Va'eschanan - Israel's Prayers Are Answered

you're listening to the weekly paral podcast with Ari goldwag recorded with aem's nevering assistance in R Israel 5784 2024 this week's par mhu is continuing his speeches five weeks speech which exhorts the Jewish people in their relationship with Hashem and of course after Tish we start to think about and turn our faces turn our direction towards rashash we're getting closer to the day when we receive Hashem accept Hashem as our King and so that's part of the reason why our kazal established that we would read this section of the Torah at this time of year Anda is telling us about he wanted to get into Isel so badly 515 prayers and he tells us about the most important things in life what is life about what is the future of the Jewish people how do we have a future it's through our relationship with Hashem it's through our continuing Devotion to his Mitzvah to fulfilling his Commandments like to share with you a thought from the M that speaks about the following P I'm going to give you a few before so we get some context MH tells us when you get to Isel don't add on and don't subtract from the Torah keep the Torah exactly this is the guide book for all generations 3,300 years later the Torah is equally as relevant as it was on the day that it was given don't add on don't subtract don't take on any other ideals don't look at the Nations around you and try to be like them says the PK you see what happened to those who started to go in the ways of the Nations started to worship idolatry those people were destroyed this is in chapter 4 verse4 and you who hold on to God when you hold on to Hashem you know you're going to have life Hashem is the source of Life you'll have life bear with me three two more before we get to the we're going to talk about see that I have taught you laws and Stat statutes that has commanded came Care Arts that you are to do in the land which is interesting to know the main place where the Torah is kept properly is in Earth Israel is in the land of Israel and you will keep them and you will do them this is your wisdom and your intuition in the eyes of the Nations when everyone sees the great wisdom of Torah great wisdom of the way the Torah way of love life everyone will recognize that they'll hear about all these statutes it's not a coincidence that Islam in Christianity copies so much of the the wise ways of the Torah and they will say this is an incredibly wise Nation this great nation and here's where he comes to the're we're going to talk about today an amazing p which great nation has God so close to them love like Hashem Our God in all of our calling out to him the reason that before we get to the mes I wanted to read all theum leading up to it is because it's clear from the context that the way that we become close to him the way that we become worthy of God being close to us and we're going to see it's not NE necessarily a natural state for God to be close to us but the way that we get to that state is through our connection to T because the t is the will of hem it's a representation of what our relationship with God looks like which great nation first is has hem so close to them and second has such great wisdom and such amazing statutes and laws was saying the Torah that I'm placing before you today that I'm reminding you about in this 5we speech that we're going to read between now and on through rashash this Torah is the foundation of life it's Foundation of your future but it's also the foundation for you to get your prayers answered what other nation has this kind of relationship with God that's guaranteed that Hashem will answer us whenever we call out and as we're going to see even when we don't even have a chance to call out before we call out hashm answers our prayers let's learn this together the M says like this which great nation M starts off with a a law let's say you have a person a Jewish person reads the sh every single day we say is God is one and we have three paragraphs of the sh and the end of sh speaks about we're supposed to remember the whole Torah and we're supposed to remember how hasm took us out of Egypt so the aspect of sh is that we are dedicated to his Commandments and we remember how he took us out of Egypt he redeemed us from the bondage of slavery says the when a person says sh is it okay if you say the the prayers the the 18 prayers or 19 blessings that we say which express all of our needs ask Hashem for all of our physical spiritual needs is it okay if I say sh and then later say the say there are three things our s say that you need to do them immediately one after the other because clearly the first step is an introductory step to the Second Step without that first step you can have the second step and because they're so importantly connected you have to have them one after another immediately the first is that immediately after you do which is when you bring a corbon so one of the things that was done is that you place your hands upon the corbon upon the animal's head and your you admit to your sins immediately after you place your hands on the head of the animal the animal has to be Sheed it has to be slaughtered and brought as a sacrifice meaning the essence of the Corban is the fact that I'm admitting I've done something wrong that animal is going in my place really I should be the one to lose my life because of my sin because of my disconnect to God but the animal goes in my place so with the recognition the immediately after that the animal is slaughtered and brought immediately after we wash our hands right when we want to have aot we want to eat bread so we wash our hands we're not supposed to have we know we don't speak and eating bread the idea is because the the washing of our hands is a prerequisite it's it shows a recognition of what we're about to do of the of the Brad perhaps we could say the fact that it belongs to God the fact that is sustaining us Etc take a prerequisite for prayer the thing that needs to be done immediately before prayer is that we need to remember the Exodus and we need to say sh we need to reaffirm our commitment to God he's our one we are we have one God we speak about the Torah this is the essence you want to have your prayers answered what does it look like it looks like reaffirming my commitment to my relationship with God and remembering the kindness that God did for me in the past the awesome incredible salvation that he wrought for me and then I pray and I ask for my needs one has to come immediately after the other you say immediately after that you pray this is this is what we do somebody who does this indeed