7 Marcheshvan, Eretz Yisroel's Parnassa heavenward 1#, Rabbi Yossi Paltiel Beis Rivkah Seminary 5786

Today is the sixth day of the month of Keshan. Tomorrow is Zhan, the seventh day of the month of now what I do with you is what's called Pagra means officially means special days and we don't have we do questions and answers. As you know is a day that the Reb made into a Yam. It's not really a Yam. It's just a day in tonight. They will say ask for rain tonight. We don't ask for rain for another like 6 weeks till the middle of December, the beginning of December. Now we're still holding the end of October. Five weeks. Um and uh the Reb has a whole bunch of days that he sort of created. He didn't create any of them because all of them are either in the or in the but the took days that people just said okay and the said what do you mean okay let's make something out of it I'll give you a list okay and those are seven days in the calendar that all of them are written in some of them actually written in and one of them is of course written in z no one makes anything out of it and the made such a big deal out of it in my years I was a book in the 80s on all of these days was abran was abran was abran was abran [gasps] [sighs] the had this way of taking something that's written in the and and pressing on it and pressing on the nerve until something a flower grew out of a seed, you know, and of all the seven days that I just mentioned, probably Zion is the least sensible of you know what it is, right? speaks about speaks about right the big deal is but the other two and are really like what are they what's the last day that you don't say after that's what it is because when you go to the B to bring a card if you can't do it on the first day bring it on the second day if you can't do it on the second day bring it on the third day. Now P has seven days. So you don't do the first day PES. Every person who comes has to bring three carbonas. Two or three carbonas. Two for sure and maybe also a shim. So everybody came and even though women but they have so they came in the family and you spent the night and you went home that You didn't have to stay for the whole pes came for one day pes did your thing and you went home and you didn't have to come the first day I guess pes had to be there for pes but sukus you came for one day you spent the night you went home but is only one day and for many reasons it's impossible for all the Jews in the world to bring their kabonus in one day so just like pes seven days and suk is seven days shu is seven days the y is one day but the six days after are considered makeup days. So the is that we do not say until so theb decided that finishes you understand became a sevenday in the world of and he would every year in every year many years it was a big deal is even more remote what's as follows a land that has good irrigation is a land where there's not enough water for agriculture which means they're very dependent on rain much more than most places. Now is surrounded by water. To the east of you have the Yadin, the Jordan River. To west of it, you have the Mediterranean Sea. But first of all, salt water is not exactly good for irrigation. And second of all, the Yadin is a hiccup of a river. Yadin is not exactly the Mississippi. You understand? It's it's it's, you know, it's barely there. So has a water shortage. Isol can very easily become a desert. And the reason survives is because there's there's rain and mountains. If you have no river and you have no mountains, you have desert. It's very simple. Go to any place in the world which is very flat. It'll either have a river close enough that keeps the the earth the soil moist and so on or you'll have mountains. The mountains will hold the clouds and they would cause rain. That's why mountain ranges are so important. Right? In America, you have the Rockies, you have the aderandex. These mountains are very, very important. You take those mountains out of America, huge parts of America become like the center of America, which is very flat and is a very big problem with agriculture because there's no rain. But we have the Mississippi that cuts straight to America from Canada until the Gulf and it irrigates the states on both sides of the river. In Africa, for example, where they only have one m mountain range in the very east of Africa and they don't have enough rivers, much of it is desert. Israel is situated so close to water, but it doesn't have enough. So, it needs rain. And the mountains grab the clouds and they cause it to rain. Because of this, at irrigation needs are much more sensitive. In Israel, water is a big deal. In New York, water is not a big deal. It's just not. We have we have the the uh what's it called? The Hudson River that runs from the north of the state all down into the into the Atlantic Ocean that provides us with plenty of water. Maybe the water is not so clean, but there's plenty of water. Um and it keeps the the grass green. Of course, when you have water, clouds go up and it rains. Stroll is a very sensitive place when it comes