Parshas Hashavua - Beshalach - Glorifying God

you're listening to the weekly paral podcast with Ari goldwag recorded with hashem's never ending assistance in Rael 5779 2019 this week's para is paraak and I would like to share with you again a thought from Freelander that is related to our paraa we know that the Jewish people went through an amazing miraculous experience they went through the yamu the waters split they were able to go through on dry land the waters descended upon the Egyptians who were chasing after the Jewish people and when the Jews reached dry land outside of the yamu outside of the Sea of reeds so they sang an amazing song the song that we sing every single day the Jewish people sang as a thank you to God and one of the things that they said in there was Z this is my God and I will glorify him the god of my father and I will and I will raise him up I will make him lofty okay so Freelander wants to understand the concept of Z the idea of this is my God and I will glorify him it's very interesting just before we even get into uh the discussion inside Z so as he's going to point out Z when the Jewish people said this is my God so it was an amazing and awesome experience if a person says this is my God and whenever we have the word Z in the Torah this it's always an absolute experience as we're going to see so they had an amazing and awesome experience of God now what's interesting is that the second part of the vers I will glorify him I will beautify him and we're going to see that this can mean one of two things very interestingly but one of the more famous perhaps things that the verse refers to is the fact that there's an idea of of glorifying God through the Mitzvah themselves The Commandments that we perform for god making them beautiful tell us make oneself beautiful in front of God with the Commandments the way that we perform the Commandments we have a beautiful es we have a beautiful mza we have beautiful tan what whatever we are using in order to glorify God in order to fulfill his commands ments we use something which is beautiful in that process so the thing that we need to understand as we start to read what is talking about we need to understand what is the idea what is the concept that when the Jewish people said Ze this is my God they had an awesome experience of God an experiential they could they were able to look at and see God as it were of course God has no physical reality God is a spiritual being or he's Beyond even the spiritual but they able to experience God experientially so how is it that in that same verse we find the concept of beautifying oneself in a Mitzvah beautifying the the Commandments that we fulfill are to be done in a beautiful way we need to understand that idea and so let's see in in depth let's see inside what Freelander says there were awesome Miracles that the Jewish people merited as left Egypt and specifically at the splitting of the sea the Jewish people merited to see amazing Revelations the sage tell us this is in the Zohar and it's also in Med a lowly maid servant a Jewish maid servant on the SE saw a higher Revelation than his Ezekiel Ezekiel is the prime example is the the one who gives us what it looked like what did the throne room of God as it were look like he reveals to us in the first chapter of Ezekiel the the workings of The Chariot the lowliest person amongst the Jewish people was able to see an even higher Revelation than Ezekiel dider explained the revelations that the Jewish people had at the sea it wasn't on par with their true level it was a gift in comparison when we speak about the the prophets the revelations that they had it was always in in it corresponded to it was in concience with their preparation the level of their prep each person each each Prophet saw based on the type of um type of lens that he prepared for himself like the r writes mil the prophets had many different levels there were different levels amongst the prophets just like the people who are among the wise men those who are wise there's different levels of wisdom there are different levels of people when it comes to having attained wisdom natural the natural Talent of a person so too when it came to prophets there were different levels in Prophecy if a person is missing something in his prophetic abilities so then he will be missing something in his prophecy however when the children of Israel stood at the sea they had an incredible exalted experience that was a result of them being freed brought out by an inspiration from above God gave them a free gift bringing them out of the 49 levels of of impurity they merited to experience a face t- face experience with God Z this is my God as our sor tell us the Jewish people at the at the at the Sea of reeds were able to experience God openly sh the verse tells us they saw the great hand of God the children even the lonliest child Theus they were pointing with their fingers Z they said this is my God and I will glorify him who be says Freelander the word Z as we said before the word Z means this it's it's whenever we have the word this it's a reference to an open an absolute Revelation as our sages tell us I'm sorry the je the the prophets of the Jewish people when they would prophecy so they would say this is what God Said but whenever they said this word the word K means like this it means like this doesn't mean this Z means this K means like this so there was an approximation when it came to all of the prophets but Moses when he had his prophecies so his prophecy was this is what God said okay so G it was an absolutely clear as we say we we find K tell us that Moses was able to see through his prophecy was through a clear lens a perfectly clear lens as opposed to the other prophets who experienced their Revelation through a a darkened lens the rest of the Jewish people as well in this circumstance reached a level of Prophecy that was as clear as Moses's Prophecy that's why they said Z this is my God so when we read this when we read about this Revelation so we need to understand that the fact that it's told to us in the Torah is in order for us to learn something from the amazing revelation of the Jewish people at that time so let's see what this has to do with us and it's as we said before the concept of of the making ourselves Beauty beautiful beautifying ourselves in our fulfillment of The Commandments in front of God the result of the awesome Revelation that the Jewish people had then which which was higher than the levels the ordinary levels of Prophecy what is the result of this is my