Yigdal Elokim Chai (part 4) | Rabbi Dr. Aaron Adler | July 16 2025

towards the end of Yigdal. I mean, if it would take the kids Friday night to three weeks to sing Yigdal, we'd never get out of sh. But, um, we're not singing Yigdal. We're trying to explain it. And we're actually up to the uh fourth line towards the end. what we've done so far in the first lines, the first five, we talked about the existence of God in all different um manifestations that there is a God number one. He is one and it's a type of one that's not has no equal. It's not one as opposed to three. The type of number one with regard to kadu is that there's no equal at all. One and only, right? There's no bodily form to God. who was numbered the corporeal, right? And that God is the only one that's eternal before and after and and therefore assumes that the world was created because in the world of Greek philosophy, not everybody agreed with this that there was a creation. There was a thinking out there in Greek philosophy of what's called the eternity of the universe. And one of the things that prompted the writing of the Morenim and the Ramb was not a youngster when he responds to this question of his student in Aleppo which is Kalab in Syria. He had a student but not somebody who studied with him in a year. He never met him in his life. It was a correspondence type of rebi student relationship. Uh where this student asks the Rambam in a letter I I can make a trip to Egypt. you know, I'd love to see you in person. And the Rambam writes back his daily schedule. He wouldn't have a minute to fit him in and therefore don't bother making the trip. And from where here we learn the Rambam's daily schedule in terms of his working as a doctor in the Sultan's palace and then coming back and running a community clinic for Jews and non-Jews alike until the uh late afternoon, early evening. And then he gets a little bit of a bite to eat and starts learning and writing. The Rambam says he had 20 effective hours of his day. Four hours he slept even though he recommended to sleep eight hours but he slept four hours a day. So the Rambam to this student in uh Syria in Aleppo, he's got questions because he's involved in studies of Greek philosophy and with regard to Yahadud, things don't always jive or make sense or perhaps even contradict. So one of the questions was the eternity of the universe and how does that jive with what the rabb saying is that there was a created world with what the medish tells us that God took snow from under his throne and created the world. The suggestion there is that there was some primate material around that aadoshbu uses to create the world. And the Ram spends a lot of time in the bim to explain this on all kinds of levels while maintaining the belief that the world was created. Now he has to explain what that shell everything is is is explained allegorically and so on. And he goes on to a whole diet in explaining midrashim alle allegorically because he says you cannot take them literally. If you take them literally you're going to be in big trouble. And he says that the kazal in their midrash were using um using form human form and material format. the Torah speaks of in the vernacular that human beings can understand and and they explain things except that we have to go a little bit behind those images and try to figure out what really uh the midrash was conveying and the Ram actually promised in various junctures in his life a fulllength book explaining the agadote the midrashim of kazal and he never does it but at least he partially fulfills his obligation in the mor where he explains some of the esoteric midrashim. He he at least he ch he takes it as a challenge and he certainly does it. So this business that a kadu is the only one who's so in in we say kadu was is and will be this is this even led to a thought in khazal and I say again a thought it's not something that's dog dogma it's not something that's absolute it's not something from sai but it's a thought of kazal that after a thousand years of messianic times of y mashiach God's going to push the reset button and everything's going to explode and disappear and disintegrate. Uh and and therefore and so why would they even say something like that? So I once heard from a great professor, Professor Mayor Hershkovitz from Mish University. You remember him? Yeah. Yeah. >> My teacher. >> Your teacher. My teacher also. Wow. We're in the same grade. Look at that. It wasn't first grade. So I had him at YU for Jewish history and he explained that Khazal was fighting Greek philosophers so on the issue of the eternity of the universe that they believe that that's not correct. There is a beginning. There is a creation that not only did the world have a beginning, it can even have an end. It can even have an end because the only thing that can't have an end is a kadosh. You know that the idea that they were saying was more theological than prophetic in terms of what's going to happen. They had nobody had a clue what's going to happen but they said that this is a possibility the world can come to an end too and that's all we're not going to stop our belief because of some something like that. So the idea of being that we have here in the uh in the in the in the fifth line, the eternity of the universe and then the fifth line had to do with the negation of Abu Dh translated you don't see even a what's called a zer a recollection of idolatry. But in the Rambam's formulation of it and I have it on the uh on the next pages where I have the Rambam's formulation under the title for most of you it's on the uh third page on top towards the top where it says there he talks about it's and even and I emphasized this in the previous where I said the major the thrust of was to get us out of the orbit of Abu Dhakar. And I can tell you that for at least a thousand years until the destruction of the first beta mikdash, it didn't work. It didn't work because Abu Dar was