Matos-Masei - Getting out of Exile

you're listening to the weekly partial podcast with ari goldwag recorded with hashem's never-running assistance in irma bishop issues real 5782 this week's parasha in hood starts his parties matos and marseille in the nerdsy sorel's precious mase we finally joined this week coming back together i think it's symbolic as we enter the nine days and we remember eretz israel and you shalom and we mourn the destruction and we mourn our exile and we think about contemplate our desire to return to arts israel returned to based on english return to shalom that we speak about the travels of the jewish people as they are heading towards earth israel as they are heading towards the holy land and let me share with you a thought at the very end of parshas matas beginning of parches massey and of matos we have the desire of ruvin and god these two swatim and later khatsi shiva menasha half of the tribe of menasha to have a section immediately outside of arts israel has a certain kedusha lacks a certain kedusha their focus their focus being a certain focus we'll see what it was we're going to speak about that we're going to read a message from the end of parches matos and we're going to read a message from the beginning of which has to do with when do we run away when do we run away from danger when do we run towards a place where it seems we have a better chance of material success and when do we recognize that it's hashem who is going to help us who's going to take care of us provide us with all of our needs what is the contrast between those two items and how does it connect to the difference between roofing the proper approach to material wealth proper approach to spirituality so measure says like this umiknerov the the tribes of of reuven and god they said look we have a lot of cattle we have a lot of material possessions the correct place for us we see that this section northern section of the west side is that correct the west side no the east side of the jordan river that area should be for us and for our cattle because of all of our cattle zest it says we have here a very important lesson when it comes to the difference between the right side and the left side the wise person leans to the right the foolish person leans to the left what is the idea when we're not speaking about pesach here what is leaning to the right leaning to the left leave him you know in ecclesiastes chapter 10 verse 2 says that the wise man's heart is to the right sartov this is the good inclination of a human being right we have two forces inside of us which push us in in different directions we have a spiritual force we we refer to it as the good inclination the answer to we have our conscience which pushes pushes us to the side of goodness and that says is on the right side of smiley the heart of the fool is on the left they it's a harassing us what is the heart of the fool which is on the left side this is a reference to the evil inclination the part of the human being the baser part of the human being which pushes us in the direction of physicality of material of material how would we say materiality i don't know if there's such a word the material it's our evil inclination which sends us to the left the left is the weaker side and the left is the side of selfishness the right side is the side of cassette of kindness sorry it's interested in coming together with other people of doing kindness others giving charity and it's hard saying hey i'm not interested in that i need to keep the money for myself i don't have enough right what is the focus is our focus physicality the material or is our focus on spirituality that's what the puzzle lays down for us another distinction between right and left the heart of the wise is to the right elohim this is a reference to the righteous they give their heart to the torah which is to the right what is our focus what do we think about what's the first thing that we do in our day the torah that's righteous we strive to be like the righteous make the torah the main thing the right side they they push to the right shanimer to the right is the fiery law the fiery law the law of the torah tire gives us limitations the terror gives us boundaries terry says there's no such thing as a free-for-all you can't do anything you want there are limitations there are boundaries and those boundaries are healthy and important it's a fiery law the terror is on the right syllabus the left side refers the foolish heart refers to the wicked what is their focus their focus is on material wealth says to the to the left is the aspect of wealth and honor that's me me me again focusing on myself focusing on what i want unbridled wanting right that's the we could say uh perhaps the definition of the western world today unbridled wanting i'm consumerism run you over because i want what i want right so the contrast between the right side of the of the righteous spirituality torah the left side of the wicked focus on just gathering more and more wealth double here another parallel idea and this brings us back to apartheid the heart of the wise is to the right then that's the approach of moshe rabbenu moses right he had a certain understanding and a certain feeling a certain gesha's or an approach but you still is smiling but the heart of the fool is to the left who is that eliminated this is the sons of ruvin the sons of god that they these two tribes they made the main thing secondary and made the secondary thing to be the main thing as