Hello Everybody,

Some of the names of individuals and companies used in this article have been changed to protect myself from insidious lawsuits. This is not 100% historically accurate;, however it is based on fact. Look up Anna Jarvis in any encyclopedia for more info.

The year was 1926 and America was rolling through the Roaring Twenties. Everyone in NYC was deliriously happy with ridiculous stock profits, but Charles Meriwether looked at his cluttered desktop with an abject sense of despair. An industry giant with his experience, contacts, business acumen, and education should have been able to turn any company around. But somehow, there seemed to be nothing he could do for Greetings USA, the leading greetings card company in the world.

Sales were plummeting, stores were being forced to close, the company had had to "downsize" twice, and there was no relief in sight. It seemed people simply didn't send greeting cards anymore. Bob in Marketing walked the hallways muttering that the automobile killed the pen, Betty from Design was sipping moonshine out of her inkwell while complaining about the lack of "impetuous creativity" around the office, and even Thomas the janitor who was still living in the WWI trenches of Southern France, started calling on everyone to, "surrender before it's all lost!"

In just a few days the board would meet again, and Charles knew that Ulysses Durphy, that codger of a Director, would be calling for his resignation, and he just didn't know how long Edwin Stanton could pull for him, against the board's consensus. But what should he do? They tried the "Just Say It (with a Greeting Card)!" campaign, but that failed miserably. Then there was the "Greeting Cards that Pick You Up, and Never Let You Down" advertising blitz, but it seemed like greeting cards were the ones being let down. America was simply moving too fast for anachronistic cards.

As every man in a desperate need of guidance does, Charles picked up the telephone and called his mother. Edith, realizing that if she gave him the keys for a successful turnaround she’d see even less of Charles, said, "Look, I am your mother. I raised you all alone while your father was off fighting the Boxer Rebellion in China, and I don't feel you appreciate the difficulty of what I went through. So why don't you come home and help me plant gardenias and hibiscus, instead of me helping you!" Charles put down the phone with yet another burden on his mind - his underappreciated mother.

Then, it suddenly hit him like a ton of boiling hot oil! He should commercialize the unmined gem, the holiday called Mothers' Day, which had been declared by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914. Wilson had done it on the behest of an organization run by Anna Jarvis. From 1908 Jarvis had wholly dedicated herself to campaigning for a national Mother's Day. She had the support of 45 states by 1914 (the first state to officially recognize Mother's Day was West Virginia in 1912), when finally President Wilson made it official. With May just a scant three months away, it was time to blow Greetings USA into the stratosphere with Mother's day cards, paraphernalia, stationary and balloons!
Charles charged into the office, and everyone could smell the scent of change in the air. Betty put down the inkwell and declared, "Now there is impetuous creativity!" Bob got off his phone interview with Ford and scanned his desk for a pad and paper to record every word of genius about to drip out of Charles' mouth, and even Thomas snapped to attention, saluted Charles, declared, "We're going to get those Krauts, general!" and then ran down the hallway with his mop in fixed bayonet position.

The rest is history. Mother's Day has become the most widely-kept holiday, with 96% of American consumers taking part in some way (source: Hallmark). It is the busiest day of the year in many restaurants, and it is the second highest gift giving day of the year, trailing only Christmas. In 1992 (the only year for which I could find stats), the value of shipments of Mother's Day cards by greeting card publishers totaled $147.9 million! Associated Press estimates that this year 11.2 BILLION DOLLARS will be spent on Mother's Day!!! Needless to say, Charles got another promotion, (hired someone to plant the gardenias and hibiscus), and moved on to save another industry.
But what of Anna Jarvis, the mother of Mother's Day? Did she feel that she benefited the nation and created a lasting legacy for herself? She did not. Au contraire, she felt that the commercialization of Mother's Day was exactly the opposite of what she intended. She incorporated herself as the Mother’s Day International Association, claimed copyright on the second Sunday of May, and was once arrested for disturbing the peace during a protest against Mother's Day. She and her sister Ellsinore spent their family inheritance campaigning against the holiday. Both died in poverty.
According to her New York Times obituary, Jarvis became embittered because too many people sent their mothers a printed greeting card. She considered it, "a poor excuse for the letter you are too lazy to write." (I get the feeling she would not have been a great friend of Charles Meriwether, but then again, I get the feeling that Charles wouldn't care!)
So what do Jews feel about Mother's Day? Well, we are all for it. As a matter of fact, if it were up to G-d, every day would be Mother's day. He told us this on the bottom right corner of the tablets, commandment #5, and I quote, "Honor your father and mother! (Exodus 20:12)"

How about the way it is celebrated today, with dinner at a restaurant, a flower arrangement, and a Hallmark card? Well, our sages teach us, "Lifum tza'arah agra," which means that the harder it is to do something, the greater the reward. This applies to our relationship with G-d as well as our relationships with fellow man.

