Celebrating Pesach with the Ramban by Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb

um I I'm it's probably going to show it's already showing in my voice um a friend of mine here here in in new sham sent me and I guess a few others on his group um saying this this was my night you know so he went to bed I know 10 p.m. and at 1:40 p.m. he heard a boom then he heard a sirens then he went down to the mlot and then he um he's was on a radio or on some of the some news station and he found out that uh there was 350 rockets on their way and they could be here take an hour or two to get there so be nervous and anxious for another two hours you know and uh then he did it all by by the times of the day like at: 140 this happened at 230 and he hears that Nan is on a private phone call with Biden you know they think like this is like World War III for sure and he goes on through the night that way finally he writes um like about 4 4 a.m. he puts three Z's you know sleeping you know he's snoring and then and then he writes 7 o'cl I woke up will there be a minion in SHO yes will there be a shear and DFI yes so the world's you think the whole world is exploding and uh you know life goes on barem I I um I developed several classes on this particular subject I'm titling it titling the series celebrating PES with ran MOS not ra MOS but MOS we had a um theiva that I went to was called Rabbi Jacob Joseph on the low side of Manhattan um rjj and we had a uh a l leader I think he was official titled was chairman of the board um his name was he long gone his name was Mr bam kingburg he was an attorney and kind of a very you know aristocratic person and uh he spoke a beautiful beautiful English although I imagine he was born you know in the old country but uh he was he was very very careful about pronunciation of words um so he would refer to now rambam is referred to in English as my mes so what do you call ramban to distinguish between the two the names are similar but they lived a century apart and they very very different people both great um but um so he would he would refer to him as Nittis when we first heard him refer to Nittis you know I thought it was some type of a diseaseis I thought then I wouldn't dare argue with him of course but I still think now the correct pronunciation is nades like my manes manes ramban is was a very very interesting personality and I chose him to speak about because we had planned to turn to roal we were here for the outbreak of the war we stayed for a little while but uh we had to return to the United States as soon as we could come back we did this past Thursday I thought ramban also made a a late in his life trip to arus ro and remained here and built a Sho here sh by ran sh in in The Old City although as far as I know and as far as anyone knows we know we do not know where he was buried he died in the year 1270 and toward the end of the 13th century here in ER Israel probably in rush but he writes about his um various of his writings he mentions his trip to to Earth is and what he found here so he found in he couldn't find a minion of 10 of 10 men in yush in then um so by nevertheless he settled in Yim and however he seems to have spent a lot of time in AKO within the 13th century there was a a Jewish Community uh where he could be um he of course was born in Spain and uh was a very prominent person in every way including he was a great debater and when the king and queen of Castile uh insisted that he represented Jews and he debate with a Christian actually not a Christian but a Jew who had converted to Christianity and then Pablo Cristiano christiani and he had a famous debate series of debates with him and we have the notes Ran's notes on this debate and he won the debate so what happens if you're living under Spanish Christian Rule and you win a debate what you're in trouble ex what go to Exile you go to Exile right well you know he realized that he has no future in in Spain and he did what he always wanted to do he wanted to um to make alah didn't use that phrase then but he wanted to move ter is ran was the major Reon who counts in his count of the 613 mitzvah he counts as one of the MIT one of the positive Commandments yes to live in people dispute rambam does not count that as one of the mitzvos some say because it was a d of course you should live in Israel why why should he count it among the 613 but ramban explicitly lays out his his stand very very articulately of course and um obviously he was always had these tendenc but this was like the push you know to avoid all the politics involved in debating Mish MIM people who converted to Christianity from Judaism he wasn't going to spend the rest of his life um and he he came ter Isel I I I shared briefly with u my friends here before we started shab gider um an interesting SA I I try not to schlep my S from the states here uh I have plenty of SW in our apartment right here around the corner onam um so this is a 600 page work by two professors at Baran published about I don't know some years ago now seven eight years ago but their names are Professor Yosef ofer and and professor yonas and yov Jacobs um but they discovered and many people have kind of figured this too that thean after he finished writing his commentary on on on the Torah which is really up there number two after Rashi if you speak of commentaries traditional commentaries on Kash so Rashi of course is Rashi but right after rash is ramban and um so we have