Mr. Zecharia Fruchthandler - Weekly Torah Portion: Balak - Part 2

the primary theme that we were trying to drive home uh was to give the the paws to give paws and allies time to reflect time to uh understand where we're going to make sure we're going the right direction um and we discussed that then in this week cetera there are no partials which we explained yesterday and it was just bilum kind of steamrolling going through life without thinking and if you go through life without taking the time to think it can end up end up in very very much the wrong place there's an interesting example right in the beginning of this week's torah portion bullock who was the one that hired bilaam so who did he send to try to convince billam to come he sends some of his princes the sarimo of but he also reached out to an arch enemy to midyoung and he sent the elders of midyan as well to try to convince bilaam to come and and curse a jewish nation and the torah relates that they came there and they they made their request and he said bilham said let's stay the night and i'll see what what you know what what god what hashem is going to tell me and in the morning we see let me find the verse billam told them stay overnight and i will then see you and the verse goes on to say vaishwasari malov embilam and the verse leaves out the elders of midyan seemingly they're not here anymore and there's again another example russia gives one interpretation but another interpretation that i heard was again once once it was time to think about it once whenever you inject time into into any scenario you know people can start thinking about what they're doing they can think about the designs they can think about their motives and the most common phrase is you know we don't even know why we say certain things we do we don't even know how we say well let me think about it overnight why is that why is that such a common phrase what does that even mean if you need to think about it so think let me think about it overnight that's such a concept you know i i've you know i've learned that even life myself that some things will happen something happened recently which distressed me got me quite nervous about certain future events how things would work out and even how you feel sometimes you're unlike but i know you know if it's actually true in in in the morning it just it's it's it's different it's different the the night there's something about transition um even though technically the day starts with the night but the morning is a time the freshness the time of doing it's a time at the time of a recreation of the world the praise services in the morning are more more lengthy they're more involved than the prayer service at night we have to really kind of like re-energize the world we have to we have to things have to get going and and we ourselves are energized after a night's sleep besides the sleep besides that our body is getting rested rested so so our batteries are recharged but i want to shuma or push it around the shaman goes go goes up goes up to hashem goes up to shemaim he gets recharged here as well so pausing and reflection is is always something that that's learn it as a lesson and train yourself people that make again expressions he made a rash decision but he made a rash decision he made a decision based on the information that he had based on his level of intelligence based on all the circumstances based on the facts and he was intelligent person why was it a rash decision doing something quickly is in itself a negative things that need to be done quickly yes when when you're baking matzos for passover it says do it quickly because if you let time time time can turn when you have when you want to do something good time time is synonymous with with with hamitz turns can spoil things anytime you want to do something good if if you let time interject itself you see all of a sudden you have this urge of impulse let me do something good that's actually a fascinating a fascinating incident it's a drop-off topic but but it does i think it brings out the point very well as the time but as far as again when when things need to be thought out and things can when when allowing time is it's healthy to to assess reassess reevaluate the situation to make sure you're making the right decision but if you have an impulse to do something that's unquestionably good you don't doubt that it's good have a desire to help somebody if i die to do them it's a positive commandment yeah we have a desire to sit down and and study torah any time it's a positive influence a positive impulse act on it and it's brought up beautifully it's it's goes back to genesis the torah juxtaposes two very interesting incidents one we're not going to too much into detail what is the incident um with yehuda and and tamar um he was married he had lost his wife and his two older sons were married he lost its worldly it's a question of what's called the eboom it's it's complicated how how it all you know how it all applies to that to that chapter in the torah but nevertheless there's a chapter in the torah and yehuda's daughter-in-law ended up conceiving from yehuda and giving birth to two to two very righteous people to sardican and that was supposed to happen however we understand that that was supposed to happen was supposed to happen and right after that is the famous story of joseph joseph mitzrayim with asia potiphar the wife of patiphar and rashi makes a very and and and yosef is called yosef the righteous joseph sadiq because at that young age he was able to he was able to suppress his desires and he passed the test uh and even though portiva's wife was tried to seduce him joseph ran out of the house and and he didn't transgress rashi brings up something which is extremely fascinating i said why are these two incidents back to back i mean when incidents are back to back in the torah they reflect upon each other each one teaches the other one and rashi says because just like tamar in the case of yehuda was acting for righteous reasons and correctly so we're not going to go into that now so too patifa's wife was acting out of righteous reasons that she knew that she was destined to have children from joseph she wasn't sure if it was her or her daughter it ended up actually joseph joseph married potiphar's daughter so rashi says her intentions were noble which is ideologue to itself is like a wow concept but okay you know rashi telling to us that fine okay batifa's wives intentional intentions and trying to do joseph were noble the erim one of the great hasidic masters he he gives a beautiful insight and he said if asian patifa knew this through rashi says through astrological reasons or ways but whatever she was capable of accessing in terms of what was ultimately the divine design yosef was at least equal to her so whatever she knew he