Ari Goldwag - Chukas - Serving with Awe and Love

you're listening to the weekly partial podcast with Ari Gold wag recorded with a shell never ending assistance in Rome official mr. Israel 5777 2017 this week's parsha is partial school cos I'd like to remind you about my safer perfectly imperfect breaking out of the ordinary and striving for greatness available right now wherever excellent Jewish books are sold it's a book about personal growth it's a book about becoming great ourselves in our relationships with others encouraging others to become great I also want to mention what I said last week which is that we are coming now to ten full years that I have been giving these partial podcasts every single week is that session with a thumbs help so that's a great celebration and you are welcome to join me in that celebration if you have a dedication that you'd like to make a podcast whatever you can go on my website you can find the donate button on the Buy Now page of Ari Gold Wacom now we look at our purchases so you can purchase so we have one of perhaps the most challenging issues that we need to understand which is the punishment of Moshe Anna Moses he was the Redeemer of the Jewish people he was sent by a Shem in order to bring the Jewish people out of Egypt and bring them to the Land of Israel they spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness as a result of their sin last week's car show Moroccan with the spies and in this week's Parcher we find that even though really Moshe should have led the Jewish people into the Land of Israel he was not allowed to do so because of the sin that was committed instead of speaking to the stone which was to bring forth water to provide that sustenance for the Jewish people instead of speaking as a shaman instructed him to he struck the stone with his staff which is indeed something that he had done in the past in the beginning of their time in the wilderness so that stone began to provide them with water he struck it indeed he was instructed to do so and then in our partial so we find that we had the death of Miriam the death of our own and because Miriam it was hers cause it was her merit that caused the well to exist which provides water for all of the Jewish people she passed the way that merit went away so it had to be brought back and and in our story that's what happened but it came back in a way which created an opportunity for a sin which Moshe Rabbeinu committed which was he had an opportunity lahardee Shanie Shem says you could have caused a great sanctification of my name by showing that it was enough to speak to the rock but instead he did not use that opportunity to speak instead he hit the rock and the result was there was a lack of critical Shen there was a lack of a sanctification of God's name and so Moshe man was not able to lead the Jewish people in to the Land of Israel our sages tell us that if Moshe would have led the Jewish people into Israel if indeed he would have come in he would have built the temple he would have booktube-a-thon Mick - and that basem English would never have been destroyed so we would not have had our years of gulleson at the seven years between the first and second temple not the last eighteen nineteen hundred years that we were in Gullit without our lands we would have indeed remained in Israel all at this time the Jewish people would have been the center the leaders of mankind Jerusalem would have been the capital of the entire world the spiritual capital of the world as it shall be in the future but unfortunately that didn't happen why because of this sin and and I'd like to share with you some ideas basic I'm Friedlander speaks about how he understands it but one of the things that he points out is that motion Rubino was acting as a Shriya he was acting as an agent on behalf of the Jewish people so when he sinned when there was something that he did wrong it was representative of the fact that there was something in the relationship of the Jewish people to Hashem that was missing which resulted in their great leader doing something which was negative and not being able to lead them into the Land of Israel so it's an interplay here between Moshe remain on himself the Jewish people their relationship with Hashem as it's reflected in what most sure our being does and so we need to understand what exactly was it what was so bad the fact that he hit the rock why should he have spoken to the rock what is the difference between striking the rock and speaking to the rock and what does it say about our relationship with our Shemin how does that reflect in other aspects of our relationship with hashem till it's very day and also importantly how will this change when we indeed soon God God willing we soon reached that point in history which is called you my samishii of the days of the Messiah the Messianic age when we indeed have a basica ministry have a temple exactly emotion will finally be done we will finally have our keys throughout the line of Israel will be ours without anyone trying to fight us for Jerusalem the Temple Mount there will be a base image there the entire line of Israel undisputed will belong to the Jewish people the borders will even extend beyond what's presently the line of Israel so what are we to expect what will things look like what will our relationship with Hashem look like well the Torah look like the teachings of the Torah how will our approach to Torah be different when Messiah comes when the Messiah arrives what's very interesting in trying to understand this just before we get into a real climb Freelander says it's important to understand that when we speak about water we speak about water as the sustenance of the