Ki Seitze - Intuition and Transcendence

you're listening to the weekly partial podcast recorded with hm's never- ending assistance in ra Israel 5775 2015 this week's para in this week's para chapter 22 verse6 it says like this when you will happen upon a bird's nest you come across the bird's nest and you find inside of the bird's nest either chicks or eggs and you see that the mother is there either she's there protecting her chicks or the the eggs do not take the mother alongside the children the next verse send away the mother and take the children for yourself take the eggs or the chicks by doing this by sending away the mother so it will be good for you and you'll have long days you'll have a long life now the Mish it's very interesting there's a lot of questions that you can we can ask about this Mish tries to address some of these questions one question is it seems funny that this Mitzvah which you know it just you come across this this nest and you send away the mother this Mitzvah the Torah says you'll have long life there's only two places in the Torah that the Torah promises long life it's here and also in regards to the mits of in regards to the Commandment of honoring one's parents it's very interesting why specifically the mes wants to understand why specifically in regards to these two Mitzvah these two Commandments does the Torah specify what the reward is in regards to all the other Commandments the Tor never tells us what the reward is doesn't tell us a person's going to have a long life doesn't tell us what the reward is it doesn't tell us what a person gains spiritually as a result so why is it that in regards to these two the Torah tells us that a person will have long life also it's important to understand what's the connection between these two what is the idea of or what's the depth of the Mitzvah of honoring one's parents and what's the depth of the Mitzvah what's the secrets the the deeper understanding of the mitah sending away the mother bird what is the idea be behind both of these so to begin with I'd like to share with you this Mish M says said God said person should not sit and try to understand way try to weigh the importance of each of the Commandments of the Torah a person shouldn't do that which the verse says weighing these mountains ter the mitzah are like Mountains they're very significant which one's a greater Mountain which one's more significant person shouldn't say oh this is a great mitvah this is an important mitvah I'm going to do this Mitzvah this commandment this spiritual practice why because it has a tremendous amount of reward the the spiritual benefits of this are the greatest this other Mitzvah is not as important it doesn't have the greatest reward the spiritual benefits aren't as great I'm not going to do that one so what does God do God does not reveal what the reward is for each of the Commandments this is so that a person will do all of The Commandments completely meaning there's a there's a picture the Torah is a grand picture and there are many different Commandments there many different obligations and spiritual practices and Hashem wants us to do all of them God wants us to fulfill all of these Commandments not to leave at any not to think that one is more special than the other says the what is this comparable to what's the analogy to a King who hired a group of workers and he brought them into his Orchard he wanted them to take care of all the different trees he didn't tell them which tree if you take care of this tree you're going to get a greater reward he didn't tell them what the reward is for taking care of different trees he didn't want them to leave the trees that don't have as much reward they should only be involved in those things that have a great amount of reward a great amount of payment that evening so the king calls to each of them to each of his workers he asks the first one which tree was it that you were working he said I was working under this tree so he says to him this is a pepper tree Pepper Bush so the reward the payment for that for working in that spot is one golden coin calls another person he says which of the trees which of the bushes were you involved with he said this one so he says this tree the reward the payment for that is only a half a golden coin it's just it's not so significant it's just a tree that that produces white flowers he called another person he asks him which tree did you did you involve yourself with under this one he says to him this is an olive tree the payment is 200 Ze the worker said shouldn't you have told us which one has the most reward which one pays the most so so we should do that one the king said to them if I would have let you know what about everything else I wouldn't have you guys would have taken care of my entire Orchard you would have just focused on the one which has the most reward if you would have focused only on what you can get out of it instead of being focused on being of service to the king so you you wouldn't and I'm sorry you know the the payment isn't as good as you would have liked but that's but that's how it is the same way God did not reveal the reward for the Commandments two Commandments God did reveal the reward for one is one of the the heaviest most difficult and one is one of the easiest one of the most difficult is honoring one's parents what's the reward for that long life on your parents so that you have a long life what the easiest of them it's not very difficult to send off the mother bird you're about to take the eggs the mother bird is sitting there just send off that mother bird the Torah says what is the reward for this it's going to be long life same