immediately after saying immediately after that praise what is the reward for such a person or we're going to speak about each of these different things I'm going if you do on the animal you place your hands on the animal's head you admit to your sins and immediately afterwards the animal is slaughtered brought as a COR brought as a sacrifice you know that your animal the sacrifice will be accepted by God you know that your chuva your repentance is accepted when a person washes and then blesses immediately afterwards makes the BR on the bread you can be assured that nothing bad will happen in the sud in the in that meal that you're having the the Satan will not say anything negative about you it's going to be a positive meal it's going to be a productive meal the food is going to get it's going to sustain you you're not going to get food poison in KAS forbid nothing's going to happen negative the the food will sustain you and help you to serve God because you have recognized that that's what it's about says amazing thing when I speak of my connection to God my commitment to God I speak about the Exodus and immediately afterwards I pray I know for sure I have a guarantee says that my prayers will be answered this is what it takes a affirmation of my relationship with Hashem recognition of his kindness his salvation we need to understand but but once you have those your prayer that you're going to say after that is going to for sure be answered we need to understand what is the idea of the Redemption we could understand the commitment aspect as we spoke about the fact that I'm I show my commitment to God my relationship to God to doing his Mitzvah so then I'm going to have I'm going to be answered my prayers but what is the idea of the fact that if I mention G the fact that redeemed me once yeah we can say a nice idea shows my my appreciation we're going to see something even deeper when I speak about Gul and I speak about Redemption it brings it it does something more let's see we're going to have a few um I don't want to call them tangents because they're related very much to what we're talking about but before we get back to the answer to this question hold on to this question why when I mention the Exodus why does that help me that my prayers be answered that's the question we want to try to understand he says an amazing thing understand the difference between who we are we said M which other nation is so special so so has God so close to them the Jewish people have a unique relationship with God the idol worshippers are close but far the Jewish people are far but close what does that mean what does it mean that an idol worshiper his Idol his Idol is close right Idol you know he has his Idol he has his cross he has his statue he has his some item that he makes it it's right there in front of him it's very clear he can he can touch it can touch what he thinks is the source of his salvation right but the truth is that because of this misguided way of approaching the powers or the power the capital P because of this really that even when the idolator calls out to God he won't be answered when the idolator sees as we're going to see idolor sees that his get his Idol is not answering right away so eventually that person turns to God ultimately but the answer is not going to be forthcoming but in our relationship the Jewish people's relationship with God God is far and near it's the opposite what does that mean Express or sages Express the distance that we experience between us and hem where is God ask any kid they'll point up God is far away God is in the heaven that's how it feels God God is you know distant that's how it feels 500 what's the what's the language here the distance that it takes to walk in F if you could walk for 500 years that's how far away God feels or seems in our experience but the truth is that God is really close God is so close a person stands and he pray prays and he and he has feelings in his heart andem is immediately available to answer his prayers it's the opposite of what happens with an idol says in in Psalm 65:3 the one who hears prayers All Flesh will come to you what did King David mean when he said this verse he said in front of God he says in front of God when the nations of the world come to pray to you when the Arabs come to pray to you when the Christians come to pray to you when the Buddhists come to pray to you when they all realize that their Idol isn't working and they come to pray to you don't answer their prayers King David says don't answer their prayers there's a huge difference between us and them they don't come with a full heart they're not fully committed to you first they go to their Idol the idol doesn't answer them right there are no atheists in a foxhole The Atheist tried all of his power tried all of his might and he still feels threatened and finally turns to God but they didn't they don't turn to God immediately that's not their first place to turn that's not their kneejerk the knee-jerk place is an idol King David says also 18 verse 42 they will call out to God let save them first they call out not to God first they call out and they're not saved by their own God there's two parts of the verse they will call out no one will save them to God and they won't be answered it's it's it's a double language because the first calling out is to their Idol the second calling out is to Hashem Hashem please says King David don't answer them because they're not sincere they're stuck they're stuck okay what is the Jewish people the the Israel is a language of yashar Kel straight to God what is our kneejerk reaction the first thing that we do when we're in trouble is not turn to some idolatry the first thing that we do is turn to Hashem so answer us immediately says when I call you answer me the god of righteousness God of my righteousness what did you say when I call you I answer me I swear to you by your life says hem he's saying this to King David before you even call meem says to King David and King David obviously is is the representative of all of the Jewish people before you even call out to me your NC reaction is to call out to me but before you even call out to me you've already called out to me that's who you are the essence of who we are is straight to God I'm G I'm going to answer you even before you call out says in Isaiah chapter 65:24 before you even call out I'll answer your your prayer I have no other Nation besides for you the Jewish people are unique the special relationship like we said in the verse which other great nation which nation has God so close to us love like hasem our God in all of our callings out to him