human being the essence of what he needs in order to survive person can go for days or even longer without food but to go without water water is so essential that even a short amount of time without water the person could have them forbid pass from this world so what is the essence of the human life and interestingly and beautifully our hosel our sages when they speak about the Torah when they speak about the idea of the embodiment of assurance instructions that's the relationship that we have with him and how that manifests itself and how we express it and we study we try to understand it that's the Torah the Torah is neutral oh c'mon the Torah is analogous to water because in a similar way when we have Torah we have the essence of our relationship with a Shem that is what sustains us spiritually we can't exist in this world on a spiritual level without Torah without these instructions for life and really truly we can't exist even on a physical level without that because all we become is just like an animal we become just like you know just fighting for survival here so the depth of the idea the beautiful idea the analogy that our sages give us is that Torah is analogous to water and so when we speak about the bit air we speak about this well which beautifully by the way at the end of our posture is so beautiful there was a special song the Jewish people sang well as they would watch the water come up the water from this well so the the song of the Torah it's really a song of essence of life force that's being sung there and so when we speak about what's going on with Mascherano and its rock we need to understand that it's not just about the water it is also about the water of course create in a particular media truth ie we have to understand on a simple level but there's also a deeper level which is the parallel to Torah and our access to our relationship with Hashem and the sustenance which we are to see comes directly from a Shem directly from God so now with that understanding that introduction we can understand the beginning of little time for the Freelander speaks about in sincere crime in our partially speaks about the fact that when we look at the way we have access to torah we look at the way that a person needs to approach torah and approach understanding of torah so generally there's a concept you study lays it out at the beginning the film sarah agra we know that according to how much effort a person puts in according to the difficulty the challenge that's the result the reward so to speak the spiritual result of what's done is always corresponding always corresponds precisely to the amount of difficulty the challenge that was involved and so when it comes to learning torah there's a content of your gotti that i have to put an effort up to strive have to work hard i have to break off the shells the torah that we have whether it's a major issue whether it's a good more whether it's a puss of all of these teachings to cover that with a shell they come with something that blocks us from understanding it when you have to we have to put an effort in order to understand it it's difficult it's challenging but as he points out the way that it completes when we get to that point of understanding is you've got too much so see there's an effort that has to be put in it's challenging it's hard and at the end we find something it's something that we receive as a gift from God and he points out that in this stage when we're in the stage of trying to crack through that shell working hard to try to understand what's going on so there is a certain hit anecdote there's a certain resistance that we experience as we try to break through and get to the understanding of Torah to the understanding of what our relationship with Hashem is meant to look like every week when I work on this parsha podcast I spend hours working on it to try to develop an idea to try to find something that I find interesting from that I hope you will find interesting but it's an effort sometimes I get to get to the point where like I can't find anything I can't find something that's interesting to me that's exciting to me and so it's hard it's a challenge it's a great challenge and but I have a commitment so I keep coming back and I've been doing this now as I mentioned for for 10 years next week will be 10 years but this is a daunting task it's a challenge it's difficult and so but what that presents to us is is that how it is no Shem wants us you know so she um wanted to talk IRA should be difficult that should be a challenge if you something that you know our heart isn't all the way into because it's so hard and so difficult so recline free letter points out that there's a deeper level when it comes to our learning of Torah and that deeper level is the level of Ahava which is love which is where we learn the tour we try to access the understanding of what our relationship with Hashem looks like we do that out of love and that's a deeper level and of course when a person does something out of love you can't compare the type of learning that's done when a person is excited and loves a topic or loves a subject whatever it is that type of learning is going to be much deeper it's going to go it's going to go much deeper into the psyche of the human being when instead out of love as opposed to when it's being done even because it's the right thing even because it's what a person knows should be done the type of learning that comes out of love goes much more into a person and as a much deeper and more profound effect on the person so clearly I've serving a shout out of love learning the Torah out of love that's the level that we're looking for we're striving for that that we're trying