Leaving this World Complete and the Flipside: Shaarei Teshuva 2:16-17 with Rabbi Aaron Dovid Poston

[Music] welcome back to the charity truva heborah and we are using this safer you can use any safer you want any book you want we're on page 177. we're in the second gate shar bet and we are in paragraph 16 and 17. they really go sorry hand in hand we're going to be dealing with the concept of leaving this world complete when we leave we should be fulfilled jews we should be complete and that's 16 and paragraph 17 is going to be the flip side god forbid if one leads this world by ignoring ignoring living their life as if there is no end okay we're going to talk about it in detail but i want to just mention that we are praying still for the referee member of pinto of yoshiyahu yosef menzakri and we're also praying for all of the different shamots i mean we don't know what's happening in surf side florida just north of miami it looks like things are taking a lot longer in either recovery rescue recovery but we are praying that things go quite quickly so that at least if there is anybody left alive they should be saved and for those in the show mode they should be put to rest in a very uh dignified way and not just left in a pile you know friday night when i made kiddush i thought about them and i thought about the families perhaps even uh coming friday night and singing who knows who's still alive but anyway it's a lot to think about so we'll pray for them and pray that the rescue operation er or the recovery operation goes much quicker quicker i know there's a storm a brewing i don't know her name i usually ha i don't know if it's only female names but that's uh neither here nor there i think her name is elsie who's coming as a tropical storm or a hurricane but uh anyway so having that in mind we are going to continue with the concept we spoke about in ecclesiastes chapter 7 verse 1 which speaks really about the deeds that we can accomplish in this world we're here for 120 years and we're here to do right we're here to accomplish and we're here to make sure that we have a good untarnished name so in king solomon ecclesiastes a good name is better than good oil and the day of death than the day of one's birth now that we spoke about in detail in the previous uh paragraphs but as we note as is noted on page 177 rabano yona turns to malik's second piece of advice in the verse cited above the statement said and lay your head never act or never lack oil which we know refers to good deeds but the yeash there actually is an incumbent placed and responsibility on a human being what does it mean to renew or to feel new i mean even the command you know as i got in the torah itself says you know i command you today we should feel as if every single day we're being commanded that's true but how many mitzvahs can we do before we pass on and we don't know when we're going to pass on so we should always be looking for opportunities to cling to hashem because that's eternal what we accomplish in this world in regard to mitzvot meaning in terms of our relationship with god because that's what mitzvot really represent how we could um cling unify become united with as the name mitzvah actually means to connect with hashem and so whatever we do in this world it's final in other words there's no more misses to do in the netherworld in the after world so we should take advantage of this world number one and seek out new ways to fulfill mitzvahs new opportunities now this is a very interesting idea let me i i don't know exactly when i want to pause to bring in a bunch of ideas but let's just read the rest of this maybe your time has come to die below yakuza and mrs mayhem right and this way you won't be lacking any misses now let me just stop for a second and discuss this idea um every one of the 613 mitzvahs represents some aspect of our body there are 365 will call lotasen negatives and 248 ase actions to do and tell us these are parallel to different aspects of our body whether it's limbs sinews organs right now i've discussed this in the past maybe you haven't heard this idea the in his introduction to the laws of shabbat in the mission of brewer explains that in the resurrection of the dead the mixes that we do in this world a we are instilling life energy into those limbs we're talking metaphysically and those limbs will then then be revived using that energy we use to do mitzvahs for the world to come the resurrection of the dead synonymous resurrection of dead world to come let's just i mean different opinions but let's say it's synonymous what we call the world to come okay so if if we're cognizant of the fact that we're not gonna live forever okay and at one point we're gonna die why wouldn't we take advantage in this world to do every mitzvah we could possibly do now so basically the the the the truva is really explaining every mitzvah you're capable of doing which we already know since we don't have the temple there are many misfits that we're incapable of doing but there are many ways we can still do them reading learning right meditating on them so if you learn about them the mixes that you are not able to do it's as if you fulfill them on a certain level but there's another idea because many mitzvahs are capable of being done by other people um for example men can put on to fill in women let's just say should not necessarily put onto filling um but there's other misses if you're cohain there's certain misses um if you're a farmer there's going to be certain misses if you're a woman there's going to be services men can't do but when we think about the unification of the um of the people of the ummah the nation we that we have that there's this idea that ko israel are raving that every jew is responsible for another in what way yes in other words