Has Materialism Stolen Our Soul? (Parshas Pinchas)

there was a doctor who gave a speech at a medical conference and he wrote notes and he got up to the podium and he looked at his notes and he couldn't read a word of his own handwriting so he looks in the audience he says before i begin is there a pharmacist in the house okay there's a gemara in sanhedrin it talks about a woman who was once very ill this is in the times of the gemara and she sought all the cures in the world for her illness and finally she was told that the only cure was to worship the idol valparaire and she said fine okay no problem she was you know she was in idle worship or anywhere she was a pagan so she said tell me about how you worshiped valpar so they told her the manner of worship which uh what can i do i this is it's in the gemara so i'm going to tell you what it says over there i'll try to keep it as sanitized as possible but uh basically the form of worship is that they used to eat yeah and they would uh then they would empty themselves they would uh before the idol basically that was how they would worship the idol so yeah yeah they they would eat foods that would loosen their digestive system and then they would relieve themselves before the idol yeah that was how they yeah you're following you get one thing they would eat and they would go to the bathroom in front of the idol and that was not considered disrespectful that was actually the manner of worship of this idol okay at any rate the gemada says this woman heard this and she's like you know what forget it i'd rather die and she didn't she couldn't do it the point is that this is a form of idol worship that is considered disgusting even among idol worshipers okay fine so now i have a question for you here's my question this week's partial parches pinchus we know that pinchos was a vigilante he stood up in a time of crisis what was the crisis the moral crisis one symptom of it was intermarriage but actually if you remember the whole strategy that bielem gave to medion was to trip up the jews in idol worship specifically the worship of valparais so here's the question even an idol worshiper was disgusted was was found it repulsive to worship this idol how did so many jews get wrapped up in ballpark and uh what significance what relevance does it have to us today to even know about this idol and to what degree do we today have to be careful not to get wrapped up in this in this form of idol worship and at first glance you know the whole thing is just so unrelatable and so weird and so i mean repulsive is is the word but what i'm going to tell you is it's a it's a if you understand the inner meaning of this worship you're going to understand that it's actually a major temptation which is still rampant today in fact perhaps even the greatest the greatest force in the world against recognizing spiritual truths is probably a modernized form of balpair yeah and i'll tell you right now what it is what the name of it is it's called materialism what's materialism materialism is not conspicuous consumption you have to have a new car you have to have have new clothes you have to go on fancy vacations you have to go out and eat at the fanciest restaurants people call that materialism that's not materialism that's conspicuous consumption that is a symptom of materialism but just a symptom among many symptoms real materialism is actually like any ism an ism is a worldview and ism is a way of looking at life and framing and giving relevance to to everything you see it's it's it's a reference point every ism is basically a it's a it's a pair of glasses through which you see life so materialism is basically the world view that all of reality can be reduced to physical components there was a an article in the american journal of medicine in the in the 1920s written by william h mayo you heard of the mayo brothers from the mayo clinic okay so mayo wrote a wrote an article no actually there were the two brothers this one was charles charles h maya so he wrote an article explaining how the human being is worth 84 cents how's a human being worth 84 cents he said look if you take the human body and you break it down to the chemicals that are present in the body it has this much phosphorus and this this much magnesium and this much uh iron and you would sell those chemicals as commodities on the open market it's worth 84 cents now i heard since then it was adjusted for inflation it's about 4.50 probably in the past year you know it's probably five dollars now with the inflation in the past year so a human being is worth five dollars now obviously mayo was he was making a point his point was actually a criticism against a worldview called medical materialism which is a form of materialism which like all materialism reduces everything to its physical components so his point was if you look at a human being and you say they're just this chemical makeup they're just the the elements that they're made out of well then a human being you could you could you could grossly undervalue a human being because you're not taking into account the fact that a human being isn't just a bunch of stuff just a bunch of parts or things a human being is actually a living soul and an a a a spiritual being even if you don't use the term spiritual because some for some people that's that's that's a bridge too far they they can't use that word but just to admit there's something more than just the physical things there's something more than just i mean saying even a non-religious person can admit that there's that there's a body and then there's the life and life is is not a physical thing life is intangible life is is is is is uh as a force is a is an energy which we can't you know put it this way there's the piano and there's the music so nobody would smash a part a piano looking for the music everyone understands that the piano is a physical object made of physical components and then the music that it produces that's the you know the the the philosophical term for this in in jewish philosophy i'm saying is that means the substance surah surah often gets mistranslated as form it doesn't mean form because form you think of like a shape like a circle a square straight curved whatever means function so there's there's the substance and there's the function clamor is the actual physical substance so a piano is you know a wooden box with with some uh metal uh cords inside metal wires