gaon, probably the most influential rabbi to have lived in the last 600 years, and says, absolutely not. He acknowledges that is a real minhag, not a shminhag. But he makes it his business to ban this minhag. Why?

Though it’s not written so clearly, and that is because of Christian censorship, he (his students) writes that it is Biblically forbidden to maintain this minhag because, you know where this is going, because… There is a Christian custom of placing trees in their places of worship on their holiday and it is forbidden to have the same custom.

Which holiday?

Wrong.

Don’t tell my children, but let’s learn a little Christianity. There is a holiday that today is only celebrated by the Greek Orthodox Church called Pentecost. You’re not going to believe this but 49 days after Easter, sounds familiar yet – is when it takes place. It is the holiday that the Greek Orthodox Church believes that G-d came down to earth… It gets better. The first night of the celebration is observed by a vigil that takes place all night!

The Vilna Gaon, writing in the late 18^th century, says, it does not matter if our custom came before theirs, the bottom line is it looks like we’re imitating them and it has to stop. There is some debate if he was only against trees or if he was opposed to all forms of greenery on this holiday (opinion of the Aruch Hashulchan). One way or another, nobody puts trees up in their shul on Shavuos; many have the minhag of placing flowers in shul and at home, and some say doing so is absolutely forbidden.

***

Those are the two classical reasons as to why we have flowers on Shavuos; to recall the miracle of the grassy Har Sinai or to remind us to pray for trees. Virtually no one puts up a tree, and some buy extra flowers and some buy no flowers at all.

I’d like to share with you one final thought on flowers and Shavuos:

As a teenager, I once wanted to thank my friend’s mother. Throughout all of our senior year of high school we spent a lot time in this home and made a whole lot of noise. I decided to buy her some flowers. She thanked me and told me that she never gets flowers from her husband. Before I could ask why, her husband, who was in the next room, went on a rant explaining to me how silly it was to buy flowers. To his credit, he would regularly buy his wife jewelry. But flowers, he pointed out, don’t last. It made no sense to him to invest in something that was going to die a few days later.

He was right, there is nothing you could do with flowers. They are useless, they serve no utilitarian purpose. And that’s what makes them so beautifully meaningful! Flowers convey a message of affection in its truest form. You could give someone some jewelry today, but a month later, does your spouse know that you still feel the same way?

Flowers have a short lifespan, but they represent a feeling, and like all feelings, it’s fleeting. The flowers eventually die, feelings eventually dissipate, and when they do, it’s time to go back to Trader Joe’s, it’s time to invest once again in the relationship.

In a loving relationship, it’s not enough to say, I bought you diamond a month ago, don’t you know I love you? I said I love you last week, do I really need to say it again? That doesn’t work. And that’s why the impracticality of flowers is the perfect representation of a relationship.

Out of all the many Mitzvos we have, Talmud Torah, studying Torah is the least practical. Yes, sometimes we study something that tells us what to do. But often, especially for those of you studying the Talmud, you’re left scratching your head, why am I studying this?

The answer is, it’s an act of love. Learning Torah is buying flowers for G-d.

There is a famous Talmudic passage that describes G-d holding the mountain over us. Many interpret this mountain over our heads in a menacing fashion, that G-d was threatening us that we better accept the Torah or else. But there is another interpretation, one which I prefer. In this explanation, the mountain over our heads is a canopy, a chuppah, and what G-d was saying to us was, I love you. The mountain is the chuppah, the Luchos are our Ketubah, and Shavuos is the beginning of a love affair with G-d.

If we want a relationship with G-d, which I know we all do, it’s not enough to show up to shul once a week, it’s not enough to give a gift of charity every month, like all relationships, it needs constant investment. That’s why our sages encourage daily Torah study over everything else. Talmud Torah k’neged kulam. It’s an opportunity to connect daily with our Divine lover. For those of you who have taken daily Torah study on, don’t stop. And for those who haven’t, Shavuos, the holiday that reminds us of the true nature of Judaism, is a great time to start. And yes, it’s true, studying Torah on a daily basis may not have tangible results, but then again, neither do flowers.