by LEIBY BURNHAM | January 2, 2026 6:51 pm
When we think of the Spanish galleons roaming the high seas in the 1500 and 1600, bringing gold and treasure from the colonies back to Spain, and fending off pirates and privateers, we think of massive wooden ships, with multiple decks and rows of cannons protruding from the sides. We think of the huge captains’ quarters on the back of the ship, the billowing sails coming down from three or four masts, and the bowsprit reaching out far in front of the ship with some figure carved gracefully beneath it. The reality is that those galleons were far smaller than we imagine them, most of them were only between 100-150 feet long.
By contrast, today’s luxury yachts are often 3-4 times as big as those sailing ships that transported hundreds of sailors, soldiers, and slaves on each voyage, as well as cargo ranging from cotton or tobacco from the New World plantations, or gold and treasure being looted from the Americas. Jeff Bezos’ yacht Koru, the world’s largest sailing yacht, is 417ft long, while Rising Sun, the yachts of movie producer David Geffen (the G in SKG Dreamworks), is 453 feet long.
Russian oligarch, Roman Abramovich, owns the Eclipse, once the largest yacht in the world, at 534 feet long, but that has been eclipsed by the Azzam, the current record holder at 591 feet, built for Khalifa bin Zayad, former president of the United Arab Emirates. If you think you’ve heard his name before, you probably have, as in Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest buildings. You get the feeling he liked to be associated with big things…
While the romantic galleons of the high seas were smallish in size, four of them could easily dock bow to stern in the shadow of the Azzam, they were not small in terms of treasure. Many of them could be carrying hundreds of millions and some even billions of dollars in gold and silver, from the rich mines in South and Central America back to Spain. This of course made them attractive targets for pirates, and indeed the golden age of the pirates, was from 1650-1730. It was then that household names like Blackbeard, Captain Kidd, Anne Bonny, and Calico Jack used their smaller faster ships to chase down Spanish treasure fleets, their heavy lumbering galleons no match for the pirates.
But pirates were not at all the greatest danger faced by a Spanish galleon weighed down with treasure, the weather was. Far more ships were lost at sea to storms and hurricanes than to pirates. While successful pirate crews would take one or two ships a year, storms would occasionally wipe out entire fleets! On Wednesday, July 31, 1715, a storm claimed all eleven ships of the 1715 Plate fleet along the Florida coast. This happened to an entire fleet in 1628, in 1656 a storm took several galleons from the Spanish treasure fleet, and in 1733 a storm took seven of the twenty-four ships in the treasure fleet.
Which brings us to the Nuestra Señora de Atocha, Our Lady of Atocha. She was a heavily armed Spanish galleon, 112 feet long, 34 feet wide, and carrying an enormous treasure of gold, silver, copper, gems, tobacco, and indigo. She was supposed to be the Almirante, the rear guard of the Tierra Firme Spanish treasure fleet, but she showed up weeks late to Havana, where the fleet was to depart from. She had been docked in Veracruz, in what is today Mexico, and the caravans of mules carrying silver from Bolivia, Peru and Mexico, gold and emeralds from Colombia, and pearls from Venezuela were so big that it took two months to document and load the treasure.
By the time the 28 ship convoy departed from Havana on September 4, 1622, hurricane season was in full bloom in the Caribbean. Two days later, eight of the ships were shipwrecked, all men lost, and their treasure left buried near the Florida Keys. The Spanish sent divers and salvage crews, and were able to salvage half of the contents of Santa Margarita, a sister ship to the Atocha, but after 60 years, they gave up on ever finding the immense treasure of the Atocha.
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Mel Fischer was born on August 21, 1922, in Hobart, Indiana, to modest parents who were carpenters and later chicken farmers. And although Hobart was about as landlocked as Kansas City, Mel grew up reading books like Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, about the Spanish fleets and the pirates that plagues them. He also keenly followed the various treasure hunter groups and their exploits, and he heard the calling of the sea! By age 11 he made his own “hard hat” divers outfit and used it to explore the local lagoon.
