Dispelling Popular Myths About the Torah (Rabbi Dovid Gottleib) (Jewish Philosophy)

uh so we've finished the discussion of free will um today I want to look at some halachos laws that people think they understand and find them very problematic and as is often the case their understanding is incomplete and then the difficulties that they discover usually disappear when understood correctly there are some crimes in Jewish law which carry the death penalty now we can talk about the death penalty in general if you like whether it's reasonable unreasonable um but when you look at the list of crimes some of them are hard to feel that death penalty is appropriate because the crime doesn't look so serious let's say violating Shabbos validity shop is the capital crime so that would mean people think that the person struck a match on Shabbos he would die with all of the great philosophical literature about Chavez it does seem a bit extreme to die for striking a match on Saturday but they don't take into account is the conditions that have to be met to put capital punishment into effect according to Jewish law not only do there have to be two witnesses to the crime but the person who's committing the crime has to be warned before he commits it this is forbidden and it's a capital crime and he has to respond I know I'm doing it anyway now I want you to imagine puruven he wants a cigarette Shabbos afternoon that's what he wants gee it takes that a cigarette takes out as lighter Reuben and shipment come around the around the corner really you're gonna die she wouldn't leave you you're going to die you're about Eddie Shabbos if he wants the cigarette what's he going to do he's going to say thanks for reminding me guys gee it slipped my mind oh I would never violate Chavez have a nice day and when they walk around the corner and light up a cigarette that's what he would do if he wanted a cigarette what does he want if they warn him and he says yeah I know I got it I'm doing it anyway does he want the cigarette it doesn't sound like it he wants to make a public anti-terror demonstration he wants the public to know that he's against and he's against the holiday that celebrates the creation of the world that's what statutory capital punishment applies to so it isn't the crime of lighting the match on Shabbos it's the kind of making that kind of public demonstration to and you know in violation of the Torah I think that changes the concept of capital punishment to a great degree yeah all right is there an idea of someone ignoring the warnings not they just choose not to respond to the warnings I think one of the purposes of the warnings to make sure that he's of sound mind if he ignores the warning you don't know did he hear you do you understand you they take it into account so as far as I know he's got the answer otherwise the capital punishment is not a statutory uh requirement for such a case whether you think that he knows what he's doing or doesn't know what he's doing um person who's involved in that kind of action typically is in a state of mind where he's not carefully controlling every move thinking about all the consequences what he should do and what he shouldn't do he didn't rehearse it beforehand you know we're not talking about paid Killers let me tell you what people usually murders a crime of passion something happens a person's in her age and he and he and those conditions not going to be controlling his his uh responses in that way now connected to this is what we have in the end of last week's Parsha zimria tribe Prince of the tribe of Shiva by the way the word Prince there is not singular the word SAR in in Hebrew is a communal leader there could be several and for several different purposes takes this midianite woman and she brings him her her in front of uh Moses the whole assembly and then he goes off to his domicile to have relations with her and Chris tracks them Trails them and and kills them with a spear he's called the kanoi a kanoi means roughly someone who identifies with some value or some go to the extent that he's willing to protect it at all costs that's the right way to define the word kanoi sometimes in English translations you find the word jealous it's just has nothing to do with reality you might say zealous but zealous is very very general it can cover lots and lots of different kinds of behaviors doesn't specifically cover the behavior of punishing people um now the picture that I have heard sold about pilgrasses he observes this event and he flies into a rage and he grabs his spear in an outrage you know out of control emotionally and and kills them now that's totally wrong it's a totally wrong picture one second and it's wrong because the oral tradition fills in details that you don't have in the written text and at this point I want to insert a footnote another thing that I hear people say oh well you know the oral condition whitewashes things it adds things in it was written hundreds of years later and written for a different point of view and it's all propaganda and this kind of academic irresponsible talk it's very very important to realize that of the two the written Torah and the oral Torah the oral Torah came first the oratora came first and the written came afterwards because the Torah tells us explicitly that Moses wrote The Scroll containing the five books of Moses at the end of his life after the 40 years the end of the 40 years in the wilderness Moses came down from Sinai with the understanding of Torah and he taught Torah to