Parashat Bamidbar - Why are Jews divided? - Rabbi Alon Anava

Today we have a sham. I was starting a new Kamash. A new Kamash, a new book. And Today we want to talk about a topic that has been asked so many times by so many people. And in this it's very focused on. Is why is there a separation between all the Jews? And in this in this is called Midbar. It's focusing on the concept of counting all the Jews. The nation of Israel. And but not counting them as as one group. Counting them as tribes. And there's a lot of emphasis in this about the tribes. They were counted separately. They were parked separately. They they they had different leaders. Flags, colors, symbols. And there's a big question. Why? Why do we have to be tribes? Now today we don't have tribes. I mean we don't we just don't know who are who are who's who. But now we are separated in groups. So many different groups. And you see that the result from it is hate towards each other. To a point that people don't talk to each other. There's segregation. Schools for schools for this is from this group. He's from that group. It It causes a lot of problems. But on the other hand we see that it originates from the Torah. To a point that in this it's a sham. All that it's talking about is the separation. And there has to be separation. And it's all about the separation of the tribes. So the sad reality is that in our generation it causes such a separation that it's already coming down to hate. Literally hate. People hate each other. Because he's from this group. He's from that group. And shalom not to intermarry. He's also so nonsense. I mean that's the sad reality. You know there's a joke that there's one time a Jew was on a ship. And there was a storm. And unfortunately the whole ship drowned. I mean they not drowned. A ship doesn't drown. It sank. And he somehow grabbed a piece of wood. And he was floating and he was able to to survive. Everybody drowned. The sink the the ship sank. And he survived. And he got washed off to the shore. Of course he was very happy that he survived. But now he's in the middle of nowhere. He's on an island. He doesn't know what to do. Walking around. Doesn't even know where he's going to get food from. Suddenly he sees another person from far away. He starts running to him. And they meet each other. They hug each other. Oh and out of instinct he says shalom aleichem. The person answers back aleichem shalom. Are you Jewish? Yeah I'm Jewish. I'm also stuck here. Wow. Hugging kissing. So he the the first one that already lives on the island tells him come. And he takes him. He He feeds him. Gives him food the entire week and helps him. Shows him around. This is the island. This is where we get our bananas. This is where we get the coconuts. Gives him a tour of the island. Comes Shabbat. He's like oh my boy how are we going to keep Shabbat now? What are we going to do? So he's like how are we going to even pray in the shul? So the first guy tells him don't worry. We have a shul here too. Really? We have a shul? He's like yeah. So comes Shabbat. He takes him and he sees two buildings. He says two buildings? You have two shuls? He's like yeah. I have two shuls here. He's like why do you have two? You're only one person. He says this is the shul where I pray and that shul I'll never go into there. So that's the sad reality that people can live in a place and it's not a desert island and they'll say that shul I'll never go in there. That's how sad the situation is. So why are we not united? Why are we separated into tribes? It's a big question. And it's it's a problem. And in this the sham. Is not only that it separates the tribes. It's separating everything. Separates first it separates us in tribes. Then how we were parked. Each one was parked in a different place. Then each one had a flag. Each tribe each tribe had a color. It was so separated. Even when it goes to the to the tribe of Levi. Then it separates them into groups. This group making hearts. They were in charge of that part of the Mishkan. They were in charge of this part. And it's all the separation all the time. Why? I mean it doesn't even it's almost doesn't make sense. Why all these tribes? And not only that the book of Midbar. You know we just finished the book of it's full of laws. Just laws. The book of is barely any you're not going to find a few here and there. Mainly the book of is stories. Is stories how they went out of the what happened to them after they went into the desert and all sorts of stories. And barely any what. Now another interesting thing is that doesn't matter if it's a regular a leap year or a regular year. The sham of is always going to be read before what. That's a rule. Sometimes but I shall not so also will be before what. But in all cases but I shall is always going to be before the holiday of what. Even if it's a leap year. Even if it's not it doesn't matter. Now so we're coming now also to what. If you remember when the Torah was given it says that they all parked in front of the mountain. They they parked as one individual. Totally united. And they all got the Torah united. So why the Torah is so into separating us. And why is it manifesting already into our generation and generations before they were so separated. But the Torah is requiring us to get the Torah together. And united. And we're also now we're in next week is the holiday of what. That besides receiving the Torah it signifies that we have to work on our unity. Because they even though they were parked separately. But they were all united when they got the Torah. So we want to address that that this whole concept of A why is the tribes? And B We see now the Torah was given. First of all there's also a big question why the Torah was given in the desert. Should have been given in a beautiful place. Maybe like should have created a oasis with beautiful palm trees and and and waterfalls. You know maybe he could arrange a big stadium like something fancy. We're giving it in the desert. Everybody's on the sand there and there's nothing nice there. So mainly that we know the Torah was given in the desert because the Torah is considered care. Care means that anybody can come and take. Doesn't belong to anybody. Nobody can come and and take ownership on the Torah. That's the main reason why there's other reasons. But that's the main reason why the Torah was chosen to give it in the desert. Because could have said you know what let's just take you straight into Israel. I'll put you in Jerusalem. Get the Torah in Jerusalem. Get the Torah I don't know. I'll take you to Switzerland. There's beautiful mountains there. But wanted to make sure that we know that the Torah belongs to everybody. This is called care. It means that now there's no owners to that. Nobody can come and claim the Torah belongs to me. Nobody can come and say I have more ownership on the Torah than you. The Torah belongs to everybody equally. Everybody