Rabbi Mordechai Becher | "And Rabbi Akiva Laughed: From Destruction To Redemption" | CHAZAQ

foreign [Music] but we want to respect everyone's time to get started um so uh first of all welcome to everyone for coming to our next uh installation installment of locks and learn all right all right that's fine so anyway welcome back to Locks and Learners we have a great great opportunity this morning with my Mordecai beathard before introducing Rebecca to speak uh this morning first of all I want to thank our sponsors for this morning's program uh to the baumgarden family legal initial Steve's mother and Jonathan family Julia Johnson's father three Bando their grandfather's our grandfather I'm sorry I'm sorry grandfather the Michelle should have an alligator and I also want to say thank you to both those both families for everything they do you know the doctor family as well everything they do for the school Beyond sponsoring events really does not go uh unnoticed and we appreciate all that you do for the school as well um this program is in conjunction with Kazakh I'm sure many of you have heard of Kazakh and behind me right uh and it's a major major player in terms of kiruv and in terms of Jewish Education in many many many different venues in Queens and Beyond many Torah events throughout the year are run through and it is a great great opportunity for us to be able to partner with Kazakh this morning and hopefully for future events as well before introducing my way back or it is my great privilege to call upon a REV Ravi aboff to uh who works for Kazakh to introduce the the the the organization and speak a little bit about it hello [Applause] let this be just for a quick moment just about the organization and we're looking forward to the the first the many many programs and events that we do together I mean um so just a quick word about the work of Kazakh so like just about just like grab my mentioned we help organize and coordinate different events ensure our programs for for men and women and young you know and everyone to to to inspirational events to bring them closer to their Jewish Heritage into Torah and we have a focus with uh with the major focus with giving Jewish public school students Jewish Education through after school programs through Sunday school programs a 15 different locations and has a special division If the parents who have showed your Global school they like to translate to Yeshiva will help them in that process and um and just accommodate the denominator of kazak is is that we try to help the Jewish community in whatever way we could we could what could be whether it's through inspiration their Public School Outreach so it's a great great honor thanks so much of our danesborough again and uh we're looking forward to many more followers is really a man who ironically needs no introduction but but I'll give an introduction you'll notice right away uh hailing from Australia everybody is a senior lecturer for the gateways organization not anymore no that's an old fire yeah even on TV as we know many of us see him on TV as well uh he is a tremendous tremendous inspirational speaker they've read the knowledge on so many topics it was really a tremendous tremendous privilege in Merit for Arsenal to have everybody bad for hosting I know very various people from Community have told me the various interactions with Rebecca some spent a little time with him in Egypt last year and it's really a tremendous explosive privilege for us to have him so because I don't know if this is accurate what I have in front of me I'm going to say it is my great great privilege of calling by Becker words October this morning thank you foreign thank you very much thank you Rabbi and it's a pleasure to be here see you again after we met at Yu and happy birthday Edith and to those to those who are with me to those who are with me in Egypt here that means good morning in Arabic but it doesn't matter okay all right um so uh we are in the uh period in which the talmud says just as you know of enters we reduce our joy the month of we're not yet in the month above but uh we tend to especially ashkenazim we tend to increase the sadness to start from now but it is true that we are in the three weeks between two of the fast days which represent the great tragedies that occurred to the Jewish people and amongst them Exile and the talmud tells us that we should reduce in our happiness during this period of time and uh it's interesting and it says when Adara comes around which is of course the month in which Purim Falls when we were saved from Annihilation back in the days of the Persian Empire the Thomas is just as we reduce our happiness in this period of time we increase our happiness and our joy in the what's interesting here is that we can make a little bit of a deduction from the talmud's language and talmud again says in the month just as in the month of we reduce our joy in the month of ADA we increase our joy what can we deduce from the language of the talmud that it's never turned off or on it appears that you're always supposed to be in a state of happiness is just that sometimes you turn the volume down in this time and sometimes you turn the volume up but the implication is that the status quo the default position of a Jew should be what happiness joyful it's just we reduce it sometimes increase it other times and there are many good reasons for that the uh one of you know happiness for many people is a lifesaver if you can be in a positive state of mind we