Acharei Mos - Israel - Rose Among Thorns

This week's partial podcast was sponsored anonymously. May it be a great merit for the sponsor and their family. You're listening to the weekly partial podcast with Ari Goldwag, recorded with Hashem's never-ending assistance in Ramapo, New York, Israel, 5784, 2024. This week's parsha is parsha acharei mos and the first part of our parsha deals with the kohen gadol, the high priest and his avodah, his special service on Yom Kippur. And then we have the second part of the parsha, which we also read on Yom Kippur, which speaks about the forbidden relationships that the Torah lays down for us, that we are not to have. We're only allowed to marry certain people. So, I'd like to read to you from the beginning of that section as as an introduction to the section. The Torah says as follows. This is in chapter 18, verse 1. Vayedaber Hashem el Moshe lemor. God spoke to Moses and he said, daber el benei Yisrael, speak to the children of Israel. Now, amarta aleihem, ani Hashem Elokeichem. First of all, Hashem starts off and says, speak to the children of Israel and tell them that I am Hashem, your God. Which means to say, number one, uh let's see Rashi. Ani hu she amarti be Sinai, anochi Hashem Elokecha, u kibaltem aleichem malchuti, matai kibaltem gezeirotai? So, first of all, Hashem is saying, I'm the same God right now who's speaking to you, who spoke to you at Mount Sinai. You all heard my voice. And I am telling you that you need to accept my decrees. So, the the Rashi continues, Rebbe Oimeir, galui v'yadua lifanav she sefrei kasher b'arayos bimei Ezra. In times of Ezra, the Jewish people, when the first base I'm sorry, when the second base hamikdash was built, so the Jewish people at that time had made many mistakes in this area. They were married to non-Jewish women. They were married to women who were forbidden to them. So, lifnei ba aleihem gezeirah, ani Hashem Elokeichem, do umei gezeirotai chem. Dainli par u'ven emunah l'shalem sachar. That you can be assured Hashem is saying, I'm Hashem, your God. I know what's going to happen. I want you to know that the the punishment will be forthcoming and the reward for doing what's right will also be forthcoming. Okay, so it's important to know, this is a serious matter. If that's the introduction, right? Says the pasuk, k'ma'aseh eretz Mitzrayim asher y'shavtem bo lo sa'asu. Don't do that which the people of Egypt did. You lived in Egypt and this is going to be the foundation, this pasuk is going to be the foundation of what we're going to speak about today. The Jewish people lived in Egypt. Hashem says, don't do what they did, even though you lived there and you acclimated to their culture and you imbibed their culture, don't do what they did. U'ch'ma'aseh eretz Kena'an asher ani mevi eschem shamah lo sa'asu, uv'chukoseihem lo selechu. I'm bringing you to another country. There's going to be the Canaanites, who are also a decadent type of uh nation. Don't do what they do. Don't act like them. You need to be on a higher level than them. Es mishpatai ta'asu, the pasuk continues. You shall keep my laws. Es chukosai tishmoru laleches bahem. Go in my statutes. Ani Hashem Elokeichem, ani Hashem Elokeichem. Ish asher ya'aseh osam v'chay bahem, ani Hashem, the pasuk says. You shall fulfill all of my commandments. You shall live through them. This is what keeps us alive. Ani Hashem, important to know. The Torah, the commandments, the forbidden relationships, all of these things are what gives us life. Right? We we can hear the voices, the chants of death that are going on throughout the world right now, and we want to know, how do we stay alive? How has the Jewish people stayed alive for 3,300 years despite all of the chants? The answer is because we attach ourselves to Hashem and Hashem says, you want to know how to live? This is how you live. And one of the most fundamental ways of living is by attaching ourselves to these laws, keeping these laws correctly, the ones that have to do with forbidden relationships, making sure that we are careful about this area. But what I'd like to read to you now from the Medrash is about the specialness of the Jewish people, that despite the fact that we were in Egypt and despite the fact that we were surrounded by a terrible culture, a decadent culture, and this is true, of course, of today as well, despite all that, we were a rose among thorns. K'ma'aseh eretz Mitzrayim, says the Medrash, k'shoshanah bein hachochim. The pasuk, the verse says in Shir Hashirim, in the Song of Songs, we are like a rose amongst the thorns. We're surrounded by thorns. But first, before explaining that it's referring to the Jewish people, the Medrash says like this, Rebbe Yitzchak pasak k'rov Rivkah. Medrash tells us something amazing. Rivkah Imeinu, she was the matriarch of the Jewish people, the wife of Yitzchak, of Isaac. She was the mother of the twins, Eisav and Yaakov. Jacob would go on to birth 12 tribes. The Jewish people would go on to Egypt, etc. Rivkah, Rebecca was our great-great-grandmother. Now, there was something special about her. You know what it was? She was a rose amongst thorns. She amar Yitzchak bein arbaim shanah b'gamrei. When he was 40 years old, Isaac married Rebecca and the pasuk tells us that she was from Padan Aram. She was from this place called Padan Aram. U'l'Lavan she min Padan Aram, at tamud lomar achos Lavan ha'Arami. Why is the pasuk also referring to her as the brother of Lavan the Aramean? We know she's from Aram, so obviously her brother is an Aramean. Elo ve'hu Ramai, the word Arami can also be read Ramai, same letters, which means a