Rabbi BInyamin Yuhanan - Parashat Devarim

foreign and it contains a hint in the Parsha about the Shabbat we read and the the word is the first word of the miguela um the prophet wrote means how how is it how did this happen how did we get here and in this week's partial Moshe also asks Hashem How Will I carry the Jewish people myself we explained earlier that one of the reasons the the Jewish people made mistakes was because when they heard hashem's voice during the Ten Commandments they were so scared that they said Moshe please it's too much for us it was so powerful the voice of Hashem that their souls left their bodies twice in a row and then they said Moshe we cannot handle it anymore we are afraid people are afraid of one death they already died twice and they said we don't want to die again and again and they said Moshe you listen to what God has to say and then you tell us we we trust you we believe you so that was a mistake because even though it's scary even though you feel I cannot handle it we have a rule that if God wants to give you something you open your hand and you know that it is a blessing only good comes from Hashem and even if you feel like I cannot do it if God is giving it to you you can you can handle it we even though we say Hashem you overwhelm us with your blessings but it feels to us that we cannot handle God's blessings nevertheless we have to open our hand and we have to be willing to accept yes it's going to be scary and overwhelming to receive so much honor so much wealth so much health and long life and pleasure that we might limit ourselves and say no no I can't handle it I don't deserve it and stop the blessing from coming God forbid but the proper attitude is to say if God wants to give it to me I am accepting it with open arms so the the the problem was that it's much better to hear communication coming from God directly then from a human being even though the greatest human being was speaking to them but still listening to God is better that was mistake number one mistake number two was this particular one one more share said to Hashem Hashem Jewish people are so difficult to handle we we know even with [Music] um what's going on in Israel now it's so difficult to be the prime minister of the Jews election after election they don't agree they don't accept Authority so it was very difficult for Moshe to be the leader of the Jewish people and he said to Hashem How Will I carry the burden of the Jewish people all alone and because of that Hashem said if you need help I'll give you help and and this time Moshe didn't believe that he could handle it Moshe said to Hashem it's too difficult can I please have help and retroactively we see that he should have said Hashem it's difficult for me give me more strength help me to handle it instead of saying how can I handle it it's too much I need help say I want to handle God if you want me to do it I can do it just give me the strength and so what happened was that a further distance was created between God and the people whereas at the beginning Hashem wanted to speak to the Jewish people himself but the Jewish people said it too much said okay we're gonna have more share in between now Moshe said Hashem is too much one person I can't so now they establish the system of judges of the Sages so now two more levels were added first the 70 elders and after that individual um leaders of thousands hundreds fifties and tens so before people could have communication with God they would have to first go to their immediate leader of 10 people if he couldn't resolve their issue they would go together to the leader of 50 people and then if necessary to the leader of a hundred people and if it's a great problem they would go to the leader of thousand people and if he couldn't solve it he would go to the elders the 70 elders and if it was beyond them they would approach Moshe and in the rare cases that Moshe himself didn't know he would ask God so many different layers were created and it didn't serve well the Jewish people and that is one of the reasons that the destruction of both temples happen because the Jewish people had distance and they were misled by fakers by those that claimed to know the truth but really they were misleading in the times of the first betamic Dash there were many what's called false prophets either people who imagined that they are prophets although they were either mentally ill or there were people who on purpose pretended and with an evil intent gave messages so what happened was that it created not only false prophets but it also created idol worship because now people thought that since we can have an intermediary between us and God in a human form perhaps we can have an intermediary a idol meaning a statue that we could pray to and he would bring our requests to the ultimate God and then in further Generations they forgot about the ultimate God and they were just praying to the object as the final destination and it all started because the Jewish people wanted to have an intermediary between them and God and that allowed for fakers to claim that I'm also an intermediary I spoke to God God spoke to me I saw God God appeared to me and we don't know if they're saying the truth or not we have methods of confirming by testing them but if we fail to test them properly and we believe them they will they will uh mislead mislead us that's the connection between the Parsha and the reason for the destruction of the Temple now in the entire book of devarim we're now starting the new book the final book the fifth book of Moshe it's called the varim in English it's called Deuteronomy or in Russian