Oorah's Torah Spot Live 7/3/12 - "Balaam-The Wicked Prophet-And Us" - Rabbi Avrohom Biderman

i was asked to um make a pitch before i speak so there's an old saying in yiddish i'll translate it but it goes over much better in yiddish there's this rabbi that got up to speak he before i says i want to say a few words so about in 1923 90 years ago 89 years ago a young polish rabbi stood up at a conference in vienna it was the world conference of a goodwith israel all the leading rabbis from europe many rabbis from america from israel were in attendance this young rabbi's name was rabbi mayor shapiro and shapiro had a dream not a dream when he slept but he had a vision he had a vision of uniting the jewish nation through torah and he depicted a scenario where a jew from berlin and a jew from vilna would meet on a train and they'd be studying a common topic and jews throughout the world whether they be in turkey or new york or morocco or hungary would all be studying the same page of talmud every single day and he pointed out that the talmud page itself the page of the talmud the mishnah was written in israel the talmud was written in babylon the commentators rashi was in france ptosis was in germany jewry united through torah and that was the paint the portrait that he painted was many years before hitler and throughout europe eastern europe western europe even in the united states where there was not a strong jewish community in the holy land and in the sparta countries and hundreds of thousands of jews signed on to a program that became that was known as da fiomi a page a day and when the seven and a half year cycle ended mass celebrations were held and thousands of jews traveled and gathered in various locations without the benefit of the trans modes of transportation that we have today in the communication that we have today to participate in cu mim of da fiomi and then came hitler and his nazi troops and they destroyed the backbone of those who studied afghan they destroyed the yeshivas they destroyed many things but they didn't destroy it and in 1947 it was the completion of the cycle of daphyomi and in the dp camp in felderfing where an elderly jew named debiasel friedenson who i know very well was there was a siam of daphyomi and in berlin minehuff displaced persons camp where my father was and my uncle was there was a scene of da fiomi and my uncle colonel vraja spoke at that event my uncle paraphrase the verse in the place of evil here in berlin celebrating justice we have completed the study of the talmud in the face of wickedness in the face of evil the jewish spirit lives on the game he borrowed the verse of the words of a verse the eternity of israel should not be refuted we as a nation lived on i wasn't that that see but in 1975 i was at the first the first time that i recall being at a seam of the film without giving away my age i may have been in the one in 1968 but i don't remember it it was a small event in 1968 my father was there he doesn't remember if he took me along beth jacob and bara park several hundred people gathered actually in 1961 it was at a little hotel at a little conference with several hundred fellows there in glenwald hotel in 1961 1968 1975 i was there it was held in manhattan center there were perhaps 1800 people there they had put us yeshiva kids up in the balcony but there were plenty of empty seats down below so we all came down the middle the greatest toro luminaries in america were there they spoke i still listened to those types they spoke about judaism a jury that was lost they spoke about a hope of a jury that's being rebuilt that was 1975. in 1983 we gathered at what was then called the felt forum now the theater at the madison square garden five thousand jews packed the auditorium we took over the entire madison square garden and the theater in 1997 we expanded took over nassau coliseum as well madison square garden continental airlines arena 35 cities across the country and i it actually was over 35 cities across the country joined in live feeds to celebrate the completion of the talmud and to celebrate the study of torah and to celebrate the eternity of the jewish nation i'd like to invite you personally on august 1st 2012 i will god willing rejoining my wife my parents and my in-laws my children some of whom have parents themselves now and 90 000 other jews that met at metlife stadium the meadowlands ninety thousand jews announcing that we're alive and well ninety thousand jews announcing that torah unites judaism jewry ninety thousand jews acknowledging that the torah is in the world's words of heinrich hina who is no orthodox jew the portable homeland of the jewish nation ura has secured quantity of seats and we'd like to invite all of you to join us please do it's an event that you i promise you will not forget please call the office robby roosevelt will give you the number the office please join us on to tonight's topic this week's parachute is the story of bilaam i don't know how many of you know it so i will quickly review it with a little insight from rashi and the sages and then we'll see what lessons we can learn from them the jewish nation had left egypt 40 years 40 years earlier they had been traveling through the wilderness they were at the cusp of entering the promised land they had tried to pass through the lands of sikhon and og giants physical giants the most powerful kings of the region in this previous week's torah reading we learned that the jews he has to pass through and they were confronted their response was the fight with them and the jews had vanquished sikhon and og again these were the two kingdoms that that were the most powerful kingdoms in the region and they had promised to protect everybody else now they had been taken over the king of moab was nervous the king of moab moab the nation of moab had an enemy called mid young in