that work however you can sometimes sense in the writing that something's missing here missing there if you look at it carefully obviously there either were some additions or some edits or something at various places so what happened how let it happen so they found evidence from examining manuscripts of the Ran's commentary on the Torah uh um in various museums throughout the world um nowadays you can do this online you don't have to go traveling to museums in Rome or in St Petersburg or in Paris or wherever you can go online or and get permission to sometimes publish these manuscripts so um they found what they call tosafot ramban ramban's additions extra material and um and they therefore in this safer of theirs they went through the enre you Happ this safer which I only have the fly leaf for here with me I'll show you why I brought this along with me first of all doesn't weigh much um they go through the whole commentary and show you hey this is what's missing here and it was taken out because it was struck by the ramban after he reached ER when he was living sometimes in yush sometimes in AKO he rewrote parts of the uh he edited parts of his own commentary and that's a treasure you find out these is obviously he changed his mind about certain things he wanted to phrase it differently Etc um so I'm going to pass around this fly leaf because you could see on it in the ramban's handwriting um the original and then at the bottom of the page in smaller letters again in the ramban's handwriting his edits and this was this is to be found if you want to go on a trip to Paris in the uh National Library in Paris the section called heave HB Hebrew 223 um and and that's where they got all this material from so that that appears you can see the picture of it but almost more dramatically ran died in 1270 at the year 1270 ad and um in the year 1972 so that's 72 years later a group of archaeologists were digging in a in a tail in a mound called kisan it must be an Arabic name sheo there a valley as you approach you can see it from the highway a sharp Valley just outside of AKO um and there were some archaeological ruins there so they were digging around the RS they found various things from that Century from the 13th century when AKO was a relatively large Jewish Community uh and what do you think they found there they found a Signet ring you know people in those days would carry would wear a ring and they would use that as a stamp to stamp their signature they would stamp the signature in wax onto wax and that signatur with that stamp and and the bottom which shows you what was written on this thing look at this ring and it's very clear it's clear as day it says MOS benon May gundi gundi is the town in Spain near Barcelona called Jona g r o n a and that's the ramban signate ring they found this personal ring which you see a picture of another Flyleaf here too um so he left his imprint on her's Ro comp this around see the the the manuscript is both in the front and the back and the ring is a photograph of the Ring right there this brings us closer to the ramban so how did the ramban spend PES you know we have no as far as I know we have no firsthand uh he didn't Tech write a journal or if he wrote a journal hasn't come down to us but um he he wrote plenty that give us background as to how he must have been thinking at on PES in the 13th century he was here in the 1260s 1265 1269 until he passed away in 1270 was here about 8 or 10 years here I mean not much here he could have been walking the street right here outside uh because they obviously lived walking distance from the sh that he established is walking distance from you young people for some of us it's hard to walk up pill and down the steps Etc to go there but he's very close to us the um person who uh introduced me to the wisdom of ramban was not any of my teachers formal teachers in school Yeshiva but was my grandfather my father's father who was a very special Jew in many many ways way but one of the things he was special about was he had several grandsons and um several grandsons old enough to sit down with him and study and when I was in my early teens he sat down with me and said he has to introduce me to the rampan it wasn't para's bow that whenever it was he I remember he made a point that of we're going to learn something in pares BO even though now was pares whatever it was at that time can't possibly remember I was 14 15 years old but I do remember that this passage was he considered to be the essence of ramban's teachings and in his in his language which was of course Yiddish it's which says is ran this is ran study this so I had it a short photocopy U on both sides it's one sheet but there's two sides to it and um let's plunge plunge right in so on on one on one side of the page you see only one page um on top it says shos gim and then in the text itself um this footnotes all kinds of footnotes I'll explain something about that in a moment but the text is ramban's text and interestingly enough I consulted this new book about adenda additions to the ramban and this particular paragraph which we'll study together I don't know how far we'll get but um this is this is he left this as it is all right this was not he didn't edit it or correct it or rewrite it this is what he wanted to tell us ran has a way of writing very very uh in un formally informally very informally he writes to to as if he's talking to you to you I mean to each of you to me personally