same same reward as the verse says send away the mother bird and then in the end you have long life so so so the measure is saying what's the me saying it seems a little bit if you look at it it's a little bit challenging cuz it seems like the Torah is telling us okay these two have a great reward and these two have a great reward what about everything else well the things that you would have thought you you don't know the Torah is telling you look these two things they seem to be on opposite poles of the spectrum this one is a very difficult one this is a very easy one but they both have a very great reward the same reward in fact so the Torah is telling you if you wouldn't have guessed about these two that they have the same reward that they have such a great reward you can't guess about any other Mitzvah either you can't figure out which Commandments have the greatest spiritual benefit and so therefore Hashem wants us to be to be well-rounded spiritually hashm wants us to have all of the different trees to take care of all of the trees take care of all of the different Mitzvah the Commandments that are possible so Torah doesn't tell us which ones have the greatest spiritual reward so that we will indeed take care of all of them we will be well-rounded spiritually and have all of these different trees that we've taken care of under belt so to speak now in reading this m and in reading theim and in thinking about you know what is the what is the understanding you know tell us that we're supposed to focus on the fact that the MIT the the Commandments are just decrees of God we're not supposed to necessarily try to think that we can understand the depth of the Mitzvah understand the depth of what is the idea behind this but the MIM do go the commentaries do explain what is the idea behind this mitzvah and one of the explanations that's given the ran speaks about the fact that there's a there's a concept where hasem wants to imbue within usus wants us to have the idea to have the Mida the character trait of compassion to take an animal to take the mother and take The Offspring at the same time is a lack of compassion the Torah wants us it's permitted we're allowed to eat animals we're allowed to eat eggs or we're all to to take the chicks but the even animals also have feelings and so there's an obligation for us to have to to not because Hashem has Rus has has you know a great amount of compassion on animals Hashem does of course but but hashm also lets us eat those animals right so so the idea is to imbue within us compassion to notice when when an animal is is has feelings it's going to the children are being taken away from it send away the mother bird before we take the take the babies take the chicks and so there's that that's one concept of it but the question still is like what is the depth of this mitzah or why is it that a person will have a long life as as a result of doing this okay it's a beautiful thing to have compassion I mean I can have compassion on people I can have compassion on others I there's all kinds of ways that I can get Tock I can give charity the Torah doesn't say that when I give charity that I'm going to have a long life so what is the significance specifically within this Mitzvah what is the depth of this Mitzvah and also perhaps what is the parallel as we asked before between this Mitzvah the Mitzvah of sending away the mother bird and the Mitzvah of K Mitzvah of honoring one's parents that both of these Mitzvah the Torah says the reward is that a person will have long life so to start to understand this we need to look at a different level of understanding of this Mish and I would like to share with you what the ramban says ramban spends many many paragraphs speaking about the explanation of of learning about Rahman is learning about compassion but at the very end he has a small paragraph where he mention that there's a side there's a deeper secret aspect of what's going on with and he quotes which is also known as the and he says he says like this and I'd like to read it to you explains that there's a deeper idea here there's a secret behind this Mitzvah said like this why does it say send away the mother bird why does it say send away the father what is the idea of the mother what is the concept of the mother the tah every single word that it uses is specifically chosen what is the idea of the mother what does the mother represent the mother here that it's referring to is not just the mother bird but it's referring to the concept of mother mother which in cabala is the idea of beina beina we've spoken about at length we've spoken about the concept of the number eight and I'd like to remind you of the idea of the number eight we have the seven which we're going to actually speak about very shortly we have the seven which is the seven days of the week it's also the seven days of pesak it's the seven days of sukus before we get to that Eighth Day the seven days represent the Physical Realm time as we know it the the physical aspects of the of the world that's encompassed by the number seven the number eight which is the Transcendent Kana is also representative of the number eight where we have that light that lasts miraculously for eight days the number eight represents the Transcendent realm which is called in cabala Bina which is also Bina means Intuition or intuitive understanding and that's represented by the mother aim the mother as as kazal say women have a deeper intuitive understanding in that's one of the the character traits of a woman the mother has Aina she has an extra intuitive faculty that represents the Bea the concept of Bea of intuition is represented or or