inside and some ivory uh keys so that's what it is it's a it's a it's a physical object made of physical components the tsuru though the function is that if you know how to touch the keys on this this box it produces sounds that can transport the human being to a to a far away place in their mind it can evoke powerful emotional experiences it can it can bring a person to tears so there's the chimer and there's the surah there's the physical makeup and then there's the function that it performs you know somebody told me that science proves that a human being has 95 percent the same dna as a baboon and uh he was trying to i think he's trying to make some type of a point about evolution or something like that but my response was even if you would tell me that a human being has a hundred percent the same dna as a baboon that would not change my worldview one bit because dna is talking about the components or the building blocks of the physical substance the body that says nothing about the soul the life force that inhabits that body but you see that's the problem with materialism materialism says that you just look at the physical components and that's all there is that's all there's so you remember i don't remember how long ago this was five six seven years ago already with they had that silverback gorilla and the where was it in cincinnati at the zoo where the kid fell in they shot the harambe they shot harambe they shot the silverback gorilla the kid fell in at the zoo i saw a tweet when that happened somebody a comedian wrote i heard what happened at the cincinnati zoo you know the kid fell in what kind of negligent parents raised their child in ohio [Laughter] and it was just a joke just a joke okay i'm from illinois that's okay at any rate dog midwesterners should not be offended anyways okay but what was the uproar the uproar is why did they shoot the silverback maybe shoot the kid i don't think anyone said shoot the kid but they're like wait until the silver back tears apart the kid you know with hair off a limb and then you shoot why'd you shoot before where does such moral confusion come from you know what it comes from materialism that's material that's materialism i told you materialism is not conspicuous consumption it's not having new cars and new clothes and eating at fancy restaurants that's one symptom of materialism at its root materialism is a reduction where all things can be looked at from a purely physical standpoint so therefore what's the difference between the human being and the the gorilla well the moral equivalency is as a result as it takes off as a manifestation of this worldview in other words how do they arrive at the moral equivalency by judging everything based on the physical and the physical alone so therefore if you say a human being and a gorilla basically have the same dna right 95 this by the way you know a human being someone can google this for me but i believe a human being and a banana have 60 percent the same dna so you know maybe if you have to choose between a human being and a banana maybe that's also a moral quandary right maybe maybe that's a dilemma my point is if you're a materialist so you look at a human being and the guerrilla the human being and the banana and it's just a bunch of stuff if you realize hold on a second there's more than just the material world then you say hold on there's a clear difference between a human being and a gorilla the kremer the physical makeup the substance may be the same stuff it's cells it's blood it's it's it's it's muscle it's bone but that's not what a human being is again like like the mayo article is a human being a bunch of chemicals a human being is a bunch of physical parts that's the point is a human being just a bunch of physical parts even if you would tell me human being has the same physical makeup as an animal but that's just the physical part of it the spiritual part is so clearly different in other words even if you tell me the heimer of a human being in an animal are identical which they're not exactly but even if you would tell me the climber the substance is identical the surah the function is so clearly different how a human being functions meaning the the mission the purpose the contribution that a human being makes in this world is so categorically different than an animal but if you're a materialist no you don't look it out you don't look at any of that stephen hawking did a terrible thing he abused his but aside for the fact that he was he used his uh celebrity status to uh boycott israel but uh he made a statement he said there's no heaven why did he make a statement there's no heaven because he knew that people would believe him based on his expertise about the physical universe which he was an expert in the physical universe but i'll tell you why that was a terrible thing to say and i i would say actually an evil thing to say first of all it's arrogant because even if you're the world's top expert in the physical universe so what percentage of the physical universe does that make you an expert in even he would be able to admit that there are you know there's millions and trillions more about the physical universe that we don't yet know okay so that but that's just plain arrogance i'll tell you why it's it's manipulative and evil because he knows that i don't think that i can take a rocket ship and go to heaven i don't think heaven is a physical location anywhere in the universe i know that it's a spiritual dimension a spiritual plane so why is he invoking his authority as an expert in the physical universe and saying there's no heaven that's like saying we smashed open the piano and we found no music yeah no kidding you're talking about one thing which is physical and another thing which is spiritual and if the word spiritual triggers anyone if it's too far out so let's just say intangible there's the tangible and there's the intangible so we live in a world today unfortunately where materialism is the most accepted in fact to a point of religious fanaticism is the most accepted way of looking at life and there's just one way of looking at anything it's just a reduction to its physical parts that's the way people look at everything there's a story last week was uh yudbase and yud gimultamas which are a yamtif in in chabad because that's when the sixth rabbit got his release from imprisonment he had a death sentence hanging over his head because of his