Message of the Prophets - The 6th Principle of Faith - Rabbi Lazer Brody

Amuna [music] my [singing] Lord. Amuna, it's from you my [music] Lord. It's [music] all good, my Lord. [singing] Oh Lord, [music] >> with Hashem's loving grace, tonight we're learning the sixth principle of Amuna. And the six of our 13th principles amuna. This is the message of the prophets. Uh principle six says, I believe with complete belief that all the words of the prophets are true. So we believe in the prophecies of the 48 prophets and the seven prophetices that mentioned in the Tanakh. They're also mentioned in the Gomorrah. And we don't doubt that these prophecies are the word of Hashem and therefore truth. So we ask ourselves a question, why is it so critically important to know that the words of prophets are true? Well, in our detailed explanation of truth when in the introductory go back to the introductory lesson we learned in in uh the before we we started learning the 13 principles proper, we spoke about truth versus agenda. And we showed there's no truth outside the context of Hashem and Amuna because it is easy to understand. Wisdom, true wisdom, it comes from Hashem. Wisdom doesn't come from people. Because if people think that they have wisdom, it's maybe technology, but it's not wisdom. Because wisdom is truth. It's divine truth. And every nation that they they think is their wisdom. You know, for some nations it's a wisdom to to kill Jews and some nations it's a wisdom to but unnecessary wars all types of things all types of skewed ideas but real wisdom is only from the Torah. That's Hashem's the divine divine given wisdom. So uh we showed that there's no truth outside the context of Hashem and Amuna. And what most people call truth is their personal truth. And it's far from absolute truth, but rather an agenda tailored to their own expediency. We gave the example last week about the Czech Czechoslovakian anti-hero from World War I, the brave soldier Schvik. Well, Schvik, he didn't know which end of the rifle to shoot from. So what he would do when he finally learned what end of the rifle to shoot from, he certainly couldn't have bullseye. So he went in front of a barn wall, tremendous big barn wall, and he fired the fired the rifle and put a hole in the wall. Then he took a paint and he painted a bullseye around the hole. This sounds very ridiculous, but most people live their lives like that. First of all, they decide what is convenient for them, what is expedient for them, and then they build this ursad's truth around that. But that's not truth. Truth truth is we look in the Torah, what does Hashem want from us? And then we make our opinions accordingly. So the Rambam explains that the words of the true prophets, those who prophecies are recorded in the Tanakh. Tanakh is what's the acronym for Torah? Nimuim, the Torah, the Pent, five books of Moses, Nim, that's prophets, and the Kuvim that's scripture, the writings, they come from their direct connection with Hashem, divinely inspired message to bring for to the people. And this is in the laws of uh fundaments of Torah chapter 7 and mymonities. Okay. U so we have to emphasize that the Rambam says prophecies and not inspirations because there's a world of difference between the two. Prophecy according to the Rambam is a vision sent directly from Hashem by way of a parable or a metaphor that's engraved on the prophet's heart in a way that he understands the message and could convey it to the people he's addressing. So simply speaking, this is Hashem communicating directly to the prophet. And as Hashem is true and his words are true, so are the prophecies, the true prophets that have been codified in the Tanakh. So true prophecy can only be divinely originated. Uh the prophets, there have been false prophets, many false prophets uh in the time of Isaiah and Jeremiah when they were prophesizing on the destruction of Jerusalem, destruction of the whole temple. And that wasn't very political politically popular. Both uh Isaiah Isaiah Isaiah got killed because his grandson was king Manasha. He killed him. He'll deserve his grandfather because he didn't like the prophecy of his grandfather and and uh we see Zakaria the prophet Zakaria wasn't also he wasn't uh particular politically correct and he got killed inside the holy temple on Shabbat Yam Kipper and Jeremiah the prophet they tried to kill him but they couldn't gave him special protection and Jeremiah the prophet he predicted says if you don't stray straighten up then uh we're going to lose the holy temple. And that's exactly what it was. They didn't like to hear that. Didn't like to hear that. The prophet the prophets, they don't they're