the face of the common enemy the jew quite a frequent event in history these enemies made peace somehow all the international squabbles among the arab nations fall to the side when it comes to taking on israel hasn't changed in several thousand years moe of a million two of our enemies joined together to fight the jew move came to midyoung because moshe had lived in vidya as we know when moshe escaped egypt he ran to midjan and more the moabite says the midianites what's the secret how can we overcome this fellow and they said moses is a prophet his power is in his speech you got to hire somebody who has a similar power there was one such person his name was billa bill mercedes tell us was a prophet on the level of moshe himself although god didn't speak to him during the day like he did to moshe the talmud describes moshe's ability to see to perceive prophecy as a clear lens other prophets saw god through a through a haze bill unlike moshe had the ability to see god perceive god clearly bilaam was one of three advisers to paro in egypt and he had advised taro to try to destroy the jews even there and he failed clearly moab midian bilaam all recognized that wars after the jews did away with sichuan and og were not going to be effective against the jews so barlock sent billam a message i'll make it worth you a while he sent messengers equipped with all sorts of wizardry and sorcery equipment to visit bilom he asked them to spend the night we all know that god gives us ample opportunity to succeed or to fail in our tests so god appears to bilum and he says who are these people and boom goes aha god doesn't know who they are that means he doesn't know everything this is a fellow who has prophecy who god speaks to a little later we'll discuss how this happens god tells them who are these people and bill and goes oh you know god you might not consider me an important guy but bilaam bellock was a really powerful king of moab he actually took over moab he thinks i'm important and he sent these guys to talk to me because he wants me to go to curse the jews god tells him the jews don't want your curses so he says okay i'll go bless the jews he says the jews don't need your blessings just stay put the morning they wake up villain has them over for breakfast and he tells them listen guys you're important guys but you're not really the top level people i'm a prophet so i had a chat with god last night god told me that it it's inappropriate for me as a prophet to go with you guys you're not like important enough maybe you know if bill um if bollock sends some more important people maybe cabinet ministers viceroys you know really important people maybe then god will consider it but right now this is like really dissing god there's no way to go i can't go with you all i got the message and sent more important people so bill billham tells them listen really you gotta understand something when you hire a general there are times he wins there are times he loses me i score a hundred when i curse somebody they're gone they're finished they don't stand the chance i deserve to get paid at least a house full of gold even if but but the truth of the matter is that even if you gave me a whole house full of gold i can't really start up with god but now that i told you my price stay tonight maybe i'll negotiate with god we'll work out some sort of thing that i can go with sure enough that night god appears to him again i got this problem appears to him again and he says listen if they came to call you you can go with them but i'm warning you now you are going to say what i tell you to say bilaam ever the optimist gets up early bright and early he's all excited he wakes them up i'm coming with you he saddles his own donkey and this is a very pet this is a good pet donkey for bilham because he practiced bestiality with this donkey and he was his pet donkey for many years this was bilham's favorite animal he saddled the donkey himself didn't wait for his servants didn't wait for anybody he was rearing to go god sends down an angel to stand in the way billam doesn't see the angel his donkey does his donkey goes off the road and billam hits the donkey the ducky continues to go and they come up to an area that has a two walls a road part of the road that had walls on either side and the angel is standing in the middle and the donkey wants to pass the angel and he crushes billum's leg against the wall and bill and beats the donkey again and finally they get to a thin pass there's a little narrow path and the angel is standing there with his sword pulled out and the donkey sees this and the donkey's not going the donkey crouches phillip hits the donkey again and now the donkey talks why did you hit me three times now i don't know about you but if my car not my gps if my car started talking to me i'd be very worried billam was unfazed goes what do you mean why did i do this why did i hit you you went off the road if i had a sword i would kill you the donkey goes i've been your pet since you were a kid you know about our relationship have i ever done this to you before no one goes no then billam sees the angel an angel who's not happy an angel who's standing there with his sword unsheathed up in the air billon bows down he realizes this was not something he was expecting the angel says you know the donkey saw me the donkey was scared if it were up to me i'd kill you and let the donkey live bilum who gathered his wits by now goes okay mr angel listen if you really really don't want me to go i'll turn around duh angel says no too late you go but what god says is what you're gonna do enough over the course of the next few days bilaam leads bow leads bollock to very encampments they bring certain they make sacrifices and at every point bilaam is forced to bless the jewish nation so much so that some of the phrases that he utters the opening sentence