activism in communist russia and uh he was released on the 12th well he was told he was released on the 12th of thomas and then he was actually released on the 13th of thomas so um during his imprisonment not actually not that imprisonment he was imprisoned uh and interrogated a few times but during one of his uh interrogations one of the uh one of the interrogators got frustrated with him that he wasn't breaking they were the kgb were masters of psychological manipulation and torture they knew how to break people down and he wouldn't shake he wouldn't rattle so they got very very upset and he they pulled out a gun and they pointed the gun at him and they actually said this little toy has been known to make people talk so very calmly the previous rabbit said this little toy is effective on those who have many gods and one world but i have one god and two worlds what does that mean i used to think it meant well kill me and i'll go to heaven i have two worlds so you'll kill me i'll only die in this world i go to the other world that's what i used to think about and then i i i i guess i figured out at one point that it meant more than that and then i was very happy i was learning a secret from the rabbi and the rabbit told the story and explained what it meant and i saw ah that's what it means and that's what i suspected it it had i mean it took me years to figure it out but then i saw that abba said clearly what does it really mean the fear of grabba wasn't saying kill me in this world i'll go to the spiritual world that's what it means i have two worlds the friday garb was actually saying even right now at this moment i have two worlds in other words what was the message to the interrogators you are materialists in fact they were they were communists communism is dialectical materialism that's what marx called his theory that everything in the world can be reduced to resources physical resources and religion is the opiate of the masses it's a distraction so uh he was saying you are materialists so you have one reality the physical reality that's it i i inhabit simultaneously two realities two planes of reality the physical and the spiritual at the same time and therefore this situation this whole situation is not what it seems at first glance in other words if you just look at the physicality if you look at the superficiality the facade of it you get one read on it and it looks like the communists are winning and you gotta buckle and you gotta do what they want you to do but if you understand that there's a lot more to it in fact when it comes to jewish history when it comes to jewish history there is uh a lot more of the supernatural and otherworldly at play than the natural and worldly i mean how many times in jewish history did a situation from a purely physical reductionist point of view from a purely materialist point of view like hanukkah let's say is the archetypical example the the the many fell to the hands of the few right so if you look from a purely materialist point of view we got no chance but barack hashem we don't have one world we don't just have the material plane we do also have the material plane of course material plane is important that's where we do mitzvahs the soul comes to the material plane in order to be able to do 613 commandments which can only be done in the material world so the material world is incredibly important but it's not the only reality so that is the misunderstanding the misunderstanding is that there are two worlds simultaneously and so everything that we do everything we experience is coexisting on two planes everything that happens to us is happening to our soul and our body simultaneously there's no such thing as a purely physical act mitzvahs are the primary example of that the mitzvah has spiritual impact because it's not just happening on one plane it's happening on both physical and spiritual planes simultaneously now let's talk about the allure of materialism what is the allure of materialism the allure of materialism is actually it makes life very simple what you see is what you get you look at the world this all you see empirically right empirically what is the scientific math method scientific method is we make decisions based on what we can on sensorial input what we can see and and and taste and touch and and hear right our five senses and that's the are though our five senses are the arbiter of truth and it's very comforting in that sense i know the the materialists like to mock religion by saying religion is for people who want to seek comfort they want they want to feel like something happens after they die and you know makes them feel better and i i understand that's how they always mock religion by saying it's it's comforting i i could throw that back the the say i can take the same criticism throw it back the other direction materialism is very comforting you know just makes everything very simple what you see is what you get and that's it that's all there is there are no mysteries beyond which we know is a bunch of malarkey anyways because the scientists themselves will will admit that there is so much beyond but you know anyway i'm not getting into the their whole counter counter argument but they would say well eventually we will know it all you know if we just keep on cutting open the pianos we'll eventually find the music right if we just keep on dissecting the human being eventually we'll find the soul and if we don't find it it doesn't exist that's the materialist point of view that's scientism just as an aside yeah you would give the example of somebody who doesn't have children because they can't afford them right because we can't that's that's a great example of materialism correct right right i don't know how i mean how is that at comfort um but it simplifies things and people how does it simplify can you project exactly what they're going to need you know what there's there's an expression i've made up my mind don't com don't confuse me with the facts so let me have my simple worldview don't introduce anything else that's it in other words if it works here and now it's good don't tell me anything beyond that don't tell me anything beyond you know let let's talk about chlamydsura again let's just circle back to that let's say you have a ten thousand dollar microscope in a laboratory it's made out of a hunk of metal now you could use that ten thousand dollar microscope to look at uh cells and uh