How are Jews still around?-Bechukosai - The Parshah On Fire

This Torah class is brought to you by tora anytime.com. Without a question, the single most frightening part of the entire Tyra are the curses contained in parasa. Those horrible events that Hashem tells us will befall the Jewish people if we abandon our faith in him and our passionate observance of his mitzvah. These were those scary heavenly declarations of the misery that will one day rain down upon us if we fail to hold up Hashem's flag in this world. How our bodies will languish. How our enemies will dominate us. How wild animals will kill us and our children and destroy our roads and cities. How we'll be met with sword and plague and sickness. How we'll encounter forms of death unfathomably gruesome and ghastly. How we'll eat the very flesh of our own children out of hunger. and will be scattered amongst the nations of the world. And our lands will become desolate and our cities in ruin and we'll be rendered into a bunch of carcasses and heaped together into a pile of rot. Yeah, kind of scary. But here's what's strange. Just as the para is ending and it finishes saying all those horrible things that are going to happen to us if we don't follow in Hashem's ways, it throws in something that seems to have nothing to do with anything, just completely unrelated. Immediately after following the the Tyra decides to discuss the laws of the the right that each Jew has to donate his monetary value to the Bdash. Why does the Tyra place the laws of right after the doesn't it take away just a little bit from the importance and the magnitude of the topic? Why would the Tyra follow its thunderous and ominous description of the very serious almost apocalyptic catastrophes that will rain down on us with something as technical and seemingly unrelated as a so perhaps the following idea can give us a clue. Out of all the many character traits that the Jewish people exhibit, the one that is perhaps most impressive, the one that rises to the top in my opinion is our endurance. Our ability to be history's punching bag and live to tell the tale, to have suffered at the hands of virtually every single one of history's villains and monsters and still survive it all. But more impressive than merely surviving in the face of adversary is sets what sets the Jewish people apart is our unique ability to actually use the pain and the anguish that we endured as a springboard to catapult us forward to make us stronger and smarter and better. We don't get shoved down and then stand up and link limp back to safety just licking our wounds. We spring up with vigor and we jump up with tenacity and we regain our spirits and we rebuild ourselves even better than before. Each tragedy we go through is somehow transformed into new creativity. We're pummeled and we're terrorized and yet we pick ourselves up and we dust ourselves off and we find a reservoir of strength deep inside of us to not only move on but to move on on fire to thrive and grow and soar using the animosity around us sort of as jet fuel to power the spiritual rocket ship within us. There are many examples in our history of how following a tragedy we picked up and we rebuilt ourselves even stronger than before. Schlom dies. The tragedy of the division of the kingdom that comes afterwards the towering and after the tragic destruction of the B first Bikash comes the great renewal of Tyra beginning with and culminating with Ezra. From the destruction of the second Bamed comes the explosion of Tyra in the form of the mission of the major. From the crusades come the Ashkanaz. From the horrific Spanish Inquisition and the expulsion come the immense mystical circle of Tvas led by the Ariza leaving ripple effects that literally reverberated throughout the entire Tyra world. From the unspeakable Eastern European persecution comes the movement. From the Holocaust, the most horrid loss of Jewish life in our nation's history comes the miraculous resurrection of Tyra Judaism in America and in where there is such a proliferation of institutions supporting our Tyra lifestyle that virtually every 15 feet is another scholarish a seminary. You could push the Jewish people down, but somehow someway they're going to come storming back. The question is, where did that inner reservoir of fortitude and strength come from? With what energy did our parents and our grandparents, after persecution of the worst degree, rise from the ashes and rebuild our communities bigger and better than before, brick by painstaking brick. Many people look at Jewish history and say, "Listen, it's just one long chain of miracles and that's it. That's the only explanation from Hashem just swooped in time and time again and saved us from the brink." But is that correct? Is that the only explanation? Is that being historically honest? I think not. Of course, there were miracles. Yes, Hashem split the sea. Yes, Mun fell from the sky. Yes, a small group of Hashmon defeated an entire empire. Yes, the Jewish people survived millennia of exile and persecution and hatred. But if you stop there, if