to water, which is why the is that in when there's no rain there a tinus. When Israel doesn't have rain they fast in sh called titus. There's a track date in the gim called titus. Titus talks about fast. It's 30 d of gum. It's 30 pages 29 pages of gum. Now ask the average person on the street unless they haven't learned Titus. What is Titus about? About about fast. Which fast? Oh, right. Nope. All the fasts that you know are in a couple of pages. Most of the titus is about fasting for rain. Because in general, when there's not enough water, you fast. And in Israel, David, there's many as like 13 fasts. Three fasts and three fasts more and then three fasts after that and then seven fasts and then three fasts after that. The last seven fasts are like we have to fast day and night. Women who are pregnant have to fast. It gets very serious because there's no rain in Israel. There's a drought. There's hunger food. So is extremely dependent upon the rain. Parenthetically this is a but this is a good parenthesis. There's a beautiful spoke about this. There's a to this. There's a to this. What's the of this? They came from and they went to Cananan, right? The Jews were leaving. They were enslaved in Egypt. Like we learned in this week, we're going to learn. They were slaves in Egypt and they went to Cananan. What's the difference between Egypt and Egypt is a land that has one of the largest rivers in the world. It's called the river the Nile, the Nile, the Nelus. And it runs from south to north. It runs into the Mediterranean. It's a very very large river with an enormous volume of water. And for reasons that are hard to explain, besides for bringing water, it also brings fertilizer. And in Egypt, they have what's called the annual flood. The waters of the river flow over to the sides. And when the waters withdraw, they leave not just water behind, but fresh, fertile earth. Which is why Israel, I'm sorry, Egypt, even though it's in Africa, is a very fertile country. It always has been. The success of the ancient Egyptian kingdom, age Egyptian culture was because of the river denial and Yid lived in Egypt. There was always water. Then the takes them out of mit and puts them cananan and it's considered an upgrade. It's considered a better land. It actually says in that the worst terrain initan is called that's why it's a place for cemetery for burying people. The best terrain init is is um is new >> is is go and and is more fertile than go I'm I I think I'm saying it correctly. [gasps] It's weird. The difference, however, is the waters of Egypt are basically predictable. And I say basically because some years there's no flood. You know how it was in Egypt, right? The king was a god. The king was a god. And the king got up on a rock and he said ya da dub and the flood came. The flood was going to come. Whether he got up at Iraq. I didn't get up at Iraq. But this was the culture. If the ra if the flood didn't come, they would kill the king. They would kill him. Why? You didn't make it more than the river. The rivers came by themselves. But this was the whole culture in you have to have mountains and clouds and rain. So it says in that in you want you look down in edit you want you look up in other words even the makes you forget the is taking care of you nature is taking care of you you don't need Hashem's help in quotations we're doing just fine and that's why Egypt is a land of idolatry of aid In you are very dependent upon clouds and rain and clouds and rain are very unpredictable. So you got to pray when you need water in you look to the heavens. So the Reb explains that the physical topography the land of by its nature makes you look to the Aish as opposed to the physical topography of Egypt. It makes you look away from the and it's an explan it's a it's a it's a about why is the holy land because the nature of the land makes you look to the heavens. Here's the deal however how much rain you get determines how lush it is going to be. So this is the story. It actually says it and it's also it's a historic fact. It's an undeniably historic fact. As soon as the yidden are kicked out of Etisol becomes desert for thousands of years they called themselves Balestinians and we call them pains in the neck have been living in it was a desert. There's no food. The population was very low. Their standard of living is very low. You didn't come back to mid becomes a garden. Now of course you tell that to the Zionist they'll be very insulted. What do you mean? We made the desert bloom. We put in the irrigation systems and we desalinated this salt water which is all true. But before it was also true when yen came back to became a garden there's a gim there's a gim that talks about how fertile a land used to be in the end of if you're a Zionist you have to know the last few pages of okay that's the zionist gim the end of the gim says you pull an apple out of the ground a potato out of the ground or whatever some kind of a tuber and the space fills it with The ground was saturated with water. Saturated with water. There was so much water. The land