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Parshat Va’era 5784 (2024) by Rabbi Baruch Taub
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Transcript
Auto-generated transcript. Not time-synced to the video.
good evening so let's go the the first
order of business is to mention there's
a mistake on the sheet it's
par even though it says
parot know how I did that but David fer
immediately saw it so I have to I have
to mention it okay this is
par thank you David F thank you David
haiser for all your technical work for
the OU over the years and welcome back
everybody
okay um I just don't know what order to
go in
um where's my third sheet one second
okay here we are I I think I'm going to
start with the third sheet
okay
um this is uh we'll go a little
backwards this is from the Sham Mish an
old friend a great rebi the
and I I've pointed out many many times
the history of the sh he was the son of
the
AER who was one of the great polish
Gitana
gim uh in fact he he communicated with r
Sal brisker very often R brisker said me
him to hear his Shi but they came back
they couldn't understand his Yiddish
it's a big difference between Li Yiddish
and Gitana Yiddish in any case I've also
pointed out I think in past years that
the
shamm had a son who lived in
Nat and he actually published
manuscripts from the his grandfather
from the AA that were unpublished
manuscripts and they were called is put
in a number of STM called nose desha the
first one was actually written here in
natana and I I saw this a number of
years ago when I opened it up and I just
saw and I then I did a little research
and I found out where he lived I I went
down in towntown there is a apparently a
m at in town which I think might still
be in existence the Name Escapes me for
the moment but he actually lived here I
say here for those of us from Nat he
lived in N okay so the Sham
mm we have the aeras hakus we have the
Asos the 10
plagues um and we have at least the
first number the majority of the 10
plagues are in this week's
para
um but when it when it comes to the
plague
of me catch myself here de H borod
rather
bod hail
hailstones we find an anomaly and that's
what he's going to speak about and I
think it impacts on our situation today
the need for
serious
f
um when Moshe and Aon speak to parro
they come in and out with parro and they
threaten him with bat with the the
hail and he tells parro he's going to
remove the hail right
so tells him you want you don't want
this hail I'm going to get rid of it I'm
going to go out of the city out of
map I'm going to lift up my hands in
prayer my prayers my doing will be heard
by
Theon and that will be the end of the
bar
rash on
this I went out of the
city from the
city could not D in the city whether it
was Cairo whatever City it
was because it was full of idols and it
was not proper for Moshe Renu to D in a
city
where there were Idols for
a but I have a problem says the we have
to
understand when he removed the Frog
plague they left parro's
presence and he DED in the
city and also the Maka of AR the Maka of
the
mixed wild animals which you find
in I'm going to leave your
presence and I'm going to beseech
God the the AR the
Locust he
left
clear that he DED in the
city why was it that for the other three
plagues he could pray to theom to theom
to remove the plagues from from the
Jewish people from from Egypt or
affected us also but from
Egypt but why
by by by the
um this one
plague um he did not he was not able to
dve into
the outside of the
city with the plague of
hail V let me he gives us a a a
wonderful
answer you have to let's look at let's
look at this plague
of hail a little
bit God tells him lift up your hand to
Heaven
explains when in this P an unusual
statement Rashi is saying what the p
means is God took mosenu up to
heaven to deal with to bring down this
plague of B
we have to
understand in the plague of
Darkness It also says lift up your hand
upon above
the doesn't doesn't mean that by just
lift up towards heaven but here Rashi
explains Rashi doesn't say anything in
in the darkness plag but in the plague
of bar of hail he says that what it
means I'll
took him up actually took him up to Shay
to to bring the
plague what's what's going
on third
paragraph it would
appear there was fire in the hail the
Hail is water right water it's ice it's
water so in the in the Barat in the hail
was fire mixed together with the water
rashi rashi on this p in our
par it was a miracle within a
miracle the hail I.E water and
the were mixed
together was water so he had water and
fire mixed together
in order to fulfill the wishes of our
creator so peace was made between the
fire and the water they existed they
coexisted in boron miraculously there
was a coexistence of fire and water in
this plague of Hell purish
meaning
that God is above this idea of fire and
water being opposites and he can he can
do anything he
wants but this
is he's going to remind
us he he diminished the tension between
Fire and Water right fire water puts out
fire fire right so he reduced the
tension between fire and water and
joined them together
be where does this come from we have a
source for this I'm sure many of you are
going to be are aware of this sh Heaven
what is
sh the rabbis tell us in the
med that Shay
means it's Fire and Water that's what
the heaven was created as fire and
water coexisting Ze
that God created the Heaven by bringing
together fire and water that that was