the people for 40 years and the book came into existence only at the end of the 40 years now of course that's not the entirety of the oral tradition sober was added by later generations but a great deal of it was received by Moses from Sinai in particular everything that contributes to defining the laws of the Torah was received by him so that when the written texts came into existence as reverse points out in detail the written text is something like lecture notes that you would take and listening to a lecture where the preface of the notes is to remind you who is at the lecture what was in the lecture that's why the written is often incomplete that's why the written is often written in such a way that it's hard to understand because it's never meant to stand alone so when someone says that the picture that the thought is giving us of this event has to include the oral tradition on the event he's not using apologetics to justify later amendments that were made for the sake of later sensitivities on the contrary he say that you can't understand the text in absence of the other information that was available to the people who first received the text yeah now your tradition explains each situation like this why did zimmri bring this midianite woman to Moses and the assembly what was that for if he's just having a a an affair if he's just having a matter of sexual fulfillment just go to his tent and do what he's doing no he brought her to the to the to the assembly and said is this woman permissible for me or forbidden and if you tell me that she's forbidden didn't Moses marry a midnight Midnight woman so what kind of law is that which allows Moses to do it and not me and me not to do it and they were stymied of course the question is a little off base Moses married her before the Torah was given so the laws of the 12 weren't in effect yet and if you will tell me that we know we have a tradition that the Patriarchs and the Jews Before the Throne was given kept the laws of the Torah I will remind you that the ramban says that was only in the land of Israel after all who were Moses parents how were they related familiarly she was his aunt that's forbidden according to Total law but it was in Egypt it was in Egypt so it wasn't a problem so for zimmery to challenge Moses if you could marry a midi woman I could marry a midnight woman it's really uh at the at the at the best guilty of anachronism you did what you did before the Torah was given and I'm focusing now after that there was given at any rate was present and no one had an answer Perkins remembered what Moses had said about this case and he said to Moses didn't you teach us that in a case like this and they should be executed I'm gonna explain what executed means in a moment it's not what normally means and and Moses says to him since you remembered the law you should carry it out this doesn't sound like a man who's in a rage in a frenzy running after the criminals to kill them he's standing there with the court with the with the senator and he's discussing it and asking and getting permission now how did he get into the vicinity of the tribe of Shimon into the prince's tent with a spear how did he manage that coming for tea hey leave your spirit outside so the oral tradition tells us he took the head of the spear off the shaft and hit it under his clothes now he's just got a big walking stick and he walks up and he says I have an appointment with zimmery he's a grandson of the high priest and he has an appointment with the prince that's nice especially since the grandson of the high priest comes to their prince that's a very a nice honor to show him please Be Our Guest here's the red carpet he goes into the tent and they are involved and then he screws on the the head of the spear and he kills the two of them so this is not outrage frenzy loss of control emotional upheaval that's certainly not not what happened here now when I say that it's it's a capital crime here it's different for almost every other crime because here you can only execute them while they're in the act of Performing the crime so in other words the execution Pro prevents further Commission of crime usually when you have Capital crime if it's after the crime is over you need Witnesses you need a court you need to have discussion and debate you have to interview the witnesses and then have a legal decision but if it's while the crime is going on and this and the crime can be stopped then it's kanoi pogibo people whose sense of what's going on is so outrageous that they are motivated to stop it at any cost but the motivation to stop it at any cost does not put them out of control that's the picture of the oral tradition gives us of this event and the picture is elaborated uh when you take into account what Rashi says which is based on a business and analyze what it means because at the end of last week's Parsha when the event is described is identified as president Elizabeth the son of Allah the son of Our Own the the priest in this week's Pasha five verses later it says that God gives him a special blessing and he's identified again as Pittsburgh now I know the attention span is a problem but we're going from five sentences to forget who pickles is probably not not realistic oh why does the Torah re-identify him so Rashi mentions the midrash some authorities were speaking of pilkas with disgrace and with this and with despising him on the grounds that he stopped the crime when it was public in front of Moses and Aaron and other members said hedrin