Rabbi Benjamin Yudin Discusses Parshas Beha'aloscha on JM in the AM (5786)

Good morning. Shabus everybody. Tomorrow we have the privilege of reading bahalas according to the contains five mitzvos that is I'm sorry three positive mitzvah and two restrictions. A total of five mitzvos. Four out of the five deal with pesak sheni. The fifth one with theotros. If you ask me going through the para carefully, it is nothing less than a roller coaster. The first part of the para is summarized by two words. the two words that Moshe pleads with his father-in-law and says, "Join us." But he doesn't just say, "Join us." He says, "No, whoa. We are traveling. We're going. We're about to get on quote the train. Join us. Get it on. Come with us to the promised land, and it will be good for you." This is found in perk yud chapter 10 in this week's para of and it's found in 29. Okay. And come with us and and it'll be good for you because hashem has promised good for the Jewish people. And it goes on to say Moshe repeats it again. And interestingly, the Torah doesn't tell us in the end, does Moshe does Israel come? Does he not come? However, this is followed immediately by by Aron the verse that we recite that when the when the ark would journey as signified by the cloud of Hashem above moving that is when the Jewish people moved. And at that time, we're all familiar with this every time we take out the Torah. And the next verse, and when they camped, when it rested the cloud, they said, "Shouem river is reside. return Hashem among the many thousands of Israel. Now, these two verses we know are bounded in every Torah and in every kish by the inverted nuns. Take my word for it. The nun in Hebrew has a numerical value of 50. If you count 50 paragraphs back between suos and stumos, you will find yourself properly in the second chapter of Bidbar where the Torah is describing how the Jewish people traveled which camps camp of Yehuda came first, camps of Ruv came second, then came Mahia. And that's where it should have said. So her own but the answer is it's put here as the Gmorrah tells us in Shabus an amazing idea that these two sukim are out of place in the future they will be in parasbar who so not a not a letter of the Torah will be missing but we will be getting out of shul oh oh 2 minutes earlier on paras and 2 minutes later in paras midbar. There's a lot to be said about that. The rabbis is telling us that the Torah did not want to put one next to another, a puranos, a tragedy next to another one. There's so much to talk about here but I would like to talk about the following. So the roller coaster is the first half of the para is we are moving towards the promised land. After the inverted nonsens starting with chapter 11, we have unfortunately the Torah noting the people complaining the misunonym and they're complaining about uh Kibroava. What do they want? They want meat. They remember the cucumbers, the melons, the leaks, the onions, the garlic. Oh, come on. And after all, what are they saying? And now this is in chapter 11 verse 6 and 7. Now our life is parched. There's nothing but the mun. Now this sounds crazy. If the moon tasted like anything you wanted, what could be better? Hey, mom, what's for dinner? What would you like? And just think whatever you'd like, you got why should they complain? Good question. I wish I had time to answer that. But the answer basically is that the second half of the para is all downhill. And Moshe complains, I can't do it myself. Hashem tells him to uh assemble the quote first Sanhedrin. And we know that two individuals, Eldor and Maid, were so convinced that they would not make the cut that they stayed back. They were worthy of making the cut. And they were given prophecy. And the prophecy was, "Oh my goodness, that Moshe is going to die. Yoshua is going to lead the people." Zapora having heard this instinctively said and overheard by her sister-in-law and brother-in-law, by Zapora, Mosha's wife, Aon, Mosha's brother. She overheard or they overheard her saying, "Oh my goodness, I'm afraid for your spouses because Moshe separated from me." Now at that point there the Torah in chapter 12 at the end of Balosra tells us of the lashon that Miriam and Aron spoke against Moshe. Now Mirram is the one who saved his life. Mir's older sister who cared for him so much. And Aron was the one who was hesitant to go to Mitzim to overstep his brother Moshe that the three of them had such beautiful brotherly love. He name our rabbis say is Moshe and our own. And yet Moshe because he separated from his wife and never told anybody that he did this. But he did this only because Hashem told him to do. When Miriam and Darun hear this, they say, "Huh? Who do you think Moshe is?" Hashem also speaks to us and she gets saras. The bottom line is we see that even if you say something that you possibly even only mean well. But if it is of a negative nature if it's a criticism be careful. Be careful how you speak. The bottom line is, as I said, the para begins going up and the para ends on a down, only to be followed with next week's continuation of the moragim, which culminates in their spending the next 39 years in the desert. I'd like to focus on one very famous verse and that is in chapter 12 p of three. The Torah tells us, "Do you know who Moshe is?" says Hashem to Aaron and Miriam Yish Moshe Onov. The man Moshe was exceedingly humble Adam more than any other person on the face of the earth. Now listen carefully. Go down a few further whereby the Torah says in verse 8 in the contrast of Moshe to all the other prophets Moshe Moshe is different. Mouth to mouth do I speak to him in a clear vision not in riddles. So why were you not hesitant and afraid to speak against Moshe asks Hashem to Miriam and our own? Now wait a second. Let me ask you a question. How is it that Moshe was How is it that Moshe is the most modest? Doesn't Moshe know that Hashem speaks to him in a manner which is so different to no other person? So the answer is of course he knows. So I'm going to give you two answers. The first answer is I believe this is true. The more you know the more you know that you don't know. This is true in every field, but especially true in Torah, mitzvah, in theology. The more you know about Hashem, the more you don't know. And now I'd like to share with you a beautiful of the safer mus written by nimadic who says the following. It's really based on nature. What does that mean? We know that man is comprised of body and soul. This is very clear from the beginning of the Torah in chapter 2 where the Torah describes how Hashem makes man. He forms a form out of the earth and then he breathes into that formishim a living soul. Now I ask you or I'm not asking I'm telling you. The rabbis teach us manik the one who blows he blows from within. Meaning the soul that Moshe rece that received from God was entirely pure. Hashem is pure. The soul is pure. The only issue is that the soul was put into a body and as the writes at the very beginning what's the purpose of man in this world that you should be able to resist and overcome temptation Everybody has temptation. You shouldn't think that individuals who are most outstanding and the list goes on and on and on starting with the VNO and going to the Sofur and going to the going to the going to The late laberi going to the rv. All these individuals were born with a yateser to and a yateser. The more a person focuses on his yates to the more his good overcomes his challenge. And everybody has different challenges. Yours are different than mine and mine are different than yours. But everybody in this world has challenges. And the more so I can't talk to you about your challenge because I don't know. But if you are listening to me, you know what your challenge is. And the Torah is telling us that Moshe Why was Moshe the most modest man? Because he was able to utilize that which Hashem blew into him which was the spirit of Hashem which is pure and holy and that was dominant. He was able to constantly overcome his earthly desires. Now it doesn't mean that we are suggesting that everybody find their mountaintop and try to live in isolation without any interaction in society. Absolutely not. The whole idea of Yahadus is you can do it. We are to live with our neighbors, with neighbors. We're to live with our Jewish neighbors. We're to live with our non-Jewish neighbors. We're here to make this world a better world. But the answer is that you can do it each one. It's getting late so I have to close. I'm going to close with the following idea. Every morning we make two brahos of that God created man and he has the physical and there's also the second braha of the soul that you gave me. We each have the body and soul. Believe it or not, we each have this struggle. I wish everybody number one the realization that you have the struggle. Number two, that each and every one of us on our own way realize that we have the capacity to take the pure soul that Hashem has given us and have that constantly struggle but dominate the negative that is in us as well. Shabbat shalom to all.