it's called the basic idea is that in this book two things mainly happen number one was a lot of laws were reviewed and repeated there were a lot of new laws as well the history of the Jewish people was reviewed by monster that's why it's called Deuteronomy the second law or in Hebrew we also call it the repetition of Torah Moshe reviewed the entire history from Exodus till now and the second main theme of this book including our Parsha is the rebuke that Moshe gave to the Jewish people Moshe methodically went with them through the last 40 years and reminded them of their every weakness every mistake they ever made so the commentator is asked why did Moshe wait until his death this was in the last year this was already very close to moshe's passing why did Moshe have to wait so long to rebuke the Jewish people and the commentators give five answers Rashi quotes some of them he says why is it beneficial to rebuke someone only when you are about to depart from him don't rebuke someone when you just meet them don't rebuke someone in the middle of your friendship in the middle of your visit rebuke someone right before you leave either there's a cliff or if you are about to leave the world why one of the reasons Rashi gives is so that you shouldn't repeat yourself because we might notice that they're doing something wrong and rebuke them and then the next day we see that they didn't fix themselves yet and we might get impatient and rebuke them again and like this multiple times until they ignore us and our message and they might even repel therefore rebuke has to be planned to be said only once and therefore since it's very difficult to do it while you are witnessing the person not listening to you so avoid frustration and say it before your departure this way you're not gonna be tempted to rebuke him multiple times that's reason number one why you should rebuke at the end of your visit the second reason is in order not to embarrass your friend the next time he sees you I rebuke someone the next day I see them and they're embarrassed and they feel bad we remind them of their weakness even if they fix their problem but every time they're going to see us from now on they will be embarrassed they will be hurt so if you rebuke them right before you leave or right before someone's death that's it they're never gonna see you again they're gonna fix their mistake and not be embarrassed anymore the third reason so that the person shouldn't hate you it hurts to be rebuked it's it hurts to be criticized and the person out of this pain can develop hatred towards the one who is critical of him especially if he sees him even if he's not going to be embarrassed because let's say he doesn't see him live but he only sees him in the newspaper on TV on billboards or from far away but it will remind him of the rebuke and he will develop hatred but if you leave from his life is not going to be reminded about you he might remember the message but you're going to be out of the picture and therefore you will avoid the hatred and by the way that is why we should not be so quick to rebuke people to criticize people because we are going to draw their hatred upon us our desire to rebuke them should come from the love for them and our care for them in such a case we will be willing to overlook the hatred that they're going to have towards us the the damage that we might suffer because we truly care for them and then even if the don't like us and they fight against us and they blame us we're not going to get angry because we're not doing it for ourselves we're doing it for them like a parent who rebukes his child gently even if the child Rebels and throws tantrum and and calls the parent bad names and says I hate you the parent will still love the child so we can only criticize someone if we are willing to love them if we're criticizing out of hatred it's not our place to criticize now the fourth reason why we shouldn't criticize someone um in the middle of our visit is in order to avoid argument so that I criticize the person and I leave right away without entering into arguments fights what about you what do you you did this to me look at yourself I just mentioned to him I think this area can use some improvement and I leave and that's it it's now up to him to think about it and if he finds it necessity to improve without making it a personal battle and the final reason why we should only improve the person right before we leave his life is in order to convince him that I'm saying it for your benefit so that the the the person who is being rebuked shouldn't think that you're only saying it to rule over me to feel higher you're only saying it to show others that you are greater to earn points in the eyes of other people that's if you stayed my life but if you are leaving you're not gonna see me you're not gonna exercise this authority over me you're not going to remind me every time we see each other must be you really care for me must be you can just leave my life and not see how I misbehave and that's what many people do they don't like something they just drop it and leave but if before I leave I actually go over to you and I give you advice I'm leaving anyway I'm not gaining anything from you and proven therefore I'm only rebuking you for your benefit you're not bothering me because I'm out of here so that is why Moshe waited until the last days of his life to rebuke the Jewish people not to embarrass them not to rebuke them too many times to convince them that he loves them that he means their benefit and of course we should learn from Moshe because that is the most productive way to review one say it with