Ari Goldwag - Vayishlach - Distorted Reflections

you're listening to the weekly paral podcast recorded with hashem's never- ending assistance in Rael 5776 2015 this week's para is par VL I'd like to focus in on the return of yobu of Jacob back to the land of Israel and we find that he has a whole interaction with with asov with the angel I don't want to get into that at all but what I do want to get into is that the Torah tells us that after that entire interaction after his whole battle with the angel after his whole discussion and his interaction with asov so the Torah tells us in chapter 33:18 Jacob came whole he was whole he was complete we'll see what that means he came to the city of Canan which is in the land of Canan in land of Israel when he came from pad and he encamped there next to the city now now there's a few things here keep watching listening carefully to these verses they're very interesting need explanation next verse verse 19 he acquired a portion in the field the place where he set up his tent from the from the hands of the children of the father of he bought it with 100 is a certain type of coin we'll see more about that soon now what does it mean that yob came and he was whole so says he was complete in his body he had healed from his interaction with the angel when he had been punched on his side so to speak he was also whole in regards to his money just because he gave this entire present to asov doesn't mean that he lost anything all the way around everything that he has was was were his needs everything he had and so he had everything that he needs he was also complete in regards to his learning of Torah he didn't forget any of his learning while he was in the house of laan okay so now he comes and he's whole and we need to understand the significance of the fact that he's whole what's the idea that he's whole and what does it mean that he's coming into the city of sh why sh what's the place of and we know that sh is a place which was given later to Joseph yadik is actually buried there today you can go it's actually kind of a challenge to go but it's possible to go I've gone there a few times to see the tomb of Joseph it's in sh what the Arabs call nablas but it's interesting the way the verse frames it it says when he came into the land of Canan from padanam meaning he came from the the aramean lands he came from his interactions with laan and he comes into Israel what's the first place basically that he visits is sh what's the significance of this it's also very interesting because we find that Abraham also when he first comes into Israel the first place that he visits is sh we also know that sh as we said was given to Joseph it's the place of pus it's a place of difficulties of challenges the following story which we'll also perhaps touch upon is the whole story with Dena how she's raped and how the the whole interaction with the brothers and the brothers killing shim and Ley killing all the inhabitants of Shem what's the idea that this place is is a place of Confrontation what's the idea what's the concept of sh also interesting the PK tells us that he purchased a field it's only one of three places the m is going to say we're going to see it together but it's one of three places where the Torah is explicit that our forefathers Abraham did it with Mor in in Kevon he bought the Cave of the Patriarchs over here Jacob did it he bought something this piece of land in and we also find that King David bought the Temple Mount from arusi the jebusite he bought this place all of these three places were explicitly bought what is the idea here that they're purchasing this place what's the significance of this place what's the significance of the why is attorney to tell us that this place was purchased so in addressing this issue the Mish tells us something which actually creates more questions than it answers let's see what it says in the M this is in par 79 and it's number seven it's piece number seven the M quotes the verse that says that Jacob purchased this piece of land the for 100 100 certain type of coin said the son of this is one of three places that from this verse we see something that the nations of the world do not have a right to say anything to the Jewish people to cause them pain to cause them anguish to say that the land of Israel is you have stolen it they don't have a right the nations of the world can't say to the Jewish people that we have stolen anything there are three locations where we find that the Jews bought it acquired it with full payment these are they as we said the first one is the Cave of the Patriarchs Inon and the Temple mount in the place where Joseph is buried which is the m continues and proves this from three different verses where we explicitly that it was bought now it's not a coincidence that today in our times these three locations are being claimed by the Arabs unbelievable thing the three places that the M says that no one can ever claim that we have stolen from them and the Arabs themselves they admit that the Torah is true that Moses the prophecy of Moses was a true prophecy and here we have explicit in our Torah that these belong to us and yet they they are claiming it how do we understand that how do we understand that the very places that the measure says can never be claimed by anyone else are indeed be CLA being claimed today now what's really interesting is that the mees continues with something which seems completely unrelated the Mish goes through a number of different words that we have in Hebrew that are in the Torah which we're not sure exactly what they mean and the M tells us a few different stories of how the mar sages were able to figure out the meaning of those words because they were able to actually go and listen or they heard they happened so to speak to hear an Arab speaking in the Arabic language of that time and when they heard the way that word was used they were able to understand what the word means in Hebrew in the Torah now in explaining this