he writes if you look now four lines from the bottom I think that like sure made little pencil Mark before the word there four lines from the bottom the line begins then there a little period then now I'm going to give you the reason for many many that's one way of translating it the reason for many many mitzvot or he could be saying I want to give you the reason why we have so many mitzvot understand why do we have so many mitzvot especially around p p we have so many MIT more than any other y more than r even more than we have a lul and a but on P we have whole various mitzvos involved telling the story of MIT mitvah mat the mitvah in time of the bet mdash the cor P what are all these Mitzvah about the selection that we're about to begin to study um he deals with three major major Concepts in in yut Concepts that we all think about at one level or another one is the concept of okay one is the concept of a a Mitzvah what does a Mitzvah mean I mean all of us here um know the word Mitzvah but it's Mitzvah is is very unique to the Jewish religion if you compare us to our two quotes daughter religions half Christianity and Islam their religions don't have mves you don't have Commandments even though they speak of Ten Commandments um the idea of doing a Mitzvah the idea that honoring your parents is a Mitzvah the idea of eating matah p is a Mitzvah the idea that taking fos MOS from grapes use RAB G's example is a Mitzvah that's specific to Judaism so why so many mitzvos and especially why so many Mitzvah are connected not only to PES but there are many Mitzvah which have nothing to do with p and one famous one is to be honest in business right not to have weights we i g HTS weights uh that are faulty you're business man your weights have to be proper the Torah and the Torah after giving you this MIT says we have a mitvah to to show special love special attention to a person who is a serious authentic gar convert to Judaism we have to treat him specially why because you too once a you were G in MIT we have so many mitas of that sort for example when we make KES on Shabbat not PES Shabbat but like last yesterday or this coming Shabbat we um we also say in was given to us in right that's all goes back way before beginning of creation and yetas we say this also what why is so much connected to so this is his his question and uh one topic um and try to go through this topic as as well as quickly as we can cover most of it then the next topic is [Music] um another concept Mitzvah prayer big topic and the next topic is niss Miracles and you'll see how he weaves it all together in his inimitable way so let's look together I'm he said I he's speaking the first person and talking to us as if we were individuals not a group he doesn't say but rather or I'm speaking to you Mis or Mrs so and so this rule about MIT then it gives like a historical overview of the development of religion in humanity he says may say gim means of De galim those who are Idol worshippers from the time that human beings began to worship idols the time of right back in the from that point on in history the idea of Faith began to become very very uh perverse the the the the deos the opinions about God Divinity religion spiritual ity there was a shush there was a Decay a deterioration of Faith because he's speculating that from Adam and on people believed in God like they were talking to God all right Noah spoke to godough and were had a direct contact with God it was not a matter of faith of believing of course you know the God you know he's he's part of who we are he brought us here but then reached a generation the generation of Enos when things went went sour and they went sour in various ways and this is certainly true nowadays as well as you know 5,000 years ago um means total atheism I don't believe in any of this stuff and they say the world always existed the world goes back to Infinity in time it was no creation just always existed kadmon means primeval way way back way way there's no beginning this this idea was first I don't know about first but early was the philosophy of Aristotle it's the philosophy I'm sorry to say it of many many people Jewish and non-jewish today I don't believe the world was a world you know Big Bang and it was a world they absolutely deny the existence of God they say it ain't so it's not true there's no such thing as God it's a fairy tale that's one one approach and I'm sure you're all familiar with the people maybe people you're close to who really believe this but there are other groups who who say no there is a God but he he doesn't know individual what's going on he doesn't know that there's a room full of Jews not a room full of Jews but quite a few Jews who had a sleepless night and it wasn't exactly a peaceful night uh because you know we expected Rockets to come falling down right on our heads and um and God doesn't know about that stuff you know God created the world then he went off and did his own thing you he didn't care about people's individual issues big issues like living through a war or even small issues you know if person has chickenpox well I don't care about that again this is a paraphrase of a he says such a person says how does God know God is El God is way up there in the clouds he doesn't know what's going on in this world doesn't care and there are those that say no God is omnicient he knows everything he knows what's going on but he doesn't care they deny what we call uh Providence