Parshas Korach

This weeks Parsha Dvar Torah is L’Iyloy Nishmas הענה בת אביגדור

Something to say:

The earth opened its mouth and swallowed them (16:32).

In Pirkei Avos we are told that ten things were created in the twilight of the first Erev Shabbos of creation. One of them was the opening of the earth, which swallowed Korach and his congregation after their dispute with Moses. What do we learn from the fact that the mouth of the earth was created in twilight?

The Me’orah Shel Torah answers that when a person finds himself in difficult circumstances, it may seem to him as though there is no solution. He should realize, however, that the solution has already been prepared, and it is his job to uncover it – a task that requires continuous, intense effort. In this parshah, this principle is clearly illustrated: Although Moses was in serious danger and in a very difficult situation with korach, the mouth of the earth had already been prepared for his opponents from the time of Creation. We walk through life for the most part oblivious to the elaborate plans that god has designed for our benefit.

Hashem sends the Refuah before the Makah. He prepared a way for us to overcome a sorrow before he sends it down. It’s a comforting thought to know that Hashem has good plans for us. That it will all work out, and all be good. We just have to keep that in mind when we feel sad at the loss of a loved one, that Hashem has created a way for us to be healed and be loved and cared for.

Spit in the Baby’s Eye?

I went to sit outside today, and my neighbor shows up by her door with her 3 week old baby, I hadn’t seen him yet, so she invites me into come and chat and see the baby. So I come in, and I commented on his blue eyes, and the mother said that all babies start off with blue eyes, so that was interesting to learn.

But then her parents were over to help out, and her father asks her husband if he spat in the babies eye yet. The babies mother and her husband look at her father as though he came from the moon. Then he said, it’s from the gemara, from bava basra, that the Bechar shows he’s a bechar by spitting into babies eyes, that the people would bring their babies to the bechar. So the mother of the baby tells her husband he has to spit in the babies eye cause it says that in the gemarah, to listen to her father. So then he says he doesn’t understand. I mean come on!

So then her father says, just like you go to the Rebbe for advice and you listen to him, same thing you should listen to the Gemara. Meanwhile, I was sitting on the couch next to the baby and the babies mother. So I saw he was actually going to do it because his father in law and wife were telling him too. So I got up from the couch and didn’t want to look. So he went over, I’m not sure if he actually spat on the eye, or if the eye was closed. It seemed pretty barbaric to me.

Has anyone else heard of this?

Meanwhile this is the couple that shows their affection in an interesting manner. So the baby has congestion and was breathing with noise from his nose. So then her father says that she should take medicine for her high blood pressure, and she said she can’t because she’s nursing. So then she jokes that when she dies her husband will marry someone who will be able to nurse the baby without a problem. Then her father says that when he remarries he should get a wet nurse or something.

I just couldn’t believe the way they were joking. To joke about death, and him remarrying, it was just crazy. Especially because she has a tumor, and their always fighting making it seem like they would divorce each other. I just don’t get it.

To add on to the confusing/Surprising day, my brother comes home from shul telling me that the guy who did the kidney trafficking is the father of someone I had known. His grand child had been in my sister’s class a long time ago, and then the kid’s mother decided to remarry to a guy from Mexico and she moved there, so I’ve never seen them again.

This Week’s Wrap-Up – Busha!

Sunday I went to the dentist thinking I was going to have just a short appointment, that he wasn’t going to do any work on my teeth. But he decided to put a post in my tooth to get ready for my crown. When I saw him bring in a container with small narrow metal looking things I asked him “What are you going to do to me?” and he said he was going to put a screw in my tooth, he asked me if I was nervous. I of course said “yea!”. He didn’t want to start up any trouble, and I felt bad, so I reassured him that I’ll be okay. So he got to work, and he gave me no shot, I was relived! I figured if there’s no shot, that means it won’t hurt. So he did what he did and it was over with and I was fine.