if someone needs our help we can reach out to them and we have to feel for them but on another level on a mitzvah level we're all interconnected just as the misses believe it or not as is a well-known phrase when you um how does it go when you do a mitzvah right the reward for a mitzvah is another mitzvah or i'll say hebrew mitzvah go rare it's mitzvah what does it mean a mitzvah drags another mitzvah right and the scar mitzvah is a mitzvah the word for a mitzvah is another mitzvah so on a certain level what we're saying really in the mahara expresses this that when you do one mitzvah you're also doing at the other 612 not in their fullness but in a certain spark kind of way like a spark plug you're kind of getting it going you're kind of delving into it just keep in mind the actual ten commandments we call sarah sedibros has 620 letters and obviously each letter individual doesn't mean anything per se only in a sentence in a word each letter has meaning in a word and in a sentence and therefore at a certain level you see how every letter is interconnected and every letter represents a mitzvah as we discussed the 613 misses and then i told you the seventh 620 so you have seven no height mixers for bending off and so therefore you have really every letter is connected every mitzvah there is for connected and every human being on the planet earth but starting with the jews are metaphysically soul-wise connected and therefore we're also connected with the rest of the world as well okay so keeping that in mind how can one then fulfill the misses because we share this guy over there he's doing a mitzvah that you can't do but if you have the actors if you have the unity the feeling of togetherness then what he's doing is actually rubbing off metaphysically to a certain extent but if you separate yourself from the jewish people or you separate yourself as a jew from the jewish people so then you have no opportunity to to let's say connect to all those mitzvahs i hope you're getting this this is a very deep idea but um one of the most interesting things that i've come across is a famous the the the 72-letter name of god okay now that's a little bit of a misnomer because it's not necessarily a 72 letter name of god but it's 72 names that are all three letter names of god in other words there's 72 three letter names of god and they can be found by the splitting of the sea and god saves us okay and we sing this song go to chapter 14 of exodus verses 19 20 and 21. those those are the three verses that all have 72 letters the way it's done i don't want to get bogged down in this because i want to talk about the 18th name but basically you take the first letter of verse 19 the last letter of verse 20 and then the first letter of 21 and that's name one and then you go through each one that'll be the second letter of the first verse the second to the last letter of the second verse and the second letter of the third verse and you go through them all anyway so the 18th letter will give us a inkling a an idea of what's 18 hi the torah itself says these are the misses i'm giving you in order for you to live in them to actually live not what kind of life are we talking about the life in the world to come so the 18th name of the 72 letters is a secret of life and that is the name cli cli means vessel cli is cough and it stands for kawanim israeli meaning the three different sections or groups of jews and yes there are mitzvahs that only konim can do only levine can do only used for alien can do okay without getting into all the details that the the the secret of chai the secret of life is to be unified not separate but as a clay as a vessel that includes every in this case jew right and of course for the non-jews to support and to um cling or graft however you want to express this idea of support for the jewish mission right and so with that in mind there's a very he he's saying that each person should try to make every day try to figure out a myth what they haven't done yet so you may be at a loss but guess what unify unify unify i can't say it more right this way you will share the mitzvahs of the other people who maybe have the opportunities that you don't have of course learning is a great option and to be creative think the more you learn the more opportunities you probably have that you're not aware of and that's my i'll call it an introduction okay and another idea so um the armor is this the sages of blessed memory bring down into hell is rabbah we're now on page 178 anyone who does a mitzvah before they die now remember we don't know when we're going to die so of course this you know backs up this idea that we should always be looking for opportunities someone who performs a single mitzvah close to his death to their death torah it's as if they fulfilled the whole torah why why should that be because they're showing their intent that they love the torah and they want to fulfill it so if they spend their days knowing not knowing when they're going to die so but knowing that this i could die tomorrow so i might as well do what i can to do the mitzvahs hashem and love and and conserve concern and that the providence is flowing because you love him you love his torah you love his mitzvahs and you're going out of your way to figure out a way to do it before you die so then he also will pay back properly as if you fulfilled the entire torah the lohaya khasir ella mitzvah right so if you're trying to perform that mist before you die it's considered as if you actually fulfilled the entire torah and had been lacking only that mitzvah meaning if you never accomplished that mitzvah hashem will give you uh credit as if you even did that mitzvah i want to go down into number three the comment there because he mentions by hastening to do one more mitzvah before