that that God cares God cares about you and me who are we you know worms compared who why should he care so there's three groups here there's a group of total atheists there's a group who believe in nothing there are those who believe yeah there's a God up there but he doesn't really have anything to do with this world there are those who say no he does understand and know what's going on you know he knows everything but he doesn't care he certain doesn't care whether we are good or we're evil what why should he care you know you want to be Hitler be Hitler you want to be uh Moshe be Moshe you know he don't care he's they they they deny the whole concept of is what we call in English Divine Providence God cares about us he rewards us for the mitzvos he wants us to do mitzvos um and and and he will reward us or he will punish us as the case may be okay now we go to flip the page the the the passage on the right side here you have actual page number sh 346 we're all like fish all right you know everybody here knows in the ocean lots of fish there's tuna fish there's hering there s there sharks what fish filter fish but but but we don't care about each fish you know do you care about this fish or that fish so no so so we're like fish to God he knows we exist he knows we're here but God doesn't care about that he's not interested just that humans we're not interested in this individual fish and that individual fish y it's God kind of left the world to go on its own automatic pilot and people can do what they want to do they can be good they could be evil they could be horribly evil they could be righteously good but he doesn't care now so that that that's that that was the condition from of humanity from the time of Enos and of course today you have all of the above you have total atheists you have agnostics you have people who believe this way that way uh I believe in a God you know whatever it is I always remember this the fellow in in my um former School in Baltimore uh his name was Henry rches he's since passed away but Henry was and his family were hidden during the Holocaust by by a by some Gentiles that they knew who were farmers um way I heard this story from Henry's mother who was the m patriarch of the family so she and her husband and several children and some friends this was in Poland somewhere and during the the Holocaust and they were wandering hiding in the woods and this and that then finally the father says I've had it you know he said in yish um I want to go with all the rest of the Jews they're all going somewhere they're being shipped to as trinka being shot in the woods I can't live this way anymore like constant hiding and hunger and everything I'm going to Just Surrender and go back to the shettle whatever they do to the rest of the Jew they can do to me his wife who I heard this story from herself um said no no no we have to keep trying to find some way that we can survive this how about uh the farmer you know whatever his name was that we used to trade with them Etc maybe that their family will hide us so father said what they live right by the highway and the Nazis patrols and everything are driving up and down the highway all the time sometimes they stop at this farm for for a drink or to buy some eggs or fruit or whatever and if they find Jews there you know and and this farmer will he won't put us up they won't hide us because you know anytime they can be found out if they get found out that the Harding Jews they're dead so she said let's try that's right so they went a group of eight nine individuals some little children including this Henry whom I know well remember my sh since passed away but he was like an infant then uh so he has no memory of it but he's was heard the story many times and um so they went to this um this Farmhouse so the farmer said I can't put you up you know I have my own family to worry about if the Nazis find out and they come by almost every day they come into the house and they search they'll find you I'm a dead man my whole family is dead so They begged and They begged and he said you know what I'm going to ask our the mother the woman the senior woman in the family and the Gentile family she's very religious very devout and I'm going to ask all we should do so all right she he he went to his his grandma figure and she said I'm going to ask Mary Mother Mary that's what a hard belief system so she went into some secluded room and spent the night there talking to Mary praying counting her rosary beads whatever she was doing and then she came out and says Mary said we should hide them I should hide we should hide them oh after yeah yeah Mary answered her and said hide the juice can protect them so they made a little space in the barn hole in the ground and everything else like that and they were there for 2 and A2 years so much so that and then they survived everyone in that group survived but Henry who was an infant when he came he he never learned to talk because they they couldn't talk they would signal to each other and made no sounds for two and a half years trying two and a half year old kid and he can't speak if he speaks you shush him up you stuff something in his mouth because you know if they hear you you're we're all dead so he his uh vocal cords of muscles that were required for speech were atrophied so when he was freed at the end of the they were all Freed at the end of the Holocaust uh he couldn't talk physically couldn't talk because the