Afterwards I asked my father if the dentist gave him shots before he put a screw in his tooth, and my father said he had gotten 4 shots. So I started to wonder if the dentist had just forgotten to give me the shot before he worked on my tooth. But then my mother explained to me, that because I had a root canal on that tooth, there was no nerve left, so no shot was needed. At that point I felt really grateful for getting a root canal in the past!

Monday, I went to school, and I like my philosophy class, so I raise my hand here and there to comment on what the professor says. So I raised my hand and started speaking and then I realized something strange, I heard my voice in my head, I couldn’t here how it sounded once it was spoken. I thought that was strange, but didn’t make anything of it. Then I went to my next class and was sitting there and realized I had an ache in my ear, and it was throbbing painfully. I waited the hour and forty five minutes for the class to be over and went home. When it was time to go to school again I just didn’t have the strength and my ear was hurting, so I lay in bed. Then my father comes home and sees that I haven’t gone to school, so he realized something must be bothering me. So he tried to make a Dr appointment for that night, but couldn’t get a hold of the doctor. So I took some Motrin to reduce the swelling in my ear and it helped.

Tuesday, my mother finally got a hold of the doctor and made an appointment for me. So at 2:00 I went to the doctor. Now here’s where the Busha stories start coming in. The Dr. took a look at my ear and said I had an ear infection. Then he took the stethoscope and put it my back and asked me to breath, So I was breathing in and out. Then when he brought it to the front, I continued breathing in and out, and then he tells me “your heart beats itself, you don’t need to do that anymore”. I was embarrassed and couldn’t remember my pediatric doctor ever telling me that you don’t have to breath by the front. Anyways, then he said my heart was beating fast, and that for every 10 beats faster it means that my temperature is one degree higher. Which means that I have fever. Then he said he wanted to take some blood tests to make sure that everything is okay. He prescribed me antibiotics and some ear drops.

So I lie back on the examination table, and this lady comes in to take out the blood. She was about to start working on my right hand, and foolish me asks her if she can do my left hand instead. She gave me this mean look and said “what difference does it make?”. So I told her “I’m a righty, and this way I’ll be able to write”. So then she starts laughing at me. She looks at me with bewilderment and says “You think your not going to be able to write after this?”. So then I look sheepish and realized it wasn’t a big deal. So she gets to work, tying a band around my arm, and I turn to face the wall and close my eyes. Then she does her thing, and when its over, I still have my eyes closed and my head turned away. So she says to me “you didn’t even notice it was over, see it wasn’t so bad” and she was laughing some more. I laughed out of busha that I was such a baby. So then she reassured me saying “you should see the men that come in here, they’re really chicken. They squint their eyes close, hold their fist tight as if they will go through the most excruciating pain”.

Then at night I had my robotics class, and we were having a quiz, and I knew my lab partners were counting on me, so even though I wasn’t feeling well, I went to school. I took the quiz, finished quickly, and could have went home. But I figured I’d wait to play it out, so I stayed and did all the lab work. With my head down 75% of the time. At 9:15 my mother picked me up, so I just left the classroom, one of my lab partners asked if I was feeling okay and she offered to give me a ride, but I reassured her I’m fine, and told her that my mother was picking me up. So then I got home and realized it was a mistake to have gone to school, my ear was throbbing and my head was hot, and my teeth were chattering.

As my mother was driving me home in the rain, I realized a cool thing. If you look at the floor of the street at night in the rain you can see a “rainbow cake”. There’s a layer of red, green and yellow, it was really cool.

Wednesday, I had a paper due, and I remember my professor saying that if we can’t make it to class we can e-mail it to her before 10:30. Luckily I had done the paper on Friday (when I wrote the Kibud Av V’Aim post; [the post wasn’t my paper]), So I e-mailed it to her at 9:00 and figured I’d skip my first 2 classes, and try to study for my test that night. That didn’t happen though, cause although I took my antibiotics, it was not helping me, only the Motrin seemed to work- (children’s Motrin at that), and I figured out, it takes an hour for it to kick in, and then it can last for 7 hours. So I timed myself, and so long as I took the Motrin at the right times I was fine. But not up to studying.