you just say Hashem did it all, we're missing the other half of the story because a melam there's no king without a nation. Yeah, Hashem performed miracles, but he didn't force our hand. We had Yeah, the sea split, but it was we who walked into it. Yeah, man came down from the sky, but it was us only because we had already followed Hashem into a barren wilderness with no food in sight. We took the first steps. He responded, "Yeah, there were miracles that took place during the prim story. There was also Esther risking her life and Morai not bowing. Yes, the oil burnt for eight nights, but there was also a long and brutal battle fought by real people with real fear who nevertheless said, "We will stand up and stand strong." Of course, there were miracles throughout Jewish history. No one's saying not. But our survival wasn't a miracle vending machine just spitting out Nissan. It was built on generations of Jews choosing to remain Jewish, to keep walking, to keep learning, to keep believing. The question is how? How in fact did we keep on going? How have we not gotten eaten up at this point? If you look at the statistics of mental illnesses developed by people who experienced trauma, people who had to flee their communities or their countries, people had to spend time in jail, people who fought in Iraq or Afghanistan or Vietnam. The rate of mental illnesses developed by such people is absolutely staggering. According to the VA, 30% of veterans returning from war zones suffered from PTSD and were severely mentally hampered for the rest of their life. According to the National Veterans Foundation, 44% of veterans relied on heavy substance abuse to try unsuccessfully to cope with their traumas. 43% of inmates at state prisons, 44 at federal prisons, 63 at local prisons are diagnosed with mental disorders, either directly or indirectly due to the trauma of being in jail. Human beings aren't built to endure the worst of what this world can throw at them. War zones, prisons, bloodshed, displacement, most people don't walk away from that kind of trauma whole, let alone functional. And yet the Jewish people who have endured it all. There isn't a form of suffering or trauma that the Jewish people haven't faced. Expulsions, pgrams, inquisitions, ghettos, gas chambers. And somehow, not only did we survive, we thrived. Every time we were knocked down, we rose higher. country after country, generation after generation, we emerged not just as survivors, but as leaders and scholars and builders leading the world that five minutes earlier was trying to kill us. Kicked out of Aritzel, no problem. We go to BL, which is modern-day Iraq. And we set up shop and we don't just develop a flourishing community. We develop the most transformative Jewish community outside in Jewish history. We're exiled. We have to run to Persia, modernday Iran. No problem. We set up shop. We become involved in trade and crafts. We have all sorts of administration positions in the government. We get exiled to Rome, no problem. We become craftsmen and merchants and bankers and doctors. We build massive Jewish communities, the biggest being in Alexandria with a tremendously vibrant Jewish life. We get kicked out and we run off to Spain. No problem. We become financial adviserss and physicians and writers and mapmakers and astrologers and philosophers. We developed some of the finest Jewish communities to have ever lived. Teaching and developing some of the most influential Jewish scholars to have ever graced this earth. Reishment that we learn every single day like the Rambam the Ramban. They betzra. We get kicked out of Spain. No problem. We run off to the Netherlands and what happens? Suddenly the Netherlands become the largest and most powerful economy in the world. We trade in diamonds. We run finance empires. We build strong tyrabased communities. The world kicks us out of a country and that country kicks us out and that country just collapses and we move on and we become leaders and builders and movers somewhere else. The Jewish people's resilience is unparalleled in all of world history. Where does it come from? How are we not affected from the thousands of years of trauma that statistically speaking should have eaten us alive generations ago? The answer is the end of this para says it holds the answer immediately following the list of horrors that will barrage the Jewish people if we stray from the Jewish path. The Tyra speaks of the ability of each and every person to donate his monetary worth to the B mikdash. That placement isn't random. There's nothing in the Tyra that's random. The juxtaposition is telling us that the immense inner value of each and every Jew is unbreakable. And no matter how grim and gory the backdrop is, one's nama is intrinsically holy. No amount of persecution will ever convince us otherwise. The Tyra's specific placement of the mitzvah of which highlights the ability for each Jew to donate his worth to the Bikush is telling us that even as we get kicked and burned and stabbed and expelled, we must remember our everpresent, untouchable, unbreakable, glistening