Shavuos - Preparation Is Key (Ep. 238)

Hi, this is Rabbi Alonitsky, and welcome to the Rabbi Alonitsky show. Whether you're watching with our friends over at Turney Time, wherever you watch or listen to your podcast, as always, thank you for coming along for the experience. And don't forget to like, share, and subscribe. Do we have one of those bells where like you ring the bell for notifications? Yeah, that's the Oh, ring the bell for notifications. Okay, just had to get that in. And uh sponsorship for this episode is by our good friends, the Frieds, who are always there for us. And with our sham uh Reb Avigdor will be on the podcast with us in the near future to talk about the Shuvu movement, which is such an important thing, and is one of the many causes that he keeps close to his heart. So, we'll talk about that. But that's not what we're talking about now. This is for Mrs. Fried. It's retroactively for the 15th of Nissan, l'ilui nishmas Moshe ben Tzvi, aleha shalom, Avigdor's grandfather. And uh listen, this the the Torah that we do, and all of the wonderful Torah and mitzvahs and chassadim that the Frieds do, and their children and grandchildren, it should all be a zchus, of course, uh for all of the doros that has come down. Okay, this is going to be our Erev Shavuos podcast. So, uh it works out, I guess, in that sense that the yahrtzeit was on Pesach, and now we're almost at Shavuos, because as the Ramban says, you know, the whole Sefiras HaOmer is like one long chol hamoed. So, that's uh so that's uh hopefully uh it'll be that connection between them. But we come now to the Yom Tov of Shavuos. And when you think about it, it's kind of a strange name for a holiday, weeks. I mean, that doesn't make any more sense than, I guess, calling Sukkot days seven days to it, yeah? So, Shavuos is the 50th day after we counted seven weeks. Well, I guess, like we just said, according to the Ramban, maybe that makes sense because it's when long cholem o ain. But, it still seems a strange thing. The Torah doesn't call it, Shavuos, in Parshas Hamoadim. It calls it Yom Hachamishim, the 50th day. Which makes sense. That's when the Christians refer to it as Pentecost for the 50th day. We call it the holiday of weeks. Why Why is it called weeks? So, the Alshich Hakadosh says a very important point. He says, "Because you can't really say that Shavuos is, um, when we got the Torah, cuz we didn't. Moshe went up on Shavuos for 40 days and 40 nights to get the Torah, and he came down with it on Shavuos Shevi'i Betammuz, and he saw that we had made an Egel, and he broke the Luchos. So, the Torah that we have, we actually got on Yom Kippur. Not on Shavuos. So, what we're celebrating on Shavuos, and this is how he puts it, is the weeks of preparation. This is a very important point. I'm sure we spoke about it in the past. And that is that Hakadosh Baruch Hu could have given the Torah at any time. The problem is there was nobody there to receive it. My father, alav hashalom, had a florist, and, uh, you know, on Mother's Day all hands were on deck. Even though he used to bring all the boys into the store to uh to help. Uh after he brought me a number of times, he asked me if I would instead stay home and help my mother. Apparently, whatever it takes to make it in the flower business, I don't have it. I am the black rose of the family. You know, artificial plants die around me. I have no I have no ability to to keep growing things alive. I don't know what it is. Some people are are great at this, you know. My daughter and son-in-law got me a um orchid or- orchid plant. And eventually, the flower fell off and that was the end of it. And uh never had flowers again for like a year. And our um our uh Ozerit uh who is uh from Sri Lanka made it her job to bring it back and I don't know what she did, but now it's blooming with orchids once again. I'm trying to stay out of its way because I somehow give off a radiation that kills living things. Uh here's a deep cut for you. You know, everyone knows uh Superman's uh um weakness is kryptonite. But the average kryptonite is green kryptonite which slowly poisons him and kills him. But there are other types of kryptonite. Red kryptonite which makes him crazy, you know. So, one of them is uh is white kryptonite which only kills plant life. Go figure. Apparently, I am the white kryptonite of the Balaski family. But when it came Mother's Day, desperate times, desperate measures, everybody was on deck. So, my father would give me um deliveries to take. And uh I would knock on the door. Mhm. Well, I would ring the doorbell with my elbow cuz I'm holding this, you know, large arrangement. And the nice little uh uh elderly mother would come to the door and she'd say, "Oh, is it for me?" I said, "Yes." "Who's it from?" I said, "I'm not sure, but I'm going to go with one of your children." She