to our prayers in the morning the talmud calls it sephiroth shall bilaam the safer of bilaam in one place it refers to this whole segment of the torah as the the safer the book of billam because the commentary is explained these weren't balaam's words these were god's words coming through billam at one point balak even tells him listen you don't want to curse them don't curse them but don't bless them and by this time bilaam goes sorry too late i told you whatever god says i'm going to do but let's understand bilaam this man was a prophet the talmud teaches us that bilaam was sent as a prophet to the nations bilaam was sent like jeremiah and isaiah and samuel our prophets and moses bilaam was sent to instruct the non-the gentile nations to instruct them to speak to those nations to inspire them to repent he had a soul that had the power to perceive god equal to moses how could he do this how could this happen and there my friends is a lesson to us there's a mishna it's a missionary the mishnah in paraguayavos whoever has the following three traits the following three attributes is counted disciples of our father abraham ushlosa de varan there are three other actually opposite attributes he is a disciple of the wicked bill ayintova a good eye that means an eye refers to someone who's happy at other people's fortune who's delighted when other people have it good in yiddish they call it people who rejoice when other people have could have have good things happen they are low key those are the attributes of avraham avinu a man who was wealthy but had doors on all four sides of his tent a man who went to greet three arabs in the heat three days after a surgery a hundred year old man to go serve them that was a vrama vino humble giving sharing ayan raw a bit i a man who wants bollocks money his entire house full of money pompous arrogant to the point that he can believe he tricked god vine he has his sights are held high he wants to take over the world conquer the world of goes on brings down some verses he says what's the difference between the two the disciples of avraham enjoy this world and they gained the world to come the disciples of bilaam not only did they lose the next world but they don't even get this world loyal they don't live half their lives nobody's ever fulfilled they never get what they want what's this all about man has different forces within him long before freud developed his theories and psychoanalysis of ego and superego our sages knew about it the torah discusses it and that's at the heart of the understanding of what takes place here to borrow freud's terms for a moment barbaric correct me if i'm wrong eid are the person's most base instincts his libido his drive for material and physical satisfaction it's unbridled it's relentless ego is sort of where we live it tempers the id with reality it tempers the id by considering ramifications of our actions and the superego is our conscious conscience the superego is what's whispering in our ear do the right thing that's very simplified the three terms but long before freud our sages taught us this we have a yetzer tovia very man is a mixture man is offer manhattan man was made from the earth and god blew within him a living soul and our sages teach us this soul is a bit of godliness within each one of us where we differ from freud fundamentally differ from freud is that according to freud the id can't be changed and the torah tells us that we can change our id the torah tells us that we could change ourselves the torah is meant to change ourselves animals and four feet their heads face down man walks on two feet and he has an option of where to look man could look up to the heavens or we need to look down like the animals do choice is ours and that's where the difference is between bilaam and avraham when avraham and our forefather abraham set out to the akedah the binding of yitzhak the torah tells us a phrase he bridled he saddled his donkey khamar is related to the word homer is physicality when avram set out to do the akedah vayakhavosh eskamoro he's bridled he saddled his physicality he was in control of his instincts he was in control of his actions bilaam when he woke up in the morning did the same thing he bridled his donkey too but there's a difference a sono has the word s with he didn't bridle it he bridled with it when abraham left when abraham when avram and yitzhak approached mount moriah they left eliezer and small behind with the donkeys he tells them stay here i'm approaching holiness i'm leaving the donkeys i'm leaving the physicality behind and we're moving on bilaam was roche vallasono he was riding on his donkey throughout the throughout the whole process because bilham was being led by his donkey he was being led by his physical instincts yeshua omer the mishna tells us if yeshua tells us a bad eye the aids are hara and the evil inclination the sinners and hatred of people remove the man from the world mishnayas the mishnah tends to be sick sick should say mosey in adam and alam they take man out a man out from this world means the man what that means is there's another similar missionary copper says akina jealousy that desire passion for for for pleasure the pursuit of pleasure falcaod and the pursuit of honor mozain similarly mozi they take the man out of this world because the human being can continue to live in this world with these medos but his humanity his the component that is human about him ha adam is lost he'll remain an animal bill was alive but he was roger he didn't control his passions his passions controlled him his donkey controlled him he rode wherever his donkey went avraham knew to leave the donkey behind and the mishna tells us the fascinating thing is another mishna that speaks to the same issue benzoma tells us these pat these medos of canna taivan covet of jealousy can be can be used properly