trickster. Her father was a trickster. U'shemi k'mo Ramai. And the people of her location, where she lived, where she grew up, they were also trick trickster. They were involved in trickery. U'tzadekes hayisah me bein nosaiha. Her father, her brother, the people of her town, they were all involved in trickery. But she came out as a tzadekes. She came out as a righteous individual. She succeeded in maintaining inside of herself that spark of goodness despite the terrible culture that surrounded her. U'l'mah domah? L'shoshanah bein hachochim. What is she comparable to? She's comparable to a rose among thorns. Pikuach beshem siman amar k'siv, vayishlach Yitzchak es Yaakov vayelech. Right, he went Padan Aram, kulo um ramos. He also had to face off Yaakov, Jacob, when he went to find his wives, Rachel and Leah. He also had to face off with this feature of the place of Aram, which was ramos, trickery. So, what do we see? The first point that we see here is that what does it mean to be a rose amongst thorns? It means there's a culture that surrounds us and when we give in to the culture, when we allow ourselves to be sucked into the way that they are and we don't commit ourselves, heaven forbid, to what's right, we become like them. We are lost. We become a thorn ourselves. But when we stand up, when we remain honest, when we remain committed to truth, when we remain committed to what's right, we're not involved in trickery, right? Ramos means trickery. It means lying and being selfish and being involved in whatever you want, saying what needs to be said in order to get what you want. When that is not the case, when we are involved Rivkah was the paragon of chesed, of kindness. Kindness means giving somebody else something that's mine, giving tzedakah, giving charity. They don't deserve it. That's not I should Now, they even there, it's like, uh I should get what's mine. I should keep what's mine. No. Rivkah Imeinu was a paragon of chesed, of kindness. She was the opposite of the people of her place, of Padan Padan Aram. So, we see from here that that's what it means to be a a shoshanah bein hachochim, a rose among thorns. It means to be somebody who doesn't look at what's going on around, doesn't fall into the trap. I hear from from uh people who are struggling in America, their children are in in colleges. I'm talking about people who are not per se religious. I don't know what the situation is with those who are more religious. The people who are less religious, their children have gone off to the colleges and on the campuses they've learned to hate Israel. Even though the parents are the parents are pro Israel pro Zionism, the children have given in to the culture. They have given in to the sad sad state of things as they are right now in America. And that's not the rose amongst thorns. But let's see further. Rebbe Eliezer pasak k'rov golus Mitzrayim. So, first we see about Rivkah, she's a rose amongst thorns. But now we're going to see about the Jewish people as a rose amongst thorns. And we're going to see that really, when we looked at the Jewish people in Egypt, it didn't look very good. Moshe shanah zu k'shoshanah bein hachochim al ba'alei dilugta. A rose amongst thorns. It's hard to get. It's if you want to pick the rose and you want to place it in a vase on your table, it's a little bit hard to get that rose because there are so many thorns all around it. So too, when wanted to redeem the Jewish people, there was a great challenge. We were amongst all those thorns. I don't see any of the verses here of God. The verse says in Deuteronomy chapter 4 verse 34, it says, "Did you ever hear of Did you ever see a situation where God swooped down into into revealed himself in the in the world. He took one nation out of another nation in order to take them to himself, to make the Jewish people a unique nation. Now, you notice that the language of the going to care of God. One nation out of another nation. It doesn't say I'm a talk or I'm a talk guy or going to talk to the ways of saying a nation. It says going to talk guy. So, the indication of that language is that they they they were similar. These These two nations, if you would put a Jew right next to an Egyptian, it would have been hard to tell who was the Jew and who was the Egyptian. Both of them were uncircumcised. They were the only ones who kept the midst of circumcision at the time explains the ocean was the Levites. The family of the Levites. But the rest of the Jewish people did not circumcise themselves. They had the same hairstyles. They had long hair. Both the Jews and the and the Egyptians. They were the same kind of clothes. These ones wore a combination of wool and linen, which is forbidden by the Torah. It's going to be forbidden later on, but interesting that it chooses this item. They wore the same kinds of clothes. This the point out is not like the famous Rashi that says that Jewish people kept their names and their clothing their distinction. This holds now. They wore the same kind of clothes. So, my was faced with an issue, with a problem. The sudden the attribute of divine mercy says to God as it were, "You can't redeem them. They look They're exactly the same." These doesn't even mention serving idolatry here, but for all intents and purposes, the Jews and the Egyptians look the same. They did the same thing. The Jews were completely engulfed, completely subdued to the Egyptian culture. Right? That's why the Torah is coming back to our for a moment. Don't do what they did. Be special. Be different. Don't do what the Egyptians did. The Torah is coming The purpose of the Torah part of the what what God