God that recognition that Revelation and and I will beautify him and I will glorify him the result of having such a revelation is automatically we're going to see two different understandings of what is the idea of anve of glorifying God one is making the Mitzvah beautiful the other one we see soon has to do with trying to imitate the ways of God when a person has a recognition of godliness in his life and a person sees that God is in his life so it obligates him to say I will glorify God on page 133b says as we have said the idea of glorifying God is making the mitz beautiful when you make your Su forus when you make that Booth make it beautiful when you purchase a lul when you get the arim the four species which we shake on suus get a beautiful one get a beautiful es the chauffer that we blow in rash needs to be beautiful needs to be pretty titis the tittis a person wears needs to be beautiful beauy the for Torah it should be written on a high level The Scribe should write it beautifully the and writing it for God's name for God's sake with a with a beautiful type of ink even the the pen that one is using the the feather pen that a person uses to write the the saer Torah should be beautiful the it should be tied up it should be bound and it should it should be covered in a beautiful way the Torah which is what the Jewish people that's the meaning of the Jewish people to to have a beautiful sa Torah have beautiful writing beautiful cover for the saf Torah for the fact that by accepting God's kingship over us we accept it upon ourselves to fulfill God's will as it says as we say every morning that the Jewish people accepted upon themselves the Yoke of heaven when God redeemed them when they brought them when God brought them through the Sea of reeds amazing thing according to the way the understands it the Revelation that they experienced which caused them to accept the Yoke of Heaven upon them to fulfill God's Commandments to be willing to do whatever God says besides for that willingness the fact that they had this Revelation also meant that they they realized that they need to beautify the Mitzvah when we fulfill the Commandments to make them beautiful says we need to understand the concept of making it beautiful what is the idea of making the mitz beautiful how does it connect to this Revelation we're supposed to make the mitz beautiful what is the concept so he brings from the Mah the explains like this what is the concept of beautifying one's one's God how do I glorify God an amazing thing when I beautify a Mitzvah when I perform the Commandments of God in a beautiful fashion I am signifying the fact that God himself as it were is beautiful that God created a world and this is my own addition that God created a world which is beautiful why why is there Beauty in the world what is it for it's to show us that God himself himself number one appreciates Beauty he created all Beauty and he himself is beautiful what is the idea of beauty the idea of beauty is is uh balance when things are in their correct Place everything is correct with God God is a perfect God God is god is perfect explains Freer when we beautify the mitzvos when we beautify the Commandments it shows how serious we are how important it is to do the will of God and and to the point that we want to make it beautiful so we don't just do we don't just do a Mitzvah we don't just perform a commandment in a way which shows we're trying to get it over with or something like that we show how how dear the Mitzvah is to us how how wonderful it is how special it is to us by making it beautiful now again he continues with the quote of the moral that that from Hashem God Is Mud god is perfect as it were so the result what does God produce God produces Perfection if you think about it again this is my own explanation of it but if you think about it look at the world it's amazing beautiful balance all of the beauty in the world all the the the ecosystem the universe the Stars the Sun the moon all of the things that we experience we look around in the world that God created it's so perfect it's so perfectly balanced that shows us that the one who created all these things is perfect and perfectly balanced when we perform a Mitzvah this way when we perform a Mitzvah and beautify it it brings that beauty into the world it shows that we appreciate the source of all Beauty the Commandments are Godly they're from God by beautifying a MIT it shows that God is beautiful as it were this is what it means I'm going to glorify God it's in order to make the beauty of God more uh more represented in the world to bring out that beauty in the world it doesn't mean that we're beautifying God we are making God more beautiful but rather it's impossible or we coming to do is to to give PR so to speak we're coming to to make it known to make people aware of the beauty of God and the beauty of his world the general principle here is the explanation of through the people of Israel through the actions of the Jewish people by us going and beautifying the commandments so the result is that we see God's Beauty in the world we see God's Beauty say in explaining this whole idea the hi the beautifying of a Mitzvah is not just an addition to the Commandment this gives significance to the entire mitzvah now coming back to what we said before not only did the Jewish people accept upon themselves to fulfill the when they saw this amazing Miracle they saw this amazing revelation of godliness in the world they saw God in an unusual in a way which was not common place he says this obligates us to leave the common place when we see God revealing himself to us in an uncommon way it requires us to fulfill his Commandments in an uncommon way to perform the Commandments in a way which is more significant by beautifying the Commandments in this way we beautify we beautify ourselves in a in a certain sense because we express and we beautify ourselves by showing our love for the Commandments of God and it's very interesting because how we doing it when we write the the saer Torah theal are telling us to write the sa Torah with a beautiful pen to write the sav Tor with a beautiful ink okay that we understand perhaps every time we look at the sa T we'll see how beautiful it is but to write it with a beautiful pen doesn't seem to it seems to be a secondary type of thing they don't even seem to be the Mitzvah itself no this shows that everything that we have that we do that's connected that's related to The Commandments we beautify it we show how much we love the M we show how much we appreciate