Parashat Toldot - See the good in everything - Rabbi Alon Anava

[Music] in every Paras there's numerous points that the par teaches us but the point is to apply it to my life if I apply the teachings of the Torah to my life then I'm going on the path that the Kosh wants me to go on and more more than that I actually have the tools and the guidance of that week to to operate the entire week so each par will teach me something about my and what I need to focus on this week because every week has a different energy before when we talked about the months I said every month has a different energy every year has a different energy on when the recreates the world a new Godly light comes to the world the old light leaves the world on we kind of have like 24 hours that the world is running on air because The Godly light that creates the world in the previous year disappears go goes back to its source we have 24 hours and then a new light comes to the world that never existed so this is what's called a rebirth a new a new start so every year has an energy every month has a certain energy every day and of course every week that's why the weekly portions the Torah is broken into weekly portions and every day there's a portion of the weekly parasa that also has the exact same thing that's why it's extremely important and down the line now it's still in the beginning down the line we will have a daily class about the daily portion of the Torah of that day and we'll do maybe something 10 minutes 15 minutes that we talk about the con of The Da the portion of the day and how I actually bring it into actions the point is our sages say the action the ACT is the most important thing if I still learn all day long and my mind is being inflated with ideas but I don't bring it into action that I'm missing the point the point is that to take what I learn and to bring it into action and you get one of the most strongest foundation in my service of God through the weekly parasa so we're going to start to have a more than just one class about the par but we will have a class on Sunday that I can take the message and apply that for the rest of the week because in this week's parasa we have an unbelievable message that most people completely don't focus on and the thing is what do we see in this parasa it's talking about itak which was one of our forefathers but unfortunately he's the only one who got half a par Abu got three yob got three and got half a par not even one and what's the main theme of this parasha of giving the blessing to asav that's the theme of the parasa that RKA gets pregnant finally after 20 years and then she has all sorts of issues because she doesn't understand what's going on she passes next to a synagogue then she feels the baby kicking and wanting to go out which makes her very happy then she passes next to a a place of idol worship and ASF starts kicking now she doesn't know she has twins she just thinks she has a baby with SK phrenia and she gets very upset so where does she go she goes up here on the hill to Thea of Shem and ever she comes toat and Shem and ever are sitting up here in the hill 50 m from us she goes to them she wants to see what's going on and then he tells her no you have twins but the main theme of the parasa is the twins get born one of them is a oil is is a Yesa B and the other one is a troublemaker and then comes the day that has to bless the kids and the main theme of the parasa is the whole thing with the blessing how wanted to bless as and then RKA came to and said let's trick and the whole story goes about that so this already starts a very big Wonder because up until itak nobody blessed Kids Adam marish did not bless his kids Adam marish had a boy shet that through shet the entire world came out AB didn't bless anyone Noah didn't bless anyone so comes after hundreds of years and he says I'm going to break the chain I'm going to now give a blessing to one of my kids so this is one question why do you suddenly give a blessing but there's a greater question why do you want to bless time that's the first time we see in the Torah that somebody blessed their child because we see let's say if we go by the heroes it doesn't say that he blessed anyone no didn't bless anyone AB didn't bless anyone is was the first time that we see in the Torah that he's going to bless his kids so this I'm just making an observation that we we didn't it's a it's a it's a New Concept but comes a greater question and on that before I ask the question I want to tell you a funny story that there was once a a a teacher in a class and he wanted to give a mathemathical question to the kids and he told them there's a there was a very rich man who had a billion dollars in cash and then he died and he left the inheritance to his two sons he left to one son 90% of the inheritance and to the other son 10% of The Inheritance the son who got 90% of the inheritance was the was the good boy and the son who got 10% of The Inheritance he was the bad boy how much money in cash will the guy the son who got 10% will get so everybody was making calculations and one boy raised his hand and he says yes Mo what's your answer so he says my answer is the god who's going to get 10% depends how good his lawyer is so it's it's a joke so if you have a good lawyer you get more than 10% the point here is that a father or a mother should never give in an inheritance not