none of them took action why is he's the only one who took action now they're looking from the outside they were present in the discussion that I just told you they're looking for the outside they say we know why because Pearson says maternal grandfather was Israel the midianite eventually converted to Judaism so he has non-jewish blood flowing through his veins and Midian is known for anger and aggressiveness that's the explanation for why he did it and the others didn't do it because he has that aggressive violent motivation moving him which is precisely the false description that the people I mentioned six minutes ago apply it's the same words that he was out of control in a frenzy that's exactly what this false accusation was accusing him of and that's on record so these people who say that he was out of control and by the way they use that to justify being out of control if you're a Jew and you see somebody doing something terrible especially another Jew you should beat him up you shouldn't strike him you should kill him because it's terrible and God wants his Vengeance look a pen with us that's exactly what they said about about to disgrace him to discredit him so the police Ali has here a very beautiful explanation which takes into account [Music] another feature of the story these others who were disgracing him saying he did it in a frenzy who are they they are also leaders their leaders are described as leaders um and I'm sorry so by the way so so let me just finish the the exposition so they said it because of his maternal grandfather that's why the text has to again recite his his uh [Music] genealogy to his paternal grandfather Aaron Aaron was known as someone who loves peace and pursues peace and tried to bring peace away people who had had difficulties and disagreements so the texts say you're wrong you'll say it's coming first maternal grandfather it's coming from his paternal grandfather you're making a mistake that's what the why it's the the genealism is repeated but the Prince Ali says these people weren't fools they weren't ignorant they also knew that his paternal grandfather was iron they said with his paternal grandfather is iron still he did it and the others didn't do it it must be because of his maternal grandfather and because of this anger and aggressiveness so Victoria comes to tell you that that's not true so the prison but they weren't they weren't fools they knew the alternate uh descent from from Iron why didn't that move them why didn't they think of the answer that they were given and was their statement just wrong just false so the prison says this they had it half right yes the fact that he came from Israel and Israel represents a culture in which anger and aggressive behavior is characteristic played a role in his actions it did play a role in his action but instead of being that which motivated him instead of that being the purpose of his action it was simply the emotional resources from which he could act on his real goal his real goal is that he saw this as a rupture between the relationship between God and the Jewish people or between Moses and the Jewish people and because his paternal grandfather is Aaron and because he's motivated to act for the sake of peace that's what pushed him to act now what does he have to do well the law which he had heard from Moses was under these conditions you have to kill them that's not simple there is danger the law is had zimri noticed that Pinnacles was coming and defended himself and killed him he would have been blameless he has the right to defend his life so that being the case is undertaking a dangerous Act what gives him the emotional strength to undertake the dangerous act for the sake of peace is the fact that he came from his maternal grandfather who had this aggressive behavior in his character so he used the aggressiveness in his character for the sake of Peace that's why he is his genealogy to our own is repeated and the end of the sequence is God says I give him thereby my Covenant of Peace of Shalom I give my Covenant of Peace because he acted for the sake of Peace because the motivation was for the sake of Peace but if you understand why he was able to kill the two of them for the sake of peace that came from the side of his lineage from uh vidyat and the prison Ends by pointing out that there's a prophet named ovadia and avadia was stemmed through conversion from Edo and he was given a prophecy against Edom because since he had inherited the character of Adam and became a Jew and thereby Incorporated that into his service of God he was the one to go to speak to Adam because he had a natural connection there so these impulses that a person has which could be wild which could be irresponsible we are taught to subject them to the leadership of the Torah principles that are involved but not to deny them and to be able to use them yeah Rabbi does Hashem I mean I feel like the answer this has to be yes but does Hashem specifically have emotions in mind when he gives us certain challenges but also resources to confront those challenges so sometimes he'll give someone sorrow a sorrowful nature and that will be their struggle on Earth to Grapple against like an overly melancholic nature and sometimes he'll give someone fire intending that they use that fire to achieve certain goals absolutely okay absolutely first of all there are mitzvos of emotions someday I'll give you a share an emotions in the terror and their missiles to control emotions and their missiles they harness