rampant init rampant. And it's one of the big three of >> what? >> Also, >> it was rampant in what did I say? >> Is init. Yeah, it was rampant of Israel and and that was really one of the three big three that brought down the first beta mikdash. It's interesting is that today when we think of you go to the Israel Museum or the um the Erit Israel, the Erit of Mikra, the Bible lands museum or anytime the Jewish Judea Museum, you're going to start seeing um all kinds of archaeological finds of of pagan worship, including statues and figures and so on. You look at it, you say it's just a statue. Why would anybody look at it as a god? So the point is we weren't there to see the trance that people were in that brought about this kind of behavior. It was real. It was real. And that's the famous uh the famous story of of one of the one of the comes to Minasha in a dream. the son of Kriskia Melik made religious reform here. He eradicated Abodazar except that he he couldn't check every what was going on behind everybody's door. Behind the door people hung up their getkas their their salim their so they still didn't want to throw it out. They wanted to keep it for safekeeping and so on. Manasha brings it all back. So one of the tanim asks him in a dream says I don't understand you know you had this great father why did you bring it back? And his response was if you would have been in my generation you would have picked up your kapata and run to avoid zara also. And that that's very very important. You know people have asked me here uh she says I don't say you know how can all you Shiva boys and people with even with pis and everything you know show up at ball games in America. I said you never grew up there. You never grew up there. It's the same thing. If you would grown up in the era that I grew up you'd pick up your kapata and run to the ball games. >> You show up at ball games here too. Not as much. Not as much. Kids are involved in sports, but it's not something that defines their day. >> I mean physically. I mean in a mall. There was a certain mall where I was raising my kids and the teenagers and the kids that were supposed to be they were there when the big soccer games were going. [Music] >> Okay. That's that's Khar. That's Khar. I'm talking about you know regular participation. uh you know it's it's it's it you have it obviously but you don't have it in the same scope that you have it there. >> All right. You have you have in in certain ballparks you have kosher >> maza kosher mazak kosher stance big time kosher stance not in my days >> not in my days but you know the you know the Yankees became from in the last few years and they have they open up the VIP suite at the end of the seventh inning for my and 150 people will file in and they'll dive in my because they have the the break you know where they sing God bless America. if they're saying God bless America, you know. So, but they also have TV visors there because in case the the game continues, so you shouldn't, God forbid, miss a swing. Right. So, you see people going Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Welcome to America. Welcome to America. Right. Right. Right. Right. True. Anyway, the um then after after he gets through, the flip side obviously is Torba. But in order to introduce Tawa, the Ram has to tell us about prophecy. And in order to talk about prophecy, he has to get to the unique prophecy of Mosh Rabenu. And to get to the unique prophecy of Mosh Rabenu, we get to Matyra, the giving of the Torah. Because Mosh Rabenu is there. He is the person who's the Matanto. And that is the conceptual difference between the unique prophecy of Moshenu as opposed to the other prophets. where normally when one speaks about the all the prophets in the line, God gave an overabundance of showering of his prophecy to special unique people. And then the next line was there was no no one as great as Moshe. So this is unique. We usually talk about the the the um um not the um uh what do we call it? We we usually talk about it in in in in number in in terms of uh details details what a u a regular prophet can do how he sees his prophecy and then again how mushenu sees we see it more as a qual we usually see it as a quantitative edge the more things that mashenu can get prophecy than the average ra says it's a qualitative edge it's not just a quantitative edge it's a qualitative edge edge and the reason that you have such a difference is that the purpose of mushainu's prophecy And his unique prophecy was that he would be there on har night to receive the Torah. That was his job. That was his mission. As opposed to all the other prophets, their mission was something else. To admonish, to warn, to to perhaps pro prophesy on good times, whatever it is, they had a different mission completely. And then when we already have the idea that Israel, you see already the Ram incorporates Rabenu into the very very giving of the Torah. And when you study Torah, it becomes your Torah. And that's why at the end of Zakaria, it says Moshe. The Torah becomes in Mosha's name, Moshe. Menu never wrote it, but Mosher Renu now absorbs it and teaches us. So it now becomes our Torah as well. The um and then the Rambam goes into that the Torah cannot be distorted, changed, revised in any way, and manner. limul it's it's forever now all these are taking a stab at Christianity and Islam who who and also the kites who who actually did not accept the tenets of the um of the toasha of of the oral law and and therefore the raam is you know putting his you know foot down on these one on these very very basic tenets that the the Torah cannot be changed it's the same same Torah what he doesn't go into detail here because here is not the place to explain the role of the oral law to um where the Rambam divides it into different components of which two components are rabbitic. So that's clearly not from Sai uh the dos and the don'ts that are rabbitic. Lighting Kaneka