what that's what it's designed for or you can take that same hunk of metal and use it to knock nails into the wall does it work yeah it works it works and there's something comforting about that from a reductionist point of view which is look if it works leave it alone it's good does it matter that that's not the real purpose the real function no it doesn't but it works so that's the materialist view of human life look you walk the materialist view of human life is you are a physical being you seek out physical comfort you even a moral materialist will say and in doing so try not to interfere with the physical comfort of others and that's it there are no other factors that you have to take into account that would complicate things that is a materialist view that is the most rampant widespread view to the extent that today people don't even know that they're materialists they don't even know that they believe in an ism that ism is like the air that we breathe today it is so taken for granted people don't even know they're following it i was on a college campus and a girl interrupted me i forget even what i said that bothered her but i've said some type of a spiritual statement she says is that logical so i said um i believe it is logical yeah she's like but is it logical she kept saying is it logical i said i mean i can demonstrate it has certain consistent uh line of thinking to it yeah she's like but can it be proven by science so i stopped and i said hold on a second do you realize you just completely switched no i said you first you asked me is it logical then you asked me because it can can it be proven by science do you understand that you just completely switched your question no she didn't realize she thought it was the same exact question i said hold on a second let me ask you a question i'm going to make a statement and you tell me whether or not this statement is true the statement is the scientific method is the only method that we have to truly know about the universe around us she said that's true i said do you understand that that statement is not scientific it's logical i'm not saying i agree with it but it's it demonstrates a certain logic meaning it can be defended with logical proofs it can be argued from a logical standpoint i don't agree with that statement but it's logical but it's not scientific what do i mean it's not scientific there's no scientific experiment you can run that would prove or disprove that statement which is a philosophical statement that the only way we have to know the uh the truth of the world around us is through the scientific method so that statement itself is not scientific so i told it you're conflating the two logic and science logic is dealing in abstraction do thoughts make sense does two plus two equals four these are abstractions science is all based on what can i see touch taste hear my point is that today the world is completely taken in by a one world world view that there's nothing but the physical universe there's nothing but our bodies there's nothing but matter you know that the rabbinic term for for a heretic or a particular kind of a heretic apocarus you know what an apocalypse is there was a greek philosopher a pecus an epicurean was someone who followed epicurus what did he believe yeah that's right so he believed an epicurean delight that's right that's right i think there's a there's a like a um cooking website for recipes called epicurious yeah epicurean delight yeah you know what it really means though it means uh eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die it means that there's only the physical reality therefore enjoy it because there's nothing else that's materialism that's materialism appicorsis is there's only one world there's the physical plane okay so now let's talk about valparaiso what was valparaire valparaire was a statement about player was a statement when i consume from this world when i eat food literally eating food there is no there is no transformation that occurs there's no elevation that occurs where by anything is brought to a higher plane because there is no higher plane i eat the food and that's it that's the end of the line my pleasure is the end of the line and i'll prove it and what would they do they would eat it they'd consume it and they would just drop their their waste right in front of the idol as if not as if to they to metaphorically make a statement this is it there's nothing more it's all waste now it's done the last stop on the train is i consume it i get pleasure and now we're done and therefore what is the ultimate goal my consumption my pleasure and that's it nothing else comes from that why is that so antithetical to the jewish view because the jewish view is no when i consume something from the world around me that's not the end of the line that's just the beginning from a jewish point of view eating let's stick with eating because that's the actual example here eating is not an act of taking eating is an act of giving that's why a cow wants to be eaten by a tsadik not the cow itself because they can't think that deeply but the muzzle of the cow the the spiritual entity which is the higher form of the cow wants to be eaten by a tadik why because when the tadi eats the cow then the cow's energy gets an upgrade and is used for the things that the sadiq uses it for in in contrast there's a gumbarum sacrum that says that an amma audits shouldn't eat meat and i'm artists an ignorant ignoramus shouldn't eat meat why shouldn't they eat meat because the the ammo audits is going to eat the meat and act like an animal well why didn't an animal have to die to be used for animalistic behavior the animal can do that but if the tsadik eats the animal and then uses the animal's energy to do something that is greater than what an animal can do the animal appreciates that that's actually an act of giving to the animal you've given an alia you've given an elevation to the animal but if you just use the animal for your pleasure and that's the end of the line and nothing comes from that there's no conversion that comes from that no transformation that comes from that then that's an act of taking it's an act of selfishness so the amha audits the gemara says shouldn't eat me by the way what's in amma audits we always translate it as an ignoramus but literally you know what an amaha audit is a materialist literally amha audits means materialist a person of the audits