Vayakhel - A Good Name

you're listening to the weekly partial podcast with ari goldwag recorded with hashem's neverending assistance in roman peter israel 5782 this week's precious parshas vayakel and the torah gives us a continued description of all of the parts of the mishkan again a repetition of the obligation of the jewish people to bring to to be miss nadev to donate towards the mishkan and we mentioned bit sallal bin urban but saw who was the the main craftsman who put together the parts of the mishkan and the passage says see that hashem has called in the name of bitsalo so today we're going to speak a bit about names we're going to read from the madrish some beautiful concepts that are connected to names says the magis like this a name is better than good oil we need to notice that the word shame and the word shemen for which means oil they are similar shem and shaman the word shemin contains the word shem which means name so we're going to see what is the connection or what is the depth of these two ideas what is the concept of a name what is the concept of oil so this verse is a verse in coelos in ecclesiastes chapter seven verse one kamehameha let's say you have a small room you have a larger hall so how far if you pour the oil on the on the floor how far does it travel how far does it go it doesn't go that far the shampoo is a good name person who has a good reputation so that name can extend way beyond the hallway way beyond your house way beyond your own city way beyond to the entire world says the name of david went out in all of the lands okay so we see that the concept of a good name has to do with david hamelech has to do with the king david king david became famous in all of the lands right obviously what was he famous for he was famous let us say not for his uh great military accomplishments but rather for his spiritual greatness so the name of a person as we'll soon see the name represents the essence of who he is and what he's accomplished because shem and as we'll see shemen is oil it does represent certain positive things as we'll see later on we it represents the concept of mashiach let's say the messiah is anointed that's where they were meshiach means he's anointed with oil the sons of iron were anointed with oil oil was used to show that this is an important thing this is a crush of thing because oil if you put it in any kind of other liquid it rises to the top so the oil represents the fact that this is someone who is on a higher level who is anointed but the concept of shem of of the name of a person is a deeper aspect of of a person's anointment so to speak we find for example in the deeper sources they speak about shamoy a person's name the word shimoi is the same gematria it's 346. as the word makor makkar means the root the root of the person the highest aspect is connected to the concept of kasir the crown so a crown is something that rises above which is upon the king's head and the name of a person is connected to his root this concept of the makura has to where the soul sits the soul sits above the head or within the head and above the head so that's the root of the human being when a person lives in consonance with his soul like king david did he was a melech he was a king the king wears a crown so because he was someone who lived in consonance with his spiritual side therefore he was someone who rose above just like shaman just like oil rises above he was a king who rose above all of the others all the other people he was the one who could raise others up to that exalted level of who they could be says the measure sheman type nightfall alames we find in regards to the physical properties of oil even the best oil if it comes upon a person who has died so what happens what's the result the result is that it causes decay it causes further decay and bad smell yeah also verse in cohelis chapter 10 verse 1 speaks about the flies that come when when there's a dead carcass there's a yavish it causes uh decay and destruction and and a bad smell even the finest oil can do that okay so oil even though it has good properties of course there are many good things that it can be used for but it doesn't help out somebody who's dead it only causes it only causes worse worse things okay the uh sorry the shame type however when it comes to a good name someone who has a good name someone who has is living as we said in consonance with spirituality for example elisha navi it does not cause the dead to decay further all the way around it says that when alicia navi came the verse describes the great miracle that he performed he brought a dead child to life how did he do that he he lied down on the child and by lying down on the child he warmed up the child brought him back to life he was able to in a miraculous way bring the child back to life so the power of someone who is innately spiritual who has connected to his innate spirituality is much greater than the oil which represents that which is brought up someone who has been raised up [Music] okay then the verse says at the end of the first passage we quoted in cohes says the day of death is greater than the day of birth the day that a person dies is much greater than the day that he's born what is the idea you know we also find that it's better to go to a a funeral to go to a place of eulogies than to go to a to a a a a wedding other happy occasions y let us see when a person is born when child is born we don't know what his life is going to look like we don't know what the future pretends for this child okay mays but when a person passes away my dear myself his actions make aware make all of the people aware we know what happened with this person the actions speak for themselves right the person has accomplished certain things in his life we can look back on this person's life and we can celebrate the person's life that's what it means in the past when it says the day of death is greater that the day of death is greater than the day of a person's birth because even though of course we rejoice because of the immense potential or because of the fact that a new child has come into our lives but we don't know where that's going to lead we don't know what the future pretends but when a person passes away there's a greater sense of what happened we can look back and see what the person has accomplished once again we see this idea this concept of the shem the oil that's poured on this person because now he's being now he's going to be someone who's higher than others he's going to be a leader he's going to be a cohen he's going to be a king so that just represents his potential it's like the child who's born we don't know what this king is going to do with his power we don't know what this cohen is going to do with his leadership will he succeed that's something that we can only see after a person has succeeded and brought a good name to himself has accomplished something as connected as we said to his spirituality um rabbi levy rabbi levy this is a great mushroom awesome mushroom two ships show you purchase that went out to the great sea ah it is one we see going out of the port and one we see coming into the port zosher you'd say everyone comes out to celebrate their friends are on that ship they're going to have all kinds of adventures on the ship on their travels whatever it is all the people come out to see them off okay so everyone's excited but the the ship that's arriving not everyone came out to greet the ship as it arrived they weren't as excited there was one wise person who was there um this wise man said i see the opposite of the way things should be why it is the one that's going out of the port everyone shouldn't be so excited and happy i met us nobody knows when it's going to reach its destination nobody knows how many seas how many churning seas it's going to encounter and how many difficult wild winds they're going to be in storms etc but the ship that's come in from the sea that's come into the port how you are called everyone should be excited because you're seeing the ship come in and