Ari Goldwag - Haazinu - Defying Nature

You're listening to the weekly para podcast recorded with Hashem's never- ending existence in 5777 2016. This week's para is para. In the beginning of our para, Mosher Raenu begins to sing to speak of the song of the Torah, that which is an adus. It's a testimony between God and the Jewish people that our relationship with Hashem which is never ending which no matter what happens, no matter how far we've gone, God is still in this relationship with us and we are still in this relationship with him. And he says he starts off the song, he starts off this poetry, this beautiful poetry speaking of our relationship and says listen oh heavens and let me speak and let the earth also hear the words of my mouth. And Mosha Moses goes on to speak about the perfectness of God, the perfect wisdom of God, the perfect perfect judgment of God, and how good things are when we do what we're supposed to do, and how quickly and how easily the Jewish people can, heaven forbid, fall into the abyss of sin, lose our relationship with Hashem, heaven forbid. But even when we lose our connection to God, we lose our expression of Hashem, we lose our relationship with the Torah, nevertheless, Hashem always remembers that we are connected. And the results of our actions are always apparent in ways both subtle and not so subtle. And ultimately, as the para tells us, as the song says, ultimately all will be redeemed. Even when it seems that we've gone so far that we can't be redeemed, Hashem always will remember the bris, the the covenant that he made with us at that time and the covenant that we made with him. The relationship cannot be broken. It's a marriage and it cannot be severed. Now I'd like to share with you a medish that speaks about this verse of Shamayim speaks about the statement of Mosher of Moses. An amazing thing. The medish takes us a little bit off of topic and shares with us a verse again in Cohelis in Ecclesiastes. So we have two midrashim we have two parallel midrashim and it's very interesting to note. It's going to be the center of what we're going to speak about is the contrast between the mushel. The analogy that's given in the medish here in our parazu as opposed to the mush the analogy which is given in the medish in cohelis in Ecclesiastes is where this verse is from the verse says the verse states in cohelis in chapter 3 the verse tells us that king was speaking about the fact that I know that all that god does it lasts forever and there's no way to add on to it. Now, the majish addresses the fact that the Torah says something, King Salman says something which needs understanding. What does it mean that you can't can't add on to the creation of Hashem? That's that seems obvious. Hashem is the one he's the creator. He's the one who creates all that exists. Human beings cannot add on. Perhaps we can fashion something that Hashem has made into something else. Perhaps we can make the world better, but we can't add on to the creation. We can't add on to the world. We can't do anything miraculous. We can't do anything that Hashem can do. Only Hashem creates the world. Yeshme, something from nothing. So the medish wants to understand what does it mean that God created things as they are and nothing can be added on to that. So the medish offers two different possibilities. The first possibility is that when we speak about the fact that there's something that's going to be added on or not added on or that it's not possible to add on. One possibility, the first of them is that it means that Hashem creates the world in a certain way and once he makes the laws. So the laws cannot be changed and in a circumstance where things are out of the normal way of being what we call a nace a miracle. That is something which is done in order to awe us. The reason that when we see a miracle, we see something unusual, it gives us a moment for pause is because Hashem made the rules and the rules are not meant to be broken. And in the event that Hashem decides to circumvent the rules, it it causes us to pause. Here's how the says it. This is what God said in the beginning of the creation of the world. So the verse says in braces in Genesis 1, all of the waters were gathered together. All the waters that were under the heavens, meaning the seas were all gathered into one place. But we have a different verse. But we have a verse in Amos 5. The one who calls out to the waters of the sea. He pours them out on the face of the earth. Hashem shimo, God is his name. So we see that God gathers the waters into a single place, meaning that the waters are meant to cover the areas where there's water, the oceans. But yet we see another verse that seems to imply that that law is broken that sometimes God causes the water to go onto the earth. So what is the understanding? Hashem does this in order that people be in awe of him. fun of in order that the creations be afraid of him, that there be a sense of judgment, that there be a sense of awe, that things can change even though the rules are the rules, but things can for a moment go out of the normal way. What is this comparable to? Says the major to a country where the inhabitants of the country had rebelled against the king. What does the king do? Kasha. He brings one of his very strong legions and he surrounds this particular country or this particular section of his country. He brings out his strongest legion in order that the people of his country see it not to be afraid. So, so too in our case the is telling us verse is telling us that Hashem does not ordinarily change the rules. The rules are the rules. You can't add on. You can't change it. But the idea is that it's made this way so that when things are changed, it is something that's out of the ordinary, something that we don't expect. It's something that causes us to step back and to pause and recognize something's wrong here. It's a wakeup call for us to realize that we perhaps need to change. Something is happening out of the ordinary, out of the ordinary rules. Perhaps because we are doing something which is out of the ordinary and out of the rules of God so to speak. Now that's the first understanding of the men. But the medish also gives us a second alternative to understanding of this verse. What does it mean that you can't add on or you can't ordinarily add on as we've been explaining. So the mages tells us that it's true that Hashem sets up certain rules. We're going to go few go through a few of these rules, a few of the places where we see that this is true. But while it's true that he has these rules, there are occasions where a righteous individual as a result of his situs, as a result of his righteousness, Hashem