not tr running for office. They're not running for popularity and not elected officials. Some divinely inspired divinely inspired. And these prophets, they dedicate themselves to Hashem because Hashem warns them. each once once a year your job is not going to be easy and people are going to hate you and people don't like you but that they they they chose truth they chose Hashem and it's better to die in truth than is to live in lie and that's why our martyrs from all of history they died on kushashem they they preferred that than living something that's not true it's not worth it to to live a life not true who needs a life like that okay so this is the This are prophets. So as opposed to prophecy, inspiration may either originate in the human heart or it can be divinely originated. In that respect, a person can claim that his inspiration is divinely oriented inspiration. But it has the slightest trace of self-interest. Their inspiration, their inspiration cannot and will not be divine. For that reason, inspiration cannot be the basis of Torah or Torah law. And no [clears throat] one ever knows the origin of the inspiration. Look at the difference between the prophecies and president and Torah. In Torah, that two million people saw Hashem give the Torah on Mount Si. That's this week's Torah portion. And look at the other religions. They have one wise man, quote unquote, that saw the light and now making this whole new Torah and turning everything around in the Torah. Doesn't work like that. Doesn't work like that. That the Rambam, it says you cannot change one letter of Torah. And here some prophet comes along or he thinks he says he's a prophet. More than that, he says he's a messiah. And he turns the Torah topsyturvy. says you could do this and you could do that and all types of different thing. You don't have to you don't have to keep the Sabbath. You don't have to do this is the ten commandments. They uproot the ten commands. You can't do that. So the false prophecies which the Torah tow sternly warns against. They either speak against explicit Torah commandments or they fail to materialize. In most cases, the false prophecies are at best personally inspired and always motivated by self-interest and personal expedience. Now sometimes they can have temporary success. Hashem tries us and Hashem gives the uh sound and light show to a false prophet. Okay? He does some kind of trick which is called in Hebrew aisatim. It's a trick of the eyes. It's a slight slide of the hand like a magician make you think that u he's doing all types of different things but it's it's not truth. It's not truth. So we are looking for truth and we're not looking for political correctness. The whole world everybody wants to be politically correct. going to be proper. Well, the prophets show us just how far we are from truth today. The prophets are a national conscience. They brought us to make chuva and to get close to Hashem. Now, since the prophecies come directly from Hashem, they're untainted by any self-interest, political uh correctness, and expediency. None of that. So to be worthy recipients of divine messages, the prophets were extraordinary in their level of piety, their level of holiness, their personal purity, and their complete self-nullification. They nullify themselves to Hashem. They no such thing as uh Hashem sends them on on a mission and they don't want to go. This happened only one time. the prophet Jonah, he didn't want to go to Nineveh to he didn't want to be the to tell people that they're going to be destroyed. But then he was punished. He then spent three days in the belly of oil. By the way, Jonah, his grave site is here in Ashud. He was washed up on the shore here in Ashud. So to be worthy recipients of divine messages, the prophets have to be holy and pure and devoid of any self-interest. their thoughts, speech, and deeds, they're identically holy. In other words, they speak and they act in accordance with the way they thought. There's no daylight between a prophet's thoughts and words. They clung to Hashem as King David, who also was a true prophet. Uh he testifies in Psalm 16, you Hashem are before me always. Tamid despite the fact that David was king of Israel he denied himself material amenities and even a good night's sleep that David was six breath he slept like a horse 60 breaths and he then he would be up again serving Hashem David's meal at night as king of Israel he could have all the delicacies he wanted he had a cup of water and a piece of stale bread at night and that cup of water was not a cup of water. The word tells it's a cup of tears. He would cry so much make chouva and this was tear and they're salty and then