who wants can come and take. So this is one of the main reasons why the Torah was given in the in the desert. But also the Torah was given because wanted us to know that it belongs to everybody. There's a story about a certain his name is and I. And he once saw an individual walking into the city. Dressed in a very nice suit. He looked very very respectful. Beautiful suit and a nice tie. I mean they didn't have suits and ties then. But for our imagination he was dressed very very very they're respectful. So he called him in and he assumed that he's either a very wealthy person, a very learned person, something. He invited him for the meal. Made a beautiful meal for him. Not every day you see such a honorable person coming into the to your city. And then he's he was assuming that maybe he's a scholar. So, he tells him, "Can you tell me something about the Torah?" He says, "I don't know anything about the Torah." He says, "Can you tell me anything about the Nevi'im?" No. "I don't know anything." Something oral Torah, Mishna. Can you tell me anything? He says, "I don't know anything." So, he got so upset that he was time to say Birkat Hamazon. And he told the guest, "Do you know how to bench? Do you know how to say zimun?" He said, "No." So, he said, "Okay, repeat after me." And he says, "Pick up the cup." The person picks up the cup and the Rabbi Yanai says, "Kelev." So, the person says, "Kelev." Repeats after him. He says, "A dog ate the bread of Yanai." A dog ate the bread of Yanai. And so, he told him to say. So, the person gets offended and upset and he tells him, "Why are you Why are you preventing me from my inheritance?" He says, "What are you talking about?" He says, "Listen, I'm not a big scholar. I don't know anything about the Torah, but one time I crossed next to a yeshiva and I heard Torah tziva Moshe morasha kehilat Yaakov. That's um It means Torah tziva lanu Moshe, that Hashem gave us the Torah. But this is a morasha, an inheritance to kehilat Yaakov, to the congregation of Yaakov. I'm part of the congregation. I'm Bnei Yisrael, which means I I inherited the Torah also. You are now preventing my yerusha from me. You're not giving my yerusha. You're not teaching me. Instead of teaching me, you're telling me that I a dog ate your your your bread. So, we learn from this from this story in the Gemara that everybody has ownership on the Torah. We inherited it. You don't have to be a scholar. You don't have to be a businessman. Doesn't matter who you are. The Torah belongs to all of us. Equally. Nobody can come and say, "I know more Torah. It's I own it more." But we see a great connection between the holiday of Shavuot and the parasha of Bamidbar. And in this parasha, basically what it's talking about that after a year in the desert they went out. It was a big excitement. They got out of Mitzrayim. They got the Torah. Started building the Mishkan. They were busy a whole year. They finally build the Mishkan and that's it. And now life goes into to to the regular pace. That's it. This is life now. Now what? Right away as they finished with that, the book of Bamidbar starts that Hashem ordered Moshe to start counting the the Jews. Hashem doesn't know how many people there are. He he needs somebody to count them. First of all, they already were counted when they went out of Mitzrayim. More than that, Hashem Hashem really needs to count. Well, he doesn't know how many people are there. But it says that when somebody is something is very dear to you, then you count it. If you have a lot of money you know how much money you have in your pocket. But you every couple hours you take it out. You flip through the through the bills. You count it even though you counted 20 minutes ago. You know, not too long ago I met this individual that was saving for a long time. And unfortunately, when it was a very special story because his daughter unfortunately was choking while he was driving and he stopped the car. He saved her. It was a big miracle. He literally saved her. She was mamash about to die. And the same day somebody broke into his home and stole that money that he was saving for months. And he understood from that that that was mamash an atonement, a kapara. He got his daughter back. He had to to lose the money. But it's totally off the subject, but he was saying how he was constantly counting the money. You have diamonds, you constantly look at them. You have a lot of money, it's like little kids. They have these cards. They know what cards they have, but they keep looking at it and they count it all the time. And I have this type of card and that card. Something is dear to you. Something is very special to you. Then you count it a lot. So, Hashem told Moshe, "Count Bnei Yisrael." Now, you would think that he would count it all in one big general count. No. He counts them by tribes. And the Torah comes and says, "In this tribe was such and such. In this tribe was such and such." Who cares? Just tell me there was all together 603,000 people. That's what they counted. Not including, of course, the women and the children, but the men. Why you have to tell me that in the tribe of Yehuda was that amount of people? In the tribe of Menashe was that amount. I don't understand that. Why the Torah again? Separation. Comes the very interesting thing in the Torah. I mean, everything is precise in the Torah. That every time you if you read the parasha, it says livnei shevet Yehuda, livnei shevet Yissachar. It says the word livnei. Livnei means to the sons of. It should have said bnei Yehuda, lashevet bnei Yehuda. There's only one shevet that it doesn't say the word livnei. It just says bnei. Bnei Naftali. There's a question why everybody are mentioned in the Torah livnei, to the sons of the tribe, and the tribe of Naftali it says bnei Naftali. The Arizal explains a very interesting thing. That he says that Moshe Rabbenu went from one tent after the other to count. And Moshe had ruach hakodesh. He didn't have to go into the tent. He would stand next to the tent and know, "In this tent there's 20 people. In this tent there's 30 people." He had a little notes notebook. Maybe he had an iPad. I don't know. But he had a notebook and he wrote how many people in the tent are. When he came to the final count then he gathered everybody, then he would read out of the notebook livnei Yehuda, oh, 80,000. And he ripped it off here. Livnei Yissachar, to the kids of this tribe I see such and such. And the last on the list, the last on the pinkas in the notebook was Naftali. So, he didn't have to say livnei. It was already left in the notebook. It says bnei Naftali is left such and such. So, but again, the Torah brings me details for a reason. And it brings me this detail to show me Moshe Rabbenu literally counted them completely separately. He didn't count them as one general count. It was counted separately and the point was to know how many people are in each