goes, "Oh, isn't that nice?" And I bring it inside and she says, uh "Well, gee, I don't know where to put it. I don't really have a place to put it cuz I wasn't anticipating getting this arrangement." I said, "In another minute, lady, I'll tell you where I'm going to put it." On the floor and I'm getting out of here. This thing is heavy. But if you don't prepare a place to put it, there's no place to put it. Hashem wanted to give the Torah, but there was no place to put it. You have to be able to receive the Torah. And the greater receptacle you are, then the more Torah you can hold. And if there's no space, well, what's Hakadosh Baruchu going to do? Reb Shraga Run used to do a whole routine on on Zundig. Uh Zundig, Zundig. You were talking about Sunday in America. He says a guy goes to shul, the Hareini Na'anu'a Sar Sekha, uh and uh give us Torah, you know, and he davens and davens for Torah and the malachim, of course, are going to answer his tfilos and they fill up giant buckets with Torah and they think, you know, during the week he's so busy working, but now Sunday he has off and they're ready to pour the Torah on him and he leaves the Beit Midrash. And they wonder where he's going and they follow him down the street and he goes out and buys the Sunday newspaper. Takes two hands to carry it back. And that's what he does on Sundays instead of learning. And they have these buckets of Torah that they were ready to pour down and there's no place to put them. So, therefore, we didn't get the Torah when we came out of Mitzrayim. We weren't ready for it yet. We had to go through a process where we would become a cle that could hold the Torah. Kodesh Baruch Hu tells Moshe to make an Aron to put the Luchos in. It's going to need some place to keep them. Yeah. You have to have a place where the Torah is going to go. So, Shavuot is really a holiday where we celebrate the preparation for Torah. And this perhaps answers one of the more difficult questions, which is the minhag of staying up all night and learning on Shavuot. Certainly staying up all night. Yeah. Uh some people are learning, some people are learning less. There was a beautiful article once in the Jewish Observer about this fellow who went to Lakewood. His son was learning in Lakewood. He went you know, it was another number of us father-in-laws there, you know. And he noticed uh you know, one of them was doing the tikkun. He was like, "Yeah, yeah, I'll do a tikkun. You do a Rambam." You know, he went and he got a big Rambam. And he says, "And right away I fell asleep on it." A lot of people a lot of people, you know, fall asleep on uh on Shavuot night. So, there are those people who are more pragmatic. And they um go to shul and they daven and it's usually pretty late. Unless you know, in uh South Africa. I imagine also Australia, but I always say the worst place to be on Shavuot is South Africa. The best place is uh is uh Manchester or Gateshead. And the best place to be for Tisha B'Av is South Africa, and the worst place to be is in Manchester or Gateshead. Because someone told me in in Gateshead Yeshiva, he says, they daven and it's so late over there because so far north. Um and uh they daven, they have the seudah, and then they have like 2 hours to learn, and then it's already time for Shacharit. Yeah. Uh I was in South Africa. I believe Maariv was 5:40. And Shacharit the next morning was at 8:00. Netz was at 8:00. And I was brought down there to say classes during the night. Wow, did I work hard? Now, if I'd gone to Gateshead, boy, I would have had a real easy gig. But uh you know, it tends to you know, be pretty late at night. You go and you daven, you come back. You have your seudah. So, some people they learn for an hour. They go to sleep. They get up in the morning. They have a normal davening. And then they learn during the day. From a pragmatic point of view, there's no question that that makes more sense. Yeah? Um there are some people who go to daven in the Kotel here in Yerushalayim on Shavuot. And my friend Rabbi Granovsky once defined it as the most inspirational walk and the worst davening you'll ever have. Because you You walking and it's late at night and it's kind of cool, you know, I mean chilly. I don't mean like cool like wow, this is cool. It's also cool, but you know, and you're walking and wherever you're coming from from every street there are more and more people coming. By the time you come to the old city, there's a swarm and you get to the and it's so packed and it's so full and then everybody's davening and then you reach the nates and the whole place goes silent. And then the sun rises. And then the sun continues to rise. And then it begins to beat down on you. And suddenly you don't know which minyan you're in. So there are things going on all over the place, you know, and when it's finally over, you know, have