Devarim-Tisha B'av - Great as the Stars

You're listening to the weekly para podcast with Ari Goldwag recorded with Hashim's never ending assistance in Ramish Israel 5785 2025. This week's para is parasim which is the para that we always read as we head into tishab. Tishb is the Sunday when we mourn the bikdash the destruction of the holy temple which we're headed straight into that rebuilding hopefully very soon. And at the very beginning of our para, the Torah tells us about Mosher Rabenu's final speech. We start his final speech, the safer, the whole book of Deuteronomy is a recap. It's Mosher Rabenu exhorting us as we're on the precipice on where as we're at the threshold of walking into of walking into our national destiny. He gives us a heads up. This is what you have to do to remain in power, to remain connected to who's the source of all power, the king of all kings, the master of the universe. This is what you need to do. Follow these statues. Follow these laws. Keep yourself connected to Hashem and all will be well. the very beginning of our para he says and it speaks to us today in 2025 Hashem says through Moshe's mouth the message to the Jewish people behold I have placed before you this land come to Israel inherit the land be a part of the of am's future here in Israelim this land that Hashem promised to us 3,800 years ago to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give to us. This is your your destiny to give it to them and their children after them. Am Israel, we are the offspring. We are the direct descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. the original, the ones who who brought the the consciousness of the world back to Hashem laments. He is sad. He says, "I wish that I could have carried you. You guys, the nation of Israel, you were a powerful nation. You are a powerful nation." And of course you need the right leadership. You need those who will tell you strengthen your relationship with Israel's destiny. The Tyra contains the blueprint for it. Israel is the place for it and your numbers the numbers of the Jewish people as he's about to say there are so many of you. It was difficult for me to carry you all myself. says, "I said to you at that time, I cannot carry you by myself." And why is that? It's because of a promise that Hashem fulfilled. And there's a blessing implicit in the promise. Hashem, your God has made you ma many, has made you great today. You are like the stars in the sky. You are so many. And the fact that it's that's a challenge for me says to be able to carry you all by myself to be able to lead you properly. And we know the stories in the Torah, the 40 years in the wilderness and all the challenges to Mosher Rabenu to to Hashem that the the Jewish people presented to him. But he says, "Don't get me wrong. I'm not coming to say that you shouldn't be great and many and and multiply." He says, "No, Hashem, the God of your forefathers, may he add on to you as you are as you are." We're going to see what all these words mean. him a thousand times. May you be a thousand times as great. And may he bless you as he spoke to you, as he said to you. And here when we read the Torah on Shabas, the Torah, the Torah reading stops even though the next line is read in the tune of where he says, "How can I hold you by myself? all of the challenges, all of the packages, all of your fighting with me. And he speaks about the fact that there were wise people who were appointed to adjudicate alongside Mosher Rabenu. I'm not going to get into that. What I do want to focus in on is the blessing. As the measure says, this is a blessing. Mosh Raen who was giving Amishel a blessing. As hard as as hard as it was and as hard as it is for me to carry you all. You are so many. You are so great. I don't have anything but to far. I just want to bless you. I just want to give you this blessing that you should be even greater and be even more of an insurmountable obstacle to whoever leads you. I want you to become greater and greater in numbers and in spiritual connection. deeper and deeper. We're going to see together the medish which explains the what they mean. What was Mosher Rabinu's deeper intent? What is the idea of Am Israel being blessed that they should be a thousand times like you are like you are? Am Israel should continue like you are. Even as Mosher Raenu is saying that there's something that was so difficult for me to be able to deal with the challenge that you presented to me was was so heavy, such a burden that I couldn't handle it by myself. But nevertheless, there's something unique and special about Amisro that I want it to continue. I want the blessings to continue. I want you to be a thousand times more. I want the problems to be a thousand times more because the beauty of Amar is so great that the blessings and the beauty outweigh the difficulty and the challenge. Now, let's see together what the measure says. The measure says a few things, a lot of things really about these. And I'd like to focus in on a few of them and try to examine them and see what is the concept. How does it apply to us? Maybe we could take something out of this as we go into tishov as we come into a time of deep mourning for Israel of all of the the disasters that have taken place over the last few thousand years. We don't forget them. But what do we do with them? What do we do with the challenges and the disasters and the mohenu here is giving is a he's giving us he's telling us we've done wrong. What is how do we respond? How do we respond to the muser? And it's coupled with an amazing praise. So let's see this together. Hashem, your God has made you many and he's made you like the stars in the heavens. Today you are like the stars of Allah. In the future you're going to be