even in the verse itself the indication is hasm is closed to us before we even call out to him so it's an incredible thing the minister is teaching us unbelievable idea and that is that Hashem is naturally close to us it seems that he's far it seems that he's so distant it would take 500 years to get to him but he's not he's so close he's so close and I want to read to you one more small piece in the next piece in the M brings the because we haven't answered the question yet if you remember I said why do we have to have G before why do we have to have Redemption why we have to talk about Redemption before we talk about before we pray why is that the prerequisite for prayer and if we have that we are guaranteed to be answered so here's the secret the next measure says is a in Psalms 20:2 will answer you in the day of difficulty you see there's an incredible secret the secret to Redemption is the secret to answering all of our prayers The Secret of difficulty right Redemption means we're in a state of Challenge in a state of we we're slaves we've been slaves forever for 210 years in Egypt we've been slaves all of our existence we don't even know anything else we're downtrodden we're trampled we're not allowed to protect ourselves we're not allowed to stand up for our own honor we're not allowed to fight back maybe we're allowed to try to stop missiles from shooting at us but we're not allowed to hit back so that they stop once and for all what a bizan what an embarrassment right but here is the amazing thing the is about to tell us is that when I have a difficulty when I am downtrodden when I face off with this difficulty that's the source of my prayers being answered says the in Jeremiah 30:7 in he says the difficult times for Jacob that's where we're saved it's normally translated as when there are difficult times for Jacob we will be saved from them but the correct translation is that the difficult times for Jacob bring about our Salvation what does it mean when it says will answer us in the day of difficult tells us an incredible thing and this is the secret to understanding how we can get our prayers answered how do we have protection against our enemies where does it come it comes in the in the moment when they're shooting at us when they're trying to destroy us comes in that moment in the in the moment when they're yelling proas statements trying to hurt us trying to beat us up in New York says what is this comparable to he gives us an analogy a woman who's about to give birth she's in the in the throws of her of her of her birth pangs she's incredible pain the wise person stood by and prayed out loud and said there the one who answered your mother when she was giving birth to you the God who answered you your mother when she was giving birth to you may he answer you as well as you give birth to your child did you hear this the man is telling us something so deep so beautiful Your mother when she gave birth to you she went through so much pain and you came into the world her pain was your birth that same God who brought you into the world through that pain is going to answer you in your pain as you give birth to your child remembering the Exodus is remembering the pain and the birth of our great great grandparents which brought about our birth which brought about our existence today which brought about the receiving of the Torah and the relationship the special relationship that we have with Hashem that's unparalleled in the entire world amongst the entire all of the Nations don't forget the pain that was experienced then wrote about a Redemption the pain you're experiencing now is going to bring about a Redemption that's the purpose of the Bain it's not a destructive pain it's a constructive pain if I can remember that that's what what it means to remember G it means I remember I understand that the pain that I've experienced in the past brought me to a birth this pain hasem I'm saying AEM I want this pain this difficulty that I'm going through now to be a birth to be constructive pain not destructive pain excuse me I apologize for my voice sang Yesterday at a wedding sang two days ago for a day camp in y in Jerusalem my voice is tired but this is the idea my friends this is what King David said to the people of Israel the one who answered Jacob Jacob was the one who throughout his life he kept he was chased chased after by his brother asov excuse me he would he ran to to Aram and he was he had to experience the the terrible Deeds of La AR Russia who he married his daughters and he had his son yoseph who was lost for 22 years he thought he was dead all of the trials and tribulations of Jacob isak if that's what King David is saying the one who answered Jacob which wor about births and redemptions and new levels of spirituality the one who answered him may he answer you yob acknowledged and recognized that Hashem had saved him brought him through his challenges and through his troubles and he got to the other side he saw the new stage the Redemption that he experienced as a result of it m he spent his whole life praying for the Jewish people Hashem said I'm going to destroy them M says please don't destroy them but m is like I'm going now what's going to be with them and he prays anytime that they have trouble anytime that they have difficulty please don't hurt them please answer their prayers let them be able to pray for themselves too answer them immediately says to Moses I swear by your life whenever they call me I will answer them this is the message of the statement of of this of our para Hashem is there to answer us anytime we call out anytime we call out he's always there to answer us and what is the best way to pray first talk about about the Exodus first talk about our relationship with hhm our commitment but really talk about the fact that Hashem you saved us then we went through a difficult time and you saved us then please save us again let the difficulty be birth pains let it be the pain of a new beginning for us just as our great great grandparents experienced a new start in the salv in the Salvation that they experienced from their pain so may we also experience salvation in the same way and a Gula a true Redemption I want to bless you I ask you to bless me hasem should help us that we should be able to use the amazing tool of prayer able to understand this message be able to incorporate and recognize in our lives how all of the challenges all the difficulties are sources for growth sh should help us to turn around all of our troubles individually nationally and may Hashem answer all of our prayers 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]