Pekudei - Exactly the Right Amount

you're listening to the weekly partial podcast with ari goldwag recorded with hashem's neverending assistance in ramaphisamesh israel 5782 2022. this week's parachute parshas piku day and the beginning of our parsha the torah tells us how moshe rabbenu moses who had been in charge of collecting the money collecting the silver and the gold and all of the different donations that were given to the mishkan to the tabernacle he gave an accounting these are the countings and he had other people involved in the countings he summoned the son of aaron the priest he was involved in the counting and the majorish discusses and tells us some very important ideas which i think are very powerful and we can all take home with us and share with others perhaps as is the way of the midrashim uses the passage elsewhere to explain the concept that we have here is it refers to somebody who is one who is trustworthy a person who people trust isha muniz he has many blessings excuse me we find that whoever is trustworthy hashem brings blessings through his hands mushain and emman someone who is not trustworthy for utslahashir loyanake and he is quick he's running to get rich very interesting the contrast usually apostate like this is bringing two sides of the coin one is a person who is trustworthy the other person is someone who's running to get rich that means he's running to get rich and he doesn't care about knocking people over on his way that's okay with him doesn't bother him so says the measures we find that whoever is considered a person who is neman who is trustworthy so hashem brings blessings upon his hands or through his hands the person who's not trustworthy so what happens is that they're going to lo yanuka means they're going to end up with sins they're going to end up not cleansed of their sins who is the trustworthy one who is the one that the verse is referring to when it speaks about someone who is trustworthy that god trusts and therefore brings blessings so this is mushroom who is called god refers to moshe to moses as the trustworthy one in all of his home so to speak he is the most trustworthy heavy ish what does it mean that the one who is trustworthy in this context many blessings come she called it all of the things that he was in charge of he oversaw meaning he oversaw all of the collections of the mishkan so there was a blessing there was a blessing that came upon it since he was naman and we're going to see soon i want to actually finish the piece before we get into this particular point which is something i'd like to focus on but what is the idea that there's a blessing there's a blessing we think of blessings as something which represents a rebuy right blessings shower you with blessings more than you can ever dream of right that's what we think of blessings but we're going to see that blessings may mean that it may not mean that but it's good to it's good to think about as we continue what is the concept of blessings what is the concept that whatever he he does is blessed and we could think about it you know yosef azadek whatever he touched turned to gold you know wherever he was whatever situation he found himself in so everything everything was golden everything was blessed yaakov blessing upon love on yosef also again pro blessing on potiphar's house to paro's palace to his coffers but we're going to see that it has a slightly different meaning but let's continue over here because this is the second part of the magician i'm going to come back to this first point but there's a second point here that's also important you find that there's people who who are running to get rich and now korach is interesting because we find that the gemara says that karak was one of the richest people ever he took the wealth that yosef had gathered and he was and he had that wealth he had that great there's a phrase even in yiddish as rich as korach yeah so it says the magis but he was not rich in a certain way he was very poor in a certain way why should i leave he was a lady ubiquitous and as i'm before she explained he wanted to skip levels he wanted to you know kohanim are raised above the levites the the priests are on a higher level and the high priest is on a higher level still so korach was just a lady and he wanted to jump not just to cohen he wanted to jump to koenigs right so that's an utz what was the end of him what was this end of this jump now you said the ground opened its mouth okay meaning he came to a very terrible death as a result of his we could call a lack of namonus lack of faith lack of belief lack of belief that the place that he had was his place trying to get to a different place mushroom is someone who's trustworthy doesn't try to grab money that's not his doesn't try to take something that doesn't belong to him right and as we'll soon see a person who's a gizbert sadaka who's collecting uh charity for others and everybody knows him to be trustworthy so people are more likely to give to him it's going to be a much greater blessing that comes upon that type of collection a person who is trying to grab something that's not his like a korach ends up in destruction points out another thing that moshe did which is very interesting moshe was a gizmo he was in charge of collecting and also in charge of uh delegating all the different parts of the mishkan the