an equal share to the kids cuz that will cause a terrible problem because the kid that didn't get an equal share he will have an issue with that parent for generations and gener generations and generations why did I not get the same share of the other child which that is already a a lesson for parents that you cannot give a little bit more to one child than the other because that causes a lot of problems so this is raising a very big question in our Paras I understand that up until now didn't bless anyone fine he decided to to give a blessing but why are you giving a blessing to one child why you want to give the blessing just to isav that doesn't make sense give the blessing to both of them tell and to come in hey yob and ASA to come in and tell them okay I want to give you a blessing then sit both of you together let me give you a blessing we see later on when ysep brought his kids a f man he brought them together when yob gave a blessing to theim he brought them all together there wasn't 11 of them 12 of them some of them he was was smacking them on their head and rebuking them but they were all there brings only one which is a very big wonder why he's not doing it equally now first we have to understand what where does this all originate from now we learned that the par before that the father of Abraham was a very wealthy man and what was abu's business you had to have some type of business to have a lot of money so a lot of people think AB was a Shepherd that he had like a a business for cattle AB aino had a business for hotels that was his job he had hotels he had a chain of hotels he had the H of the Inn the rich cartton I don't know what he had but he had a a chain of hotels and he was a very successful businessman now you would think that if a father is a very successful businessman that the son will go in his path if I have a very rich father that he has a certain business that I should go into the business in his footsteps we see that Abu tried you know as a very good businessman you have money you start investing in other places tried to invest in other places and one of the things that he tried to invest was was digging Wells because they didn't have water coming out of a faucet it was a desert you know what what a business to have water so started investing in drilling drilling for water and we see that he wasn't successful came the king a he covered all the the the wells says you know what who needs this headache I have my my hotels I don't need this headache so stayed in the business of hotels butak said I don't want to have anything to do with your business was also a very wealthy man and his business was digging whales isak was known to dig whales he would go dig whales of course there was all the fights after that but's business was digging whales and in that time that was where the money is why because people needed water now they were in a desert they they weren't in a place where they had Well Springs and and rivers so this was a very good business they would dig water and sell the water they had the you know may Eden however you call it all the company neot so they had a business for water soak was in the business of whales now what what does it mean if we understand what was its's Essence we can understand the entire story so abah ainu corresponds to the medida of of giving of kindness of hospitality so we see that was the essence of Abu came from the side of of kindness and charity so his action his business was to host people to bring them into his house it came from the side of gor of severity the complete opposite of abah aino that's why we see that it manifested into the world that his business was digging whales now how is that that's answering our question so there was once a story of a certain rich person from a city called kov and it's a very famous story about the G from kov the rich man from kov he was the most wealthiest man in the city and anyone who came to him to ask for money he would kick them out of the door and he was the most stingy tough person nobody could get money out of him the whole city anytime a person needed help they would go to him no I don't want to give you nothing to a point that everybody hated him came the day that he died nobody wanted to bury him nobody wanted to show up to the funeral they came to his wife and they said listen you have to H ER burying him yourself when she came and she wanted to buy a a plot of land they they gave her a triple of the cost and she was like why but the cost is x amount of money why me no your husband he never helped anyone in the community he is his grave is going to cost you a lot of money and not only that we're burying him at the end of the cemetery okay so the rabbi of the city they made sure that they buried everything nobody wanted to bury him nobody showed up for the burial it was it was very sad that that's how he ended up and what did they wrote on his Stone can by the way I forgot to mention that the name of this of this rich person was is so they wrote on the stone Isel here is buried Israel the that's what they wrote on the stone this is a True Story by the way I'm not it's not a it's not a fairy tale okay then the first Friday of the week the rabbi sitting the rabbi of the town is sitting in his home he hears a knock on the door he opens a knock on the door person tells him uh I have no food for Shabbat can you give me some money