Parshat Mishpatim: Reverberations of Revelation by Rabbi Ari Kahn

so the she isah and the two y sites are I think on two sides of the so there there's a lot of discussion regarding the V there the so it is true that we kind of get the sense that this is a beginning or the beginning because it's uh because beginning of the para it's beginning of a peric so we have like a good team up over here between those forces that decided that this is the beginning of parim and those forces that decided this is chapter 21 so over here we have uh two forces bring us to think that this is the beginning and that may or may not be the case now what you'll see and you would see this clearer if you looked at the file and the source that I actually sent because there I put in red and this was printed in black and white yes you saw the red so what I did was something very simple and that was to kind of to go back to what was before and before was theer Road and I lined up the various things in the paraa as per theer now there were a couple of different ways of doing this so I don't know if I did again one way of doing it would have been to go throughout the para and then say okay to which you know dra drawer to where it should be from 1 to 10 or I could have gone from 1 to 10 and then go to what it may be connected to in terms of uh our par so as I said you know e either way I would have gotten complaints so I uh just did that was convenient for me so if you see Source number two it actually says in red which you can see which is part of the Ani and yes I noticed that also part of the Ani is missing over here but I did want to hone in on that the reason why this is easy is because it's the first debor in the beginning of mish the discussion of you were slaves so I took you out of the house of slavery and now and if you looked in the various Mion I'm sure that some of them we remember we're familiar with that some of them you know connected to uh the ear the ear who heard and so on and you know doesn't really want to be free and God set us forth is free but over here the the really main focus is that if you're going to have a slave or servant whichever term you want to use so what exactly are the rules of engagement and what are the rules of leaving and it's also interesting that you have say and and what it is that the person is going to be leaving with and again there is this say right now cuz I don't want to oversell this I'll say at least a loose Association or some something which reminds you of but but maybe we'll say that in in clearer terms The Ten Commandments could be seen as being exceedingly exact these 10 things and what we're going to see in Mish is that we're going to see how you apply it and how you spread it and there will be situations of inexactitude that that'll be one element the other element will be when things kind of flow over for from one law to perhaps another law because also real life is not as pristine real life can end up being very messy and therefore it's the messiness of real life which is going to be I think referred to as we see the expansion of these laws and but there is something very specific I want to get to and that's going to be the thing which we're going to least perhaps least expect if we continue again in Source number two we had Al then I have so this is an expansion of look if you see Source number three sorry if you look at source number three not to have other gods so what I wanted you to note is that not following not following the chapter 21 but rather going back to immediately after the Ten Commandments we have this verse on the other hand in this week's para in the next Source again only to serve God and again right under that now that's the one you can argue with me hold it Elohim that doesn't mean God but when I said expansion before the things get expanded in ways which maybe you would not have predicted predicted but in Source number three what you end up having over here is two different verses which relate to this second or to this other commandment again how you count the Ten Commandments is also quite interesting but one of them was back in perff and the other one is perff bed and that's what I want you to pay pay attention to in so number four you should not use God's name in vain and in this week's par we have eloh so now those of you who are clever will tell me it Elohim in this context doesn't mean God it means a judge now the question is is that an independent concept not to curse a judge or should we be asking ourselves a different question isn't it odd that when we speak about a judge that a judge we use the word Elohim which is sometimes kados which means and and I think you can could find garote that either say this black and white or certainly will give you the impression of this that when a judge creates Justice they become partners with God which means that there that that it's God's will that there should be Justice on Earth so therefore there's this partnership which takes place which therefore the calling the judge Elohim which is really daring and really interesting would apply now all that I'm doing is going a half a step further and saying hold but then you should not curse Elohim does that somehow therefore connect to this idea of using God's name in vain and so on and yes there's a stretch but that's what I was saying is that the real world is Messier and the real world is actually quite interesting but but believe me my whole share today does not hinge on that uh on on that comment it's rather something which will come from the mode of thinking and if you look at source number five it is the commandment of Shabbat which for us is number four right the Commandment of Shabbat and you'll notice which I what I did over here is that