creation of them was saying our sages tell us that generally speaking when somebody is going to be a gisborne to collect money from the sea war from the pot from the shu let's say the members of the shul of the synagogue or whatever of the community so you can't have one person in charge of it because he will abuse his power he'll be the only you only answer to him right and when he abuses his power the result will be that uh it's not going to work out so well people are not want to give gonna want to give money so therefore we we appoint a second person to be the partner with the person collecting the money however yet they ask me so we find that moshe was the collector himself everyone was asked to bring the money to him right the karate marriage but we just said that there's a principle that you don't allow only one person to do it okay sure ben was on a very high level he was a he was a very humble person but still the measure says it it's not appropriate even though moshe was in a certain sense alone he nevertheless would bring other people in and he would count it out he would count out and give an accounting for all the money that came in before she explained that what he would actually do is he would he would have someone come in and give an accounting for all that was for them all the silver that was used and then he would ever everyone come back and say exactly how much they had donated and then they would see that the numbers lined up okay so even though he was doing it by himself he still brought others in to join him in the accounting it doesn't say that he counted that were counted based on moses's word based on moshe's word ali they might should be summer it was done by by maisha in the hands of esamar so there was a second person that was involved okay so we have two points here one point is this point of whoever is trustworthy so there's blessings and what he does and second of all there's the point that we have that a person needs to know that they can't be the only power the only uh the only the last say the one who everyone is answerable to there needs to be a second person think about parenting it's good to have someone who's a tough guy and you also need the nice the soft parent as well you need someone to balance it out okay so that's the second point but i'd like to come back to the first point because i asked the question which was what does it mean that there were blessings how you must bark him does it mean that there was a reboot doesn't mean there was a lot there was so much it was just overflowing we do find that the plastic says that there was a diva so there was enough and an extra however the accept says something amazing it's very important it's a big big sight it's a very foundational idea when it comes to arrogance our relationship with hashem and it connects to korach very interestingly on the opposite side i'm going to read it to you now the hcis if he says like this is the exact amount that moshe received was exactly how much was needed for the michigan not a penny less and not a penny more now that is unbelievable right so what's the idea [Music] the amount of silver that was needed for the different parts there was extra but what happens we we see actually in the next section the measures i'm not going to which i'm not going to read but in the next section we see that there was extra more she said what do i do with the extra and then he was uh he was directed to make us a second another section of the michigan or another oil called the oil maid which was according to the case of another tent within the tent for the orange special that was the extra which also needs an explanation why the extra had to do with the orange that's worth thinking about but this is this extra um there was an extra one thousand seven hundred etc [Music] another amazing thing it says that they would make they didn't have like a some kind of [Music] fuss is the word in hebrew like a form that they would put the silver into and it would take the form they would be exactly the same but they were exactly the same every single one was exactly the same all of the hooks looked exactly the same and it wasn't being done in a way that should have naturally that should have naturally occurred that which would be impossible to figure it out if not for the fact that hashem himself had directed the entire thing uh shane by latoya savage because i think this is what it means that for hashem there's no such thing as a there's no extra there's no there's nothing missing and there's no extra when it comes to the way that kurdish who runs the world there's nothing extra and there's nothing missing is there in the comments bar because the magic uh says that look later on and you'll see that uh the explanation for this as far as what's the what's their action was there not actually as we explained that the extra indeed was there was an extra but that extra was specifically there so that mushroom would make a separate ohio a separate tent for the urn for the ark so this comes out an amazing idea foundational idea and this idea is you know we are used to thinking that i need i need a lot i need more money why do i need more money so i can number one have more things i need more money so i can feel you know i'm i've got what i need anymore so that i can feel like i've got what i need and you know really what this