okay he gives him a little bit of money two minutes later another person comes knocks on the door same thing I I'm poor I have no money can you give me some money for Shabbat right okay another one and another one another one in the next hour dozens of people come and he's like I don't even have that money why are you all coming to me and now another hour pass more dozens of people come and he stops everyone says wow why are you coming to me I don't have money I'm the rabbi of the town why are you all coming to me so they all tell him you know there was a rich man who lived down the street that he he just died this week and we used to go to this rich man every week and he would give us so much money he sustained my entire family for a week for a month and everybody said the same thing yeah I used to go to this rich man and he used to to quietly bring us into the home give us money and the rabbi's like oh my gosh look what mistake we did this guy this is was actually the most generous person out there he helped everybody just that he did it very quietly he did it with nobody noticing and he did it without asking for fame or or to to get a a a name and the rabbi was wow what a mistake we did and he went and he started telling everybody listen we did a huge mistake we did an unbelievable a a a s sadness to the soul we we called him a we didn't want to bury him this is embarrassing long story short they did their chuva and they didn't know what to do with the stone so they added a word after the and they added the word kados is kados a very holy Jewel and there's a very F it's a famous story that the rabbi of that City his name is debak he's buried next to him and he's buried at The Edge Edge of the cemetery yeah but we are also considered we are called goad if you look at thein it says go kados it says on us that that we are a of of go kados so we are considered a holy nation so the story from that is that this was the power ofak his profession was to dig whales what is what does it mean a person who digs whals that he goes and he hears the water that is under the surface you know what it is to dig a wh now they're digging for oil for gas for all sorts of treasures you need to know where to drill you know how much it costs to drill I mean when you finally hit the way way you want to hit then you make millions if not billions of dollars but itak had a very special talent that he would dig whales he would be able to hear the water under the ground and say dig here and what does it mean to dig is to pull something out of its concealment and that was the great power of our father that asav on the surface he seemed like a very big Wicked Man to a point that the Torah goes to an extent to describe how ASA looked we don't find it in anyone it doesn't say in the Torah how mosu looked it doesn't say how no looked abrah looked it doesn't say I mean later on in thear it describes how mosenu that he was 10 there's a description but in the Torah it does not go to any extent or any length to descrip describe how somebody looks on ES the Torah went and described how he looked is AD he had a he was a gingi a redhead and he was strong and he was a hero Gib asav is presented to us like a wicked man but the reality is that only the external part of es was wicked and there's a story in thear it's actually the story is by the the the translation of yonatan benel that it's saying that when yob died in MIT you know the story how they they took yakob to Isel ysf was the king yakob came to MIT to live his last years in in MIT in Egypt and when he swore Ys that when I die you go and bury me in so it was the whole story that they went out they had to get permission from par but you know the story they finally came to m and who stands in the entrance of the cave ASV with hundreds of of of soldiers and he tells them whoa whoa where are you going and they're like we're coming to bury our father and he says who says that this is his place of burial maybe it's mine I mean Adam and Eve Adam and K buried here ab and Sarah yob and RKA and RKA and then Leah was already buried there yov buried there so left one grave Esa says who says it's going to Yakov maybe it's mine so they said no but we know it's jakob's grave es says show me a document that it says that it's his maybe it's mine I'm also the son of I'm the son of RKA maybe I'm supposed to be buried here you know burying him there now they say okay wait no problem we have a documents he says okay show me the document so they say the document is in MIT so they sent bamin that's what the mid says they sent bamin to MIT to bring the document to show him this is the place of burial for yov in the meantime you know they had a whole Entourage of people there there was one individual who didn't know who H is he just sees an individual stopping the the funeral and making a problem the story says that he took a stick and he hit ASA by his head the story says that the head went disattached from the body and the head went rolling and stopped right next to the Grave where Yakov has to be buried the point is is that the head got disattached from the body and it rolled and it stopped next to the the grave of Yakov and they put it there and that's where it's buried comes balat the old Arabian he says yes because the body of the gsh the physicality was wicked came from kipa but the head the M the intellect that came from Kus that's why