The Relationship Between Torah and Tefillah by Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb

ra cook always had a little small edition of Shas I think it comes a one volume but uh it's a very small print and he Carri that with her and even when he communicated with her which he did he always had this gamar with him he was a huge mmid I think this was in 1924 that that that that happened that they visited 1924 sounds right sounds right but cook then was it was 10 full years before his death he was still well and could travel any case that's a kind of a personal connection with RF cook so these are some of his comments on the connections between Fila and Torah if you open if you look at the first page which has the words in English RAF cooka and Torah on the top we'll skip for a moment we'll skip Alf and and Bas and just look on that front page at gimmel it's about a little more than halfway down the page you'll see at the beginning of the line a small gimal in parenthesis because that's where he quotes a key passage in the gor and it reads as follows Ra was one of the great Amur the great masters of the talmud tmic times he observed raun ramuna he observed another amod another colleague of his perhaps a student of his named ra he observed Ra was Riva and he saw that one of the people in the the audience in the in his Sho in his b medish was rauna and rauna was daving a very long shim he was daving and daving most of the people finished and waiting to hear and was just he was just very lengthy bit is the Aramaic term for to and he didn't stop he just kept going and going with so finally subjected objected to this and he saidar are you abandoning eternal life and you're being involved in temporary life life of the moment meaning that is a study of Torah one study is Torah which we're doing now this is we're in a higher World we're in the Eternal world when we're praying so what are we praying for praying for Panos for good health for peace peace on Earth and peace in her and we're praying for all these things which are not these are not Divine matters these are human matters the things we need all the time we need health for sure we need we need D we need intelligence um we need peace and we need to be safe secure and rebuilt totally these are all material real worldly real worldly types of concerns so you by praying you're you're getting involved in the life of the moment the temporary life of living on this world you know 120 years maximum you know so that's that's what f is all about you would think or that's so thought that's that's very important and but you're in the base Med you know so put down the Sid enough already enough open up the gor or M or whatever you learning rash and that's that's a different world you're leaving one for the other so that was R's opinion these are two domains that's Torah study and that's prayer but was no slouch he had his own opinion ra that ra rather felt in criticizing Raa who obviously was willing to forgo at least some time of dedicated to R felt there's a time for Torah there's a time for the time for is is limited for 15 minutes 20 minutes whatever it is and then you stop and return to Torah these two separate domains that is the passage in the gor that fascinates ruk what does this mean and and so before we go into piece we'll study in detail the number B in a moment but I just want to reflect a bit with you I want for R cook is a fundamental distinction fundamental in many much of his were writings R cook wrote voluminously R cook vote voluminously is a story told that the the gbba the imra the grandfather of the current gerba um uh visited Arro several times in the 1920s and 1930s and when he visited ER Isel he made his business to visit RAF cuk and um he writes he wrote back to hisid him back in Poland about his experiences visiting RAV cuk so sadly you won't find this in all collections of his letters because some people felt that uh that should be censored but I have a copy of the original letters of of the G to his in Poland and he does include his interactions R in one of his interactions he came in on raav cook RAV cuk was bu busy at his desk the desk in the room you could see now ROV raav cook not too far from here and you will see that um and when he came in when the Gabba came in RF cook excused himself because RF cook was busy riding and riding and riding so he excused himself stood up for him and then said motion to him silently have a seat and RF cook went back to writing for a few moments he was in the middle of a thought phrasing a sentence or two and he finished that writing and so the G Reb said quote I said to him in yish what are you writing so much you know writing and writing and writing what what are you writing so much you saw those pages and pages of writing of cook had notebooks which you can see them also in that museum in ROV of cook some of them some of them were uh censored but the um the main point is rauk turned to him and said also inish I'm not writing for this generation I will write for I'm writing for a generation in the future which will understand what I'm writing what did he mean by that yes there are those who say that ra cook in some way fora the Holocaust he died 1935 so there people who are could already have foreseen to some extent that no good was going to come out of this uh Hitler who came to power in was 1933 this is already was R cook was alive and in touch with what was going on already then in Europe so somehow he was writing for the generation which would would have have faced the Holocaust suffered the Holocaust and survived the Holocaust and and maybe after the Holocaust and and then the foundation of the state of Israel which R cook would have been like the the dream of dreams for him and um and he's writing for that generation or what a friend of mine say says to me all the time about RF cook that the one who studies RAV Cook's Forum now he's the one that RF cook