muscles necessary for speech were just not developed and then the whole story he went through some special type of speech therapy and everything else and I used to kid him you know you know now you learned how to talk you even talking Sho that was a long long after the Holocaust when I had that conversation so um obviously there's there there's a person there are people who are people of great faith it's not our faith um but who have great faith and and and that's that's that shows that this this person individual believed in God believe that God knows what's going on and believe that God cares because that was how we communicating you know I can give a hundred such stories a thousand such stories from Jewish figures but I feel want to say this is something that human beings are capable of but that's that's the problem very few people are capable of that type of deep Faith so now he continues Raa he says suppose however you find a situation where God shows special attention to a community or to an individual person and he changes nature a just nature in order to help or save or rescue this person and suppose that happens and you're there to observe this you see that God shows some special attention to a to a group maybe an entire nation entire people or even to an individual and and it's just miraculous that this happens suppose God one fine day cares so much that he wants to favor in some way an a community a group of people or some individual and he wants to do some wonder some moace some wondrous thing Supernatural thing changing the SH now we we we woke up this morning still here for sleep and we thought you know who knows what happened overnight okay it's only one Sirens that we heard here in Yan but who knows what happened in the rest of er Israel and rest of the country and everything we feel we we'll see one horror story after the other we woke up this morning and it was no perhaps this was a sh sh that a well-developed technologically well-developed militarily well-developed country like Iran can shoot I don't know 500 missiles at us and 99% of them were you know were shut down not just shut down by Israeli Air Force Etc but by American um uh battleships or whatever destroyers they had in the ocean and by France I understand this morning w CH in a little bit Jordan right Jordan sent planes to shoot down Rockets you know this has not been H go sh L you know yeah R I didn't want to interrupt but I thought wait on the end the three different type of people that you were speaking about the atheists the agnostic the people that don't believe what you're referring to I believe is called I'm I'm just going to take another minute and of course I didn't want interrupt kanuk comes to mind but I found that the time was to ask those people who do not believe that hasem moves everything but everything in this world how did they wake up this morning what do they think what do they think happened last night they think that the Israeli Army is terrific that that they without fault that um Biden is a hero France sikim even Jordan is done ch there look people believe all sorts of things uh you know I'm just I'm just presenting it as if I wasn't a religious person but just looking at the facts you know now we don't always have these facts know sometimes have how many soldiers have we lost already in Gaza 260 or something like that more how many we would have lost yes that's the question how many would have lost that's why yeah okay all right but you don't always feel uh we just happen to feel this way at least I feel this way this moment you know I woke up and I was getting ready to you know to get trauma counseling for myself just what happened and we do have grandchildren soldiers in the Army right now you know my wife you know wakes up every morning wondering how they're doing you know so it's it's this this line which he wrote you know 700 plus years ago if God wants like a group of people it could be all the Jews living in AR Israel or all the Jews in the world or whatever one individual so once a person has this type of an experience and and and sees this type of a of a he hasn't used the word miracle yet but this type of a miracle uh so it's clear to him right 64 October 7th 64 including October 7th okay all right I don't mean to minimize the number but there we didn't say Miracles we saw tragedies but when we see something that's so different so unusual this ISAT this nullifies this cancels out all the all these opinions of total atheism of partial atheism of God doesn't give a darn about the world Etc they all you know that they they're all refuted this wondrous event that happened this shows us teaches us that there is a God this is a God who was M the world who created the world the world is noton it didn't exist for billions milons of years before because it was some unknown dark hole or or big bang or whatever no he was mades the world he renewed the world he created the world from from from nothinga and he knows all and he cares about all and he's capable of doing what he wants all right the these four words this is the the basic our basic beliefs as Jews he ises we say that in the D every day you know God knows everything he knows what we're thinking he knows that we're here trying to get closer to him he cares about each and every one of us and and he's omnipotent suppose this is prophesy suppose we would have had yesi who would have come a few days ago and said hey Iran's going to throw all this stuff