under that commandment I put a bunch of other things so what what what do we get into right now we're get into laws of is called shab so therefore what I'm really suggesting is something which if you were keeping track of Rashi tells us that the Ten Commandments are actually highlights and and chapter headings and then in the chapters themselves will be lots and lots of details and he quotes R sadon who puts all 613 Commandments into the ten commandments so then again if that's the case so when I have something like Shabbat and it's mentioned in this week's par and again all that I'm suggesting is that is an expansion of the ten commandments so then you should very quickly understand oh at least there a possibility as I said I'm not trying to oversell this but at least there's a possibility that Shabbat which is not called here it's called shita here that this is really an extension of Shabbat now again why would I say that well the easy part of it is the the format of the six and the one for six years you work and then the one year the land it rests but it's actually not just that this is the secondary part of the thought process which brings me here the the first part is actually what comes afterwards and then working backward I'll say it in English now it's that right after that the next p is BET is okay and then the further expansion is it's also which is also you you know that we could have stuck that in he I just I'm lazy that's why I left it over here but if I was being overly rigid I would have put that someplace else but it's that interests me so all of this is Shabbat again where will you see this in a clear anunciation will be in par in EM the various days are called or rest or cessation of Ander in as well is called Shabbat but I'm saying there there's lots of uh of things called Shabbat and anything that is is called a Shabbat there what we're seeing then is one of the Ten Commandments is that there is this idea of holy day so what again expansion extraction application other holy days are all the holy days identical no but there is nonetheless an and the is what's interesting by the way you mentioned beforeand that the next holiday that we have is porm so the status of purm as a holiday is really interesting because when khazal made up right we have to say that when kazal made up porim they made it up in a really interesting way they made a holiday which doesn't have an and according to the G there was a push to have an that there there was a discussion that okay this is a holiday which means what exactly make something into an EAS into a holiday which is daanan and uh we do havean we do have rabic holidays with including second day for you secondary okay there is there there there is such a thing where kazal did use their strength to apply is on a rabic holiday but puim there was enough push back not to do it so it became something which is really interesting as a holiday people who are sticklers would not call it there's no Corb right people who are not as rigid will not be troubled by this and there was uh one fellow I I'll call him one of theik if you know that phrase I saw him right before p and he said to me right which is which is not precisely correct but it's nonetheless should give somebody pause to think but again what happened over here is really interesting expansion in two directions of Shabbat in one direction towards the sabatical year and in the other direction towards the other days where there's an essentially again right now as of this point pointing towards the shal um correct rashash is not mentioned yet yum Kipper is not mentioned yet maybe yum Kipper really is only connected to the theel Kan like in that respect well khaka was somewhat different because khaka already had purm to base itself on so therefore purm is really the drama you know what do you do with Pur and and and purm has a big advantage of a khaka in the sense that they're still part of scripture there's a book of Esther which is which is part of scripture while in Kana there's nothing there's no there's no more there's no more scripture there's no more as it were no it's all post that so anything that khaka has is going to hinge itself on purm so over here again what I was trying to show is that you look at parim carefully or you look it through a particular prism and that this prism is to look at the so therefore here are the uh expansions but by the way I will say that if you follow this midrashic approach that God said all Ten Commandments and then he started to explain explain the the explain the the first two right explain the first two even I I I know that there's different ways of uh of saying what I'm saying right now so it is interesting that we have certain elements of the first two which are still in last week's paraa and then in this week's para show we start moving further but what I just now said is very inexact and would need to be developed much more and there are problems with it as well but we'll we'll leave it at that in uh Source number six that we're up to so here we have two different vers is which and and then here's where we actually you really get to the to the sloppiness when I say sloppiness I'm not talking about God I'm not talking about the paraa I'm talking about life that we're commanded in this perfect pristine world right and then we get to verses like one second one second I mean was also I'm sorry I just put the wrong verse there there's also AO there's also hting parents and cursing parents so as I said it gets it gets messy but where does it get messy it gets messy when uh we move from the aspiration which is I say aspiration what a terrible word the aspiration and then we move into the real life full of emotions and then people doing things which are