candles and reading the migillim or having a prohibition of mukah of not being able to move certain things on Shabbat, these are rabbitic. So that's obviously add-ons. But even the first three that the Ram believes are biblical, the Ram sees them somewhat differently. He sees the first category of those words or phrases in the that are there except that we don't know what the Torah is talking about. Right? If a person never saw a pair of fillin in his life would never in a zillion years be able to construct a pair of fillin on the basis of you have to have to teach you that you have to have to teach you basically what was that >> right so so with regard to the idea of where it says pates It's had Ram uses as a class A example had a fruit that's called a hadar. You go to any kid in gan. So they talk about the hadarim. It's a whole slew of fruits that are called prehadar. Except when the Torah says priyatar means one thing. It means anrogue. So that does not have any dispute. There's no community in it is that disputes the idea that priadar is atrog. you may have uh in terms of a botanical difference between the size of anrogue that the Yemenes traditionally use as opposed to the Europeans bes but it's rogue. It's still in a drug. Yeah. >> Um, did the carites wear some sort of >> Right. So, the caresites had fillin not necessarily square and not necessarily black and not necessar and and and hanging on the nose because it says >> so what was hanging the scroll? >> That's a good question. I never saw a pair of kites fill in because I'll talk about the fact that they argued on Bay. Ben means on the forehead where once upon a time there was hair, right? You figure out when you're bam mitzvah. By the time you pass 28, you know, then it's a za to the hairline, right? But but you put it on where the hairline was. So that's why at bar mitzvah you're supposed to take a pencil and just write. No, no, don't do that. So for example, the kites would hang up, this is mentioned, hang up titus on the flag pole. Where does he say in the Torad? You're supposed to look at the titus. It says that if you have a fourcorned garment, you're supposed to put titus on it. And then it says, what do you do with it? You're supposed to look at it. >> What doesn't say, >> right? It doesn't say you have to wear it. So it says they or or the most famous one is they believe that you're not allowed to have fire burning in your house on Shabas. So therefore you have to sit in a cold house and eat cold food on Shabbat and that's where in the in the Kite uh you know years era that's where chulant would came into being. >> So did they light candles before? No, no, there was no not only Glad you mentioned that by the way. I once heard from No, no, no. I once heard a great lecture from Rabbi Sperva, Daniel Sperva where he spoke about the minhag of learning pavote on in the summer months. you know it's it's in the sther from pes and then from sukus until it says instead of pavote you say don't ask how that got in but ravo points out that the reading of the or study of puravote was not limited to pesak to rashashana or in theardi ritual from pesak to shv just the six shabbat and that's it but it was actually round all throughout the year and it was actually the flip side of a minog of the rov giving an anti-carite Russia Friday night in Shul every single week where they use the mitzvah of Shabbat or the peric bameadin the second chapter of Ms Shabbat as the springboard to talk against the kites and that's howin makes it into the sitter because when you think about it when you go to shu Friday night and you said already and everything. Now is not the time to study about the laws of lighting Friday, you know, of Shabas candles. In all likelihood, the candles were already lit at home. But that's not the point of Bamemedikin. Bamemed was a springboard to talk against the Kites who denied the mitzvah of Nero Shabbat. And Raeshva said the second part of this minhug was moat as mo Shabbat is coming in after between to give another shot against the uh for for tradition by doing is a type of declaration of of uh commitment to the tradition of the of the and then what happened was when the when the impact and influence of the of the carites waned by the 13th 14th century. So there was no longer a need for these you know the speeches weren't given anymore. So in many shs in Ashkanaz they kept the budikin anyway because the word change in Ashkanaz Mik doesn't exist you know once it's there it's there for keeps but in the kidic more cababalistic orientation it was dropped and in its place a piece of zohar that most people don't understand but they say it anyway of the which is the Shabbat Shabbat the secret of Shabbat it's a it's from Zarat and and the only reason a lot of people know it is because the Kazen Pinchek made a great cantoral piece from Raza de Jabas but uh this was in in place of the Bameadin and what happened with regard to the Mozabat with the Friday late Shabas afternoon. So the minute shrank from Perk vote the whole year to Perk vote half a year or Perk vote for six weeks between Pes and it in other words it lost its clout or for the original reason why. So today when I grew up I said why do we learn pervot in the summer because the summer there's a tendency to let loose because there's nice weather and so on you go out so you need a shot in the arm of muser you know only in a muser organ framework can you come up with that kind of a reason now many times as the ro always taught us there there for a certain minhogim you can have multiple reasons for a custom but a a somebody who's historian wants to know what's the source what is the reason that we have it and then what are the alternative reasons or secondary reasons and it doesn't mean they're not true. It just means that they were grafted upon the original reason and gives a little bit more schmaltz to it and so on. But when when the lein was dropped or or the and the and the