love to let person know that you care for him not to embarrass the person and and then we will have the desired effect like Moshe had on us we love him learn what she taught us we respect him even though he was a very tough leader he didn't say too many good things about the Jewish people yes he defended us he loved us but when he spoke to us it was usually a rebuke but we still love him because he rebuked us at the end of his life and he left now when motion reveals the Jewish people he first makes sure to give them a blessing it's says like this Hashem has blessed you find it okay Hashem increased you and behold you are like the stars of the heaven May Hashem the god of your forefathers add upon you like you a thousand times and may He bless you just like he spoke to you this is the blessing of Moshe to the Jewish people now here we learn number one that before you bless I'm sorry before you rebuke someone you have to first bless them which means two things number one you have to utter a silent prayer to God and say Hashem please I'm about to speak to this person and I'm about to rebuke him Hashem please help him to be good help him to be inspired help me to say the right words Hashem guide this person on the right path may he become righteous and good then you come to this person and you give him a blessing now that you have hashem's guidance and approval you come to the person and you say you're so good God bless you I see so much good in you so much potential and you praise him and you point out all the good things that you can think of about this person and then at the very end of your speech you say yes you have this amazing 99 good things about you just one thing if you could improve it would be perfect so when we speak to our children or our spouses that is what we should try to do we should first try to paint a picture about them that they are almost perfect that we see the good in them that we see their potential and their greatness and we can think of only one thing that they need Improvement in then they will be soothed they will see that we love them they will respect them that we see their value and that we have their benefit in mind and it's not so difficult they already have 99 good things they only need to improve one if we do the opposite if we come to a person say here why don't you do this why don't you fix this how come you did this I recommend you do this what they hear is that all you can see is bad and even though you only mentioned one thing but that's the only thing you mentioned must be you only see bad in me Moshe is teaching us before you rebuke a person pray for him and then bless him in front of him praised him and the last thing before you leave mention one thing by the way if you want to be perfect just improve one thing and you're going to be excellent now in his Blessing Moshe reminded the Jewish people that God blessed them to be like stars and we remember that this is the blessing that avrahama that our forefather avraham received from God himself your children will be like the stars of the heaven and what is the comparison between the stars of the Jewish people so we can say two things number one there are many stars you look at the night sky and if you are in a in a dark place without street lights without City Lights you will see the entire sky is covered in tiny dots it's hard to believe it but it's true if you go out of the city on a moonless night you will see literally thousands of stars and it looks like the entire sky is filled with tiny dots that's why it's called Milky Way there's so many stars it looks like the entire sky is like one Highway filled with white dots so the blessing that God gave to avraham and now Moshe is reminding the Jewish people is that they will be a great nation of many people when avraham was around he was the only family the only Jewish Family only he and his wife no children so to him it sounded not real can't be God is telling me that I'm gonna have thousands and thousands of descendants even if I have one I'll be happy now Moshe is standing in front of three million people men women children elderly now the blessing came true the Jewish people became multi-million people Nation so with this Moshe is pointing out Hashem kept his word to avraham from one person he made three million so far and may Hashem increase you a thousand fall the second meaning of this blessing is that you the Jewish people are like stars and even though you look at the stars and as I said you look at the stars on a moonless night outside of the city you will see like a carpet full of stars and you might think it's just little dots it's just someone spilled milk on the floor that's how the sky looks insignificant little dots however when you try to zoom in with a telescope a powerful telescope you the further you zoom in the opens up the closer the star gets the more detail you see and they realize that these are not little dots it's not just milk spilled on the floor each star is an entire universe a whole solar system is each one of those little dots so too if we look at the Jewish Nation all we're going to see is masses of people like they try to paint us on TV and on internet and newspapers they just show a sea of black people just black see when they show a um funeral of a great Jew they show hundreds of thousands of people but they don't show them individually show us one black body filling the street and you might say hey these Jews they're insignificant just one mess all the same God forbid to think like that about the Jewish people but what Moshe is telling us every Jew is a star don't look at the entire sky of stars and