one dies a person shows that serving hashem is the central purpose of their life and that person is therefore viewed by god as if he has fulfilled the entire torah even though his life came to an end before he had the opportunity to do so kapish and then rabindra yong teaches that one the same applies to a person who actually only fulfills the mitzvahs out of fear that they might die for doing so he also demonstrates that serving hashem is the central part of or purpose of life and there's a um i think this is the perky obvious i wanted to show you i have here a note to myself yeah so in perky i vote chapter two it's really it depends which volume you have mitzvah mishna 15 and 16 anyway rabbi tarfin would say right the day is short the work is much this is a beautiful song i remember singing this when i was first involved in an outreach in australia and i'm not a great singer but anyway i'll i'll i'll read the hebrew and you'll see how beautiful the action hebrew is but anyway the day is short the work is much the workers are lazy the reward is great and the master is he would also say now this is the important part it's not incumbent upon you to finish the task in other words don't feel like well if i'm not going to finish it i'm not going to do it i mean i guess a lot of people do feel that way sometimes but neither are you free to absolve yourself from it it's better to start something believe it or not especially in mitzvah and if for some you know a pressing reason you can't finish it you'll get credit for starting it um it's a beautiful mishna but anyway i want to read the hebrew anyway we do say like on friday right when the day is short right yom kitsara maruba anyway the part that there is a song that i'm aware of lo alecha ligmor it's not upon you to finish the work but guess what lota benjarin but you're not free you're not considered free mana to say i'm not gonna continue i'm not gonna finish it you have to start that's the main point here okay that's what i wanted to read to you and in the comments he mentions this additionally sages teach i think this is the same idea no it's a different concept but it's okay that dying shortly after performing a mitzvah is considered a good omen for a person by constantly performing mitzvahs a person increases the chances that his or her death will be preceded by doing a mitzvah okay let's continue move forward where am i at over here and so basically what does it come down to the koda of on the flip side anyone who does one sin samoa misa so close to their death dome so we really have to be on guard right and try to be hyper focused right especially look we don't know when we're going to die right god forbid you can be in a in a building collapse could be on a highway and some drunk driver you could be crossing the road and the driver is not paying attention uh whatever you can slip and fall i mean people it happens every day okay so we don't know when we're gonna die so we it should scare scare us right when we're involved in a sin or thinking about doing a sin to not do it to hold ourselves back because we this is uh it has major repercussions let's just say and it could be for all eternity okay now we're entering um paragraph 17. now i mentioned in the beginning this is the flip side the flip side of not considering that one might pass on at some point now keep in mind the original verse we said right a good name is better than good oil and the day of death than the day of one's birth now it is true a lot of people like to celebrate birthdays i'm a little bit squeamish i'm not sure why but but there is only one person whose birthday is celebrated in in the bible in the five books of moses and that's pharaoh you know he made a big party right so it doesn't sound like it's a very jewish thing but listen people grow up in different societies but the day of one's death is i'm not going to use the word celebrated but it's memorialized right because that's really the true birth all right what we're in in this world is um like we say in it's a cruise door it's just an entrance way and that's a good analogy to being born because you go through a very narrow right as um the famous song i'm sure people know that song as well right rabbi um right the whole world wide world is a very narrow bridge right and you shouldn't be afraid if you don't know it i think it's called gesture tsar od you can look it up it's a it's a very good song to know and to sing and to meditate on anyway going through uh paragraph 17. so romanian discusses the low spiritual level of those who are not inspired to improve their ways by an awareness of their immortality right we have to know um i i just want to mention one more thing in per kia vote chapter 1 mission of 14 hillel hillel said a lot of things but one of the things that he said was and this is famous i think everyone knows this um imlo if not now when i mean that's just the last few words but he's to say if i am not for myself who is for me but if i am for myself only what am i and he ends off these words the imlog shot if not now when okay i also want to [Applause] give an idea in percyavo chapter three mishnah one uh akavi ben and mikhail used to say and it's a long statement i just want to focus on one particular point so i don't want you to get lost in these words are still golden reflect upon three things and you will not come to the hands of sin know from where you came which we'll discuss where you're going which is the main point here you're going to the netherworld and before whom you're destined to give judgment and accounting now he discusses as he says and from where you came that's the past tense a future drop right we all come from the same drops where you were going that was the main point to a place of dust maggots and worms we're talking about