decides to break the rules for this person either because the person needs the rules be broken on his behalf or because there's a request by the person that the rules be broken. Let's see this inside the way that Hashem created the world was Day should be day and night should be night. Jacob came and he caused the day to become night. Or or it could be an explanation is that God caused on his behalf the day to become night. God caused the sun to set before its regular time. So the day became night as the verse says in Genesis chapter 28 he came to that place and he slept there because the sun had set and as the explained the sun had set not in its time. So we see that there are rules of creation and sometimes they are defied. The sun was not yet supposed to set but for Jacob in order that he sleep in that particular place God caused the sun to set we find that Joshua came and he converted the night into day as a verse says in Joshua chapter 10 refers to the fact that the sun stood still in the heavens in the valley of G of Gibian. So we see the righteous have the ability that Hashem will sometimes cause changes that there's a subtraction or an addition that's caused to the rules that Hashem made. So in this first explanation and the way that the measure says it here in our para and para it's all about the fact that God wants people to be afraid. God wants people to stop, to take pause, to notice, to realize that something here awesome has happened. The medish gives a few other examples of places where Hashem sets down a certain rule and can change that rule. I'll read a few of them. When God created the world, he made the upper realms, the spiritual realms to be the domain of the spiritual realms. Only spiritual beings can be in those spiritual realms. And the lower realms are meant for the lower beings. The verse says in Psalms chapter 115, the heavens belong to God and to the celestial beings. And the earth was given to man. Moses came along and he switched things. He made the lower realms to be a place where upper things can happen and the the upper realms a place for lower things to be happening. Says Moses went up to the spiritual domain to the domain where God is to the spiritual realms etc. Another place that we see that the reverse is true is that Hashem came down on Mount Si to give the Torah. So we see that things were reversed. the normal order of creation was changed. And I'd like to share with you one last example, even though there are many more examples here, but the one that has to do with our verse, another explanation, another concept. We find that Hashem created the heavens and the earth that they were meant to praise him. Their very existence praises him or perhaps in some way they sing the praises of God. How do we know this is true? Verse says in Psalmsapter 19, the heavens speak the great honor of God. Once Moses came, he caused them to be quiet. They were busy praising God. And Moshe says to them, and how do we know this? He says, "Listen, oh heavens, I want you to stop speaking and I want you to listen. I want you to stop praising God as it were. And I want you to listen to what I'm about to say. Now, this is very interesting. The last this very last point which has to do with our verse is very interesting, remarkable because if we think about the heavens praising God and we think about what Moshe Rabenu is doing, what Moses is doing and asking them to stop praising God as it were, it's it's a little bit needs explanation. What does it mean that he's asking them to stop? If anything, we see that Moshe himself is praising God. His entire song is a song of praise of God speaking how great God is Paulo. God is perfect. His judgment is perfect. Everything about him is perfect. When we do sins, the the the results of our actions, the the negative things that we find in the world are directly results of our actions. And God loves us and he's going to always remain in a relationship with us. It seems like Mosher Rabain is going on and on speaking about the praises of Hashem. And yet the Medish speaks about his praise of God as asking the heavens to stop their praise of God. How are we to understand this statement of the medish? It sounds like there's certain rules. It's almost like the the praises of God are meant to be said by the heavens and not by mankind. That's almost what it sounds like. And Moshe says,"I want you heavens to stop. It's my turn." So what what's the understanding of this? What is the medish trying to teach us here? What is the the underlying theme of this medish? Now before we start to understand what's going on here, I want to share with you one more issue which is actually based on the mushel in the medish and cohelis. It says a different mushel. And what I mean is we spoke before about the fact that Hashem does these miracles. He changes the order of things either by himself or on behalf of the sadik and the righteous in order to cause people to step back and pause to give them a fear to give them a sense of awe. But the cohel says something very different. Measure says like this. Like we said before, God set in motion that the night is the night and the day is the day. Jacob got up and he turned the day into nightmar like we saw before that of course you know why does the say is pointing out why does the verse say that the sun went down? Of course it went down. It always goes down. So the sages explain God caused the sun to go down before its regular time because God wanted to reveal something to him. God wanted to show him the amazing vision of the angels going up and down the ladder and for him to be able to recognize and see that he was in a holy place. But what was the idea [Music] here? The measure says that it's comparable, it's analogous to someone who the king loves very much. that he would only come to him occasionally. And so what did the king do? The king asked a favor of all of the people of his country. I want you to turn out all of the lights along the way. I want you to turn out all of the street lights along the way. I don't want him to go home. I want to have a special time to speak privately with my beloved one. In the same way, Hashem caused the sun to go down before its regular time so that God could have private time to reveal this amazing revelation to Jacob. This was done out of love. Amazing thing. So before we spoke about a mush of the fact that God does these things. He causes the rules of nature to be changed in order to strike awe into our hearts. But in this magelis the mag is very clear that God does these things to show us love to show us amazing things beautiful things that we recognize that Hashem loves us. So which one is it? How are we