was so fertile. That's why you learned in school about how the Maraglin came back with these massive fruits. Unusually large specimen of fruits and grapes and so forth because was extremely extremely fertile and it began with rainwater. Rain. But if there's enough rain and it goes to the right places, the land becomes very lush and very rich, becomes a garden, becomes beautiful. So the say explains that when you didn't leave it becomes a desert when you didn't come back becomes a garden because this is a holy garden which was given to the holy people. Now just for the purposes of political correctness or maybe political incorrectness, let me share something with you. Okay, this week you're going to have a remember this week you're going have a tomorrow is about the first warr the first war in history was this war between the four kings and the five kings don't tell it to historian don't get a conipience but it says this the first there's a record of the first battle next week is going to be turned over destroyed right so you know that when turned over he told of right why did he tell him so if you're a liberal you say should for the people of right and maybe that's true too but some says Rashi says and this listen to this carefully because the truth of the matter is it's it's nish pushet Rashi says that the reason Hashem told of to overturn was because of all of that The most beautiful garden colonies were and they were in the south of Israel and they were extremely lush. For those of you who've been to Israel, you know the south of Israel is a desert. The neg is a desert. The fertile parts of are in the north. Navali and Zulan, not Yehuda. Yehud is in the south. But in the ancient world in times of Raminu, the south was more fertile than the north. And Hashem says to I'm about to destroy your real estate. I need your permission. That's what says going to take the most beautiful part of the most garden, the most fertile, most moist part of, and turn it into gris. You know what gris is? Sulfur. They, if you go to the south of Israel, I'm not a man of, but I've looked this up. I've studied this. The mountains in the south of Israel are full of sulfur. As much as people deny that the ta is true, but some things are very hard to deny. You could see the sulfur yellow. It's a yellow stone. The sulfur that rained out of the sky when the destroyed. So the I'm destroying because he was pushing a part of his garden and turning it into a desert and it's a desert still a desert. So is a country that could be very lush. It could become a desert quite quickly because it's its source of irrigation is precarious. You understand? Or to say this in different words, let me give you another way to look at this. Okay. What's the difference between the solar calendar and the lunar calendar? What's the difference between the solar the Goya calendar and the Jewish calendar? The combination of the sun and the moon. I'll give you a hint. Okay. Why do you call a lunatic a lunatic? Cuz he's like the moon. He's crazy. They used to say that crazy people go crazy when the moon is full. Lunatic means Yeah. It's it's from the word lon which means moon in many languages. The moon is seen as irregular. The moon is seen as I very simply. Okay. Muslims abdas keep a lunar calendar. Okay. But they don't do what we do. They don't have an they do not have a leap year. So if you keep a strict lunar calendar every year, you lose 11 days. The solar year is 365 and a quarter days. The lunar year is approximately 354 days. The difference between 11 days and 6 hours. So if every year you lose 11 days, every 3 years you lose a month, which is why the Muslim holidays do not have a season. It says in the that pesak has to be in the spring and sukus has to be in the fall. The only way that can be achieved is by combining the sun and the moon. And we do this by having a leap here. You understand? So now I want you to think about this. Okay? Now I don't have time to give you my whole theoretical speech on this but all go back to all go back to this is a little bit disturbing when you hear it okay I'm going to give you the best example when we have yeah the go have and correct and then a week later they have pic correct correct right you all know what I'm talking about yeah do you know that it says in the medish that when Madishian was born created and kicked out of Ganaden, he started to notice that the days were getting shorter, right? He was living in the northern hemisphere. This was getting shorter. So what did the other think >> that the sun is going to disappear completely and the world's going to freeze and he got very nervous and he couldn't exactly discuss it with the Aish because Abish just kicked him out of Gatan for eating for the fruit. And then one day he noticed that the day stopped getting shorter. And the next day he noticed that getting a little longer. He made a yiff. It's around January 1st. And you look at the whole calendar all the holidays that people keep even can be traced back to other they changed the names changed and the excuses changed. But you