know it can save a life famous story of uh one of my favorite Hasidic Rebels do not ask me to spell it for God's sake but was a 19th century Hasidic Rabbi in uh in Poland and before he became a full-time rebber he was the CFO of a lumber company in dunsig later on he became a pharmacist first licensed Jew who was a pharmacist licensed Jewish pharmacist in Poland ever he opened a pharmacy business in shishka and then eventually became a full-time Hasidic rabbit but even when he was CFO of this Lumber Company he had students he had disciples so he's walking along next to a river in dunsig with a number of his students and it had been raining until then there had been a lot of rain the path was somewhat slippery and the river was quite swollen and running quite fast one of the disciples slipped in the mud and fell into the river none of them could swim none of them could swim swimming was not a big thing amongst hassirim in 19th century Poland there was no you know Bell's water polo team or satma synchronized swimming that did not exist so um they didn't know what to do they're running along there's guys being Swept Away in the current and he's pretty much given up he's just letting him say he figures this is though it's over this is the end and then yells at the guy in the river in Yiddish he yells at him give him grits similariousen which means give my regards to the Leviathan now this is not very helpful you know I mean someone's drowning you know you know when they say in lifeguarding courses throw them a line they don't mean say g'day regards to Nemo mate you know flip a noggin the whole work no right this doesn't make soap but that's what happened but what happens is after the guy in the river hears this somewhat you know inappropriate joke from him something changes in his face and he starts to thrash around and he actually is able to get himself close enough to sure that they can pull him out of the river amazing and and they saved his life and the hasidium they say it worked but what were you thinking Rabbi and Robin said there's a verse in Isaiah that says you shall go forth with joy I understood it more literally I understood it when you have simcha joy take say you can get out of anything when I saw the guy's face it was full of Despair he'd given up hope completely pessimistic and I figured if I can inject a little bit of happiness somewhere one neuron will say yell to the other neuron over the synapse dude that was funny then maybe that will change his demeanor and it worked he changed from despair to Hope pessimism to optimism and he saved himself so according to us happiness is a lifesaver it's a lifesaver very famously of nachman of breslav maintained that one should always be he said mitzvah to be happy and he says depression is not a sin he says but it can lead to worse consequences than sins and coming from who talks about happiness you know sometimes you have a rabbi who is well fed who is healthy who is driving a nice car lives in a nice house and he tells you be happy so we sometimes say yeah it's easy for you to say but breslav uh lived he lost his wife and two children to a tuberculosis he became sick with TB as well his house was burnt down he was attacked by Jews and non-jews together he had to leave his home and re-establish himself in another country in another town known as uman and during that time he was also he was also the victim of of lots of hostility towards him and he himself contracted the disease and died at a fairly young age so when he tells me be happy I type of listen a little more intently than some guy right you know whatever but but so that's the idea so so happen is very important and indeed it's interesting to note that the Jewish people one of our ancestors has the most unusual name very unusual name what's the name Yitzhak mean s literally Sarah avram and Sarah call him why means he will laugh is that that's a little bit of a strange name to call your child you know when you know calling your child I don't know um uh what did Frank Zappa's child was Frank Zappa his kid was called Moon Unit one of his channels was Moon Unit zapper so you may you call your son and not you don't sound to be called up Moon Unit Ben Frank right this is a little embarrassing so calling your son he will laugh seems to be a little bit of a strange idea there's something to it and and laughter is something which we find himself tells us in ethics of the fathers Robi Akiva says that laughter and frivolity lead to sin so Rivia Kiva the Great Sage tells us that laughter and frivolity leads to sin and yet there are something like five or six times at least that Ruby Akiva seems to laugh at inappropriate times you may be familiar with some of them but I'll tell you some of them number one he is walking along with some other rabbis Yeshua they're walking along it's just after the destruction of the well maybe 50 60 years after the destruction of the of the uh Temple the second temple and he's walking along and they hear the sounds of Music celebration screams and cries of Joy from a Roman Camp the Romans had some uh some Pagan celebration and these rabbis hear the Romans the the sound of celebration in the Roman army camp is like so loud they can hear it from I don't know how far away a couple of kilometers and all the sages start crying starts laughing and they say to him what are you doing why are you laughing he says why are you crying he said why are we crying the temple of God lies in Ruins Jerusalem his city is destroyed and