the physical body of course and before whom you were destined to give a judgment and accounting and of course that's before the supreme king of kings so just in hebrew you have to know where you're going and in hebrew for the idea of the where you're going is you're going to a place that is dust and ashes and maggots or worms however you want to translate those happy happy thoughts okay so let's begin the asian machine a shirlo obviously there are people right you can imagine right hey we're going fishing oh i'll just bring my sunglasses all i need well they're not going to catch too many fish and they're not going to even have a good time they're going to forget their sun their sunblock i don't know what else their lunch there's quite a bunch of things you're going to need unless they're really like a macgyver but anyway so imagine living this life and you're not going to prepare your provisions remember this is just a cruise door this is just an entrance way to the real world so this is the time he mentions these there are people who are not sensitive and sensitive enough to the notion of death to be motivated to prepare provisions for the journey to the next world by doing what improving their actions that's all matters how much wealth you acquire is meaningless in the world to come as i mentioned with the resurrection of the dead it's the rev it's the life force that you acquired in this world by attaching yourself to mitzvahs okay that's what it's all about and they don't even think about or consider the day of their death until it arrives too late too late too late so here there is a interesting comment we're still on page 178 on number one on the right side and the z zaha shark explains regarding rabino yone that robinion is not necessarily speaking about people who are in total denial obviously you have to be like totally crazy total denial about their mortality rather he's speaking about people who may indeed speak about death and make certain preparations for it you know the guy bought i don't know he had a good deal on a burial plot or he made a will because his kids bugged him but he's not really thinking or she's not really thinking about the day of their death of course there's nobody in absolute 100 denial i assume such as acquiring a burial plot or drawing up a will nevertheless they're not sensitive to the spiritual spiritual significance of death therefore despite all their talk about death the prospect of dying never inspires serious thought about doing truva you know it i i thought about this during the pandemic of covid uh there's a few there's only a handful of people they think they're gonna live forever and they're they're you know crazy crazy about everything you know three masks shield on top of that not shaking hands not even coming within six or eight feet of someone else and look everybody has to go according to their situation there are people who are extremely vulnerable and should take whatever precautions they deem necessary but there are people that are not in that type of a medical situation but it's more mental and they actually think they're going to live forever and if only they didn't get the cover they would live forever anyway i don't want to go off on a tangent every night we should see the end to this because of the obviously financial havoc the people being buried without family i think it's quite over i think where people are waking up to the real statistics whatever it is whatever it is whatever it is um there are i'm just mentioning there are people that i notice that think they're gonna live forever according to this understanding when rabbiniona says that the day of death does not enter these people's mind until the day arrives he means that it doesn't end to their minds in a way that makes them think about improving their ways before it's too late that's the point here okay now we're moving on to um page 179 the last thing we read was these people don't even think about remember there's the flip side right like animals you think animals think about their death i i've never been inside the mind of an animal i know there are probably animals that do consider it because like i've seen national geographic where you see the monkeys or elephants or certain animals you know seemingly mourn and even bury their dead which is a very fascinating concept i don't know how how they learned about it or think about it but he's saying like in this respect they're animals i sure love york you should be indian among this they're not even cognizant about what death is all about until odd until they're about to be slaughtered right they see that shiny knife they see the animal before them uh the i guess the slaughterer sharpening the knife and then all the blood on the floor and then they see and then they freak out it happens to be brought down that apparently kosher animals don't freak out as much or at all i'm not sure is what i've heard i don't know the legitimacy of it but anyway there is a verse in psalms that's tehillum 49 15. so we're going to discuss this verse keep it in mind we're going to go back and forth with other verses but this is going to be the main topic of discussion here and he's going to break it down into like little bite-sized pieces now we're going to have to like break it down into bite-size pieces because it is not an easy concept but i'll read the whole verse and then we'll get into it like sheep obviously they're animals they consigned themselves to shut off what is that that is the netherworld where gehennam hell uh i'm not sure but we're talking about death okay they consign themselves basically to nothing of real value of the of the world to come death will graze upon them the upright shall dominate them at daybreak their form is doomed to wither away in this place called