scenes insignificant zoom in look at every Jew and you will see that each Jew is a solar system each Jew is a star with his own mind personality individuality he is creating his deep thinker every single Jew that you will meet meet in benebra in Boro Park in Jerusalem he might be one out of thousands of Jews walking on the street and they might all be looking the same to an untrained eye each one has a hat or a keeper each one has a beard or peyote they look same faceless that's what we may think from looking at it outside but approach them start the conversation you will see that most of them are much wiser that end than any one of us much wiser because they spend their whole lives learning studying thinking discussing arguing May our lot be among them God willing so this is what Moshe tells the the Jewish people soon you're going to go your own way soon you're going to enter the land you will spread across the land divide into tribes into families start your own farms and now that you're looking at the rest of the nation of the Jewish people you might feel they're insignificant I don't care about them they are far away there are many of them I don't know them don't forget that every Jew is a star no matter how small he may look he only looks small because you didn't look close enough at him any Jew from small to big any City any Street you find a Jew you approach him you talk to him doesn't matter what denomination doesn't matter his level of observance even like it says every Jew even the lowest of them they are full of mitzvot like a pomegranate that's what we say on Rosh Hashanah that every simple Jew is full of love for God and love from its what like a pomegranate all we need to do is come closer with love open up and open him up and we will see a whole world so whenever we feel negatively about a person it's only because we are distant from him try to choose any Jew that you have hatred towards or animosity or negative feelings or just lack of friendship and try to come closer to them you will see amazing thing happening you will see a real human being with a heart with feelings with thoughts with care and then once you see the human human side to the Jew your hatred will disappear and love will take its place now when one more share starts his rebuke of the Jewish people he of course reminds them of one of their first mistakes and that is the mistake of sending the spies and he of course tells them that the reason why you failed in going into the land when God invited you was because you didn't believe that God loves you as Moksha tells them what did the Jewish people say when they refused to go they said because God Hates Us that is why he took us out of Egypt because he wants to deliver us to our enemies that they should kill kill us who would ever think that God hates the Jewish people and that's why he took them out of Egypt in order to give them over to the Nations that inhabit the land of Israel so that they can kill them sounds crazy if God didn't care about the Jewish people he would just leave them in Egypt why did he need to perform all the Miracles doesn't make sense but when someone is convinced of something there's no point in arguing you you cannot convince them and I would say just say that the reason why they thought that God hates them was because actually some of them didn't understand God and they hated him they didn't understand God's reasons for taking them out for causing them to travel and they had complaints and they were upset they were unhappy they were dissatisfied with God and because they had hatred towards God they assumed there must be that God hates me they say just say Allah what you feel towards your friend is what you think your friend feels towards you we extend our feelings onto our other people if we think positively about someone we think they love us if we think negatively about us we excuse ourselves by saying probably he he doesn't like me therefore I have excuse not to like him so I would say just say that your heart is like a mirror which means your thoughts reflect on your heart and then you project it on your friend you think I don't like this guy and your heart reflects it on this guy and that image of you not liking him is now reflected upon him you look at him and you say oh he doesn't like me I see it clearly in his eyes the way he acts towards me how he talks look he doesn't even look at me he doesn't even say hello must be he hates me but where did it start it started in my head that I had a thought of animosity and my heart reflected it and rejected it upon him this poor guy is minding his own business trying to trying to be a nice person and all of a sudden an enemy is is uh attacking him you hate me what do you mean I didn't even see you who are you I don't know you yes you hate me because you didn't say hello I'm sorry I was talking to someone else I didn't notice you no no you you hate me I I I can prove it to you why because I know it so this is a very powerful tool that if we know how it works we can protect ourselves from misusing it and we can actually create many friends we can actually create people who love us we can create friends we can create the entire world that will love us how by feeling good towards every person that we meet and you can actually give blessing to whoever you meet you can actually smile whoever you meet you can actually greet whoever you meet and then you will see if you do these three things bless them smile at them and say hello you will see that every human being from now on until the end of the world will become your friend including your your in-laws including your neighbors every