sh they were nullified one to the other
they they synthesized with each
other and they could live together
heaven is made up of this know in
cabalistic terms we we could we could
there's a lot of discussion about fire
and water the heaven is made
but we're just talking about the actual
physicality here that shamayim according
to what what Torah tells us and Rashi
explains to us is Fire and Water living
together vain
purish so now what does it mean that he
tells Moshe y
put your hands above the
heaven he brought him up in order to
bring this Maka this heavenly Maka this
was this Maka was was dramatically
different than the other nine plagues it
was brought down directly from
heaven heaven which is Fire and
Water love synthesized together
so this hail didn't just come in a
physical sense you can speak to a
meteorologist and they'll tell you
exactly how hail is created physically
the physicality of hail but essentially
what the Ron was speaking in a much
deeper sense of the hail which was Shay
which was May in
fire he brought him
up higher than the
heaven that M should actually bring this
plague down to
earth the plague of Darkness where it
says all lift your hand
up that's not what we're talking about
he told him to lift your lift yourself
up to the
right he doesn't say it by he love
mil this is what the rabbis here is what
they're they're
saying this is what happened with with
hail this mixture of a it was a shay it
was a Heavenly
plague V Next paragraph so now what does
that have to do with his having to go
out of the city to pray for this hail
the reason why he didn't pray in the
city again what the name of the city is
I don't know I have a feeling the name
of the city of MIT was MIT not sure
could have been Ram say there are cities
mentioned in the Torah not sure but the
reason why he didn't do in the
city no that's a
problem why should that stop MOS from
well we have you know it says you
know in dorum it talks about making your
Camp holy we should not have human waste
for the soldiers when they go out had a
system whereby their human waste was not
in the camp we kept a
holy so they would be covered you can
cover the test tble things we we can
cover garbage when we when we pray and
we can pray you can't pray amongst
around garbage you can't set up a Suka
near a garbage area right but you can
cover the the garbage you can cover the
SOA the human waste in this regard right
you don't have to go
out from house to house you can D it in
one house let's say one house is a
storage area of garbage uh right you can
in another house you're okay
it's covered
up the truth be told we live amongst
non-jews we live amongst Idol worshipers
he
writes nobody said you can't govern in a
city where there are Idols right can D
in a city where there's a church
incidentally
um the Fiddler on the Roof the movie The
Play Somebody wrote many years ago that
there's too much fiction here because
Ana you remember there was a church if
you remember your Fiddler on the Roof
right testing your Fiddler on the Roof
memory there was a church right and at
tefa the actual city of anatea did not
have a church which was why many people
went to live in anatea in fact I think
if I'm not mistaken Tel Aviv Tel Aviv
there was a tremendous religious
settlement originally in Tel Aviv
because Tel Aviv did not have a church
that's why there were many fatic groups
that originally came to Tel Aviv there
are other issues today with Tel Aviv
that are not related to a church but
that's for another
discussion
so and it's written
in for example told the
people when you return to the to the
land of your
enemy far away whether it's far whether
it's
near you can dve to God in the land of
the non-jews which are full of Idols
right the time
of you can doen in a place where there
are Idols you cover them up you just
they can't be present when you're doing
so what's going on here so here's his
point that he
makes there's doing and there's
Dy this was of a different on a
different
denominator when he doed when he brought
down the it was a different kind
of
Mak because barad came from this holy
place above the heavens of Fire and
Water of
as a a world that had the tension
between opposites opposites was did not
was non-existent which is really the
goal ultimately
of that that we bring together we make
sholom between
opposites
this prayer had to be a unique prayer it
had to be a special prayer in order to
bring down something from the world
where opposites where opposite a world
that does not exist by us where
opposites live together in tension in
tandem we that that's the source of this
prayer right uh it's not a regular doing
it's not a regular prayer right he had
to stretch the limits of his human
ability he had to completely demanded
complete
concentration
it demanded a perfected
environment therefore the presence of
Idols of negative forces to for thisa
could not exist he had to create a a
special pure
environment
he was together with the idols in the
city not good
enough so that's that's what was going
on
here sometimes for a special prayer you
need you need to isolate yourself you
need to create an atmosphere that it's
going to be special and he gives another
example when God commanded
mosenu with the calendar he gave the
month of niss which is r kadim
right when he commanded to
him right it was we were still in Egypt
but he took him out of the
city which was full of
Idols the the presentation of the of the