tribe. That I know. I mean, some tribes were very big tribes. Some tribes are very small tribes. But again, the point was that the counting was also separate. Then the Torah goes in how they parked. Which tribe parked in which position. The Aron Kodesh was in the middle. Next to it was the camps of Aaron and Moshe and the priests. Then the camps of the Levites, Levites. They were also separate. And then groups of threes. Every side. In the northern side, three tribes. In the southern side, three tribes. And it goes and tells us where they parked. Again, another separation. Like and they just said they all parked next to the to the ark. Why the Again, another separation. More than that, it comes and tells us that each tribe has a flag. And it was a very thorough description. That each one had a flag. For example, it says that Reuben, his flag was red. And inside the flag was a drawing of the dudaim. If you remember the story with Leah Reuben was the oldest son. He had a sense of responsibility. And one time he comes to Leah, his mother, and he sees her very sad. And he tells her, "Well, why are you so sad?" So, she says, "You know, I get pregnant every year. And now I'm I don't know why I stopped getting pregnant. It's sad to me." So, him being a caring child he went to the to the nutritionist and he asked her, "What fruit is fertile?" So, she told him there's a certain fruit. It's called dudaim. That makes a woman very fertile. So, he went and bought it for her and he gave it to her. And sure enough, she got pregnant. So, on his flag is the the fruit that is called dudaim to show his his essence. The caring and the and that that that was the literally the essence of the tribe. And it goes one tribe after the other. I mean, another tribe is Shimon for example. Shimon, do you know, the flag was called piteda. Piteda is a green flag. And in the flag was drawn the the city of Shechem. If you remember the story with Shimon and Levi, they went in there. Now, technically, this should be a tragic story. This is a This is a violence. But, the Torah sees the positive part of it and says, "No, they had a lot of caring. They cared for the honor of the sister, and they cared for the honor of of the family, and they did what they did." But, the point is that the Torah comes and gives me exact details of how their flags were. Why you need flags? The sages explain that the concept of flags for now, all the nations they have flags, this is where it originates from. It originates from the Torah that the tribes had flags. Now, there's a commentary called Abravanel. He explains that the reason for the flags because they're about to go into war. And that was a war tactic. Because they're about to go into Israel. At the time, they didn't know it's going to be 40 years. They didn't know there's going to be a a sin of the spies. They were preparing for war. Then they sent the spies. The spies messed up. So, they got punished to stay 40 years. But, Abravanel explains, "No, nothing wrong with that. There was a war tactic. Parked in in positions, and coming with their flags, and this is a you know, coloring their faces with with color. That's what they used to do in the olden days. That's tactics of war." But, we regardless, our sages explain that now the nations, they have colors, they have a flag that comes from the Torah that every nation had a a flag. But, we see again the separation. And you know, the separation was that the the tribes were not allowed to marry each other. You know, you weren't allowed to marry between the tribes. And for example, there was a a law, what would happen when the was a family with only girls? Girls would not be able to get a piece of the land. Only the boys would get the the piece of the land. So, what would happen when there are girls, and they what? They don't get a piece because there's no males in the family. You know the famous story with the with the daughters of God. They came and demanded. They say, "Hey, we don't want We're not going to get a piece of the land because we're not We don't have boys in the family." So, the rule was that the girls had to marry the same men from the same tribes. They weren't allowed to marry outside of the tribes. Later on, if you if you remember, there's a saying that on the 15th day of Av, it says in Israel K K Tisha B'Av K Tisha B'Av. Tu B'Av. That this was considered a very special day for the Jews. It's known that all the single people, the men and the women used to go to the fields and cover themselves and decorate themselves with all sorts of jewelry. And And that was the the the day of love, like how you call it in America, Valentine's Day. So, that was the Jewish Valentine's Day. Uh the the explanation is that on that day, they allowed to intermarry between the tribes. That's when they decided that the tribes can marry each other. That's where it originates from that the Tu B'Av, the good days for Israel, it originated then because then this rule was changed, and now they're allowed to marry between the tribes. But, we still see that there is a very strong emphasis in the Torah about the tribes. And not only that, now we don't know which tribe we're in. I mean, some people say that all of us are from the tribe of Judah. That all the rest, we don't know where they are. And all of us are remainders of the tribe of Judah. The reality is that we don't know which tribe we belong to. The only ones who can maybe rely on and know which tribe they're from is the and the These are the only ones that uh we can rely on. But, like I mentioned many times, even they don't really know 100%. You know how many people think that they're and they're not in Or some people, they don't don't even know that they're and they are. And they're And And Same with them. There's still even with that a confusion. But, we know that very soon is going to come. And you know what's one of the first things he's going to do? He's going to tell us which tribes we belong. He's going You hear me? He's going to tell us to which tribe we belong. He's going to smell us. He's not even going to even look at us. He's going to be able to smell a person and tell him, "You're from Asher. You're from Issachar." That's one of the first things that is going to do. So, we see that even when is going to come, we're going to have the concept of tribes. Now, where do we know that is going to tell us which tribes we are? Because I've been mentioning that many times, and people say, "How do you know? Who said that is going to tell us which tribes you are?" So, there is a prophecy in the book of Ezekiel. You can find that at the end of the book that it says that will have 10 gates 12 gates. You Jerusalem 12 gates. So, Jerusalem, to go into will have 12 gates, and each tribe will have to go through his gate. Now, we're going to have technology. So, there's going to be Now you're going to airports, you go through the metal detector. There's going to