meant each of us should think think when you're studying R cook his writing is you think and he meant me right he was writing for the future 1935 and here it is almost 100 years later we're studying his writings we he was writing for us so here's what he wrote for us and his one of his distinctions is between SE and Reish it's a common distinction in ttic and rinic literature between intellect and emotion ions intellect is SE brain cognition and um and SE and uh and Umesh is feeling emotion the inner inner inner self inner self out herself self etc etc R cook interesting had an Insight which early psychologists who were contemporary of R cook Freud by the way was a contemporary Ru cook if you think about his dates I don't have that much do with each other but [Music] um that there's no sharp distinction between intellect and emotions your intellect is affected by your emotions right when you're very angry you're not thinking straight when you're very much in love you're not thinking straight and um so there's there is an interaction between intellect and um and an emotion and similarly your emotions are affected by your intellect right uh various ways there are some people who when they study gumar intellectually they feel emotionally uplifted that you should feel that way but there's a distinction and yet there's an overlap between the two we'll see that come out in this paragraph So let's look together at this passage Bas which is uh 10 12 lines from the top of the text on the first page of your handout on the front page of your handout yeah that just have two sides um and here's what he writes about prayer [Music] um you know let's do Al let's do Al let's do it right at the beginning Al serves to take all these abstract intangible intellectual world of ideas to take it and to integrate it somehow this is my words integrated somehow into a more natural feeling F mes right in other words we have all kind of things going on in our minds ranging from shopping lists to uh the shot and the contradiction in the rambam or whatever we're studying or busy with and but these things have somehow have to be integrated into our what he calls into our Eternal positive constant um mes constant status of the Soul so serves to do that takes all the concerns of life and brings them into a a place of of nees nees in a sense of Nish of Soul of spirit okay again prayer serves to insert to bring in as all of the Torah which is intellectual all of the aod which is tangible expressions of our worship of God whether it's bringing carote or giving or whatever our AAS hasem is but it's all this worldly but we have to connect it to our inner spirit we have to spiritualize our intellect again my words but that's why I think he's saying every all wisdom which is intellectual not spiritual by its very nature and the all the all the phenomena of of Earth sunrise sunset these are all physical phenomena it's all and it's all serves this F serves to bring all the above not into a more natural characteristic something closer to our nature our very nature not the things we're actively involved with which may be wonderful things but they're not integrated spiritually into us but helps us bring it all into spiritually to something something natural to a certain status a certain position of our soul that's what it means but the saw the passage in the tal that considers to be has what you might think of as a what does it mean so normally we explained it to mean the life of of the times the life of real life the life of material temporal all right ra cook says no means that which enlivens the sh that which makes the sh the momentary things we deal with you know cleaning up the kitchen for shabas that's what spiritualizes it it makes it into something spiritual we're doing something totally mundane and physical which if we could afford a maid you know the maid would take care of it but nevertheless is it takes things which are temporal this worldly things and enlivens them gives us gives them a certain spiritual life so that they can stand straight the world of the is there for us to to connect to but we have to connect with it and we have difficulty connecting some of the more mundan mundane aspects of our life to connect them to the Reon so if we say and we say and we have in mind you know I wish I get a 10% raise or a bonus this this or whatever you have in mind specifically which are certainly temporal matters these not virual matters but helps us helps us make make the temporal things things to do with this so-called this world this real world make brings them closer and integrates them assimilates them into um the unique to be able to unique means to suckle the the abundance of the Eternal world that's what allows us to do you know we're we um those of you remember my practice in when I was in sh sh in Baltimore so I would give the kids little boys and girls uh BR every Friday night theyd line up in front of me and many of them I meet nowadays and they're no longer little boys or girls and they remember the Bros that I gave them so one was to say Rabbi is it permissible for me when I say to pray that I do well on my final exams in Geometry all right now geometry is but if this I would tell them if if you gonna have that right if you're gonna have those that that thought in your mind you're going to be you're going to make the geometry exam into a holy thing you know God has a a place in the world for God's geometry too you can you're going to make that connection in your prayer that's what prayer is all about or as another little boy was that little boy would say where do I pray for for the Orioles all right this is in Baltimore the Baltimore or the baseball team which wasn't always a good team so we're in Shimon es can I fit in you know I want the Orioles to win the World Series how do I pray for that all right I thought of an answer then but I don't remember what I told him but I told him something