but some moment is or quite the contrary maybe we'll see then zoma says who's a wise man hello made me call them a person that will learn from anybody an arrogant person can't learn for everybody the torah doesn't consider the arrogant person to be a person worthy of honor the person worthy of honor is the person that learns from everybody we have a different definition of what's important ase who gebar who is a strong person not the weight lifter in coney island but a kobe schedule a person who has the inner strength to overcome his desires asa who are sheer who is wealthy not the person with the mcmansion and the bentley the person who is happy with his lot this mission is telling us how to be a human being how to be a person a gorilla could lift far more than any human being can that doesn't make him strong it makes him strong but for a human being to be strong means to have inner strength when billum rode his donkey his donkey perceived the angel his donkey was being a donkey his donkey was being on the level that he should be his donkey was able to see an angel but when billum rode his donkey he couldn't see the angel because billon wasn't being a human being bilaam wasn't bilaam the prophet then he had forsaken his humanity in the pursuit of kenneth and covet in the pursuit of ayan hara yates of all those middles that we learned nephesh his arrogance his desire to do ill to others he was so overcome with that that he the prophet couldn't see an angel how did billam intend to curse the jews god told them they're blessed you can't curse them the gomorrah in barack house tells us that there is a split second in the day kale zoe in bagholion god is angry every day there's a split second every day that god is angry billam knew that second knew how to reckon that second and the navi tells us and it's the have torah for this week's parashat that on those days that bilaam stood ready to curse the jews on those days god didn't get angry because he knew that by the laws of the way things work but toast versus a question it's a split second what can bilum say that would curse anybody in a split second and toso says that he could have used said the word kaleem means destroy them but the letters of kaleem represent billam's achilles heel the letters of kaleem are haf lamid men the letters of melech king are the exact opposite is the blind lave is the heart caveid is the liver to invoke an old castello routine if i may my heart says yes my mind says no and castello goes and what do you hear from your liver bilum's power was kaleem first the liver your impulse then the leave the passion and then the mind the jews would be destroyed by living a life of kaleem by living a life determined by emotions and by and by and by and by instinct because our natural instinct yet our evil inclination is within us from when we're born our natural instinct is for passion our national draw our natural drive is for is for passion it's for all the it's for all those bad things our job is to make is to turn it around to rule over our emotions to be a mellah over ourselves to rule first and foremost over our own bodies and our own passions the first myths for the jews were given as a nation to do they were given the mitzvah of kiddush lavana to sanctify the moon but that wasn't for everybody to do the first myth that the jews were given was to bring the carpenter in egypt that they were given as a jewish nation in egypt and the carbon pesach had to be roasted rosho alkira of the al-kirbo the head over the feet over the insides the head goes first the torah tells us not follow the dictates of your heart and of your eyes famous question is if you want to see if you must if you desire something you must have seen it first but the answer is that the first time you see it you just saw it there's you don't get punished for that but if you look again and you desire something that you shouldn't like the katsuka rabbit says yes the question katskarabe asks it should say veloso you should not stray after your bad heart your bad heart many people have good hearts people are good-hearted people people want to do favors for people why shouldn't they stray after their hearts so he says because a human being is never supposed to follow his heart because there always has to be a mind that placing a check on what the heart does even a good heart the mind has to be engaged to gauge whether what's happening is right or wrong there's a famous story that's told that the the rambam maimonides he was the physician to the sultan in egypt and he had a disagreement i may have shared this story before if i did i apologize they were constantly the other others in the palace were constantly having machinations against them and they told the king that they can they have a disagreement they could prove that the rambam doesn't know as much as the king thinks the debate the debate was the rambam said an animal remains an animal and a human being is a human being and the others argued that an animal could be trained just like human could be trained and the test was going to be that they were going to teach a cat to be a waiter they were given x amount of time they trained the cat they had a down pat and the cat came into the banquet hall dressed in all his formal garb walking on two feet and carrying a plate with food and the rambam my manatees calmly withdrew from his pocket a small box opened it up and out scurried a mouse the tray went flying the cat went flying and all and pandemonium broke loose we aren't glorified animals we're human beings bilaam by empowering his animalistic passions was able to blind himself to everything in his arrogance in his desire for money his desire for fame and fortune he was able to abandon everything god could speak to him and yet he could convince himself he could persuade himself to flood god's direct command because he wanted money