be a special gate. And if you go through the wrong gate, it will start beeping, and the security will be like, "Sir, we're very sorry. You're You're from the wrong tribe. You have to go through your gate." Of course, I'm joking, and I'm making making it more funny. But, the reality is, the prophet Ezekiel says that Jerusalem Jerusalem is going to have 12 gates. We learn from that that is going to come and tell us which tribe we belong to. And we're going to have to enter Jerusalem through this gate. Excuse me? Okay, wait. There is. That's what the result is. But, we want to know why we are separated in tribes, and why is going to reveal to us which tribe we belong to. I mean, we want to understand what's the point of the tribes. It started with Then it went to Isaac. Then it went to Jacob. Each time was one. Suddenly, from Jacob, it jumped to 12 tribes. And in essence, you know, if I would see something positive in it, I would say, "Okay, fine. Do tribes." But, in essence, practically, I see that it's causing problems. We don't even know who tribes we are, and we're just fighting because I'm a different group. And this you know, it says that in Israel, there's only only disagreements. You know, in our generation, the two groups that that they wear their hats a little bit different. One group is called And the other group is called them. And one group wears the hat that the point of the hat is down. And one group wears the hat that the point is up. That's a There's a disagreement on the hat. That's how sad it is. So, I don't see something positive necessarily with the separation. It causes a problem. It causes now fighting, and we do see that there's it's all the time There's There's disagreements between the groups. There's disagreements in the groups. The disagreement, doesn't matter who you are, what you are. You You pronounce the word a certain way, there's already a disagreement. So, what's the point behind the tribes? Now, to kind of understand the concept, we want to understand the point. Because if the Torah goes into length about the tribes and the separation, must be something to it. So, there's a story with the from Kotzk. Sorry. The from Kotzk that he had a certain follower, a student. And he was a very lucky guy because his father-in-law used to support him. He used to study Torah all day long. And his father-in-law would pay the bills. And And you know, there's a there's a joke that there was a certain girl that wanted to marry a certain boy. And she brought the boy to the father. So, the father starts asking him questions. "What do you do?" He says, "I learn Torah." He's like, "Okay. And very soon, you want to marry my daughter. How are you going to support yourself?" He says, "I shall provide." Okay. He says, "Okay, very nice. And later on, you want to have a kid. How are you going to support the kid?" He says, "I shall find me a solution. No, I'm not worried. I have trust in him." He says, "But, what's going to happen later on? You have more than one kid. You'll have maybe five or 10 kids." He says, "I shall provide. I'm not worried." Okay, he goes out. So, the daughter tells him, "Nu, Daddy, do you like him?" He says, "Hey, he seems like a very nice guy, but I don't know why he keeps calling me him." So, So, in this the the Hasid of the Rebbe Kotzk, Uh that was the deal. The father-in-law saw he's a great scholar and he says, "I want you to learn Torah. I want you to marry my daughter. I want you to be my son-in-law and I'm willing for to pay for that. I'm willing to support you." And one time, after many years, a tragedy happened and the father-in-law died. Now everybody came to the to this individual and said, "Listen, you you're very wise man. You have your head screwed well on your body. The father died. We need somebody to run the business. We want you to do it." So he had to take over the business. So he was very concerned cuz for half a year he's not learning Torah. He's just running the business. He goes to the his Rebbe, the Rebbe from Kotzk Kotzk, and he tells him, "Listen, I don't know what to do. Very soon comes Rosh Hashanah. You know, I I only know how to learn Torah. This is the story. My father-in-law died. I took over the business. And I am coming now to Rosh Hashanah and I I barely have any Torah with me. I'm only busy with the business. I I I didn't learn any Torah. I feel very bad." So the Rebbe from Kotzk explained to him, "Listen, you have to look at the positive side here. Up until half a year ago, you only had one mitzvah and this mitzvah was called learning Torah. Now Hashem decided to give you a few more mitzvot. So he made you a business owner. Look how many mitzvot you're doing now. You're dealing honestly, you're osek beyosher. You give tzedakah, you give charity, you give ma'aser, you support poor people, you you you're able to work on your honesty and you and he starts giving him a whole list of things that comes with when you have a business." And he says, "Look how many mitzvot you have now. Once you only had one mitzvah of learning Torah. Now you have many mitzvot. So you're entering, you know, the Rosh Hashanah with with a lot of mitzvot. You have to see the positive side. Sometimes Hashem wants you to be busy with other mitzvot, not only with learning Torah." Some people, all they do is learn Torah, but they're missing out on many mitzvot. Some people, they only have a business. They barely learn Torah, but look how many mitzvot they have to do. And the thing is that Hashem wants you to do a certain mitzvah. And sometimes you want to do something and Hashem says, "This is not your mitzvah." And I heard of a certain individual story that he uh he was very into his outreach. And every Rosh Hashanah he would invite a lot of people to his home. And he wanted to show them how beautiful the Rosh Hashanah is. But the result was that he had to pray very fast because he had to be attend his guests. And every year it was it was hurt him that he can't pray long on Rosh Hashanah. So he says, "You know what? After many years of guests, this year I decided not to have guests. I want to pray. I want to focus on my prayers on this Rosh Hashanah. And I want to pray for what's called birkhot, long prayers." So he goes into the shul on erev Rosh Hashanah. He's all happy. This year I'm going to pray quietly. I'm going to come home at 10:00 at night. I don't care. He was so happy that he's going to pray this year. And he sees a couple walks into the shul. The man doesn't have a beard, doesn't have a yarmulke. The woman doesn't look very religious at all. And his nature to outreach and to mekariv people, right away he went to them and he's like, "Can I help you?" So they told him, "Listen, we're not observant, but we know today is Rosh Hashanah and we we know it's a religious area and we wanted to come and see how Rosh Hashanah is really done." So he was like, "Okay, come. Come, I'll take you home." And of