the atheistic explains there was something even even within physicality right we could talk about spiritual versus physical but even within the physical realm the material realm we could speak about the fact that you have a more spiritual aspect of it and a more physical aspect of it what did the bene god and the meneruvin do they made their money more important than their kids right children are an extension of ourselves when we think about it what do we have in this world what remains where does our where does our uh russian is the word in hebrew where is our effect in the world seen the most it's through our children right and yet and that's what we have that remains after we are gone from this world right our children yes our actions to a certain extent but much less our children are what remains they said i to i care about my my money more than they said that they care about their children they say to moshe they said we want to stay here we want to stay in this area this very lush area we want to build pens for our animals and cities for our children so they put the animals first they put their livestock first they put their money their wealth first um that's a terrible approach don't put your money first don't make don't make that more important make the make the main thing main thing put your priorities in the right in the right order moshe when he responds he says build indeed cities for your children that's the first thing that he says and then afterwards he says build pens for your sheep that's the idea the concept of the heart of the wise is to the right zemo the exile is smiling and the heart of the foolish is to the left these are the sons of reuven encod who says that there's a very big mistake that's being made here very when we have the priorities in the incorrect order so there's a very big mistake you made your your material wealth more important than your children then you're spiritual hashem says to them i promise you have no blessing there's no future when the material is placed first when that's what's more important there's no future allah says also by king solomon our wisest of all men in proverbs chapter 20 verse 21 it is a very confused inheritance at the beginning and in the end it won't be blessed what's the confused inheritance there was like a confusion in there was a confusion in their attitude they had a lack of proper priorities in the end it's not going to be blessed don't work so hard to get rich stop stop you know using your intellect for for uh gathering material wealth what's in the end what does it mean that the blessings will not be in the end we know that the vinegar were the first to go out into gulas they were the first to go out into exile they had lost their connection to earth israel they lost their connection to the jewish people lost forever why because of their incorrect priorities their focus on that which was incorrect and wrong they didn't want to erret's israel they didn't want to come into the land itself they were too focused on their material wealth they were too focused not on their spiritual futures not on their children but rather on their on their cattle which represented wealth in those times ends up the mantra who is considered wealthy who is truly wealthy someone who is happy with his lot [Music] the work of your hands when you eat it when you recognize that what you already have is all you need you have the meet of histopkus when you have the character trait of being happy with your lot recognizing that what you have is exactly what you need exactly what hashem taylor made for you praiseworthy are you and good is for you so this is the first madrish this is the first idea that we see that the mistake that is possible to make especially in our western world which is so focused on wealth and on trying to guarantee all of our needs are met and beyond the excuse as you've heard me say and i reiterate it because it's so important especially now to think about it we're in the three weeks we're talking about exile we're talking about we were thrown out of artistrel how do we get back to art israel how do we get back to the land how do we get back to goula how do we build a foundation for mashiach as we if you read what's going on in in this monastery every single day damida there's an order and first jerusalem is built and then david then the throne of david comes in first there's a return to eretz israel as it is today seven million jews living in the holy land how do we get back here says the medrish as i understand it the mistake that we make that leads to gullus at least exile is thinking about our wealth thinking about that classic reason why people don't come there to scale perhaps they say how am i going to make a parnassa write that thought that putting the focus on the parnasso they also say well my kids and which i believe is a terrible mistake it's completely not true amazing to see my children grew uh were born here in arts israel raised here next israel there it's amazing to watch how much they know the girl in fourth grade how much she knows she's um i was learning something yesterday with my son moshido on the phone he's 19. and my nine-year-old said she corrected us about something that we were learning in rashi in in the homicide she knew she knew better than than we did nine year old amazing the the our children and eric israel have an opportunity to know so much start off knowing the language of the torah hebrew they speak the language they can read a puzzle like it's