he would drink this with it. This was King David's this is King David's meal. He denied himself of comfort. He denied himself of physical comfort and life was completely devoted to Hashem. And that's why that King David's prophets in the book of Psalms, it's one of the greatest ever. Okay. So the latter kings of Judea and Israel, they drifted away from Torah and they fell into the populism of idolatry back then. Later the men of the great assembly, they cancelled the evil inclination for idolatry and they they destroyed it. But the evil inclination was so great back in those time the time of the first temple. And once one of the sages of the Gomorrah was talking against King Manasha and King Manasha came to him a dream and King Manasha said if you were in my generation uh you would lift up your skirt to to run to to do idolatry. It was a terrible thing by the way that they did they thought that they they had success. They succeeded in nullifying the evil inclination for idolatry. We can understand all kinds of evil inclinations uh greed and lust and oppos don't have to justify we can understand them but bowing down to wooden stone who sees the point in that but it was on fire that the the avoid the idolatry and the first temple. So, King King Manasha, this is where he was. And like I mentioned before, the Gmorra Vote page 49 says that he killed Isaiah the prophet who was his own grandfather. That was a grandfather. Manasha's father was one of the holiest kings and of Israel ever and uh king of of Judea. And he at his time there wasn't a child between the northern border and the southern border that didn't know Torah 49 ways backward and forward. And that was his generation. It was such a great generation. But uh he didn't want to get married because he had a Holy Spirit and he saw that if he gets married he's going to have a terrible son. So you want to get married. So Isaiah the prophet came to him and it says, "Manasha, uh, you're about to die. You're about to die. There's an important mitzvah in the Torah, pre be fruitful and multiply. Take yourself a wife that you haven't done, king of Israel. You can't go and decide you're not going to do mitzvot." So he says, uh, Isaiah, I I saw in a vision that I'm going to have a terrible son and he's going to be idoltor. He said to him, Isaiah the prophet said to him, Hezekiah, he said, "It's not your business to prophesy. You have to fulfill the 613 mitzvah of Torah." So, uh, Hezekiah, he said to Isaiah, he said, "Well, at least let me marry your daughter so at least I'll have better merit. I married the daughter of a holy person like you." So, Isaiah's daughter was called Shah Yeshu. Her name was Shah Yeshu. and she married King Heskio and from that mar that marriage came out Manasha. Manasha became terrible. One of the worst worst kings ever. Okay. One of idoltor and uh did really really nasty things. Okay. So that's how that's how uh Isaiah was Manasha's grandfather and Manasha killed him. See the evil that this this evil inclation was so great that he killed grandfather. But then when our sages later this ancient time of the second temple they made a great assembly that they they saw that they succeeded in nullifying the evil inclination of idolatry. They want to nullify the evil inclination of uh elicit sex. Okay, if we could do that that's a strong evil. Let's do it. So they did that and then for the next couple days there were no eggs. There was no milk. Uh a woman couldn't give birth. Everybody was stuck. So they saw that this is that they can't change the way of creation even though that Hashem listens to our sages and sometimes Hashem can alter nature because our sages decree it. So they had to go back and they said, "All right, we see that the world can't exist without that." Back to our prophets. Jeremiah the prophet, he prophesized war and destruction of the temple. Well, they're the false prophets that he chastised for plating the populace with prophecies of peace. Don't worry that uh Jeremiah is an alarmist. Everything's going to be okay. Hashem loves you. Everything's gonna be fine. Hunky dory. And the false prophets plotted against him to kill him. But his fellow priest whom he also denounced because of their greed. This is the fellow kohanim. Jeremiah was a kohhen from the town of Anat. That was a town of Kohanim right outside of Jerusalem. And they had him tortured and incarcerated. his fellow Kohan, the fellow priests, they had him thrown into the into the king's uh dungeon. So, and the spirit of Shem clothed Zachariah, the son of Yoyada, the priest, and he stood above the people. He said to them, "Thus says God, this in the holy temple." And Zachchariah says, "Why do