show whatever that is though it came to each one from heaven it's a long sentence the hebrew is a real uh what do you call a tooth breaker right you're breaking your teeth on this and we'll have to break it down but anyway perush the meaning of this verse is the following kidzone shot to nafsha mishol like sheep they assign or cosign their souls to gehenna in that ki lo yargishu binion mosam they don't they're oblivious they're not really cognizant of death until it comes suddenly now we'll have to explain what that means so now after robina yonah makes this point um actually there's a number three down below did we get to it yet no we'll get to it soon so after robino yonah made his point he goes on to explain the rest of the verse which further dis which further discusses the fate of the wicked what does it mean mother's year aim which was that death will graze upon them what does that mean ain't this russian como semos now the death of the wicked are not like the animals see the animals they die once they don't have the higher level souls that we have to go on forever they don't live forever sorry to tell you for all those pet lovers i hope i'm not in trouble um and maybe there are certain pets i don't know uh but basically uh the their souls they have the two maybe just the lowest we called the animal soul we also have an animal so we have four levels above that and our animal soul is in the blood but that does not go on forever as far as i know i could be wrong and i'm happy to be proven wrong anyway so this conveys that the death of the wicked is not like the death of the animals why kimosa behemoth because animals only die once it's a one-time occurrence they're finished snuffed out and that's it but what happens to the shoim we're showing with the evil people the mouth is yerba him because actually death grazes upon the wicked every day now this requires a lot of explanation because on a certain level we don't believe in gehenna being an eternal uh damnation it's true it's for most of us right this very select few very evil people that may experience eternal damnation but that the basic concept in judaism is gehenna is approximately 12 months and during that 12-month period yeah someone can experience death every day owning the shama on a soul level and it could be extremely painful because the whole point of what we call gehenna is another opportunity to fix your soul obviously this world is really what it's about and for those who fail which many of us may fail but again to what extent and how long and how much pain and how much refining we need to go through it's all within that 12 month period after death but let's go to number three when it speaks about that the rushoyim experience death every day so an animal does not have a soul that survives the physical death of its body thus its existence comes to a complete come to a complete end when the body expires but what about a person's soul by contrast survives the death of his body the souls of the wicked are then punished in gehenna this punishment begins only after death and lasts for a i'm going to add the word a distinct period of time he doesn't who doesn't use he does not use the word distinct he just says it lasts for a period of time destroys the blemishes of the soul meaning the pago meme the the thing that we soiled right it destroys the soiling it cleanses it that developed through the wicked person single-minded pursuit of physical pleasures the removal of each of these disease layers is like experiencing death all over again so even after we physically die we may experience what we call gehenna hopefully not and that is like reliving the experience of death wouldn't it be better to just be born again in this world every single day say oh thank god i have a new opportunity because i really did everything i could the day before to do truva and now i'm like a new person anyway um alternatively robano yonah refers to the fact the wicked damage their souls with their sins dying a slow spiritual death as their life progresses keep in mind we say that the living after they die all right sorry the righteous after they die are called living the evil people while they're alive are called dead so meaning they are experiencing death they really are they don't even know what life is about so the evil people during this life are experiencing a slow spiritual death as their life progresses as the sages explain the wicked are referred to as dead meaning in this world they're already dead okay so i hope that is crystal clear so we just finished uh on page 179 we're at the very bottom because there's another verse that he brings in from michael 7 14. let lead your people with your rod the flock of your inheritance who dwell alone a forest in the midst of a frightful fruitful field and they shall gay graze and bashan and gilad as in the days of your so what does that mean yeru basha because we use the similar word of grazing in our verse remember we're going to be dealing with psalms 49 15 throughout but we're going to go back and forth with other verses and he brought this in because of the idea of grazing in bashan so what does it mean over there when you're grazing you're continually eating you're consuming food right that's what is happening i just want to mention the comment below we're now on page 180. this is part of the prophet's meet prophet michael's prayer for the future success of the jewish people in this phrase he prayed that the jewish people should forever graze in the lush fields like bashan and gilad and where they they're on the other side of the jordan when ruvain and god and part of menasha they wanted to hold on to this lush area like in the days of moshe uh bashan and gilad are on the east of the jordan river and were given to the tribes of ruth and god and half