to get to okay but amazingly it's very interesting in this world in the way that it is now because perhaps as we'll see of this Avera that make sure I've been added on his great exalted level because the one who teaches Torah the one who draws forth the waters of turns to the Jewish people instead of doing it by speaking which is an aspect of love he did it striking with a mater with his with his staff striking the stone bringing it forth with judgments that it would love so the result is that we have to face off always with the challenge of doing it first through judgment first through this challenging way has to be struck in a certain sense but ultimately the place that we are going for which was the ideal place is the place of love so you always have to have both of these levels as he says these two levels are interlocked they're intertwined we have yura and we have Alva we have this is represented by two different system mm l King David says one persecutors if they were soshim Bagheera the gila bear other the verse says serve Hashem with fear or awe and rejoice and trembling so there has to be this Oh as we come into relationship with Hashem let the break through those clippos we have to break through the shell which covers the fruit which is inside and but there's another puzzle you do as a shamba simcha the Torah tells us we are to serve Hashem with joy so there's the aspect of love which is essential and what is the resolution of the the contradiction between these two sukham are we to serve as share with Yura with fear are we to serve a sham with joy with love and the answer is that they're both true we need both and the way that things are set up right now is that the first place the the entrance fee so to speak the way to get in from the beginning is through Europe if to start with a seriousness with a gyro with an awe of a Shem we have to come in and we have to break through the barriers but when we break through those barriers and we get inside so we find this delicious sweet fruit find the simcha the joy we find over the love now there's one more point here which is important which you already man we already mentioned in passing but it's important to understand this I'm going to reiterate it and expand a little bit upon it and then it's what the prime Freelander says that when it comes to the level of Euro when it comes to the level of Oh fear of Hashem doing things because we know it's the right thing to do not per se because we have a love and a chuka desire for it so that level is something that cause I'll say I call mediation mine cuts me remind that it's something which everything generally speaking is in the hands of heaven except for yeoman when it comes to the fear of heaven when it comes to doing things out of gear uh when it comes to breaking through those barriers that's something that at a certain level of course we always need see opposition we always need help from a Shem but that's something that we have to break through on our own we have to have that determination and willingness to break through the challenge on our own but when it comes to the level of Ava it's an amazing thing when it comes to doing something out of love for Hashem so that's not something that we have charge over it's not something that's in our hands I call it a sham I'm the aunt everything really is in a sham hands except for the beginning the beginning is ours so to speak the results the love which is that that which comes at the end of the efforts the love for the Taira the love for Mitsos the love for fulfilling the commandments and understanding God's will that's something that comes as a result of our efforts yes but not because of our efforts it's something which is a gift as we said yo gotti when what saucy person has to put any efforts but when he when he completes it the results he finds something that shouldn't gives them as a gift so we need to know that when it comes to serving Ash I'm out of lava that's something that we need to want that's how we represent Friedlander talks about it it's something we need to have a chuka for we need to want to serve a shout out of love but it's not something that we can we can really say I'm doing it out of love it's something that results because of our efforts this reminds me of something which I just recently heard on a tape on a audio mp3 from my Reshiram a pair and that is it's it's known if you are a parent we know this that when it comes to love when it comes to loving one's child so it's more natural for a woman or the mother to love the child if you want to all kinds of pain for the child she versus the child etc she takes care of the children where is it Savannah Sheva that a father develops love for the child and he said it's when a person when the father changes diaper when I invest in a child when I do something which isn't so pleasant it's not so fun to change the diaper of a child but when the father does that so he has now broken through there's like something difficult or challenging that he has done there's a shell of that nut which has been cracked and what the father finds on the other end is love the love is the result it's a gift it happens naturally love is not something that you can just have it's something that happens as a result of efforts that are put in but it's something that's received as a gift it's not something that one actually gets because you wanted to love you can't just want to love you can't just love there has to be an action that produces love love is a result love is a gift now I'd like to draw you back to Moshe albedo and try to understand what happened what was the sin how did it result how did it come about and what was the result as we spoke about