because he wanted passion he was like the cat he was trained and trained and trained but he's not a human and we ourselves could lose our humanity by following our instincts what makes us human is not following our instincts by being the malachim the morewachlavenkaved to put our brains first our minds first and that's how we become human i'd like to share two stories with you one is a hasidic fable and one is a story written by your leading businessman in the united states there was a rapper the story is told the varaba grandson of the katsuka rebbe who traveled through europe through the pale of settlement in poland trying you know looking for sincere jews he came to the town of suckalove when he came to the town of sakalov he passed through the town at night and he saw a light on in one of the little huts and he walked by and he saw a jew standing with a tell him sincerely saying his tele and throughout his stay in suckalove every night he'd walk by and every night this jew was there and he was always hesitant to disturb him seemed to be some aura of holiness there and finally before he left the town he knocked on the door and he said who are you he said i'm moisture the water carrier what's special about you what's with you he says everything's fine hashem thank god everything's wonderful he says there's nothing special about me and he couldn't get any more out of him this man later on became the rebbe in suckalov and many united go by moshe's house and watch him reciting to hillary and one night he walked by moshe's house and there was a party there all his neighbors were dancing rejoicing and he walked in he says maisha what's going on he says everything's fine he says okay something happened what's the party about he said i'll tell you three days ago he says rabbit let me tell you about me i was an orphan at a very young age i didn't know very much somebody took me in and taught me to retail and i grew up and i became a water carrier which didn't require much of an education and i barely earned a living and i worry the most wonderful woman in the world but we were poverty-stricken and we had the most delightful children but they're crying for out of hunger gave me no rest and i can't sleep at night so i sit here saying to helen and three days ago i couldn't take it anymore so i went to the school in the middle of the night and i opened our kaidish and i said dad please send us help i can't handle this anymore i can't handle the poverty and the next morning as i carried my water over my shoulders i walked by the show and i found a thousand rubles on the ground and i was delighted i was overjoyed my wife was look i rushed home and i decided i'm not telling anybody about this for two days for fear that who knows what my life looked my wife looked wonderful the kids looked great nobody knew i had the money but the whole world was changed and the next day i walked by the base madrid and i met hannah canal was the widow the almana of a water carrier who had passed away and she was crying because the pounced people had taken up a collection for her and they collected a thousand rubles and she lost it and i realized that those were the thousand rubles i found and i went across the street and i shouted at god i said couldn't you give me a thousand rubles that didn't come from her and i couldn't take it i was angry at god who needed this why did he do this to me but there was no way i was giving up the thousand rules and that night i really couldn't sleep and the next morning i took the thousand rubles and i gave it to hanola and i returned it to her and then i felt alive then i felt like a jew then i felt like a human being and all these people are here celebrating because i am a human being because i am a jew i'm a real jew because i did what i have to do i overcame my challenge and now i'm alive and that is the lesson that bilaam never learned i'd like to show you with another story story written by howard schultz not to be confused by with charles schultz of peanuts fame howard schultz is the chairman of starbucks this is an excerpt of an article that he wrote in the harvard alumni paper magazine i originally read it but i can't find it there now so i found it someplace else he's inviting an article the article is called a blanket of trust when i was in israel mr schultz writes i'm going to read it verbatim particularly when i was in israel i went to maesha arum the ultra orthodox area within jerusalem along with the group of businessmen i was with i had the opportunity to have an audience with rabbi nassen sri finkel the head of the yeshiv the head of the of a yeshiva there i had never heard of him and didn't know anything about him we went into his study and waited 10 to 15 minutes for him finally the doors opened rabbi finkel was severely afflicted with parkinson's disease our inclination was to look away what we did not know was that rabbi finkel was severely of the oops what we did not know was that our finger was severely afflicted with parkinson's disease he sat down at the head of the table and naturally our inclination was to look away we didn't want to embarrass him we were all looking away and we heard this big bang on the table gentlemen look at me and look at me right now now his speech affliction was worse than his physical shaking it was really hard to listen to him and watch he said i have only a few minutes for you because i know you're all busy american businessman you know just a little dig there then he asked who can tell me what the lesson of the holocaust is he called on one guy who didn't know what to do it was like being called on in fifth grade without the answer and the guy said something benign like we will never ever never forget and the rabbi completely dismisses him i felt terrible for the guy until i realized the rabbi was getting ready to call on someone else all of us