the a yose one of the commentaries on the Mish he explains that the Arabic language is actually a distorted form of Hebrew and so that being the case it's possible that there can be words in Arabic that if you figure out what they mean in Arabic you'll be able to them bring them back and try to understand what that word means in Hebrew now one of those words is actually the word in Aras which is Cita which is why the magish brings it or this is on the surface level why the magish brings it but I believe there's a deeper level but the word Cita which is the hund coins the type of coin that was used by yakob you know by Jacob to purchase this land what's the word Casita they didn't they didn't know what the word meant until they heard an Arab using the word Casita to mean a coin and then they were able to understand what the verse means when it says now on the surface level this magish is very cute or very nice you know we can learn all kinds of things from everyone around us and we can bring it back into Torah there something you know you could say a nice druss about it but I want to understand at at at the depth at the depth of it what is the significance of the fact or how do we understand or why is the me she even telling us all of these different stories about words they didn't understand what does it mean when kazal didn't understand a word I mean you can figure it out from the verse if you look at the context you can intuitively figure out that he's purchasing this and obviously if he's giving hundred something Cito we don't know what c means if he's giving 100 something to purchase we can figure it out that it's it's a coin so there's there must be something more kazal are trying to tell us when they say that we were able to figure out what the word means by listening to Arabic what is the significance of this idea now hold on to all those questions I'd like to go a little bit further in the parha the next few verses and I'd like to ask a few questions there which seem to be unrelated but actually our almost The Identical concept explains both of these ideas both of these different concepts which of course the Torah places next to each other it's never a coincidence and it's not a coincidence also that this story happens in we need to understand the idea of the Torah tells us the beginning of the next chapter in in chapter 34 verse one Dina the daughter of Leia which Jacob had birthed she went out she wanted to to find some girls in that land some nice girls that she could interact with the Torah goes on to tell us a story of sh the son ofor how he saw her and he wanted her and then he raped her and then he tried to convince the family of yakob to let him marry her Etc very difficult story very challenging very disturbing now at the very beginning of this story the first words Rashi tells us something the mes speaks about it at length Rashi says what does it mean why does it tell us say that she was the daughter of Leia why does it tell us that first why does it point out that she's the daughter of Leia as she's going out so Rashi tells usas it says that she's the daughter of Leia she's not the daughter of Jacob also why is it specifically telling us this the Tor is telling us that she went out and in that respect the way that she went out was reminiscent of her mother Leia Leia was also somebody who went out as a verse says ear that Leia had made an agreement with ra she had given her her the do and in exchange she was going to instead of Yakov being that night with Rael Yakov Jacob was going to be with Leia so she went out to tell Yakov about their deal that that they had made up that they had switched things around and as a result of that he went and was with her in her tent now the fact that she went out the fact that she did something which was on her level we're talking about the emo the matriarchy we have to understand of course these were the the greatest human beings that ever lived but on her level she did something which was a lack of sne she did something which was immodest on her level now because Leia was somebody who exhibited a certain a certain lack in that area of modesty so Dena her daughter also had that attribute it hadn't been perfected yet and it manifested in a stronger way in Dina and she went out with a certain lack of modesty she went out into and as a result of that this is what happened now I want to also point out what the M says Rashi doesn't quote the medish completely but the Mish actually speaks speaks about the fact that when Dena went out she didn't just go out in a in an immodest way she actually went out wearing provocative clothing and the me says in the same way she was actually doing something that her mother had done she also came out provocatively to yakob to Jacob of course there the context is different it's between a man and his and his wife but still there was some lack of sne some lack of modesty that as a result of Leia's lack of modesty it resulted in dena's lack of modesty you know as we read this meas it's very difficult to understand again Leia EA were talking about the matriarch of clao the Jewish people she had six Sons six of six tribes came from her and all these tribes were the the greatest people the greatest of men the great they were the beginnings of the tribes the beginning the root of the people of Israel and the way the Kaz speak about is challenging the fact that she came out in provocative dress that's one challenge but the fact that Dena that her daughter Dena she also did this type of thing and in a more provocative way and in a in a more inappropriate context and and kazal say that it was because of her mother that it was she she was following in the footsteps so to speak of her mother how are we to understand this what is the concept here what is this Mish what is Rashi coming to teach us what is this Mish coming to teach us and I believe that there's an amazing concept that we see here a really beautiful idea it's an expansion on something that we've spoken about