to walk back and one of the least inspirational walks you'll ever have because it's unbelievably hot and you're unbelievably tired and people are passing out by the side of the road. Scattered scattered bodies left by the side waiting to just wake up and continue the journey home, you know. So um So it's it's if you don't go there and you stay in your davening at a regular minyan listen, I fell asleep shacharit morning. I'll give you I'll give you that full disclosure. I have I've had my eyes have uh have the dreamel, you know what I mean? Your eyes start to start to flutter yes little bit, you know. That never happened to me at first morning. I never I never started to doze off. I would blink and found myself in a completely different part of davening. I remember ever sleeping. It's like, you know, you're standing at shacharit shacharit you blink and suddenly they're reading rows, you know, and you blink again and you know, and they just finished like davening and you blink again and it was you don't even know what happened. You're so tired. So from that point of view one could argue it's a lot better to go to sleep and you know, like I mentioned, get a good night's sleep and daven nicely. I can hear that. So this minag which uh would seem was started in Sfas by the Mekubalim. I saw an article once in the Journal of Coffee. I bet you didn't know there was a coffee journal. Yeah. And uh it claims that the minag of staying up all night on Shavuos started the same time as coffee began to spread through the Middle East. I don't know if it's true, but that would explain the minag of eating milk cakes cuz you want to put milk in your coffee, so. See how everything comes together, everything ties in, yeah? But um But uh this is the minag. The minag is people stay up all night. And it's called the Tikkun Leil Shavuos. Why? What are they being metaken? So they say we're being metaken the fact that Moshe Rabbeinu had to come and wake us up on Shavuos morning. We overslept. You know? Uh The joke they used to tell is there was only one group that got there on time, of course, and that was the German Jews. They got everything. Next the Litvaks got there, they got most of it, you know? A bit by bit different people showed up. And at the end, when they were eating and drinking and dancing, you know, and singing, that's when the Hasidim woke up. It's an old joke. It's an old joke, you know? No No disrespect. You know what I'm saying? I just I share I share the material as it comes to me. Somebody said to me once, I feel like, you know, you could see you stop and consider whether or not to say something, and regardless of what you conclude, you say it anyway. So, I don't even know why you waste that step of even trying to consider whether you should say it or not. Uh, I don't know. But, anyway, so, uh, so, we're being matakin the fact that they overslept. It seems problematic when you think about it. They overslept. The home mountain was filled with fire, lightning, and thunder. How hard it is to sleep under those conditions? It's, uh, it's really difficult. And, um, and, uh, they had to have been in a some kind of, uh, um, some kind of, uh, strength that these people had to be able to sleep. So, I want to say a chiddush that I hope will change, uh, people's understanding of Tisha B'Av. It's my own idea. Feel free to reject it if you don't like it. That's quite all right. It's my own chiddush. And, uh, and and I think it makes a little bit more sense, uh, in the answering some of the questions that we have raised so far today. And, that's the following. We mentioned the Aigel. And, of course, it's really the tragic ending of the shvu'a story. All right? Mm, they hear Kodesh Baruch Hu speak, Moshe Rabbenu goes up to get the Luchos, and it concludes with Shiva Asar B'Tammuz. Now, Shiva Asar B'Tammuz could have been, uh, day that changed the entire world. Moshe Rabbenu would have come down with the Luchos. It would have been the original Luchos. Atikra charus al Luchos al cheirus al Luchos, cheirus min Amisa, Horas men Shicha, Horas men Yitzhara. It would have been a completely different world. We lost those Luchos. Why did we lose those Luchos? So Rashi says, because they made a mistake. And Moshe said, "I'm coming back on the 40th day." And we know he was supposed to go up 40 days and 40 nights. The first day, the night was not part of the count to get the Torah. The first day was, but not the first night. And therefore, they made a mistake. And on the 39th day, which they thought, right? The 16th of Tammuz, which they thought was the 40th day, suddenly the Satan is Arvei Olam. He brings confusion. The universe begins collapsing on itself. They see Moshe dead being carried up to Shamayim, and they panic. And they say to Aaron, "Listen, we got to build something. Moshe's dead. This whole enterprise called Matan Torah