Chayei Sarah - Transforming the Physical

you're listening to the weekly partial podcast with ari goldwag recorded with hashem's neverending assistance in roma beach israel 57 82 2021. this week's pressure is practical and i will tell you that as we go into partial like this there's so much so many things to talk about so much meat there's also so many things that we've heard before and i always like to say something new and i'd like to share with you haven't done this in a long time but i'd like to read out of the saber sifse khaim from abraham friedlander some ideas that he brings based on some madrashim some gemaras and here we go he's talking about the idea of maurice mcphela you might know that this week many people have gone to chevron to the ir voice the city of the forefathers or abraham isaac and jacob sarah rifka rocco not rocco sorry sarah rifka and leia are buried another manchava the first man and the first woman are also buried there what is special about maharashtra this this cave why did avraham go to such efforts go to such lengths in order to acquire it this is the question that recline freelander is addressing i'd like to read it to you inside and let's study this together atari maricola virus the torah speaks at length about the back and forth the purchase of this cave the cave of machpelah was not buried was in mourning and he puts in all this effort in order to purchase of malay to the point where finally he purchases it it's very expensive acquisition verse tells us this is in the beginning of our part chapter 23 verse that the field goes up from ephraim to avraham he purchased it to abraham ubarashi the kuma salish the piece of land had an aliyah it was raised up because of the fact that avraham avina purchased it because it was going from the hands of a regular person to the hands of a king the cave is coming to its purpose it's being used for its proper purpose the artsy efferent from the physicality of ephraim the rook to the spirituality of abraham and that's a theme that we're going to see throughout this piece that there's an idea of a connection between the physical and the spiritual and there's a raising a picking up of the of the physical turning the physical into something spiritual that is the purpose of avraham avinu of course that's the purpose of the jewish people and that is something unique about the character of this mahara this unique cave as we'll soon see so we see aramavinu does all that he can to purchase it uh jacob also he instructed his children at length make sure to bury me in the marsala in the field that was purchased by avraham avinu from ephron etc and the verse tells us ashikarisiya shikhanisi the verse tells us that he says that he purchased it what does it mean that yaakov jacob purchased it so our ghazal our sages tell us it means that he took all of the money that he had gotten the house of love on that he had sweated and toiled for 20 years in lovin's house he purchased a portion of asa with all of that money put it all into a big uh basket and he purchased it right two brothers of yaakov wants to make sure that he gets both portions in the cave doesn't that asa doesn't get buried there he purchases it with all the money that he has [Music] why is it that avraham was so involved in getting this specific cave and also why did yaakov agree to give up all of his possessions all of his money in order to take that portion in the morrow so the uh gives us a very interesting madrish based on obviously and also on imbala term it says like this bella bucker rats over and we found in previous parsha we found that ran to the to get a cow he ran to the bucker to the cattle in order to bring something delicious and delectable to his guests the word bakar which means cattle the same letters of bucker also the words kevin which means a grave thus says the baltimore there's a hint in this very verse to the fact that when when avraham avina was running to the cattle he was involved in this recess in this quick movement in order to do a kindness of somebody else so he was running to his grave so that sounds very bad he's running to his grave so what does it mean what does it mean there's a very beautiful unbelievable magician it says like this this is the magi in particular i'm sorry i said it was obvious he ran to get uh one of the one of the cows the cattle in order to sheikh to bring it for his guests so what happened was this animal ran away and it went into the maharashtra they went into this very cave where adam and chavo were buried that ultimately avraham avinu himself would be buried so we're in the middle of the story of him trying to prepare a piece of meat for his guests the animal runs away from abraham runs in afterwards comes in there and he finds that adam and java are sleeping there right they were there they were complete even though they were dead for many years but their bodies were whole and they were sleeping there and there was a light shining above them and there was a good smell usually if there's a dead body so there's a bad smell but here there was a good smell so he said that's why it says the manchester that's why avraham avinu because he had run in there while he was involved in this mitzvah i was involved in the in the fulfillment of kindness bringing in guests so from that point on he always wanted to be buried in that place the place where adam and chavo were buried so what is the idea here of course when the manager says something like this obviously it's going to teach you something very