Hoshana Rabbah: Tikun or Sikun Olam - Fixing or Endangering the World - Rabbi Nota Schiller

[Music] there's a very famous Vilna Gaon the draw points out that in tell'em i involved which is the shear shalom that we recite on the first day of Sukkot we saved the pasok way he beshallach so cold - a good CI suka was complete possibly we shall I am shall aim - alien is dwelling place in Zion the Glor on the stud from that passage that there's a correlation a connection between suka and the mitzvah of residing living in outer soul - mixes in the tailor one of the tae ik mitzvahs according to the god according to their Ambon and others is inhabiting LT so there was a time that I remember somebody wants to find a zionist there's somebody mr. a who asks for a donation from mr. B so that mr. C can live in Israel that was the definition of a Zionist and the one hand it sounds peculiar but there is a position in Halawa as well that supporting somebody living in aerosol is contributing to the habitation of LT soul but leave that aside for a moment one of the Tommy they heard God the parcel shelf takes that position but the girl points out that there are two mitzvahs that you enter in with your entire body generally misses are fulfilled with a certain with your hands your feet your eyes tasting but here's the entire person enters into the Mitzvah suka and there was yourself that one level of connection and correlation but that would seem to be a message that on a somatic level that conceptually there must be something at work over here and the relationship between these two mitzvahs myths of suka we find that on the ultimate day of judgment the non-jewish nations Gentile nations will ask for a mitzvah they're confronted now with the reality that they failed in their their interpretation of what life is about so they asked for a mitzvah Jamal relates jamar Nevada Zara Gamora lights that the Ravana sham says that I'm I'll give you an easy Mitzvah the myths of soccer they're enthusiastic they build their so called a blistering Saudi comes out and it becomes my impossible to sit in the sukkah they get angry frustrated and they kick the soccer and run away commentaries point out that ha logically if it's intolerable to sit in the sukkah a Jew is also exempt from the midst of soccer mitts tire is in pain discomfort becomes so exceedingly overwhelming that the but he doesn't kick the soca he doesn't leave in a state of anger because just like the halacha determines when to sickness it soccer the Halawa determines when not to sit in the soca okay so suka somehow then is the arbiter it's the litmus test it differentiates between the Jew and the non Jew again conceptually why would that be so when the way Swedish was up and running [Music] Clady so accepted sacrifices from the neighbouring Jewish nations when the non Jew sent a carbon sent to sacrifice it was invariably always treated as a carbon olá difference between an Ola and ash lawmen there are a lot of categories but these two primary categories and Ola is completely consumed on the altar on the Miss Vale slum impart is eaten and the Gomorrah discusses the Gemara knockers why is it that we always automatically treat the sacrifice that is sent by the non Jew as a carbon Ola completely consumed now one might expect to find some scriptural derivation for such a such an idea such I'll offer that's not what the Gomorrah says the Hamas says it's a an analysis of his psyche the psychological state Lee Bellagio Maya is that when he wants to be engaged in spirituality he finds it contradictory and unacceptable to have any kind of physical satisfaction or enjoyment from the experience it must be one or the other either the spiritual or the physical that's what leads to a conception of spirituality and ideal according to the non-jewish world as being ascetic bone a stick to deny the physical world that's what spirituality is about it's either/or if you're engaged in spirituality or in the physical universe the material world the Jew comes along and says no that's a false proposition we have been created in a manner that we have the potential to take the material world to take the physical universe to take the empirical realities of our day-to-day existence and translate them into spirituality that's what life is about for the holodeck Joe to deny the physical world is to deny the reality of the nature of man God creators in such a manner that we must have the physical experience and translate from the language of the physical to the spiritual by defining it and giving it a logic norms the word ilaha is hollow to go the manner in which we go through life is to take that which is potentially merely a physical experience and harness it captured define it give it boundaries direction and then by that focus it is then a conduit that is energized to produce spiritual energy can we skip over that and go directly to the spiritual doesn't work so one might might put it like this that the everybody's familiar with listening to a radio broadcast and there's a commercial on the broadcast so people at best sit impatiently tolerating the the commercial we need to get back to the program the Torah Jew says no no it's all part of the program it's all a commercial it's all part of the program they are identically congruent because everything in the human realm of experience is potentially available to be elevated for spirituality in a sense this helps us understand another another question why did you is need a country if it's a religion what does it need a national homeland what does it need space and to have sovereignty within that space what's the purpose of that there must be some necessity for that given this Vilna Gaon this goal and the way we are defining soccer and also song it means only by living in our own space with our own hallux sovereignty does every aspect and every facet of human experience come under the purview of potential spirituality of course Jews because it was predicted in the admonishment it was predicted that we would have to go into exile if we didn't fulfill our mandate here in OT so the ideal mandate here in out yourself would be to set up a model state that has the perfect flow from the material to the spiritual and back again informing the physical the tour commentary the logic commentary the tour brings that the three central holidays