has failed. We have to do something else to relate to Hakadosh Baruchu." They believed it. So they made a mistake. And Rashi said the mistake they made was they counted the first day thinking that the first day was the first day. Vayain Lo Imo. So there's two possibilities here. They made a mistake. And they didn't know Vayerev Vayivoker that you have to include the night in order to be able to count a day. Um They had received the Torah already up until Matan Torah. So they must have seen that passing Vayerev Vayivoker. They knew already that that was the way Jews always told time was from the night to the day. And uh that was a very ancient uh way of telling time. I'm sure that's how they told time then. So um uh they didn't know that the night is not included. One possibility. Alternatively, and this is like I said, my own idea. They thought that the first day should be counted because leilo eemo. They thought the night was included and the night was not included. Why did they think the night was included? Do you understand how hard it has to be to sleep in front of a mountain that's on fire, lightning and thunder, all of the things that go into that? You know, you know the the effort it takes to sleep? Must've been hard. You know, think about it. You know? I know people can't sleep with the lights on. You know? And here with all of this going on? I've mentioned this in the past. You know, I read a biography of Teddy Roosevelt. And uh and he had boundless energy. He was really a very, very fascinating character. What they would call a Renaissance man, you know? And uh anyway, it says at the end of the day, after he read one of his three books, he used to read three books a night. He took off his pince-nez, his glasses, rubbed the tip of his nose, and with nothing else to do, he energetically went to sleep. Meditashman. And they had to go to go sleep. Yeah. All of us have probably had that experience at some point. Where our mothers say to us, "Get a good night's sleep. You have a test tomorrow." Or get a good night's sleep because there's something important happening. Or you tell a kallah the night before her wedding, "Make sure and get a good night's sleep." The kallah probably has no problem, but you know, the the bride "Bed, bed, I couldn't go to bed. My head's too light to try to set it down. Sleep, sleep, I couldn't go to sleep not for all the jewels in the crown." My fair lady, thank you very much. Anyway, but uh they're too excited to go to sleep. Yeah. Before a big trip or something like that, you see the kids all antsy in bed, you know, I can't go to sleep. Parents who try to get the kids to nap on erev Pesach so they can stay up for the seder. It's hard. It's hard for people to fall asleep when you know you have to fall asleep. I'm get I've gotten a lot better at it over the years. Think of entering into an Olympic event. But but gosh, you know how hard it is to sleep on a plane? Some people just can't sleep on a plane. Yeah, the people certain people can't sleep unless they have their own pillow. I've had people come for Shabbos, they bring their own pillow with them. You know. And uh um it's uh it's it's So, these people sat down, lie down, and they said, "We're going to sleep cuz tomorrow morning is Matan Torah." And the Kadosh Baruch Hu is going to give us the Torah. And I remember my mom used to tell me get a good night's sleep. So, it was with mesirus nefesh that they went to sleep. And their kavana for going to sleep was so that they would be awake in the morning and and be able to hear the Torah from Hakadosh Baruch Hu better. They had spent the shlosha yemei hagbala preparing for this moment. They had spent seven weeks in the midbar preparing for this moment. They had done all the preparations. And the night before they went to sleep energetically to prepare themselves for matan Torah because they really thought that was the avodah. They thought what they were doing the night before was part of the preparation for kabbalas haTorah. And that's why they counted the first day cuz they thought leilo imah, they thought that the night counts as part of the matan Torah experience cuz they were doing what they were supposed to do. They made a mistake. The mistake they made was by thinking that Torah is the same as anything else. We've talked about this a number of times now. The braisa that says the mem ches dvarim shehaTorah niknis bahen there are 48 things you need as character traits to mekabel Torah. They have nothing to do with other um with other disciplines. Yeah, you can be a baal ga'avah and depressed and uh you know, uh and uh all the other terrible things that that are the antithesis of the mem ches dvarim and be a fine mathematician or physicist or musician or artist You don't need any of those things. You'll be just as successful. But Torah comes from one thing. Chuka. It's