This morning's sermon
I started off by saying that i remember when i was a child that they opened a new grocery store in **** with a chidush -- things being sold in bulk -- large bins of candies or pasta or other things which you could take as much of as you wanted, put in a bag, and weigh, and then pay for when you left...
Then i came to israel and things were also being sold in bulk, except there was a big sign over the stuff saying "don't eat before you pay", which i thought was funny, at first, until i saw people doing just that...
And then i learned that if you were hungry in the morning, you could go to the shuk and get a whole breakfast for free, by starting at one end and walking the length of the shuk taking a nut here, a cookie there, a grape there... by the time you got to the end, you were full (I've NEVER actually done that... but others do)
Then i mentioned that once i was in a supermarket in jerusalem and saw a certain charedi rav -- someone quite well respected in certain circles -- standing in line at the checkout, eating from an opened bag of bamba, and that really bugged me, so i walked up to him and asked him if he didn't think that maybe he should pay for that before he starts eating it... He hemmed and hawed, embarrassed.

Then i tied all this into the parsha -- because it says in the parsha that when you come into your friend's vinyard, you may eat as many grapes as you want to fill your hunger, but you may not put any in your vessels.
Which seems like a very strange concept -- mah pit'om that i could eat someone else's grapes off their vines without their permission? But the talmud explains that it's only referring to a worker who's been hired to harvest the grapes -- the worker is allowed to eat grapes as s/he goes along, but not to take any home without permission.
And then I talked about fair workers' conditions and civil justice issues, not returning a slave to his/her home country, refugees seeking asylum, and stuff like that.

My congregants loved it. Which is good. :)

Shavua tov.