here you've got these pagans polytheists rejoicing in their camp we should not cry rubikiva says well that's why I'm laughing and I said how was that and he said I'm laughing because he says if this is the reward for those who transgress the will of God think of the reward for those who fulfill his will and they said to him thank you you have comforted us somewhat the next story is by far the more famous they're walking along same group of rabbis and they're walking obviously on a mountain overlooking the Temple Mount and he sees they see the ruins of the holy of holies the ruins of the second temple and they see jackals weaving their way around in the place where the holy of holies was surely jackals walking in the temple jackals tend to hang out in places where there's no habitation where there's no people in other words one of the signs of the abandonment of that place one of the indications of the total Destruction that no one set foot there there were no people there was their jackals running around there so of course the rabbis started crying they started crying and Ruby Akiva starts laughing and they said to him why are you laughing he's why are you crying they said why are we crying the place where the Torah says only one person the high priest after immersions in the Mikvah and after preparation for a week beforehand only can go in there once a year on the holiest day of the year Yom Kippur and that place is now so ruined so destroyed so abandoned that there are jackals roaming around the ruins of the holy of holies why you're asking us why are we crying that's why we're crying and Robbie Akiva said that's why I'm laughing he said I'm laughing because the prophecy of Destruction is linked to the prophecy of redemption and when I see the depths of Destruction I am witnessing also an indication of a Redemption and an affirmation of that prophecy and that's why I'm laughing and their reply to him was Akiva nihantanu Akiva you have comforted us but there's more there's another place where there they visit their great rabbi rabalazar who is suffering from a terrible sickness and they walk in robelazzo says to his students feels very hot in here it's you know and it was not hot it was a cold it was a winter day it was cold and and the other students started crying at the suffering of their teacher rubia Kiva wasn't laughing but he was smiling and his teacher said to him why are you smiling what are you smiling about look at you know here is the safer Torah torrescott a living Taurus scroll burning up with fever suffering and and you're smiling rubikiva said you know I looked at our teacher throughout his life I saw that his Vineyard was always full of full of grapes his wine never turned to vinegar he is crops were always good his family was I saw that he had such tremendous success in this world and I thought to myself but where but that means if he's not being punished in this world for his sins that means he's going to get it in the world to come and I was worried now I see that he is being punished for his sins in this world that means his world to come will be perfect and then his teacher said to him he said a Kiva I've done wrong what are my sins and Akiva said Rabbi you yourself have taught us that there's a verse in Proverbs that says there is no human being alive in this world who does only good and has never missed the mark he says that means it's impossible to say that you have not done any sin and with that his teacher said Akiva you've comforted me thank you so third that's three cases wherever your Kiva is laughing when everyone else is crying there's another case he's been brought to be executed by the Romans ternus Rufus tyrannus Rufus the Roman is executing is or has ordered the execution of Rebecca and when he sentences him to death Rabia Kiva laughs and tyrannus Rufus says you're laughing you think this is a joke I've just sentenced you to death by torture and rubikiva said he said your sentence is temporary You Only Rule a small amount of geographical location and only through a small amount of time he says I am going to be going before the King of Kings God who rules all of space and all of time infinitely he says leaving your domain going to the domain of God I'm not scared this reminds me last two weeks ago there was a celebrate we celebrated the release people you know the hasidim especially celebrated the release of the of the one of the laboratory from prison in Russia and the Soviet Union and there's a story I think two of them are actually imprisoned at different times but the story is told one of them is in is uh is being interrogated by the enchivada which is the that was the predecessor of the KGB um and he's being interrogated and he's asked by the uh KGB officer to reveal his Network because Chabad had a large network of underground Torah study in the Soviet Union um other people also did my wife and I taught there before glasnost and perestroika and um so he uncovered this network and they wanted to know the names of the people and the rapper would not give any names and so the the um the agent took out his gun held it to the reper's head and he said tell me now or I'll kill you the rebel laughed Robert laughed at him and he said you think your toy is going to scare me he says you live in a temporary world I'm going to an eternal world he says you worship temporary power I worship the who he who is infinite he says it doesn't scare me the the agent was so shocked by he put the gun away and he walked out of the room