powerful ain't microsoft it's not a coincidence that the animal that he wanted to sac that he wanted to slaughter was running into this into this cave she's catching benadryl there's obviously a connection between his kindness that he was involved in and the or this special cave chakra versus we need to understand the connection between finding this cave [Music] and the classic circle of avraham the the kindness that he did so in trying to understand we need to understand says says muhammad freelander what is the idea of adam anderson in his death although he shown in his death he's he's sleeping there so to speak he's dead but his body is shining and there's a good smell what is the understanding of this why is there a good smell even there it's very unusual it's very strange you say gomorrah the gemara tells us we also find that there was a near dialect there was a light shining we find that uh when a child is inside of its mother uber does say but you might need when a baby is inside the fetus is inside of its mother so there's a light shining over its head muvara maharaja explains what is this light that shines above the fetus's head when it's inside the mother it's a spiritual light that through which is able to see from one end of the earth to the other ahmed what we see from this more interestingly is that this this light this lamp which is a reference to the soul this powerful spiritual essence of the human being it's on the head but not inside of the head commits the same idioms or goof here's we get to the core essence of the idea that there are that i'm freelanced to bring across the midst of themselves the commandments when we fulfill the commandments when we do the torah they light into us the soul is over here uh we speak about the shama the souls in the brain but how do we get the soul to be in throughout our body how do we get our entire body to be filled with spirituality that's through the actions that we take of mitzvos the commandments that we fulfill with by performing these commandments by fulfilling the will of god we actually purify the physical body we make it spiritual need to understand adam and eve they were incredible most amazing people they had god speaking to them directly yes they sinned yes they were thrown out of the garden but they were an extremely high level despite that they were they were saddikim they were righteous individuals because of that they had purified their physical body to the point that their body did not decay there was a good smell not like the ordinary smell when there's a body that's in decay is brings down the gemara that says very interesting idea what is the idea of a good smell smell is something which when you have a good smell you're supposed to make a blessing how do we know that there's an obligation to make a blessing when we have a good smell should i call it the entire soul is to praise god it says the verse so what is it something where do we see something that the soul enjoys we're not the physical body there's something spiritual when we have a good smell when you smell basam you smell uh you know spice is something that smells good it's something that the physical body doesn't really have benefit from but the spiritual the spiritual aspect of a person does therefore there's an obligation to bless to make a blessing okay so the smell the good smell indicates something which is very spiritual says he says the enjoyment of smell is something which is on the border between a physical and spiritual enjoyment we lose our insomnia we have an extra soul the soul is in our body further than it usually is on shabbos so when the soul that extra acid goes out of our bodies so then we smell the basamine it's something that gives us an extra spiritual enjoyment so he says like this when hazal say to us when our sages say to us after his death there was a beautiful smell coming out of him this indicates the fact that the his death his physical body even after death he was not affected by that death it wasn't rotting it didn't have a bad smell a lagoon carved on the shama his physical body had become purified that's something that happens through our mitzvos as we saw he brings down the ramkha i'm not going to read the entire piece inside but he brings down from the ram khal that the soul has the ability to purify the physical body through the mistress that we do right we talk about is it's a merit for us what is the word mean it which means purifying we purify the physical body through the mitsus and the person becomes a person has the potential to become extremely spiritual through these actions well i will read to you a little bit of the ram the reason that the soul comes into the human body is to purify it the lysosome is shifted to lift it up from its very lowly physical level to give it light to be like like an angel but moses he went up he received the torah from god he came back down and there was a shine coming out of his face coronor ponov he had this amazing shine which represented the fact that he had transformed his physical body into something spiritual the soul you know on its own is something which is always shining the word light the concept of light in in this kind of safer always refers to spirituality but the thing that prevents that light from shining out completely is the physical body when the spiritual purifies the body a goof atmosphere so then the body itself shines as a result so it's like uh that's that's the idea here it's like mushroom like moses that's what had accomplished