at you but don't worry about it you know everything's going to be okay and hopefully we'll remain okay we don't know what the end of the story is yet but suppose Novi did that so then we have an additional proof of something which is basic to our religion and that is Ed now we know there's a person named whoever we don't have such people walking around today unfortunately but there is such a thing as a prophecy that God speaks to to humans Soo and he Reveals His schemes so in Ran's language does not always mean secret like we use it in modern Hebrew it means councel discussions plans schemes God has has has a ear of you have all these ingredients you believe in a God who is then you have the whole Torah all right and that's now we come to P that's what the says when it comes to these Wonders that God did miraculously uh in Egypt for us um and these when we spill a drop of wine depending on your spill a drop of wine for each one of the maros you know each of those is for a reason the reason is I am God but I'm not a god up in the heavens and some Throne totally alienated from the world I am I'm right down there with you this is teach you that God really is down with us that he didn't abandon us to chance as they these these non-believers believe that's only one another that means God's powerful the world is his you know but God controls it you know go God created he created them out of another says I've got no competition I can do what I want he's all powerful nothing can stop what what God Wills because the Egyptians didn't believe in all of this stuff everything that we just listed they either didn't believe in it MIM atheist or MIM agnostics they say I don't know maybe there's a God maybe there's not you know there's famous I don't know the name guy phoh said I don't know the name I don't know yeah yeah I don't know this guy right um so so the the Wonders the Miracles that we will yes next week little more than a week uh um sit by the S there count all these Miracles it's all a a a testimony we are all witnesses to now now he says something which is really interesting because people ask kids especially ask you know Rabbi okay I see all these n we learning the P I see God did this here and then after all T maros he he split the sea and we went across the sea but that was 3,000 years ago what have you done for me lately all right that's what uh that's what modern man asks you know where is he now where is he now um so here's what he says about this God is not about to do wonders in every generation God is not there to prove himself to any Russia any evil person or any coair any atheist you know if you think about it throughout history after a certain point I'm not sure when that was people just stopped believing in God the way religious people believe in God you see every day half deal the Christian Church Catholic Church especially they're losing membership the these all these various polls and the United States uh all the various Protestant sex they can't fill the church they can't even have a quote Dominion on a Sunday morning they they they can't they can't do it that's one thing that you see okay Kim they deny it why bother you know I can watch football I can get up early I can do an exercise I can sleep late Sundays whatever they're they're co- friend they don't believe anymore Europe has uh churches in Europe have a can't survive they can only survive as museums the United States is still more you know you know In God We Trust type of thing but it's not very very well- grounded anymore and Russia called called Russia you know evil wow you need evidence that ex evil exists so you know God kind of figures like so to speak I'm not going to go and and show these miracles to people who who don't believe who are evil that that's not that's not what God is supposed to do says God I can do it to a people or to a time in history when when people saw wonders they said ah this is God all right you see I when when I left um Florida so I um had a fellow drive me we entered a car and then we returned the car but guy had to drive me back to Sentry Village so it was a black man an African American and um he said you know I was their season it was lent recently Christian time culminates with Easter yeah so what was he doing Easter morning he says the first thing I do because I want to get closer to God I wake up very early and I go to the boardwalk and I watch the sunrise the sunrises I see it I say that's is God you know so there was a time when Humanity was that way Humanity was that way they may not have believed in the god exactly the way we do but they were when they saw nature when they saw where the good things the sun rises and the eclipse cars etc etc they felt in some way this was God talking to them now that's Eclipse was so big because they felt it was God yeah well we were we Jews also have all kinds of theories about what an eclipse might be or an earthquake or whatever but the point is that in The Human Experience hum General Humanity there were centuries and centuries when wondrous things the wonders of nature triggered a reaction a religious reaction a spiritual reaction it's not true anymore all right now if this climate change so it's because uh you know we we have to reduce the automobile exhausts it's because of this or that or the other thing that's what science has done it it diminishes The Wonder of the universe because there's an explanation for everything and there is an explanation for