he couldn't you know he was and it's interesting uh the the refuse next that's Jews in the Soviet Union some of you may remember the Soviet Union right that's when it was Communist and evil now it's capitalist and righteous of course right so um it was slightly sarcastic I'm sorry all right but um uh so there was a song that the refuseness would sing which drove these Soviets crazy and some of you may know the song um yeah Yeah by yourself anyway the words are right and for the Russian speakers here is so uh but anyway means we fear no one except for God the only one we fear no one so you've got the might of the Soviet Union confronting a few hundred people in Moscow who are learning Torah in a clandestine fashion and the ss-22 missiles and the the tupolev bombers and the Sukhoi fighter jets and the tanks and all that and the colosnikovs ETC do not scare these people they say we're scared of only one thing that's God the only one they laughed in the face of the Soviet Union and of course we know what happened and eventually it collapsed and these people most of them uh came to Israel in the United States so laughter that's Ruby Akiva similarly laughed at turnas Rufus and one more case Ruby Akiva was being tortured to death by the Romans and there's a smile on his face and his to his students say Rabbi even now by already at this time they're used to his love but they say even now at this point this is already carrying up too far and Ruby Akiva says every single day of my life I have said the words love the Lord your God you shall love the Lord with all your heart with all your soul with all your property he says I tried to fulfill with all my heart and with all my property but he says with all my with my very life I never had that opportunity now I have the opportunity to love the Lord my God to love God even with my very soul and I should not be happy so it's very interesting Ruby Akiva is laughing at times that every normal person and you know I say that with respect every normal person would not be laughing would be crying so and and by the way some say that's why Ruby Akiva specifically is the one who says in ethics of the fathers that laughter and frivolity lead to sin he doesn't want you to pick up from his behavior that you should take nothing seriously that you should always be lightheaded and laughing at everything so specifically he needs to correct this but but at the end of the day we have to ask ourselves what's what's behind Rabbi akiva's laughter what is behind it is a side point there is a book called the orazarua Vienna one of the medieval Scholars Vienna 13th century and in the introduction to his work he says that he had a dream and he was told there's lots of discussion about how to write certain names it becomes hierarchically legally very important to spell names correctly in legal documents especially like a get a divorce has to be done very and there's a lot of discussion how do you write names and how do you how do you write so how do you spell rebe Akiva now some of you will know that if you look in the talmud his name is spelled with an aleph at the end which is actually the that's an Aramaic version but in Hebrew it would be I am and the ursarua says you know it's hinted at in a verse I was shown this in a dream the verse is or ends with a race or zarua Israel which means light will be invested sown for the righteous and for the Strait of heart there will be happiness that sentence the last letter of each word spells ribby Akiva light will shine for the writers but with the hey so interestingly he saw in ribiakiva's name spelled out in a verse that talks about the righteous laughing so laughing is some laughter is something that we don't really associate so much with the writers especially if you went to a look for see Yeshiva we generally right correct yeah okay anyway so but we don't we usually don't associate that with with you know like laughter is always laughing what's going on and laughter is I should point out not a laughing matter there is a lot of study that has been found in history philosophers psychologists uh religious thinkers theologians have discussed the idea of of laughter and there are a number of different theories about it Aristotle and later on Thomas Hobbes felt that it was a way to express your Superior superiority over someone that you've escaped the the Trap that they've fallen into so it's an expression of Joy at your superiority it's a Aristotle so that's why you know you ask someone uh Groucho Marx gave the illustration one of the great theologians and experts on humor uh Groucho Marx put it this way he says you see a guy in an expensive like two thousand dollar suit beautiful watch walking along dignified fashion in the street and he slips on a banana peel and lands flat in his back people laugh at that that's funny Groucho Marx says that's funny so I'll tell you what hilarious is the same guy walking in the street steps over the banana peel into an open sewer now some of you laughed at that now white Grouch why is that funny so Aristotle would say the reason that is funny and it's even funny is because I saw the open sewer I saw them I knew it was in other words I am so to speak in a superior position and I get joy from that that's one Theory Freud Sigmund Freud felt that laughter was usually what he calls masked aggression it's a way of being aggressive towards someone the butt of the joke without without being obvious about it Master aggression right there are sometimes this aggression against