look at all the holidays every go every nation's holidays at the same time of the year. Most of them like pes and like shuis and like sukus and goyam have a holiday at those seasons as well has to do with a simple thing food pes celebrate the barley sh celebrate the wheat and suk celebrate the fruit have holidays at the same time they have different names for them and a lot of them are okay but it all goes back to the beginning of time here's the difference the goya holidays always occur on the same time. In other words, the Goyisha calendar never fluctuates. They have dates. I don't know what the dates are, and I really, it doesn't matter to me what the dates are, but they have holidays at certain seasons. Those holidays mean certain things that have to do with tea. I gave you the best example of this. The the I don't know what they call it, the equinox, and then there's the solstice. When the day is the shortest and the day is the longest, when the days are equal, they're always in the same day. They're always on the same day. The goyes calendar is fixed. They celebrate the harvest pes time always on the same day. They celebrate their harvest time, always on the same day. But by sometimes earlier and sometimes later because our calendar doesn't follow the sun. It follows a combination of the sun and the moon. The worst thing that can happen to Pes trips is what? >> Easter. [laughter] Cuz in the G going on trips also there's no room on the what's it called? The Statue of Liberty. They don't let you on. Too many people. But they could have it early, they could have it later. The difference is not in their calendar. It's in our calendar. Cuz our calendar isn't fixed. It's variable. It changes. But there's a deepus to it. There's a deepus. Whatus is the go calendar is connected to tea nature. You served Hashem. You didn't serve Hashem. You were a good person. You're a bad person. The seasons are always the same. The Jewish calendar has is moody. Sometimes tish is earlier. Sometimes tish is later. Sometimes tish is in the right time. Why? Because our calendar is a reflection of our avoid of ye didn't serve Hashem better. There's more upon us. Y don't serve as well. There's last panos. SO THE DOWNSIDE IS excuse me I'd like to live in Mitim in Egypt and have the river denial and have a constant supply of water. Right. And now you're supposed to say what? Blah blah blah blah blah. Right. Yeah. What's the deal? Two things are the deal. The first thing is the deal is different. Hashem gives a whether he works or not. But on the other hand, when aid serves Hashem, Hashem makes him rich. Hashem gives him more than tea. So the two are that by the calendar is not connected to their hashem. They're going to get what the is planning to give them based on alone. And by if we misbehave, it gets dry. There's not enough water. And if we're sadikim like it was in the times of the first B mikdash and the speaks about the second B mikdash you imagine pulling a potato out of the ground and the hole fills with water it there was so moist whenever you walked around you were getting your feet wet you probably had to walk around I don't know rubber boots the land the the sidewalk if it wasn't cement was moist because the land was full of water it was a for the because a holy land a holy land means it doesn't follow tea nature that nature has rules. It follows the and us if we serve the is a greater if we don't serve the iss like I told you before that the minute the yidden left is it became a desert this is an undeniable fact and the minute the yidden returned it became a garden it's an undeniable fact why depends you ask right but Taylor would say because the is a lad which belongs to the Jewish people and when the Jewish people come there they bring the with them but this is conditional on you know the famous that a man died a man died a rich man died and he said to his son I want you to know you know why I'm rich because I'm very careful with my you have to give 10% of your crop to the levy it's a lot of food you have to give away to the levy I'm very careful not to cut corners with my I always give the ley full measure be careful to be give. It says in the it's a we read it. So the say you want to be rich give the tithe give suck. Then the father dies the son takes over the estate and he was giving away a thousand bushels of grain. He was harvesting 10,000 bushels of grain. He was giving away a th00and and the guy said I have to give the lady so much. This is this is highway ravi. So he took off a little bit and the following year he got a percentage less. He said ah I had a bad year this I'm going to give even less and after a certain number of years he became the ley you understand what he used to give away was his entire yield. So they came to him, they gave him mto that he graduated to the Madrega of Ley because the cause and effect often do what does want in a much clearer way than a you understand that there's a wonderful video that must have come out 20 years ago but this is not a movie. It's an actual event. It was before Shmita. Israel. Shmita