this throughout his life and as a result of that avraham avina wanted this place this place of marissa marpelo person who does it let's see this inside kaiser monroe this is what writes a person who does good so you know the question is how do i transform my physical into the spiritual that's what we want that's where we want to get to a person who does it says the morale so that's something which is giving to others this person has taken his physical and he has purified it [Music] is not completely physical anymore what is the physical aspect of the of the human being the physical aspect is something which always wants to receive it always wants to get give me give me give me that's the physical aspect of the human being he's transforming the physical aspect of himself he's changing himself into something else he's changing himself into something spiritual he's purified is physical right think about it anytime a person sins it's because they want something for themselves a person steals they want something that belongs to somebody else it's all about taking it's always about taking that's the sin and the mitzif's are all about giving about transforming that which i would like to take into something which i can give [Music] you a person attached to his physicality he can't become a husset he can't become a person who's a balches of the word means to do kindness okay so but to the degree to the extent that we do indeed do kindness to others that was what avraham avinu was doing not only that says rebhaim friedlander but de la baccarats avraham there's something very unique about the kindness that he did and that was that he did it with alacrity he did it with quickness he was running that's another thing the physical aspect of the human being weighs him down i'll feel lazy i don't feel like doing anything that's the physical aspect of the person taking the opposite attack going in the opposite direction doing kindness not just doing kindness but doing it with with quickness that's something that's unique that we find by avraham avinu that he did it also rifko ymeno in our parsha she also when she was involved in doing kindness for eliezer she also did it quickly he brings their actions the the actions of the righteous are always done quickly they don't give any opportunity there's there's no spaces in time they get to it right away and they quit they finish it quickly the other side is righteous individuals they knew this secret of the way to purify the physical aspect of oneself their entire lives they fought against their feelings of laziness as and specifically abram and rifka they had those aspects together kindness and quickness and as a result bucker rats avraham what did he find he found that ma'ara he found this mara so what here's where we come to the final the final bottom line how this what is this these two powers which are really the opposite of one's nature what did he find when he ran after the animal in order to bring the bring the food he saw there what did he see inside of the mahara he saw adam harishon the first man who represented this aspect of having purified himself so completely through his spirituality [Music] he saw adam he saw the smell he smelled the smell of vince's barshoo as he said this smell represents the purification of the body this cave is a place of connection being keeps the soul and the body connected even after death as our sages say it's good morning there's two opinions as to why it's called which means a doubling what was the mach pela what was this doubling it means there was one cave inside of another cave or it means there was a lower level and an upper level but what is the idea here of an inner cave outer cave lower level upper level you have this connection of the inner aspect and the outer aspect element the soul in the body is the physicality it's true that this is completely dependent upon a person's actions of the service of a person to god but the place itself was the place where alvaro lived the place itself being in a spiritual place has an impact on the person on the individual we'll just finish off here with the final words of rebecca come on the bottom line is that every single action that a person does kindness alacrity quickness it purifies the body you're nice and sleek to the nephew and it gives us power over our physicality it gives us back our power to choose what's really good and what's really right instead of being only for ourselves we become someone who is connected to so many others uh days of by giving our soul dominion over our body in this way we come closer to god these are actions that we need to take every single day small actions in the way that we serve god awesome we need to look are we acting with laziness are we acting with quickness we can tell which way are we headed are we heading in a physical direction we're headed in a spiritual direction we're going up or we're going down every success that we have in our soul purifying our body is another step forward in giving our soul power over the body let's kind of spark and in this way come closer and closer to god so i want to bless you and i ask you to bless me should help us to recognize the power the importance of doing kindness to others of his reasons of of doing things quickly of working negate against our nature our physical nature and indeed to the extent that we do hashem should bless us and help us we should be able to purify our physical bodies and come ever closer to him 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]