a group there is a joke analyzed in the European Journal of Psychology one of the great sources of happiness in the world and um of uh a barber a priest comes into the barber shop to get a haircut well not during the three weeks obviously right gets to the barber shop to get a haircut um and uh after the cut uh the he says how much will that be the barber says he says father you're a man of God I'm not going to charge you I just appreciate your your coming to this place and he gives him a blessing bless you my son Etc and he leaves the next morning the barber comes to the store there's an envelope in the mail slot it's from father Mulcahy and in it there's a crisp ten dollar bill is it that's that's great that's not what I usually charge 35 Plus a five dollar tip but that's nice of him that was great anyway a couple of days later an Imam walks in and the Imam comes in and gives him a haircut and afterwards he says how much do I owe you and the barber says you're a man of God Allah he says and no charge for you and the Imam gives him a blessing you're right Etc and he gives him the blessing and he says thank you very much and he leaves and next morning there's an envelope from Imam right Suleiman and Mustafa and his ten dollar bill in there fantastic few days later next week after Tish above a rabbi comes in and he gives the rabbi a haircut he says no Rosa and he says great and he says how much is that and he says Rabbi you're a man of God I'm not going to charge you so the Rabbi says thanks very much and he leaves the next morning the barber comes to the door of his Barbershop and there's 10 rabbis waiting outside for him so this is what we call a case as Freud would say of mass aggression aggression against a particular group I.E Jews right uh and the obviously a stereotype a negative stereotype but that's but there's a there's a little bit of aggression there uh it's masked by the humor Churchill was a an expert at this famously uh you know he hated uh most other politicians um he had a special hatred for lady Astor and a special hatred for Clement Ackley um in fact Clement Atley was absent in Parliament one day and someone asked where is Clement Atley and Churchill said he is out on a speaking tour stirring up apathy so I don't know if that's Mass aggression I think that's pretty open right that's but in any case someone actually said yes but you must admit that athlete is very humble Churchill said he has much about which to be humble so now there are some there's a psychologist by the name of fry who says that laughter is when there's communication paradoxes so a communication Paradox words Etc uh like just for example um this woman tells her husband her husband's a computer programmer logician computer program and she says honey could you go and get bread oh if they've got eggs get me a dozen so he comes back home with a dozen loaves of bread she says what the heck he says they had eggs so anyway that the idea here is that if I have to explain it you know a a joke a joke is one of my sons a joke is like a frog if you dissect it it dies and now we know that in terms of communication paradoxes Yogi Berra the great baseball coach Etc was famous for this right as when he came to a stadium and he said no wonder no one comes in here it comes here anymore it's so crowded right but the idea is uh Jerry Seinfeld had an interesting insight as to why so many Jews are in comedy and his Insight was because Jews he says are the Eternal outsider we are a nation as we learned in the parasha two weeks ago three weeks ago yeah right through double passion was not Israel okay fine right so we are a nation that dwells alone so Seinfield pointed out he says Jews the type like when you're an outsider you can see the paradoxes you can see the contradictions you can see the you can see all that as an outside that's why Jews are always into it now but the the answer I think which is the most correct answer is the schopenhauer great German philosopher and this is also alluded to in one of the great Jewish philosophers of Joseph al-bar in safaric schopenhauer points out that he says really humor is about when your mind detects absurdity what we laugh at is the Absurd something which it's absurd right there's a lot of that if you let anyone lived in Israel right everyone anyone served in the IDF I served in the IDF I have three sons who are in the IDF right it is a amazing it's an amazing army and but it's a source of great absurdity just the bureaucracy Etc uh one of my sons had these combat goggles he goes to the afternoon is the storehouse store room and he says and his goggles were scratched he was the Sharpshooter of the unit his goggles he says he says listen can I get ifshallah can I switch my goggles and the guy in the booth right a overweight Miller imnik smoking chain smoking Etc around ammunition right and um and my son says can you switch the goggles and the guy says they're not broken we don't change them so my son says listen I need to see clearly through the right this is the goggles I'm shooting I need to he says not my problem they're not broken we don't exchange them so my son says okay he'd been in Israel long enough he goes around the corner takes off his goggles stalks on him his book picks up the pieces comes back and he says now the guy says so absurdity plays a large role uh you know you may know the story I don't know if it's a true story I think it might might be true but there was uh in svut the city of 1948 uh there were fortified positions