Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: 2 paths of Redemption A Shooting Star of Jacob a Scepter rise from Israel

[Music] okay hi everybody good to see you and I was in so at this past Travis that's why is remembering the configuration of the by taking the sea oats so today we have a very very fascinating part a very difficult parsha and once again the ultimate difficulties I'm not necessarily going going to be able to explore I know that us some interesting essays on it the concept of people who are given certain powers apparently by God the power of blessing the power of curse and it's clear the way the Torah describes Bill um it's kind of a magical way because bollock now maybe but luck is not a 100% reliable witness but well luck the king of Moab says about bilham whomever you bless is blessed whomever you curse is cursed which is interesting we economy thing that bill um only has power in the negative direction apparently he has power in the positive and the negative direction and indeed you can actually see that because when God changes his curse into a blessing he's using bill um as the instruments to bless some Israel the concept of why a person would be given this idea of blessing in curse and where does it come from obviously there is no rival power other than God so everything must come from God in one way or the other we do not believe in an antichrist or even Satan is not considered a demonic force that is against God rather I think as I said in another shear the very word Satan or how Satan is not a proper noun at all it is a job description how certain means the accuser he is part of God's heavenly court and his job is to prosecute and he's doing his job when he points out all of our failures all of our flaws so we do not believe there's a concept of a demonic force that is some own opposition to God so whatever bilham does is coming from God and because I'll give us a partial explanation they point out that the yumoto alum would complain too much em if you would have given us a prophet of the greatness of Moshe we too would have been righteous so you can't say anything against us so God says I will give you a profits equal to the greatness of Moshe and that is Billa now of course why can't they argue back hey you gave us a bad guy right Hugh gave us a person with all sorts of negative attributes if you would have given us a person who was righteous you know the same argument we would have been righteous so it seems to be from that gazelle that Billa man Moshe started the same way in other words the evil of bilam was not something that he always had but rather the tremendous power he was given let him astray so essentially motion bilam are two people who started off at point zero they are given extraordinary powers one uses them for good and becomes righteous and holy the other becomes intoxicated with this power so God gave the yumoto l'm a person equivalent to Moshe and because of the idea of akhirah of human choice a person could take his powers and use them in a very very destructive way so it's quite quite remarkable that essentially hazael they're telling us bilham and motion are made of the same raw stuff so to speak and they both were given extraordinary supernatural powers and what do you do with the powers that I Shem Hashem gives you but let me start off we'll come back to this but let me start off with a preliminary questioning remember let's let's be sure we have the historical situation here this is the 40th year of the wandering in the deserts this is very shortly before Moshe dies around and Miriam have already died Moshe is still around for a little bit longer and they are east of the Jordan River of course they're going to cross it when Moshe dies and yoshua will lead them and they want to seek passage through the land of Moab and the Moabites said no but that was not sufficient Bullock is fearful of the Jewish people and he hires a sorcerer Bill on to curse them which is a way of destroying them so the mawashi um ask a very simple question God commanded Moshe Rabbeinu explicitly that if the Moabites do not give you permission to pass through their land you are not permitted to wage war with them you are not permitted to attack them you are not permitted to harass them Moab comes from Lodz and in a sense therefore there's a certain merits of Avraham that is still there and their land is their land and we are not allowed to take their land well this is and it's not it's actually not in this partial but it's in Deuteronomy when Nora Banu reviews these events he mentions that God commanded him not to wage war or harass the Moabites so if that's the case but luck has no reason to be afraid at all because the Jews are not going to wage war against them they're not going to take his land they are commanded by God not to do anything right so so one possibility in shots might simply be well luck just didn't know that information on the other end one could assume that perhaps Moshe communicates that we are not here as aggressors we are not here with any hostile intents we want to buy food and drink and we want safe passage and if you deny it to us then we'll just have to go around and find another another exit which in fact was the case so the commentaries asked the question what was bollocks motivating fear that he goes out of the way to hire a sorcerer villain so it's very very interesting that the shame is more one of the great shows seditious Farnam offers an explanation that maybe a little bit homiletic and he says the following he says Bullock was not concerned that the Jewish people would wage war against him Moloch was concerned that the Jewish people would reach Eretz Israel and that he didn't want them to do what's the problem because once again let's compare the existence of the Jews in the desert with the existence of the Jews once they come to Eretz Israel in the desert we spoke about this a number of times they are living in a hermetically sealed spiritual cocoon the Mun comes from heaven the traveling water follows them they are surrounded with the clouds of glory the presence of God is palpable obvious clear undisputed they live a life of miracles now that type of life has costs when you're living in the presence of God in that intense way then every misstep will have very very serious consequences but still the revelation of God is manifest and clear once they come to Eretz Israel life is going to be very different there will not be Mun they're going to have to plant their fields there will