you transgress and the commandments of Hashem? You shall not succeed because you f forsaken Hashem and measure for measure Hashem has forsaken you. So Zakaria said there's reproof in the holy temple on Yam Kipper. King Yhash is also evil king. uh he didn't like that and with the priestly authorities priestly authorities they with a lot of money people would bring their their uh it's called matanote kohanim their gift offerings their tithe offerings to the to the priest the kohanim and this was bad for business so they stoned and killed Zachchariah in the holy temple on yum kipper so this is but what you have to understand that we Don't color our past pink. Tell it like it is. Uh we sell everything right there and this the truth. We learn from our past and it's not like uh George Washington chop down the cherry tree. I shall not tell a lie. Okay, people don't know the the real behind George Washington who he was. Okay, but he wasn't he wasn't uh he wasn't on the level of prophets. So just as our prophets dedicated themselves to Hashem in a matter that defied nature and their willingness to give their lives for the truth of Hashem's word, Hashem gave them the power to defy nature. See this several times and this is they do things that are above nature and beyond logic. Alicia the prophet who was the understudy and successor of Elijah the prophet. He repeatedly demonstrated the capability of the true prophet to dictate and overturn nature in a virtually unimaginable manner. Miracles were the course of nature for Alicia because he was so bound to Hashem that he barely experienced material experience. Many went by in the lightest slightest amount of food, slightest amount of sleep is he barely had a connection to his physical body. He was all soul and he purified. He revived the dead child. He purified the contaminated waters of Jericho. And they were considered to be the cause of miscarriage and fatalities. And so this seems to be solved that problem. Now we talk about the prophet Ovadia. When Ovadia's first widow was threatened by debtors who were about to abduct her two sons, Alicia made a small vial of olive oil to flow continuously enough to fill casks for her to pay off her debts and to feed her family. and one of his pupils exactly dropped an axe into the Jordan River. Alicia made it float on the surface so he could retrieve it. But the most moving of Alicia's miracles affected the entire nation both mi materially and militarily and economically. And that's we see this in Kings 2 uh chapters 6 and 7. The king of Aram waged a war against Israel. uh his strategy to attain a quick and decisive victory. Aram is what's today's Syria uh involved guerilla tactics and surprise attacks whose main objective was to ambush the king of Israel and his entourage. Well, despite precise intel, every one of his surprise attacks was a failure. The king of Ram, he expected a spy in his inner in his inner circle of his officers and advisers and he interrogated them all. He started doing a witch hunt in his inner circle and they answered and defended themselves. No, my lord. Uh this is Alicia the prophet of Israel tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom. That's we have a prophet no better intel, no satellites and no artificial intelligence. It's said get perfect intel from the prophets. That same night the king of Aram sent an entire regiment to kill Alicia. Okay, I get rid of that. Said, let's kill the prophet. An entire regiment. The next morning, Alicia's pupil and attendant, he awoke before dawn to pray and he froze when he looked out the window. What did he see? The surrounding hills were full of Aramean soldiers and chariots in utter fear. He says, "My master, what do we do?" So Alicia told the young man, "Don't fear. Don't be afraid. We have more forces than they do." Here he is. He and his understudy, he said, "We have more forces than they do." So, Alicia prayed to Hashem to enable the pupil to see on a higher spiritual level momentarily to see what he could see. So, the young man saw that they were protected by chariots of fire and horses of fire. This is angel. Chariots of fire, horses of fire that encircled the Armen Aramean camp. Alicia then prayed that the attacking legion should be blinded and they were. Instead of having the captives killed, he told Yuram to give them bread and water and send them home peacefully to Haram. This is uh not like uh Kamas and Gaza. This is the way a prophet send him bread and water and kill him. So once again the the king of Haram was out maneuvered by Alicia and this king Ben Hadad he decided to descend upon Samaria with his entire army. Now he's escalating. he's not going to be