in fact when the British left Israel they left all their fortified positions to the Arabs um as my rebby Ramos Shapiro uh once said he asked us in English he was a Hebrew speaker Oliver Salam he said you know why the Sun never set on the British Empire we said no he says because Hashem does not trust them in the dark but in any case the uh they left the Fortified positions to the Arabs and there are about a few hundred fighters of the hagana inspat and there were a couple of thousand a few thousand Jews living in svat and a reporter asked the commander of the hagana unit in which actually became IDF unit but whatever right it was on the on the cusp of that and he asked him do you think you'll win the battle for tsfat the city of Safford North of Israel and the command the Israeli Commander says of course and he says uh how and the commander says either miraculously or naturally but either way we'll win the reporter says what would be a natural Victory he says a natural Victory would be if God would send fiery angels with swords in their hands down to this battlefield scare the wits out of the Arabs and they'd run away and we'd take start he said so the reporter says that's naturally says yes that would be natural he says if that's natural what's miraculous he says miraculous would be if my 300 teenagers would defeat 5 000 Arab fighters in fortified positions that would be as you know both happened in start I won't go into the details but but both through so actually it's the absurdity which is according to schopenhauer and others it's the it's the absurdity right and sometimes the funniest jokes are the ones which are most absurd right and um I mean kids love these little jokes you know uh you know I asked my uh um usually when I meet like my grandchild so my grandchild already know all my jokes but uh but you know meet a little kid I said how old are you and they say six I said ah when I was your age I was also six and they they look at me and that's Advocate but it's an absurd statement it's like logical tautology Etc but um in any case but it is it is that absurdity and um something about that absurdity makes us laugh and and it's interesting when Sarah avram and Sarah both got the news that they would I mean here is uh they're both he's 100 she's 90. right they're living in a corner of the planet small place called Israel right and Hashem tells them a he says you will change the world be you'll have a son who will continue your legacy and will be a world history changing person and all this will happen sometime this year next year so now most of us was like you're kidding right it actually happened and and they call the son hitzak which is a reference to that absurdity right he is a product of the assert and not only that continues because actually after Yitzhak is born before he is married before he has descendants before he is able to be actually a world history changer what does Hashem tell avram to do take him and kill him and in fact the talmud says that Yitzhak is you know there's an interesting it says that his ashes are actually on you know he actually came to the point of death and went beyond that in fact his name Yitzhak kabbalists tell us if rearranging the letters spells the skates means what Kate's the end of life he went beyond the end of life and continued living and it makes sense that the Jewish people are called after Yitzhak as well because we have so many times throughout history gone to the end of life and continued onwards there is a certain absurdity to the Jewish people you may have heard of Arnold toynbee Arnold toynbee was a historian he wrote an eight volume work of world history and he had a debate with um I think it's Yakov Herzog the I guess would be the uncle of the present current president of the state of Israel he was the son of the chief first the chief Rabbi of Israel Isaac Herzog great genius and Taurus scholar and um so so Jacob it's a debated Arnold toynbey in this is in nineteen sometime in the 19 late 1940s right and toynbee refers to the Jews as a fossil people you are fossilized he says at this point in history what would make sense would be for the Jews just to give up because anyway you're fossils fossils don't have the right to estate fossils don't have the right to Independence fossils don't have the right to self-determination they're fossils right that's it they're you're gone right he says he says you'll join all those other nations beforehand the Etruscans and the Hittites and the Assyrians and Babylon and all those they're all fossils as well you'll be a fossil we'll have you in the museum so it's interesting I took a group of Israelis on a tour of the met the the museum the Museum in New York not the man yeah it was the Met in New York and we're walking around showing them artifacts and they say to me where are the Jewish artifacts I said there are no Jewish artifacts here we're using them still you know what I mean there's Etruscan artifacts it's not like you know you don't find this is what a Jew looked like it was like you know right there are those who wanted to create such a museum as we well know all right but um and and that is hinted at in the name Yitzhak as well it's the it's the absurdity of of the Jewish people's existence it's incredible so after this debate with toynbee and Herzog which I think well most of us would say hurts like one but either way upper eban who was the great Diplomat one of the most eloquent speakers the state of Israel has ever had uh and uh so Uber eban gave