knew which means to say that joseph also knew that he was destined to have children from the family of hatifa and he says something which is fascinating so what was going on here now so what we're going to do now is we're going to take the test to the nacion that joseph had and and and we're going to multiply it manifold because not only yosef at the age that he was in his young years of having to suppress his desires and pass the test batifa's wife but imagine this he wasn't even sure if it was the yate sahara the evil inclination that was trying to seduce him or maybe it was it was it was a good inclination maybe with the eight zato just like battamer and yehuda it had it had hashem sanction and his approval perhaps here too so yosef could have succumbed now that's a very difficult imagine you're in a situation where you have a desire a very earthly earthly desire to do something and you have and you have very good reason to believe that god's also telling you to do this in this instance i want you to do this so how how did joseph ultimately decide what happened how did he decide to just run out and he left evidence behind and he probably knew what was going to happen how did he know that it was the evil inclination and not the good inclination he says the verse says desires on yosef going back a while and and daily she would try to seduce him and that's that that's the key the evil incarnation it not he's not going to let you go he's going to try and try again he didn't try again he's going to try again but the eight sato the good inclination yes he gives us he does put the desire to do something good but only once if you act upon it then you got that commandment you got that mitzvah and you get the reward for it but if you push it off it's gone and if you notice it's interesting actually i heard this from actually i think he's going to be lecturing here of israel reisman it's fascinating it happens all the time okay you get this impulse i'm going to go i'm going to go into the basement i'm going to sit down and learn and and you go you get up you go into basic matters you open up the gemara and you start learning as soon as you start learning you remember you remember those summer you you gonna do i forgot to take my shirts to the cleaners i was gonna tell them this i was it just it it happens almost all the time as soon as you sit down you remembered there was something you got to do so let me just go do that the problem is if you do do that and it was something you needed to do of course it wasn't life or death but you needed to do it and i'm going to come right back but now we're ready it's far from a certainty that you can have the same impulse to come back as the original bills he had that brought here in the first place so robert reisman said he developed he would say he trained himself and he said okay yes i i i needed to do this but can i do it in five minutes this thing that i forgot to do if i would do it five minutes from now would it work could it could could it i'd take my shirts to the cleaners could or had to give my wife something where i had whatever i had to do could do it in five minutes yes okay so i'm gonna wait five minutes and he found that if you just take that one step you forget about it and then it didn't really need to be done they say a story this it was it it doesn't pertain to us because it's so above us but to me it was there was such a wow factor involved there was a video they created on yoshi's have you heard of yahshua he passed away just a couple of years ago he lived to over a hundred he lived here in chile he was he he was just by himself he had the the fortitude the diligence the willpower to sit and learn just straight hour after hour after hour after hour and to have you know videos him and you can hear the way the way he the way he learned the way he said the gemara out loud in in in a question and answer form saying that the question the gemara's question the answer the question of ptosis and he would say it in the sweetness of his voice and it was just he was a world unto himself and and he created an entirety of a world in his own learning and they say that after he got married when you get right to see that you're very the first couple is very busy it's you're setting up a house there's so many things you need to buy you forgot to buy this and we have to be tough with this you have to merge this in the mikvah and go here and go this and get this and get shades and stuff's not working fixing the apartment so he wasn't newly married fellow and no different than any newly newly married person and and his and his wife said you know we have a list of things that need to get done and he said okay do we do i have to do it today or what or can it wait can i wait know it could wait how how you know how long should we wait he said one thousand days and sure enough he didn't need to do whatever it is that got done whatever whatever really how they got done got um he knew he had he had to learn torah that that he knew that that's what that's what he was here for so we can a lot of times when we you know i have to do this so okay we're not really yahshua obviously we don't have to do it this minute if right now we're engaged in something we need to do then then then do it immerse yourself in if you'll need to get done of course you have to get done if if if you have to pick up your your child from nursery or machine whatever you're not going to say well i'm learning now i'm just going to leave them stranded there and you know the kids can you know be traumatized you know crying screaming with my tatty you know obviously it comes a point when you have to get up from your learning to do to do what needs to be done but don't do it the second that that impulse comes but stay with what you're doing and who knows maybe something happened your wife told to do something this is a text you you know i didn't think i was going out i yesterday go get milk he ended up with the freezing having to go well then he ended up getting milk so okay you don't have to bother hey great okay it worked okay let's go on a little bit in the center um when they talk about all the way towards the end of the century after bill um realized that that he would he wasn't far from successful and cursing the jews and just the opposite he ended up blessing the jews and the blessings that he gave the rabbi has contemplated even making part of the daily prayers to pray is the blessings are so special but he prophesized at the end and he he made comments about different nations and he mentions amalek and he says gracious the first of the nations is amolek and in the end they're going to be nothing amalek is our arch enemy we're obligated to destroy amalek not just we spoke yesterday of about when and if they can become part of the nation of israel a male from amino moab can