it got the head got buried in and that was the power of that he didn't look at the external part the external part of Asa was wicked but he looked inside Into the Heart of asav cuz he had the ability of the the the the well digging to see something that is hidden all the way in and that was The Power of Now it says about asav the gar says about asav that there was never a man in history that had kib like asav asav every night when he would come home from his job or whatever it was he would make a meal to and not only that you know the story you know I mean we we learn about that that when Rifka came to to yob and she told him go in to get Thea so he says how can I go in I don't have the Garment so they went and they stole the Garment the Garment was the story is that this garment was swed by Hashem and was given to Adam arish and this garment was a very special holy garment to a point that the animals would see this garment and they would stand still so nimod stole this garment and that's how he would hunt the animals he would put the Garment on him and the animals would freeze and that's how we would kill them then ASA was like hey that's a that's a pretty cool garment let me get that so he asav took it from Nimrod but asav was like I'm not going to hunt with this this is a holy garment that was stitched but it was swed by the K this this is a very special garment and ASA used to wear this garment only when he went into's father so Asam had an unbelievable unbelievable power of kib of respecting the father as much as the Torah goes to length to explains that he was wicked we also know that the inside was pure that's why wanted to bless him now really when you see the blessing what did he give isak what did he give asav he gave him everything from the land he gave him the sh from the oils and but he didn't give him Israel he gave Israel to to to Jakob but all the the the materialistic part he gave to es but initially wanted to bless only asav because had a special power to see be beneath the exterior and he says I don't see the external part that is wicked I see the internal part that is pure and it's holy and what we need to take from that without dissecting the story too much because there's a lot of question but why did why did the blessing for yakob had to come in a in a tricky way why didn't they just walk in there's a lot of questions I don't want to dissect the questions now I want to take a concept and to learn something from that and to incorporate it into my life and in our life we run into so many situations that I judge a person by the exterior and I do not give the benefit of the doubt to a certain individual because of the exterior and I judge situations because of the the external part and I do not take the time to try to listen man there's something something inside and you can analyze it in many different categories you can analyze it with my kids sometime I have a kid like he had two kids one of them was yob was studying Torah all day long he did Mitzvah he had a black suit a hat the whole thing he didn't any problems the pride of the family and a lot of families in our generation they have aov but they also have aom boy doesn't want to learn I don't want to learn instead of listening to the heart of the kid what what does the kid want they they sh him off we talked about before about the kids that go off the D it's because the parents are not willing to listen to something deep there deep Waters that are running under the surface and this is unfortunately a very sad thing in in Parenthood that the child that is successful he's good the child that is a little bit seem problematic no but inside there's a pure there's a pure soul that just needs a little bit of a different type of attention different attention but where do we meet with that on our day-to-day life we look at a person then maybe in an external part he doesn't look such a God-fearing person to a point a lot of people would judge him look he's eating not coer he's driving on Shabbat he's not Kosher enough he can't pray with us no he has a pure sh inside we have to look at the at the at the inside of each individual that to us might seem in a very external way a simple individual or very disattached from the Torah but we should learn from our father that the point is to look in everything in in the P there's a mish that says don't look at the bottle from the outside look at what's inside and this is a problem that we a lot of people have and this is what the the the thought of the week what one needs too to apply is that you have to see in everything the good in it and we started before we talked about the month of everything happens the usually falls on or the time of the beginning of because we mentioned that is the is the cover don't judge something by its cover I mean the mishna says don't look at the bottle Canan in English they say don't judge a book by its cover unfortunately fail we fail in many times that we judge the book by its cover by the cover that is covering doesn't matter it can be a situation it can be a human being it can be a relationship there's a very big Commandment that it says that we constantly have to judge a person we see a situation we have to judge them favorably because we don't know what's behind the situation we don't know what evolved we don't know what preceded the situation and we're usually we're very quick to judge oh he