full yearly study of Perky vote was dropped. So then if you're going to do it for half a year, if you're going to do it for six weeks, so why you know what's left? So you have to come up with something else. I just give an example. You know the mission says So, everybody knows why is why is the Gar gives us six reasons. Okay. So, what's the reason doesn't tell us and it's still we're in a cloud. We don't know what where did it start? Which generation did it start? You start in the days of the midbra and same thing. Five five things happened on Shabbas. Okay. 1 2 3 4 five. But on which one did they make the sashu broke the loot? That's the first one. Did anybody make a a fast day of 17th of Tamos because of that? There's no indication for that. It says that after there was already a fast of seventh of 17th of Tamos for either one or two reasons other things all of a sudden hey that also came out on and that also came out on 17th of Tamos. So the Mishna gives us a whole lineup of things that happened. So tobah things happen in Tishba. Okay. But what's the reason that we have the fast on tishab was the one reason and then other things happened right the moraglin happened tishabove the the betar fell on tishabove so I understand that in 1492 there was also a relationship somehow to tishabove and and and and so one of the Nazis major decisions was had to happen in tishab war started on tish >> since world war was basically world >> miss it's a Nice Russia. It's a nice Russia. Right. Right. Right. Before Before I continue, I just remember I was supposed to announce that this more all the shim today are in sponsored by Mark and Deborah Zohar for the art sites of Mark's parents Kman Kaim Beni the second of of Av and Esther Batmo the fourth of A and all the shum of of our shim for the series in memory of Alisha Frisva Zman. Okay. Um now let's look at the um it's four lines from the end of the poem observes and knows all the secrets and he takes a look. Do you remember we say in Russash the second of the special and right and it says it says there with regard to is taking a look at to the end of generations. That's a question itself. That's not really what happened. But what will happen is no less than what did happen. And that's what the Ram is saying here that the Rama time is not a factor at all. It's nonsense to talk about and it's sacriiggious even says Rama to talk about time of a bahu yesterday today tomorrow by kadu it's all merges into one and I believe I've already mentioned the ra in the first volume of the morenim where he says the shame the if we would pronounce it the way the kohanim did in beta mikdash it would be a contraction of hayov was, is, and will be because that's really what a kadoshu is. It's it's just above time completely above time. Which means that any fraction of a second of our existence, which is legitimate human existence created time and place, really Einstein's understanding of the created world is correct. It's the graph of XY of time and place. And every human being is is a dot somewhere in the xy graph of time and place. But a kadosh bahu knows knows his awareness of things is above time. Which means the future is as relevant to kadoshu as the past. Which means that human beings may not have control over their actions. Because if a kadoshu already knows at this fractioned moment in our time framework what's going to be tomorrow or in a hundred years then you it's got it's got it's got to happen. It it must necessarily happen. So where was your free will in determining what's going to happen? This was a major major issue in general religious philosophy including Jewish philosophy including Jewish philosophy that the pro the the tension and even contradiction between these two truths that there is there is a an awareness of what's happening but not just what has happened and what is happening but also what will be happening there's a constant awareness with the doctrine of free will. How does that work in in together where they seem to be contradictory? Um Ra the Rambam in his Mishna commentary to Perkavote notes that Rabaka says four words in a particular Mishna. forwards everything is known and permission is and rash then permission not not rash means permission it means the ability you have the ability to to conduct your life you have will you have free will you have you have free will how does that work together so Rama begins by saying something about Rabika that in my humble awareness of Rambam texts I can tell you the Rama never ever gave gave marks, grades, good grades to ourim. And here he says this line, these four words are so important that it couldn't have been said by anybody better than Rabaka. I mean imagine I mean to to give it to slap him on the shoulder he says kavote kavote you know couldn't this could I couldn't have said it any better you know like perfect and he says that uh I don't have to explain it here because in the introduction to the pavote raam has eight chapters which is a book in itself his introduction to the pavote it's called eight chapters and in the eighth chapter the last chapter the raam is very expensive ensive about uh the the contradiction. He he he actually wants you to understand the contradiction. And I remember the rup saying that 60% of the answer is to understand the question. If you don't understand the question properly, why bother with the answer? So, so here the spends an awful lot of time convincing you that we really have a problem. We have a big problem here. And at the end of the day, he doesn't really offer a convincing answer. He gives us guidelines how to move ahead with accepting both the notion of and the notion of free will. In his the Rambam in his fifth chapter of dedicates two chapters five and six to the notion of free will. And there he he repeats this whole contradiction and he says um he he prefers not getting into a philosophical discourse and he falls back on a in that God saying my way of