a minutia fine but that verse now there's a verse in job 18 13 and he shall eat the branches of his body the prince of death shall devour his branches these are all very difficult to explain he mentions that the angel of death will take away his children that's what means the prince of death in which death is referred to as being consumed okay what does he mean the destruction and ruin continuously cling to the soul of the wicked until there is a total destruction and cons consuming of the soul and it is totally lost so we're talking about the real the real evil people fine so that's why he brought in the word of this verse of michael and joe fine so romero yonah continues to explain that original verse in psalms the original verse in psalms i think we said it was 49 [Applause] 49 15. [Applause] so he says like this it said year do bomb yasharim lavokai if you recall the upright shall dominate them at daybreak what is that referring to himself this is very analogous to in king david wrote psalms analogous to the resurrection of the dead to daybreak so there's an analogy rabbi kasin recently spoke it's always darkest before the dawn and that is an old phrase from not an old phrase an ancient um piece of wisdom you know in terms of our own immune our own faith it is always darkest before the dawn because that's when the the fight between the it's hara between evil really comes to its its head right before the redemption there's always something trying to hold it back okay so basically king david compares the time of the resurrection the dead to daybreak a time when man awakens from his nighttime sleep for the time of this resurrection 2 those sleeping in the ground will awaken from their slumber now in daniel chapter 12 verse 2 regarding this virabhim meshaney admat afar yakitsu the verse says many of those who sleep in the dusty earth will awaken so he's going and referring to this idea of awakening this is the resurrection then obviously and when you wake up is in the dawn that's what we call it i remember as a kid i used to watch dawn of the dead one of these zombie movies anyway it was like a cult and i'm not recommending it i'm just saying that um i remember dawn of the dead the the the premise was it was i guess i had like a christian theme it was basically said that um these people are watching these zombies and they're like oh when when hell is filled and there's no room for anybody else that's when the resurrection will come it's like so opposite of judaism but anyway and let's go on so so we just said daniel um [Music] meaning david was describing the wicked as being dominated by the upright for at that time the upright will indeed dominate the wicked we will walk on them we will be resurrected and they will be like the dust at our feet as it says in malachi the the last prophet and the last prophecy altogether in chapter 3 verse 21 and you shall crush the wicked for they will be as ash under the souls of your feet on the day that i will prepare says the lord of hosts okay the zika one of the brother being the rabbis also spoke of a connection between the day of judgment and the time of the resurrection of the dead after 12 months the body is finally disintegrated now which means basically like this now we're on page 181 that after 12 months of punishment the bodies of the wicked are consumed they are no longer exist and their souls are burned and become ashes underneath the souls of the feet of the righteous okay this is a bit of a kabbalistic concept let's look at number six down below in 181 the ramban explains this as follows like an object that's transformed into ashes the wicked are reduced to a lesser state of existence they continue to exist under the feet of the righteous that is on a lower level which they do not suffer as before the 12 months of gehenna is up nor do they experience the pleasures of the world to come okay um just on the on the happy note i guess last part of that comment mentions that um according to the mymar din in the asarius royce he indicates that after the reduced ashes these wicked people do receive some degree of pleasure but they're on a degree lower than the righteous okay uh by the way just also on the upside uh robin robin yonah mentions also that this severe punishment is limited to a particular terrible class of sinners we're not talking about all evil people we're talking about the most evil of people okay i'm just trying to give you guys a little bit of hope here anyway back to the text it also said in that verse in psalms uh no i'm sorry it is i think one second i think it's a different verse it's actually in malachi right so we just read malachi in the hebrew where it said and you shall crush the wicked right so that's was a i guess him just signing off here as it says the wicked and you will trample the wicked period okay now the next part of tehillah remember going back to now this is hard because the word suram what does it mean their form is doomed to wither away in show sur or surah in maharalian terms means the spirit that's how we it could mean physical right the physical form but not in maharali in terms and not here either listen to this meaning what does it mean their form is doomed to wither away in gehenna so he says suram commodes and rashi brings this down which means if we look at rashi he brought it from somewhere in the medrash or the oral torah somewhere so what does it mean so rama is really suratam so in this context the word tsuram is synonymous with suratam and he actually brings a verse where we see tsuritam actually not really but let's keep reading because i don't want to get too too confused here which means their form what does it mean their form if you know it's so ram translate or understand it as surah tom their form even though the tough is missing okay