not be traveling wells they'll have to dig wells and look for rain water and of course the clouds of glory are not going to be there either they're going to have to build cities they're gonna have to have lawyers and doctors and accountants and professional soldiers and there's going to be what is called Hester upon him a great concealment of the divine and that can have different consequences that could result on one extreme to a loss of confidence in which we're so afraid remember we spoke about that may have been the sin of the spies or conversely it could lead to arrogance in which I think I'm in control of my faith and my decisions I don't need gods this is the attitude that the Torah itself warns us against Co heavy oats mu D my strength has done all of this so air just fell has many challenges but on the positive side what Eric Israel establishes is the ability to create a society in the physical and material world that is based on the morality and the commandments of God and there is no necessary dichotomy or inconsistency between spirituality and dwelling in the material world so here's what the Seamus Royal says bollock is quite happy to have a spiritual nation not living in the real world let them serve God with their Mun with their well with their clouds of glory there's no message for us we live in the real world we live in the world of war and live in the world of Commerce and we live in the world of business and we live in the world of day-to-day distractions so we have to do what we have to do and they are not a reproach to us they are not a precedent to us because they are not living the life of oh la maza but once the jewish people come to Eretz Israel where there is the potential to bridge the spiritual world and the physical world and to show that holiness can exist even in the atmosphere of the gush mute of the physicality and materiality of Allah Massa at that point all of the defense mechanisms of the yumoto alum now collapse so the shame Ishmael said that bollocks Havana was by all means and in all ways we must prevent the Jewish people from reaching the Land of Israel if I can't do it Noah terribly I'll get Bullock to do it supernaturally so the fear basically was that Bullock was happy for religion to be an ethereal otherworldly force having no connection to the so called realities of life because at that point it becomes irrelevant it has nothing to do with us with them ma Shan came once they enter Eretz Israel at that point it will be established at least in the best case scenario that spirituality and service of God can exist within the confines of a physical and material society that is what Berlocq wanted to prevent you know it is said Theodore Herzl when he drew up plans and he wrote is no classic book the Jewish States which was his prediction and his ground plan his business plan so to speak for a future State of Israel he didn't use what Israel the questions what would the state cause would be called that itself was a big question so Herzl was asked at one point what the role of religion would be in the state and the quote at least that is attributed to him is we will confine the rabbi's to their synagogues as we will confine the army to its barracks well an either part of that that prediction has been carried out unfortunately of course to our sadness the Army has not been confined to its barracks it has had a quite a lot of work to do in the years since 1948 and the other side of the equation the rabbi's have not been confined to their synagogues you can take that as a good news or bad news I will leave it to your judgment I won't get into that but that part of the sentence has not been fulfilled either and in many ways okay the idea of rabbis and politics that's a separate subject that's not the subject I'm really addressing but the concept that we have to bring luckily if we have to bring spiritual values even into our material lives is a very very significant idea because one of the teachings of Judaism is we don't regard the material as evil we regard it as neutral and we can engage in every aspect of the world in a positive spiritual way that sanctifies God and indeed the ballot ania's in the ballot Anya's famous formulation which is not his original words but it's often attributed to him although it actually is the lesson of the Meldrick it is God's greatest yearning to have ad hobbit acronym that means a dwelling place specifically in the darkness and lowliness of this world as opposed to simply being acknowledged in holy spiritual places rather we bring God into the marketplace we bring God into our family relations into the raising of our children into the way we conduct our businesses that all of this has to have the goose banger it has to have the imprimatur of holiness and closeness to our color Sparkle and it was this that bollock was not able to tolerate Bullock could tolerate a religion that was divorced from life because that had no relevance to him he did not want a religion that would be integrated with life and that is really if you think about this this is the ultimate religious Zionist vision that's our Tea Leoni vision again it's often very imperfectly recognized I realized in many many ways but the concept of the tactility vision certainly is articulated by both ruff cook senior over mu dr. Cohen cook and his son Rob sue yahu the cook was the idea that Eric's rel is is a material entity it's um it's an entity in which we we build and we have an army and we have businesses and we we have agriculture but the idea is to bring holiness into the physical dimensions of life and not limit holiness to so-called holy activity like learning and dominate but to understand that digging ditches and the irrigating fields also have a certain dimension of holiness in them and that was the aspect of each of Eretz Israel not to have a dichotomy between roughly earth between the spiritual and the home reactor the gosh merits of the material and the and the physical and Bullock wanted to keep that dichotomy this is the shame ish mules comment why Bullock wanted to have bilham curse but now let's go back to Bill them of course the Corbett's hi makes another interesting point it's interesting that if Phil um has the power of both blessing and curse why does Pollock have to hire Bill him to curse you are the higher bill them to bless his nation this nation will be successful the coverage Shyam says that is the nature of evil people they only want to harm meaning to say they don't even think of getting themselves