inappropriate and then therefore I'm saying Mish is messy but it's but it's the messiness of uh of real life so therefore in uh in the next source that's where really should have been but again there's enough other ones over here and getting all kinds of details you beat somebody and they get up after words what are you paying for that and again so it's it's it goes from the worst case scenario of beating somebody then dying and then there's lots of other gradations involved which means the person who's going to be uh beating people people you know what if they get on their feet for a while and then they die sometime afterwards which and eventually leading up to the and so on and so forth but all of the all of this what I'm what I'm again asking you to do is now think of it through the prism of the Ten Commandments and therefore there you have L and now we have various gradations of L I mean again you want to get to an extreme Rabbi idea of it that would even be embarrassing somebody would be an exp an expansion of L but none the less what mishpatim did is interesting because what it did is it looks again if we're not wrong in everything I'm saying today it allows you to look at theer and see them not just as specific points but rather again as chapter headings which then have a lot more information with within them again Source number eight Len of so commit adultery so apparently there's lots of ways of committing adultery but there's also different levels to it so over here so here you're talking not necessarily about somebody who's married but you're talking about a seduction and or for that matter there are other kinds of uh of messiness which could uh be included within gradations of having to do with sexual um inappropriate behavior the the continuation over here is interesting why that's thrown there in the middle you can say any you want so that we've moved over from uh from seduction of a single person moving over to bestiality so you know that was quite a jump that took place over there but that's what I'm saying again is that just this this really simple dramatic strong right do not commit adultery I mean the rumors are you've heard of the King James version of the Bible the King James translation apparently that he commissioned it because beforehand there was a Bible that was printed that had one mistake in it one word was left out instead of it saying do not commit adultery it said do commit adultery there was a knot left out and they call it the Sinners Bible and uh and King James yeah anybody who wants to buy that you may have other problems and uh and that and and and uh and and that's why he commissioned can know can somebody do this right and that's that's why there was an official Bible then that uh that they they check for mistakes yeah that's an easy case there are harder cases I mean I I can again we're not you're right we're not discussing now I'm not posing now but uh when I've taught this and I have you can look online I've I've taught cases of in dysfunctional relationships there's a there was a case that was asked to a rabbi of a girl who said my father raped me and uh and I don't want to sit sh for him I think he's a wicked person and I want to celebrate his demise as as is written in the what you do when somebody Wicked dies so uh that there is a really interesting chuva which is written to that I'm going to avoid now dealing with the case more than that I think it's going to come down to what extent to know to what to what extent the individual suffered by the person who had committed the various sins that they that they committed because you know none of us have uh are sinless and none of us have never made mistakes so then now who is going to judge exactly where this going to be so I think where there's going to be a direct impact or emotionally physically or so on then I think there's a much stronger reason not necessarily to uh to sucha ask individual 100 100% are written you can't take it at face value 100% somebody should ask and I I was involved in in a situation where somebody asked me certain things about Shiva and they decided for reasons like this that they're not sitting shiva they never asked a sha and I I I I didn't think that they were necessarily just again not that I was necessarily privy to all of the details involved in the case but I it didn't strike me as they decided they were to compromise only such for one day I mean I it just didn't strike me as being uh as as being very uh very serious but but yes somebody should ask a Shila and I'm saying the greater the the the person is a victim of that behavior that would become a question there's actually the question about honoring parents who are wicked there's three different garas that talk about it and there's not necessarily full agreement between the three garas at face value and then you have the various ronam trying to reconcile the different garas the mean one of the cases that comes up if the father was a thief and died with stolen property does the child now who inherits the father's thing is now that he's inherited it let's just say now it's cash so cash is somewhat fungible and therefore does he have some kind of a moral obligation to return it or does he not have a moral obligation to return it so one of the resolutions the oh we're talking about a case that he did chuva so thear says hold it if he did CH why did he return it meaning what's going on okay he didn't have a chance to return it and he died so now is there illegal or immoral does it is is the KE of Aim so part of the complexity is is that at least According to some of the weown him if he did chuva then there would be an obligation to honor that parent who is a sinner so now how do you know who on their deathbed may or may not