very very many even more than the stars. Am you know there are certain amount of countable stars. If you look up at the heavens ask an astronomer. I don't know what the number is but there's a certain amount that we can say are the visible stars. But Mosher Raenu says, "Today you're like the stars, but one day you're going to be so great that you're uncountable." Uncountable. The understands in the future you're going to be, which means uncountable or so many. Who is the one that's uncountable? We talk about we talk about Hashem himself as one who is uncountable. We can't enumerate. We can't thank Hashem enough. We can't enumerate his greatness. We can't really speak about Hashem. We call him the He's the ultimate not non thing. We can't talk about Hashem. We don't understand him. We can't put our finger on him. God is the ultimate nondescript. Yeah. There's no description for him. So the maj understands it to be saying you are going to be like your rav a rav is a teacher. Who's the rav who's the teacher of Israel? Of course the teacher the ultimate teacher of Israel is himself. God is our teacher. Hashem taught us the through Mosherenu. But the first two were said directly to Hashem is the ultimate teacher. You can right now you're countable. You can count the stars. We can count the visible stars. It's possible. You get the right tools. You can ask Google exactly how many visible stars there are. We can count the stars. But to the point where it's so many that you can't count it, it's innumerable. You get to that point. AI is will get to that point in the future. AmI is going to stay. We're not going to disappear. History will vindicate our existence. The says, "What does that mean that we're similar to Hashem? Hashem is not countable. Can't describe him. Isel is going to be someone that can't be described. Hashem, your God, the says, is a consuming fire, which means to say that, you know, as objects get closer to the sun, they disappear. they get consumed. The more a person gets close to Hashem, of course, we can't see Hashem in this world. We would be consumed. We would lose our free will. Our whole existence is because we don't see Hashem. If we see Hashem, we don't have any choice. So is anem is a consuming fire is will have a similar feature says in par the light of am will be like a fire and those who are holy amongst the people of Israel will be like a flame. And what does it mean? What does it mean? Just look look at the world. The light of AmIrael's truth today. The light of goodness that Amis is reflects in the world world. The light of value of life. Let's say it on a pushup. The Jews, Arabs are asking for the people of Israel to protect them. Why? Because the Jewish people have a value for life. You don't believe like I believe. That's okay. There's one God and there's many ways to believe in that God. It's not a contradiction to us and we value life and we want to protect life and everyone can see it today. Everyone can see it. There are those who deny it. There are those who will accuse us of the opposite of who we are. But it doesn't matter. There's an and those who come against us, there's a fire that destroys them. And just like when aes when a person is exposed to the light of Hashem's truth, there's a there's a a you know what is what is the the fire that a person experiences after the person dies after a person is confronted with all of the things that they did in their life and they see the truth. They it's they're exposed to the truth. There's an embarrassment and a shame. And that is the the fire the consuming fire of Hashem as it were. When a person is faced with the truth of reality, there's a fire and Am Israel also lights that fire, shines that light. And those who come into the light of Israel, those who brush, I don't remember the phrase, it's lo, it's slipping me right now. those who brush shoulders with perhaps those who come into contact with Israel they are faced with that light of truth that's saying you're going to be in the future time like your teacher you're going to be similar to Hashem you're going to have that feature you're going to be a light a consuming light We find the says about those who serve idols that the idols will be destroyed and those who serve the idols will be destroyed as we are seeing today. Those who serve the idol of death, the idol of destruction, the idol of hate here in the Middle East. So there's a destruction that's happening to them and there's a destruction that's going on in the political world as well, whether it's in America, whether it's in Israel. of those who are self-centered and hateful and false. They gave into the idol of power and and falsehood the ends justifying the means. And what happens to them? They are destroyed along with their idols as the idols come out and they are burned. So too are the people who serve them. So to am Israel, who do we serve? Those who serve the idols end up destroyed like the idols. And those who serve Hashem and serve truth and serve light, they end up like Hashem. They end up like the light. They reflect the light, they become like their master, like their teacher, like their god, like the one that they served. So it's a beautiful blessing when Raenu was giving to Am Israel. You are many today and you're going to be even more. And the source of your more, the source of your power, the source of your greatness is the reflection of the light of Hashem that you are said. Israel is going to be on a higher level than the than the angels themselves before explain the angels of course are surrounding God. They're there. They're singing to Hashem. They're, you know, the closest to having a revelation to who Hashem really is. They're the messengers of Hashem. And yet those who are sadik and those who are