Bechukosai & Bamidbar - Finding His Guidance

you're listening to the weekly partial podcast with ari goldwag recorded with hashem's neverending assistance in rahmapi championship israel 5782 2022. this week in khutsallar this is parish boku kosai and in eretz israel it's purchased by midbar i'd like to share with you mention the end of the course i mentioned at the beginning of amirbar and discuss with you an idea a thought i've been speaking about already this week in the talking podcast i'd like to continue talking about this idea concept that i'd like to speak about is god's divine providence specifically in terms of his guidance and showing us looking for trying to understand what is it that hashem would like us to do where where does it where is it that hashem wants us to go we can determine this we can figure it out for example who gives us certain talents certain abilities certain things that we're good at and certain things that we're not so good at that's a sign it's a sign of where we're supposed to go where we're supposed to head things that we're passionate about are the things that we're supposed to do doesn't take away our obligation from doing things at our heart of course a person has a hard time learning tomorrow let's say still gotta learn but there are certain things that we'll find ourselves more drawn to those are signs from heaven that we're of what we're supposed to do but i'd like to share with you the message we have the concept of eric a person gives a certain amount of money based on his value obviously not the value of a human being is an but there gives us a certain idea as far as what value looks like in this context and so there are dharma a person can can promise that he's going to give a certain thing a certain amount to the base amigdas to the temple to the mishkan arbor pascal nadaram says the magician very interesting idea that there were four people who wanted to give something to there were four people let's let's say differently there were four people who asked takadashiboroku for a certain thing a specific thing they said something which was open to hakadosh responding and having hashikaka and and hashem showing his ashikaka pratis in that particular circumstance so there were four people like this we're going to enumerate them shortly there were three people who asked appropriately i'm sorry they asked inappropriately they they made a request which wasn't really so good as we'll see who however gave them a good response one of the one of these four people that we're going to enumerate made a made a request which was not correct not the right type of request anako despojo gave him a response that wasn't wasn't so good veil now these are pretty famous the first one is the most famous eliezer evidevram excuse me the four of them are eliezer the servant of abraham the shoal [Music] a request which was wrong what was the request that he made which was wrong as follows we all know the story is a prime example someone so to speak making a deal with hashem saying this is what i want he's a sham if it's the right girl so then let her respond to my request with here have some have a drink etc and also she ends up giving to all of the camels right so it was a it wasn't such a good idea to make this request because um it wasn't such a good request because let's say the person who comes out is a maid servant or not from the family a non-jew not from the family of alvaro mavino or a harlot zaina would you say that that's the right person for yitzchak but nevertheless sakura brought about that rebecca would be the one indeed from abram's family indeed but zadeca is a righteous individual okay so even though he asked something which could have created a problem still who responded in a good way khalifa made a similar request which was not a good not such a good idea says versus in joshua and yoshua perhaps about kali says whoever is able to conquer the city of kyriad safer i will reward that person with my daughter's hand my daughter her hand in marriage is look if it's going to be somebody who is a slave or a non-jew or a monster somebody who's the result of an illegitimate relationship you're going to give your daughter to marry that person who did him a favor the person who was able to do it was a big sadika snail being kanan's it was his brother right an uncle is allowed to marry in his niece so it was a snail in kanaz it worked out okay even though the request wasn't such a good idea king saul also made such a request king saul said whoever will strike kolyas goliath so i'll give my daughter to that person i'll make him rich if someone inappropriate would do it you're going to give your daughter siemens so nevertheless sakuras who made it that the person who would be able to defeat goliath was indeed king david the future king david and david married scholes daughter mikhail so those are the three circumstances where a person asked for something you shouldn't have asked for and uh it worked out it worked out okay the fourth example is somebody who it didn't work out so good for you said shenanigan this has more to do with our topic which is the topic of making another right each of these cases a person is saying a certain thing he's he's trying to blind spoke as it were he's trying to bind hashem force hashem's hand in a certain sense iftach also did this he made a vow and the purpose of the vow again is to bring about a certain positive result you know king saul wants a victory over goliath uh what was it called if wanted a victory over this particular city eliezer wanted victory so to speak to come and bring home the right girl for for israel so if the house made a promise he said hashem you give me success in my military campaign the first thing that comes out of the door of my house i will bring as a core bone as a sacrifice to god um hashem says it's not such a good idea because if a camel comes out a donkey a dog you're gonna bring it as a corbin you can't bring it as a corbin all right so it's not such a good idea to make such a request might make such a uh make such a commitment so hashem gave him a bad result the bad result was that his daughter came out his daughter was the first one that came out so if you look at the what happened was that because she had been sanctified to the temple so she had to go off and be alone and she never got married for the rest of her life it's a very sad story ifta was a great hero helped the jewish people but his daughter ended up basically incarcerated for life okay when he sees her he rips his garments it's a terrible thing now the the the measures is only very interesting [Music] could have undone it's possible to to nullify another to nullify a vowel you go to a sage you say to the sage if i would have known that this would be the result i wouldn't have made the nether i wouldn't have made the vowel and the sage has the ability to annul the vowel retroactively but in order to