Do You Have A Backbone? - Lech Lecha On Fire

This Torah class is brought to [music] you by tora anytime.com. >> A Torah Anytime original series. I once walked into the ider of BMG looking for a safer and ran into my friend Rob Bogart. And after smoozing for a few minutes, I asked him for a from a for a vart from his illustrious grandfather, Rabbi Breastler, the rashiva of the Scranton Yeshiva. And he told me the following fantastic vart. The famous giant og desperately wanted to marry Aram's wife, Sarah. Now, even though he was a massive giant and pretty immoral man, he still wanted to marry her despite her being a sadist and probably not interested in the at all. Nevertheless, he wanted to marry Sara to tap into the greatness that she was blessed with and waited for the chance to marry her and one day he found his opportunity. The puzzles ava ran with glee to tell a that his nephew light was captured by the mighty kings of those days and thought that a would run off to save his nephew or try to and inject himself into this international war that was going on and then get killed in the process and Sarah would finally be his for the taking. Now we all know the story. Aram did not get killed and he successfully extracted light from his captives and 's devious plan was foiled. But let's take a step back for a second. What in the world was I thinking with this plan? How crazy did he think of was that he would just inject himself into an international war consisting of some of the mightiest and most brutal nations in all of human history? The modern-day equivalent would be one man attempting to save his nephew being held captive by the North Korean army in some impenetrable for fortress. What exactly was Z thinking? The answer says Rabbi Breler lies in the word. Notice how the pusk says a and not just a. This is one of the only times in the entire Tyra that a is called a hive. Why is that? The word literally means that he comes from the other side of the river. But it's used here to brand Aram as the one who had the courage to stand up for his belief even if all the other people in the world were on the other side. It is used here to remind us who Aram was. A man who stood firm in his convictions, even in the face of sneering and laughing and eye rolling from others. He believed in Hashem so deeply that no amount of ridicule and scorn could make him change his mind. That was how Avam discovered monotheism in a world of polotheism and was mocked and left at the world over. He was persecuted and abused. He was thrown into fiery furnaces, but it made no difference to him. He was firm as a rock. And I knew this about Avam. I liked this trait very much in Aram because it meant that when he heard that his nephew's life was in danger, it would make no difference how crazy it would be to help him. O knew that Aram was a man who did the right thing for one reason and one reason only, because it's the right thing to do. Even if it meant waging a war, one on 10,000. Some call it crazy, other people call it dedication. Og happily ran to tell Aramy, the man of passion and motivation that his nephew was captured, hoping Aram would die. But he didn't. He survived because that's who we are. People who do things because it's the right thing to do. I was once delivering a class to a bunch of Jewish students in Princeton University and bumped into Princeton's plasma physics professor, Professor Fish, a very nice, wise Jewish man. And he told me something fascinating. He said, 'In all my 50 plus years in teaching in colleges and universities, I have noticed that there are extremely few Jewish math or history professors and an unusually high number of physics and psychology and economics and sociology professors who are Jewish. And he said he has a theory why. He said when Alvarino had the mental fortitude to wage an intellectual war with the entire world defending monotheism in a world of polotheism he injected into his descendants for the duration of history the natural desire to probe and intellectually attack and explore new vistas in thought. Jews don't like teaching knowledge that is mere history or set in place and stale and it's unchanging. Jews in intrinsically need to question, to inquire, to ask questions, to hypothesize, to stare down theories that the entire world assumes to be true and then replace it with better ones. The Jews are the most radically transformative group of people on earth. And it's all because of Aramino. Aram's outlook on the world has lived on in us. And we too look out in the world with eyes filled with curiosity and wonder, ready to explore the wisdom and the grandeur of the truth of Hashem. Now listen to this. Today, hospital operating rooms are the very image of cleanliness and sterile and precise and controlled. Every glove, every mask, every instrument is sanitized and spotless. But 150 years ago, the world didn't exist. It's almost impossible to imagine. But a 100 years ago, nearly half of all surgical patients died after their operations. Not from the procedure itself, but from infection. As the famous saying went, the operation was a success, but the patient died. A mother giving birth in a hospital was five times more likely to die than one giving birth at home. And doctors were bewildered. Now, in those days, doctors didn't wash their hands. They didn't sterilize their tools. They went from one patient to the next. from dissecting corpses to delivering babies, sometimes still wearing the same bloodstained apron. And no one knew why people kept dying because back then the concept of germs, those invisible killers, was a mystery. The greatest minds in medicine laughed at the idea that something unseen could cause death. So then what was causing all the death in the hospitals when all the surgeries were being done successfully? comes along a man named Joseph Listister, a quiet, deeply religious English surgeon, and he was horrified by the number of people dying in his care. And as he searched for an answer, he came across a part of the Tyra where Hashem commanded Clai to wash themselves after coming in contact with the sick or the dead. Now, obviously that mitzvah is about to spiritual purity. But Listister wondered perhaps Hashem and his infinite wisdom was also teaching something deeper. Perhaps the same act that cleansed spiritually could also protect us physically. So combined with the new discoveries of Louis Pastor Listister realized that the Tyra's ancient command might actually hold the secret to saving lives. So he took a stand. He told surgeons to start washing their hands, to sterilize their instruments, to keep the operating rooms clean. And they mocked him. They called him eccentric and delusional and a religious fanatic. Even his nurses complained about the extra work. But Listister didn't care. He believed that God had revealed the truth. And he wasn't going to back down. And slowly the results spoke for themselves. The death rates in his word plummeted and patients who once would have died were now living. And the world began to notice. And soon hospitals everywhere adopted his methods and modern surgery was born. In the world of health, there is before listister and there's after listister. That's how much he changed medicine. Even Listerine, that mouthwash was named after him, a nod to the man who brought cleanliness and life and healing because he dared to follow the truth when the rest of the world laughed at him. But here's what really hit me. Listster stood alone because he had conviction because he believed in the truth even when no one else did. And that that courage to stand up for the truth is the heartbeat of the Jewish people. For thousands of years, we've been the same way. The world goes one way and we go another. They mock and they laugh and they scorn and yet we stand tall. We see corruption and moral decay and falsehood. And like Avino, we stand on one side of the river while the entire world stands on the other. We speak truth. We defend morality. We bring light even when it's unpopular, even when it's dangerous. Because that's who we are. We are Ben Aram. The people who crossed over. We don't follow trends. We define them. We don't bend to the world. We elevate it. We don't raise the bar. We are the bar. So the next time the world laughs at what you stand for, remember Joseph Listister, remember Ara because we are the nation that has stood for truth no matter the cost. And we will keep standing and keep roaring and keep lighting up the world no matter who stands against us. You've just experienced another Torah class brought to you by to anytime.com.