of Pesach work and Sukkot correspond to the three patriarchs of Rome corresponds to paisa Yitzhak to Swart and Yaakov to Sukkot in fact the first time that the word Sukkot is mentioned is by akov says he built these Hut's for his cattle Sukkot for his cattle it's also not accidental that Talmud teaches of Rome referred to the place of the base megadose as a mountain as a heart Yitzhak referred to it as a sad day as a field Yaakov referred to it as a house of building what is the connection between building a building and a Asuka they have mojitos they have partitions they have walls wall keeps what's outside out and what's inside in the Ramban and pushes left Lahab points out that of ROM and Yitzhak both went to the universal community to proselytize by ikura by Shane Michelle they talked to the world at large to the nations of the world by Yaakov you don't find that any more sister remember why because Yaakov has now perfected his clan his family with the shifted core the tribes that is going to have to be an internal energy that will create a nation religion state and that nation religion state will be a laboratory demonstrating to the world community what is an ideal existence and if we had our act together says the alsa then it would be like a magnet drawing the filings of those sensitivities to Israel Russia already alludes to that in the description of the blessings given by Yaakov to the to the tribes non-jews will come to Israel to do business with swollen he travels export/import and while they're here they'll say well you know what let's go visit Jerusalem if we're here ready they go up to us a lion and they're awestruck they're overtaken by the spiritual energy and what they feel and see what they witness but that's when a missile is doing their thing and there isn't a spiritual entropy that the loss of that heat of that intensity when we begin to fail there's a seeping and that seepage leads to us having to go into galoot into exile and we have to retrieve the what is called in the language of bizarre sparks of spirituality need senses of kedusha we have to retrieve them by us going the circuit abroad in exile didn't have to be that way we could have been a magnet drawing them here but when we aren't achieving a sufficient level of intensity then we have to go out there to put it together and so Yaakov Matisse's means yes there's a special mission statement of Claudia so that special mission statement is about tikkun olam bringing about a perfection of the world but it's amazing how that term has been dislocated and misapplied it's based on what we say in the prayer of Elena the second column the takane olam to correct improve the world by mouth Lusaka with the kingdom of the banished learner invariably those who have slipped out those jews Jewish organizations that have come up with alternatives to the Halak position skip the second phrase they make a wrong assumption it doesn't work they think you can go straight for tikkun olam but then there's nothing special about our message or anybody else's message it's all the same and once there is such an equation then what you're doing is encouraging facilitating promoting assimilation on one level of another because if there's nothing unique to us or our message then there's no reason for us to be so chauvinistic and ethnically centripetal directed inward to perfect our statement in our life style so that we can then as a nation impact the world ultimately yes we want to get to that well you can't skip this step one time I thought that the I remember growing up in New York roughly 106 years ago when I was in high school and the Manhattan had a section called the Bowery where they were invariably alcoholics that somehow they they hung out there very brittle matchstick men they hardly ate they weren't drinking single malt Macallan's or like a bullet the stuff they were drinking drinking was I'm sure more dilatory 'us so somebody decides he wakes up in the morning theoretically decides he wakes up in the morning he wants to devote his life to an altruistic mission and he picks up one of these matchstick men and holds him up against the lamppost and if he walks away guide force he has to stand there and he stands there for hours and hours he's got to do this as soon as he interrupts his holding him guy collapses and then there's a second guy who wants to do something for the world and he says you know what I'm going to improve myself I'm going to work on myself way to lock myself in my attic and I'm going to develop my talent my ability as a poet as a composer as a painter and I'm going to be completely self oriented during this period of gestation and after 25 years he goes out and says okay world now exploited me I think we can make the case that those who have succeeded in developing their genius very clear when it comes to medical research but even in the in the arts in the humanities those who have developed a certain innovative insight about the nature of man and how man works have helped and contributed to the growth of mankind tikkun olam in a more fundamental way than holding up one particular alcoholic can say that that's not an altruistic act the question is where is more benefit for more people ultimately in the world now substitute when the PASOK says the verse says about the Jews that the Jews are among malefic Kohanim they're a nation of priests subsea nation of artists we've been charged with a certain responsibility to create certain realities about harnessing the natural bent of man which is to indulge to take pleasure and we've been charged with the mission of harnessing that and using it in a productive manner and the halacha Klong has given us a formula a formula where we can as it were chemically translate the material into the spiritual we go into the laboratory and we come up with the retort with the formulas on how to translate from one form and one reality into another and so if the Jew delays his achievement he's really doing a disservice to the world because we're working from a very audacious premise yes it's hot spot but our hutzpah our audacity is rooted in an empirical reading of history could be it's a quirk of fate that 24 percent of Nobel Prize winners are Jews Kobi just locked out could be it's the function of anti-semitism and we overreacted but he's in that in itself a question why