a desire. I want it. What your preparation should have been was waiting anxiously. You're worried you'll be tired? Don't worry. After each dibra, everybody died. So you could nap in between. That gives you an opportunity. But the But the approach they were taking to Torah was looking at Torah as any other chachma. And it's not. It's supernatural. Ata chonein l'adam da'as. You grant a person understanding. It doesn't have anything to do with how I shouldn't say it has anything, but it's not only based on your intellect. It's not only based on your uh hours of preparation. Because as Rav Aron Kotler writes if someone lives next door to the Beis Medrash and he walks in learns for 3 hours and walks out. Another guy lives an hour away. Drives an hour, learns for an hour, and drives back. They'll each be counted 3 hours of Torah. Cuz the Kodesh Boruchu gives you the Torah based upon how much you want it. I want it. I long for it. And it's the longing. The preparation they should have done if they wanted to get the Torah was wait up anxiously waiting for the Torah. But they made that miscalculation. And that miscalculation led to them building the Aigel and the Luchos being broken. So, I would like to suggest that in fact, the Tikkun Leil Shavuos is a Tikkun for the Aigel. Because if we stay up the night before with that anticipation, then Taka Leilo Imo. That's the real preparation. The preparation for the Torah isn't how awake I am or how good the learning is that I do. It's the fact that there are tens of thousands of Yidden who are sitting in shuls and battei midrashim not doing the best learning of the year. The truth is I was teaching in an American uh in a yeshiva for American bachurim and I think the best learning we did was Shavuos night because normally when I give shiur at 12:00, they were all sleeping, you know, but at 2:00 in the morning, they were they were at their best. But most people is not that way, those who are not nocturnal by nature. Yeah? It doesn't matter. It's the fact that I'm staying up because I want to be there at Kabbalas HaTorah. I want to experience it. There's something called Birchas Hachama. It's once every 28 years. Someone made a cheshbon that Rebbe Yoshe ben Rebbe Shimon made the bracha five times. Um not easy to do. But uh imagine if you oversleep and you miss it. Oh well, see you in 28 years. You know, you're like you'd be up, excited, waiting for the opportunity. Yeah. Um I saw somebody once trying to get tickets to go to Comic-Con. Comic-Con is a convention that's become very popular where they feature people who star in comic book uh movies and TV shows and sci-fi things and stuff like that and um and people dress up in in costumes and things and very hard to get into. And they're sitting there by the phone waiting waiting for the chance to to call in and try to get tickets. That sense of anticipation, that sense of excitement. Yeah. Um I see people waiting online to get tickets to a sports event or a music event. They're waiting waiting for the chance. Yeah. I forget which newspaper was in New York said "Hundreds attend attend Trump rally in the Bronx." And then they show you a video of the people lining up waiting to get in. And the video just goes on and on and on and on. There were thousands of people in line. I mean, it was obviously ridiculous, but but these people lining up when he did the rally in New Jersey, people were camping out the night before to be able to have a chance. I saw this when I was in Los Angeles when one of the Star Wars movie was going to come out. I was staying with my friend Rabbi Summers uh speaking at his shul. And he says, "Come, you want to see something?" And he takes me. It was going to be in Grauman's Chinese Theatre. And you see a whole all the way down the street little tents. People were all camping out so they could buy the first tickets to the first show and watch the Star Wars movie. Um now there's tents over there, too, but it's homeless people. It's not the same thing. But these people were choosing to live on the street for weeks for this horse to be able to get the first tickets to this movie. And so Coach Baruch was going to be giving you the Torah. How could you not be sitting there shaking in anticipation? I mean, this is a This is a literally earth-shattering event. Literally earth-shattering, you know. Um the nations of the world say to Bill alum la mabul yoshev. They thought there was a flood coming to destroy the world. They really felt it. They didn't uh They didn't understand what was taking place, that this was a new world that was being created. Har Chorev is from a lashon of chorban cuz the Torah destroyed everything that was there beforehand and created a new world. So, we stay up those who have the minhag to stay up all night. I I qualify it. Those who have the minhag to stay up all night, it's because it's