so he's M next time he goes to a ball game you know have more elevated thoughts okay um a that's that's that's Sheila tor is different because Torah is not a vehicle through which we reach but rather Torah is the Torah is not part of this world this the world calls the real world but rather it's It's Supernatural prayer is a supernatural concept where isn't God to intervene in you know our geometry exam or in our parosa or in our health uh Torah is not doing that that's what is doing Torah is in of itself above when Nature is connected to God when our natural lives our mundane lives are connected to God then then the the the the results of Torah can can be activated when there is tea in the world there nature but there's an acknowledgement that that God is involved with our nature with our natural concerns God kavo requires a functioning mundane world that's functioning properly without theft without falsehood without crime Etc in order to intervene with Nim God doesn't do Miracles every day in fact as R cook will point out in fact God finds it difficult to do Nim every day so to speak but that's a phrase in the gor but the but if if tea is functioning properly if if the the farmer is keeping shita and he and when his crops are subject CS n to at least are subject to Trum and not etc etc and when people are praying for what they really have to have and not for the Orioles to win the pennant but for things that are really important in this world then that's what God can come in with niss God needs have tea as the ground a functioning a well functioning World of Nature in order for him to intervene in the world of the lower world of as he puts it's very powerful thought when is functioning properly as he is it is with when tea is connected to to Chila to our prayers then the level of verles is great and very very lofty when the natural world is deteriorating the word Dal which means poverty when it's impoverished impoverished morally the world is full of uh perversions when the world is full of War when the world is full of the Discord Etc and the world is not functioning then then for God to intervene with Miracles God finds kabo those miracles to be a to be a bother capaya as far as Heaven is concerned that's a phrase from the gamorra God doesn't do it famous story about one of theano who's had an infant child a nursing child and the in the his wife died and there was no one to nurse the baby so God caused a miracle to happen and the husband sprouted breasts and was able to feed the baby and so other people were so impressed with that Miracle they said wow what a wondrous miracle that is wow God gave a a breast to a to a a male a genetic male right and so what a miracle that is but others said no that that that's that's ugly it's it's not consistent with nature God doesn't like to do those kind of Miracles which are not consistent with nature he only does them like in a real emergency he have a destitute to Old R and he has a little baby to feed what can he do so then God does a miracle but that that's that's God finds it inconsistent and there may be um implications in that that Passage the T to which he's alluding uh to cons contemporary issues like transsexual Transformations Etc but I'm not going to go into that right now order for all of our spiritual lives our upper Divine lives to be really to be based to be to be firm and solid by us then then they have to be lined up aligned I would translate aligned a l i g n e d to the constancy to the to the wholeness to the totality of this character of this stuff this function inside of us which is to use the words it enlivens the the mundane things in life if they become enlivened then there's room for Ben him uh from coming down from the toras from the um and he concludes also with the passage in the very interesting one this is a phrase from which we say shabas at theend toward the end ofishas so there's various explanations in the gar what does that mean does it mean every soul that does it mean the entire soul what does it mean so says for every breath that we take the fact that we're sitting here right now and breathing and and and breathing in a healthy way that itself is uh speaking if we recognize every nishima every breath that we take every moment that we have of life and we celebrate it with Hil it has to have its special Hil I woke up this morning I said that's one that I went on whatever we said I thank God for that too constant that's that's coming from the ability to be we take things which you take for granted natural physical phenomenon well when you have tuberculosis you don't have Breath Right you realize that uh every the shim and the Shima is a gift from God and and it's it's it requires its own H so that's the M take trivial we think of trivial things and to real thate they all deserve our prayers and now what we can do is we can be mapel which means we can fold into each other there's a separate worlds you know one opinion is the the ability to to combine Tor with real mundane life that's the goal that's the that's the best thing that can happen to be that they could be Mis Mis misim they should be folded into each other they should mirror each other then they could be like a like a funu mean like a delight a delightful little child um I will always be delighted in your Torah I will take Delight shashua is a rare word it appears inim here and there and it means something very delightful the English word delight is as far as as close as I can come to the concept of shashua when there's an integration between the intellectual and the emotional between the spiritual and the physical and material that that's the shashua that's the Delight God's delight and our delight and that's his first uh First Take on the connection so I thought that would certainly be one important important take when when I study on my own or in preparation for a Shir that I give or for a drush or whatever and in my study I come