a speech at Yeshiva University where I teach and where your Rabbi graduated from and um so he gave a uh he gave a speech at Yeshiva University and he said one of his lines just a great line he said the fossil not having read the eight volumes of toy B's history is unaware of its own petrification and continues to behave as if it's a living being and indeed that's true I don't know of any Jews I do know what some who've read the eight volumes right they're professors at Revel okay fine right but um but nevertheless uh that's right we're not aware of our own petrification we continue as though we are we are alive and kicking and indeed we are and by the way that I think is one of the explanations for the hostility towards the state of Israel and the hostility the the incred insane hostility I mean when you think about it the people who are opposed to the state of Israel are the most strange Partners ever Southern Baptists pro-bds Muslims not exactly a group that you put in the same right the southern baptism Muslims no right and the extreme rights right and the extreme left and as you know Woody Allen put it when he went his parents sent him to Interfaith camp in summer he says there I was beaten equally by people of all Races and creeds yeah so but it's strange that these weird people they're bedfellows the left the right Communists capitalists uh Chris Christians right Muslims Etc why what is it I think one answer is that the miraculous nature of the Jewish people's existence the miraculous nature of our return to our ancient land the miraculous nature of our success in militarily economically scientifically in the land of Israel the idea that we have revived a language that was only used for prayer for thousands of years and now that language has scientific papers and journals written in it uh stock market and emerges and Acquisitions are conducted in Hebrew etc etc I mean you know it's that's that's miraculous now for us for Jews we look at that and we hear the footsteps of the Messiah approaching but if you believe the Messiah has already come if you believe that the Jewish people are no longer chosen but they're frozen if you don't believe in any type of Supernatural Redemption Etc if you believe the Jews right are gone and fossilized when you hear these footsteps what you hear is something frightening you hear the destruction of your own belief system you hear the destruction of your theology you hear the destruction of your belief or eighth or non-belief Etc and that is indeed what people hear right there's a fear because uh you know in terms of Christianity Augustine some John chrysostom many of the Great doctors theologians of the Catholic Church they all said all of them they said that the Jews because they rejected Jesus will be downtrodden humiliated and oppressed for all eternity they will never get the land of Israel back because they have not until they accept Jesus now what happened in 1948 we didn't accept Jesus and yet we got the land of Israel back and that coincided what happened was the Vatican in one of the volumes of their theological uh output I think it's called Morales maybe volume five or something I don't remember but they actually changed that prediction they said no no the Jews won't get Jerusalem back until so so they are theologically were safe and sound until 1967 and from that time on the Vatican started calling for the internationalizing Jerusalem because they're concerned of the holy places really when the jordanians were destroying churches making urinals out of Jewish gravestone the Vatican didn't say a word why because that situation was not a threat to their beliefs when the Jews come back to Jerusalem renovate the churches put up signs in Hebrew Arabic and English right you know clear up the Via Dolorosa right let Muslims build mosques Etc there now the vatican's concerned for the holy sites really the vatican's concerned for their own skin because we are a contradiction to their belief and for Muslims who look at the Quran at Surah 9 and other surahs chapters of the Quran which says humiliation and wretchedness will be fall upon them because they rejected Allah and they killed the prophets wrongly that type of statement they look at the Jews and they see Jews who are not humiliated or wretched so what's going on they rejected Allah but yet they hit they have a beautiful country they have they have their rights right no that's the problem and it says that humiliation they will only be redeemed if they if they reach out and pay tributes that's what the source of sharia law the idea of jizya that the the Jews demo the people protective minorities like Jews and Christians have to pay to the to the Muslim overlords as as we had to do for a thousand years or so in the various countries in the Middle East but that doesn't work if Israel is an independent country if the Jews are independent what's going on so what they're seeing what we see and hear the footsteps of the Messiah they hear the footsteps of their own destruction of their ideology and if you're our extreme leftist and your atheist and you believe there's nothing special about the Jews how could that be that they're just people right they don't even have the intersectionality that other minorities have which we actually do but okay we're adjacent white whatever the heck you want to say right but either so right if you come from that perspective then there's also a problem Jews present a problem as well because have we suffered yeah did we have were we