that desire to be there at Matan Torah. That uh that's the most exciting part. That we all want to be able to participate in. And so, um try to plan accordingly. Uh I know it's tough because you know, you got to cook the tzimmes and get everything ready and all the preparation. But if you want to stay up all night, always good to take a nap. And of course, it's always it's always contrary. Uh Godel mitzvah misha eno mitzvah because when you commanded to do something, you don't want to. So, people who normally have no problem staying up till 4:00 in the morning on Shavuos night at 11:30, they're a dozing off. People who you know, have no problem eating all year and every Yom Kippur, suddenly they feel full. People who are normally pretty happy on Sukkot, they get depressed. It's the pressure, yeah? So, no question, a nap will help, whatever it is you need to do to be able to get up, and I would say it's a given that the learning will not be the best learning of your year. But it will be the preparation necessary for you to be able to have a successful Kabbalat Torah. Shavuot is the Yom HaDin for Torah, and the Kadosh Baruch Hu decides how big a chelek of Torah you're going to have. You have the rest of the year to collect it. But he's going to give you a chelek in Torah, your piece. And now you have to go out and find it. Look for it. And everybody has their piece of Torah. If you realize it, you learn it, and you share it, then everybody will enjoy it. And if not, then nebach, it'll be lost to Klal Yisrael. So, let's do the preparation we need as we approach Shavuot to make sure that we have a successful and emes a Kabbalat Torah. And now we come to the question and answer portion of our program. By Dina, if somebody rabbis have different opinions, and some of their opinions are contradictory, how can they all be right? Well, there's a couple of different answers to this. One is, they're not. Sometimes people are wrong. It's happened to me. Uh it's happened to me where I was sure uh I was right, and it came out that I was wrong. I was really very surprised. But you're not asking about people like me. You're asking about uh Machlokes Rashi and Ramban. You're asking about uh Gemara that brings two views that are contradictory. Well, even there it could be that one of them is talking wrong. And that's why upon careful consideration, the Gamara on a on a key occasion say to you after Okay, there's no way to rescue this view. Um there's a Rashi in Kesubos where they bring two versions of Gamara. One is one Amora says Rebbe Yochanan said like this and the other one says Rebbe Yochanan says like that. The other version is is a machlokes about two different opinions of what the din is. So, Rashi says we'd rather do the second one than the first one because if I say Rebbe Yochanan said this and you say Rebbe Yochanan said this, this is the lashon of Rashi. Vaday echad mehem meshaker. One of them must be lying. Can't be they're both right. So, uh it's possible. It's possible for anybody to make a mistake, needless to say. But of course, that's the reason that the Gamara includes all of the discussion. And you go through an entire amud, sometimes a daf, sometimes two dafim trying to prove something and at the end they ditch the entire thesis and then they give a different answer. And you think to yourself, so why did I just do this? And the answer is because if someone comes along afterwards and says uh the Gamara didn't think of my question, if I was there I would have said this, so it included all of the discussions to show you that when we come to a conclusion, it's not a mistake. We went through all the possibilities. We discussed all the possibilities. So, is it possible for someone to be wrong? Yeah. It's possible at the end for someone to be wrong. It's also possible for two people to say two exactly different things and then both be right. Classic example, I say the glass is half full and you say the glass is half empty. We're both right. My question is, what am I choosing to focus on? Sometimes we're focusing on different aspects of the same idea. So, if you look at a white light and I say, "I see blue." And you say, "I see red." And the other guy says, "I see yellow." And the fourth fellow says, "I see indigo." And we say, "No, you don't. No one has ever seen indigo." Cuz yeah, but I remember that from Roy G. Biv. I said, "I know, but no one knows what indigo is. You've never in your life heard anyone say, 'Oh, that's a lovely indigo outfit that you have.' So, get out of here." So, um So, the uh So, of course, we know they're all right. If you put up a prism to the white light, you'll see all those things and all those aspects are there. That's the shot of Elohim Chaim. Both of these meanings are inside of the pasuk. And I don't have to say one is true and one isn't. That's the idea of shiv'im panim