Thought for the Week Parshas Bereishis The Original Influencer, Rabbi Yaakov Winner - 5787

How are you? I hope everyone is I hope everyone is healthy, strong and happy physically and spiritually. As usual, we'll start with Mia. Now then we're going to say a prayer from Tim which is directly related to the concept which we'll speak about today. And today we're going to speak about the most question the most famous question of all time. We started speaking about it last week a bit and we spoke about it many times and that is the question of what am I doing here? What's my purpose? What's my mission? So the we're going to say as a prayer is from it's from the we say it Friday night and that's the says No, which means come let us prostrate ourselves and bow down. Let us bend the knee before hashem who establishes us. So according to a rebel this p was said by on the sixth day of creation which is discussed in this week's para but first it's well known the saying of the shabas how one establishes himself sets himself up on shabas that's how the entire year goes why? So there's many explanations to it. The most famous is in the first which talks about once you see the world through the perspective that God is the only real reality then your life is completely different. That's one explanation. But today we're going to speak about something related but with a different emphasis. Now shabas we paras is unique. It's considered a para ki a general para. How do we see that it's unique? Because it covers more amount of years than the entire rest of the paras alone covers 1 approximately 1,650 years plus and the entire is 3,000 years plus. But that's it. So there's more years cover than all the rest of the so we see that it's a very general par also just like rashi in the first rashi says why did the start with and it gives an answer and it also gives an answer because we have to know that belongs to the Jews see there but maybe we could talk more general that doesn't only apply. Why did the start with Bish's as the first? But maybe we could also say that we have to look at the whole par and understand how the whole parish is whatever the para tells us in is a general message, general lessons that are important for the entire year, not only the first. So what I want to discuss about today is something which is so relevant. We have this mishagas. I don't know about these things much. Toxic masculinity and we have macho and we have the separation of the genders and the roles of the males and the females and much paper has been written in modern society but all these things which as usual if they would just learn the Torah everything would make clear. Okay. Now let's start with another interesting thing general trivia question. What are the first two in the two the first two blessings that Hashem gives? And the answer is the first blessing that Hashem gives is on the fifth day of creation where it says Hashem blessed the birds and the fish be fruitful and multiply fill the waters and the seas and the foul shall increase on the earth. That's the blessing that Hashem gives the fish and the birds. But very shortly afterwards on the sixth day of creation, it says that Hashem blessed male and he said to them and blessed them and told them be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth. and subdue it or do and rule over the fish of the sea, the bird of the sky and every living thing that moves on the earth. So the first brah is to the birds and the um fish and the second braha is to man. What's the difference between two of these brahas? And this will give us an understanding of man's mission. Rashi says a very interesting point over here when he speaks about the blessing that Hashem gives to the birds and the fish. He says since they deplete them and hunt them and eat them they needed a blessing. So the blessing that was given to the birds and to the fish is out of vulnerability since they're always going to be hunted. So therefore they need a special blessing from Hashem that the species that should remain forever. Different in contrast is the blessing that Hashem gives to man in two ways. Number one, the birds and the fish was out of vulnerability. And number two, it doesn't say that he blessed them like personal. Hashem blessed them meaning the plural all the fish and all the birds. But by man, it says he spoke to them directly. It's more personal to man. And then he says prove it's not a statement of vulnerability and therefore you need a blessing but it's a major blessing about subduing earth and ruling over earth. Before we continue I just want to say in this this verse is brought down as a proof that to have a child excuse me you need a special blessing from hashem. Therefore, it says first and then it says I'm just mentioning this because I always like to mention what it says in so brings down this verse to bring out that since male and female are opposites. So to bring a unification of opposites, you need the revelation of a higher source. So first comes it's a special blessing that's able to bring together the opposites male and female and then through their unification you could have a child but we're not talking about that today we're talking about the blessing which is about ruling and subduing earth and here comes much discussion about male toxicity the male role the female role so I want to I want to depersonalize so to speak so to speak let's talk about man's role in general every human being and what does it mean this concept of conquer and subdue and rule what I'm going to say now comes from a letter of the in volume 18 of the rebba's letters to giml this was a letter of the aasher letter and theb explains as follows what it means Means over here when we say to conquer and to subdue it means to influence. And here my friends we could say is the origin of influencers. Who is the first influencer of the and mankind? The first man is the original influencer and that's told to be his mission. What does that mean? So we spoke many times man's purpose is to make this world a dwelling place for but what does that mean in general? So what that means is how does that come about? That comes about through man. Man has a higher consciousness. Man has a higher awareness. Man has a higher understanding. And he brings the rest of the earth to this consciousness of the creator in many ways. And now let's go back to the there is a medish where it says as follows. I'm just going to read from the even though it's also brought down and it says that when Adam was created when Adam was created all the rest of the creatures realized that he's far far superior than them. Vero I'm just going to read you the punchline which is relevant to us. Venic all the rest of the creation saw Adam and they were in awe of him. They became afraid of him. They saw how much he was superior to them. They thought that he created them. They were coming to they came to bow down to because they thought he was God. And they came to prostrate themselves to Adam. Odom told the rest of the creations, "What's going on over here? What are you doing this for? You came to bow down to me. Come, let us all go together. Me, I, and all of you. We're going to garb ourselves with majesty and might and we're going to claim the one the king. We're going to claim his king, the one who created us. And