anything you have to take the leap to to to believe in a God that's behind the science that's already uh so this is his take you raised the question what about the people who weren't impressed by experiences that we had that feel miraculous they have explanations you know they have rational quote rational reasons that this is why this happened this is why the other thing happened you know just not to be bound to to to religion all right the um I gave you a taste now of his take on on um um mitzvot because the mitzvot that we do are our way of keeping God in the picture so to speak if we do mitzvot we are saying I'm doing this Mitzvah you're sitting at Suka you're eating matah all right what is this all about well this is all about a God who redeemed us etc etc etc this is all about that so doing a Mitzvah is the way that we keep God alive in a time in in human history when we're not going to see open Miracles we're not going to see that we're not going to see the splitting of the sea Etc but every person every Jewish person who performs a Mitzvah is is making that statement that's that's one part of what he he said see that we're um just about running out of time so I I want to um drop down a little bit on the same page the same passage on page Shin um where he shifts scars a little bit to to prayer to prayer so if you look at the line that begins uh um um all right line begins with the word and then it says a fascinating thing person who buys a muza goes into the store and buys a muza for his door or her door for a small amount of money now day the price has gone up but it's still you know not so much money and he takes the mza home bangs it into the doorway when this and he has an intent he's thinking as he's banging in the the just by doing that why he putting up mza for so some people say because it's a good luck charm but it's not a good luck charm it's because there was a God and he created the world and he knows what we're doing and he said we should put a on that door and reflect on it Etc you know who told you to put up he doesn't have to go and they do in some religions and say hey I believe I believe I believe no hang up at M in your doorway and you're making that statement um you're making a statement putting up also testifies to the fact that we believe he took us out of Egypt that's why they say I'm skipping a few phrases that's why we're supposed as even a trivial quote trivial Mitzvah is equal to a big Mitzvah this is the raan's words in another version of the manuscript of ran he says with a all MIT are strict no he um the footnote corrects that they're all all precious dear wonderful it's it's a beautiful thing every time you go by the you're you're making a statement about your belief in God and all the Mitzvah have one reason do this Mitzvah because you're making a statement that you believe in God and we confess to God we admit to God we thank God that he created us that's the whole purpose of creation what reason then you know does God have to create human beings because he wants creatures to say to acknowledge the fact that he created us all God wants from us us down here below is that we should know and and and and teach that God created us and now it goes on to but I see I'm running out of times I want to share with you I was set in on RAB gard's conclusions and he was telling stories this story and that story so I have I mentioned here muuza which seems to be a small easy Mitzvah which anyone can do I I I used to give when I was a rabbi in in Baltimore for many years so I had a woman's class I used to give every Thursday morning where Baltimore is laid out uh everybody who has children in any of the local yot Bako whatever you have to do carpool all right there's no buses from Etc not maybe it's changed now but this goes back some years so um so we would study together every Thursday morning it was called the postar poool pre shabus class and uh so we wanted to study the group wanted to study besides the partial unusual thing they wanted to study a subject of right open up a and look at the the the and the really you know like what the women would say like the men do that's how we wanted to learn okay so I had some suggestions of what we could learn and then it occurred to me that the laws of mza which is a very important mitzvah very commonly known very commonly practiced is a Mitzvah equally on women as on men right the laws of what women are not obligated to do likez say women are part from mitz even like chaur Su and lul because they're all time bound but mza is not time bound mza is Place bound so if you have a your own home or your own room in a in an apartment or whatever and you're a woman you're equally obligated to put up a mza and make the BR etc etc so we had we studed for a whole year because there's plenty of material what makes a kosha mza all right how you prepare the parchment for the mza which parot are included in the mza how high does mza have to be Etc so this this brings me to a a closing story um I had the privilege or we the btim Community had the privilege that RAB Yakov ketki was a famous rashash Shiva of tadas um really a very special type of person uh he in his uh La last years in his dying but proved to be his dying months he spent with his daughter who was who lived in isra in Baltimore her husband disin was the founder of the bakov of Baltimore and she Mrs disin was the daughter of Yakov ketki Yakov ketki had several Sons some of them are their own