is a very big problem. It's a huge problem. Now, a lot of people unfortunately don't keep Shmita. So, you if you're from Jew, you have to know which stores you can literally go buy a pound of bread because if the wheat if the if the people are not in it's not it's awesome. You're not allowed to eat it. Not even allowed to sell it. I'll have enough from it. Anyways, a group of yidden who needed wheat for matz in a year and the only way they were able to do it is to harvest it extremely extremely early. So they made a deal with a farmer who wasn't from that he should keep sh whatever however they do it. It's very complicated. And they harvested the wheat, not in May or April, but like in February, very early. A day or two after they cleared that field, a bunch of people came out of tunnels from Kamas. They were planning to make a massacre in southern Israel. And the wheat was ah, >> it was the first time they used tunnels and they discovered it before they able to. They came out of the tunnels and the grass that was supposed to be their cover was gone. Why? Because the was and they wiped them out. They killed them. It was it's it's a beautiful movie to watch even movie. But you saw you do what aish they want and the to provide you what you it was going around. It's it's a number of years. It's maybe 15 or 20 years ago, but it went around at the time. I would imagine every day you'll see it again. You saw clearly you do the mitz of the protects you. Anyway, let's get back to the day. Tomorrow, tonight is Israel needs rain right away because they're much more dependent on the rain that comes from the heavens because the the the river Jordan is not exactly going to provide them with water. Maybe drinking water, maybe. I know that it still has a lake, an in an inland sea called the Kinet, right? The Sea of Galilee. The canal also starts disappearing from time to time. They if it gets too low they worry about running out of water is one of those countries which has a huge problem with water and is probably the most I don't think probably belongs is the most advanced country in the world in producing fresh drinkable water. They've created all kinds of technologies which a lot of other countries have imitated beginning with desalination but they're taking salt out of the water from the ocean. And now they have a system which I saw a few years ago where they literally literally take water out of the air. They have a mechanical system not electric mechanics. No mechanics means no battery a series of filters and it literally takes water out of the air is a country that's developed irrigation technology because they need it. So you need rain right after sukus. The truth of the matter is you should have rain from the first day because it says in the we're judged for water on sukus from sukus you have to have rain but to ask hem for rain when you're sitting in the suka seems like a little bit self it's like shooting yourself in the foot. So you wait till after I don't know if you know this the very beginning of tightness which I mentioned to you about 15 minutes ago the tinus begins with when you start to say and there's three opinions one of the opinions from the first day sukus and the opinion which we follow is that you ask the last day of sukus why because sim mentioning rain Sukus is a curse because you're sitting outside in the suk. But you have to understand there's two separate things. There's which is the second and there's which is in the ninth. What's the difference? The difference is that the first three of you're not asking Hashem for things. You're praising Hashem for things that he gives them. Right? How does go? You start with praise. You finish with thank you and the middle you say gimme the minute. You flatter him. You say gimme and then you say thank you. The last threeas are the thank you. The first threeas are the flattery. The third block in the middle is the gimme. How do you spell gimme? G i m e or g i m e. Gimme. It's gimme. But for sure one word. So is you're not asking for things. is simply praising Hashem for what he provides. So is not a request. It's a statement. Hashem makes the wind blow and Hashem makes the rain come. So the Mishna says you don't even want to mention it. Not only you don't want to ask for rain. You don't even want to mention rain. So you wait till and say they do not sit in the weav suk which is another whole discussion. So when you're not sitting in the you say you mentioned rain but then comes you should ask for rain and asking for rain means I really mean it now let's make it rain. So according to the you should start saying the day after the day after we should ask for rain but we delay it by two weeks. You push it off by two weeks. Why? Because Yidden used to come to the base of Mikdash with the horses and buggies or horses without buggies and they had to go home and at was very large and for some people their getting home after Yam was a journey of two weeks, two weeks in a day. So the kazal said no yid any place in Israel asks for rain until the last yid gets back to his