you know that it made it safely to either leg of its journey it's arrived safely [Music] so when a person is born everyone is all excited and happy but we don't know where it's going to end we don't know where it's going to lead when a person has passed on from this world so we can look at his life and we can we can see what the person accomplished it's like the the ship that came into the port [Music] so it's about this that king solomon said that it's greater the day of death the end of a person's life has a much greater quality to it if the life was lived well than the beginning of a person's life [Music] okay so that's the first concept of the madrish and now let's look a little bit further in the magish we'll get the wrap up of the concept there's a few more lines three prophets they were thrown into the lions then they were thrown i'm sorry into the fire they were thrown into the fire i'm thinking of daniel were thrown into the to the fire just like avraham being like abraham what saved them from the fire it was their good name it was the fact that they were great prophets they were on an exalted spiritual level not even a view they not over the sons of our own who were they they were two people who were anointed with the shaman mishra with this oil they indeed had great potential for greatness they were to be to rise above their brethren to be the leaders to be those who would stand to represent the jewish people in front of hashem what did they do they went in lethal if name they went into the holy of holies with a foreign fire and they were burned they died [Music] another one of you went inside they brought their corbin they brought their their their kitauras and they came out and they were burned to the kitchen these ones came into the fire yatsuba they were able to get out with peace have you shamed such an important idea such an essential idea it's not enough to be a leader it's not enough to have a position of power it's not enough to have superficial external greatness external greatness is only significant in so far as the person internally is great these great navy these great prophets they worked on themselves to an incredible degree they studied the torah to an incredible degree in order to be able to reach the possibility of having navor have to have prophecy they were people who because of the spiritual essence which they tapped into which they which they were which they were representative of which they manifested hashem in the world because of that so they could experience a miracle but another view did not they had they had been anointed they had it on the outside but they didn't have it it didn't go in on the inside says the another aspect of this with see that hashem called in the name of batsala [Music] the name of its allah was great it was greater than good oil the passage gives us look this is his name this is his name this is who he is look the torah says look at the name of betsalo and we find it's explained in the in the mephorshim that if we look at the difference between witsalo and other people we see bishop salah we see his his name his father's name his grandfather's name we see that he brought great credit great goodness because of the essence of who he was because he was able to tap in to his essence to his spiritual essence and use his talents in order to bring glory and honor to hashem by creating the mishkan because of that he brought great honor to his family we find other people who it's mentioned the negative things that they did korach benitsa goes back it tells us their lineage because he brought great shame he brought brought great embarrassment to his family matzah was somebody who threw his spiritual connection because of his connection to his spirituality he brought a great honor to his family and brought a great honor to himself he was somebody who connected see it when you see something seeing his believing he connected all the way completely to his name to his essence to his makur to shemi to who he really was and because of that so he broke great honor to himself and to his family and the message here that this mentorship is teaching us that we need to take out of the medrash is the fact that we need to connect to our essence we need to connect to our spirituality we need to connect to who we really are and not do things superficially not do things on the outside it's so easy to to walk through life to go through the motions to go through our day we get up we dive in we learn we are involved in our work we're involved with our families all the things that we do all the things that we're involved with it's very easy to get caught up in all the superficial things that are going on we see with our eyes right now today look around look what's going on in the world what happens when people are superficial people when they're not real and not ready to stand up for true principles but they have all kinds of crazy ideas of what's important and those things are not truly important we see what the leaders of the world do in situations that represent the truth of who they are we see them fall we see the superficiality that they are and that they represent they were just anointed with oil but they never became something real they never became something real those who stand up for what's right those who stand up for truth and for goodness and for spirituality those who are willing to stand up for what's right those are the ones who ultimately are going to have the the spiritual wherewithal to weather the tests of time all the difficulties and the challenges otherwise without that truth at the essence without connecting to the shema to the makur to the person's name the person's root his spiritual essence which is by the way also the the word razon which means desire which means the rats and hashem that's also the same gematria connecting into these things connecting into our spirituality our connection to god the essence of who we are being like a king david that's how we get a good name being like a bizarre that's how we get a good name infusing into our lives we're there we're showing up to darling we're there we're learning we're there for our families to provide for them infusing within that it's just about going back to the root going back to the makur going back to the rut zone what's the ruts and what's my desire my desire to do hashem's desire every time we go back to that we are being like bizarre we are we are being somebody who we are being somebody who's attached to our name we are developing a good name for ourselves a famous idea classic idea the person wants to have clarity about what is important in his life a person can look at and think about what do they want at one's own eulogy what would i want them to say after 120 years when i passed away what do i want them to say what are the things that i want to say and then live a life live a life create ashamed life create a name for ourselves that represents who we want to be and how we want to be remembered tai of shame me it's much better to have this name than to have positions of power yeah my mother is and we see at the end of a person's life focus on the end of my life what is it that i want my life to represent that's much greater than the exciting potential that exists before or at the beginning of a person's life or before they're inaugurated into their position of greatness and power true greatness is only accomplished by doing truly great things i want to bless you and ask you to bless me hashem should help us that we should be able to develop indeed a good name for ourselves we should be able to attach to our core to our rudson to the russian hashem to our true desire which is to do god's god's will and in that way hashem should help us to always have indeed that good name and be people who are principled and righteous thank you so much for listening have a wonderful show miss this podcast was made possible through the gracious donations of listeners like you for more podcasts like this please visit www.ariegoldwag.com or search on itunes ahri goldwag [Music]