to understand this medish? How are we to understand why is it that Hashem changes the rules sometimes? Is it about fear? Is it about love? And the amazing truth that we see here is that it's of course about both. That Hashem is like our father. Hashem loves us so much. Hashem has such an amazing love for us. And sometimes he needs us to pause and to stop to take notice. But it's always about love. It's always about showing us that love. And as I was thinking about this thing, as I was thinking about this concept, it occurred to me. I I just had this vision, you know, with Mosher Alenu asking the heavens to stop, asking them to stop their song, asking them to stop praising God. I envisioned that you have an amazing, beautiful orchestra, not just an orchestra, but a symphony orchestra with so many pieces, so many beautiful instruments playing together in tandem, the most beautiful, exquisite music. And then at some at some point in the music there's a dramatic pause and one of the violinists steps forward and he is the most famous perhaps violinist of them all. He's the most professional, the most beautiful and he starts playing by himself. Even though before he'd been playing along with the entire orchestra, now he plays for a moment by himself and everyone can hear how stunningly beautiful is this amazing talented artist, this amazing talented violinist. And I was thinking, you know, that is exactly what's going on here. When Hashem has certain rules, the heavens themselves, as we said, speak the praises of God, just their very existence. The way that the sun moves and the way that the moon moves and the stars, the constellations, the amazing way has created creation. It's a symphony. It's a beautiful symphony. It's a beautiful statement of the fact that God has created all of these things with such beauty, such harmony, and with specific rules that govern them all. But Mosher Raenu, he's like that violinist who steps out in the moment of drama. When the music stops, he asks the music to stop so that he can sing his special tune so that we can appreciate the very same tune because he's saying the same thing. He's saying that same thing that there are rules to society, there are rules to the Jewish people, there are rules to relationships. When we're faithful in a relationship, the relationship goes well. When we don't when we're not faithful in our relationship, and this is true on a personal level, whether it's with our spouse or with a child, with our friends, etc. When we're not faithful, the result is always going to be destruction and mayhem. And that's the statement of Mosher that there are rules. And sometimes we need to pause. We need to ask the symphony of life even to go on pause and stop singing so that we can sing personally and recognize that perhaps we're doing something wrong or perhaps we might do something wrong in the future and we need to step back and pause. And always, always the pause is coming from a place of love. It's Hashem showing us that he loves us and that there is a relationship. And look how beautiful things are when they're done properly. Look how beautiful. Look what a potential there is for that relationship to be strengthened when we do what we're supposed to do. When we keep the Torah, when we fulfill Hashem's commandments, you know, when Yakob Aino, when Jacob falls asleep there that night, which was early, and what was what was it that he envisioned? What did he see in that dream? He saw the angels going up and the angels going down. And our sages tell us that this represents the gullio of the Jewish people. The dark exiles of the Jewish people. The fact that the Jewish people are going to be sent far away from Israel. That they're going to spend 2,000 years in a dark gullis. Distance from their land. Distanced from Hashem, distanced from that relationship. That's how Hashem shows his love to Yakov. That's how God shows his love for the Jewish people by describing their distance from him. And the answer is yes. Hashem shows us that we have a real relationship. And when you're in a real relationship, there are real repercussions. But the point is that that relationship is real. That it's love. That it's always going to be, no matter what, come what may. There may be points in a relationship where we're distant, but there will always come a reconciliation, which is what the Ramban says in explaining our para, explaining the song of Hazenu. It's a song that that speaks from the beginning of time till the end of time. And it and it promises us that there will be a gula. There will be a redemption that Hashem at some point will look past our sins and he will draw us back and there will be a redemption. We will be redeemed of our sins. We will we will do chuva. We will repent. Now, as we look backwards at Yom Kipper that's passed, and as we look forward to sukus, which is coming to us, which is a time of joy, we recognize that the time that we spent investing in our relationship with Hashem, recognizing all the places that we needed improvement. Now, we take that and we move forward into our year with that recognition and realize that it's all about love. It's all about relationship. And we we we stand in joy. We come into the suka. There's so much happiness. We walk and we we we come and we have these mitzvah. We have all of these opportunities to serve God in so many ways to express our commitment and our action based on the commitment to Hashem and to that relationship. And then we rejoice and dance with the Torah which represents that relationship as well. But all of this is a result of the awe that we felt, the pause that we took. And now we move into action to express the love that we have for our creator and our commitment to that relationship that he has always been committed to. I want to bless you and please bless me back. Hashem should help us to always recognize the amazing relationship that we have to always rededicate ourselves even when things seem challenging even when it seems like we're so far to recognize that no we always have that relationship. Hashem should help us to see those points where there's a pause and recognize that we're supposed to step back and indeed step back and recognize that it's all out of love. That the pauses, the moments of challenge, the moments that are unusual, the moments of miraculous occasions are there for us to see, to be aed by, to learn from, and to see Hashem's love. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful Shabas and a wonderful Yantiff. This podcast was made possible through the gracious donations of listeners like you. For more podcasts like this, please visit www.argoldwag.com or search on iTunes Ari Goldwag. [Music]