across um something that uh I say to myself H you can use this right you know make a note of it so what I do ious things depending whether it's chabas or whether it's a weekday you take out a pencil and underline it and make a little asterus next to it or if it's shabas kodes one of my grandchildren adult grandchildren once said Z you know what do you do on chabas so I say you know I fold the page a little bit to come back to it so he said I'm giving you a present and he gave me a little tin full of these little Clips which they sell in any stationary store um it's a little clip and there nothing wrong with they can get out on jice and just putting it on the page that you want to refer to so when I Was preparing for this I see oh there's a little some shabas back in the piss I have this particular passage um underlined and and Illustrated so let's take a look at doid obviously as time allows us that's we'll have to stop only with that one but um uh you have others you could look at yourself again you have to meet the challenge of reading his as you can see already his beautiful beautiful poetic uh writings so didn't we start G already did we start gimmel could be could be I jumped around well I started with gimmel because he quotes the passage in the gamorra of um so I started with gimmel because that's where he quotes it whatever reason he in alive which we studied just now he refers to that distinction but he doesn't make that distinction because he assumes which of the readers doesn't know what's right in but it's quoted here so I I pointed out to you you could see the exact text actually it's not the exact text but it's close to the exact text but it makes a distinction in cook is doing a revolution here he's not looking at as two separate domains he's saying the ideal is to combine the two domains it's not a spiritual world and a material world we have the spiritualized the material world or in his language his this is his creative thought to be um but do we have D here yeah okay so in the second page or if you just turn over your sheet on the near the top of the second page you have doid RAB is a very interesting Amora who is always asking challenging questions in fact and thear sometimes he's referred to kind of critically what he asking so many silly questions for they threw him out of the Bas medish and sometimes they deal with his questions very seriously even though they seem to be far-fetched but that's right that's Rabia he's a very frequently quoted Mo so here's the story was sitting in front of R meaning R was the tal the student in the classroom in the B Med and R was Riva he was giving the shear from the from up front and from the speakers platform and they were studying gor means they were studying T all right so then ra Zer was kind of making signals that it's time to pray all right is what time is it here in this this room 120 so here he was giving a she was already 112 soer was getting impatient and he was like kind of buttoning his jacket maybe putting on his GLE whatever he was he was ready for prayer so Ria says what are you waiting for prayer for we're in the middle of learning Torah you know so say was kind of wait a second Kuwait 120 we'll do it 130 it's fine so applied the following P Mish raber the rabbi the master was applied this Torah to his student R which is also meant as a criticism of R you know what do you mean you're not rushing for you're going to prefer Torah you're going to postpone whatever because of Torah look at this M it's the wisest of all men so he writes Mish at the following T the person who turns his ear away from hearing Torah he says okay I had enough Torah it's time for such a person his prayer is an Abomination now TOA is a very strong word which um is used for some very very abominable uh uh practices uh which may be currently popular but they're called TOA to is a very strong word often translation English translation translate as an Abomination so your prayer will be in Abomination if you don't want to learn Torah you know if if um you turn your ear away from Torah so T if a person doesn't want to study Torah his prayer s are an Abomination um so RF cook analyzes this p in a beautiful way which will come through in a moment we have a little time so I want to tell you a story about my early teens when I had of I and my peers 15 year olds we were in a group called The is it's like a youth group of the P are budding flowers we're all budding flowers uh at at age 15 we were kind of cute Bing to power we went in all kind of different directions over the past long time and we had like a youth minion raar Cutler who founded really much of American Judaism today and the founder of theiva Lakewood so he he would was very busy throughout most of his life and other important causes like V rescuing Jews from the Holocaust or survivors of the Holocaust and and many many other causes uh so he spent his week he lived in an apartment in B Park where I grew up that's where we lived all week and then like Wednesday Thursday toward the end of the week he would go to Lakewood in Lakewood he would say his shurm in the Yeshiva and then by Sunday Monday he would come back to to Bar Park occasionally he would be stuck in bar park for shabas in his apartment so where did he DAV so I didn't app appreciated then why he chose to D with my youth minion why he could have DED in down downstairs with Maya good minion Etc now I understand I matured a little since then he was afraid to insult all the other shoes in bar Park if he were D in this Sho not in that Sho so this how could he go into the sh Bar Park and asked the people there for money for Lakewood if he L he snubbed them and D in the so D the youth minion the youth minion nobody can protest he wanted to D with the young boys you know fine anyway so we had of course we asked him to speak not that we understood more than a word of what he was saying it was difficult to understand it was