have done chuva I'm saying it's also something although that's why I'm saying if this person was victimized and maybe part of the chuva is to ask for forgiveness so that's what I'm saying I don't want to touch this because it's just so there it's so complex getting to the exact details involved in this and the other thing which really troubled me about once when I was asked about one of these cases was a girl who's uh again it was something like this and she didn't want to invite the father to the wedding and they came to me her and her and her uh fiance who since got divorced came over and uh and asked me you know you know we don't want to invite the father and so what bothered me about answering the question I didn't hear the other side I didn't hear the other side I only I'm only hearing one side so now he's only hearing one side enough in giving such a decision because what are they going to go and say oh the rabbi said I don't have to invite but but the rabbi heard one person meaning if somebody comes over to me and says I'm having an argument with my neighbor with this and some anything with money I will always say I will not answer unless I hear the other side present their side of the information I can't trust you to tell me there and now that I'm saying that you're not being truthful but uh one it's and two I've lived long enough to know that there's always going to be another side again I remember situations that I dealt with where the two stories that I'm listening to have nothing to do with one another it's like two different narratives that that are just coincidentally related that each one mentioned the other person's name in their story until one was able to somehow unravel all that and make sense of it and that's the two of them sitting in the room together anyway so getting getting back to that point so this girl doesn't want to invite The Wedding by way there's a more fundamental question is somebody obligated to invite their parents to a wedding so I'm again I just want to stop because K of aim could Now take us the rest of the discussion but uh these things are clearly quite uh complicated Source number nine Ln so there's lots of stuff on this I didn't give you you know nearly as much as there could be apparently we've perfected this over the years stealing that is right we we kind of have this sense in the back of Minds that the that all of the Ten Commandments are punishable by death and therefore stealing is not regular stealing stealing is kidnapping so look at that's kidnapping that's that actually is kidnapping and the word gav is being used and now we're getting to stealing other kinds of things which are alive like animals then moving on to and so on which means all of these cases or moving on a couple lines later still in per I could have B that the end so you see all the times that the word or the letters or the root ghav is being used so you realize again that there is this expansion of the Ten Commandments and again going in different kinds of directions from kidnapping to stealing animals to stealing possessions as well and all of this I'm going to say it again is an expansion of what we saw in the Ser Source 10 Again false bearing fals witness so inim in order I'm sure you like the word Kamas here which um do not partner with somebody to be to bear false witness also per giml and so on and so so all of these are expansions of ways of perverting justice so I'll say it again is that I mean everything did right now really was easy you do realize that right it did not right it did not take uh a lot of uh work and you're probably saying so what do you do all week because that was mode in right Source 11 so then I I went [Music] to which is interesting because again remember you were in Egypt which that itself is good not to hold on to the possessions of others God will be upset with this at the very end again don't take things which belong to others so again that would and and again this I also could have applied to lots of different cases Source 12 so now you know that this is really where we had started so now I'm going backwards a bit because there was really one thing that I'm missing and that is Ani I just want make sure that you understand that we got everything other than Ani and some of you again will be clever and say well there is an argument whether Ani is a Mitzvah or not it's just a fact maybe Ani is something else so we want to note that okay first of all is the the way that it's stated in the 10 commandments what is also over here and again this is just like to finish this off is something which is not easily in the 10 Commandments but there is a long statement of this this comes right after the then you have some Zionism and in the in the expression of Zionist of Zionism right I'm G to send you so on there it says and so on and so forth right so over here when I said okay we have don't worship other gods it is mentioned in the par again really quite clearly but it is interesting because there's also the Zionist element to it so we'll pause at that now now we can go backwards towards an immediately after the Ten Commandments right we get to the last one and we're in Source 13 and we're back last week all the people see the sounds and so on and they stand far right don't let God speak to us anymore cuz we could die so you may not hear this till I point this out but Moshe is saying is know the purpose of this is you have a completely God awareness so what is another way of expressing a complete God awareness is really living with the idea of ani I mean that that's exactly the point which means the experience which they had at sini is experience of ani that's that's exactly the point at the end of this week's partion in which we haven't looked at all