what the acid is telling us is that the ishnammon right think about korach it's never enough he doesn't ever think that he has what he needs he's supposed to be a kind god he's supposed to be not just a priest he's not he's not a priest he's not only he's not happy with what he has the fact that he's a lady a levite he wants something more he wants to be a colony and he doesn't just want to be a coin he wants to be a coin cuddle he's not happy with what he has he doesn't recognize that there's no such thing as something extra or something less if i have a certain thing if i have a certain uh something i feel like i'm missing it's so interesting because we just spoke about this in the beta podcast but if there's something that i feel like i'm missing the measure is telling us ishnamon a person who's trustworthy he's it's ms barak biaday his blessings in his hands but what does it mean there's blessings in his hands it means that he always has exactly what he needs he doesn't need any more to prove to himself that he has enough he doesn't have any less because he has because it's very clear that exactly what he has is exactly what he needs it's an incredible thing it's an incredible idea an incredible lesson you think look i want to be talking i i trust in hashem i'm going to have my you know show me hashem that i i i really have what i need i have everything i have more i have more i feel more comfortable that way but why do i need the money to feel more comfortable then it just becomes an idol even as an idol becomes a false prophet a false a false feeling i need to know that i have what i all that i need because hashem has given me exactly what i have sean has given me exactly what i have and that's exactly what i need and that's an amazing thing that maisha bin who's the person who okay you could say look marshall albania is the greatest of all men he's like the the the leader of klaus who is a melo he's a king of course he has everything of course he has everything but did he have everything we do find that mushroom says how can i carry everything myself he ends up giving he ends up delegating has a hard time let's let's not kid ourselves being a king is not necessarily the most enviable position i remember 20 20 years ago uh maybe more than that when ramoshasher passed away and the mantle of leadership of the agouda went over to the november school rebbe so everyone was caught wow you've been appointed to be the reisha gouda and i remember she was saying that the people who say that don't understand that it's a tremendous responsibility to be a leader is a tremendous responsibility it's a position of coven maybe it's a position of honor but the difficulties and challenges outweigh by far so much trustworthy means that i do it i say i'm going to do something i do exactly what i say not a little more not a little less things are things are things are you know that you can trust this person because if they say something it's going to be done if they say something that's going to be done maestro albano it's miss barack bill do people trust him but even more so even deeper level not just people trust him and therefore they know they can give him the money on a deeper level this person maishrabenu what's the lush he's the ish is we could say means the person who has faith he's trustworthy but he's also somebody who has faith he knows that exactly what he has is exactly what he's supposed to have and so it comes out through his hand what's the message the incredible message of pekudei of the countings everything is precise everything is exactly what it's supposed to be everything is the exact amount it's supposed to be if you have something you're not supposed to have more if you don't have something you're not supposed to have that thing you have exactly what you're supposed to have the other person has exactly what he's supposed to have it's an incredible lesson it's an incredible idea korach is the example of the opposite what's he's trying to get rich he's trying to get something he doesn't have he's trying to be be more than he is the car maybe the car drock is rich already he's so rich he's the guy that's trying to get rich yeah he's the guy that's trying to get rich he doesn't the person who's trying to get rich means he doesn't recognize that what he has is what he needs and what he needs is what he has it's an incredible lesson you want to see blessings in your life don't look for rebuildi don't look for a lot asap says ishli rav right yish nirav i have a lot right he brags about how much he has yaakov says he actually call i have i have everything it means that he recognizes that he has exactly what he needs that's why he goes back to get the balcon get on him because he goes back to get these small vessels why because he knows everything that he has is exactly what he needs he can't leave something behind so that's the idea and uh i want to bless you and ask you to bless me she shall help us to recognize that indeed we want to see blessings we want to see blessings in our lives we need to recognize that the blessings are already there that they're already there thank you so much for listening have a wonderful show miss this podcast was made possible through the gracious donations of listeners like you for more podcasts like this please visit www.ariegoldwag.com or search on itunes ari goldwag [Music]