then in one place it says That's in but another place it brings out that says like we said before. So what do we see from this medish that brings this awareness who influences the rest of creation and brings them an awareness of Hashem or the that's his mission and that's what it means that's what it means he rules he rules means he creates the environment he doesn't get influenced by the environment And only that has in himself, he has a higher sense, a higher spark, a higher consciousness, a higher awareness. Therefore, he can influence the rest of the world. Now, we see the connection of the busk and t that we started today. by the way that happens on the sixth day of creation and that's rash and that's why this was the theme of many of the Reb's letters and talks connected to Russ and now we can understand WHY do you know what your mission is you're a man with a mission and only when you're aware of this mission can you be successful in carrying out the mission And how do you find out your mission? By learning this week's para. Clear commandment. A blessing. A blessing which is awesome empowerment that you will be a master of your environment and be successful at it. And that you have to bring up and elevate the entire world. There's another way how to go about it which the Reb mentions in the letter. I'm just going to say it very shortly right now. And this is where it speaks about in other places that every sing the purpose of every single creation is to become elevated in a higher species. There's and then so the way it's discussed in many other places is we have which is the inanimate let's say earth water is vegetation is the animal kingdom and is man. So the way it's explained is let's say for example we have earth that then brings forth vegetation. So earth becomes elevated because it serves a purpose to something which is higher than itself vegetation. Then comes the animal kingdom. So the cow eats some grass and he gets strength from the grass. So now the grass became cow. Then a human being who eats a cow and has the intention to use the strength and the energy that he had from the cow to serve Hashem. So the cow became a madab, a human, a Jew which is higher than a human which I don't get into that right now. And by serving God all this becomes elevated in Hashem. So the gets elevated into the and through the serving Hashem properly through serving properly everything becomes elevated straight into Hashem. That's another explanation to this idea how we bring out godliness into the world through we bring out how. So this answers the mission, the purpose and what it's all about. Now the Reb also mentions in the letter and I wouldn't want to get back to this toxic masculinity that the word conquer in the first place means conquer yourself like the Mishna says who is a hero who is a strong person the one who conquers his evil inclation be your won't master then you won't be mastered by anyone else except Hashem. That's the point. And only a person who exercises self-control, self-restraint, self-mastery, then he's able to influence the rest of the world. And that's what it means. If you want to conquer the world, i.e. have a positive influence in the world and not let the environment influence you. Then first you have to conquer yourself. It starts with this sort of you have to begin with and then you can conquer the world. So it has nothing to do with ruling or conquering in the secular sense on the contrary it's all about self-refinement. It's all about elevation. It's all about transcendence. It's all about humility. Humble yourself and then you'll be able to bring the world to a greater awareness. And now I want to connect it to a famous famous which for this is very very important and that is the of iny of Alf. It says My father said creates an environment. If not, he must carefully check through his own knapsack. He must examine his own spiritual state. The very fact that he's not creating an environment should crush him like a mere splinter. And asking himself, what am I accomplishing in this world? And based on what we learned today, it's exactly the question since that was your mission. The pik tells us you were put into the world and you are meant to influence the world. You create the environment that was told to the first man and he was given that mission straight away and therefore the precision of these words have developed what am I doing on this world? I'm not fulfilling my mission if I'm not creating an environment i.e. The environment will not drag me down, but I will uplift the environment. And this is connected to a very famous letter of the Reb9. The previous Reb was still alive. The Reb wrote to a very very famous um Jew about how a person who's living in a certain city would influence his environment and the Reb says about a certain person who lived in a certain city who was not even aid and I'll just read to you what the Reb says over here. In a way he's very delicately admonishing obviously it's not that himself but it's meant that a whole group of wherever they are living in a certain city and he was telling them that he knew the Reb was saying our Reb the son-in-law the previous Reb was saying that he knows of a certain person a certain younger man a certain person and he's not somebody who shy to this whole concept of davening which is a concept. He can't call him a he doesn't even have a beard and he didn't learn. He didn't learn any yeshiva in general and he went to a place which is very very far from Judaism and after a short while many letters from that place where this Jew went started arriving to the previous Reb turning to the previous Reb for advice and all matters connected to their lives because that's the custom of they they would ask a Reb what to do before they do something and the Reb just says was the point that how did this person have an influence in that place to bring others to turn to the Reb and to improve him and the Reb writes in the letter. But when they heard from this man words from the heart which came from the heart that there's a concept of a rebi and what a rebi is and that if you want to succeed in life you have to have a spiritual leader and he's told these people that he doesn't make a move in life without he doesn't raise a hand without asking from a spiritual leader a rebba what to And the people who are in his environment, they saw that he was authentic, he was real, he was honest because when a person speaks truth, the words of truth are recognized. Anyways, and this is what the Reb see the letter. It's inesh of the Reb volume 3 page 54 and 55. So this is the message of the second blessing in the toy was a blessing of empowerment of how we could be all all of us our influencers. That was the first blessing of Hashem to mankind. The first blessing of Hashem to mankind which is the first which is the most important is that we can all be influencers clearly read the verse and it means beginning with ourselves. So we should all be successful in this of selfmastery and through that we'll be able to influence others from words that come from our heart and we will do our mission and try to carry it out to the best of our abilities of to make a dwelling place for Hashem down here in this world. So this will cause Take it from me. Posting from my home, your man in Melbourne.