laTorah, that you can understand it 70 different ways, 70 true different ways. That's the prism effect. Halakha is which of those 70 uh positions do we choose to walk? Cuz we can't all walk down 70 different roads. We won't have a people anymore. So, when we sit down and say, "Okay, which of these roads will we travel?" We're going to travel the road that the majority has voted on, rov lahatot, not because the other ones are wrong, but because that's the decision we've decided to follow. And Anonymous asks, the rev always says that we have to realize the good that we do, especially how special it is to be a frum Jew today. When should we celebrate our achievements and when should we try to be better? All the time, every day, every moment. I don't know why you think these two things are contradictory. If I don't celebrate my achievements, then where am I getting the strength to move on and do more things? If I look at myself as a good person who's capable, who has done good things and is worthwhile, I now have the tools available to go on and do more good worthwhile things. It's the battery that charges us and allows us to be able to go on. Cuz if I don't think I'm a good worthwhile person, then I should just give up. Cuz what's the point of trying? Why play a game that I can't win? I'm no good at this anyway. Yeah? Whereas, if I know I can do it because I've done it, that gives me the strength to go on. So, I don't think those two positions are contradictory at all. The fact that I'm a good person, I've accomplished good things, just means I'm a member of the of the Justice League. Or if you're a Marvel uh Avengers. Or if you're from the 31st century, the Legion of Superheroes. You know what I mean? Or if you're old, the uh Seven Soldiers of Freedom. I'm part of a group where I'm going to go off and do great things. So, you know, uh Superman and Green Lantern don't just sit down and say, "Well, we've done a lot of good stuff. Let's just give up." You know? That's what Mr. Incredible says. He says, "I feel like the maid, you know? I already cleaned up this mess, you know? I already saved the world. I got to do it again, you know?" If you know you have the capability to save the world, then you just keep going and doing great things. But, if you're a member of the Legion of Substitute Heroes, I don't know if they're still around. When I was reading the comics in the '60s, so they had a bunch of people who were rejected from the Legion of Substitute Heroes, and they cuz they had like really silly nebbish powers, and they ended up uh you know, in um in this alternate universe. It was like, "If every hero in the world is gone, then we'll call you." So, okay. When I hear that uh you know, some threat has come to Earth, I'm not going, you know? Who am I? I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a nebbish hero. But, if you know that you're great, then you go out and do great things. By Anonymous, why do we say make a bracha and not say a bracha? So, of course, it's from the Yiddish macha bracha. Macha bracha. And um Rebbe Beracha told me he was once set up on a shidduch date, on a very, very frum person, frum family, yeshiva. And the daughter was very frum, and he comes in, and they put out the platter of fruit like they used to do in Europe. And she says, "Macha bracha." He says, "Why? What did I do?" So, why do we say make a bracha instead of say a bracha? So, mm my friend uh Dr. Mordechai Stern, um who uh you may see his ads sometimes in from publications. He does implants. He's a master at it, but he is also a world-class talmid chacham and very close to gedolei Torah. And um uh Uh, he said that when he was learning in common it's his rebbe was of Simcha Zissel Levovitz, Rebbe Rucham's son was his rebbe, Rebbe Rucham Levovitz from the and and Simcha Zissel obviously he was named for the for the alter of Kelm, yeah. He says when we would ask a question during shear he would say The air stand carrots is a waste niche over the second carrots. The first answer is I've no idea, but the second carrots. So I'll tell you the truth, I don't know. But I will say the following, you don't find that lotion and chazal. Right? On my brocha, you say mevarech you you mevarech you make this brocha. Right? The way you say it. So what I'm thinking is it's not just something that you say but the brocha itself is creating a metzius in the world. It's not just obviously when you say things it does as well. But the brocha that you're making it's it's it's taking as as it says in Gemara Brochos the sh'maya sh'mayim l'Hashem v'ha'aretz nosan livnei adam and then it says l'Hashem ha'aretz umlo'ah. Everything belongs to God and then it says we are given the world. So the Gemara says one is before a brocha one is after a brocha so that when you not just say the brocha but when you make this brocha this brocha is transforming