never become part of the nation of israel a woman can if i made them after three generations zama lake we're not talking about the conversion aspect of it we're talking about when when an amaleki is in amaleki it has to be destroyed we have to actively pursue them we're not supposed to wait till they wage war on us but we're supposed to actually proactively wipe out obliterate amolek man woman child cattle anything that the name of a mother called it we have to destroy what is it about amalek it's not it it's it's really it doesn't i mean on the surface it doesn't sound why would god tell us to do this it doesn't even sound jewish like what you know what is it about amalek what is it about their existence that's the antithesis that goes so directly against what we are as jews now amalek is like amalek lived a life of there are no consequences which means chance it happened things happen there's an expression in english whatever happens things happen it doesn't mean it doesn't mean there's any divinity involved things happen you know consequences it's a very different it's it's fundamentally different we lead purposeful lives malik looks at this world that this world it's it's chance it's coincidence and again the versus now what's everywhere in the torah has significance when the torah says they happened upon you it doesn't mean they happened upon you they knew where they were going they weren't they weren't going on a picnic and oh wow hey all of a sudden we have the whole amaleki army and hey the jews are all here let's fight it didn't happen upon us they they came to us happening is there is there is there lifestyle that's philosophy that's how they live in this world on the way what does it make a difference on a road not a road is there a road in the midburg what what path what what are we talking about but say to have your time we were coming out of egypt okay is there a history lesson here do we need to tell me history so what road we are when academic time what road were we on and the road to miami has night to be giving the torah and the road to come to israel and and that's they they needed to stop us amulet cannot live and and world war ii was just a personification of that not that i read all of it but if you're looking i've read excerpts of of mineconf uh the coexistence the jew introduced guilt into the world there there's our actions have consequences exact opposite of the philosophy of amalek the ramifications to what we do the smallest things that that we do have consequences of ramifications and and of course the the more important thing we do certainly have amalek amalek needs to be it's it's seek and destroy a mother needs to be eradicated because that lifestyle the other the other nations of the world it's it's it's neutral fine they they can observe the seven the seven nawahi laws and and and and god is god and and they could they could be righteous people and and not only and then they're they present no threat to us well we're the chosen people and we understand that and we have our obligation our and our responsibilities and our purpose and mission and life and which is far different from the nations of the world but the nations of the world aren't aren't counter to us molecule is is is counter to our very existence and it's interesting we're just talking about being on the way when we're probably familiar with the sin of the golden calf that when when moshe tarried and he came down according to the calculations that that we had made in that we have made you supposed to come down a day earlier really moshe's calculations were precise and and and we we we however we understand it the the ego the city of the golden calf is compared to a form of idolatry we're going to go into how it how it is why it was but but it is so when god came down and god said he said he said they made egg masecho we made a golden calf but but hashem said something first he said soru maher minadera hashem is telling moshe they quickly went aside from the road asula ham ego masek they made a golden calf okay i understand that he made a golden calf that's pretty that's pretty heavy they made a golden calf but sarumara they why is that important because the derek that again derek doesn't mean they just happen to be we're we're we have a purpose wherever you are we're on a road and and a road means you know we can look back and say i came out of mitsrayam and we saw we saw we saw the plagues we saw the markovs we saw we went to satis mitsuram the exodus from egypt we saw kriyasyams of the splitting of the sea we saw the giving of the torah and we know we're going to israel we have we have we're to look back and we have we had to look forward to we have we come from something we have a heritage we have a destiny we have a purpose and we know where we're going derek is crucial in the life of a jew and we we always have to check and that's the torah commands that that that grandparents teach grandchildren that's a specific specific commander torah to tell your grandchildren about about the event at sinai you should tell your grandchildren you're not you're not just don't just figure it out on your own and even your parents are not enough when the torah includes grandparents in into a directive to teach their grandchildren it means you know love i'm not i'm not where the holiness starts go back we have a mesora we have a tradition we have a heritage dating all the way back to the avalosta of ramya yakov and we have to always be conscious that we're on the path and what path that we're on and specifically when we're on that path that's when our mother tried to trip us up to try to try to play with that play with our heads so you know oh don't the matter you think it matters that that doesn't matter just look around you make a decision on life whatever decisions you make career marriage morality there are no consequences that's the life of amolek that's not the life of the jew so end with that thought always always keep in mind there's always if somebody somehow you lose sight on what's in front of you you're not you're not sure where you're going then look back look backward i don't know i'm kind of lost here it's a little it's great it's fuzzy it's hazy yeah but what did my grandparents say what did my grandparents say from their grandparents laura nitrile doesn't start with me i'm not i don't have to just look i don't have to figure it out all on my own i have from where to look back and get guidance on how to go forward so we should all you all together use our collective heritage and also look at the people who who are ahead of us in life people that that have set the path and have made yeshivas like this in institutions and and the world is full of so many things that we can readily see that is the path to go and we shall be successful in choosing such a life thank you all you