thinking my mind is not like your mind. My way of doing things is not like your way of doing things. You're you're asking a question based on human intellect, human values, human associations. So on the level of the way we think and grasp knowledge, it's a contradiction. But a kadosh bahud does things differently differently. So I'm going to give try to give it a little bit of an understanding of to understand the question and then try to give a little bit of understanding to try to give an answer. So to give an understanding of a question the um if if if let's assume uh a p a person is standing looking out the window in a corner window perhaps even on the roof and he can look down at the street of two streets and he sees two cars coming and he sees that there's a red light and one car should actually stop and the other car has a green light but he actually sees the car on the red light side jump the light before the crash. He knows there's going to be a crash. >> He knows there's going to be a crash. Why? Because he's got information. He's got information that's way he's got a wide angle view of what's happening. Except the guy that's driving the car with his green light and his car is in perfect shape and everything. He just had a tune two days ago and there's no nothing wrong with his brakes and nothing wrong with anything that he's doing. and he's going through the intersection legally. He doesn't know that he's going to get clipped by a guy jumping the the red light. But the guy on top, he does know. He does know it because he's got a a wide angle. The Rambam is is trying to teach us that a kadosh's view is hayah. So, while you are on the street making decisions, the guy with the green light could have slammed the brakes because he felt like slamming the brakes, but there was no reason for him to slam the brakes because he had a green light. So, why shouldn't he continue driving? Can you imagine if you slam the brakes? The guy behind him would have yelled and cursed and everything. So, so he was okay. He was doing his thing except that a kadu sees it from way above and the and the angle is just just infinite. And therefore sees what the possibilities are. Which means that while you have the right to make a choice, a kadoshu is aware of your psychological well-being, your background, how you make choices in life, your favorites and so on. You have that ability to make that choice and you do make that choice except that a kadoshu in his wide angle view has seen it already. He sees it coming as if to say sees it coming or perhaps an illustration from the world of sports, right? So you have um you have uh you know replays replay of a game. You can see a replay of the whole game. You can see a condensed game. I'm such a bokei. You can see a replay of a particular play. What's a replay? It happened a minute ago. It happened a day ago. It happened a year ago, right? You want to see a game from 40 years ago. A replay. Why do you want to see it? Because you know there was an exciting moment there and you want to relive it. You want to relive that exciting moment. So you know about the exciting moment. You know when it's exciting when you're at the game. You watch it and it happens. Then it's exciting moment. Oh, you're watching it on television and so on. Then it's exciting. But to see it 14 times over, some people get a charge out of watching again. They know exactly what's going to happen because a kadosh baku is actually seeing the replay. He's watching the replay, but the people on the field, they make choices and we make choices as we go. So again, it's not the mashall is not 100% like the nimshall. Yeah. >> So when we denote, don't we also say that maybe Hashem who sees from above is going to do something to prevent that God who's going through the red light? Maybe a digous tree appears or something that he'll do a miracle. We've seen this that we and even supposed to happen it doesn't >> right. So there there are things this is this is a real question when we ask a kadosh bahu to change the course of history whether it's on a private level or on the national level are we really saying that a kadoshu has got a plan but we're asking him to shift are we asking a kadosh to shift so that's an issue that's an issue when you study are are do we even have things that um suggest suggest shift gears with Israel. The original plan was A but because of circumstance became B or can imagine if Mosher Rabenu never sinned in the midbar he would have brought Israel in ter Israel and he would have been Malik Mashiach history would have been different would have been very very different. So was did a kadesh know that this was going to happen or not you know did was it a function of mosh raenu and so on anduven he's he's begging you know for the right to go in he knows whe the verdict has come down but he he feels it can be changed because if if it didn't fail it could be changed he wouldn't be ding the answer was no but at least he made an attempt >> this is something we don't understand >> so a lot of things we don't understand >> answer some people answer >> right right so that that's what the tells us we don't know what makes and that's exactly what was asking can you please let me into the secret what makes you tick and he was asking about the question of and the answer was as a human being you'll never really understand it yeah >> I was asking how did this her what she was saying play into Hashem decides what is going to be for each person, right? But we're still dominating for a change in this thing. >> So the answer is >> that that au's awareness of the future does not impact on our decisions >> right and and the Brahman believes that if you don't accept that you can close the basta, you can close the whole shop. There's no need continuing with yad. If you don't accept the doctrine of free will, you can close the shop. That means there's no accountability for our actions and Judaism is predicated upon