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Why do we have to follow the rabbis? Are
they prophets the way that we follow
prophets in the in the early days like
Moses, Moshe, and the other prophets? I
think it's a very good question. I think
many people have this question out
there. Uh you know, why do we follow the
rabbis? Rabbi, I think what really the
person wants to understand is really am
I following God if I follow this person?
And that's the scary part. That's the
that's the idea. Everyone wants Hashem.
Even the people that left Egypt, they
wanted Hashem. And when Hashem said,
"Okay, you want me. I'm happy you want
me. I'll speak to directly to each one
of you." And God spoke to every Jew
directly the first two commandments. And
they realized it's too much. It's too
hard. And they became very afraid. They
thought they were going to die. And so
they understood after that intense
revelation that I we do need Moshe to
receive it for us and give it to us. And
when that happens, that's how you have
God because God ultimately is infinite
and without limit. And nobody can have
God. Not the highest spiritual worlds,
not the greatest sadic unless God
contracts and limits and channels his
revelation and his divine energy. And so
it it's contracted first of all to the
higher worlds and then it's contracted
through the great sadikim like Moshe and
the prophets and Jewish leadership, the
head of rabbitical courts today and your
average Torah scholar, your local
Orthodox rabbi, they all are channels of
God. It's one unit and we're all
connected and we're all continuing with
the same information and the same
energy, the same godliness that we're
tapping into. And so that's God's
representative for you. That's what you
have to believe. Your rabbi is like like
like your connection to God in a kosher
absolute way the way God built it to be.
And that's why we listen to the rabbis
and that's why we follow the rabbis. The
rabbis know better than we do.
How do I say that with such confidence?
Because I'm a rabbi. No. Today, if
someone studies and is considered an
expert in the Torah, then he knows
better than you. And so, before we even
get into all of the philosophy behind
this, simply put, he put the time in. He
understands the Torah. He understands
the mitzvah, and he understands what all
of the the rabbitic leadership going
back to the prophets has to say about
every every given topic. And he becomes
an expert in Jewish law. And so, we have
to follow him because he knows best and
he's like in front of us if there's a
race. So you're going to ask somebody
why are you following the guy in first
place like what are you what are you
born yesterday I'm following because
he's in front of me and so when the
rabbis that put themselves in front of
us with their knowledge so we have to
follow them because they have the
knowledge we don't that's the simplest
most basic right to the point answer is
you sit down you learn for 25 years
memorize it all by heart know it
backwards and forwards and then we'll
follow you.
Yeah, that's that's the first answer.
But a but a deeper idea here is that
first of all, we know that God tells us
in his Torah that we have to follow the
Jewish leadership because God created a
nation and a system. And if the system
can't function, then there's no people.
And so, yeah, when we had prophets, it
was a bit easier, especially Moses,
Moshe that spoke face tof face with God.
But if you look at the Bible, it wasn't
so simple. They they argued with him.
They they they they rebelled against
him. They made him problems. And so
there's nothing new under the sun. It
wasn't so perfectly like blissful with
Moshe either because life and community
and family and people getting along is
hard. So questions are okay. You're
allowed to have the questions, but we
have to understand at the end of the
day, God is bigger than our brain. And
and the Torah and the religion demands
from us obedience. And we must follow
authority. otherwise there isn't going
to be a Jewish people and we can't
create a a healthy kosher Jewish
society.
So to answer the question of why do we
have to listen to the rabbis
went into the details of understanding
what the importance of a rabbi is and I
want to take things back a little bit.
So the zor explains to us how was the
world created. How was the world
created? And the zor says that God
peered into the Torah
and created the world. What does this
practically mean? That everything in the
world,
every part of existence has its DNA
can be found inside the words of the
Torah.
Because when God looks into the Torah,
it's not like, oh, he looked and he
created. The energy of the Torah itself
was what created the world. This is what
it means that God looked into the Torah
and created the world. It was through
the energy through the words of the
Torah itself that the world was created.