He would go on to become an engineer at Purdue, and join the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in WWII, and he was always fiddling with and inventing diving gear. In 1950, he moved with his parents to Torrance, CA, where they operated a chicken farm. Soon after moving, he opened a dive shop in one of the feed sheds on the farm. From that moment on, most of his life was obsessed with diving.
He sold diving and scuba equipment, he was constantly improving designs and making better equipment with his engineering skills, but most importantly, he loved diving himself. He married a Dolores Horton, who grew up in equally landlocked Montana, but also loved diving. They went diving for shipwrecks in the Florida and the Keys for their honeymoon. They dreamed of moving out of the chicken feed shed and opening a real diving store, and spent months diving for spiny lobster in the frigid waters of the California coast, a grueling but lucrative pursuit.
They finally got the money they needed and opened Mel’s Aqua Shop in Redondo Beach, CA, the first “dive shop” in the world. Dolores, achieved the world record for woman’s underwater endurance at 55 hours and 37 minutes, a record that still stands, and Mel’s inventions kept increasing the abilities of underwater diving. They had five children, all of whom they infected with their love of diving and soon turned to television to air their treasure seeking adventures. California had some shipwrecks, but nothing like the Caribbean. In 1962 Mel met the famous treasure hunter Kip Wagner who convinced him to move to Florida to join him for one year to search for remains of the 1715 treasure fleet, which if you recall lost all eleven ships in one storm off the Florida coast.
After 360 days of “no finds,” the team was testing a device Mel invented called The Mailbox. This contraption would pump a lot of clear water from the surface down to the seabed, to bring up visibility on the bottom by displacing the murky waters that resided there. On that first day, not only did the mailbox clear the water, it also pushed the seabed around, and much to the delight of the team, the seabed lifted up and revealed 1033 gold coins! As Mel told a TV interviewer, “Once you have seen the ocean bottom paved with gold, you’ll never forget it!”
In 1969, Mel set his sights on the Antocha. The lore of the shipwreck was well known, but no one had come close to finding it since the Spanish gave up in the late 1600’s and Mel dreamed of changing that. For over fifteen years, they searched. In 1980, the team found over $20 million dollars’ worth of gold from the sister ship of the Antocha, the Santa Margarita, and that would have been enough for most people to retire peacefully. But not Mel. He kept searching for the Antocha every single day.
On July 20, 1985, at 1:05PM, the radio came to life in the Key West office of Mel Fisher at Treasure Salvors, Inc. “WZG9605. Unit 1, this is Unit 11.” The voice of Kane Fisher, the youngest son of Mel and Dolores, who was captaining the Dauntless, their treasure hunting ship, that day, came across the radio jubilantly, “Put away the charts! We’ve got the Mother Lode!” After over fifteen years, enormous amounts of money, lives lost, and unimaginable challenges to Mel, his investors, and every man on his loyal crew, the treasure had been found.
The find of the Antocha, was at the time the richest treasure find since the discovery of King Tut’s tomb, on November 26, 1922. Thousands of artifacts, silver coins, gold coins, many in near mint condition, period and earlier amazing Spanish objects and wares, exquisite jewelry set with precious stones, gold chains, disks, a variety of armaments and even seeds (which later sprouted!) were recovered. The Guinness Book of World Records deemed the find as the most valuable shipwreck to be recovered, as it was carrying roughly 40 tons of gold and silver, 71 pounds of emeralds and countless other treasures.
But how did Mel, his crew, and his investors continue on searching for over fifteen years in what was a major failure up until that fateful day when it became the biggest success in shipwreck history? If you were to ask any of the people involved, they would all tell you it was Mel’s indefatigable spirit. Every single day, without fail, Mel would start the day with a proclamation, “TODAY IS THE DAY!”
Sure it cliché, but Mel meant it, every single day. He meant it with such sincerity, that he was able to imbue the spirit of Today is the Day into his crew, his investors, and most importantly himself.
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We, the Jewish people are also searching and seeking a treasure. We are seeking the Coming of the Moshiach, the day when G-d will reveal Himself to the world with such force and clarity that (Isaiah 11:6-9) “a wolf shall live with a lamb, and a leopard shall lie with a kid; and a calf and a lion cub and a fatling [shall lie] together, and a small child shall lead them. And a cow and a bear shall graze together, their children shall lie; and a lion, like cattle, shall eat straw. And an infant shall play over the hole of an old snake and over the eyeball of an adder, a weaned child shall stretch forth his hand. They shall neither harm nor destroy on all My holy mount, for the land shall be full of knowledge of the Lord as water covers the sea.”