course he didn't pray birkhot. He had to attend his new guests. And he understood from that that Hashem Hashem's intention is not for me to pray long. Hashem wants me to to inspire people and to get them closer to Hashem. Sometimes you want to do something and you and you really want to do it, but Hashem is preventing it from from you, so to say, to do it because he says, "I don't want you to do this right now. I don't want you to learn Torah. I want you to be a business owner. So you can last talk beyosher. You know what it means last talk beyosher? It's to deal in business honest and no stealing. It's a very hard thing to do. Most business owners fail in that. Yosher. Not osher. Yosher. Yosher is being straight, yashar, honest. It's very easy in business to to round corners, so to say. I'm not talking about stealing right now. But it's a very big challenge to to be honest and then to take the money that you earn and give it to charity. Being a business owner is a very a very a hard task. So sometimes the Kadosh Baruch Hu wants you to do a certain thing and it's not what you want to do. Sometimes I say also, "You know what? I want to pray Leave me alone. I want to pray. I I want to pray for 2 hours quietly." And somebody will come and start talking to me. And I sometimes I will get upset. Leave me alone. I want to pray now quietly. But I don't understand Hashem doesn't care about my prayer right now. Hashem wants me to inspire that individual cuz he knows I know how to talk good and I'm I have a gift to inspire that person. Hashem says, "I don't need you to pray right now. And this is not your department." And sometimes I also say, "I wish I could just sit and learn for 5 hours right now." And instead of the 5 hours I do other things. And I instead of getting discouraged and saying, "Why why I can't find 5 hours quietly to to to study?" Cuz I understand that's not what Hashem Hashem doesn't want me to study right now. Hashem wants me right now to to inspire somebody, to help somebody, to teach somebody. So we see that there are many different ways to serve Hashem. And one time somebody It wasn't somebody. It was the angels that asked Hashem, "Which one of these Jews of yours do you like the best? Who's the favorite one? The scholars? The simple ones? The business owners that give charity? The the ones that have struggles? Who do you like the best?" And Hashem says, "I like them all. I like them all the same way because I get nachat from each one of them separately. If you have Hashem says, "I have 12 kids and I have 12 types of nachat. And if you have one kid, you you can only get nachat in a very Nachat is this pleasure you get from the child. But you can only get one. If you have five kids, you get many different types of nachat. This kid is honest. This kid is a a scholar. This kid is has a good heart. This kid helps you. You want all the types of the nachat. You want to enjoy all the the the the categories, so to say. So Hashem says, "I love all of them because each one is good in something. And I like what they do. He's a good scholar. He learns a lot of Torah. This guy is very honest. This guy is very charitable. This guy is very courteous. Each one has something. And each one has a job. And Hashem designed it in such a way that we all have different jobs. Hashem wants us to to serve him in different ways. Arba d'rakhim laMakom it says. There are many ways to get closer As long as it's in the walls of halakha, according to the Torah, then it's cool it's okay. I'm not talking right now when people come and start reforming the religion and adding things and taking off things and saying, "I'm going to serve Hashem how I want." Many people say you come and tell them, "Why don't you put tefillin on?" "I'm religious in my heart." And that's also so answers people say. Um I need It's I met not long ago a person. He told me, "Ani ish ma'amin. I'm a I'm a believer." I said, "Okay, I'm very happy that you believe, but how is it coming to action?" "No, ani ma'amin." Yes, I said, "But it says in the Torah to do mitzvot. It doesn't say to believe." So people come with all sorts of inventions. That's how I want to be connected to Hashem. We have to be connected to Hashem according to what the Torah says and we can't add or remove laws from the Torah. As long as it's in the guidelines of the Torah, serve Hashem however you however Hashem wants you to serve him. And that's the one of the main reasons that that we have this separation cuz Hashem says, "I want the diversity. I want many different ways that you can serve me." You know, there's a story with the Baal Shem Tov that there was a decree on a certain city. And he saw it in his ruach hakodesh and he knew that the city is in big trouble. They're going to be there's a decree and maybe chas v'shalom they're all going to die. So they all went to the Baal Shem Tov and what should we do? And so he says, "Okay, you know what? Gather all the boys that are the wild ones, the ones that are off the derech, the ones that don't don't want to go to yeshiva, the ones that are on the streets and making problems. Gather them all together." He said, "These boys? Yeah? Give me these boys. And he puts them all together in a room and he told them to to say a certain prayer. Sure enough, it worked. The decree was annulled. So they told him, "Why did you choose these boys? I mean, wouldn't you want to choose the scholars? Or the wouldn't you want to choose the the pious ones that to pray? You're choosing the hoodlums?" So he says, "Listen, I saw in my Hakodesh that the gates of mercy were locked. So I needed to get some guys that know how to break locks. So I needed these guys. Sometimes you need the ones who you know, that you would think that they're not good for nothing, but they know how to break into houses. I need them to." So there are many ways to serve Hashem. And Hashem wants that. Hashem wants to have this diversity. And you know there's a question, "Why do we have so many siddurim? So many types?" Okay, let's say I would say Ashkenazi Sephardi, fine, two. But you know how many types of siddurim you have? Each one is different. So there's another question. Okay, I see the tribes are not only the tribes, then why the why the siddurim? So the Arizal explains that there are 12 gates in Shamayim. And our prayers go through these 12 gates. And every siddur is precise exactly that fits to the person that says it, that his prayer will go through that specific gate. This was actually explained by the Arizal but brought down by his student Rabbi Chaim Vital in the book Pri Etz Chaim and he explains there are 12 gates in Shamayim. And each siddur, each type It's not that one is more right than the other. It's precise that when you say it, that's the the the the type of siddur. I Type is not the right way to say it. In Hebrew we say nosach. I think the closest way to translate it will be type. But if I'm using a certain