because it's their language what is our focus material wealth comfortability it's comfortable here it's comfortable here in galas it's comfortable here in exile let's stay here is that our focus or is our focus what's best for our future spirituality what is best i know people have moving to art israel who have said they they live in a particular location in the united states they're they're coming it's territorial after sukkos with help and they said you know we're living in our situation we have everything we need i'm sorry we're living in hutzlarz we're living in the in the golden medina we have everything we need but we're we're lacking something spiritually we feel like there's something lacking in our spirituality they're coming here because of that amazing to see amazing to see people who recognize this truth [Music] what is our focus what where is our future now let's read the the message from the beginning is a person allowed to desecrate the shabbos if if they're in danger they're immortal danger they need to run away from someone who's chasing them non-jews soldiers list them or or robbers kasharov was saying this is what our sages tell us indeed a person is allowed to save his life of course as we know you're allowed to run away you're allowed to break shabbos you're allowed to to escape from mortal danger because this is a very interesting introduction this is the very first meditation practice masse introducing us to the parasha introducing us to the travels of the jewish people so we see that david when shell wanted to kill him he ran away and he was able to to escape okay so he was able to escape and he was indeed able to it seems that he was running away even on chavez okay so that was king david and we're going to see that it wasn't just true of king david but it was true of other people as well and we're going to go through this rather quickly i'm sorry [Music] say that there was a story that the great stages of tsipori which was a city in arts israel where there was yeshivas some very negative edicts came from them from the from probably the roman government so what do we do what should we do should we run away i miss he was afraid to tell them to run maybe it was shabbos or maybe it involved the the avira of leaving arts israel right when someone lives in nazi israel there's it's a prohibition to leverage israel mitzvah to live in arts israel he said to them as he didn't want to say except maybe he was afraid of the backlash from the government if he would say explicitly that they should run away but he said to them ask yaakov ask him ask jacob ask mosherabeno ask david max tells wanted to kill him he ran away when moshe was in mortal danger he ran away from egypt there is such a concept of running away of leaving the place where one is even though a person belongs in that place in order to save himself from mortal danger says in isaiah that there's a concept of going into of of of running away going to a place which is safe [Music] something very important very powerful i think this has to do again with my topic which is about coming to arts israel which is about uh the importance of and the safety of the land of israel as opposed to the entire world the plastic tells us that akashboku says look i want you to look at the travels why am i telling you about these travels why am i telling you about all the different places that you went in the mid bar the midway the wilderness is not a safe place it's not a place that's naturally safe it's not a place that's naturally inhabitable it's not a place that you can live there's no water there's no food there's nothing there's no there's no use of there's no nearby can you know places where people live that you can buy food from them the mid-birds the wilderness there's no life there but hashem says look i brought you through that place i didn't give you anywhere to run right in contrast to moshe and yaakov and david who did run when it was necessary but look inside of the midbar in the wilderness which was a place of extreme danger there was nowhere to run i didn't let you run away i protected you from your enemies i was with you you see that i was with you you see i'm only came to attack you and i protected you you see that throughout your time there i was providing you with the man i was providing you in a miraculous way with the water with the bear miriam the comment of my comments how many dangerous and wild animals were there i didn't allow them to cause you damage services hashem says i want you to write down all of the travels all of the locations that they visited throughout the wilderness i want you to look at that and i want you to recognize that i protected you and there was nowhere to run there was nowhere to escape to but i took care of you in the wilderness this is the lesson of ayla masay of the psukim that referred to the travels of the jewish people and i think that it's not a coincidence that this concept is taught right here after the god of the name because i think that there's a message here because we can look at arts israel we can say look the land of israel is in such a safe place there are people william there are terrorist attacks there's a country that wants to destroy israel with nuclear weapons very close to gaining those nuclear weapons is it safe here but i want to tell you that we think that we're safe in godless we think that we're safe in exile but all it takes as you see from the war in ukraine all it takes is a moment for something to switch and the