accountability. So the uh what you have here only talks about awareness of what's happening to people presently and in the future. He's aware of what's happening. But where is the doctrine of free will? So people say, well, it's implicit. It's it's not so implicit as Rabenu it's the great rashiva of Malin pointed out the Ram left it out left it out in of in this listing of 13 does it mean he doesn't believe in it he believes in it in his that I quoted just before from the fifth chapter he calls the doctrine of free will anar means a principle a principle of belief so as Rabinowitz points out they're actual 14 principles of belief, not 13, 14. And the Ram just doesn't talk about the 14th here. And the question is why not? Why not? So the only answer that I saw to this was by Rabbi Saxs, except that I know that Rabbi Saxs was the prime student of Rabbi Rabinowitz when Rabbi Saxs studied at the Jews college in London before Rabbi Rabinowitz came on aliyah to become Rashiva in Malay in Shivatosher. Um and you know before Rabi Saxs Zahan Lraha took over as Rabar Rashid the chief rabbi of England he took a year off sabbatical maybe a half year whatever it was he took so sbatical and he sat in the yeshiva in Mala Dumim by his rebi Rab rainois. Yes just to brush up. Oh that was a very very important move. But anyway, Rabra Rav Saxs brings the notion of the 14th principle as free will in his book without quoting his rebi and then gives an answer why the Rambam left it out without quoting his rebi. Now I know for sure what Rabb Rubinit said about the first part that for so I believe that Rabbi Sax said the second part came from Rab Rubinwitz also and there's no reason to assume otherwise and that is that the 13 that we have here are all about God and the 14th is about human beings is so that's why he didn't put it in and he puts it in which has to do with human beings. Yeah. Didn't explain it by saying >> that's a garra. That's a gar says. And the idea that everything is predestined. And Rashi explains it there. It's genetics. Whether you're going to be tall or short, we're going to have a disposition for this or that. That's what it means. all your whether you're going to be born into a wealthy family or a poor poor family. You know people are born into situations. So who who made up that you're going to be why should you be born in that situation and not that situation go behind by saying >> so is doesn't mean like this means that every action that you do is in line you're doing it because you feel it's in line with it's free will is the doctrine of free will be true. You know, you were born here, you were born there. You know, you you were born in Los Angeles. Okay. Bada so that doesn't excuse you from picking yourself up and moving towards Israel. You can't say too bad. I was born in Los Angeles. You know, so person says, "I was born with a temper." Okay, you were born with tempers. Now, some people have tempers. They have low boiling points. That doesn't mean you're supposed to get angry. You can't just say, "Okay, I was born with it. Therefore, no, you work on it. work on it. Every single uh character that human beings have for good or for bad can be directed toem. And if it's a negative attribute, you have to work on it somehow. Then they can be dealt with for sure. Um I'll talk about uh you know, you can't say I couldn't study Torah because I was poor. You can't be poorer than Hil and he studied Torah. And you can't no I was rich and I was just busy counting my money and investing and so on. You can't be richer than another one of the so no excuses. You know, you're born into a scenario. Do with it with what you have. That's all that's that that's the point for sure. So here you have the line about um about without the line of of free will of free choice which according to Raenowitz and Rabbi Sax's student was deliberately left out because they deal with man and not with au all the other things here have to do with that with >> but it's not it's not it's not really left out because the first He knows everything. Correct. The next line some people claim is inherent implicit free will. Meets out reward and punishment. Now, so Raenowitz deals with this too. as long as as well as his Talmud cave raises Shilat who's the current rashiva in Malim in his introduction to Rambam's introductions he writes that um what you have here goes that Rambam is talking about accountability accountability accountability is something that's in the domain of a kadoshu kadeshu makes the he keeps the log he keeps the log he keeps the accounting as to How many mitzvot? How many pl you know merits and demerits? How many mitzvot? How many of your wrote? You're going to be held accountable. That's all. Of course, you can say that to get to arrive at the listing you was you would necessarily have made a choice. So, Rav Shil points out that the Rambam could have condensed all of these 13 into three of Rav Yoseph Elbow's Sepha Karim. There's a book called Sepha Karim and in that book of he's got three. That doesn't doesn't mean he's challenging Rambam on 10. If you look at his book of three, it's all the 13. They're all there except that he spent one for the Ram spread out in five and he spent one for the Ramom spread out another four or five and so on. Okay. So, it was a question of how you slice the pie. You know, you you can take a pie and slice it into eight slices, but you have little grandchildren there. you slice it into 16 because they leave it over anyway, right? So there's a bashkas. Why give them a whole slice of pizza if they're going to throw half of it in the garbage? So So you can do these things, right? You you you can you can split further. The Rambam deliberately sliced the pie to more and more and more parts, which means that if he really wanted to speak about, he would have added it as another point. as another point just like he has the point because he could have put together the u the whole idea