do so he would have had to go to pinchas was the person who was able to know five hours i'm sorry i skipped omar anymore it's open because each of them said pink has said if said i'm not going to go to pinchas because i'm a king i'm the you know i'm the hero said look i'm i'm a calling i'm the son of a kind great grandson a grandson of iron i kind i'm going to go to iftach this person who although he was a hero and he was a leader but he wasn't a torah scholar in the meantime because neither of them was willing to go to the other one which is very sad so this poor girl ended up not getting married and the result was she lost her life and it was their fault pink hasn't stalked as a result of this pinchas lost he lost his before this case but as a result of this of this unwillingness to go to iftach so he lost his divine inspiration which by the way divine inspiration doesn't have to only be um knowing things it can also be divine help like we find king david he was he had a divine inspiration he was able to overcome goliaths through that so pinchas lost that divine inspiration that's his punishment that in the end he was he was torn limb from limb and he was buried each of the parts of his body were buried in different places it says he was buried in the cities of gilad you're the number doesn't say the city of gillard rather it says in the cities of gillard [Music] because this teaches us that how did he die he died in a very grotesque way he was ripped limb from limb and each of his limbs were buried in different locations so we see what happens when a person first of all makes a vow makes a tries to bind hashem in the wrong way to be careful with these things that's what it's saying and number two we see the importance of of humility of a nevus because if a person is not humble he says oh let him come to me another one says no let him come to me and the result is a great tragedy for this girl and also for these two great men [Music] that what he should have done is he should have given money and he should have brought that money should have taken the value of the girl like we find by the the idea of should have taken the value of the girl and he should have taken that money been paid to her so to speak redeemed her from from the kedusha that was on her from having made this vow and he could have brought a carbon with that money archive it says no she wasn't obligated he wasn't obligated to bring any money the tane and dover has shirley carvalhal ready was nothing there the truth was that the vow that he made was not a valid vow you can't say that a girl is going to be an oil is going to be a sacrifice that's not possible so if a person says something that's not possible there's no it doesn't take effect ends of the madrish this is the end of safehere this is an amazing thing we have this whole discussion here about these cases these four different cases of people who they wanted a certain result and they made a certain kind of vow and there was a problem with their vow their vow was in the way that they phrased it and they opened themselves to a possibility which was not a good possibility so different results but if a person makes a proper vow right a person wants to let's say make a deal make a deal there is such a thing i would recommend discussing it with your local orthodox rabbi before making such a deal but there is such a thing you want a certain result you want a certain success you want a certain i want to whatever it is you can say look could support who i want i want that i should have paranasta i'm willing i could just work to do something for you so to speak [Music] i'm going to learn a daffodil i'm going to commit to a certain perhaps challenging commitment let's make a deal so it has to be an appropriate kind of deal and again don't uh don't do this without the help of the right person the right rough but there is such a thing and we see that whoever makes a nether makes some kind of deal with hashem and he fulfills his net there he fulfills his his deal so a person merits that he should be able to pay off his nether in jerusalem although the vows to hashem that i made king david says i will pay off hashem says the continuation of the verse which we say in hollow in the courtyards of the house of hashem in in the midst of jerusalem hallelujah okay so person very interesting when a person makes such a commitment ako i'm going to do a certain thing please reciprocate when a person makes that kind of commitment the result is that he's in you shalom he's in yerushala he's in jerusalem we need to know what this means and the message ends off with something which is also a little cryptic story says also at the end of halal in those not far after this pre thank god for he is good for his kindness forever and what i'd like to take out of this magisk the main thing i would like to take out of the magistr is not so much what we've been speaking about as far as the nadarum as far as making deals with akadesh baku but what i what i want to show is you have all these stories where is responding in a certain sense right it's not literal doesn't mean hashem responded to the person who said that's not such a good idea there was no conversation really but the the magician is putting it this way to understand for us to understand that there is a conversation that there is a conversation eliezer emil avram has a conversation with ako who he asks for seattle he asks for divine help and he makes a commitment each of these people khalif makes a commitment he says whoever is going to overcome this city shall make a communion says whoever's going to overcome the city and it's amazing that i have a right in a certain sense to make a commitment to kurdish borku and expect to reciprocate and i'll i'd like to illustrate this actually from something that happened to me in my life and uh and it's very powerful it's a very interesting thing you know a person an adult has to be responsible for his family a person has a lot of expenses parnosa no but it's easy to get lost and and to go into javis to go into debts and at a certain point hashem many years ago became clear to me that i need to get my act together and to be on top of things i need to be committed to things but i didn't know how to commit didn't know how to say okay i'm going to be on top of things and because who helped me and showed me this is another aspect of it looking for the signs if you see a certain thing over and over again it's a sign that that this is where you're supposed to head of course once you to head it became clear to me that i'm i need to make this commitment but how can i make a commitment you know my pronunciation is music and how can i commit harry i don't know i don't know where the money's gonna come from but this is an amazing thing i did make a commitment i jumped into the waters of commitment when it came to my finances with the help of financial advisors and what i saw was that