inner worth. We remember that it's not those barbaric hooligans who determine our value. It's God who determines our value. And in his eyes, we are all intrinsically holy. No matter how many layers of human corpses we may lunder lay under, we must climb out and allow our holiness to shine. We are the torch of humanity and no amount of ferocious persecution will ever dim it. That's our secret that we have been reminding ourselves for thousands of years that our worth is intrinsic. We're internalizing that concept so deeply that no amount of external trauma can convince us otherwise. If we lose sight of the immense spiritual value embedded deep inside of us, then our enemies win the war. But if we keep our eyes on the potential within and we develop a perspective that inside of us is unimaginable holiness, then we are indestructible. Now listen to this idea. Every month, Jews go outside to say keshana. It's a monthly sanctification of the new moon. And we look up to the moon and we declare that the same way the moon renews itself, so must we. We take inspiration from the change of the moon to get up and change ourselves. Now, let's ask an obvious question. Just about the only thing in the entire solar system that does not change is the moon. The earth has seasons. Stars come and go. The sun is forever burning itself with more and more energy. The moon just sits there. There's no wind. There's no water. There's no gravity. There's no life. Neil Armstrong's footprints are still there exactly where he left them in 1969. We could not have picked a worse symbol for change in the entire solar system. That's the symbol of change. A big stone in the sky that just sits there. So, you're going to tell me, "Well, what do you mean? It gets bigger and smaller each month." No, it doesn't. There's a varying degree of light from the sun being shown at it each month depending on how much light is being blocked. It doesn't actually change. Who are we like, who are we fooling? Why would we choose the moon as our symbol of change when it's the one thing in the entire universe that doesn't change? The answer is that's precisely the point we're trying to make. Change is not about waiting for the season to pass or the climate to improve. Change is not about dreaming about different settings and scenarios more conducive to our success. Change is about changing our perspective. Change is taking the circumstances at hand and seeing them in a different light with a different angle. Change is ridding the habit of blaming circumstances and directing our sights on inner transformation. And therefore, the moon is the perfect symbol. It just sits there. It never moves a muscle. And yet, it waxes and waines every month. How so? Because our perspective of it changes. It screams out to us that in order to grow and climb and ride the wave of life, we need to be forever enhancing ourselves, to be forever improving the quality in our self. to stop blaming external purses and places and things and start focusing on ourselves to be forever grabbing hold of that self-relenishing reservoir of value inside of us and unleashing it. That is why every single organ in the human body grows bigger as you age. Every part of your body was born significantly smaller than what it is right now. Your nose, your legs, your lips, your stomach. The only organ which remains the exact same from the time you were a baby until the day you die are your eyes. Why is that? Why don't they grow and change like the rest of the body? Perhaps it's because Hashem doesn't want people to tell themselves that they're going to just wait until their eyes get a little larger to see the bigger picture or to look at life with with more depth. No. Hashem doesn't want people to excuse their shortsightedness or their shallowess by saying that their eyes aren't fully developed yet. No, no, no. the size of your eyes remain the exact same throughout your entire life. Our perspective on the other hand is what needs to be changing in order to grow and become better people because having the right perspective in life is the single most important trait to have as a Jew because it enables us to see through the noise and ignite the spiritual rocket ship that's inside of us. Here's another example of this. Shulavi is about to choose the next king who will rule over all of Cla. And he walks up to Yishi's house. And all Shul knows is that one of Yishi's eight sons is becoming king. He just doesn't know which one. So Yeshi brings out all the sons and they go through them one by one, but none of them are a good fit. Then asks to bring him his youngest son. David wasn't even there. He was in the field. Look what the Tyra says about him. It says, "I lift who walks up to and the says he had beautiful eyes and says ah that's the one he's the next king of Kal is now why in the world does the Tyra say that David had beautiful eyes why was that relevant who cares and it almost makes it sound like that's the reason he was chosen to be king because he had beautiful eyes does that make any sense because he had