discouraged. So, as a result, the siege turned into a terrible drought that dwindled Israel's food reserves into a horrible famine when accordance with the Torah's curse. And you want to see the Torah's curse, it's in Deuteronomy 28. And people began, it was so bad that people began to eat their own children. And this was a curse in Deuteronomy 28 when they eat the flesh. Where do they get this curse from? This is for a curse like that to take hold. It's people have to violate the three worst transgressions in the Torah. Idolatry, elicit bloodshed, forbidden sex, and they did all of that. Plenty of that. So, at that time, to stay alive, the populace under siege. They were eating anything they could get their hands on, whether it was kosher or not. And prices were so exorbitant that a donkey's head a donkey's head sold for 80 silver talons. And people were sifting pigeon droppings in search for few undigested grains. They were sifting through. So King Yoram of Israel, he was son of the wicked Ahab and Jezebel. He directed his wrath toward Alicia. Now Yoram, he went in the same way that his his idolatrous parents went. Ahab was the seventh king of Israel. Then Judea was a separate republic. Judea and and and Benjamin. After King Solomon died, there was a there was a split in the 10 northern kings, the 10 northern tribes, what they call today the lost tribes of Israel. Uh they became the kingdom of Israel and Judah and Benjamin became the kingdom of Judea. Uh so the northern tribes they were terrible terribly idolatrous. So once again Alicia knew that one of Yuram's senior servants was on the way and he barred the door against them and he foiled that plot too. So starvation was rampant and Samaria was under siege and Alicia undoubtedly challenged Yurum to shun the wicked ways of his parents Ahab and Jezebel and to heed the word of Hashem. This is doing him a big favor. He said, "Listen, you could you could come back and to prove that Hashem is the truth. At the height of the famine, the siege, Elisha declared, "Tomorrow at this time, a measure of fine flour shall be sold for a shekele." That's nothing. A p a pittance and two measures of barley for a shekele at the gate of Samaria. Well, King Yarms, military atesees, who stood next to the king when Alicia approached, he said sarcastically in utter disbelief of the prophet's words, uh really disrespectfully, he said, "What will Hashem create windows in the heavens and drop down all the grain?" Alicia said, "You'll see it, but you won't merit to eat from it." So after midnight, Hashem opened the ears of the Arameanss and let them hear the uproar of thousands of chariots, trumpets, and attack forces. The angel, the protective forces, the angels. So the Aramaan soldiers, they panicked and thinking that the king of Israel hired the legions of the Hittites warrior tribe, Canaanite warrior tribe and Egyptians to fight against them. So they abandoned their entire camp and they fled on foot leaving behind all their equipment, all their army and all their provisions. So the next day in Shra people went out to get the spoils out to the camp of Aram. And the next day in Shamro, the capital city of the northern kingdom of Israel, the price of fine flour dropped to a shekele per measure, just as Alicia said it would. And the peoples rush out of the city gates to collect the spoils from the abandoned Araan camp. The king's military attes was trampled to death just as uh Alicia said it would be. So he saw the spoils but he didn't he didn't enjoy them. Another story to show you who the prophets are, what they are. There's a famous story in the Gomorrah about Rebaka and the fox. Rebeeka he had the highest belief in the words of the prophets and the Gmoran trackctate makut page 24 it tells us this story that Raban Gamliel the greats of the generation Raban Elazar Benazaria and Rabi Yeshua Ben Khan these were the spiritual leaders of that generation uh they're talking about the end of the second temple together with Rabka this after the destruction right after the destruction of second temple they traveled to Jerusalem And when they reached Mount Scopus, they tore their clothes. They saw the destroy destroyed temple mount and they rent their clothes. In other words, when we see uh if we see the temple mount, we haven't seen it for 30 days, we're stoked to like create like seen >> [clears throat] >> uh we're informed that somebody close to us had died and we rent our clothes. So when they reach Mount Scopus, they saw the destroyed temple mount. They rent their clothes for the holy temple had already been destroyed not not too many years before. And they approached the temple mount and they saw a fox run out of the