yet we have going up on the mountain and another which is quite difficult or challenging which means they're again there is this God complete God awareness which was there immediately afterwards and now also the towards the end of mish and at the very end of the chapter and everybody again experiences this God awareness so all that I just now did which you again maybe this I had to work a little bit harder and you would not have thought of this by yourselves that I just now stuck all of these expressions with in Ani within this fact of God existing that they experienced it again it's really different because all the others were statements don't do this don't do this but this was an experience Ani is an experience and maybe that's another reason to look at it as being a little bit diff different now there's also something else that happens which is now going to take us back and take us on a little bit of a of of a path which is really where I want to get to and which is really what the purpose of all of this is because again there is a no but there's another thing that happens and then another thing which may have generated it in Source 14 and again we're still in per again only problem is I haven't done anything in sequence in know that turn a phrase in terms of turns out to be pretty important so this is the more formal aspect of it it first of all so much of Matan Torah is God acting and here is the people doing something here's the people accepting here's the people being a part of it but there's also another word here which is incredibly important and that word is Brit that there is a covenant the Covenant includes within it offerings the olot it includes speaking it includes sprinkling of blood and and by the way there are those especially the ramban who will tell you yes this is a conversion process the whole the Jews have Kabal and over here they are all becoming Jews that's exactly what's taking place so it's not just that God is saying okay stating these 10 facts you know this is these are the rules the world goes by but they're accepting these things which is actually creates a process but it also creates therefore this Brit and it creates this Covenant the Covenant has two sides to it so it's not just God speaking it's also the people responding and accepting as I said the ramban reads all of this as being part of conversion including the Corban a Corban is needed by conversion we were children we were children of Abraham and is and yob I don't know what Jews let's just say let's let's take your question and and turn it around let's just say that uh there was a couple who uh got lost on the way to CI he had his pictures he wants to tell his camera and and uh and he makes goes oh look at this sunset here and he's there taking pictures off on the side I how to get he's off there on the side he's busy I didn't pick on you but he he's there taking his pictures and so on and uh they gets a sign it's after n s isma so what do he have to do now is he Jewish like everybody else or did he miss something he didn't have the sprinkling of the blood on the ran insists that this is a conversion and therefore the a ofra become Jewish now as well but the Jews have to have part of this Covenant so as I said it's not a simple thing blame oh we blame everything on so it's great to have a of RAV in your life that you can blame for all the problems that exist okay in Source number 15 which we've gone all the way back now to parag gimmel now there's something interesting about parag gimel and that is we're still in the same place we're by this is by the burning bush and this is the first sign that God says to mosha I'm going to give you a sign and this is the one that we always forget because it doesn't seem to make sense and when you get out you'll serve God on this mountain now now truth is we could have just started here the middle could have been here and the end could have been here and we could have only tried to discuss what that phrase means I'm not going to do that but I will show you first who've taken this phrase and used it in all kinds of interesting ways most of them circling around exactly what we're up to so let's let's start as we should in s 16 with unus who's really quite literal is but is to serve in the sense of aod I I I know but it's it's translating aod but it doesn't mean it means it means aod but the connotation over here is uh is one of serving God but it didn't help us all that much if it was a Corban that would be perfect taraman which is the reason why I'm I made a point about the he says that when you get out or the Hebrew is so what does it mean you'll serve God on this mountain what is serving godal T what is Kabal T now I can argue that's the nma again you can argue with me that that the kabala took place in peret it's per per is interesting you can say but it means accepting the Torah so so this is really interesting because I again what tarum unus did is he translated it literally you'll serve God on this mountain and what y yonatan did is you're going to serve God in a transformative Way by virtue of accepting the Torah and now everything will be different yes he didn't use all those words but that's what he said and one see again one is very literal okay you'll serve God and and I I'll ask this way at which point can you just put a check on your list yeah we did that and at which and what exactly does it mean to serve God and and that's where that's what I was trying to get to we're going to see it gets much more interesting if you look at Ian Ezra in Source number 19 which is parake right here's the negotiations with parro we're going to go and we're going to serve God that when they get toi that's a three-day Journey that's where they're going to serve God in order