I know it’s not mothers day yet, but I’ll put in my little mother’s day thoughts here. My MOTHER is really the best! She stayed home with me the whole day, she gave me my medicine, put in the drops for me, brought me up some bread and soft things that I can eat without chewing. She made delicious soup that was easy for me to swallow. After I had eaten my mother stayed to entertain me for a while, we talked about all kinds of things. She told me stories from when I was a baby, what I was like. It was really fun to hear, even though I wasn’t the best baby. She told me how my twin brother was always the quiet one never crying, and how I would always cry if she would leave me for a second. She told me how she used to have a routine for us in the summer, she would put us in the double carriage and take us for a walk, and we would nap 2 hours, then we would come back home and play 2 hours, then nap again, etc. I love looking at pictures of me or my siblings when we were babies, and watching the videos of us. (Although we don’t have a VCR, so we really have to convert those videos to DVDs!) She brought me a coloring book of flowers and gardens, and we colored together! I found a page of tulips and colored that, I had decided that tulips was my favorite flower.

So I had to skip my night class and miss the midterm. I feel really upset about this, because I had planned on studying really hard for this test and trying to do well so I can boost my grade. But now I lost this opportunity, and my only hope is the final. Which having 6 finals in 3 days, makes it hard to spend quality time on each one and I feel really helpless. I feel as though I will be letting so many people down. I’m supposed to be graduating, and now I’m blowing it all up once again. Unless the professor will understand and not give me a zero for this test I missed.

Any case my philosophy professor was really nice and e-mailed me back saying Thanks for the paper and that I should feel better and all.

Now going to sleep was really hard, because I like sleeping on my right ear, but with it infected, it hurt to lean on it, so I had to sleep on my other side, so I kept tossing and turning and waking up in middle of the night to take some more Motrin.

Thursday, I was starting to feel better, but I could only hear from one ear, luckily I had no class. I came to school to see Mike (Thanks for the card it was really cute), and it was good to get out and see day light, it was a really nice day out.

Then later my other ear started hurting, so I had a follow-up appointment with the doctor, so I went 5:00. I told him the other ear started hurting, and he said I could put some drops into that one too. He said the right ear is starting to look better, that the swelling is going down. He said I should continue the antibiotics for another 5 days. Then he said there might be some side effects from taking the antibiotics, and he named this word. It was a word I never heard of, so me ever the curious one asked him what that was. Then he exclaimed “You really don’t know what that is, I was hoping to get a blush out of you with that one”. Then I realized what the shoresh was, while he explained it partially, without saying the shoresh word. That was a major Busha moment.

At night I decided to make supper, my mother said she had some chop meat that she bought, so I was going to make meatballs, but I like it with cranberry sauce, and none of the stores seem to sell it anymore. So I opened my cookbook to look for a new recipe that involves chop meat. I found a meatloaf recipe, I’ve never had meatloaf before and the ingredients looked okay, so I figured I would make it. It was easy to make, and the recipe said you can put mashed potatoes on top of it before you put it into the oven, so I did that. Afterwards I tasted it, and it was pretty good, although it had a lot of flavor.

Friday, I woke up and realized that my other ear, my left ear, was now swollen and hurting, and my right ear was almost cleared up. My mother guessed that the fluid must have just gone to the other ear instead of drying up. So here I was thinking that over the weekend I should be feeling better, but then it looks like it’s just going to be starting all over again.

I’m starting to wonder, if maybe my ear got infected from the dentist chair. It’s strange that the day after I went to the dentist I got an ear infection, when my ears have always been so good in the past. I know by Dr’s offices they have these wax paper looking things they roll out. But by the dentist they don’t have anything covering the chair, so maybe when I head my head laying on it sideways for my dentist to work on it, maybe it got infected there.

Related Posts: Embarrassing Babysitting Moments, Kindness of Mothers, The Wife The Inspirer, Close an Ear What do You Hear?

Any case, that was one long wrap up of my Busha filled week, have a Good Shabbos all!