previously we spoke about the fact that the Jewish people in a certain sense are the COO they are the soul the combining Soul the one aspect the overarching aspect the Transcendent aspect which includes all the nations of the world there are 70 Nations and there's one am Israel there's one nation of the Jewish people and in the same in the same way we spoke about the fact that yakob Jacob he was the one he was the Transcendent he was the K who included the spiritual power of all of his 70 descendants now we could also speak about this in terms of a higher Dimension a dimension where everything is n where everything is included and a lower Dimension where you see different aspects a flattened version if you will of that threedimensional the higher aspect you have a higher aspect which is all-inclusive and you have the lower aspect or a lower Dimension where you see pieces of that higher aspect Yakov is the one who includes all that spiritual power his 12 sons and all of his 70 progeny are different aspects of yob of Jacob the Jewish people spiritually include all of the people of the world all of the um all the nations of the world the land of Israel the way kazal speak about it where SES speak about it includes all of the spiritual physical aspects of the entire world it's the the place of Kyo it's the place that's all inclusive it's the higher dimension of all of the reality that we see throughout the entire world Jerusalem is the all-inclusive aspect of the land of Israel so whatever you're going to see in the land of Israel Israel is a lower dimension in relationship to Jerusalem and we could speak about this in many different examples but we see this idea of a higher dimension which we can also refer to as the male Dimension the giving Dimension a parent is also even a woman can be a male so to speak because the woman gives to her children she's the higher Dimension and she gives to her children who are the receiving Dimension the male and the female a aspect so you have the male aspect which is the giving Dimension which is the inclusive Dimension and you have the female aspect which is the dimension where you see the higher Dimension broken down and you see it in a different state in a different form it's we could we could even call it a almost distorted version of the higher Dimension because you don't see the full three dimensions you see it in 2D so to speak so you're only seeing pieces of that higher Dimension now what connects these two Dimensions what connects the male and the female Dimension so the answer is the aspect of the sadic the righteous one the Jewish people in a certain sense are the sadic of the world we are the the people who connect the higher Realms the spiritual Realms God as it were we are the connecting Force which connects God to the world connects God to the um to the nations of the world that's why we're called a light unto the Nations that's the aspect of the sadik the connector that connects the male and female aspects and it corresponds in the in the physical interaction it corresponds to the aspect of of the male which connects into the female which which is the male organ of reproduction now it's not a coincidence that the aspect of Shem is connected to yoseph Joseph is the one who receives the city he's the one who's buried in the city Jacob gives it as a special present to him it's not a coincidence that the the story that happens in Shem is one that has to do with an interaction between the Jewish people at their very beginnings and these these people of of Canan and it has to do with this aspect of connection between male and female these are not coincidences this is all the the foundation of what's going on here in sh is the place of connection between the the entire world sh is the sadic so to speak it's this aspect of connection between the entire world and the land of Israel as we said Israel is the higher Dimension so to speak and it's the it's the relative higher dimension of the entire world so in Yakov you know Jacob is returning to the land of Israel the first place that he touches is sh he walks through and he stops in sh he acquires he makes an acquisition which represents his setting down his roots in the land of Israel and there's a question mark over here what ises the word k mean we'll get to that idea why there's this question mark here but what we see is that sh is the crossover Place really interesting the word the the letters are shin and the gatri of those three letters is 360 now what's the significance of 360 which is 10 * 36 so classically we know that there are 36 sadim there are 36 righteous individuals who hold up the world what is the idea of 36 so the sadic the aspect of Joseph is the number six we find the sixth night of sukus is the night of Joseph it's when we invite him into our Suka the aspect of the sadak is six it has to do with Friday the connection between Friday into shabas is the night of chabas is the is the night the the Friday night is this aspect of the sadic it's the time special time for connection between a man and his wife but the idea of yoseph as the number six who's the connector between the male and female aspects between the spiritual Realms and the physical Realms the idea of six you have 6 * 6 so that's 36 it's the completion of the concept of six is these 36 sikim who connect and keep the World alive and Sh is 10 times that 36 it's 360 it's that place of connection between the upper Realms and the lower Realms now we still need to understand what's going on with Dena why is this story in a certain sense being blamed on her mother what's the idea that the Arabic language we can derive something from there that it's going to explain something in Hebrew what's the idea that all of the places the Torah says are ours that the Torah explicitly States belong to us why are these Arabs claiming it and the depth of it is the deep understanding of it is that whatever the Jewish people is whoever we are it's reflected and it's reflected in a distorted way in