We have been waiting for close to 2,000 years for this moment. The moment when (Isaiah 2:4), “they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift the sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”
We have been pining and praying for the day when (Ezekiel 37:21-22) “So says the Lord God: Behold I will take the children of Israel from among the nations where they have gone, and I will gather them from every side, and I will bring them to their land. And I will make them into one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel, and one king shall be to them all as a king…
And they shall no longer defile themselves with their idols, with their detestable things, or with all their transgressions, and I will save them from all their habitations in which they have sinned, and I will purify them, and they shall be to Me as a people, and I will be to them as a God. And My servant David shall be king over them, and one shepherd shall be for them all, and they shall walk in My ordinances and observe My statutes and perform them. And they shall dwell on the land that I have given to My servant, to Jacob, wherein your forefathers lived; and they shall dwell upon it, they and their children and their children’s children, forever; and My servant David shall be their prince forever.
I will form a covenant of peace for them, an everlasting covenant shall be with them; and I will establish them and I will multiply them, and I will place My Sanctuary in their midst forever. And My dwelling place shall be over them, and I will be to them for a God, and they shall be to Me as a people. And the nations shall know that I am the Lord, Who sanctifies Israel, when My Sanctuary is in their midst forever.”
But how do we do it? How do we keep waiting and hoping? How have we not given up after all the tragedies, tribulations and travails of our nation? Two thousand years of pain and suffering?
The only answer is that every single day we proclaim, “TODAY IS THE DAY!” It is one of our 13 Principles of Faith, “I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Moshiach, and, even though he tarries, I will wait daily for his coming.” We sing it when we sing, we pray it when we pray, we talk about it when we talk. We conclude our speeches with a calling for it, we bless each other that we should merit to see it, we remind ourselves about it at weddings and funerals.
In our Shemona Esrei, the thrice daily repeated mainstay of our prayer, we call for it multiple times, in different ways. In the 7th Blessing, the 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 17th, and 19th Blessing! Nine out of Nineteen blessings are calling for the Moshiach and the greatness it will bring to the world! The height of our prayers on the High Holiday and our Festivals are calls for Moshiach. We are obsessed with this treasure, because we know it is out there, just beneath the surface, and we know that when it is revealed it will be the greatest treasure mankind ever experienced!
We are the nation that never gives up, we are the nation that sees Moshiach as such a reality that it consumes us and drives us for close to 2,000 years. And because of that, we know with great certainty that, one day, the Shofar sound will cackle to life and begin to resound around the world, and all those who hoped and prayed, all those that spent their lives doing the deeds that would bring about this miracle, will finally shout in boundless joy, TODAY IS THE DAY!
Parsha Dvar Torah
In this week’s Parsha, our forefather Yaakov passes from this world. Before his passing, Yaakov calls his children together and blesses them. At the end of the blessings, the Torah summarizes the event with the following verse, “And this is what their father spoke to them and he blessed them, he blessed each according to their blessing.” (Gen. 49:28).
On the surface this verse is troubling, why did he bless them according to their blessings? Shouldn’t he have blessed them according to what they were lacking? If one of the tribes was already blessed with a particular attribute, shouldn’t that be the one area in which he doesn’t need a blessing?
The answer to this puzzle contains a gem that will teach us an important lesson about human development. We all have certain natural qualities. Some of us are soft, some super intelligent, some have leadership qualities, some academic prowess, but everyone has some quality in which they shine. Many people think that since they have that quality naturally, they should ignore it, and focus on acquiring skill they don’t yet have. But the truth is that through focusing on their natural strength and developing it they can accomplish whatever they need.