We can give a gift that costs hundreds of dollars, but a long handwritten letter, telling how much we appreciate our mother and why, can be much more meaningful. We can make a scrapbook with pictures from our childhood, with our memories of our mother’s kindness written in the margins, and I'm sure it would be something our mothers would leaf through repeatedly. We can go to a crowded restaurant and have a nice family meal, but stopping by in the morning with our mothers favorite homemade cake, and staying for coffee and a chat may be more on target. I guess what I'm trying to say is that now that Mother’s Day has passed, we can still celebrate our mothers in a way that would make G-d, Anna Jarvis, and our moms real proud!

Parsha Dvar Torah

This weeks Parsha starts off with the mitzvah of Shmita, the commandment to leave the land fallow every seventh year. The Torah uses an interesting noun to describe the shmita year, one that begs a question. “When you come into the Land that I will give you, the land shall observe a Shabbos rest for G-D (Leviticus 25:2)” But why is the seventh year, the year we leave our fields fallow, called Shabbos? Isn’t that the name we have for our day of rest, the holiest day of the week?

In order to answer that question let us look a little closer at shmita and, hopefully, from there we will be able to find an answer (O.K. I don’t want you guys to be in too much suspense, we will find an answer in the end, not just hopefully!))

The primary reason for Shmita, a mitzvah which tells us to leave our fields untouched every 7th year, is that we should recognize Who gave us our land in the first place, and then show appreciation to Him. If I give you a brand new Ferrari (a F-430 with a 4.3 liter V-8, 483 HP, 343 lbs. of torque, 0-60 in 4.2 seconds to be exact) and tell you to drive it every day but Tuesday, you would be delighted (if not, just give it back to me, I’ll be delighted). As you would get used to the car, though, you would start to forget who gave it to you and start to view it as your own car. (Ask any parent with a teenage driver in the house, I’m sure they will agree.)

But on Tuesday, when suddenly you couldn’t drive it like you normally did, you would be forced to stop and remember hey, wait a second, why am I not driving today? Oh right! Because R’ Burnham gave me the car and he said don’t drive it on Tuesday! This would give you the ability to appreciate what I gave you, because it forces you to step back, and remember that the car was a gift from me. (For those who come to NCSY events, I may just decide to actually give one away, and you guys would be my top candidates, so keep up the good work, and stay tuned!) This is one of the reasons for Shmita. It is a mitzvah that enables us to appreciate G-d for all the good He has done. When we step back from using the land for one year, we focus on He who gave us the land in the first place, and are grateful for it.

One of the reasons we are commanded to keep Shabbos stems from this same line of reasoning. On Shabbos we are not forbidden to do all work. Technically, I could push my heavy table up and down my dining room floor all Shabbos afternoon. It might be hard work, but it is not forbidden. On the other hand, turning the key in the ignition of my Ferrari (oops, I’m already starting to think that I actually have one) is forbidden even though it requires minimal effort.

The work that is forbidden on Shabbos is creative work such as creating a fire by turning on the ignition. The reason only creative work is forbidden, is based upon the fact that G-d gave humans, and only humans, certain creative abilities. I have never seen a monkey, even a very intelligent one, write a book, nor have I ever seen a mouse making itself a pair of boots. We, the homo sapiens, were given an incredible gift from G-d called creative ability (that is what it means when it says G-d created us in His image. Obviously, He has no form. Rather we are in his image in that we, like him, can create.) Once a week, G-d asks us to hold back from using this most precious gift, our creative abilities.

When we are suddenly not using our gift, we can focus on reigniting our gratitude that which we had gotten so used to throughout the week, and we can be grateful to G-d for giving it to us. This, of course, explains why shmita is described as a Shabbos for the land. Both these mitzvahs provide us with the opportunity to stop using that which we normally use, in order to recognize Who gave it to us and how much we should be thankful to Him!