righteous ultimately they will be on a higher level. They'll be inside. They'll be in the inner sanctum alongside. And as the Moram say at that point when Hashem takes away our heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh which is of course a theme when we're waiting for Msiah and we're waiting for the reversal of what tishab is there's a there's a removal that's going to happen when the bdish is going to be rebuilt. It's going to come because we have changed. We have become more godly. We have let go of our egos. We have become we have taken that heart of stone and it's been replaced with a heart of flesh. Our heart has softened. And those who are the sadikim, those who are the righteous and as we'll see, it's not just for the future. It's also for now. Anyone can access this now. Be it sadik. Anyone can be sad. We all have to strive to be sadikim. That sadikim had that soft heart, that heart of flesh even now. And the sadikim enter into the they're right next to they know things that Hashem reveals to them that even the angels don't know. And the angels say to them, "What new laws, what new teachings did you hear from Hashem today? What new insight did you have into what it means to reflect Hashem's light into the world? to be close to Hashem, to be a true spiritual being. What did you learn today? Cuz we can't know. We we don't have that direct access like you do, like the human being does, like the sadic does, like the righteous individual does. And all of the people of Israel have the potential to be righteous. And when Msiah comes, we all will be righteous. Don't think that this is wondrous that in the future it's going to be true that the Jewish people will know things that the angels don't know. We'll have a deeper access. Don't don't think that that's not possible because even in this world the righteous again we all can be righteous. We all can choose that path. The righteous have special access. We have protect like we say here in Israel. You want to get in. You want to know his will for you? Just just be a just be a just try. Just try to be a sadic. The righteous individual is further inside. Okay. The righteous individual is right next to when a person is seeking Hashem's will listening for Hashem's voice trying to hear that inside of himself. You're in there and there's a fire that burns and and it surrounds Hashem. Like we said before, the fire, you know, how do you get in there? How do you get close to that? There's a fire around that burns us up. There's an all-consuming fire. And you know what the answer is? The fire is our egos. The se the thing that separates between us and Hashem is just us. And to the degree that I want to be more like Hashem, I take out that fire. I put out that fire. To the degree that I give up my own will to try to do Hashem's will. That is the degree that that fire goes out. And we are even deeper. We have a deeper connection to Hashem than a Malik. An angel. An angel also serves Hashem. does his will. There's no there's no fight. But there's no fight when when we choose Hashem's will. We're in a deeper place than the angel. Happens because we denied Hashem's will. We hated each other. Hashem wants us to love each other. We're all children of we're all Hashem's children. And and we have to we have to all love each other because why do I hate somebody else? So why do I have a sinner for the other person? Because I think he's got something that I should have. Maybe it's the honor that I want. Maybe it's the money that I want. Whatever it is, but I don't realize that it's I have exactly what I'm supposed to have. I have exact there's no one day. There's only to love. I wish it on you. I wish you every blessing in the world. Anything that I want for myself, I wish on you. That's the opposite of what destroyed the B mikdash. That's how we get rid of the fire of our egos. and every day. Hashem, help me wish the best on every one of your children. Help me wish blessings on every one of your children. Says the maj further another explanation and and listen to the next two points as we come into the completion here of this of the para podcast. We have two important things that that the measure says Mosher Rabenu was talking about here. The first is that speaks about the fact that there should be a thousand times a thousand times. So understand that the number 1,00 is a special number. a thousand the says in in in the number a thousand means it's a transcendent number. It's a number that's related to bina which is the eighth aspect. I'm not going to get into explaining this just yeah don't I know your brain might turn off as I say this but just listen the number a thousand refers to the all-encompassing aspect the eighth aspect above the physical reality we have seven which is the days of the week which is the lower seven spheres which is the reality that we live in and then we have the eighth aspect is the eighth it's the transcendent aspect it's the the number 1000 represents that it's The earth is a globe. So if you're surrounding the earth so you go from one end of the earth to the other from from the end to the end which really means 180 the 360 degrees right is saying there's going to be an all-encompassing aspect. It doesn't say a thousand time in Hebrew. You could say lf pal a thousand time. Doesn't say a thousand time. It says a thousand times. Says lfim which means really it means a thousand times a thousand. But according to the morir actually could mean you it's it's two to the thousandth power. Two * two times two times two times two times two times two a thousand times. Am Israel's expansion is explosive beyond numbers, all-encompassing and Yoseph explains over here that actually it's talking about a thousand generations that Amra the same souls