Holy Jewish
calendar had to create a a new spiritual
energy in the hearts of the Jewish
people why was K the first Mitzvah given
to the Jewish people the establishment
of the of the Jewish calendar why was
that why is that the first commandment
given to
Amel the answer is I believe because
what is the Lu it is as
we of doing a real estate a commercial
real estate um uh deal is is can by
giving over the keys right it's a uh by
handing over the keys right that's an
official you give over the keys that
it's an official Kinyon it's an official
acquisition in real estate according to
to it's a k the keys represent the the
property this
was Gave Over the keys to his kingdom
toel through the B that the betra had
the power has the power to establish
when the holidays the Y toim appear on
the calendar and if bezan decides that
pesak should come out in August it'll
come out in August right that that is
the that is the ability of bezon to
function and to and to sanctify the new
moon it is the the keys to the kingdom
to bring kadha into this world into
God's world was handed over to am Israel
right so this was a powerful Mitzvah
this Mitzvah too had to create a special
atmosphere a special
environment I talked about this in a
different
place
writes so Idols in the city would have
impacted and and not allowed for the
transmission of this great and holy
the rest of
the and the by the other plagues the
other they could be D anywhere so
beautiful idea I think the point of this
is you know for those of us living in a
Israel there's also a message here I I
pointed out at one point one of the shum
during the physic Shum
that raim the great
Mir he has a safer called SAS fantastic
safer of his mus Schoen in the newer
Edition that was put out there are
uzen um dras that he gave during The Six
Day War
during and I think on the fourth day of
the the fourth day of the sixth day war
he gave it Russia at that time there was
all kinds of a discussion just we've had
it we had it in our time too where uh
futa students tell meting boys and girls
who were learning in Israel there was
tremendous pressure to come home to
leave ER Israel and they would say that
well we're going to do in ER Israel
we'll learn anel so spoke at that time
and in that in that he writes of course
you can do anywhere in the world to the
reot but is the the the
powerful and clearly at this moment in
time whena is so Central a focal point
and the focus of what we should we have
to be doing during this
Ace so those of us who have the of
living in Isel have to take advantage of
the
special milu of Isel for as far as is
concerned and for those who are not yet
in a Israel to create an atmosphere that
the atmosphere in our shs andat should
be without talking should be a serious
atmosphere theas that we're doing for
now for a have to be on a different
level than the normal Tas that we do
three times a day okay
now I want to go I want to go to number
one and um number two actually which
starts at the end of number one I'm not
going to do inside because we have done
this numerous times numerous times the
idea I'm G to give out the idea of
number two um I don't think I've ever
presented the entire piece but it
doesn't matter I'm going to orally
explain it's very important and it'll
impact on number one which is from the
EMS lakov he talks about the MIT of um
you know we have the Bor in our par the
first born and he talks about um he
talks about
P the very important
Mitzvah of
pen redeeming a child Jewish child on
the 30th day which is part and parcel of
our our paral this week the redeeming of
the firstborn right
so let me let me do number two outside
and it really relates to a question that
we have this discussed over the
years um very strange idea that Moshe
rabenu Moshe
rabenu had a speech impediment now let's
put this in historical
perspective there was no
Zoom right there was no audio visual the
only thing you had was the Word of Mouth
from rebi to talmid from teacher to
student so how is it that in such a
historical period the person who was
chosen the holy person who was chosen to
give over Torah to Amel had a speech
impediment how do we understand that so
this piece here for hutner explains it
and he starts off by telling us
something that we have said before that
in the morning brus we have two bras AAR
we say as we say it a number of
times we say it sometimes more sometimes
less but asot is said in the morning
which is a prayer in prayer PR of the
ronom giving us the the Majesty the
miraculous physical body the Goof of a
human being and how it functions right
and we have another prayer
El which is a prayer thanking God for
giving us our spiritual Essence our Nish
now in in the sitter Inari
in you
have you have immediately followed by
El
in in
most there's a pause
between for our physicality our great
physicality and for our great
spirituality we have in the middle now
there's a reason for that however
according to the
r right the Rama says that these two
prayers should be said together why how
do you conclude how does one
conclude you are the doctor of All Flesh
and you create us with Mira miraculously
right everybody thinks that that means
sayra hutner that means the the wondrous
physical creation of the human being
which is is miraculous right but that's
not what it's referring to it is a
bridge between the physical creation of
the
world is a Continuum to
El the The Wonder of creation is that