said like this he's wrong instead of taking the time of saying no there's something more than that something preceded that and what I want to take from that and to apply it to my life that in every situation that the kadh shows me he he will show me something that looks on the surface very evil very negative but hasem wants me to say no if was able to look at isav and say no he's the exterior is completely evil but inside there's something pure that is a pure n and anyone can be pure inside and do Chua I mean if you look at the world you mentioned before about the thousands of Bal cha yeah if you would look if somebody would look at me 15 years ago they would not give me a time of day long hair and piercings and tattoos they this is a rash this is a wicked person nobody will give me the time of day and it's not only me almost any almost of the B cha look where they came from and and daa from the from the end of the world this is where you know the the beautiful Nish they come out so it's not necessarily dka with a person who has to do Chua the point that I want to take from that is I want to live my life that I can see the good in everything if I can see the good in everything then I have the ability to bring that good out if I look at something and I focus on the bad then I'm empowering the Bad and the B says you have to be very careful with your speech with your eyes and with your thought because if I call somebody now a wicked person I'm empowering in him the power of of of the wickedness and if I tell somebody he's so kind or he's generous I'm empowering this power in him that's why L is so bad the slandering is because I'm empowering that power if I say ooh that person is a thief right now now besides of me saying I'm now charging and empowering the power of theft in that individual that now this individual will have more of a desire to steal so what I want to take from that is that to see the good in everything everything has good every human being has something good in it even the child it seems that he's doesn't want to go in the path what I want that's my problem because it's a path that I want not what my child wants somebody asked me the other day about about if if one of my kids one of my boys want to go to the Army how would I will react so I said first of all my my oldest boy is 10 they get drafted to the army with they 18 if we're not going to have mashia in in eight years that we will need an army that's already a problem ifom we'll still need an Army in 8 years but if let's say Hy pathetically now I had a son that would want to go to the Army that's his decision mother my decision it's not my life parents they try to control the kids all the time to oppose their opinion so I'm just giving one example out of many with the Army but the point is that I have to see the good in each individual because where why do I see the bad because it doesn't doesn't coexist with my opinion it's not parallel to my desire so I don't see the good in it I see the bad in it the point is is that you are required ired forget about what the reality is you are required to see the good in it you want to pull the good out of it you don't want to get to a situation that you are concentrating on the bad in any situation you can analyze the good and the bad any situation I can say this is good but this bad the all the situations in the world are manifested from the Tree of good and bad of to it's a there's always good and bad in something my point what I want to learn from this particular thing is how I take the good out of something you should always judge a person favorably you should also see Hashem puts you in a situation that looks extremely bad so I can focus on the bad and say hem is now punishing me I'm now in a bad situation and I can also say no there's nothing bad that comes from sh where can I see the good in it so it's my ability and my obligation to see how balancing things out and what I want to take from that in this teachings of this Paras is that if was able to see in such a wicked person like isav the good in him so much more so I can also apply that and in any situation that I see to try to focus on the good and to take the good out the says whatever you focus that's what you Empower so if you now focus on the good of of an individual you can bring that good to the surface if you focus on the bad if I take now my kid and I tell my kid all day long you are your room is a mess you don't listen you lay to school you you eat like a like a kazer whatever if I'm constantly saying that that's what I'm bringing out of my kid if I'm going to tell my kid and let's say the kid is not the most successful student but if I tell them good on you K very good you did amazing in the test next time you'll get better you know maybe if tomorrow go to sleep a little bit earlier I I'm sure you can wake up and go to school in time it's all how I'm how I'm a encouragement it's fine we should always see just the good things in everything amen we should concentrate on the good if we concentrate on the bad then we empower the bad we should concentrate on the good and if we concentrate on the good then hasm is going to concentrate on the good and bring us mashia already M we should have a beautiful Shabbat a beautiful rest of the week we'll see you again B on Sunday on Tuesday and on Thursday where we're going to start our beautiful seter of learning [Music]