discriminated against yes how are we doing pretty well considering not even considering pretty well so that's a problem we are a contradiction to those beliefs and if you're at the right wing and you say the Jews are evil and so on and so forth the state of Israel is a problem status was a problem for them and so therefore there is in the words of the ritvara Beyond of Ben alashvili Rabbi yonte from Seville in Spain one of the early medieval Scholars the ritva he uses a phrase nice he's describing that in the temple the holy of holies even the midst of Destruction the Romans it says the the cherubs which were made of gold when the Romans ripped open the parachute the curtain of the holy of holies they saw the cherubs which are golden golden golden sculptures on top of the Ark embracing each other and it was like first of all that's miraculous right they're gold they can't move right that's miraculous they're embracing each other and and they and and he says that he says what we call a negative in other not all miracles leave you uh with a good you know warm cushy feeling right sometimes here's a miracle that happened but it was Miracle for bad but but one thing which is interesting and this is he says but this is in the midst of Destruction in the midst of this destruction how could it be that these people uh sorry I have to stop and have five minutes five minutes I'll stop in five minutes these people where do you have in the midst of this destruction you've got the a miracle happening and Lawson says because even in the midst of that destruction even in the worst possible situations God is with the Jewish people you only have to wait a little bit and you'll see there's an absurdity here is the midst of Destruction the destruction of the temple the worst Etc and yet what happens is something absurd there's a something which expresses the love between God and the Jewish people right reminding of the beautiful uh statement of brezza which was turned into a song by Rob Joseph carduna right a filo bahastara even in the hiddenness the concealment the concealment within the concealment Hashem is nevertheless there and that is something which is the absurdity of Jewish history why is it that we laugh our soul our soul when his soul experiences something of the future world because the future world will look back in all the suffering of Exile we'll look back of all of the oppression and everything will be able to look back and see how it all brought us to a point of redemption it brought all the world and the Jewish people to this point where we say as all of our mouths will be full of laughter it might be just a chuckle it will be total laughter right and that laughter will be looking back and because really the world is in some sense there's lots of absurdity that happens it's hard to laugh always because that absurdity is is hurting us and hurting people we know we love Etc or hurting people we don't even know love but humans nonetheless so so that absurdity but when we detect something which is obviously absurd in this world the soul feels a little bit of a contact with the future a little bit of a con and that's why eidstock was not called sock past laughter he was not called he laughed but he was called little Hebrew grammar not too early Sunday morning you've had coffee is future tense he will laugh and that is so so when it comes to the three weeks even though we have we do tend and we have to reduce our joy we don't have marriages during this time we don't groom ourselves normally during this time we have it we're going to say for example but but we we are morning but at the end of the day we don't turn off the happiness it's just a little bit suppressed it's a lower volume and and it's interesting that when we get to Tish above which we hope this year will be a yantuff there are components on Tish above which are indicative of that future State the latent yamtuff right we men do not put onto villain in the morning right we also don't say tahanoon which is the the prayer we say on regular days right and uh and and there is it's also even in Jeremiah calls it it's called a moed my Ed is a term usually reserved for a festival and the reason for that is because it will turn into a festival it will turn into a yantov and with that I want to say that when as Jews to take the lesson from and take the lesson from which is yes we take life seriously but we look at the opposition to us we should see that we should look at that and laugh when we look at that hatred we should look at that because we know that that is only because the footsteps of the Messiah are approaching these people are reacting with fear these people are reacting with trepidation and the fossil that's us we are not aware of Our Own petrification in the words of ABBA iban and we will indeed come back to life as the other great song the Jewish Nation lives and that is because Hashem is with us even in the darkness hidden by the darkness even within that Hashem is with us and will bring us back to Israel to Jerusalem and to the base amigdash speedily in our days [Applause] Syrian Torah on Torah any time and throughout the internet check it out there's so much there so a wealth of information uh so again we want to thank our Rebecca we want to thank hazak and again we want to thank our sponsors this morning that this year reviewers thank you everyone for coming and again you will be starting this testing immediately after the lock screen on the bench now and again thank you to everyone for coming