were sort of under the table looking away you know please not me he did not call me i was sweating he called in another guy who had such a fantastic answer we will never ever be victim or a bystander the rabbi said you guys just don't get it okay gentlemen let me tell you the essence of the human spirit as you know during the holocaust the people were transported in the worst possible humane way by railcar they thought they were going to work camp we all know they were going to death camp after hours and hours of this new humane corral with no light no bathroom cold they arrived at the camps the doors were swung up wide open and they were blinded by the light men were separated from women mothers from daughters fathers from sons they went off to bunkers to sleep okay page fell out so i'll have to do it for memory some of the people were given blankets others did not the bunkers were cold freezing the uniforms were threadbare as they went to the area to sleep only one person was given a blanket for every six the person who received the blanket when he went to bed had to decide am i going to push the blanket to the five other people who did not get one or am i going to pull it towards myself to stay warm and rabbi finkel said it was this there it was during this defining moment that we learned the power of the human spirit because we pushed the blanket to five others and with that by finkel stood up and said take your blanket take it back to america and push it to five other people thank you any questions that was pretty easy that's it i'm in business thank you about we beat him for such a spirited uh uh i didn't i i was i told the uh our audience we have a special guest speaker i knew what i was talking about being as modest as you are but uh thank you so much well as with that question any subject on this subject that robbie beat him in a spoke about or any other subject feel free i'll piss the mic around joe rabbi we know as you said the two people will accompany abraham in the attack right when the torah says he took his two lads right know who the two lads were who were the two people who accompany bill we don't know we don't actually the truth of the matter is jonasson does give us two names um if you have a big hummus here we can take a look and not uh microscopes that's the name of the last commercial i can get their names later okay sam please rabbi biederman please uh be gentle with me because all the time in the past i've gone astray you you talk about the id and and the natural instinct and the split second you want to be unifocus you want to object you want to do something that's good for mankind and you've got to gear all your unifor you've got to go with that no matter what stones there are isn't it almost human to to deviate a little bit and samson and and and and moses and they all deviate but how do they know when you're doing something wrong how do you sometimes you don't what we do is we study and we do the best that we can there's a verse that says there is nobody that does in the world that does good and does not sin the torah the talmud tells us that there are four people who died without personally sinning none of them well one was yeshi the father of david one was killer of the son of david one was i think binyamin ben yakov who the fourth one is escaping right now but rabbi miller and others point out that the people these four people were all wonderfully righteous people but they weren't people who were involved in a major way in the re leadership of claudia's role they were not people who were they were the father of a king the son of a king but they want the king because the king has to make decisions a leader by nature has to make decisions and a person that makes decisions and a person that's involved in things will sometimes make mistakes i have a friend i know a guy who edits a newspaper and and he publishes a newspaper and the newspaper was founded by by a great rabbi in his in in in in israel and bernie brock and and he asked the rabbi he said but but what's going to happen i'm going to make i'm going to make a mistake he says that's what there's a paper tomorrow it happens sometimes if you do things you're going to make mistakes god's not out to kill us god's not out to get us you know somebody gave me a great marshal the the the um just this week mitsus we discussed this previous times that i spoke here the midsoles are opportunities imagine you're a basketball game and you have a foul shot right you have a foul shot somebody hit you i don't know if you guys know about basketball what happens is somebody hits you from the other team you have an opportunity you don't get a point what happens is you have an opportunity to take a shot and if you get it in you get it in and you get a point and if you don't get it in you don't get it right but when somebody takes a foul shot and he gets it in everybody cheers and when somebody takes the foul shot and he misses everybody goes right never watch the basketball game knows that that was extra credit mitzvahs are not extra credit but i'm just saying god gives us opportunities he understands you know moshe benu when he went up when he went up to heaven to get the torah so the the malachim said tell god and we don't get this this this is what's a human being doing here so he says to get the torah so they said wait a second this terror was made years before the generations before the world was created how could you give it to human beings so god tells moshe beno answer them my journey goes answer them they're going to beat me alive they'll burn me up so god says hold on to my throne and answer them whatever that means and my sherbet who tells them a whole bunch of things then he gets to the final thing that he says what does it say in the torah don't swear falsely do you guys do business honor your parents do you have parents it says don't