siddur, it means these are the the the codes, the words are like codes that will open the safe in Shamayim. I can have now a safe that has millions and millions of dollars, millions of dollars worth of diamonds and jewelry. And there's going to be a code to the safe. And only whoever knows the code can open the safe. And if you miss one digit from the safe from the code, you're not going to be able to open the safe. And this is example exactly the prayer is that the words of the prayers are code. And when you say the code a certain way, then it opens a certain safe in Shamayim. That's exactly what prayer is. Now, in our day if you know that in the smartphones, for example, you can lock the phone with a code, but you can also lock the phone with a fingerprint. And the code is a fingerprint. Nobody can open. You know, the the kids go quietly at night and they take the finger of and put it on the phone to unlock the phone. So today you can lock the phone with a fingerprint. So code is very universal. Whoever has the code can open it, but the fingerprint only the finger can open it. This is the exact same thing with the prayer that you need a certain code to open a certain safe. So we know there there are 12 gates in the heavens. Through these gates all the prayers go through. That manifests into the world to 12 tribes. When it comes to the prayers, the Arizal actually since he knew that in our generation there's a lot of confusion, then he actually created a 13th gate. And he said, "Through this gate anybody can go in." That's why the nosach, the siddur of the Arizal, he says, "This is like a general general nosach. Anyone can pray from it and it will be good for everybody till Moshiach is going to come." But the point of it is there are 12 ways, 12 channels so to say to connect to Hashem. The the another way to analyze it is imagine you have a beautiful palace and there's a king in there and you want to visit the king. So you can come through the main door. You can come through the back door. You can come through a tunnel underneath the palace. You can come with a helicopter and land in the in the yard. There are many different entrances to go into the palace. And Hashem says, "Yes, I I want you to come to me in many different ways." You know, if you would take now a picture and you would paint it only with blue, there's not going to be much of a picture. It's just going to be a blue sheet. In order for it to be a beautiful painting, you need different colors. A little bit of blue, a little bit of white, a little bit of green, a little bit of yellow and then you put it in the right place, it will form a beautiful shape. So the Jews are are compared to colors. That's why each tribe had a color. That's why the the priests on the breastplate, each stone was a different color. Because we are compared to colors. And you can only make a beautiful painting with many different colors. You can't produce a beautiful painting with one color. And Hashem says, "I want you to be different. I want you to serve me in many different ways." Baruch Hashem, we have six kids. Neither one of them looks like the other. They all look completely different. Put them all together, take a picture, they look like from different families. One has brown hair, one has blonde hair, one has looks like this. So they don't look alike. I mean, you can see a little bit of resemblance, but they look completely different. And their personalities are completely different. Totally totally different. And we always say, my wife and me, how interesting it is, how boring would it be if they all look the same and act the same. This one is more quiet. This one is more spicy. This one is more like They're all different. And Hashem says, "I want you to be different. I want you to serve me in many many different ways." The only problem is that we abuse the idea and we fight with each other. Hashem says, "I created the separation for a reason. I created it because exactly like I told you, because I want to make a beautiful painting and I need a lot of colors. And I want one to be serious and the other one to be funny and the other one to be a clown and the other one to be a jokester and this one to be maybe he'll be lazy here, but he's very good here. I want everything. I want all the ways. I want you to serve me in many different ways. I don't want it to be boring. I want it to be colorful. And that's why I separated you. The problem is that we instead of completing each other, we fight with each other. The nation is compared to many things. I told you it's compared to colors, but it's also compared also to an army. When we left Egypt, it says that we went out al tzeva'am. We are tzeva'ot Hashem. And in an army you have the air force, you have the Marines, you have the the intelligence, you have the the commando, you have the cannons, whatever it is how it's called in English, the the tanks. You can't make it with one core. You need everybody together. Can you imagine in the middle of the war the army is fighting with each other? They're all fighting together. This one is helping each other and we're the same thing. We all have different jobs so to say and we have to help each other. I like to compare it to when you build a building. You can have the most gorgeous, most beautiful, most fanciest building in the world and you need many trades in order to build a building. You need an engineer, you need an architect, you need the interior design, you need the plumber, you need the electrician, you need so many different trades. Now imagine now you would build a building for 500 billion dollars, the most beautiful building in the world, and imagine now it would be missing toilets. The building is not going to be complete. Now in essence, if you would ask somebody, "Who's the most important person in the building, in the trades?" People will say the engineer, maybe the architect. But if you tell them, "What do you think about the plumber? Is the plumber important?" "Ah, he's just a plumber. He's just he's dealing with the pipes." But if you build that building and the building doesn't have toilets, it's worthless. Yes, it might be a strong building and a very beautiful one, but you need I need to go to the bathroom. Such a building has no bathrooms? So also the plumber is very important here. So we are building the building for Hashem. It says in the Midrash last week's parashah in parashat Bechukotai, the Midrash of this parashah says, "Why did Hashem created the world?" Nit'avah lo Hakadosh Baruch Hu lihyot lo dirah batachtonim. Hashem wanted to have a dwelling place in the world below. So he built this world and we have to build it for him. So we are building a building. So you're the architect, you're the engineer, I'm the plumber, you're the painter. We all have to work together. And we have to work in the in conjunction together. That's the thing. The problem is that we fight with each