emotions so that's absolutely correct different people as they grow and mature develop spontaneously certain emotions notice I didn't say born with emotions very careful about that it's triggered Behavior not inborn Behavior typically at least and that's the starting point that you have on your challenge of Spiritual Development and the the emotional resources you have both uh contain those which are positive which enable you to do and respond naturally to the things that need to be done and also things that you have to control which then require effort and and self-development both of them are are part of the conditions that you know that that kind of clearly lays that out uh seems to hint at that but someone who's more explicitly talking about how that factors into like Hashem specifically crafting the situation well Hill close deos is the laws of character development is the second section in the mishna Torah so he talks about a great lecture you got a question 's wife actually converted that's why it was a little bit different too he married a midianite but also can she converted though the question is whether what um what constitutes conversion at that time and that's a deep question as to whether what we call Jewish identity existed prior to the Torah be given and there's an actual difference in in in Practical law because we inherit our Jewish identity from our mothers the only parent that makes a child Jewish is the mother the father's irrelevant for the other nations of the world it's only the father now the question is what status did the Jews before they give me the Torah have and it's a difference of opinion some say it was the mother and say it was the Father which means some say that well we call Jewish identity didn't exist yet so conversion that I just met except in the belief in God and worshiping God in the way that they were able to do so I don't know if the word conversion means that she becomes Jewish in that sense it becomes permissible but there was no no Prohibition in the first place so to marry other people that that was all you had to do was just pledge allegiance we did it after the Torah was given right somebody's after the thought was getting all the laws of the third then apply and he can't uh can't have that leniency yeah but doesn't this relate to you oh absolutely that's whether ramban says it I mean Jacob married two sisters what two sisters Torah doesn't allow that he did that in Quran not in the land of Israel and that's where the ramban says the Patriarchs undertook the keep the laws of the Torah only outside the land of Israel and then as he points out when they came back she died she died of the first opportunity she died in childbirth to give birth to Benjamin her second son she died in childhood yeah what were the Patriots intentionally keeping the laws of the Torah in Israel as they understood them and then letting themselves violate outside of Israel that's what taraban says exactly after all it's very difficult to understand otherwise how amram and could marry when when she was his aunt but it was in Egypt so the what did it mean to mean to them because because somebody now who follows Tura doesn't matter where you are you can't transgress that if you really believe it very good question the Roman talks about this detail I'll tell you the gist um well I'll skip the derivation from the verse in the Shema but I'll tell you that just the the laws of the Torah are made for the land of Israel because the land of Israel is where hashem's presence exists and it's like the Palace of the king as opposed to the rest of the Kingdom a country has laws they apply throughout the geography of the country the powers of the King has a special set of laws that apply because you're in the same structure as the king and therefore they're special behaviors that are required the laws of the Torah are made for the land of Israel not only the agricultural laws which lapse once you step outside the boundary of the land of Israel but all the laws are made for the land of Israel which means that in terms of the purpose of the laws when you go outside of the individual the original purpose doesn't apply well I will tell you this because I see some skeptical looks on certain faces this is an explicit verse in the Torah with with the Ghazal explaining it in the Shema in the second paragraph the middle paragraphs the midsection says if you violate the Torah badly enough the Taurus will light enough you're going to Exile the next words are put on fill in and put on mezuzah and teach story to your children and so forth and so on so the commentators ask like you're telling me the paragraph says if you do well you'll do well if you do ill you do ill you go into Exile and keep these laws like why is that there what's what's that doing there so the talent says because the Torah is telling you even after you go into exile you still should keep the laws now let me teach a piece of logic when you say even though A B is saying two things you're saying A's against B a is a barrier to B without some special consideration it would have canceled out B ah but there's a special consideration so somebody says even though a comma B he owes you two explanations why was there attention between A and B why was there any compatible between incompatibility between a and b and then he has to tell you what overcame that incompatibility that's the logic of even it's based on the verse even when you go to Exile you should keep these laws you have to ask first of all why would you