which means he brings a verse in hoshaya hoshai is also one of the prophets and he brings it's thirteen two so interesting rashi says over there as well let's look at the verse and now they continued to sin and they had made for themselves a molten image from their silver according to their pattern by the way we're talking about the northern tribes hoshai was a prophet that spoke to the northern tribes and they separated themselves and made those golden idols and those golden calves and if they were gold so with silver they used their silver to buy this gold okay according to their pattern deities of all the craftsmen to say to them those who sacrifice man may kiss the cavs now just keep in mind that the northern tribes sinned greatly by number one really separating themselves from yehuda the monarchy now it's been said i mean i've heard christians right i heard people think people who think they're part of israel they didn't sin so bad i mean they didn't read the tanakh first of all they separated themselves from the monarchy of yehuda which is bad enough then they made idols and they went off but you know what they want to say well we have prophets who appointed our kings so our kings are just as good as the kings of yehudah no it is true that prophets you know selected who the kings would be but they weren't supposed to be kings they were supposed to be governors meaning every one of the tribes is actually allowed to have a king but those kings are subservient to the king king david king seed from yehudah you go up to the temple mount jerusalem is the central focus and only the king from david's lineage is allowed to sit on the temple mount the other kings come from the other provinces let's say they're more like princes or governors but either way it doesn't matter you everyone has to honor their king of their tribe or the leader of their tribe but the leader of the tribe has to honor uh the monarchy of david and that totally didn't happen during the first step during the the first type of period and that was a big problem okay now so in um rashi and he mentions like this is talking about when it says and now it's talking about yahoo's dynasty we all saw this they were continuing to sin and those who sacrificed man may kiss the calves the priest of molech said to israel whoever sacrifices his son to the idol is worthy of kissing the calf free has offered him as a precious gift so are okay that's pretty much what i'm going to show you so we're going to talk about this word surat tam so he brings this verse i just mentioned from isaiah where it actually says in hebrew kiturunam atsabim that was translated as you know kissing the idols according to now according to the understanding it's interesting because it really doesn't say it says according to their craftsman right so the word is like understanding right a craftsman has to have a deep understanding so the word is synonymous with kisam kisam which means their understanding even the letter even though the letter tough is missing very important like i mentioned in maharali in terms remember he came way after the the the murbana yona but it's consistent the soul of the person is referred to as the person's form who are you who are you really who my form is the holy soul that i have the word form the comment down below refers to the essential nature of something and that's who we really are at surah at least in respect to our body right we're so the yesh min hamid al hanef and indeed some of those who have discussed the nature of the soul talk about it being the essential form that is who we really are as opposed to surat mikhari mikharit means like happenstance right this is a incidental form but ikari means who we really are the body is most likely what we would call surah sami kharif just happens to be where our soul is is living at the moment [Applause] evolution so now we're talking about the soul of that evil person it's still a form the person's soul is his form and the explanation of this part of the verse is that this place called gehenna will cause the soul of the wicked person to wither away again going back to the original verse in tehillim the he lo mizbo what does it mean the the hilo mizbu so meaning the translation though it came to each one [Applause] of them from your zebul zvuoul looks vulnerable is a great name for what we use it for the holy temple the place that hashem resides conveys the great tragedy of the wicked person's fate in other words your soul originally came from such a high place and is a reference in isaiah chapter 63 verse 15 uses the same word zvul in terms of referring to where god resides literally means well if you look at the verse look down from the heavens and see from your abode from your holy abode from your boat of holiness and splendor so if we're talking about the soul even the of the right of the wicked right we have free will but it comes into this world unblemished and holy and just know where your soul has come from and these people that were showing him are not considering this and that's going to be the biggest problem here and roshan they're constantly going through their sins which basically means and yet the wicked person through his sins brought about this consequence to his own soul the precious and lofty soul that came to him from heaven will end up withering away in gehenna below now having discussed we're almost finished having discussed this at length the terrible fate of the wicked robina yonah as a pointed remark the kamakasha hamas lamisha lo hifri tavas how difficult it is for the death of someone who doesn't remove his desires for pleasures of this world from his soul i gave a very long in-depth sheer in uh parshas khayasara where sarah right the death of sarah the life of sarah and the kind of death that she