wants from us is to be different. To be refined. To be better. To be greater. But the problem was that at that point we were not. We were not different. We weren't better. And so, we shouldn't have been taken out. So, what's the solution? And if not for the fact that the Jewish people had that I'm sorry that Hashem had made an oath that he would redeem the Jewish people, they wouldn't have been redeemed forever. They would have remained in Egypt. That's why the verse says, "I want you to tell This is not our This is in Exodus." Hashem says, "I want you to tell the Jewish people that I am God." Therefore, that's the verse that says Whenever it says the word therefore, it's always an oath. That in in olive there's a whole story of who makes an oath about the children of the house of Eli. And the result is the word We see from there that the word is an oath. Hashem made an oath that he's going to save the Jewish people and it's because of that oath because he said that because he promised that, that's why I have to save him. He had no choice, so to speak. He knew that they would go down into Egypt and that they would become mixed up and and imbibe the the feeling and the the culture of the Egyptians. But Hashem had made an oath. Despite the fact that they were so similar to them, he was going to take them out one nation from another and you can't distinguish between them. So, it comes out very interesting that where's the rose and where's the thorn? How does Hashem as it were Of course, Hashem knows, but how does Hashem know how to take them out? They look like thorns. So, it sounds like the fact that Hashem made this oath means that the name of Hashem is called upon the Jewish people no matter what. And they remain the rose even though they look like a thorn. The name of Hashem is is still called on the Jewish person. What we call the the lead. The the little spark of Jewishness that remains inside of the person that can never be extinguished. The verse says in them that God redeemed with with power with his with his powerful arm his nation. What does it mean? He had to I could had to use this power of the oath that he originally made in order to to beat down the attribute of divine justice, which didn't allow him to take them out. tells us a very interesting thing. He says if you count the letters, Sorry, if you count the I'm not sure if it's the words or the letters here. That if you count the letters, it sounds like the letters. In the words in the of the You count the You count out the letters, you'll count out that there are 72 letters. From from the going to come and take one nation from out from another and you keep going until the words the awesome wonders that he did, there are 72 letters. So, you'll notice if you actually count, you'll notice there are 75 letters. You can take out the word the second word which is three letters and I mean it's not counted because it's referring to the nation of the Egyptians. And therefore, of the 75 letters, you're left with 72. So, what's that? So, The indication here is that if you take the Egyptian out of the the word which refers to the Egyptians out of the picture, so what's left is the 72 letter name of Hashem. Or there is a 72 letter name of Hashem, which interestingly, it's in the parsha. When the Jewish people come to the We just read it over Pesach over Passover. The When the Jewish people come to the um So, the says that the cloud of Hashem's glory came and stood between the Jewish people instead of being in front of them leading them, it stood between the Jewish people and the Egyptians separating between the encampments. So, there are three in there. And those three If you look at them and you count the letters, each is 72 letters. Three Three verses in a row, each 72 letters. There's a very deep and very high idea related to the those three I'm not going to get into it. Rashi talks about it in in Sukkah. But there are basically 72 three letter names of Hashem that are in those that we are able to deduce from those three verses. And the name This powerful name of Hashem represents the right? Hashem's cloud goes between the Jewish people and Egyptians. It represents the separation between the Jewish people and the nations of the world. And it's hinted to here in this verse that speaks about that Hashem took one nation out from another nation. He He separated us out. It was his name. Again, God's name is called upon us. Whether we are acting that way or not, it's still Hashem's name is called upon us. And so, Hashem can take us out. He can That's his oath. That's his promise. His name represents the essence of who he is. It's source of life. We spoke before about life. So, that's the power of the of of how it applies to the Jewish people in Egypt as they're stuck in Egypt. But now, the last point here is we saw that it was true about Rivka. We saw that it was true even about the Jewish people even though they weren't doing what's right. But now we come to how it can apply to us. And how we can become that rose amongst the thorns. The measure says like this. It gives us an analogy to a king that has rows and rows of different kinds of trees. There's a row of uh fig trees, there's a row of vines of grape vines, row of of rimonim trees, apple trees. He gives it over to his sharecropper, to his worker, and he says, "I'm I'm leaving now. I want you to take care of it." So he went and got the darn He expected that his worker would keep it in good condition, that it would be cleaned out of all of the thorns and all of the thistles and all of the weeds. But that's not what happened. He came back after some time, and he saw