to fulfill that which was said so it's really interesting because he is throwing Into The Narrative of leaving Egypt this verse in including when we're talking with parro where we need to go what we need to do and by the way this point it's more tactical we need to bring a corbon that's that again is much more tactical and probably more in line with what we saw in unus you look at the ibra in Source 20 now he's by peric yud giml peric yud giml is talking about so he is using the Fulfillment of a Mitzvah not in terms of a checklist I did that but in terms of a Rel relationship the relationship has changed that you're going to serve me which actually means it's not about that one action it's about the relationship has changed which means now you've become o Hashem now you've become Servants of God as opposed to whatever you were before and that's what it means when you leave Egypt you're going to now again you used to be and and we're familiar with this kind of thought you used to be Servants of parro have to do what he said but now by doing a Mitzvah you now have just started a relationship with God izra is interesting in Source 21 21 is perut that's the preparation for her he pulls out the same POS again meaning this is this holy place and this is where we're going to serve God and then izra pulls it out again this is like the fourth time he's pulling it out in Source 22 which is peret which is one of of the conclusionary verses dealing with the building of the Mish sorry that's sorry 22 and that's what it means to serve God on this mountain the building of the Mishka now again there's two ways of reading this one way of reading this is the checklist oh I got have to build a mishun and the other is the transformative relationship that says that I will dwell within you and that is part of the purpose of leaving Egypt in order to have this new relationship so again I hope that all of that was not too uh too complicated which is why this is especially interesting that the ezzar just said no this is the Fulfillment of that verse that was said all the way back in paragel correct right very good observation look at the ramban in Source 20 which ramban do we want to do what's 25 25 is over here sorry in perig giml we'll start with that ran 25 right theom 25 is by perim and he says right to take again what does it mean it means it means the accepting of T by the way I don't want you to lose focus this is actually part of what ani is an noi means that I am God who took you out of Egypt oh and now you're going to serve that God which means the introduction to is exactly what all of this is about thean in 26 when he talks again this is they arrived at now this is fascinating because I could have claimed that I'm sure I've claimed in the past that maybe to a certain extent showing up by seni was a bait and switch who said anything about mitzvot who said anything about God giving us all these things to do so now the answer is yeah he did say he did say it when did he say it he goes you're going to take the people out so I'm going to say it again at least it means to do something or it means to start a relationship or it means that God is going to give you lots and lots of things because of the relationship so the r is saying yeah of course they of course they knew that they're going to come to ca cuz Moshe told them you're going to serve God on this mountain and and therefore he's saying yeah that's T now you realize that ran is much closer to what the Taran told us as opposed to that more literal interpretation of uh of unus that P now you pay attention based on what you just asked sour 28 is the PK that we refer to this is again this summing up of the so again that's this nice conclusion and now you're going to know I'm God who took care of Egypt which by the way again connects you to why for my for my Essence to be within you look atash I took you out of Egypt in order for you to build the Mish of me to be in your midst now again according to Rashi you would have argued hold it isn't theel the reason we build the Mishka so now you realize well you have that Rashi to contend with and I'm not going to solve your problems today because uh I'm not interested and and and and it's not and I'm not dealing with the mishon yet and that's why I'm said I'm not dealing with this thing in in its entirety I just want you to see some of the and again it goes down to this relationship that uh you know we need a place to live together and and we need a relationship it sounds like it goes very much together yeah that's what the ran said ran said he told them that he told them it is in the text but the ran says that mosha told the people that he that's what the r says I don't know I don't know I don't like I don't like that Source number 30 I know I just don't like it Source number 30 Source number 30 is thei and you'll knowe you'll note the you'll note thei does the same thing he he also pulls us out by various places but but his formulation over here is really interesting by perut and again I'm skipping a little bit why did Moshe go up on that day and the middle of of the next line that they get to CI and mosha then goes up and says God you know what do we do now meaning it's like almost like the opposite of their mosha knew exactly what it was he saying okay we have a date we're supposed to randevu and now what's the content you know what do we what do we do next right what what do we do and I I I just found that really interesting again it goes back to that same P you're going to serve God in this mountain and mosha is perplexed and say what do we do how do we serve God in this mountain what's the what's the service if you look at their in this week's Part Source 31 so again he's being very technical is right and