you create a physical Ro you create this
physical human human being right but you
attach him together there's a synthesis
with the soul with the N
so the physical
creation Miracle The Wonder of creation
of man is that you join these two
together that there's a synthesis
between the the physicality of man and
his spirituality they're all one and the
same now where does that come out where
does that Unity come out because all the
parts of the body parts of the human of
the human being some of them are more
physical some of them are more spiritual
but each has a specific job and it's
either physical or spiritual there's one
exception how did God create man
right he breathed into our
nostrils and he gave us
and the tar says that the power of
speech speech speech the unique facet
that a human being has the power of
speech is that power is that M it is the
unification of our physicality and our
spirituality coming together the ability
to speak is we are expressing ourselves
in a physical sense but we're speaking
from the heart speaking from the mind
we're speaking we're speaking spiritual
things right that's the power of speech
now mosu stunners right why did he stun
so the chu haran was a re the chisan
writes that it was done purposefully so
that future Generations should not say
ah you accepted the Torah this mosha
Renu must have been a
charismatic tremendous powerful speaker
captivated his audiences right powerful
uh maneuvering what's the term they use
for these speakers um what's it called
um put on your sound tell
meis Charisma charisma right but there's
a there's a term used for these speakers
um it's a it's a it's a profession
persuaders motivational speakers
motivational speakers right so he had
Charisma but he was a he was a great
motivational speaker that's why you
accepted this Torah but it's really you
know come on you know it's uh it's uh
it's not true so that but that's the run
but rev hutman says something much more
powerful says something different let's
say he
says that the the fact that Moser rabenu
had a speech impediment was not as a
result of a physical
inferiority it was because of a
spiritual
superiority Mosher renu's mind and heart
and Nisha was on such a high wavelength
that he he couldn't he couldn't bring
out physically all of the spirituality
that he was given from the ronish and
I've always given the example of a child
who has a stuttering problem the child
is taken to a specialist and puts the
child through a battery of of of tests
and the children the parents feel their
child is to use an oldfashioned
Politically Incorrect term my child is
very slow he stutters he's slow right
he's not intellectually um Adept and
they they come back for the final
reading from the psychologist he says
listen the problem with your child is
not he's slow your child's a genius your
child is thinking much faster than his
physical ability to express his thoughts
and his understanding that is the
problem on his speech that's what a
speech therapist an expert speech
therapist does and there is a there are
wonderful speech therapists out there
who deal with this particular problem of
stuttering and have had enormous success
right in in the Jewish World in the
Jewish educational world in the Torah
educational world in particular there's
a whole organization that deals with
this but that was the problem mosha
mosha stuttering was not the result of a
physical inferiority it was the result
of a spiritual superiority so a great
moment happened in Jewish history in
world
history the Revelation on har a one time
moment that AES came down in all of his
spirituality he came into our world and
mosha rabena went up on the mountain and
at that moment there was a
synthesis that moshe's physicality and
his spirituality were merged together in
a synthesis and from that moment on you
have Savor dor mosha did not stop
speaking for 40 years 39 years
constantly speaking that change what
came about with that change that his his
physicality and his spirituality came
together right that's how rner explains
now what does that have to do with PID
Aben with page three so hopefully we can
get through it let's see what what um
rakov says here actually it's page one
right I'm talking about page one it's
the first piece that I had okay so let's
go back to this first piece the P says
in
our every firstborn I will
redeem great commentary
wrote
why do we redeem the firstborn because
remember the first born was was set
aside to be do the aod in the mikdash
right but it was then taken from them
and given to shave Ley but you had to
officially have a ceremony where you
take away this level of sanctity right
and make him into a quote unquote an
ordinary Jew like you and I right so
theor
says so they could get involved get that
down into our world into the normal
world right that was the whole purpose
of this this great Mitzvah p is to bring
the je the firstborn child back into
into normal you know not necessarily
holy existence daily daytoday exist
right what you see from this
is if we would not redeem this
child he would be living a life of
holiness
truth be
told we have to
understand this custom of the Jewish
people we make a whole celebration right
we have a ceremony with BR we have a
meal he's coming down what kind of what
kind of suit he have for taking this
this from his lofty position and making
him a regular Joe
right
first he was
called now he doesn't have to work in
the anymore the we get it back