right famous ra ketki and others he had three four five Sons uh but uh but so rakov was aging and he loved company every once in a while Mrs disin would call up somebody I was one of the Chosen Few and she said you know if do you have a free morning maybe some free time because the daddy needs somebody to talk to it just has to have someone for conversation he was a very friendly open kind of person he had sense of humor so I took advantage of that opportunity so once she calls me Y and say you got to take that I got to take him out take him for a walk you got to do something he he's he's just beside himself remember he was very old although I'm not much younger than he was at that time but he was but he was very very old and he um so I came to see him so he says yes you know Mrs the Ritson Mrs Mrs disin says I should take you for a walk so he said no no no I'd rather go for a drive you have your car here yeah so I said fine fine uh so uh I asked him where would you like to go you know so he says I want to go to the gun so I thought he meant to the park can usually means a garden or a park so I said oh we can go you know Druid Hill Park we can go and see there a big lake and there Swans in the lake and are you so I said no no no no gim I want to go to a kindergarten not to a garden to a kindergarten can you take me to a kindergarten so I took him to the school in Baltimore known as ta I took him to the kindergarten because I knew the teacher very well she was a friend of my wife and name is dvor zif maybe she's still teaching kindergarten I don't know but she was the kindergarten teacher for a group of boys uh so we came I called her up with no iPhones there and everything but somehow I reached her I said can we come oh be a great honor so we came and I walk in with him I Squirtle him inside and he goes to the door and he was about to kiss the mza he looks up there no mza he looks now here is mza little children so he say what's it do you know so I said well ask the teacher so he asked her you know what what is this mically is supposed to be in the bottom of the top third of the of the height of the door the doorway this was the bottom third of the door so uh he explained that to her and and asked her you know why why do you have the M down so low for the little boys so she said to him you know because the boys can't reach the mza they can't reach it up there so they can't kiss the MUA so we explained to her so gently I can just picture it in my eyes she he turns to her and says in his Lithuanian Yiddish it's not a Mitzvah to cushion the M there's no Mitzvah to kiss the mza it's a very nice thing to do but it's not a Mitzvah to kiss it there a Mitzvah to have it on your doorway if you never kiss it that's okay too so he tells her that there's no mitz to kiss it she says I know that I know that and she also went to Seminary whatever you know I know that but you know for Le little kids I what am I going to teach them I got to teach him it's very important K so kiss it that's what we all do so he said well I'll tell you what you have to the rule is when you train a child this like a lesson in education you have to do the mitzvah for that child in the proper way you know like a lot of people I used to do is I anymore when it came for the for the P I took see how I sleep deprived I am um when it comes sukus so you buy you know a little miniature so they used to buy a lemon not a nest rug but a lemon you know some leaves they give it to the kid like pretend so he said you can't do that you can't do that because then the kid's going to grow up and he's going to remember you you buy a lemon you know or maybe a grapefruit and and some you know some Clover leaves or something and then shake it up you know you gotta you got to give the the all right it doesn't have to be a hood or you know $100 srog it can be a minimal l r but you got to give him the Real McCoy the same thing here so she said okay I'll I'll raise the I'll raise the the m to where it should be but how are the kids going to kiss the mza so then he turns to her and he says I'm going to show you and he went like this all right you blow the kiss you blow the kiss upward you see it this side like that blow it up and he says to the kids okay now let let's make believe the m is over here how are you going to kiss it you had like I don't know 25 little boys you know little put Goden boys playing around with themselves and he made them all go like this so um this story which I was a witness to this story has been told and retold in various ways and with various modifications but that's how I remember a little mza a little mza can be uh can give a can bring air can protect us and obviously we need God's help with a protection and uh we have um what seems to be so far maybe it's a a Simmon of what's coming up in the future but um it's important to acknowledge and the way we spread the theory the the belief rather in the existence of God and who God is and what God is um so we do it through doing Mitzvah we're not going to do it through philosophy class you know these kind of things those don't work anymore if they ever did but when we do Mitzvah each and every one of us individually and certainly all of us as a group as a community as a Amel doing Mitzvah is the way we bring down God into the we make him tangible because we feel he's with us and he'll always be with us and um we are we live in in a Land of God Is Watching Over this uh uh this land we should have a