danger to be in the place that we thought was so safe yaakov david when they realized the danger moshe albanian was in khutsar he was a mitzvah he was in egypt he realized the danger he had to run mattress tells us you might have heard it from me before it speaks about what happens before meshiach comes speaks about the destruction in the entire world before meshiach comes before the messiah arrives and the jewish people are saying where do we go where do we go and naked who says don't worry come on the final war the final destruction that occurs in the entire world hashem promises and it reassures us don't worry everything i did i did for you for your sake to bring about a new world a world where you have just one focus focus on spirituality focus on coming close to hashem but in that moment before we're saying where do we go where do we go and i was thinking you know this measure is teaching us where we go before that moment before that point in time where the utter destruction occurs because really all of the physicality has to be brought down right posix says that the world of asev is completely goes up and in flames the west is destroyed all that physicality all of the focus on the material of the negotiating that mistaken focus it has to be brought down in order for the hearts to open the hearts the hearts of stone to be removed the hearts of flesh which represent the spirituality which we spoke about here the lev liaminoi the lead seal the foolish heart the hearts of stone the hearts which focus on materiality the material those hearts need to be melted and how do we melt those hearts it's through our recognition that we're in exile and we don't belong here we don't belong in ghotslarts we don't belong on the other side of the jordan river we don't belong focusing on the material we don't belong in this place we have to think about well is it safe enough to say well let's let's take a take a look for a moment what happened in europe during world war ii it wasn't a safe place as soon as the fire starts burning in asap it's not a safe place for jewish people to be it's not a safe place they get swept up in the destruction they get swept up in the destruction where is it safe deposit tells us where it's safe it's safe in the wilderness it's safe in the mid bar who says i protected you in the midwest i took care of your enemies i didn't allow them to attack you i didn't allow the destruction to occur where can we say is the midbar today where is that wilderness it's clearly arts israel over the last 75 years because protected us took care of us in miraculous fashion against all odds impossibly it's impossible for us to remain here surrounded by all these nations all these countries that have wanted to destroy us and and now their hearts are turning their arab hearts are turning iran hasn't turned yet but they're building their own gallows just like paris the persians so many years ago in the story of of uh of it of esther the story of the megillah the persians built their own gallows haman built his own gallows to to hang upon they're also building their own gallows with the nuclear stuff that they'll be destroyed with the iranians but where is it safe in the world we think that we're safe elsewhere but it's time to think about it's time to think about where is it really safe it's really safe in that place where we have all the hashim nakar of him we have all of these wild beasts that are trying to to hurt us and attack us and had kodashbar who does not allow anything to happen to us here he blesses us he protects us he makes the desert bloom he helps us and he proves he proves to us that this is it this is the time where in the ikv when the very end of the story we're so close to the end it's the time before that moment comes where do we go come come to art israel that should be our desire that should be our goal that should be our recognition of where is it really safe where is it really that akash bar who wants us to be where do we belong versus where do we want to because it's perhaps easier perhaps materially it's more desirable it's easier but what is our focus what is where are our priorities where are they correctly to be placed the measure is telling us we need to place our priorities in their correct order we need to make the icker icker the main thing the main thing the toefl tefl the secondary thing needs to be secondary we need to put things in the right order as mushroom teaches us the kids the spiritual that comes first the material we'll worry about the material also you'll also build those pens for the sheep but that's second first is spirituality first is the place where it's possible that's artsy sorel don't give up eretz israel don't give up your future don't end up in exile don't end up lost in exile because the focus was incorrect that's what moshe albania was telling that's the lesson for us i want to bless you and ask you to bless me hashem should help us that we should be able to indeed place our priorities correctly we should be able to indeed have a true feeling a true feeling of loss we're missing something incredible we're missing the base hamikdash we're missing the temple we're missing the center we're missing the spiritual hashem should help us recognize what we're missing so we can get back here to arts israel in time so we can get back here to the place where it's truly safe worship is truly protecting us 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.arigoldwag.com or search on itunes ari goldwag [Music]