and what's going to be different with Michiko so the first thing is as we started to speak about the fact that when most Shara Bey no originally struck the rock at the beginning of their time in the mid board beginning of the time in the wilderness so that striking of the rock represented the fact that when it comes to a relationship with a Shem when it comes to getting sustenance from a Shem whether it's literal physical sustenance or spiritual sustenance so the first step that needs to be taken is one of Euro you have to break through has to be struck so to speak but now when a Shem instructed Moshe Rabbeinu at the end of the time in the wilderness now I want you to speak to the rock what a shamans really saying was that the Jewish people are now entering into a different level in their relationship with Hashem it's not just about Europe this is a deeper level it's a level of Ahava when I speak to somebody instead of striking them if I talk to my child and in order to get them to do what I want them to do I have to punish them so that's not a level of love that's Europe now if I can speak to my child and say to them please do this thing and I ask them nicely and they respond so then I have developed a certain level in my relationship with my child that's called love that's the result perhaps starting off with with the challenges and facing off with the challenges that are getting through that we get to a place of love my child now does it out of love in that speech so speech represents love and Hashem was instructing Mancha revena you should speak now to the rock the level of my relationship with the Jewish people now is one of love now why did Moshe Rabbeinu not speak to the rock why did he strike the rock in this case so to climb Freelander explains that there was something fundamental which Moshe a man who made a mistake about and that was that he saw that the Jewish people did not seem to be on the level they were rebelling against God when they came with their complaint which was a legitimate complaint that there was no water so they didn't come with that complaint in a proper way in a respectful way they came with a complaint in a very disrespectful way with a challenge against God with a challenge challenge against Moshe Rabbeinu and so Moshe Rabbeinu felt that because of their rebellion because of their approach because of the negative way that they approached him and Hashem so it wasn't appropriate at this time for Hashem to express love at this moment was an appropriate forum to give in the water in a way which was loving but rather Shem held Moshe I mean what was sure been a thought well Hashem should give it to them in the judgement judgmental way now what mode the mistake of Moshe was that Hashem love is so deep disgust it is so deep that even when the child you know I got parent even when the parent is looking at the child a child is acting up but how deep is the love of the parent the parent is willing to have the patience and the love for the child to give that child what the child needs even within a loving way and not respond to that child in a judgmental way it's possible and at this point a Shem was instructing Moshe emotion made a mistake them to misunderstand what was to be done here now show us instructing Moshe yes it's possible that even when they're in a place which is incorrect which is not config for dom or not Conseco d they're there in a place which is not appropriate for them not appropriate for their relationship with me but I still can behave with them with love with Tessa with kindness I can still speak to them and as we said before if Moshe Rabbeinu had spoken to the rock so then the Jewish people would have had no Sherman could lead them into Israel and they would have had a base in English which would never have been destroyed also important is that he points out he brings from the Zohar that this parallels the way that we receive the Torah if Moshe Rabbeinu would have spoken to the rock instead of striking Iraq so whereas the rock produced water only at first in drops drops didn't just flow out it only flew it only flowed out after he struck it so that's how we approached her as well we have to strike the rock with the breakthrough with a concerning Torah but it should have been and it will be in the future Messiah comes that the way that we receive Torah the way that we have access our relationship with Hashem is one of automatic flowing of automatic love and we will not have to break through any kind of creepers any kind of outer shelves that need to be broken through we will access Hashem love without that first stage of year of fear but the bottom line what we see here is that the way that the world exists now at least until Michelle comes to the Messiah arrives is that in order to have a true relationship with Hashem we need to get through these two layers these two levels first is Yura then it's Alva first is that fear then it's the love and of course the love is something which we only receive as a gift so want to bless you and please bless me ashram should help us to understand the depths of this idea to recognize that yes we live in a world of challenge yes we live in a world where having a true relationship with Hashem is not easy and it requires breaking through the barriers should help us indeed have the wherewithal have the willingness to break through those barriers now Shem should give us that gift which comes on the other side which is oval which is love Hashem should bring us that we should be able to see that time we should be able to exist in that realm where it's completely off it's all love and it's all a gift 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.un.org/webcast [Music]