Chayei Sarah - Laying Claim to Israel

you're listening to the weekly partial podcast recorded with hashem's nevering assistance in R Israel 5776 2015 this week's para is the Torah describes for us the passing of saru of our matriarch Sarah and afterwards the Torah tells us that he decides to marry another woman he marries Cura and he has a number of children with Cura but the Torah is explicit and it's very clear that who is the main Heir both spiritual and physical of ab aino of Abraham it's Isaac it's y ainu who would be the forebearer of the Jewish people the verse says like this it goes through the whole list of all the children of AR that he has from Cura and then it finishes off and says this is in chapter ver5 Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac the next verse says however to the children of the concubines meaning and Hagar these children that were born as well as yes that had what did these women and their children get Abraham gave them gifts what were those gifts not important to me right now we can look in the the that discussed that the verse tells us that Abraham specifically sent these children away from Isaac while he was still alive all of this was done in in his lifetime it wasn't a will that was given for after he would pass away this was all done during his lifetime K he sent them to the Far East now there are a number of points in these verses which need explanation the Mish talks about them at length and we'll see a little bit about it one of the first points is that what is the significance or why is the Torah specifically telling us that Abu that Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac to Yak clearly as we said Isaac is going to be the main progenitor of the Jewish people of the spiritual Legacy of Abraham of Abraham so that's part of it but what is the significance that it says here also important to understand why is that said side by side with what happened to the other children to the that they receive these gifts also it's important the Torah points out that they were sent away from Isaac his son doesn't say they were sent away from Abraham it says they were sent away from Isaac and it also says that Abraham was still alive so the Torah is going to tell us in the next verse or two that Abraham is about to pass on so why is it important for us to know that this was given during his lifetime as opposed to being perhaps the the gifts that were given even after his lifetime maybe they were given as part of his will what's the significance of it so I'd like to share with you a magish on this verse that tells us a story actually a few stories four different stories three of which are clearly connected but the fourth of which is is not so clearly connected and we need to understand the connection and then the Mish also specifically speaks about our verse and says AA on it which also doesn't seem immediately to be connected but is very much connected so it says like this Alexandro smok in the days of Alexander and I believe this is a reference to Alexander the Great during his time he ruled over the entire civilized world at the time so something happened the children of the Arabs came and they had a PL against the people of Israel that they had taken an undue portion in the land of Israel they laid claim this is a story that happened thousands of years ago already but already they were laying claim to Israel and saying that they deserved it because or they deserved a portion or greater portion in it because they were the first born another two families another two evil families came along with claims as well one of them was the family which was a descendant of the the people of can Canan of Canaan and the other was a family that was descended from MIM from Egypt the Egyptians now these people were going to bring the Jewish people to court making a claim against them in regards to the land of Israel let's see so now the Jewish people said the the sages said who is going to stand up on behalf of the people of Israel and defend the people of Israel in this court there was a certain man named G and he said I'm going to be the one and the word g actually means a hunchback he was a hunchback as we'll see in the in the continuation of the story he said I'm going to be the one to lay down their claims to rest so that we can we can remain in our land and no one will have any claims against us Arts they said him be careful even if you don't have a response for them make sure you don't admit in any way shape or form that the land belongs to them interesting statement by the said to them I'm going to go and judge there I'm going to speak on behalf of the people of Israel the Jewish people if I succeed then all is well and if not I give you permission to say who is this person who's not so smart who is standing up for us this isn't the person and you guys can come back and and make the claims if I don't succeed me says that indeed went and he had this deal and he had this whole this whole went through the process smoked on so Alexander the Great said who is the one who is coming with a claim against against the other person the isites the people descended from isma the Arabs they said we are the ones who are making a claim and we are making our claim based on their very Torah we are going to prove from the Torah itself that the land of Israel belongs to us see the verse says the verse tells us that if a man has two wives one of whom he loves and one of whom he hates and the one who he hates has his firstborn child so he has to make sure to give the firstborn child a double portion despite the fact that he doesn't love this wife so the ishmaelites were saying the Arabs were saying that while it's true maybe Abraham did not love Hagar as much as he loved Sarah nevertheless he has to give us the double portion because we are the we are the first born so the Hunchback responded and said my master the king does a person not do whatever he wants with his children meaning is it the right of a parent to decide if he wants to give a double portion or if he wants to give nothing to one child he wants to give everything to