This doesn’t mean that I can expect to breeze through college by being kind, rather, it means that if I find my natural tendency is to be very kind and warm, I should probably look for a job in the caring professions, while if I find myself to be analytical I should try to become an analyst or a lawyer, etc. When dealing with interpersonal problems, if I am the kind type I should use my kindness as a strength and find a way to draw myself away of the dissonance, whereas if I am analytical, I should sit back and tackle the problem as an equation, determining how to best go about solving it. (Sometimes the kind thing to do is to pull back and let someone else learn the hard way, and sometime the analysis will determine that an extra dose of caring and emotion is called for. The focus here is how a person arrives at the conclusion)
This is the meaning of Yaakov’s blessings. Yaakov was able to see each of his children’s strengths and to bless it, to ask G-d that it be brought out even more. He showed his children that he felt that it was that particular trait that they should focus upon. And this is how we should interact with our children. We should find their strengths and encourage their growth. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone is created to be a doctor, a rabbi, or a lawyer. Parents need to be in tune with that reality while raising their progeny, and college students need to be in tune with it when picking careers. If we stop trying to shoehorn children into what we think is best for them, but instead focus on their strengths and develop them, we will have a truly blessed world!
Parsha Summary
This parsha begins at the end of the life of Yaakov. It discusses the last things that Yaakov did before passing from this world. First, Yaakov asked Yosef to ensure that he would be buried in Israel. He asked Yosef and not the other brothers because he understood that Yosef was the only one with the power to guarantee it, as Yosef was the viceroy of Egypt. Yosef readily agreed.
Soon after that encounter, Yosef got a message that his father was ill, so he immediately hurried to his father’s bedside with his two sons, Ephraim and Menasheh. When they arrived, Yaakov gave Yosef’s sons the status of tribes, thus equating them with their uncles, the rest of Yaakov’s children. This meant that they would each have a separate share in the distribution of Israel, would camp in the desert as two distinct tribes, and would have their own tribal flags. This was an enormous honor not accorded to any other of Yaakov’s grandchildren.
After that, Yosef brought his sons forward to be blessed by his father. Yosef purposely put Menasheh on the left which would be Yaakov’s right, because he was the older brother and the right hand is considered the choice hand. However, Yaakov switched his hands and placed his right on the head of Ephraim. When Yosef tried to switch them back, Yaakov told him that he did this purposely, because the younger brother Ephraim would produce greater people, most notably Joshua who would lead the Jews into Israel after Moses’ death.
Yaakov then blessed them with the following blessing, “Through you shall [the People of] Israel bless saying; ‘May El-him make you as Ephraim and Menasheh.’” (Gen. 48:20). To this day, when parents bless their children on Friday night, as is the custom in many homes, they say that exact formula: “May El-him make you as Ephraim and Menasheh.”
After that, Yaakov called in the rest of his children and blessed all of them, except three, whom he reprimanded. Those chastised were Reuven for moving his father’s bed to his mother’s tent without consulting his father, and Shimon and Levi for destroying the entire city of Shechem after their sister had been kidnapped and violated by the city’s prince. After blessing his sons, Yaakov asked them to bury him in Me’aras Hamachpela, the same place that Adam and Eve, Avraham and Sara, and Yitzchak and Rivka were buried. After his final request he pulled himself onto the bed and joined his people in heaven.
The entire Egypt mourned the passing of Yaakov, as the famine stopped when he moved there. Pharaoh gave Yosef permission to leave, and the twelve brothers all traveled to Israel to bury their father in the Me’aras Hamachpela. When they came back, the brothers were concerned that now that their father was not there Yosef might try to take revenge on them for the time they sold him. However, he reassured them that he bore them no ill will; rather he understood that G-d sent him down to Egypt to sustain his people through the years of famine.
Yosef was the first of the twelve tribes to die. However, even he lived to the ripe old age of 110 and was able to see three generations of progeny (that means he helped raise his great grandchildren). Before he died he asked the Jewish people that when G-d takes them out of Egypt they bring his bones with them to be buried in Israel. And with that the book of Genesis concludes!!
Quote of the Week: Simplicity is making the journey for this life with just enough baggage. – Samuel Fremont
Random Fact of the Week: As you read this sentence, your eyes are moving back and forth 100 times per second.
Funny Line of the Week: The crows were all calling him, thought Caw.
Have a Top of the Line Shabbos,
R’ Leiby Burnham
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