way above us in many ways so but I I do remember several of the things he said then one of the things he said then I think he quoted it from his father-in-law who happened to be a longtime resident of yush or this is Meltzer lived not far from here uh through most of his last years of his life and was considered part of the rabet of Y back in the good old days the pre Holocaust years Etc so he I think he said this over in the name of his father-in-law be that as a made whether it's own idea or not it's a beautiful idea you know the ronam hears our prayers most of the time he's heard these prayers before all right everyone who's praying for Panos in this year believe me God heard that prayer before from this person and from thousands not millions of other people you know so God could say ah that prayer in yish of course God speaks you know he would say I already I heard this one before I heard this one before so what does a person do who is he turns his ear away from hearing Torah in other words he opens the gamorra and the Reb is saying the gamorra and he says oh this gamorra I heard it before I know thator close the I heard it before if a person says with reaction to the Torah that's being taught I'm not going to this class I know this Rabbi I heard him before ah so he's turns his ear away so his prayer is rejected by God cuz God God heard his prayer before God heard his prayer millions of times before it's nothing new you need a few bucks you know you're not the only one lots of people have this same thing God could have that reaction if you have that reaction to his Torah he can have that reaction to your that was something that I think geared to the age of the average 15year old we love that V we teach each other you know every time someone didn't leave didn't want to listen to something that wouldn't listen to my I would say for the Ori or for the geometry exam and he not going to listen to you anyway Rook had a different take and he has his follows let's let's pay attention to this because I think this is really very very important well I'll skip around in it because it's a little lengthy a person turns away from the natural things that he Encounters in life to the holy emotions that he has that's what fail prayer is whatever is on your head could be very important stuff but you turn away from it when you're ding you open the S and you're going to a different world you're going toes to emotional feelings to complete them to really Express them from potential to actual to express in reality if you want to express yourself emotionally you can't do it by sitting down on a laptop and typing out a message you know it's not going to work the laptop wasn't made to communicate with God it was made to communicate with each other that's routine stuff you're going to have to bring it to another level you're going have to bring it to a level where you communicating with God for that you need prayer prayer activates the Soul so that you're now communicating not with mundane matters or mundane means of communication but rather with God himself you can make a mistake which is a general matter just like we all have spiritual Tendencies everybody has a spiritual tendency we all want something higher something better something more Divine we all have that all humans have somea to Faith in fact scientists feel they have found a a religion gene or an altruism Gene it's part of us spirituality from this that comes from our nature from our intellectual nature I have many many emotions I have many many desires I have material desires I'd like a comfortable home I'd like a to hear nice music I'd like to have a nice car these are all natural and they're not morally negative but they're material so everyone knows anyone with any degree of intelligence knows as you broaden the emotions with which storm up the passions which storm up in the heart of man when it comes to these Natural Things things that we want in life and they they can be all all kinds of of of lusts and desires legitimate ones and everything connected to real life things that we want all of these wants are okay if they're consistent with Torah if you want a nice car because you know you want to be able to do carpool for all the kids in town who don't have cars that's it's fine to want a nice comfortable car an SUV you want to take all the kids whose parents for whatever reason can't afford a car and they can't get their kids to school on time you want to do that that's all you can you can have lust for a nice car okay that's legitimate if it's informed by the Torah nothing wrong specific with you know for for anything that you want even for the final grade on the geometry exam if you subject it toos Ros R himself writes that is very important to know geometry and among if you don't know basic geometry you're not going to understand the mishna the gamar and if you understand basic gar basic geometry as it's taught today you don't even need Rashi anymore because Rashi gives Rashi didn't know IDU but but if you subject it to Torah that then then there all these what he calls are all legitimatized that the Torah bestows righteousness on all of its ways you know you can be going on a trip to be to go to Las Vegas and Gamble and throw away your money uh which could have gone to better causes but it's also possible to go to Las Vegas to see a new sprouting Jewish community and to see how young couples are moving there etc etc and to help them in some way and that make the trip to Las Vegas koser Roser uh so that's howed informs all the paths in life suppose you subject all of your desires and wills and objectives and plans and goals without the tradition of the Torah although you're going to fall among the fallen and you're going to walk the path of of of of of of being lost abandoned and death but we all think that for our spiritual desires for them I don't need to subject my spiritual desires to Torah it's intrinsically spiritual