holy of holies the innermost chamber that only the high priest can go there on yum kipper. Nobody else is allowed in there. So the great wise men they went they wept uh Rabin Gabli they cried and Rabar Benazariah cried and Rabi Shu Benel cried and Raba laughed. They couldn't believe. They said, "What? Why are you laughing at Kea?" And Tom mutically. He answered a question with a question. And he said, "Why are you crying?" And the great wise men answered, "When foxes run in a place where only the high priest can enter on on Yum Kipper, it's not befitting for us to cry." Aka said, "That's exactly why I left because I know two prophecies. The first one, the prophet Micah, he said, "Because of you, Zion will be a plowed field." Because of you, he's talking to the people because their sins. Zion will be a plowed field. Jerusalem a ruin and the temple mount a forest. The second is the prophecy of Zechariah. And he said, "Old men and women, you will yet rejoice in the streets of Jerusalem." He says, "Until I saw the first prophecy fulfilled, I feared that the second would ever happen. But now that I've seen the first prophecy come true, I know that the second prophecy will materialize also. So the others answered, Aka, you've consoled us. Aka, you've consoled us. Remember we like Rebea was his amuna was fant he's exemplary amuna. Rebea is a a role model for amuna. So he knew that the word of Shem is conveyed by our prophets of our prophets is truth for prosperity. Okay. Meanwhile, go and and give this we we have a list of prophets. I'm sure you want like to know uh who the prophets are. We gathered a list of prophets and there were that McGillah the Goran McGill 14a says that there were millions of prophets that there were more prophets than those who left that the more that that left Egypt. So why don't we count them in the 48 prophets and the seven prophetesses that the Gomorrah list these are the ones that gave a message for posterity there people that gave message for their own generation for their own town but these are the ones that gave for posterity so there's much de debate about who's included in the list rashi when look in the beginning of Gomorra migill rashi on page Three, he suggests that Daniel wasn't a prophet and should be replaced by Shaya who told not to go to war with Yuravam and the northern kingdom. Well, go on. They start from Moshe and the sons of Korak. Rashel command comments that uh two of the prophets he doesn't know. Rash list 46. He says the other two I don't know referring to numbers 4748. Another commenter says that these two prophets are dead and Kanan wrote so you have the seven female prophets. Okay, some people at the equal opportunity uh people that want to say that Judaism is chauvinistic, they have no idea what they're talking about. No idea. Our matriarch Sarah, she was a prophetist. Miriam, Moses' sister, she was a prophetus. Deborah D'vorah, she was a prophetess. Kana the mother of she was a prophetess. Aigial who became wife of King David she was a prophet. Uh Hula but the time of Jeremiah she was a prophetess. And the last one is Esther. Queen Esther she too had prophecy. Well our male prophets that started go let me go down the list. He said Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Pinas, Eli, Elena, Samuel. Elena was Sana's husband. Samuel, that's his son. God, God, Natan, David, King David was a prophet. Uh, Aka the Shilonite. A the Shilonite, he was the Balshto's Rebi. He would come and appear before the Balmto and he taught him Torah. was a prophet in the time of Elijah. Uh Solomon, King Solomon was also a prophet. King Solomon was a prophet. They asked, "Well, why do King Solomon's proverbs and the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes, why they prefer in writings, not in prophets?" Because these were divinely inspired, but they weren't directives for people like Isaiah and Jeremiah. They weren't directives. So they fear it in the writings but he did have a he did have a spirit of prophecy. Ido, Oadia, Yehu, Aaria, Eazel, Eleazar, Elijah, Alishia, Elijah and Alishia, Mika, Jonah, Amos, Hosa, Amotz, Amot was Isaiah's father. Uh then Isaiah after him Mikah, Yoel, Safana, Nahim, Kabak, Uriah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Marxia, Naria. Naria was the scribe. Borbania was the scribe of Jeremiah. He also had a spirit of prophecy. Uh Saray, Kagay, Zakaria, Morai, and Mali. Zakaria they are they witness the destruction of the first temple they witness the exile and they are the final prophets after the exile to Babylon there's no more prophets so this concludes our lesson for tonight next week we will learn how the prophecy of Moses is True. [music]