corresponds to the aspect of the mother so when the Torah speaks about sending away the mother here in some ways this eighth aspect needs to be sent away we'll see what that means soon but that's the the PK is referring to this concept we find in m in Proverbs in chap 2:3 that it refers to to beina to intuition as the mother so what is the idea of taking the children that you're allowed to take these chicks what does that represent in a higher or deeper realm explains those that she raised meaning the result or The Offspring of the concept of eight is the lower seven the seven days of the week it's a reference to the seven days of suus the first seven days of suus and the seven days of the week Etc we'll see very soon what this means but hold on a second cu the the ends off this commandment hints to a tremendously deep idea and that's why it has such great reward that it will be good for you and you'll have long days now in trying to understand this idea what does it mean to send away the concept of beina what does it mean to to to take this these children which are the seven days of the week or seven days of sukus what is this idea it seems very opaque it seems very distant from our understanding but I think that there's an amazing amazing thing that we can see from here an amazing lesson that we can have when it comes to our approach to our approach to trying to access hasm having trying to have a relationship with hem trying to live a spiritual life RAR Kaplan in his safer he explains this the he talks about the fact that what is the idea of taking the seven children is taking the children which represent the seven days of the week or the seven days of sukus and sending away the mother sending away the mother bird sending away beina so he explains that there's an idea that when it comes to trying to understand the realm of Bea trying to understand the the the upper Realms the Transcendent Realms because the eighth aspect as we said corresponds to the idea of the Transcendent the all-inclusive aspect so when it comes to trying to understand that aspect it's not permitted we can't go there we cannot understand the the picture the broader picture to to enter into the Transcendent realm that's not something that's permitted to do and it's something that we can do a person has to to know that so now but he addresses an important point because we seem to find that there is explanations there are we do speak about the concept of beina we do speak about the concept of the Transcendent realm we do try to understand we do try to access it so so how do we reconcile that and he explains that that there's a place within this realm there's a place within the lower seven the world that we find ourselves in that we can can indeed see a reflection of the Transcendent realm and I think it's it's amazing if you think about it the word beina which represents the Transcendent realm as we said the word beina means intuition that means that when I'm quiet within myself when I'm quiet I can hear inside of my heart right the heart where's the heart located it's in my chest right the Mind Bea the cons of the beina is an intuitive faculty it's inside of my head right but we talk about intuition as connected to the heart you know women have a greater sense of emotion as you know generally speaking the the the the female K the female aspect of the female ability is more connected to emotion to the heart so what does it mean that that I that the intuition is found in the heart what does that mean it means that even though when we speak about be we speak of the Transcendent realm it's something which is beyond something that we can't really touch we can't really understand we can't understand God we can't understand even what our soul is our soul is something which is beyond us it's all encompassing but we can find it inside of ourselves we can't there's a there's a voice that speak to us speaks to us which is called our intuition and that intuition if we're quiet enough if we're humble enough we can actually hear a a voice which is reflective of the higher realm to to try to understand this to to bring it down what does that mean for us as thinking about it in the terms of the seven days of the week we we mentioned the seven days of the week here you know on the seven days of the week we have six days the T says six days are are for working there's a quiet where we stop we stop working and what do we get to do on chabas we sit back everything is prepared all the food is ready we don't touch the electricity all of our time clocks already set we don't have to do anything we just receive we just reflect all the work that we've done during the week the work that we've done to to be able to have the money to pay for our chabas meals Etc we just receive it on chabas we just receive now shabas is called malus and the aspect of malus the concept of kingship is as we we've spoken about recently is the idea of the the Moon the Moon is a reflection of the sun you want to look at the sun you cannot look at the sun directly you can't look at the Sun but you can see the light of the Sun as it reflects in the moon you know you walk outside just last night I was looking the looked up at the Moon the Moon is getting Fuller we're already on the 13th day of the month of el as it gets to the middle of the month so the Moon is Fuller and it was very bright it's very bright the moon can be very bright in the middle of the month The Moon Rises and sets in the in the evening you know it's up all night it can be very bright outside you even have a shadow from the moon so shabas is like the moon we can't look we can't see the brightness of the Sun but we can appreciate