Shalom my friends, this is Simcha Hochbaum of Hebron. This Shabbat, we read Parshat Balak in which Balak and Balaam make an unholy alliance trying to uproot the Jewish nation. And when they saw Sihon and Og could not succeed physically to annihilate the Jewish people, they tried to spiritually trip us up. And there, the King of Moab hires Balaam to go and curse the Jewish people.
The Gemara tells us that although in the Torah all the curses turned into blessings, eventually some of those curses happen to unfortunately befall the Jewish people. However, there’s one verse: “Mah tovu ohalecha Yaakov mishk’notecha Yisrael — How beautiful are the tents of Jacob, the dwelling places of Israel.” And that is a pasuk where we describe the beautiful homes of the Jewish people.
How they’re filled with tzniut, with modesty. The doors aren’t open one to another. And they honor each other with their modesty. It’s also referring to the ohel in the Mishkan of the batei knesset, the houses of study, the houses of worship. How beautiful and how special those places.
Tonight we’re celebrating a very special wedding. Nahalah Sarah Yahalom, whose brother Yehudah Dror was killed this year, the first night of Succot fighting in Lebanon. And they decided to make their wedding right here by Sarah Imenu. We all know of Sarah Imenu, her tent, her Ohel Sarah, had the beauty of that the candle always lit, the bread was always fresh, there was always a cloud of glory that was hovering over it. And here we tried to bring back that Ohel of Avraham and Sarah.
The ohalot were a chariot for the Divine Presence in every Jewish home when it’s filled with kedusha, when it’s filled with holiness, with modesty, filled with the voice of Torah and tefillah, becomes a vessel to receive God’s divine presence. The blessing on newlyweds, the blessing on all Jewish homes — Mah tovu ohalecha Yaakov mishk’notecha Yisrael.
And most of all we’re blessing the State of Israeli and all of Am Yisrael and this great time for the Jewish nation should be filled with only Tov, with only goodness. Enough of tears, enough of death. We should be able to bring the greatest blessing of shalom which is the vessel to receive all brachot.
We should see in all our personal homes and national homeland, peace and harmony. Amen and amen. Shabbat shalom.
