Rabbi Minkowicz Weekly Torah Lesson Parsha VA'ETCHANAN 5776

it's time for Rabbi minkowitz weekly Torah lesson a place where life's most difficult questions are answered here with his spiritual perspective and insight Rabbi minkowitz welcome to this week's Torah lesson this week's Torah portion is the question of the week is how can we find comfort in the destruction so in this week's Torah portion which we read always right after so it's the first Shabbat after the of the commemoration of destruction of the temple there's a special Tor and the Tor is called and actually the the name of this week besides it being is also known as SH now if you find something very interesting if you look into the T the tah begins and it says where God is comforting the people for the terrible loss so asked a simple question it says why do it say twice Comfort Comfort the people if it's comfort so say once and if you want to emphasize why stop at two say three 10 there's a lot of beautiful numbers in in in the Torah why specifically they say twice so the explains this with a uh based on a interesting piece of talmud which at the end of the track dat of makot there brings down several stories one of the stories is that the rabbis are walking RAB AKA and they walking a m scopus harim and they give a look and they see out of the Kash that means where the temple stood the holy of holies they saw a fox coming out so the people the rabbi started to cry Raba was laughing so they turned to Rea Rea why you C why you laughing and he turns say why are you crying and he say what why are we crying the temple it says even if a stranger went into the holy of Hol as he's put to death and now from this holiest place a uh Fox is walking out out from there so he says and that's exactly why I'm laughing why cuz he says there were two prophecies one prophecy was from Aria where it says that that the holy place of the temple is going to be plowed like you plow a field but then there's a prophecy later on where it where it says Prophet zakara it says that we're going to return back to Jerusalem so he says up until now that I did not see the place totally plowed away where a fox coming out of there I didn't know yet what the second prophecy was going to come but now that I see the first prophecy took took uh place now I know for sure that we're going to have a complete Redemption so the question is asked what happened all of a sudden that um they were so happy they or they were so sad the destruction took took took place a while back but obviously what happened now is when they saw it and more importantly they heard the inside what do they say to him they said they said twice comforting so asked the same question why do they comfort him twice they say okay fine you comforted us what's the idea of twice comforting us so explains because there was two there's two types of Comforts one is when someone goes through a challenge oh my gosh I feel bad for you sorry to hear that but here what what what I what AA told him was that what does it mean see it by mentioning them the idea but the the field gets plowed what does that mean cuz when if you want a to plant something in a field and you want it to grow what do you have to do you actually actually have to rip up the Earth and when you rip up the Earth and then you got to sew the plant and then you can have a beautiful crop coming out of there in other words if you just go ahead and throw seeds in the ground and you don't rip apart the Earth guess what happens it's not going to grow but when you rip it apart that's when you ultimately have growth so the Comfort he gave them was that guess what you look at the destruction and the fox coming out is a terrible thing perhaps but the truth is what's the real comfort that in that place where it's totally destroyed that's specifically where the the the blessing is going to come from and that's why it says twice comforting one is comforting us for the loss but the second Comfort is that specifically from the destruction and because of the destruction we're going to have the greatest blessings possible so they answer the question what is the great what is the comfort from destruction to know know that the destruction was not for Destruction but the purpose of Destruction was to be able to have the rebuilding and even better and stronger than before as we know the Third Temple is going be much greater and bigger and better than the previous two put together this week's Torah lesson is in memory of B and schlomo Ys May their souls be elevated for the Torah that we're studying in their memory thanks so much for joining us for our weekly Torah lesson for more information on kabad please see our website [Music] n