and reflect is called it's 160th of the world to come it's 160th of of that light so we can look at the light the Transcendent light the moon the the sun is as it were the the eighth aspect it's that light which is so bright you can't look at it you can't touch you have to send away the Transcendent aspect that you want to be spiritual you can't touch it it's too bright it will blind a person but one can access the light if it's reflected one can access it within the seven within the seven days of the week when it comes to chabas we can indeed receive this light when it comes to the holidays that we have the seven days of sukus we can indeed receive this light sukus is where we step out of our our our homes and we walk into the we walk into this this temporary dwelling which represents the temporary world that we live in we live in a temporary world we we're not monks who go to a top of a mountain and live in this exalted spiritual space we live within this world we interact with people we have mites that are physical that involve our physical needs involve our relationships with others in a certain sense this Mitzvah is teaching us that if we want to access if we want to receive the children which as the says is the seven days of the week we want to have a fulfilling life we want to have a complete life in this world so that's only possible in a certain sense if we let go of the overarching Transcendent realm which seems so big and so exalted that we can't touch it it's too bright for us we can access that realm in this world if we focus on the reflection of it if we receive it in a way which is appropriate but it starts with recognizing that we can't necessarily touch the the Transcendent realm itself directly we live in this world and if we have that understanding if we live indeed within the seven days of reality if we are if we have that humility and we don't overreach overstep our bounds so then the result is is say it doesn't just mean that a person will have long life that is true but it also refers to the fact that a person will have in a world which is forever means that a person will have a perfected State when he gets to that eighth realm when he gets to that Transcendent realm if a person is patient and recognizes that in this world I can't directly access that place but rather I have to do it in an indirect way receiving it quietly through my intuition through my intuitive faculty by receiving it that way so then a person is full he's well-rounded and as we saw in the Mish you know a person could say look I want shabis all week long I want to do shabas all the time but that's not what we do we have six days of work and we have shabis and in the same way that the M says that Hashem didn't tell us to reward for all of the MIT Hashem wants us to do all of the different Mitzvah some are comparable to shabas are so spiritual so deep but hasem also wants us to be involved in in the world of Commerce and bring spirituality into that world she wants us to be involved with interacting with people and bring spirituality into that world so it's specifically here and there's not really time to speak about how it applies to but I leave that to you to think about but it's specifically here within the Mitzvah of sending away the mother bird that there's a depth and the depth represents an approach the approach to how does one get to that complete picture how does one get to that full reward it's only by using all the different days all the different pieces bringing together that picture and then when that picture comes together you have all of the days of the week you have all of the different Mitzvah all the different Commandments all the different trees in the orchard when all of those things come together then a person is z to the he merits to have that full picture and to have it true to have that Transcendent aspect which we've spoken about as being the parts of this face which has all the different aspects it has an it has eyes nose mouth ears cheeks the whole face is all the different pieces but if you're missing one of those pieces so then the face is not a face it's missing something it's pugum it's it's blemished only by having all of the different pieces do we have that complete face and the eighth aspect represents the completion of the face but I need to respect each of the pieces in order to get to that completion and I can only res I can only get to completion if I'm not so focused on the whole picture but I'm focused on each of the different things each of the different aspects of the picture in its correct place and in its correct time and that means letting go of the whole picture to focus in on the piece that I'm involved in now to focus in on this Mitzvah hey that Mitzvah is going to give me much more beautiful eyes and the eyes are the most you know significant when you look at somebody you look at their eyes so I'm going to just focus on that Mitzvah but then if I do that then only all I have is eyes what about the rest of my faith so Focus the Torah tells us forget the bigger picture for a moment forget which is the most significant let go of that aim let go of the motherb bird so to speak let go of the Transcendent aspect and focus in on the reflection here in this world let go of looking at the sun you're going to be blinded by it look at the light of the Moon look at the chabas receive it work for six days do each of the pieces and that will bring about the Perfection that leaves a person into a long life in this world and a long life a complete life so to speak in the next thank you so much for listening have a wonderful shabas 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]