experienced was called the kiss of death and that kiss of death is where there's a separation from the body because the soul only wants to cling to the highest level and all the other levels of death um are not as easy because the soul almost the almost has to be ripped out the lower level you are the more attached you are to the physical world and the physical luxuries of this world it makes it very difficult for the malachis for the angel of death to pull out the soul that doesn't want to leave all it wants to do is stick around this lowly world but if the more i guess uh evil you are the more difficult it is right because your desires are so great for this world ought to show you afridena hamadas before death removes this desire from it basically come back to kayasara she was on such a high level it was like the kiss of death kiss of death means that hashem himself it's like mouth to mouth right he sucks your your soul out of your body it's like pulling a piece of hair out of a cup of milk i know that sounds gross but we're trying to just explain that it is so easy there's no stretching there's no pulling there's no tugging it's just going to come out so easily and simply but for the russia it's the other way around and number 11 let's just look at the comment down below 182. and it's as is clear from context robin yeon is not referring to the actual experience of death but rather to its aftermath nevertheless the actual removal of the soul from the wicked who are totally immersed in the pleasures of this world is itself a harsh and painful process likened by the sages of pulling thorns out of balls of wool so you can imagine the difference between pulling a hair out of a cup of milk which is just so easy as opposed to i don't know if you can just imagine without the sheep getting hurt but walking into a not a minefield but it would say offense of you know the the the fence i forget what they call it now i'm sorry i lost my english barbed wire that's what i'm talking barbed wire fence right he's gonna get stuck that will i mean maybe he she the sheep knows how to get out of it but you imagine just wool attached to a barbed wire fence is not so easy so whatever thorns let's use thorns as an example it's hard to pull the thorns out of bowls of wool okay so now we're at the home stretch here in a similar vein the sages of blessed memory say in the tractate derek aritz now if you wish not to die and then die in other words this is advice if you wish not to die then die now die before you die what does that mean so this is very cryptic the one who wants the day of his death to lead to eternal life should tell himself the following yourself allah since he is in this case destinatively from the earth leaving his physical desires behind ishmael shame he should know in the end right that at the end of his life he will anyway foreseek and let go forsake and let go of them in other words become detached the wiser you are the more attached you are to things of wisdom and less involved in the physical world right it's like um you become more spiritual you your anyway your body is disintegrating in front of your own eyes and now hopefully we're talking about where you're still very healthy and active but you realize that you're mortal your mortality is coming to you and you're hopefully wise enough after experiencing life where you're more interested in reading and teaching and learning and right then i don't know jumping out of planes i mean there's nothing wrong with jumping out of planes i have a friend who's 100 years old he just stumped out of a plane walter bingham nothing wrong with that but i'm saying you're all your pursuits when all your pursuits are very physical there's uh this is the time right to really soak up on on spirituality so ya's name he should voluntarily abandon them while he's still alive by killing himself i don't mean killing yourself physically but killing your desires you know we talked about this idea of the halacha says when if you were inside of a tent and someone dies so then you become spiritually impure right and you have a problem with the pesach lamb offering you have to get the red heifer and be sprinkled to get out of this state of impurity but the passage speaks about when a person dies in the tent and the chazal explain this is where someone should kill themselves to learn torah in other words really go out of their way as if the physical world doesn't matter in order to gain wisdom right you when you sit down and you learn for an hour learn for now or turn your phone off the external world does not exist try it okay it doesn't matter if you're a man a woman it doesn't matter if you're shiva student or not if you dedicated five minutes to whether it's meditation learning torah saying psalms turn your phone off if someone's going to talk to you just you know put up your hand like this which means wait a minute finish what you're doing right kill yourself to the outside world so to speak and that you shouldn't make use of any of the balance of the earth except for serving god and therefore you're using the entire universe everything physical that god gave you only to serve him with i'll just read his words and if he does this then the day of his death will indeed lead to enter into eternal life in the world to come and we'll end there i mean this is um this is good stuff as we know and bizarron hashem will continue next week um so we we mentioned the beginning who we're praying for and we should still continue to think about the for shalema for all those who are sick and all those who are not yet found they should have a a dignified burial that's rather shim so anyway have a good life i'm gonna take questions now from the uh the few people we have on skype uh zoom actually and uh we'll see you next week [Music] is