the um in the nations of the world that's the depth of what the a says when he says that sometimes we don't understand something we're missing something in our understanding of Torah but I can actually go to the Arabic language which is a distorted version of Hebrew and I can understand something there that I'm missing here that I don't understand in in Hebrew itself the idea is that there's a when when you come down to the lower level in a certain sense there's a distortion but there's also something there that I can be tus that I can grab onto that I'm missing as I try to access a Transcendent Place sometimes it's very difficult to access that Transcendent Place directly and I need to do it through that lower realm and so I can go to Arabic because the Arabic is the the two-dimensional version of the higher dimensional Hebrew and if we look at these three places it's not a coincidence that the Arabs are they they want these three places or they're claiming these three places because as the Jewish people come back and reclaim these three places and reclaim our rightful ownership of these three places based on the Torah based on the higher dimensional aspect of of a spiritual Revelation which everyone agrees to as as we desire it as we start to want it so it it happens it's manifest also in the nations of the world it's a reflection it's a distorted reflection and they're trying to claim it as if it's theirs and not ours so that's the Distortion but the truth of it is the depth of it is that ER cell is a place that everybody feels connected to and everyone wants to feel connected to it's not a coincidence that this tiny country is always in the news it's always everybody needs to know about it because everyone is connected because Jerusalem and Israel are the root the the Transcendent aspect the all inclusive aspect of the entire world now this idea also explains what it means what mean when they say that Leia she went out she was the daughter of Leia and she went out just like Leia went out Leia's going out was with her husband it was a very it was a very slight perhaps infraction or a subtle infraction of the idea of honesty but how can we understand that it has to do with denas going out in a way which was provocative and the answer is that whatever you see in the root whatever is in the Transcendent aspect in the higher aspect it manifests in a distorted way in a more exaggerated way sometimes in the lower aspect so Dena yes she had aern she had something lacking and what also comes out of it is that you can see something in a lower Dimension which is a reflection on something which is is missing in the higher Dimension so yes the fact that Dena had this this trait this character trait this lack was a reflection in something that was missing in her mother and in fact Kaz also tried to understand what was missing in yakob why did this happen to the daughter of Jacob because the PK also refers to the fact that she was Jacob's child so clearly in trying to look for a some lack in Jacob as well the understanding is that whatever you see in the lower Realm is a manifestation of something in the higher realm and thinking about the application of this idea there's so many different ways that you can apply this one one application is that the fact that the the Arabs so want the Temple Mount they're trying to claim it they so want the the of the Patriarchs they they claim rights to Shem to the city to the to the tomb of Joseph itself they claim rights to being the connectors between the spiritual realm and the Physical Realm when it's not true that's not the true reality but it's something that we can see they're claiming that and this is something that can Inspire us sometimes we don't even realize ourselves how how the Temple Mount how Jerusalem how AR the land of Israel is so important to us but sometimes we need to see how it's manifest in the lower realm how it's manifest in the desire of the nations of the world and then it can reflect back on us so that we can understand it on a depth and that's the understanding that's the depth of of what Kazar teaching us when we go to Arabic and we try to understand a word in Hebrew sometimes we're missing something on our understanding yob comes to sh and he's he's in a state of perfection as we mentioned all the way at the beginning and that is something which earns him the right to to purchase a piece of the land of Israel to purchase D that place of connection between the heavens and the Earth that place which is a connection between Israel and the entire world he he has earned it through his Schamus through his perfecting of himself through his getting to a state of sadic of righteousness of connection between God and the world but right there there's a question what does it mean me he bought it with hundred somethings what is that word do we when we ask that question what is that word it means do we get it do we understand what it means that he purchased it that he had the right that he had the the Merit to be able to purchase it do we understand what it takes for us to be able to Merit to have the land of Israel to be that true light unto the nations are we indeed fulfilling that sometimes we need to look at the commitment and the fervor of the Nations around us we have to look at their language in order to understand our own language we need to look at their commitment to God their commitment their selflessness their self-sacrifice for God in order to remember what ours is supposed to look like and I believe that that's a core message of what this m is trying to teach us hasem should help us to be able to internalize this message to get it on our own and not necessarily need to learn it from others who are a distorted reflection of who we're supposed to be but rather to be able to see it to see it ourselves from the Torah from what the Torah expects of us to be able to Garner that message from hashem's word to us hashem's Revelation to us 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]