other. There's a story that there was once a a very rich person and he was called the Aguir and in the same town there was a very simple person who was known to be a driver of wagons. In English In English it's called a glon. One was a very wealthy individual, the other one was a simple person driving wagons. In our day will be a you know, equivalent to a truck driver or a bus driver. Just driving a wagon. In the olden days they would drive a wagon. In Hebrew it's called a glon. Anyways, the story says that came out of Shabbat, both of them walked into the shower to get ready for Shabbat. The simple man went into the shower, chick chuck, 30 seconds and out. The gvir, the wealthy person, he walks in. He has seven types of show soaps. He has people scrubbing his back, scrubbing his hands. Oh, he's totally different shower. They both walk out of the shower and they start walking towards the shul. The simple person, the glon, lived very close to the shul. So, he right away goes into the synagogue. The rich person lives in an estate. So, just going from the home to the main street takes him time. But, as he was walking to shul, he sees a Jew riding into the village and it was a rainy day. The the floor was muddy and his wagon goes into the mud and he gets stuck. And this rich man sees exactly what's going on. And he sees the guy trying to take the wagon out of the mud and the horses and he's He sees he's stuck in the mud. And the rich person says, "Listen, you know, this is erev Shabbat, couple minutes before Shabbat, nobody's here to help him." And he goes and helps him. He's a good Jew. He says, "I don't want him to to be late for Shabbat." And and he starts helping him. Oh, he's a businessman. He doesn't know how to get a wagon out of the mud. So, he goes into the mud, he gets all dirty and he pulls the wagon and pushes and there takes them an hour to get the wagon out of the mud. And in the meantime they're all muddy the the entire body is full of mud and his clothes are full of mud. Okay. He was able to get him out of the mud, but it was already two, three minutes before Shabbat, no time to change clothes, no time to clean up and he goes dirty into the shul. And sits in the shul, the wealthy person full of mud and the wagon driver clean. And the irony was here that they switched their jobs. If the wealthy person Oh, sorry. I missed an important part of the story. What What happened was that came the end of the prayer and there was a lot of poor people in the synagogue and they didn't know they didn't have where to go. So, when they went to the glon, to the poor, to the wagon driver, and told him, "Can you take us home? We have We don't have where to eat." He says, "I'm very simple. I only have a piece of bread and some soup. I don't have what to give you to eat." So, these poor people didn't have where to eat because the rich person that usually took all the poor people to their home, he wasn't there. He was busy with the wagon, helping the guy with the wagon. So, the irony was that if the wagon driver would go and help the guy that got stuck in the mud, he's a wagon driver. He knows how to do it. He would take him out of it in a minute. That's his job. And if the rich person was in the synagogue, he was He's the one who has a lot of money. He would take all the poor people to his home and feed them. But, their jobs got switched. So, the rich person doesn't know how to get a wagon out of the mud. So, it took him an hour. And the wagon driver doesn't have money. He couldn't take the poor people to his home. So, the problem is in our life is that we so to say switch jobs. And we think that we need to do somebody else's job or that I'm not focusing on my job. But, really Hashem says, "Listen, there are many, many different ways of serving me. And you have to focus on your job. It doesn't mean your job is better than the other. Doesn't mean you're more right than the other. Doesn't mean that you're smarter or better or that I like you more. You're the engineer. You're the architect. You're the plumber. You're the electrician. So, sometimes Hashem say Hashem says, "You are the rich person. I don't need you to get a wagon out of the mud. I need you to feed the poor people." And the other person says, "You are the wagon driver. I'm not I don't want you to have a lot of money. I don't need you to feed you the people. I need you to help other people get their wagon out of the mud." So, each and every one of us has a different job. And the tribes represent the separation that we have different jobs here. And Hashem says, "I hired each and every one of you to do something different." And it's like like in any type of structure, whether it's the army, whether it's building a building, whether it's a business. In a business you have the sales person, you have the the secretary, you have the bookkeeping, you you have the cleaning lady. Everybody does something different. All together they're making the business run. So, when we come to question why we have the tribes, it's very simple because Hashem says, "Listen, I I created the separation cuz I want you to serve me separate differently. I want you to use your own talents and character traits and serve me different than the other. That's the reason why we have tribes. Cuz here Hashem says, "I want to make a beautiful picture and I need many different colors. If you're all going to be the same, there's nothing going to be exciting here." So, we learn very simple from that that there is a there is the reason why we have tribes. In our generation when we don't have tribes, we have groups, which many people say, "Why do we have to have groups? Why do we have to have so many different groups? Chabad and Breslov and Belz and Satmar and Vishnitz, whatever it is, all these groups. And even in the groups there are groups. And even when you generalize it, Sefardi and Ashkenaz. Even in Ashkenaz there's so many different groups. In Sefardi different groups. Why? There's There is a reason why we have groups. There's There's something very deep behind the groups. The problem is that we just fight with each other. Instead of accepting each other and saying, "Good. I want you to be how you are. I want you to stay how you are." But, to accept each other. Our test is to see if we were able to accept each other and not fight with each other and not say, "Oh, I'm smarter than you." Or my rebbe is better the rebbe than your rebbe. And all sorts of nonsense like that. And if you're different then I don't want you in my shul. Or some people say like the joke that I said, "Oh, that shul I'm never going to go in." I've been to so many different shuls that either I was different and I was, you know, looked like as if I'm uh infected with something. Or that I would be in a different shul and they wouldn't accept somebody or wouldn't let him to go up to the Torah because he's different. I was once in a shul, it was a Sefardi shul, and