How Parashat Tetzaveh Saved Rav Yom Tov Heller

for the average person that's looking at it superficially seem like they're not really relevant to your uh life in the year 2024 where you're you know young single looking to get married one day or or or you're married newly wed you have a couple of kids maybe or you're older already you're in your uh 40s your your life is relatively developed and you know you got a little business going got a position at some major company what am I going to do with the clothing of the what am I going to do with this how could I apply the weekly to to my life some people don't know that's this is not a recommendation this is not suggestion every Jew must read the weekly twice twice twice you have to read the and once with commentary meaning you have to go to the par three times every week many times people do this on uh on on Friday or on Shabbat they use one of the uh you know the time that the B reads it to one of the times they do the other times uh you know right uh right there and then uh or after Sho before during the week bottom line is just like you have to you know uh make a blessing on you wash your hands or you have to eat kosher food or anything else in it's that every Jew has to learn the weekly par twice and commentary the par once so even when it's a Paras where on the surface of things it doesn't look like it's relevant to your life it doesn't look like it's relevant to your life so first you have to know that just because something doesn't look relevant doesn't mean it's not relevant and since we're already on the train of stories I'll tell you another story but this story didn't happen 2,000 years ago this story took place about 400 years ago theor at the time was yov yov was one of the tosot a extraordinary at the time he was living in uh in I believe in Prague and uh he was extraordinarily uh successful in the world of Torah major notoriety all over uh Europe he was the biggest Rabbi you know in the in the uh continent he was uh one of the he was also extraordinarily successful financially he had uh he was he well off not as well off as the go thought he was but nonetheless he was well off now the uh King King Ferdinand II passed the decree that uh since there was a war at the time and they want to raise more money for the war so of course the victim of all of the crimes of the uh of the enemies of the Jews are always you know going to uh uh they're going to make the Jews the victims even for their mistakes so what happened he want they wanted to tax or they taxed the you know the Jewish community in uh there 40,000 in so many words in today's in today's uh uh uh money I don't know $40 million extraordinary amount of money or maybe more now of course the uh unlike today where each to their own mentality that people have this came to the Jewish Community who has to deal with it the and knew that you know the poor people in the community that are baking barely making ends meat they can't contribute much on the other hand there's a few rich people a few rich people within the Jewish Community they have to contribute more why they have more AEM blessed them with more therefore they have a bigger responsibility so he ruled that the wealthier people in the community have to contribute a large chunk of this 40, ,000 that was due to the government now you would think okay these all religious people keep Shabbat keep the holidays give staka the biggest Rabbi in the world Chief Rabbi told you this is what you have to do you do it well it didn't work out so well why shortly after he told them this they didn't really like it and they uh asked for a uh you know a uh others to get involved there was a meeting over it they re-evaluated the whole thing and confirmed that what the rabbi said was fair according to the Tora it was 100% Fair well before they ever gave the money all of a sudden as is studying his holy T he gets a knock on the door it's one of the messengers of the uh King telling him there's a ruling where you are under arrest and you have to come to the castle you have to come to the court it's a big embarrassment they arrest the biggest Rabbi in the world Trea him like a criminal without even telling him what the charges are tell him that he did something against the kinghood what did he do long story short finally he gets they go to the court tell him the charges that he's under arrest why because in your books you wrote derogatory statements against the Christian people which is the people there that this is their country you wrote derogatory things against the Christian people you called us idolators and uh according to uh to the law if proven guilty which we have proofs of it and even Witnesses if proven guilty death penalty death penalty he said what Witnesses do you have what are you talking about what I said is no he tries to defend himself like n we're not buying it goes no I wasn't talking about the Christians I was talking about other Gentiles we don't buy it we don't buy it what Witnesses who who said who are you you're relying on what your Christians Scholars are telling you and the court surprises them by telling them no no no we have people from your community that came to us and told us that you are constantly talking against the Christian people and calling us idolators the pain of being in prison and being literally a stone throw away from getting the death penalty was big but to hear that this all came from Wicked Jews that pretend to be religious was the Heartbreak of all heartbreaks now had a few friends a few obviously many people loved him they did whatever they could to help him improve the conditions at least until the trial long story short one of the uh friends got him to be able to meet with the king king Ferdinand himself and uh King Ferdinand said yeah I know about your case and um but because of your friends and uh that are uh you know that are friends of mine I'm willing to hear you out what do you have to say about it and says listen uh your highness uh this these are false charges I didn't talk about uh you he says how but you're saying in your books you're saying that the uh uh Christians are Idol worshippers she goes no no no if you notice in my books I don't say the word Christian in my book I say the word akum and akum your highness means people that are worshiping foreign gods that are a uh you know that are Gentiles that are foreign you know that are worshiping other gods it's not necessarily uh the uh the Christians so and he explains he tries to explain to this King how there's a difference between akum where they worship the stars and the moon and all types of idols and you know foreign things and really he's not referring to the Christians now of course the according to to the the Christianity is considered idolatry but he's not telling him this he needs to save his life he's not uh obligated to tell him that uh really yes you you guys are the idol worshippers and uh please kill me he's allowed to say no we're saying akum akum is a uh ones that are um that are uh worship stars and other Idols whereas you guys believe in a trinity which for us Jews is forbidden but you're entitled to believe what you want but you're not the same as the uh people that worshiped an actual statute or or pray to the son so the King Ferdinand was a smart man and he said there wait a minute how many of these akums how many of these are in uh Prague he said uh not many when was the last time you saw one he says your highness I never saw one he says how many of these are in Europe people that are worshiping the stars that you've seen that you know of said your highness I don't know of any he says so how do you expect me to believe that you wrote in multiple books multiple times about these Idol worshippers that don't exist and it's not really referring to us why would you ever write about something that doesn't exist and the genius yov says to the king that literally has his life in his hands if you will the Flesh and Blood allowed to kill him says to him youranus you believe in our you believe in our holy Torah you believe in the Old Testament yes you know that in the Old Testament we have we have talks about the clothing of the we have talks about the bet mikdash we have talks about all of the sacrifices and you know that us Jews we study those laws day in and day out every single day we study this even though our bet mikdash was destroyed even though we don't have aen even though in essence you can't really Implement all of these laws to our lives today but yet we still study them because we believe these are the words of the Living God this is what our our Torah is not about just what can I do today but rather we learn the entire body of the Divine words of a because all the words of a and all of it needs to be studied the things that are clearly something that you could apply to your life today and the things that are not necessarily something you could apply to your Liv today all of it must be studied this is what saved his life even though the argument against him Came From Within came from within the Jewish community that nearly killed him to in essence show one example of why had us study some of these things that may at first look look like they are not relevant we are meant to be a light unto the Nations not to follow their misguided practices remember every Jew has to remember that he's a Jew and she's a Jew we don't celebrate non-jewish holidays even if they seem harmless it's a z disrespect to the Tor and could lead to chem desecration of God's name stick to our holy Torah and our own holidays that's the the path of a true Jew