I love God I can sit watch the sunset over the mountains and I have this Divine experience I see God as the master of the universe and I love the experience etc etc a god close to let's say Einstein's God not subject to Torah it's subject to his understanding of nature at the highest level human ability but it's still a spiritual longing but not Guided by Torah so we make the mistake of think that's fine that's fine like I can spiritually communicate with God by watching a beautiful sunset my so teaches us not not so true a person skipping around a little bit but a person could think moodi I don't have to go and study Torah I can communicate with nature in a way that I I I I I am just drawn to the higher power to whatever that means if you if you do that if you're Bing yourself this way you will you will fall in love with the Rock of Ages you will long for him you will desire him greatly you'll be able to talk to God Etc a person could even PR and say I don't have to learn m i don't have to learn the of when could be in the middle of if the Kadesh I can be completely AB absolved like some people are in the sure and praying praying and praying can take theum all day but if you don't know what the hilum means a lot of people SE to Hill him religiously and don't know what the words mean excuse me but U people wiser than I have have made this point you have all kinds of groups women for men everything to ask some of the people what does these words mean all right what does that mean you know so you have to have Torah and tahim is Torah you can study air and tahim with a good teacher or with Rashi or with msas or with an English translation Etc and that's a different that's Tor if you say toim and you spiritually moved by it you know some words do connect and some don't but you sing it beautifully Etc or you have a good niggan to sing with it you're spiritually uplifted rauk says that's not enough it has to connect the Torah this is his you might think prayer is enough for me it's a spiritual experience that's enough I don't need Torah and then when the says okay you know so quickly he'll finish 1 2 three and so okay I did fill but that's not enough he says don't forget this that's that's written by the wisest of men and this is a key phrase not only with a person's material desires or I would think it might mean the the things that we want we want P well so does the cow want P cow wants to have whatever CI all right it's not a Divine a spiritual desire it's it's a legitimate desire so he's telling us but if if you if you your objectives in life are all a ra material parosa good health Etc that's not enough because animals also need health also need a certain element of of intellect and and then need need the food and and sustenance but it needs a dose of Torah you have to have the fence of Torah the parameters of Torah to limit them to arrange them the V are fine but they have to be limited they have to be directed they have to have priorities because even with your spiritual desires that you might think prayer prayer is spirituality I'm free to do whatever I want I can say today in the middle of the summer or I can skip it or say I can do whatever I want I'm spiritual no even in spiritual matters spiritual objectives which are certainly legitimate but they need to be directed properly contained and there need to be priorities they have to be border boundar fixed boundaries perimeters the person want them all day very nice but thear says the person who says Hal every day every day of the year is you can't always be on these upper spiritual levels you got to come down in certain way I'll answer questions in a moment let me just kind of finish the way he put this he said it's so so bluntly so clearly so beautifully person turns his way for Torah not only with his material desires eventually turn to all kinds of Abominations Not only would he want the food that he needs to survive and to be healthy but he also wants you know all kind of Delicacies and things which may not be exactly permissible to eat but rather even once's prayer has to be guided by the Torah he's facing God you're standing there and you're communicating with up God I think I need no Torah I need no other parameters I need no guidelines I need no restrictions I need no priorities if you don't have the proper intellectual Divine guidance to restrict to contain your enthusiastic mystical experiences it become dangerous and and negative and it won't give the good results that you desire you're going to dve in your own way with your own language at your own times the middle of night yesterday for yesterday Etc say on Tuesday because you like the Poetry of the no that becomes therefore you can't abandon Torah don't abandon Torah because you want to pray even your prayer you want your motives are fine your objectives are wonderful they're proper to they're holy and they're lofty prayer is a result of these lofty emotions but nevertheless I have to fetch from the Wellsprings of Torah as sh the the measurements what to say how long to say it how long to to emphasize that's way God your entire life like who doesn't that goes above above above just plain old-fashioned intelligence you have to combine the two and and you can't abandon Torah for and you can't abandon for Torah you have to somehow bring them together that's his theme one of his themes I thought i' Shar it with you and next couple of weeks we'll look at a different aspect not R cook necessarily but different aspects of Torah here we're talking about Torah as what infuses the material Life The Daily mundane life that we all have and need and which is perfectly legitimate but that has to be infused with the hot with the restrictions with the limitations of the uh with the guidelines of Torah yeah I'll tell you the truth and maybe it'll hurt okay Madre Madre there are all kinds of levels there was a time not so long ago in Jewish history Jewish history