another child so the king said yes that's correct the father has the right to do that so he said to him the Hunchback said quoted our verse that Abraham gave everything that was his to Isaac and this is a reference to the land of Israel which is representative of the spiritual leg Legacy as we said of of Abraham so they responded and being B of so they said where's That explicit document that says that he sent them away without without giving them anything how do you know that he quoted the next verse which states that indeed to the sons of the pilim to the sons of the concubines so he gave them gifts and then he sent them away so clearly he gave them whatever was m whatever they deserved but beyond that the land of Israel is the core inheritance of the Jewish people and it belongs to Isaac and they left there the isites who had made this claim in front of Alexander the Great they left there with embarrassment they were embarrassed they were indeed shown up by the Hunchback now we said that there were two other families besides for the ishmaelites they were the Canaanites the Canaanites also came at this time the Canaanites said they also said that we have a claim to the land of Israel based on their very Torah it always refers to Israel as the land of Canan the land of Canaan so give us back our land so the Hunchback responded and said my master the king can a person do with his slave whatever he wishes if a person has a slave can he do whatever he wants with that slave the king said of course he can he said what does it say in the verse in the Torah or the people of Canaan are cursed it says that they're going to be slaves to Shem so the grandchildren of Canaan they will remain slaves just like the curse of Noah so the land is ours these are now their slaves as it were the Canaanites are slaves and servants to to the king to Alexander the Great but their whole their whole character is is one of being slaves so they don't receive the land of Israel because they're just slaves watching over a place which belongs to their master and that place which belongs to their Master is the land of Israel it belongs to the master who is Abraham and his descendants it doesn't belong to the Canaanites they were indeed embarrassed and they left they lost their claim now the next family that came were the MIT the Egyptians so they came along the Egyptians and they said me we're going to prove the Torah that we have a claim against them 600,000 Jews it says in the Torah left from us from Egypt to they had taken all kinds of golden and silver vessels it says they cleaned out Egypt give us back our silver and our gold they took it all they never gave it back they said they're borrowing it they never give it back so the Hunchback responded and said my master the king 600,000 people were there for 210 years and they worked for them for 210 years without getting paid amongst those people were people who were gold Smiths and silver Smiths and they charge one din which is a significant amount of money per day Yos so now the philosophers there sat and they made a calculation it wasn't 100 years when they made the calculation of 100 years worth of work they saw that Egypt was cleaned out meaning the value of the work of the Jewish people that they never got paid for was more than the value of all of the gold and and silver that the Jewish people borrowed so to speak from the Egyptians meaning they had every right to that money they had never gotten paid as a result of this response of the Hunchback to the Egyptians they left there and they were embarrassed so those are the three stories of the Mish I just want to ask a few important points a few important questions that will help us get to a certain specific point that I'd like to get to in the end but we read this event as the mag describes it with Alexander the Great and we can't help but think like why is it indeed that these people waited so much time it's a thousand years later since the Jewish people came into the land of Canan and took the land it's 1,500 100 years since is could have had a claim to the land of Israel it's a thousand years since the Egyptians had lost all that money to the Jewish people what took them so long why are they all of a sudden waking up and making a claim to Alexander the Great what is the significance of this claim specifically with him why is that why is that happening right now also an important thing to think about is that it's not a coincidence that Gava this person this Hunchback who's responding to them is a hunchback what is the significance indeed of that why is the representative of the Jewish people a hunchback now there's one more story in the medes which I want to share with you which is not clear exactly the connection it's another story that happened to be with Alexander the Great and this Gava this Hunchback but doesn't it's not so clear the connection we'll see the connection is indeed there Alexander the Great decided he wanted to go up to Jerusalem a some kites came and they said to him he's be careful you should watch out you're going to see that they're going to disrespect you they're not going to allow you to go into their holy of holies the holiest place on Earth the Temple mount on that Temple Mount is is where the holy of holies was where the Ark of the Covenant rested the Arab you're not going to be allowed to go into that Sanctuary into the holy of holies their intent in saying this to him was to say that they're going to disrespect you when the hunch back found out he he heard about this or he realized that this was going on he went and he made him two socks the law is the is that no one's allowed to go onto the Temple Mount wearing shoes one must remove one's shoes when one enters onto the Temple Mount that's the that's the law Jewish law so he wanted to make the king aware of this without offending the king saying it in a way which would be with with Incredible wisdom and nevertheless he' get the message without being offended so he made him two socks he put on the sock he embedded on it two stones two precious stones that had the value of 20,000 pieces of silver it