of the land a materialist it means a person who only has the audits no shamayim they only have the physical plane so a person who only believes in the physical plane shouldn't be eating meat i don't even know if they should be eating vegetables because what elevation are they giving if they think the end of the line is this epicurean attitude of eat it consume it enjoy it and nothing else comes from it whereas the jewish attitude is the exact opposite when you take anything from the physical world around you that is where the the the relationship first begins we elevate everything around us we we we tap into the energy the potential that's in the physical things that it's not just a a cow it's a it's a it's it's calories for for doing a mitzvah or it's parchment for for a safer torah for a mezuzah for everything that we encounter the physical world around us from a jewish point of view is a potential upgrade from the material to the spiritual by the way that's what the al-taraba said the balatanya that hashem gives us gashmias and we turn it into rukhnis and he said where is this based on it's based on the the wording of the passage that calls the jewish people he says a nation means one nation a unique nation on the earth but he read it in a deeper way a nation that brings the oneness of hashem into physicality there was a chosid name rashbots so uh he was he was a well-known custody was actually a malamad of of the of the fiduciary and of the rebel shab as well so and it was one time they were fabrega at his house and it was late into the night it was a fabregan they had bison you know snacks and they had the mask you know schnapps to say like and they were they were late into the night i don't know what time it was but it was late in the night and they they ran out of food they had no more food so what are they supposed to go go to seasons express he couldn't just run to the stores in the middle of the night so what did they have they had there was a sheep rashbot and his wife they owned the sheep and the sheep they got a meagre little parnassa from the sheep they would sell the wool they would get the milk but you didn't want the fabregan to end you need fuel for the fabrian right in order for the fabric is very inspiring inspiring people are telling stories and giving over words of torah and and blessing each other and singing meditative songs and it's a real spiritual thing and but if they run out of food people get up and they leave so he went out and he shafted the sheep and he roasted it and he came back in you know if you roast it you don't have to salt it so it speeds things up a little and he brought the roast sheep the roast lamb and they uh they ate it so in the morning after the fabregan was over rashbach's wife comes over to him and says where's the sheep the sheep is gone so he says to his wife sheep is not gone she says i don't see the sheep the sheep is gone he says no no the sheep is still very much with us it's just that yesterday he used to say ba ba today he says meaning the sheep became the fuel that after the fabregan these cinnamon could go the next day and daven with kavon and by the way it's even within the story the detail has a very specific meaning there the echoed why why do you say the word other than the fact that it sounds the same you know but the word means oneness in other words if you have a perspective where there is a spiritual and a physical plane and that it is not uh really two planes but one hashem who made both of them and that there's this dynamic interplay between the the physical and the spiritual then what's the idea there the idea is the ultimate echo the ultimate oneness so the you understand there there's oneness that is the materialist has one world to the exclusion of an of any other plane of existence the jew has one world which is inclusive of two opposite worlds the real shema is the real oneness is that we have shemaim and audits and there's this dynamic interplay between them so in other words the soul needs to come down into a body just as much as the body needs the soul to come down into it and that mitzvahs that are done physically here in this world are acts of elevation and that when we consume physical resources like when a jew eats a piece of food and uses the calories to do a mitzvah we're actually transforming the physical world we're we're triggering a reaction whereby the physical becomes spiritual and reveals that all along they're really one so at any rate the worship of ballpark is very much rampant still today the notion that all we can do with the world around us is consume it and that's the end of the line and the only antidote to that corrupted worldview is is torah is the jewish worldview the the the biggest mistake that the world is making today can only be corrected through sharing the jewish worldview that is the antidote to valpara to materialism we have to go out we have to teach the whole world that a human being isn't just a piece of meat with 95 the dna of a baboon a human being has a soul a mission a purpose we have to teach people that things aren't just things they're not just objects to a mass and to have but everything that we that we own is a potential conversion into a spiritual uh transaction that if you have money so spend it on acts of good goodness and kindness you have a house so use that house as a place of hospitality to have guests you have a body you have good health so then use that to go out and and make the world a better place the point is that everything that exists on the physical plane simultaneously exists on the spiritual plane we cannot be inhabitants of one world to the exclusion of the other so this is this is the big message that we have for the entire world the world needs this message world needs our message it's not enough that we insulate ourselves and we preserve our worldview the world needs this worldview and ultimately what will happen should i spoil the punchline i always spoil the punchline yeah the punch line is you know what happens in the end right what happens what mashiach and what's what does meshiach mean what does mean means the world recognizing hashem how by dying and going to heaven right here that all flesh will see that empiricism and spirituality will no longer be two different world views that's what mashiach is when we will see godliness here in the physical world but we the jewish people have to we have to bring that about