place. The furthest Jew would say the lowest Jew comes back to his home on the under the Euphrates which is in like now is Jordan. So Zion is a day that tonight they saw they're going to save and it's probably close tonight from Israel now in a couple of hours they saw they're going to dive and in they're going to save for rain cuz they need rain right after so the made a decision and then he made this decision he began to sell it and sell it and sell it like the Reb does using a 101 maidus from and he created basically a holiday. The decision that made is ends tomorrow [laughter] two week extension literally two week extension is seven days is two more days is 9 days is 20 days according to Charlie it's 22 days it's 60 days you guys remember Charlie's remember is 30 days right how many you have 37 days why because there's one day is 30 Hey, so the day of is TWO DAYS OF 65 DAYS of Kaneka and he would walk around saying the 66th day of Kanek. I mean if you know Charlie Mish Yeah. So if you count two days 60 days okay if you live in height you know what I'm talking about. Charlie was that good. He was really crazy and he knew how to drive. He was so good to get under your skin. >> He was like he went to every Yeah. With the balloons. Yeah, when we did in 19 >> in 2009, we did sakama. I would imagine you don't remember it. So Charlie walked around for months saying, "I saw the son of God." I said, "And [laughter] he was he knew HE KNEW EXACTLY WHAT HE WAS [laughter] DOING. I saw go argue with him. I blessed the son of God." It's true. We did bless. But he knew how to dial our number so good. He knew whether it makes you angry. He was he was an expert. [laughter] He he said it exactly the 37 days of Hanukah. He had mission. [laughter] Anyway, let's get back to the topic. So the Reb said since Jews are still going home, it's still tish. And the thing which is interesting about this which is I think it's very interesting about it is that the Reb's mood was tishik. It's hard to describe the Reb. You could maybe a little bit see it in the videos. But when the Rebe was happy, you simply saw it on his face. You saw it in his step. He wasn't happy cuz he was singing and dancing. His body had an INNER JOY WHICH CAME OUT IN THE clapping and the singing. When the Reb walked into a room, you could feel its yam. You could feel it. when the rebbber introduced this idea of Zash which is around 1980 I think until then it was a nothing day you know t was extended by two weeks and the spirit in 770 was yumik I'll give you two practical examples number one the rebba had I told us few yb had a platform that he stayed on you know the platform that's there permanently the didn't like the platform he hated it actually he didn't like the platform at all he wanted to be on the same level the people cuz hak ically if you're on a platform it's a sh if you're part of the minion it gets tricky that's why Rab Groner always had to stand on the platform together with the because if somebody else is there it includes you with the you're standing alone on a platform you're separated from the people so the pushed delayed getting the platform the first time they put up a platform was tough ladal 1973 which is the year of the yuma war which happened to be hak but the made rules that The rules were the platform goes up and comes down. Now with the Reb, you couldn't mess around. If the platform came down a day late, the next day there's no platform. So they would work the night after the put the platform right after the Reb left the that platform came down. They didn't mess around. But the you couldn't say I forgot. There was no such thing as I forgot. They would say to you forget about it. You know, eventually the platform became permanent. But for years the platform went up and the platform came down. But it was you couldn't put it up a minute early. The minute that started talking the platform stayed for two more weeks till was a platform. The platform disappeared with the same rigidity with the same exact used to disappear because now is two more weeks. And in addition in every shabas you know could be Friday. You know that right? If is Friday then shabas is that's right. Soak is going to be when alf. So is going to be like the you know like almost. So sometimes the was still see for many many years the whole was no and was recovering he wanted to give us a chance to catch our breath was so packed was no. It was and the next was a whole month noans. The moment that made this new holiday and the mood was the minute came was different. He was withdrawn. It was different. You could feel it. And what's the yam? Then Israel they're asking for rain. Yippy do. [laughter] But by that's enough of a yippi and enough of a do. You understand made a yiff out of an event which is brought in which is a technicality. The whole the whole thing is a technicality. The is a technicality and the reb I I prepared this but I didn't teach it to you. So um you'll either keep them or give them back to me. If you give them back to me I'll use them on Thursday with seminary. Okay. [music]