so when he got to the Temple Mount so he said to him he said to G said The Hunchback said to King Alexander he said to him take off your shoes and wear these fancy socks somehow perhaps maybe because of the precious stones it would help him to have a better grip on the floor I'm not exactly sure but somehow these if you take off your shoes and you put these on you're going to have a better grip the floor is slippery and in this way he was able to get the king to remove his shoes when they got to the place where the holy of holies was so they said to him they said to Alexander the Great they didn't say anything about him they said we don't have permission to go in there we don't have permission we're not allowed to go in the Jewish law prohibits us from going in there they didn't say anything about the king they wanted him to figure it out on his own so he wouldn't be offended so the king says to the Hunchback to say he said in just he's like I'm going to go in there by myself and when I come out I'm going to straighten out your Hunchback so you won't be hunchbacked anymore and they Joseph explains that the implication he was saying it with a little bit of a jab atav he was saying oh you're so tricky you have a hunchback you're so tricky you're crooked you're trying to trick me into doing what you want I want you to know that I noticed and I'm going to straighten you out when I come out of there so to speak so responded The Hunchback responded and said him if you will be able to straighten me out you will be known as one of the most amazing doctors and you'll be able to receive a tremendous amount of money so the says that he was responding in a way pretending as if he didn't really understand the jab of the king he didn't understand the implication of what the King was saying but in so doing and responding in this way the King was maal he received the words he understood that there was real respect here and it was done in an amazingly respectful way and in a way in a in a wise way as a result the king listen Alexander the Great did not walk into the Kash into the holy of holies now in reading the story one can't help but ask why indeed first of all why did Alexander the Great feel it was so important for him to come to Jerusalem that's question number one why did he want to visit Jerusalem yes Jerusalem is the capital of Israel it's an amazing beautiful city ET but why was it so important for him to come there he had many many different countries under his Reign if he wanted to go to a capital of anywhere he could go anywhere why specifically to Jerusalem why was that important to him also why was he so drawn why was it important for him to be able to enter into The KES kadash to the holy of holies why indeed did he want that why would he view it as an insult if he wouldn't be allowed to enter into this holy of holies which no one's allowed to go there why would he view that as something offensive that he's not allowed to go in there so before we get to the next little piece of the medish which also needs explanation I want to start explaining some of the questions that we've asked because it's going to get us to a central concept which is the idea that I want to share and that is that Alexander the Great why you know why does he want why is he attracted to Jerusalem why does he want to come to the holy of holies and why indeed do the yesim the mitam the Egyptians the Arabs the all these people why do they all of a sudden because he's the king why do they all of a sudden want to make their claims against the Jewish people get their money back get get the land of Israel back or claim their portion in Israel what's happening what's the idea here what's the the theme what's the concept of the Mish is teaching us and I believe that the answer is that there's a concept of clus the concept of clus of of inclusive the inclusive aspect the Transcendent inclusive aspect we've spoken about it at length on other occasions but it certainly is clear that that's the center of what's going on here the Jewish people are the all-inclusive aspect of the world we are the one nation the the unique Nation we are that that lonely nation in a certain sense there are the 70 nations of the world there are 70 as we've seen on on sukus you know there are 70 par 70 bulls that are brought which correspond to the 70 Nations and then on the eighth day which represents the Transcendent aspect there's one power one bull which is brought which represents the Jewish people because we are the Transcendent aspect of the world but just like the Jewish people are a Transcendent aspect of the world the 70 Nations themselves also have a Transcendent aspect within themselves and that is a king a king who can come and he can unify the entire world he can come and he can bring all of the Nations together so he represents in a certain sense he's the most Jewish of all of the gam so to speak he's the most Jewish he has that Transcendent aspect that's contained within him he has that allinclusive aspect and that's who Alexander the Great was he was able to bring together all the Nations another person like this and I don't think I'm going to have time to really get into it but the person who represents this idea is go we see that it's described in in Ezekiel in in the book ofel it speaks about this person who's in he is the prince or the president of and he represents and he includes all the nations and he brings all the nations together back to Israel to to fight in Jerusalem to fight in Jerusalem why does he do that why is his Focus very similar on Jerusalem and he's bringing all the nations together Egypt and the isma and the Arabs and the the everyone else everyone's coming against Jerusalem what's the idea the idea is that he is the K that one who's going to come is going to be the K the all-inclusive aspect on the side of negativity in a negative sense he's the all-inclusive aspect he brings everyone together against the Jewish people now Alexander the Great he wasn't bringing people against the Jewish people he wasn't bringing them all together but because he was the all-inclusive aspect so as