therefore when they bring that Corban in they bring those all out now they fulfilled that which they had taken upon themselves earlier but the in Source as so it goes back to that same thing just like Rashi and others no the point it's it's again the mishkan is an expression of the relationship is expression of relationship and again I want to tell you something everything I've been doing is to try to understand an and an is not just another statement it it it's a statement which leads towards the relationship now there's another thing and this is really where we're going to end up today in Source 33 we're back in paracute which is right before and we have the following formulation now we're getting to this point of the Covenant if you listen to my voice which means remember I said afterwards and they took and and they brought the corbon out and they took the blood they sprinkled it and this is the Brit the Brit is mentioned over here in and you will be for me a treasure from among all the nations which means mosha again perhaps goes up or okay so what are we doing what's the deal and God says okay here's the deal the deal is we're going to have a covenant but he also uses an interesting turn of phrase and this turn of phrase is that you're going to be a and now this is going to help us in all kinds of ways so and including helping us on some things that we didn't that I left out in my putting everything in the 10 categories because there were certain things I didn't have any place to put them but now but now I do but first of all when we go back to Source 34 which is which is the Brit so over here is where Abraham gets the information that you will be slaves in another land and 400 years fourth generation will come back but there's an introduction to it and then there's something afterwards which means if I only started onim and then I ended it on yudan then it would or even before that on then it would have be the Brit but there's an introduction what's the introduction take the m and so on and what does it say right afterwards in which by the way was this other thing that was left over the whole time going into to the land which I kind of ignored and only brought up the verses when he gets the land don't serve other gods but the land is obviously a part of the Brit ban ofin but there's another point over here and that is this point of the Covenant all this was point one now point two insource 35 is where again the word Brit is used multiple times which of course is where aam gets commanded to do the Brit but in the context of him being commanded to the Brit God says right now that's really interesting because what does it mean all these other nations so keep that question in mind for a second and and then goes back and this is the BR and the and then it talks about the Brit itself so this of being an keep that in mind and being told that you're going to be right we have that we still need to deal with and this idea of as I said again so one is Abraham at this point as a part of the Covenant abam receiv receives Kusa apparently the idea of being or an amoa or making a covenant with God means that God who's completely holy infuses us with some Holiness now you could all say to me yeah that's what the Ser de bro are it's how to live a holy life the problem is that a lot of the Ser de brro are not a holy life but it's a moral life now you can argue with me on that you really can you can say no well what what is a holy life if not a moral life but the the fact nonetheless remains that there is this really interesting correlation between the and between the which means a lot of this is not about but is much more about about morality so and not to kill not to murder is moral right I I would even say to honor one's parents is moral I I I not to steal I think is moral I think there's a lot of things over here even a justice system to be just and a Justice is moral even though is interesting that the judges are still there this partnership with God takes place but when you look at source 36 now I I and I hope you can't miss this vanes you should be a holy people for me so that's where Holiness is mentioned intim you should be a holy people and don't eat non- kosher things which means there's nothing particularly moral about kosher or not Kosher it's about Holiness it's about Kusa but but that element of Kusa is the element that I've been looking for because that really is what emerges from Ani that really is what emerges from you're going to serve God on this mountain because serving God on this mountain is not and was not meant to be a checklist you did one more thing it was about a transformative experience where you become something else we become again Holiness which means if you look at the microcosm of that that's becoming the and having a Brit now is introduced into his body as it were over here at har something else is going to happen and the sum total of this is Kusa part of kadha now again not to be confused on this part of kadha is actually morality you can't imagine that you're very holy person if you're lacking morality because it's not just it's you say yeah but I'm holy there's no morality but I keep kosher no no you need all the morality as well and then the the as which means this relationship with God and ultimately expression of kadha is going to be the mishkan which means the mishkan is creating a whole world of Kusha which why that should not have been a surprise ending hold it where do we get to this whole mishkan part of it why do we need Theo what's going on God dwell no that is the expression of because all of this was aboutus it was said back in ut but I want to mention one more P that you don't have in front of you because I only added it this morning and that is that also