will be there will be Gilgul the same we are the same people we're the same people that stood at Mount Si and Mishaben who said you who you are those same people who stood at the precipice about to walk into Israel hari is the same souls a thousand generations the same souls are going to incarnate we're going to be here over and over again we're going to be here over and over again until we complete what needs to be completed here the tikun has to happen the full rectification that full letting in of Hashem's light into the world through us a thousand generations a thousand times. That's the explaining. It's a deep idea. We're here until we do the job. We finish the job. And then once all of the souls have come into the world, that's when Msiah comes. Once we've been broken, either our egos have been broken because we've allowed the fire to burn off our ego or because either we choose it or it's through Yesurin or through Chuva or through mitzvah, right? We have three paths. The Ram talks about either through repentance or through action through through through the mitzvah themselves, the commandments, fulfilling the commandments or through challenges and difficulties that each one of us go through. All of these burn off our ego. All of these serve, if we accept them, if we bow to them, we bow to the challenges, the difficulties, Hashem's will. and here's what the the final point which I really really want to stress. He said I want I want Hashem to add on to you a thousand times like you like you. What did Mosher Raenu see in the people standing in front of him that was so special and unique that he wanted Amra to continue this way even if it would be challenging for the whoever the leaders of Amisra will be in the future. He wanted them to continue. What was the powerful what was the powerful thing that did in that moment says look was just given by said you guys have made it hard for me. You guys have you know throughout this 40 years in the wilderness every type of complaint I could have received I got. every type of testing of Hashem that could have been done, you did. And what was response? They could have said, "We didn't do that thing that happened." The spies, we didn't do that. Our parents did it. The the misin the complaint about the the lack of food. We didn't do that. Our parents did. They all the Moragum. We didn't do that. Our parents did. They They all died out. We're here. We're about to walk in Israel. We didn't complain. We're a righteous generation. We're good. But that's not what they said. And listen to this. They were quiet. I want to always be this way. My says, "I give you And it's not and you didn't do it and you're quiet and you receive it. And what's the explain here? What's the what's the idea that we recognize that the mistakes that our parents made we could easily make is by being quiet says we accept the for our parents. We accept it on ourselves cuz we don't want to make that mistake too. They they got their ego was burned off by someone else's mistakes. Okay, it's one thing, you know, my mistakes. You could you could put me on the spot and say, "Okay, this is what you did. I I did this wrong. Okay, I admit it. You know, it's my parents made that mistake. You're calling me to task?" Yes. They didn't say anything. You want to know why you have blessings? You're from one end of the earth to the other. A thousand generations just like you get to be in this world and do the tulim. You're the one who's going to bring the light of Hashem into the world. You know what that light looks like? Looks like silence. It looks like admission. It looks like the thing that I didn't do, I take credit for it. I recognize that that could happen to me. I could make that same mistake. I could go straight down that path so easily. Tishabove means that the base English is not built there. You know why? We got a thousand generations to have to fix that problem. The mistakes that were made then. We're still the same people. We really made those mistakes. We ourselves have that ingrained inside of our DNA and we got to fix it. And we got to be like Am Israel standing there at the precipice about to stand walking towards Israel. We didn't trust then. We don't trust now. We got to change that. We had we had doubts. We cried on tishov because we thought we can't live in our Israel. It's not possible to overcome all of our enemies. We have that same problem today. We have that same mistake. the sinum, the hatred for each other, the lack of recognition that everyone is in the place where they're supposed to be and it's all Hashem who's guided us individually as we spoke about last week. We're missing that today as well. We got to recognize that. We got to be quiet to the and hear that the of then is the same of now. The mistakes that we made yesterday when the B migra was destroyed, it's the same mistakes that we're making today. And we got to be different. We got to make those. We got to fix ourselves. We got to care about another person. We have to care about other people. We have to do the opposite of we have to be absolutely loving dominating every day. Hashem, please help me wish blessings on others. Help me wish all of the on every person, especially the people who bother me, especially those people. I want to be somebody who's I want to be somebody who gives up, doesn't hold on to a grudge, doesn't judge others. Hashem help me not judge anybody. Hashem will bless us to be like them. Quiet in the face of I want to bless you. I ask you to bless me. Hashem should help us to take this message to heart so that this tishabove will be a different tishabove so that we will be the people who receive Msiach. 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.argoldwag.com or search on iTunes Ari Goldwag.