soon as the nations of the world see that all of a sudden their eyes light up it's like as if oh here we are there's this guy he's he's the all-inclusive aspect he's going to give us what we deserve as soon as they see this all-inclusive aspect they want Jerusalem they want Israel they want to lay claim to Israel as soon as that happens and just like then so too it's going to be before mashiach comes they're all going to come on Jerusalem because Jerusalem is in the Physical Realm the Transcendent and all-inclusive aspect of the entire world that's why they want to lay claim to Jerusalem the Kash the holy of holies the Temple Mount is the Transcendent aspect of Jerusalem so they're laying claim to the to the very quality of the Jewish people why do the Jewish people have the inheritance of the land of Israel what does it mean that Abraham gives everything call call he gives everything which is his to the Jew to to Isaac what's the idea of call the idea of call is the all-inclusive aspect Abraham gives to Y the all-inclusive aspect he gives him the har he gives in the Temple Mount which is where that takes place which happened in last week's para The Binding of ISAC that takes place at that Pinnacle that point of creation that focal point of creation and they lay claim to it they claim the Temple Mount they claim Israel because they would like to in a certain sense replace the Jewish people and not acknowledge that the Jewish people themselves are the prince as it were of humanity now Alexander the Great because he's the one who is the Transcendent aspect of the nations of the world first of all that's why he they come and they make they lay claim to him asking for Israel or asking for something which represents the special nature of the Jewish people which is also that money which represents their you that's a whole different subject but Alexander also wants to come to Jerusalem to visit Jerusalem he's drawn there because of his Transcendent aspect because of his inclusive all-inclusive aspect which he is the king of the world so to speak at that time so he comes to Jerusalem and he wants to enter into the kashh and the holy of holies but the amazing thing is that Gava he represents the Jewish people he's the Hunchback he's the one who has leaned over he looks like one thing but as Alexander says to him you are crooked you are hunchbacked meaning you are very wise you're able to twist things in a certain way but Gava just like the Jewish people Jewish people are also that way we look like we're crooked in a certain sense when they see us they see negativity when they see the people of Israel they see negativity they look they look at us as if we've done something wrong but that's not really what it is and just like gavia is someone who's who's bent who twists things in order to get to the truth to find the truth and to show the truth and what happens in the end they're humiliated the the Arabs are humiliated the Egyptians are humiliated the people of Canaan are humiliated because they're making a false claim when they make a false claim the Jewish people they look on the surface to be crooked but the truth is in the that's just how it looks on the outside but the truth is that they are truly twisting into the truth that's what our power is we also that you see that also with Jacob with yob when he steals the blessings it's a whole another Tor that's a whole another div Torah to speak about but the bottom line of it is that they will come and they will twist things and they will lay claims and they will try to go out of their goo they will try to go out of their boundary to lay claim to that all-inclusive aspect and the Jewish people we our job is to be like Gava to be able to know how to answer them in such a way that they don't feel threatened by our specialness they don't feel threatened by the fact that we're the all-inclusive aspect and indeed they're able to be humiliated in a certain sense because the idea of humiliation is to be caught by the truth that's humiliation humility is living with the truth humiliation is being caught by The Truth Alexander the Great he was able to to live with humility Gava was able to to show him in a way in in a wise way the truth and Alexander was able to accept that and that was his greatness now I don't have time to get into the next piece in the Mish it's worth seeing it's at the end of par para number 61 in this week's paraa but the bottom line is that we need to know who we are we need to understand what are the boundaries we need to it's clear that what's going on here is that they're trying to cross into the boundaries of the specialness of am Israel trying to take something which doesn't belong to them try to tap in to that all-inclusive aspect which belongs exclusively to the Jewish people yes there are individuals amongst the nations of the world who can have that aspect as well but even they are only you know relative to the rest of those people the rest of the nations of the world the king the the one who is all inclusive is only in in relationship to the nations of the world but the Jewish people are always all of them are always and and even within the Jewish people are different levels but the Jewish people as a general Principle as a general rule are that all-inclusive aspect so I want to bless you and please bless me back should help us to recognize who we are what our boundaries are what the what our places in reality where we stand to respect it and to latch on to it and if you read the end of that par you'll see that that's the point of the whole medish that AB indeed sends off the his other children far away because it's important that they recognize who they are and what their placees Aram specifically gives the correct portion to the people of Israel should help us to recognize who we are and what our portion is sh should help us to fulfill our portion our purpose in life thank you so much for listening a wonderful shabus this podcast was made possible through the gracious donations of listeners like you for more podcasts like this please visit www.wag.com or search on iTunes Ari goldwag [Music]