back in peric doid when Moshe is told and given his marching order start to go back to Egypt he's told something to say to parro which we always take in a different way in term because we know how it ends up let me explain this is and we never stop there because there's a continuation so here's the foreshadowing of the eventual death of the firstborn God could have said all of this without saying B is the does a couple of things one thing that it does and I believe of Sal said this When God says that Israel is my first born he's acknowledging something else and what is that they have other children you don't call somebody your firstborn if you only have one child if you only have one child this is my child it's not right he's only the you only call some you you'll tell meally but it is a Bor you don't refer to someone as a b if there are not other children which means when God says to parro tell right mosha go to and say God is telling mosha acknowledge their other children which actually creates this responsibility do you realize what this is directly parallel to it's directly parallel to a being told an Aon which means there is this fascinating twist that takes place Alam is told to become very different and how he's going to become different he's going to do a Brit la which Mak I'm different from everybody else but you're going to be different it doesn't take away your responsibility towards others you know aam's tent is open he cares but others no it's going to create more of a moral responsibility interpersonal towards others right because of your addition when Isel is standing at SI what are they told they're told to be to be a Kad what does it mean to be a Cohen a Cohen is somebody who's a religious functionary for others we become a nation of kohanim what is that mean so who's our who's who's our flock and that's the rest that's the rest of the world which means that something really interesting takes place over here with we have in last week they I'm going to say it like this we have and then we have another nine mitv is ultimately the most important yes you could say okay shouldn't serve other guy but Ani is the most important because Ani is the one which really expresses this concept of uh of Kusa and we now realize that that was always a part of the story again you decide where you want to start with you want to start with the B Bar Tri Arts it's a good place to start you want to look back at the britan upim it was standing there as well you want to look when God made this Covenant with Abraham in terms of the Brit Mila it was there as well in terms of a there are other nations your flock just became bigger you have more moral responsibility but you're going to have a level of K again these are not contradictions you you want to say it someplace else again Sal also applied it when AR had went to the AA and he said I'm going to go up and serve god of the mountain and then I'm going to come back and then he has to share it with them as well yes sometimes we have to leave people at the bottom of the mountain climb the mountain have our experiences but we also need to come down afterwards and to share those experience and to give the moral implications of those experiences you want to keep on going yeah God said it to to mosenu right in the beginning by this St you going when you come out you're going to serve God on this mountain and now you realize the commentaries who take that you know that little phrase and start applying it left right and Center in all kinds of ways and now you realize how Central and how important that was because it wasn't a question of a checklist you're going to do one thing it was a question of changing this relationship and therefore it's transformative it's becoming of theem you want to use brisker terminology it's not a question of the it's not a question the gav has to do this it's a question of transforming the person into something else it's it's not a paa if you want it's not just an action it's transformative and it becomes somebody else now we become an what does it mean now we become in what does it mean that means that we got we became infused in K what what now we understand when God says right beforeand you're going to be was introduced to it of all the mitv it was really interesting where did we find kadha yes kadus is in Shabbat yes kadus is in the holidays yes kadus is in Israel and we realize there's lots of again we had the right side and the left side of the of the L you you have a lot of things that do with morality of things with kadha kosher is just kadha there's no again it's not a question of morality it's a question of kadha and that's where the word was mentioned as we get to the end of mish there we have this serving God on the mountain in order again I use the word conversion but conversion from what to what you saw weren Jewish beforehand that that wasn't the issue the issue was to become this transformative people who were infused with kadha who now are able to march forward and take upon our responsibility of this dual relationship the right and the left side of the L of morality and Kus and not using one as an excuse for the other but we need the two of them together and then eventually to have this other impa impact on the rest of society why because is my first born there are other children there are other children right that means that we have a flock which is outside of this and all again none of this should have been a surprise if I say hold it it was a bait and switch no it wasn't it was right there from the very beginning it was right there from God spoke to Abraham it was right there from the beginning of the SN and if anybody was surprised by where we ended up all that it means is you weren't really paying attention