walked in uh a Chabadnik, a a Chassid from Chabad, and he had to say Kaddish. And according to their way is that to say Kaddish you have to be the chazzan. That's That's the halacha what they go by that the the one who has to say Kaddish he has to say to be the the chazzan. So, he came to the rabbi and told him, "Please, let me be the chazzan here. I have to say Kaddish." In the beginning he was like, "No, I'm not letting you be the the Ashkenazi." And he he says you're going to He said it in a funny way, you're not going to understand. He He told him, "Ata ata oseh li vuz vuz vuz vuz." That's what he told him. "I don't want you to be my my chazzan. You're going to say it, you know, with this accent." But, later on and I was waiting to see what's going to happen there. But, then the rabbi told him, "Listen, I understand you have to say Kaddish. You can go up to the to be the chazzan, but you have to say what we say. We have to say You have to say Patah Eliyahu. You have to say the Korbanot. You have to say it how we say it. You cannot come and make a start telling me vuz vuz vuz vuz." He was He was imitating him and telling him, "You're going to tell me with your with your accent." The the the the point was that it could have end up not nice by the rabbi of the shul telling him, "Go away from here, you Ashkenazi." But, he told him, "Okay, fine. It's okay. Do Say your Kaddish, do, but say it how we say it." But, it was nice to see that there was like, "Okay, let's work together. We're all Jews. Just say just, you know, this is our shul, say it like us." The point is that Hashem on purpose made it. Hashem on purpose made the separation to see if we can get along. If we were all the same, I can guarantee to you we Jews we would still fight. So, Hashem Hashem said, "Listen, I want you to practice your tolerance and your Ahavat Yisrael. I'm going to make you different. I'm going to make you look different. I'm going to make you act different. Now I want you to like each other, to respect each other, to love each other, to to tolerate each other. So, what if you're different? That's the point. The point to learn from that is not only why we have a separation, is how to deal with the separation." The separation, to make it a long story short, Hashem wants to paint a beautiful picture so he needs many colors. That's it. That is it. The point that we have to learn from that, yes, we are different. Our faces are different. Our opinions are different. You know, they say in Hebrew, "Al ta'am v'al re'ah eefshar l'hitvake'ah." On taste and smell you cannot argue. You like falafel, I like shawarma, you like pizza, you like sushi. Everybody likes something else. You like spicy, I don't like spicy. You like sweet, I don't like sweet. It's What you going to argue with me? I like purple, you like green. What means purple is the better color? No, that's your color. The point is that I Hashem wants us to be united and he wants us to like each other the same way that he loves us separate and different. He says, "I want you to like each other even though you different and make space for each other and tolerate each other." And and and and be united even though you different. So the Torah comes and teaches me a very basic things and especially the Torah goes out of its way to emphasize yes, there is a separation. Don't deny Don't pretend. You different. Don't think that you not different, but like it, accept it. And like a parent, it's almost like a parent saying, "Oh, I don't like that child. He is complexion of his skin is a little bit darker." I told you my children are all different. One one of my kids is dark skin, one of the kid is light skin. You don't even think they're coming from the same family. One is completely brown hair, brown eyes, dark and the other one she's totally blonde, fair. So what the parents going to say, "I like this child less cuz his skin is darker or the skin is lighter?" We have to to resemble Hashem and love everybody equally with their differences, with the way that they look different, they dress different, they talk different, they they read out of the Torah different. Yeah, it's it's almost like an orchestra. Can you imagine having only violins or only drums? You look in an orchestra, there's like 50 types of instruments. And sometimes, you know, in an entire orchestra, there's one instrument, this triangle. 3-hour concert, he just goes ding. That's it. That's his job, just to go ding. And every 3 minutes he goes ding ding. That's it. But it adds into the to the entire symphony. Some some of the the the the sounds, they don't even barely even hear them. They have one chord. That's it. That's how we are and we have to understand that the more we play in harmony, then the sounds much better in Shamayim. The more that we are united, the more that we respect each other, then the the music, the tune in Shamayim will sound nicer and the painting that Hashem is doing will look much nicer. And that is the only way how to receive the Torah. And that's why this parashah is always before Shavuot to teach us you separate. You were separate, you were born separate. There's a reason for that, but you all brothers. And when they got the Torah, you know what it says? That they parked in front of the mountain They were all like one person with one one heart. So this this parashah comes to teach me to go over my my my my limits and say, "Okay, we are different, but I'm going to love each other equally. We're all coming from the same place and we all want the same thing." This is the the lesson we need to learn from this parashah is is that we have to go completely out of our way to make sure that with the separation we still united. And that will allow us to get again the Torah with the coming of Mashiach as it says in the Torah The Mashiach is going to come and he's going to reveal a new Torah. Meaning that he's going to explain to us everything, but we want to get to this point already. And the only way The only way Don't think that we lacking anything else. People say we don't have We need all the Jews to do teshuvah. No, we need the Jews to have Israel. We need to be united. We need to tolerate each other. We need to love each other. That's what's going to bring the redemption. If we want to take something small out of this whole lesson is to love another person even though he's different than me. Even though that his skin is lighter or darker or he says the words or however he says the words, doesn't matter if he says ooh or oy or ee or whatever he does, doesn't matter. We're all together and in Shamayim Hashem loves us equally. Hashem doesn't love one more than the other. This is the most important lesson we need to apply is that we have to just tolerate each other and love each other and make space for each other. Hashem If we really practice that, that is really what's going to going to bring the redemption. Hashem should happen very soon.