that it was full full of of thorns and thistles and weeds. His sharecropper did not take care of the field. He did not take care of the orchard. Interesting. He brought people some other workers to remove the thorns. And as they're going through the thorns, he sees that there's one beautiful um rose. So even though he was disappointed that the entire that the orchard had not been taken care of, but he was still able to find one rose amongst the thorns. And the the king enjoyed he he enjoyed the smell of the of the rose. He enjoyed the beauty of that rose. He said, uh it's interesting to exactly what's the what is the language how to translate it. I could translate it one of two ways. Because of this bec- it was worth it that there should be all of these terrible thorns and all of the disgustingness and all of the mess in order just to find this one one rose. Or I don't have to destroy I I you know, I felt perhaps the king felt like this this whole orchard was worthless cuz it wasn't taken care of. And perhaps he was ready to just destroy the whole orchard and and say enough is enough. I'm not going to deal with this. But he was saying that it's worth it to keep the entire orchard just for this one beautiful rose. So the analogy is so too the entire world length of wishful thinking. The entire world was only created for the Torah. 26 generations from the time Adam Rishon was created from the first man until the Jewish people received the Torah. He looked at the world and it was just filled with thorns. that the whole world was just filled with the a deluge of water. The generation of Enoch, the mabul, the generation of the flood. I could just felt like this world wasn't worth creating. What what did I bother for, so to speak? I just wanted to destroy everything, everyone. God brought a flood. God wanted to destroy the world. But then saw that there was a single a single beautiful flower, a beautiful rose. And that was the people of Israel. And when the Jewish people received the Ten Commandments, received the word of God, they were ready to do it. They were ready to fulfill his will to be that light that will shine in the world. So took the Jewish people and he smelled them. Ah, what a beautiful smell. We shall not be sure. And God felt such a relief, as it were, when they said the words na'aseh v'nishma, we will do and we will hear. Shem said, "For this for this single rose, the entire orchard will be saved. The whole world is worth saving because the people of Israel received the Torah. Because we're willing to do God's will. So all of the destruction, all of the thorns, all of the mess, I still found something. I still found something that's worth redeeming the world for. Amazing amazing measure. I you know, we're in this time between Pesach and Shavuot. We received we we had that you know, experience of the Exodus on Pesach night at the at the Seder. And we're going through the weeks counting up the days until we get to Shavuot when we will receive the Torah. And it's important to remind ourselves what's it all about? What's it all about? It's the specialness of the Jewish people. We are not like the nations of the world. We are not thorns. We might have become acculturated, so to speak. We might have become part of these cultures around us that are decadent, but we are not like that. We have name on us. It's worth saving us. It's worth pulling us out. Clearing away the thorns, moving it aside, bringing us out of Egypt, giving us the Torah. We're going to say na'aseh v'nishma. What a beautiful riach nichoach, what a beautiful fragrance that we do. Enjoys from us. This is what we're trying to do now. This is what it's about. This is what saves the world. The world around us is on fire. The world around us is in a state of confusion, in a state of decadence. And it's specifically in this area that we are talking about here that's to do with relationships, forbidden relationships. But the Jewish people remain connected to life. To life. To the relationships that create life. To the relationships with which are appropriate and pure and kedushin. They refer to holiness. When we have a proper relationship between a man and his wife, a man and a a woman, creating new human beings in the world, bringing down the loftiest of souls. This commitment to Torah, this commitment to being not like the nations of the world, this commitment to being greater is how we attach to Hashem, how we attach ourselves to the name of Hashem, which is the name that Hashem used for his oath to protect us and to bring us out in the end. And it's also true of the final geulah. I can't read on cuz we're out of time. There's so much more to say here. It's worth seeing this measure. It's in It's in parsha chof gimmel, section 23. At the beginning of dollar, I just read the first three sections. But the bottom line is I want to bless you. I ask you to bless me. Should help us that we should be able to remain true, able able to remain faithful, able to remain connected to the source of light, to the source of what's good, which is the Torah. Should be able to say na'aseh v'nishma. We'll do the Torah. We should give off that beautiful fragrance so that will say, "It's worth it to save the world for me and for you and for the entire Jewish people who tries their best, their utmost to complete and ful- to complete and fulfill the will of Hashem as stated in his Torah. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful Shabbos. This podcast was made possible through the gracious donations of listeners like you. For more podcasts like this, please visit www.arigoldwag.com or search on iTunes Ari Goldwag.