the opportunity to serve God to bring godliness into the world as as the mar said before so he finishes off this point and he says when the Jewish people merited to have this awesome revelation of Z they were able to point and say there is God immediately they they wanted to express this somehow in their actions they said I want to do this van I want to glorify God when I come to doing the mes I want to do it in an unusual way I want to show my love for God even though perhaps from from the own from them from themselves if they looked at themselves if they could have felt look I don't really deserve this amazing Revelation they recognized came from God it was a gift but nevertheless the fact that they got this amazing gift needed to bring them to do something to to perform something to to make it real to bring it into themselves why did we have this Revelation the Jewish people ask themselves it must be in order for us to raise ourselves up in our service of God by by recognizing something amazing something out of the ordinary something uncommon this un uncommon experience means that we have to do something uncommon when it comes to serving God amazing beautiful idea and here we come we don't have so much time but I want to also share with you the second point which is the other way that we are van we glorify God what's the other way one way is as we said we bring out the beauty of God into the World by performing the Commandments in a beautiful way there's another way that we bring out the glory of God into the world it's by imitating God it's by trying to be like God God is God is compassionate we also need to [Music] be our sages say furthermore and I believe that this is also in theab Van says what does it mean van it means make yourself excuse me make yourself like God just like God is compassionate so too you need to be compassionate so here explains an amazing thing when the Jewish people saw the amazing Revelation they saw God they they experienced godliness that inspired them an amazing desire to be like God what does that mean how can I be like God God is the Creator God is awesome God is is higher than anything the entire creation the answer is that through learning the way that God interacts with his creation what what are God's attributes just like God is compassionate we try to go in his ways this is the way that we make ourselves like God it's by recognizing God's attributes and imitating them of course when we speak about God's compassion it's beyond anything that we can understand it's it's it's it encompasses so much we still need to try to be like God in in our own way we need to be comp compassionate in our context of course God's compassion extends to the entire creation to all of the Creations all of the animals all of the people all of the the every level of creation but we have to be compassionate within our context we see amazing revelations in the way that God interacts with with with the world we see we read the para we see how Hashem did this awesome compassionate thing for the Jewish people he saved them he redeemed them from from the hand of the subjugation to to the Egyptians that requires us to see wow hasem is so compassionate hasem is so much love how can I in my life where can I find a way to redeem others where can I find a way to help others okay rash an amazing thing Rashi tells us where do we see from the word van and means to glorify him so he said one of the ways that we glorify him is that we we imitate him we bring out his Beauty into the world his compassion to the world but Rashi says a beautiful thing the word which means to glorify him can also be split up into two parts I and he I will do what he does attaching myself to his ways when we try when we want to be like God even a little bit even if it's not as encompassing as God's compassion as God's way with not not perhaps with the same not perhaps it's for sure not with the same strength but when we try at our level to be like God so that is what it means to be like God he points out I'm not going to read the whole paragraph here but the wrote a whole called which is all about the mid all about the attributes of God of which are represented by the 13 attributes of compassion of God's compassion that we say so many times oner we're asking God for his his unconditional love that's God that's how God interacts with his creation so too we need to imitate that and it's good if you want to see in if you check out my website in the in the section which is called um The Daily cabala lesson we actually went through the Savior Tom dor and spoke at length I'd like to wrap up and say that we see fander is teaching us there are two ways that when we see this amazing revelation of hem we see the yamu we read about it we hear about it and we also have to look for revelation of hasem in our lives where God is compassionate with us and does amazing miracles for us it needs to inspire Us in these two ways to want to perform his Commandments to serve god with Beauty in a beautiful way and also we want to imitate God we want to be like God we want to be we want to be compassionate just as he is compassionate so I just want to finish off this is the finishing point of Freelander this was the response of when they were standing by the Sea and they saw this amazing Miracle they walked through the the the the the yam they walked through the Sea of reeds on dry land the Egyptians were destroyed their their persecutors their subjugators were gone forever they knew that they were now free what did they say I see my God I want to to beautify her they they pointed with their finger and they said this is my God what did that Revelation do it caused them to want to be better in their service of God Al through the concept of which as we said is also it can mean to it can mean to beautify the misses and it can also mean an I want to be like God in every matter we need to try to figure out how we can attach ourselves to God to imitate him to beautify the Commandments that we do as we serve him I want to bless you I ask you to bless me should help us to be able to fulfill these two concepts should be able to see God's miracles in our lives and be able to recognize the Miracles that God did for us so many thousands of years ago and how they also apply to us today and how they they can Inspire us to serve God better to beautify the Commandments to love the opportunities that we have to show that love through beautifying the Mitzvah and by trying to imitate all of God's ways 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]