have thought that you go next to Exile you don't keep the laws that's what the robot is explaining because the purpose of the laws is how you should behave in the Palace of the king and you've been expelled from the past of the king okay what overcomes that so Rashi says it somehow it's often misread and misunderstood and taught mistaken fashion Rashi says the following I'm saying on the basis of the guraria now the mara there's only one source of Torah law and that's Moses nowhere else do you have a source of Torah law you've been to a Bismillah you've been to circumcision what blessing does the father of the child say I am inducting him into the Covenant of Abraham Our Father yes he is why is he doing that because Moses said so he's not doing it because Abraham did it it's not doing it because Abraham was committed to do it for his children he's doing because Moses said so there's only one source of total law and that's Moses now it's worth that when you leave the land of Israel and you go outside not only individuals let's say everybody all the Jews go into exile and they go back to pre-torah law for the non-jewish world then they would have lost the connection with Moses daughter they're not fulfilling any of Moses Torah Moses to them is not functional anymore then when they come back from Exile it would be a new beginning there can't be a new beginning so the laws of the Torah that we keep in Exile which the Torah commands keeps Shabbos to New York you have to keep Shabbos in New York a personal shoppers to New York has committed the same Capital crime as someone who commits violence Shabbos and usual but he's not keeping it for the same reason s because that's what the law was supposed to accomplish that Shabbos should be kept in the land of Israel in New York he's keeping Shabbos so that when people come back from Exile it won't be a new beginning to be able to re-establish their performance of the of the the mittens in the land of Israel they're both minding but by these for utterly different reasons so this is why the patriarch said we are volunteering to keep the laws of the Torah where the laws of the Torah perform the function for which they were intended we're not volunteering to keep the laws of the Torah in a place where it's only there to maintain continuity and Exile in preparation for return that far we're not willing to go that's the difference in the in the motivation yeah that's a very good question um I haven't seen it explicitly discussed my instinct tells me that it shouldn't affect the sky at all you should not it should not affect the reward at all first of all you have to ask why is the person not in the land of Israel sometimes justifies being outside the individual and sometimes it would command being outside the line individual living the land of Israel is not a missile for which you have to endanger your life there were many centuries in which ramban came here and died here was killed here also was killed here so you it was dangerous to come here you don't have to do that furthermore you can leave the land of Israel for the sake of Torah study for the sake of getting married for the sake of earning a living so I can't imagine a person who has a legal permission to be outside the individual and keeps Shabbos in New York and thereby is keeping a Shabbos which is only a means to an end and at the end of Shabbos itself will lose anything because of that says he's in the right place if he shouldn't be there and he's violating that that might compromise his commitment but not just the fact that the purpose in the land of Israel is the ultimate purpose and the purpose of New York is a secondary purpose I don't think that would affect the other I'm as I say I'm speculating but that's that's what seems to me to be correct yes [Music] prior to that point it was you were only held accountable within the land of Israel no you weren't held accountable at all the the Patriarchs volunteered to do this they didn't have to do this at all had they not not done it they would have done nothing wrong they wouldn't have been accountable at all it was just voluntary in fact this fact helps to explain a question that everyone asks um Abraham circumcised himself at 99 when God told him to what took him so long if he's already keeping all the laws of the Torah that he can voluntarily why didn't he monetarily circumcise himself it's a good question the simple answer is that there's a big difference between mitzvos that are voluntary versus obligatory I mean voluntary means because brother citizens I invite you to do this if you do it I'll give you a reward but if you don't out of mind I'm not commanding you to do it I'm just inviting you to do it that's a voluntary misman a command of this is where God says I command you to do it if you do it you'll be rewarded if you don't you'll be punished our tradition tells us though this might not be intuitive to you but our tradition tells us that that which is fully commanded as a far superior mitzvah more Superior to a voluntary okay Shabbos you do every week prayer you do every day every year but you can only do circumcision once and if you do involuntarily you're giving up and the possibility of doing it obligatory which is the higher mitzvah so since God did give Abraham orders he did give him Commandments and instructions one explanation is he was waiting to see whether God would want to give him the superior midst of doing it obligatory by his commanding him to do it how long would he have waited how long would