was there so much anti-semitism why is there today so much anti-semitism could be that whoever authored the verse that said nobody would ever make the claim in boys Hannah nobody would ever make the claim that an entire nation witnessed the miraculous event that created that interaction with the divinity now if we were going into business tomorrow we want to start a religion isn't that the best claim to make instead of saying it's a few people here a few people there and trying to market them finding a good media person to promote them isn't it better to say an entire nation so there are two components here one is that there's a prediction that nobody would ever make such a claim in fact nobody did make such a claim why not and who should have taken why should somebody have taken the risk to predict that nobody would ever make such a claim the kuzuri talks about this local Hasidic philosopher recovered godly was written a wonderful book discussing this in length at length the answer is that as soon as you say everybody you can't get away with it unless it's in fact true as long as you allow for well you somebody comes along and says I wasn't there my uncle wasn't there my sister my brother-in-law okay but as soon as you say everybody you're stuck so somebody even according to the naysayers the skeptics at some point in time somebody went on record and said it would never happen in fact it never happened strange remember we always talked about evidence we don't talk about proof proof means something is hermetically sealed the preferred use of the term evidence means that there's a preponderance of reason that you should take this position rather than the other position but it depends on depends on what we call objectivity sometimes newcomers pick up at awesome air and they've been here a few weeks they already are alert to the fact that wait a minute wait a minute if I buy into this system that means I just had my last cheeseburger so I asked them tell me you're in classes now that you're going to hear some cases made for evidence that taurah is true that this Halak norm to live this way is a way to achieve fulfillment the way to achieve it's not just reward and Punishment its fulfillment it's that the perfect interaction between the material and the spiritual but you already heard that these books are my shelves here in the office and then the base mothers called Schultz inaros the code of law say don't eat that cheeseburger and a fair amount of other do's and don'ts now make believe you have good imagination make believe the following make believe that instead of saying we're sisters put on tefillin don't eat that cheeseburger instead of that the shortened or up said live a hedonistic epicurean existence indulge yourself and you're going to be judged on the day of judgment by your maker I gave you the capacity to indulge and if you indulge recklessly randomly without any consideration of any other variables that'll be your key to eternity make believe that was the show Canora now go back and look at the same evidence the same evidence that was godly rabbi brighter words Sheila that they present that's awesome MGBs remember remember GPS GPS those remember another reason to come to us Americans to improve your secular education GPS was George Bernard Shaw he's the one who said those who can do those who can't teach and we used to add and those who can't teach teach teachers and those who can't teach teachers write textbooks right but also math had another I like to refer to another GPS there was grandma Bobby Schiller there was our GPS Lahav dill and she was the point to a picture of her father in Minsk who was a rabbi and a seder and she used to say imagine how many lives he shaped by teaching them Torah we make a blessing in the morning that the Rebennack slalom is a teacher I'm a lamb a tailor mo yourself what greater task is there than to share God's planned for the world with others so it's GPS versus GPS and godly brighter wits and Schiller that's our GPS right we passed Caen like Grandma Bobby Sheila not like George Bernard Shaw and so when you're evaluating is this a game plan is this a reasonable way to live keep in mind hold yourself suspect that what would you rather see would you rather see a way out that tikkun olam perfecting the world correcting the world improving the world should not have details and particulars about sixes drilling what's a Casillas what's Nautica Zayas now there's an aside here that's fascinating the aside is that once you're in the swim of it once you entered into the suka of it totally there's nothing that's more fulfilling and that brings about a state of simcha that's why the peak of simcha is so cold because then every facet of your existence has meaning all of a sudden you become important because you are participating in the orchestration of the symphonic rendition of this generations singing the anthem of what Taylor has to give because it really starts the other way the Ravenna column authored the Torah as I'll say and then created the world like a like an architect working from a blueprint we are created in relation to the tailor so the ultimate fulfillment works that way and so used to tell a story in New York Jude that hot blistering humid day mid-august in New York 70 years ago this scene jus gets lost and he wanders into a non-jewish section of Brooklyn an Irish Italian section and he must get in out of the son he wanders into a pub into a tavern and he asks for the orders cold glass of beer there are two non-jews sitting at the other end of the bar they're a bit high and they're having a contest who can squeeze an orange with one hand more to fill up a glass the laughing knocking over glasses filling glasses finally after a little while they take note of this scene jus sitting at the other end quietly drinking his beer and they throw down an orange they rolled down on the bar and they slide a glass across and they say okay Joe let's see what you can do this fella rather nonplussed unimpressed he says you know what throw me down the peel of the orange that you just squeezed look at him like he's crazy they throw down the peel of the already squeezed orange and he takes that peel and he squeezes it and he fills up a glass and a second glass and it spills over onto the counter they're shocked they stunned how did you do that