is a long history when women would say to to hm and women had no education no Jewish Education and no any education the time was not so long ago and maybe it still persists in certain sectors of the community and so they say say to Hill that wasn't just for women that was for men who for one reason or another weren't intellectual enough or those soldiers who were drifted into the Zar Army and had served 25 years they were kidnapped as six year olds from the streets in the shettle which is also not so long ago in Jewish history it's only about 150 160 years ago they came back from those 25 years in the in the zar armi of course they couldn't understand toim so they had in the and they recited to you know it's better than the Alternatives and there is a power to the words of tahim that's for sure that I totally agree with there is a power to the words themselves and even if you study it you know with all the maim you're still going to come across phrases that you don't understand because and you can always connect with what his metaphors are especially when you if you follow tahim even at the simplest level a lot of his metaphors have to do with war you know so when there's a war on unfortunately Jews face many wars but the Jews haven't recently in Jewish history I mean in several Millennia had an army and we didn't have our own sons and Grandsons in the Army at this very moment so we F we find comfort for those phrases inim which go into hilum you'll see they're all over the place David was a warrior David was had his own generals and his own general staff and he was he rose to power because of his military skills against the Giant Goliath so some sometimes in the good years we find it kind of what I praying for for for victory at War what war who War you know and sometimes we forget that at this very moment in time I'm speaking in recording who knows when someone listen to it but at this very time with what's the you we are at War and not only on one front it's on many fronts and it's not only military war it's anti-Semitism Etc so all of this makes a diff takes on a different meaning so the extent that you're aware of the meaning and you can you can personalize the meaning of toim so then becomes a whole different it's not just hey I assigned you say oh I said it not you know it's it's it's important I forly it has some power and some meaning and it's certainly better than you know watching the news all day um but nevertheless there's an aspect of it that you have to you have to use your intellect you have to know what it's all about what is he asking for and and then you find once you begin to do I taught classes and Hill both online and in person people often come to me all kinds people that as they begin to understand toim they can connect to a whole different levels of spirituality you know to move away from War what happened with when he was confronted by a navi by nasan with the sin that he committed with basheva committ that this is a so I came across a phrase in the ru's commentary on the beginning near the beginning of P he say such a beautiful thing he says look at that Capital to I think it's non I'm not sure 100% sure but you can find it contains the words so is sitting there the King of Kings gets a knock on the door who shows up Rabbi Nosa like got to speak to you about something important so DAV could have been thinking then about various important things and no he confronts him with his sin what does David do what does he say I sinned I have to do right that's to me that's one of the most powerful that's what made DAV DAV sha when he was confronted by Shmo with his sins which were military sins uh you know failure to wipe out a mole you know important sins um he didn't say oh I sinned he said no I thought better I thought maybe I'll do this maybe I'll do that I he started rationalizing and said said like it's also recorded in t but he says it the words of he immediately confessed and then he says Words which are familiar to us we say it before every whatever we begin with those words of which is part of David's reaction so R was aish the contemporary and close relative of the ramban he says what what was doing because D's first thought oh I SED I'll bring a carbon right there was a mishan then there was a Mis he could have brought a carbon carbon right for with car with a carbon with an animal sacrifice he get forgiveness but D realized that those laws of sacrificial char sacrificial animals that are that you bring upon the m and that bring forgiveness are only if you did the sin bog if you did this in unintentionally you woke up on chabas morning for some reason you thought it was Tuesday so you turn on the stove and started cooking up coffee and all of a sudden you real I give out chabas then you had to bring a because your sin was absolutely an innocent sin it's had no intention behind it but D didn't sin unintentionally with Beva David knew exactly what he was doing and exactly what he was getting into and exactly how he was sinning so for that right the corbon he could have brought there was then a mish but it's only for shog he needed a capar for Aid he didn't need thear for something he did fully aware of what he was doing fully informed maybe he didn't have two witnesses telling him don't do that but it was still a Masid for that prayer helps more than a carbon so instead of turning to Aon he says permit me to speak to you I have stained lips I have a stained heart help me open my my lips let my mouth praise your glory Etc and then but first he had to kind of gain entree into Theon to get connected that's why he said at that point I'm not I I can bring 400 cows 900 sheep and 1200 goats it's not going to bring forgiveness I have to do it verbally with with and that's part of the K of according to R that's that's an idea that ra cook would be proud of too but know who said it I think we can stop with that at this point we resume next week at 10:15