kill don't commit adultery don't steal are you guys jealous do you guys have an evil inclination and when he said that they said okay guys he's right give him the tiger because his brother who gave us the evil incarnation it's our job to do our best to overcome it that's our job to do our best to overcome it that's that's what we're here for it doesn't mean we'll never fail you know if i could just draw one little parallel you have a centipede he has to go from here to there he starts going and some schmidger comes off and says when you walk which leg do you pick up first and he can't walk but he knows where he has to go and if he makes a mistake he rationalizes it that's the ego ego rationalizes well what do you want him to do back down and say i'm weak and i got to think about it the verse says a righteous person falls seven times and he gets up you know the difference between the righteous person the wicked person they're both full the difference is the righteous person gets up afterwards everybody fails a righteous person gets up dusts himself off and goes going in for the next round no you're making a mistake how do you know study that's what terror mates are for thank you thank you sir i i just add that we have a joke we jews have a joke that only the pope never makes a mistake right correct you know you know by us his posture we had moses made a mistake degrading we have to well in the most simple error he made an error of judgment so truth is there too right the torah was given to human beings where you know no one's perfect right but not meant to be available and even our greatest judge ever lived moshe rabbenu made an error whatever level that ever was on and hashem punished him for it so we uh that speaks for itself where the truth lies barbara i have two questions um i still really don't understand the purpose of the donkey why it was a donkey why was it that i think that why the donkey saw why because i believe that because the donkey was for a moment i'm just going to digress there are four levels or five levels of creations in the world let's stick to four i'll keep it much simpler there's there are inanimate objects there's vegetation there's animal life and there's humans jewish philosophy those are the four basic when a human being fails he doesn't just when you when an animal fails he doesn't come vegetable right he becomes a it becomes inanimate you fall to the bottom the animal the donkey was fulfilling its mission it was doing what it was supposed to do the animal therefore had a certain ability because it was fulfilling its purpose requirement of allah tells us that he's a prime disciple of vilnigon he tells us and this doesn't mean you shouldn't walk on grass but let's grasp this for a moment the talmud teaches us that every blade of grace has an angel appointed to it that tells it to grow so he says when a human being steps on grace that angel has a right to go to god and say listen this blade of grace is doing everything it's supposed to be doing it is fulfilling its mission this human being fails as sam pointed out and is not fulfilling his mission necessarily what right does he have to step on me same thing the donkey was fulfilling its mission the donkey was meant to serve its master the donkey therefore was on a higher level than billam was bill by failing in his mission to be a human and to overcome his animalistic instincts was on a lower level at that point than the animal that was my point so that's why the donkey has words no that's why no no edwards is totally miraculous so what is that that's just the miracle that's a miracle the commissioner teaches us that there were 10 things that were created just before sundown on friday during the six days of creation those things those are all objects that are that straddle the physical and the supernatural and one of them is the ability for the for the animal because there's a verse in the verse in mishlai tells us nothing was created there's nothing created x and hello nothing was created out of nothingness after all the all the rules of creation were set down in the six days of creation therefore anything that happens that's not that so supernatural has to be out of the box totally had to be created during that time and one of them was the ability of philip's donkey to speak that's how out of the that's how out of the box it is i have one other in that same story is pinkus yes he did he act out of passion did he use his mind did not know what to do it says and he had he asked moshe didn't you teach us that we have a right when somebody is doing what zimri is doing to kill him and mosh rabbenu says yes i did teach that to you so it was it no it was a logical it was a logical it wasn't an act it was it was an act of passion checked by rational by by the intellect he didn't just go kill him he went to check with moshe first and said hey didn't you teach us that that's the law and he said yes and then he killed him you're welcome it wasn't anger it wasn't anger it was passion motivated by but but it was checked by the intellect that's the difference my years old barbara made the rashi on the speaking donkey uh he also was immediate uh that bilham was so arrogant he said i can understand the intelligence of the almighty and there he he couldn't even understand the intelligence of his donkey so it was a little completely underestimated his donkey he completely underestimated his dungeon one of the stories if you have a donkey don't underestimate him so uh put him down a notch question any this object or any subject okay robert biedemann thank you so so much thank you for coming there's more hot food and don't forget about the cms i have the phone number and i hope to get from the office some flyers for it and uh there's more hot food i'm gonna bring out right now in the back so again thank you for coming we'll see you next tuesday