the the metzius in the world and taking this thing from a Kadosh Baruch Hu and making it yours. Maybe. Maybe that's that's the second carrots, yeah? Second carrots. Are there times we shouldn't be done the kashrus? Isn't it sometimes dangerous to assume the best in people? Now those are two different things. Those are two different questions you put together. Is there sometimes not to be done in the class course? Yes, by Russia. Right? President of Russia, I do not have to judge him favorably. And you'll see the Gamara when it comes to Russia, you they they always come up with a Russia how whatever it is they were doing even if it sounds like it was positive, it was in fact negative. So when you're dealing with Russia, you there's no there's no din din in the class course. There are three states. There is a sadik where you have to be din in the class course. There's a Russia where you should not be din in the class course and there's an average person where it's a meet the toiver to be din in the class course. You should try to. Yeah. Because you see situations and you think you know. I was coming back from my sheer on Motzei Shabbos and I see a guy is parked in a spot and there's a van blocking him in. And I walked by and he says to me, "Do you know who this van belongs to? You know, I I I parked here and I'm trying to get out." And I was like, "No, I'm sorry, I don't." And I thought to myself, imagine you parked over here and you blocked the person in, right? So my next year two weeks later, I spoke about this. All right, un- unconcerned for people. The person came over to me at the end and he says, "Oh, I'm sorry. I guess I didn't give you the proper context. I couldn't find a spot, so I parked in a handicap spot. And the guy came down with his handicap van and he had no place to park and he was handicapped, so he couldn't walk. So he left the van and he says it turned out he was watching from the window. When I came, he hobbled in. What's this? Very apologetic to move his handicap van so that I could pull out. And boy, boy did I feel stupid. You look at a situation and you're sure you're sure you know what the situation is, you know? So, yeah, it's it it's smart to try to be down the couse close. Having said that, do I always have to ascribe pure intentions to what everybody does? So, Gamara says about inviting in guests, honor them but suspect them. How many of us have heard stories about people who invite in guests or people to their home who later end up abusing their children? I've heard a number of stories like this. So, here I assume everybody's a nice good person and I'm wrong. I worked for a seminary, so used to send me around to schools to speak, to drive up interest. And I said once, you know, people are asking me to do interviews. He says, "Absolutely not. You can't do interviews." I said, "Why?" Because Because you think everybody's nice. It is a flaw of mine. It's one of the reasons I've been taken advantage of so many times because I ascribe positive motivations to people where I should be more suspicious. Now, that doesn't mean that they're of ill intent, but that is the theme of Tsome Gedaliah. Where people told Gedaliah, "Listen, these two people want to kill you." And he goes, "I lashon hara." And you know what happened? They killed them. And that was a flaw. You know, I want to treat everybody nicely, that's fine. Just don't turn your back on them. So, uh you have the you have the you treat everybody with respect, but be wary. Don't be a uh uh na'ar or petti. These are words they use. Someone who's just foolish and and uh the lush and leebo pasuach olam. Your heart is open as the doorway to the olam, which is the long wide widest doorway we ever see described. Uh you know, be canny. Don't be taken advantage of. So, that ended up being down the kashrus. That has to do with everybody has their own self-interests. And um you do better to keep your eyes open and uh and be careful. And that's it for this episode. If you want to find out more about the show, you can go to my website, rabbiorlawsky.com. You can sponsor an episode. You can sponsor a question and answer. You can download the theme song of the shiurim. Uh you can sign up for one of our online shiurim. And that's it. Until next time, wishing everybody uh chag sameach, a beautiful yom tov. Uh until next time, I am Rabbi Orlawsky, and this has been the Rabbi Orlawsky Show. It's the Rabbi Orlawsky Show. Torah and simcha, ready to go. The Rabbi Orlawsky Show. Knowledge and wisdom will help you grow. Lots of fun in every episode. And we don't have to rhyme. No, we don't. It's the Rabbi Orlofsky Show. Orlofsky.com Torah anytime. YouTube and more. It's Rabbi Orlofsky Show. Torah and Simba. When you go, it's the Rabbi Orlofsky Show. Till next time, till we meet again. It's the Rabbi Orlofsky Show. It's the Rabbi Orlofsky Show.