Parsha Summary

The first of the two parshios we read this week, Behar, begins with the laws of shmita. This mitzvah commands us to leave the land fallow every seventh year. One may not work the land at all, and anything that grows on its own is left to be taken by anyone who needs it. (If you had to be poor for a year, this would be a good one to pick.) After seven shmita cycles there is a Jubilee year on the 50th year, and the land lies fallow once again. In addition, many fields and homes revert back to their original owners. Jewish servants who requested to stay with their masters past the normal 6 year term are now sent home. Thus, when buying a field one always had to take into account how many years remained until the Jubilee because that was the amount of time he would own the field. (As Jews, we sometimes have strings attached to our deals, but at least these were known to everyone, not like some fine print clause written in Azerbijanian!)

The next part of the Parsha deals with redeeming the land. The idea is as follows: G-d gave each person a portion of the Holy Land, which they bequeathed to their families. There could be no greater family treasure than the family’s share in G-d’s land! (Timeshare salesmen try to get you to feel this way about their “week in paradise for your family, every year, forever!”) Therefore, if someone sold his land, it was probably out of great necessity, and the Torah gives the person a chance to buy it back if they, or a relative, can come up with the money. Depending on what type of property it was and where it was situated, the times at which one can redeem it are different. For more details see Leviticus 25:23-34.

The last part of the Parsha deals with Jewish servants. I know that we who live in a post- Emancipation Proclamation world look unfavorably on labor provided by servants or slaves (although who do you think made your shirt?). I’ll will try to show you that a Jewish servant was the farthest thing from the Atlantic slave trade of the 1500-1700’s. The sages say, “He who buys himself a servant, has acquired a master for himself.” A Jewish master was responsible for supporting his servant’s entire family, he couldn’t force him to do demeaning labor, if there was only one pillow or blanket in the house it had to be given to the servant, and when the servant would leave, the master was required to give him a hefty severance package. (All these benefits and no union dues to pay??? Sounds impossible, but with Torah it’s all possible!).

A Jewish servant would sell himself if he needed funds and couldn’t find any other job, or if he simply wanted the security of servitude (a job in which his whole family was supported and he couldn’t get fired, downsized, discharged, restructured, laid off, terminated or forced to resign!). The Parsha concludes with a reiteration of the mitzvos of keeping Shabbos and not serving idols. This was to remind any Jew who sold himself to a non-Jew that he still had to keep his Jewish practice and couldn’t start desecrating Shabbos or serving his new master’s idols.

The 2nd Parsha we read is the last one in Leviticus, Bechukosai. The major theme of this parsha is the concept that the deeds we do have a direct effect on our world. The world is like a finely tuned violin, and our actions like a bow being stretched across the strings. If we play it properly, the most beautiful and harmonious sounds emanate. However, if we play it improperly, the result is jarring and disturbing. It is not so much a punishment as a cause-and-effect relationship with our actions.

In line with that idea, the parsha starts off by saying that if we follow G-d’s Torah properly then our land will produce incredible yields, we will live in peace, (and the Pistons will win the Finals). However, if we refuse to follow G-d’s Torah and instead chose to ignore the role He plays in our world, then He will remove Himself from the picture, and the world will begin to crumble around us. Throughout this difficult period, G-d will wait for us to turn back to Him. If we continue to deny His reality, the devastation will become more and more severe. Ultimately, G-d promises that even during the most trying times our people will endure, He will not totally abandon us; rather He will be with us in our exile. In the end we will return to Him, He will remember the covenant He has with our Fathers and bring us back to our land in peace.

The Parsha then moves on to the subject of different items one can consecrate to the Temple, such as property, one’s own value, or his animals. The Torah discusses how a person pays for each, and if and when one can redeem them back for himself. The final verses of Leviticus deal with the second tithe a person gives on his crops, and the tithe on animals.

As we say in Shul (synagogue) when completing one of the Five Books of the Chumash: Be strong! Be strong! And may we be strengthened!!!

Quote of the Week: I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. – Charles Swindoll

Random Fact of the Week: Abraham Lincoln faces to the right on the penny while all the other presidents face to the left on US coins. 

Funny Quip of the Week: It's OK to let your mind go blank, but please turn off the sound.

Have a Piquant Shabbos,

R' Leiby Burnham