the moment that i made a commitment i started getting more seattle the shema so my question always was well i can commit but helen i can't make hashem commit right maybe hashem's not interested in helping me but what i saw is that hashem is there waiting for us to commit waiting there for us to commit so when it comes to figuring out hey where does hashem want me to go so we have this simon we have the signs along the way and we also have this amazing idea of commitment and using commitments to ki viajo we can involve hashem in our commitment we can say hashem i'm going to be committed to this thing i want you to be committed as well i heard recently another story of this of this type where a certain person a young lady not yet married was deciding debating which way to go in there in their uh in their career choices career paths and they were guided to to say look hashem i want to do this i want to do the harder path so that i can be part of somebody else's ability to learn torah but in order to do that i need you to bring bring the guy and i need the i don't the story didn't end yet but there's such a thing okay so that's point number one and that's at the end of participle codes that i like to touch for a few minutes we don't have too much time left touch for a few minutes something in practice by midbar as well which i believe is also part of a way of thinking about approaching how do we know where hashem wants us to go or how do we know hashem's going to be there for us says god spoke to moshe in the wilderness of sin isis shalom do you see hashem says do you see my hand do you see how in the midburg the jewish people walked in the wilderness and i was walking with them who says the jewish people what's this idea of the midbrain what does it mean going in the midbrain walking in the wilderness right sometimes we feel like where is hashem he's is he with me he's hashem with me is the jewish people complained why did you bring us out of egypt you know that we should die in the wilderness right and that's it's a passage at the end there's a few practicum later in right we're not talking about i'm not sure where we are in the oh no excuse me i'm not sure where we are in the story here but the jewish people they've been walking in the mid bar and they said why do you take us out to die in the wilderness the king goes out into the wilderness there's no palaces there there's no food there's no drinks there now i took you out of egypt into the quote wilderness i brought you out there i gave you a challenge it doesn't mean a challenge actually the word here basti it means that i caused you to lie on beds like a king lies on a bed right when they eat they dine on a couch of some of some sort well martial pedagogy and i gave you these three awesome leaders moses aaron and miriam is you didn't know about this something never never happened before your forefathers didn't have the subscribers in the merit of aaron the second leader i surrounded you with the clouds of glory [Music] says god spread out as a protection the clouds okay i'm not going to get into that and of course in the exclusive miriam the merit of miriam the jewish people had the amazing well the miraculous well which continued to provide water for them so the jewish people they presented a challenge like this world why did you bring us out to to die in the mid bar and that could respond and says what midbar what midbar you're looking at things in a very shallow way if you see a midbar because i gave you everything you need i gave you physical protection i gave you all the food you need i gave you all the drink you need you had everything there was no midbar there i didn't really bring you out to a mid bar i didn't come i didn't bring you out there to cause you any pain i brought you out there to protect you to treat you like a king to bring you to the palace in the mid bar this point this is the the last point that i want to say when it comes to thinking about what is hashem where does hashem want us to go and what does hashem want from us i believe that we can take out of this message something incredible and that is that we have the ability to complain about things and say well i don't really know where hashem wants me to go i don't really know you know it doesn't things don't look very good on and on but this is not this is a magician's not just talking about talking to the people from three thousand three hundred years ago this is a measure talking to us and the message is saying to us that we have to look carefully at our situations we need to notice hey we're not in a wilderness we think ourselves oh i don't know where to go i don't see where to go i don't have that direction who puts the direction in front of us those are the three leaders the moishe and the iron and the miriam and the merit of each of them we have everything that we need look i have a roof over my head i have food in my refrigerator i have drink i have running water of electricity in my house i have everything i need and this is a powerful thing to think about when it comes to where is that leading me i need to look at the past and then to see look first of all hashem provides for me everything that i need that's first of all but that's not just true right it's an amazing connection between the the the leaders themselves and the merits like as a result of those leaders the that which was provided for us it symbolizes the mattress is teaching us it symbolizes the fact that when we look at the basic necessities that we have we know that hashem is leading us we know that hashem is giving us everything that we need and part of that is where are we going to go and again that might look like discussing something with a rav it might look like you know getting aces getting advice from others but what i want to bring out from here is that it's already there it's in front of us we have to notice it we may not always know exactly but it's there it's in front of us and we need to open our eyes that's what this measure is saying we need to open our eyes it's not a midway it's not a wilderness we have everything that we need so i want to bless you ask you to bless me hashem should help us that first of all we should be able to see the stuff that's in front of us as we said to be able to see the the incredible bounty that hashem has for us and the leaders that are in front of us there to help us and guide us and hashem should help us to be able to to make those commitments and know or should help us to realize and recognize be careful with it get guidance on it of course but that when we make a real commitment hashem who is the ultimate one ms devara his word is true his commitments are real the most real of anything hashem when we make commitments kosher who stands right there by our side and joins us and helps us and gives us 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.ariegoldwag.com or search on itunes ari goldwag [Music]