human being that you bless you smile at them and you greet them will become automatically your friend forever and God forbid that if we think that someone hates us we suspect them we are going to create that relationship so if you have any people in your life who you are not friendly with you should try to develop love for that person in your heart first you don't have to argue with them you don't have to figure out who's right and who is wrong you don't have to blame develop love in your heart and your relationship will improve 100 guaranteed now Hirsch points out something amazing he says there was a time in history when the entire Jewish people were equal there were no poor people there were no rich people there were no successful and unsuccessful people everyone was exactly the same when was it when in history there was what we're still trying to create communism socialism equality when did it happen one time in history this was during the 40 years the Jewish people traveled in the desert why was there equality because no one possessed any land there were no land owners no one had any businesses no one hired any workers there were no bosses no employers no employees no one had any more food than the other person everyone received the same portion every day for 40 years and you might say yes but we know that if you were righteous your man your portion fell right next to your tent and if you were a sinner God forbid your portion fell a little further in the worse the person was the further he had to walk to get his portion but you can be assured that that only lasted for one day the person would do to Shiva the person would repent apologize to whoever he needs fix his relationship with God immediately because he wouldn't want to be embarrassed second time and if you see that it happened to someone you don't want it to happen to you so every Jew was righteous for all those four years whatever we hear and Moshe rebuking them this was only once in a while and only by small number of people majority great vast majority of the Jewish people were righteous throughout the 40 years they all received their portion of money right next to their tent they all ate the same food nobody could say I'm eating Delicacies I'm eating in this restaurant this fancy store I'm shopping in everyone received the same portion from God no one went shopping no one went working no one built houses no one had anything more fancy than the next guy and then of Hirsch points out that that caused a certain lack what was lacking plus it seems communist is the Utopia is the greatest gift to humanity when everyone is equal there are no poor but I would say just say that's actually not the best Hashem said you're in the desert I'm providing you with all your needs but that's not how I want you to live why this is similar to one um famous non-jew asked a rabbi he asked he said if your God loves people then why did he create some people poor why didn't he make everyone the same answered him it is in order to give us Merit meaning when we people who have the means give sudaka to people who are poor we do a Mitzvah we get married we get reward imagine if everyone was the same but first says that in those 40 years there was something missing among Jewish people and that was sadaka that was caring for another Jew no one was sick so I cannot do because no one was poor so I cannot do siddhaka and Hashem said I don't want you to be like that I want you to go into the land I want you to practice Financial transactions buying and selling employer and employee I want you to work on your character will you be gentle will you be generous will you be kind will you be patient when I God take care of you it might be easy but you were not born for easy life you were born to overcome your Tendencies your base character and therefore every time we see a poor person we should jump on him there should be a fight between all the wealthy people he is mine I'm gonna support him we should actually run after the poor people not that the poor people should run after the reach because the talmud says more does the poor person do for the rich then the rich does for the poor what does the rich do for the poor he only gives him some money temporary assistance physical help in this temporary world but what did the poor person do for the rich he gave him a merit a Mitzvah a reward that's going to last him for millions of years for Infinity in the spiritual world where it's not only you buy a sandwich and you eat it and you enjoy you have unlimited pleasure on all levels pleasure that we have not experienced in this lifetime both in quality and in quantity the rich person is helping the poor in The Limited way the poor person is helping the rich person in an unlimited way so what I've heard says that all the social laws that will later apply when the Jewish people enter the land of Israel didn't apply in the desert so we point out here that sometimes lack of perfection is actually Perfection itself if you have everything it's not good you don't need anyone in your life and no one needs you if I have everything and all my needs are taken care by me independently I don't need friends I don't need a spouse I don't need children I don't need parents that's where selfishness is born if I don't need anything then probably no one else needs anything either a a person who just ate supper he can't understand someone who is hungry if I don't have needs I can't understand what it means to have a need so it's only a person who experienced suffering can be careful not to cause suffering to others person who experienced inability to afford can understand how is it