kadoshu knows what's going on and accountability as the rase elbow did but he didn't he decided to split it and therefore it's conspicuously absent it should have been a token mentioning at least in half of one of the phrases if not one of them and he doesn't do it so that is very suggestive that it's a deliberate deletion and if it's a deletion it begs Thanks for question explanation why so at least they suggest if somebody wants to come up with a better one I can tell you that Rav Sheri Rav his name is Ravi >> Uri Uri Sher Ravi Sher he's a French RV in Kat Moshe and um the father of the fellow you see on the news yay sherk >> and he lost his son in correct in Ramaresko that's correct so Rauri Sheri is a very popular speaker in the city were loved by the French Jewish community here and um my own family we had some connections with him lovely person so he suggested he agreed with Rab Beninowitz that there's got to be a 14th but he challenged Rab Benowitz as to what was the 14th he said he shows that the Rambam in his book of mitzvot in his sea mitzvot he um talks about the mitzvah of kushodesh and ib hasham making the calendar with the rush kodesh and the leap years and so on. And there he is. Everybody believes that rush kodesh has to be done by judicial action. Somebody sees the moon at night and goes to bet first thing in the morning reports on it. But today there's no bet. There's nobody reporting on the new moon. So how do we know it's foresh? So the answer is you know the the amuna women organization sent you a calendar before rashana with an envelope. Right? So you have 5,000 calendars at home with 5,000 envelopes and try to figure out what to do with them and they're all worthy causes. Believe me, I'm not pushing one except that my mother was a member of a muna for so many years. So I mentioned it the um so how what the calendar is a piece of paper. So most and I say most I'm talking 99% of the postkims that what actually happened was there was a hillel hashi a second hillel he was a grandson of rebui maybe a great grandson but for sure a grandson at least a grandson and what he does was he puts together the 19-year calendar as we have it today it's a 19ear calendar it just goes over and over so if you have a 19-year Jewish calendar you're set you don't have to have an amuna calendar anymore right you could It repeats. It repeats. And and and that's why your English and Hebrew birthday should coincide age 19 38 and 57. If it doesn't, it means you weren't born or or or your birthday may be off, but you may be off by a day and that's okay because you may have been born at night and the Hebrew birthday switched or so that we know. But anyway, it's a 19-year calendar. And what Hil Hasheni did, he invoked like took out of the drawer an emergency clause that said that not only can you um sanctify this month's rashadesh, but you can actually sanctify today, next month's rashesh and the month after and the year after and a decade later and a millennium later. And they sanctified every rashadesh until Msiah time. So basically we do nothing and the calendar just tells us which day has been retroactively sanctified in the days of Elisha. That's how it works according to 99%. I grew up on that. We all grew up on that one till you open up a Rambam. Rambam made trouble for everybody. Ram believes that from Sai there were two tracks. Track one was the one that we study in the Mishna of visual sighting of the moon and there's a bait and three dion sit and wait in the morning for Adam to come and saw testify they saw the moon fine and there are conditions that would require a leap year pes has to be in the spring that and they have to adjust the solar and lunar calendar fine but if the situation is is is out of commission and that happened in the third fourth generation of their amim because no longer was there the real init and therefore the bim no long no no longer had authority to deal with and hash we automatically go to track two like a switch track and track two says sanctifying the moon by the calculation by the calendar what does that mean he says you have to have at least 10 Jews init observing the day as rashesh and if you don't have 10 Jews in it Israel in any generation in any month not observing the days of asshesh not only is the day not rashesh for anybody in Bora but there's no y that month if there happened to have been a if it happened to have been tish or nissan or there's no y because yamt is predicated on the the kadusha of that month the kadushesh of that month and hence the Rama believed that even though there was an exile we never had a scenario of at least 10 Jews in Erit Israel at any given time. Today we have 7 million >> less than >> less than 10 if less than 10. And the Ram says that less why because he defines Israel. You want to know they write in paper a definition of amrail. Rama says you know what the definition of AmIrael is at least 10 Jews inherits Israel. And he says, "And if and and if you don't have that, then it's the annihilation of AmIrael." That's what he calls it. >> Because historically there were always Jews in Erit Israel where there was communication between Bavl and Erit Israel in the sixth century, in the seventh century and the 8th century. We know there was in the middle ages there were Jews and Brahma himself came to Israel in 12th century. There there were Jews. There always Jews here. How many? I mean the Ramban comes in 13th century and he says I couldn't find a minion in okay so he couldn't find a minion in doesn't mean there weren't 10 Jews in they were in Ako you know where they were they were and then later but had two earthquakes which decimated it so so they they there they were 10 Jews in Erit Israel for sure the um and and the Ram defines ami Israel as at least 10 Jews in Israel and everybody outside they're what we call inh they're related to us they're family they're family that's all but it's not ra believes that and this is the