have well who knows I think since God promised him children and he didn't have children yet he could trust that he wasn't going to die immediately so he certainly had more time so he was waiting for the command so it should be done obligatory and of course that's what happened in the end yes okay I'm glad you asked um and I I the your turn of voice I think is exactly correct it sounds like it would be the opposite because let's speak it out something I'm ordered to do if I do it that shows I'm dutiful I'm obedient I'm willing to take orders suddenly I'm not worthy to do shows my generosity my nobility my idealism it shows much higher much finer character than something I'm ordered to do why wouldn't the voluntary Mitzvah be a higher mitzvah so there are two explanations this that I know what is Texas now places wrote this 800 years ago but boy is this modern he says a person is commanded to do something has a natural resistance don't tell me what to do don't push me around I'll live okay that's my way to put it I'll live my own life it's a natural resistance to being given orders and that for a person who's fulfilling a a commanded Mr has to overcome resistance whereas if it's a voluntary mitzvah that doesn't generate the same kind of resistance let me give you a brutal example of this I was here in 1964 because I am very old and I was at a bus and there was an Israeli teenager smoking on the bus that would never happen today but those were the Rough and Ready Frontier Days you know with chickens on the bus and goats on the bus it was uh interesting time so he's smoking on the bus and I was you know uh full of righteous indignation I thought to myself I've got to stop this this is crazy you know people are inhaling secondary smoke but I thought to myself what's going to happen if I tell them he's got to stop it because he's doing something terrible and dangerous he's a 17 year old Israeli hmm and what the kind of reaction I'll get so I thought to myself here's a better suggestion I went over to him and I said listen I suffer from asthma and the smoke is making it hard for me to breathe do me a favor please and put out the cigarette put it out right away put it right away ask a person for a favor most people like to think of themselves as good guys you know I'm a good guy I can do someone to say well I can't do someone a favor but he asked that's a much um much stronger motivation for him to do it so that means that when you're ordered to do it says delicious there's a natural resistance that don't push me around don't know what to do and since you're overcoming that resistance you get greater reward that's one explanation let me give the other explanation I'll take the other which is based on the written around and others ask yourself this question which type of Mitzvah has more of God in it and less of you in it obviously we're given in order to be given an invitation how did we describe the difference between them when we set up the question 90 seconds ago we said that when it's voluntary it demonstrates noble character high ideals fine sensitivity it sure does demonstrate my noble character and my high deals and my fine sensitivity don't I come out to be a great guy there's a lot of I in that performance when given an order and my job is to obey there's much less of I in there it's just I'm doing what you want hopefully I'll do what you want because you want it and that's what makes it a bigger Mitzvah after all the Mitzvah means commandment performance of commandment is fulfilling the will of the commander and in a a commanded Mitzvah as much more of the will of the Commander in the performance and much less of my own ego gratification or find character gratification and that's why it's a superior performance now you got a question yeah so you can find animals anyway you mean it too late all right okay okay yeah been upset that they didn't get the opportunity to not do it by choice oh that's a very good question given what I said before of course they knew it was going to be given uh the giving of the turret Sinai is a precondition for the continuation of the existence of the world and they do that but you're asking a question which which needs a little bit of subtlety let me let me start off with like something on the side which is perhaps a little cleaner and then and then we'll come to this let's take Abraham Isaac and Jacob Abraham spent according to the rumble anyway uh about a quarter of his life worshiping idols Romans says he was 40 or 48 two texts in the Mr Torah when he came to Harrisburg he offered sacrifices to Idols with his own hands he was about children yes God wasn't like that Isaac wasn't like that their whole lives were lives of serving God whose life is superior who gets more credit who gets more reward Abraham gave birth to non-jewish Children how many many thanks anybody know a number no he's guessing at least seven because after Sarah died he remarried and had six or maybe seven and he had smile before Yitzhak was born at least seven Isaac had two children jacoven was not Jewish yaakov all his children were Jewish has a great great accomplishment who gets more reward whose life is more precious whose life is is is greater Abram Isaac Jacob wrong question wrong question without Abraham Isaac and Jacob wouldn't have existed his role was to build the foundation if you don't have a holiday Foundation the rest of the building won't stand Isaac was the continuity and Jacob was the flowery but I Jacob existed only because Abraham and Isaac laid