THE JEW'S SECRET WEAPON

[Music] one of the best ways a company or an organization or a book can convey its mission statement is by choosing a good name a name that encapsulates the very essence of the company or the team or the organization for example hat in one word sums up exactly what they are and what they stand for Home Depot it's exactly what its name says it is a store for all your household needs or Tesla new exciting electrifying so when you look at the names of the books of the T they all do a very good job in encapsulating what's contained within that particular safer for example bous the entire safe of bous is in essence the physical and spiritual beginning and development of the the world or VRA says it's a loving call from us and AEM to us teaching us how to properly serve serve him with carbonis B midmar it's the entire story of the Jews in the desert the entire speech that M gave on the last day of his life the what the odd one out is shise names how does shise names encapsulate the entire safer what does names have to do with the ex Exile in MIT what does Shem have to do with getting out of Egypt and going into the desert what does names have to do with camping around T and receiving the T what does shayas have to do with building a mishan what does shemas have to do with anything that contains within sa for sh so the bat says something fascinating on the word sham and it perhaps Can Shed light on our question he says that the word shamise is really an acronym for this refers to the obligation for every male to learn the tah each week with the [Music] translation now there's an obvious question why is the T suddenly right at the beginning of is telling me about the Mitzvah to do shouldn't it have reminded me long ago or alluded to long ago somewhere I don't know and sa for basus like at the beginning of the Torah shouldn't the Torah allude to the mid somewhere closer to the beginning of the year when we begin our cycle of tah reading why suddenly now in the beginning of it's alluding to so perhaps there's a rhythm and a reason for choosing to place the reference of mikra right at the beginning of perhaps it's to tell us a powerful message perhaps the tah is telling us do you want to know the key to surviving Exile do you want to know the secret to making it out of persecution alive do you want to know how to thrive in a desert it's the Torah specifically Waits until sa schm to tell me about the Mitzvah of learning the weekly Torah reading for SCH Begins the gullis SCH begins our journey into the desert SCH begins our voyage that will eventually crisscross the entire world schmice begins our Trek that took us from Iran to Iraq to Spain to Portugal to Yugoslavia to Yemen to France Germany Morocco Russia Egypt Africa Austria Australia China Norway Bosnia Croatia Chile Mongolia and everywhere in between precisely there right at the beginning do we need a reminder about the mitz of mum for it is the secret it is the key keeping the toyra close by is the antidote to the poison of Exile week in and week out month in and month out year in and year out Century in Century out no matter when our journey takes us the Tyra will be by our side it is the secret it is the key the Relentless continuous for many many years every Friday on the bottom right corner of the cover of the New York Times was a box which stated women should light the Shabbat candles at such and such a time and for decades this was there year in and year out and one day it just stopped the sponsor had died and the New York Times moved on without its familiar Friday candle lighting times and years later on January 1st 2000 the New York Times put out the much anticipated special Millennium Edition and the front page of the paper was split into 3/3 the first third was a reprint of the front page from January 1st 1900 the next third was the front page of the present day January 1st 2000 the last third was a futuristic front cover depicting January 1st 201100 and it predicted some that page that predictive page was strange the headline introduced some humorous article debating whether or not robots should be allowed to vote but what it had on the bottom right corner is what took people by surprise for some reason on the corner of the 2,100 front page it had the following familiar words in a box women shalain Shabbat candles at such and such a time people were bewildered they hadn't seen that in years why all of a sudden did it make its return so the editor-in-chief an Irish man was asked what the box was doing there and he responded as follows when we were sitting in the editor's boardroom trying to figure out what to put in on that last section of the front page we realize there is no way to know for certain where the world will be in a hundred years what would the world possibly look like we can't even remotely predict what the world will be like but there is one thing we can predict with certainty there is one thing we know for sure and that is Jewish women will be lighting Shabbat candles in Friday night I don't know how but they did it the last 3,000 years they're going to do it the next 3,000 years our nation has a little secret we have something called the T which has guided us and prodded us and loved us and saved us and nurtured us it has led us through the darkest times in world history it held our hands and took us out of cattle cars and ghettos it bent down picked us up dust us dusted us off and carried us on its wings throughout the world it has been our pipeline to Heaven our connection to infinity and we likewise rever it and study it we learn it we love it we sing it we cry for it we pick it up and we dance with it precisely at the beginning of our Exile the T tells us the antidote the very first words of sa lets us in on the secret it not only encapsulates the entire sa for SCH it encapsulates our entire trk Through Time SCH belts out love the tah and the tah will love you learn it week after week after week week after week be there for it and it will be there for you it's our Mantra it's our Anthem it's what keeps us a little tiny Nation thriving in our long dark exile [Music]