right what kind of sim is this what's
going on good question
right what does the say when he receives
the money from the parents the the
Redemption
money this child will enter into the
good
life it be the will
of the same way that he came into is
coming into
Redemption so should he enter into the
learning of Torah to to getting married
and and doing good
deeds have a
question
what do what do we start off by
saying why is it the by what do we say
by the same way you came into the
Covenant so what do we need what kind of
a repetition here what do we need this
for
right why do we have this additional
prayer what's going on here right what
what what's going on here make a big
deal out about the this kid becoming
from a holy Place coming down to normal
regular existence and we repeat that
regular existence that we said at the
BR so listen to what he says here and
you'll see that it really dovetails with
this whole idea that we spoke about from
rev hutner um and El sh and and u
let me
explain I discussed this
in there's a fundamental dramatic
difference
between and the nations of the
world the nations of the
world that the the soul and the
body
they're two separate
entities they have nothing to do with
each other right on Church you go to
Sunday on Sunday you go to church and
that's you know that's good but for the
rest of the weeks you know rest days of
the week you you're you're you get
involved in work and everything else you
know there's a separation
between and state
right
that's the soul whatever that soul is
that's what Holiness
is
SEC physical physicality material
thing so
therefore a non-jew can bring a Corbin
can give a Corbin to the to offer in the
mikdash but only a Corbin only
a
right it has to be the corbon is purely
to God it's something to relate
completely to God the idea of other
carbon which deal with our our sins
let's say a sin offering we we offer a
COR we do something spiritual in order
to affect a change in our physicality
they don't have that concept
right but the Jewish
people body and soul are
synthesized and they're mixed together
they're mingled together
they create a third
entity shama Body Soul you have a human
being right is
both and they are tied
together everything that we do is a
partnership between this because of
these two
things therefore for example on the the
says everybody
says everybody admits you have to have a
sud on the day the Torah was given right
a strange gamorra everyone should say
everyone admits you should read The Ten
Commandments the but the gorah says no
the rabbi say everyone realizes for sure
you have to have a celebration physical
meal a physical sud when we receive the
Torah in order to
demonstrate at the giving of the Torah
the whole the body was made holy
our body our physicality was there was a
it's a different
physicality we can we can pull off all
kinds of spiritual things through our
body the misses that we
do I explained this in another place
based on
this we understand very well and
good now we can understand this
greatness of piden it's not it's a good
question but the answer is better than
the question
before
the yes this little baby was the yellow
was was
holy lofty physical level
of but it's not for this reason that God
brought the into into the human being
into the
body
the purpose of man in this
world is to live a physical material
life to live a good life the good life
with physicality with with good things
with material
Pleasures but in a holy
way and to put bring them together to
bring them together the spiritual and
the
physical
and this is what we do
with we bring him from this lofty
position of Holiness that he still has
until we redeem him
right into this world the normal World
down
here to make himself
better so that the Holiness will empower
the secularity of his the material part
it should overwhelm it the spirituality
should should be the the the main
focus but he will become a better person
by coming into this world it's one right
that's
why is the holiest y because it's and mo
together it's it's the weekday and the Y
together
right I mean the mission P where where
am I getting this from the mission P
says
that if someone
is something like the mission says
something like that someone who who
downg denigrates yam holy days that he
has no the r writes on this comment this
mishna talking about why because the
essence of
of is is the Ence of Mo of kadha is the
synthesis bringing Holiness into you
know not living in a cave living a an
aesthetic lifestyle in a cave but living
a life in the in the world in society
living in society is a holy person
right this is a great this is a cause
for
celebration through this P the child is
now coming to become in his moment his
potential of fulfillment bringing his
Holiness
into non holiness and bringing the two
together this not simple matter to bring
the light the soul and the body
together and that's why the
is
right he asked a question which we
skipped over by the we say
that we don't say that by the bris we
say but by we
say you need fear of God for this you
need a sense of
godliness when we take this child and
redeem
him we
give he should have fear of God he have
should have a sense of godliness and it
which will give him the the sense the SE
and the Heart the emotion to bring
together the into
the
so he will be successful in his role of
life okay there you have
it a new dimension of pidan
haben okay thank you all for being
here