the groundwork for it so we don't say that Jacob was credited with more Merit more reward because he was on a higher level because part of the reason he was on a higher level because he was projected to that level by his father and grandfather now the Patriarchs are the people who lived before the giving of the Torah they're laying the foundation so that the Torah could be given they're creating a nation that's going to stand at Sinai that's their contribution to to the to the project shall someone say if the Messiah doesn't come in my time my life is a failure because I didn't you know bring the Messiah or I didn't experience absolutely not we live in a time when the temple doesn't stand roughly a third of the Mitchells aren't in to be are able to be implemented that was true for Rashi also it was true for the rambam also were their lives somehow truncated inferior and so on absolutely not because we're all who put those souls and our souls into a condition our job is to operate under those conditions and to perform what the what authorities under those conditions it's a joint effort it's a joint project everyone contributes to peace and like a mosaic it comes together to make a to make a uh a portrayal of a picture so um there's there's no no sense in which the that they were inferior they had to do what they had to do you know Abraham went through the sacrifice of Isaac so there's a camera which I believe is needs to be understood carefully there was a woman named Miriam she had seven sons and the the non-jewish king said I want them to bow to the idols she said absolutely not and he said I'll throw down some money and you'll pick up the money and it'll just look like a battery to the idol absolutely not and and they slaughtered each one of his son her sons in front of her and she said when you appear before Abraham tell them he was told to sacrifice only one and I sacrificed seven now I think a superficial foolish interpretation is ah I did better than your Abraham seven to one no what she was saying was Abraham brought into the world the possibility of dying for God Abraham and Isaac together once he brought it into the world we're all feeding off that ins that that Foundation that he put in the world what she's saying is you brought it in and I did it I did it because you provided it she wasn't said to have a competition with him so that's another thing when a person goes through something he's creating a new reality for the generations that come after him and that means that their challenges will be different and each one you know contributes his own successes his challenges yeah why would why use numbers then because to convey the message that you're talking about the numbers almost shift the message away from the idea of uh you know just acting on the potential I lost numbers what number like seven kids to one to one it's almost intentionally create now this is very important we're reporting a real event this is not made up stories for the sake of teaching morals it happened that she had seven children if it had four and we should have said it was at four we would say that the number seven isn't an accident number seven has all sorts of meanings but you know when you're learning literature the first question that sometimes comes up is is this a historical accounting or is it meant to teach some kind of moral some kind of lesson we reject the either or because the either or comes from the idea that history is random and it happens there's history isn't designed to teach anything it just does what it does from our point of view history isn't random it's guided it's managed and therefore the real story is designed to teach a lesson so but but here it's just that's the event that took place to use the number to teach us yeah last question when it comes to the problematic the subject of problematic um how does it become that things like this are misunderstood and that they need kind of to be reinterested is it poor teaching in the first place and it can only be corrected with proper proper teaching I I can't the things that I told you today uh [Music] the first thing that I told you about anything warning every every child of 11 knows he's learned it and he's not not questionable but there are people outside you're a little read the verses and they don't know anything about the oral tradition and they think the book has to speak for itself as it doesn't say anything about warning that's the way they take it especially people who Google it so they can get there from cousin you know and try to tear them down of which there are many many um the um well so then we wanted to get to the second one that I was going to do so I don't think it's a question of we're teaching I think it's superficial portrayal somehow in every other study there is a rule that people quote and approve of don't quote out of context that doesn't apply to the study of Religion in general and it doesn't apply to the five books of Moses take one verse and quote it if it doesn't make sense then spit on it that's that's the way it's done it's a book sometimes I asking person have you read the book the book the whole book no why not isn't it premature you know to criticize a page or a chapter out of a book when you haven't read the rest of the book or at least read the commentaries of people who have read the rest of the book no you know this is the two-minute commercial between the two halves the television program when they open ah okay I'll type I'll ask my cousin about that tomorrow I'll get him