possible that someone can't afford basic needs someone who was ever sick can understand what it means to feel sick and therefore struggle is something that we need to welcome it it will help us to work on our character it will help us that when we become in a better position to look back at people who are less fortunate than we are and help them when Hashem gives us suffering he's actually giving us tools to earn Allah if we would not suffer if we would have no challenges we wouldn't do anything if a child receives everything for free it doesn't have desire to live he doesn't have a a push to accomplish he doesn't feel for others he doesn't know what it means to work he doesn't appreciate what others do for him and how can he be a good person if he gets everything right away it's only through lack it's only through pain suffering that we become better people as it says in the in in the Torah the one that God loves he causes suffering too if God gives me suffering shouldn't happen to any one of us it means that God loves me it means that he wants me to have better next world in different ways to give me reward for passing the test and not complaining or giving me a merit the next time I will feel the pain of another and help them and perhaps while I am suffering someone can help me and they can get eternity we never know what the the meaning of suffering is what the purpose of suffering is it may be that those that see me suffering they should be inspired and overcome their character and get up and help me and offer help financial and physical and emotional and by me being sick I might be getting thousands of blessings to people because each one who will say healing pray for me give sadaka do a mitzvah help me and and encourage me all of those people are earning eternity and it's all my Merit so whether we are sick suffering it should Inspire us and encourage us not to lose hope to say Hashem thank you thank you for allowing me to be the one will provide opportunities to people to do mitzvot and Hashem please give me the opportunity to become healthy and help others now I understand how it feels so whether we are on top of the world or on the bottom we have to understand that it's all hashem's arrangement and we have a mission if we're on top of the world what can we do to help others if we are temporarily on the bottom of the world we have to say Hashem thank you for teaching me how it feels and thank you for giving me opportunity to serve others to be there take it to olamaba now I'll end with one last last thought and that is the verse that Moshe tells us in chapter 2 verse 7. Deuteronomy 2 7. we remember that verse we will always be happy and that is let me read it in English oh Hashem your God has blessed you in all your handiwork he God knew your way in this Great Wilderness this 40-year period Hashem Yo God was with you you did not lack a stain so we can view this as description of our life for Hashem your God has blessed you in all your handiwork all successes is because of God's blessing he knew your way in this Great Wilderness God knew what's going on with you he observed you in this Great Wilderness in this wild world difficult life Hashem is with you he knows you he guides you during your period of Life Hashem your God was with you and you did not lack a thing so this has doubled meaning number one to understand that at every point in my life I don't lack a thing I have exactly what I need them right now I have everything I need now a year ago I had everything I needed a year ago in a year from now I will have everything I will need then and if you ask why I don't have it now dances because you don't need it you have everything you don't miss anything that is the truth that is something we have to think about constantly I never miss anything God always provides me with everything I may need if I need anything else God will immediately give it to me whenever I need it and the second thought is Hashem your God was with you you did not like anything why you did not like anything because Hashem your God was with you which is a lesson for us that whenever we have Hashem in our mind whenever we realize that Hashem is part of my life is with me now I will not lack anything emotionally mentally and physically it cannot be that if God exists and he is all-powerful and he is with me that I will like anything of course as long as I put God next to me I will not lack anything if I don't have God in my life and I'm relying on myself then I start worrying what's going to be am I gonna do it who's going to take care of me I don't have it I don't have that that's because I don't have God as soon as I say I have my loving father next to me my creator you will not miss anything just that recognition will already help you to recognize that I truly have everything I don't like anything I have nothing to worry about this is what Moshe is instilling in the Jewish people look at the 40 years that you traveled you did not miss anything why because God was with you now you're going into the land you you might be Miss uh informed by seeing the land the field the rain the Sun and you might say this is the source of my blessing my job my business my doctor Hashem is with you you will not like anything even as you are digging and plowing and sowing and harvesting don't forget if Hashem is with you you will not like anything may we always feel God's presence next to us and may God always guide us on the right path what to do what to say and may we see the blessings and be open to them be open to the blessings of God and let God overwhelm us with his blessings thank you for listening shabbat shalom um