same Rambam who did not include the mitzvah of residing in Erit Israel as one of the 613 that doesn't mean he was against it that's a shar in itself the Ramban argues with the Rambam and includes the mitzvah of residing in Erit Israel as one of the 613 the Rambam never included it but doesn't mean he was against it he has a lot of nice things to say about So what I'm pointing out is that Rasherki believed that this notion that is defined as the Jews of Israel Ram himself in his book of mitzvot calls it it's one of the absolute fundamentals of Judaism and if that's the case says here's the 14th here's the 14th okay beta now I heard it in his name but I want to before I printed it somewhere I wrote him an email and he confirmed it to me. So I he said I can go public and say he said it and so on. Okay. The the RV one said something I may have mentioned this last week that was just in a hamletic sense. I believe I mentioned last week at one of the Misrai conventions where he said I believe with full belief that the Torah is applicable and relevant in every single political, economic, social, theological, technological society no matter what. No matter what the scenario that you're born into, you can't say, well, you know, it worked for the Jews over there, but it doesn't work for me here. That that's that's unacceptable. The Torah is elastic. And what makes it elastic is tosh is the oral law that makes it elastic and makes it the ability to be applicable in all areas, eras, and all generations. So that the Rub never said to say a forth. He used it poetically in the dash. But then he said it's implicit in actually the ninth uh where it says it's implicit that the Torah cannot be changed in a way manner which which suggests that Torah is can be available and should be available for everyone in all times and in all places. Okay. So now we have we're up to just the the last two. So we're not going to be able to deal with it extensively, but we're just going to begin it now, but deal with it extensively next week. And next week is going to be for this learning zman our last year. There's no such thing as a last year. DV said Torah has no finality. That's why he suffered from two allergic reactions. One was the printing press that suggests finality. You print the book, it's done. Right? So I remember I I always tell people most honest thing I wrote in my book on the Rambam was the last three words Tomlam it's finished but it's not complete. It's never ever complete. And the proof is I got two pages of printed because as the book came out why didn't I see this and why didn't I see that? And you know I got about 30 comments about the extras to go on. Forget about some typos. There weren't that many typos, thank God. But there there are add-ons and more articles come to my attention and uh beta. So, you know, was it sloppy on my part and I never heard of this? I never heard of that before. Now I did. So, so I write it in if I put out a new addition. So, I'll include it. That's all. So the RV said that that's why the salvetic never printed the RV's grandfather rapim from Brisque his monumental work on the Rambam kush ravi on the Rambam used in every bait midrash in the world never saw it in print on his mata in on his monument in va it saysam he left a compendium in handwriting and manuscript of a of a no on the raam mishnet of the Rama he never saw in print. His sons put it out in print and the RV himself until he was almost 70 years old nothing came out in book form and the first thing that came out in book form was Alachuva. It was simply an anthology of seven shirim that had already been printed in the magazine Panim Al Panim of Pinelli. So it just meant taking those seven articles and putting in a book form. So now today at home I think I have over 50 books that say the r you know because the things have come out that that's a and the second analogy was to a sem just didn't like making a sem because he felt that a sem suggests finality and you can't finish now the m our custom always is to to start the next m whenever you do a sem you always start even on some you read braces you finish the Torah and you take out another and you read braces because of this idea of no finality that that for sure. So there won't be finality to our year next week except that we're going to at least temporarily go on hold on pause when we do the last two. The last two are the most exciting. One reason is because number 12 a big niggan was made out of its all the Msiah songs are about the 12th anim and the 13th most probably the most problematic and the Ram writes the least about it he writes and it's the last page on the bottom and the 13th principle the the the the resurrection the of the saidar bua and I already read it explained it. Okay, so where did he explain it? And we'll see that the Ram got into big trouble on the doctrine of where it was suggested that maybe he's wishy-washy and not 100% on the on the same page as us. We will see he was on our page 100%. But where does he talk about it here? He decides just to just mention it. Says, "All right, just name drop me Tim. I spoke about it already. Shalom. You know, let's move on. And uh and why he does that. But with regard to Msiah, we're you know, being that we're hearing the the hagulah the the right. We're hearing it. We're hearing it. Right. So I'll just leave you with one little humoristic line to hear the the the bell the bells of Mashia Pula and so on. So they say a story in the 150 years ago the church bell broke and nobody knew how to fix the church bell but somebody said you know in the there was a Jew who actually he knows how to do work these things. So they got this Jew and he had no choice. He had to fix the church bell and everything and fine. And now they're all standing on Sunday. They're gonna pull the, you know, the the cord and everybody's gonna listen to the new chime of the bell. And they pull it down and they all hear I just want to tell you