Every part of existence,
every being, everything in the world
that you can imagine, all of it and
beyond is all in the words of the Torah.
This is what we believe. This is what it
says in the Zah. So what does this mean?
This means that the more a person is
connected to the Torah in a really deep
way, not just, you know, artificially
learning, of course, that's also good.
But if a person to an extent, but if a
person is really in touch with the Torah
from the beginning to the end,
understands it, grasps it, is familiar
with all the details, then he actually
is 100% in tone with the reality of the
world in its purest form. And this gives
him of course we know that the Torah the
Torah of the Israel and the Jewish
people
is one. The more a person is connected
to the Torah
and the more he's connected to the
Torah, he's connected to Hashem. And the
more he's connected to the Torah and
Hashem, Hashem and the Torah connected
to him. And this gives him by way of the
fact that the Torah was the blueprint of
the world is the blueprint of the world.
He's more connected to the world and he
understands the world in a more deeper
and more profound way more than any
other way possible because a person
who's studying the world from the
outside is only looking at it, observing
it and trying to figure out to get into
the inside. But the rabbis are doing the
opposite. The great rabbis are doing the
opposite. They're looking at the systems
behind the world. They don't have to go
through the world and figure out how the
world exists, which is an external type
of uh external type of education,
external type of perception of how the
world exists. They go to the back
systems. They understand it in a much
much deeper way. And therefore, they're
more in tune with the world. They're
more in tune with the world. They
understand everything about the world in
a much real and a much more profound
way. They have access to the the systems
behind the creation of the world. And
there's a famous story that comes with
this. There are many stories like this,
but a famous one in recent history where
there's a great rabbi, the Kazones, who
lived in Benra
in the end of his life at least. He was
originally in uh Russia or Bellarus or
something like that and he came towards
the end of his life to to Erit Israel
and he really really helped the entire
Jewish world build up this land of
Aritis.
There were those who built the physical
aritis and there were those who built
the spiritual arritis and the Kazan are
one of the great builders of the
spiritual land of Aritis until his death
in I think he passed away I think in
1953 or 1951 he was nif but there's a
story about him that someone came to him
with issues he was going to have a brain
surgery of some sort
and
he right away wrote on a piece of paper
all the details to the brain surgeon the
wrote a picture of the brain and said
exactly how he should do the surgery and
where it should be done. And we have
that today. We have the picture today
exactly how he wrote it, the different
parts of the brain, what he should do
and how he should do the surgery. And
the reality is that the Kazesh never
went to medical school. The Kazesh
didn't study under some great doctors.
How did he know? How did he know?
I don't know the answer.
But obviously a person who learned, he
was a person who learned all day and all
night. A person who would collapse on
his way to bed because he would make an
account of how much energy he had when
he finished learning, does he have
enough energy to make it back to his bed
and often he'd miscalculated and he
would just collapse before he even made
it to his bed. So a person so in touch
with the Torah, a person so in touch
with the wisdom of God, of course
understands every single detail of the
world because the world again is just a
projection of the Torah.
So I don't understand how this works to
be honest and I'm sure probably most
people here do not understand how that
works but we believe that and this is
why when we go advice to a rabbi and a
great rabbi we go out for advice we're
not just asking what he thinks we're not
just asking his external opinion on a
manner he is giving us we believe the
inside scoop he is coming from a much
higher place he's connected to God in a
much higher way he's connected to the
Torah in a much higher way he's
connected to the world in a much higher
way and therefore his wisdom is on a
whole different level than the wisdom of
anyone else you're going to ask advice
from because again anyone you ask advice
from is coming from an external
perception
anyone you're going to ask advice from
even the wisest of people
but people that are immersed connected
totally given over to the Torah are
coming from an internal perspective
and obviously that wisdom is going to be
much more profound much more concise
much more connected to reality and
therefore you have a much better shot by
listening to the words of the rabbi
rabbis and the great rabbis, of course,
they're listening to anybody else in
this world.