I'm a fundraiser for a Jewish organization but I would like to use that I would like to reapply that taking the orange and squeezing it for its spirituality the juice is the spirituality the orange is the material representation of a spiritual essence and that's every Mitzvah every time I make a bow on an orange a particular age I am identifying the relationship between my taste buds the enzymes that work to create the taste in my tongue communicate to my brain and the nature of how this orange is designed didn't have to be that way everything could have tasted like castor oil but it is that way and so the Jews asked structured there are definitely we work suka dick the total human experience enters in but it needs mesquite salt there's that which has to be kept out and kept in in my complete experience and as the measure Hoffman says there's no need physically psychologically sociologically of the human condition that there is not a platform to express it and actualize it within the halawet nor do I have to know of course my Rebbe Yaakov Weinberg Baltimore once told me that he quoted a Gomorrah he was speaking some non-orthodox group not a logic group outside of Baltimore and he quoted a Gomorrah that says that for every non kosher food there's a comparable kosher food that has a similar taste somebody came over to him afterwards and said okay here's my menu and can give me the exact corresponding tastes I'll consider the possibility of becoming kosher of course he couldn't supply it he said theoretically it's true but doesn't mean that I can necessarily supply it for you I mentioned to you that that was the same group that some months later he was giving a lecture and somebody jumped up fellow happened to be a psychiatrist lived in that community a suburb of Baltimore again not a halakhah be observant group and this psychiatrist got up and said I'm asking you to stop speaking most of it about 40 50 people in the room everybody was shocked so what you promised it because if you continued speaking you're going to persuade me I don't want to be persuaded the other people in the room said ridiculous so you'll leave he got up and left zero Weinberg asked me who is more honest him or them you can listen to something that's persuasive that makes sense that's reasonable and you can make believe you didn't hear it nature cleanup says the human being is a psychological creature take it Sadiq and coerce him to do evil after a while there be an erosion of his sensitivity to the evil take an evil man and bribe him to do good to begin to develop a bit of a feeling for the good and so circus is a time of peak simcha it would seem to be counterintuitive that the time I bring in the bounty from the fields I'm supposed to be super happy and you asked me to go out of my home right with the luxurious furniture all that comfort and sleep and eat in the sukkah in that counter into that's gonna bring the simcha yes because if you're waiting for the beef and the wine to deliver happiness unto themselves doesn't work if you use it you squeeze the material experience for its spirituality you make a boho but you need another dimension once a year there's a certain opportunity to appreciate that the material is transitory it disappears if you relate to it only unto itself then it it's self-employed bollock sends an email to billow and he writes in the email i'm your Thermomix ryan a nation went out of its I am they went out of Egypt right which was the place of super licentiousness super indulgence hedonistic Society but he saw as a nods they covered the essence of the land most people learned that there were just so many of them you can't see the ground the sauce Emma says they changed our attitude towards the physical universe they say that it's all about spirituality and that since we are this subtle blend complex blend of the material and the physical the material and the spiritual we cannot access the spiritual except through the physical but that's only using the a logic route to get there and so bollock resented the fact that we can't just approach the physical with indulging that it's it's a resource for spirituality in fact the greatest enemy of our time in our era hitler yimach shmo zero rights and mine Kampf i've taken out after the jews because they are the conscience of the world I would submit that the first Rashi in commish that we're going to read few days talks about what is tor have to begin with creation all this cosmology the complexity of creation Rashi and paraphrasing hazael anticipates that our being in our to serve will always be contentious the nations of the world find it intolerable for us to be here why because it's a Sokka it's one big sucker it's the totality of the human experience Yahoo sure comes in doubt you surly legislates urban legislation for how to have an ecologically sound environment everything is grist for the mill the total human experience that part time not a commercial on a broadcast but the total human experience that's suka and that's out yourself these are the two mitzvahs that the gore finds in tilling by Heba Salim Sukhoi - a bit Sein and that is somatically the connection those two metals make a statement that we are here in order to fulfill our mandate is to utilize everything that our creator gave us to connect to the Creator and to bring that mission statement through clad yourself through the Jewish people that suka that's the Mitzvah and the day of judgment that the Gentile nations fail that's the R Biden that separates between the men and the boys and that is the ultimately the nations of the world find it hard to accept impossible to accept as being here in a tourist State there's always the threat that when Jews are here it can evolve into a tourist State surely there are Jews here you know what yourself that are doing their best to delay that but in spite of themselves there's a and because of some there have contributed there is a growing world of Torah and we're moving somehow closer to creating that Sucher national state with machetes Yaakov makitas partition there is that which is outside which I can't yet elevate and is that which is within and only then will we in turn help bring about what the world wants of us ultimately is Tikun Olam but how the mouth will shock i the to have to inseparably go together toxemia [Music] [Applause]