beautiful eyes perhaps the answer is that the terror is not referring referring to his physical beauty. It's referring to his perspective. Perhaps the reason he became king was because of the quality of his eyesight, his view of the world. Doesn't was David wasn't chosen because he was stronger or smarter or bigger or faster. He wasn't. He was chosen because he had the right set of eyes. Because perspective in life is everything. It's the difference between mediocrity and greatness. When Yuri Gagarin, the first man ever in space, returned back to Russia 1961, Soviet leaders turned to the Russian people and said, "My dear Russians, we went all the way to space, and you know what? God wasn't there. It's official. It's confirmed. God does not exist." On the other hand, Buzz Aldrin from America, one of the first people to land on the moon, right upon landing, he kneel down and thanked God in heaven and returned, saying, "I went to space and I found God." Because in life, we see what we want to see. The Russians were trying to rid themselves of God. They went up to space and didn't see him. Buzz Aldrin was a religious man looking for God, and he went up to space and he found him. Our eyesight, our perspective is absolutely everything in life. Having the right perspective is the difference between a life of growth and development or a life of stagnation and decay. That's why the Hebrew word for I is ion she points out that the word ion also means spring for having the right outlook in life can make us release a spiritual spring of potential and gush forth energies that are strong enough to survive any adversary. We go out once a month whether in the cold or the rain, the snow, the sleep, and we dance by the light of the moon. For our nation has a spring of spiritual energy contained within our souls. And we with the right perspective can always tap into it. Listen to this story he tells over the following story. After the Nazis invaded the small village of Klesenberg, they began to celebrate in their usual sadistic fashion. They orchestrated all the Jews into a circle in the center of town. And then the Nazis paraded the Rebil Yu the Halberstean the Klesber Reban into the middle of the circle and they're taunting him and they're teasing him and they're pulling out his beard. They're pushing him around. The vile soldiers train their guns on the Klesenberger Rebba. And as the commander began to speak, they're laughing. Tell us, Rabbi, do you really believe that you're the chosen people? And the soldiers, they're guarding the crowd. They're laughing. The Reb answers loudly and clearly, "Most certainly." And the officer became enraged and he lifted his rifle above his head and he viciously beat the Reb, swinging the rifle like a baseball bat. and he's swinging and hitting the Reb's head. And the Reba fell to the ground and he's blooded and he's brewed bruised. There's a rage in the officer's voice. "Do you still think you are the chosen people?" he yelled. And once again, the Reba nodded and he said, "Yes, we are." And the officer became even more infuriated. And he kicked the Reb. And he repeated, "You stupid Jew, you lie here on the ground beaten and humiliated. What makes you think you're part of the chosen people?" And the rebel looked at his family and the fellow town's people watching on in horror. And he turned back to face the officer. And from the depths of his humiliation, covered in dust, the Reb replied, "As long as we are the ones getting kicked and not the ones doing the kicking, we can call ourselves the chosen people." From the back alleyways of the destroyed city of Urusim to the ports of Spain in 1492 to the villages in Germany ransacked and torched by pagrum. From deep within forests in the middle of nowhere to the northernmost parts of freezing Siberia from the riots to the crusades to the cells to the dungeons to the fires and the torture chambers and the barracks and the ghettos and the hidden caves and the concentration camps and bomb shelters and prisons and betar and Toledo and Warsaw and keep what's near. Oh, no matter where we find ourselves at the beginning of every month, Jews in groups large and small huddle together in the cold of the night and we say kilishana. We look up at the moon and we proclaim, "Hashem, this month we will be better. This month we will start a new. This month we will re-energize ourselves and bring a fresh perspective and with tears in our eyes, we said, "Hashem, no amount of pain and bloodshed will ever place a damper on the value we place on our holiness. We will keep dancing down history's road and allow our souls to flood forth no matter what and no matter when. And we look down from the moon with tears streaming down our cheeks and we limp into a small circle and we dance and we sing and we cry and we remind each other that although the exile has been long and it's been dark and it's been dreary if we keep remembering the unimaginable holiness inside our souls, we will without a doubt keep on marching on. You've just experienced another Torah class brought to you by tora anytime.com.