benefit it is almost an automatic response that they want to tear down others rather than build themselves up and that is why Pollock instinctively moves in the direction of curse instead of the direction of blessing interesting they say you know the country time was also said as a righteous person to have a certain power that whenever he said Hashem would agree to this is expressed by causal statements Sadiq goes there Parker - Parker McCallum the Sadiq decrees and God listens now in this connection I want to mention two little stories about the happy time about this particular Mimer after the prophet saw him died his son revoir delay who himself was a great Thomas Holcomb was asked surely there are many instances of the coverage time decree in things whether it was giving a broker to a holler or to a woman who needed children or through a marriage or for pernessa can you give us some good examples of Sadiq Gozer he decreed in a college boy who was mcian so a blade said a very very beautiful thing he said I'm sure there may be some examples of my father that saw the decree and God listening but I want you to know my father was much more interested in our College bark who goes there but Sadiq McCallum he was much more interested in God decree and the Sadiq listening than he was in the Sadiq decree and God listening it wasn't about giving orders to God it was about being an obedient servants of God interestingly enough Lahab zeal I found a very parallel very similar quotes from Abraham Lincoln during the civil war where Abraham Lincoln was in a cabinet meeting in the middle of the Civil War and in those days people did mention God in politics it wasn't like today and his cabinet said one of his cabinet members said to him mr. president we shall surely win because God is on our side and President Lincoln responded it's much more important that we be on the side of God then God be on our side the point is not let's enlist God to our agenda the point is let's try to be sure that our agenda is in accordance with God's will and those of you that like American history if you haven't read it I'm sure well collect Americans you probably have read it I urge you to look at the Lincoln's second inaugural address which is actually quite a profound muster smooth about the idea that God eventually punishes the evils that people do and we have to repent he calls upon the United States to repent for slavery repents for the harm and he said that the civil war was essentially God's punishment for the way we treated other human beings it's a very very moving and he didn't blame the south so to Spain as he said it was he said the whole American people the whole nation must repent and this is kind of God's punishments is what he saw so all of the tragedies that work were happening okay and what was still in print was yes it was Lincoln's second inauguration was in the middle not arataura least the latter third of the war the worst snow went on for one or two years after after that okay in anyway so that's one point the private I am made about there his son made the point is not to decree things to God but to kind of accept God's decrees the second point the profits that the harvest time night is because he did have this power that God listened to him so people would sometimes come to him and they would ask him to curse out evil people curse out desire curse out various people and the holy time refused habit I am sent he doesn't use the power of curse he only uses the power of blessing it says she doesn't even want to curse evil doers because cursing is not the way you emulate God God wants to bless and one should not take the path of curse even towards those who in some level we would you know how would be destroyed and not have power anymore okay but now the Cubbies time makes another point you know in the torah if you look at a safer Torah you will notice that the Torah is broken up into paragraphs there are paragraph divisions in the Torah that those are called partyís and in fact we call something the parsha of the week that is actually a misnomer the technical term parsha does not mean the weekly Torah reading the term parsha actually means a paragraph in the Torah and the paragraphs are divided into two ways sometimes if a paragraph ends in the middle of a line and the next paragraph begins on the next line so the rest of the line is vacant is blanked that is called an open paragraph a Petukhov because the whole line is left open other times the next paragraph begins on the same line with a break of nine letters nine blank you know spate of space equal to nine letters and that is called a parsha Sakuma a closed parsha now one might not automatically see the importance of this but nobody points out how logically these divisions are extremely important odd today Cox that if a safer tower does not have the right division of petticoat and stew moat even though it doesn't change the meaning of anything the whole tourist puzzle the Torah is puzzle if the two codes and thus two modes are not accurate they were transmitted at Sinai so every partial of the Torah has a mixture of pachucos and Stormo there is no partial of the Torah that is unbroken text every parsha is broken up in some way or the other the only exception is partial luck that the whole story of bilham is an unbroken block of text that is me has neither a Petula or H Duma later at the very adaptable them went home so the end of the parsha is already another paragraph but the whole story of bilham is unbroken is there any particular significance to the notion that bilham is a block of unbroken text so here's what the hobbits time suggests a very very interesting idea the mega-rich tells us what is the purpose of the break up of text either patuxai or Zuma this is the way God communicated to motion that when God would communicate to Moshe he would give Moshe breaks between Commandments so Moshe could do whatever he had to do and if it's a stew Maude was a relatively shorter break if it was a to cart was a relatively longer break we don't really have a log of what Moshe did during his off time but we'll see it really wasn't off time but the pachuco tandice to moat the breaks represent what is called river space Bane had to break in between the attached sukham and the like now the carpet time wants to explain that the concept of river does not mean a break a vacation a nap Moshe did not need naps or coffee breaks or the like but rather rather may not be Kim meant that Moshe was the leader of three million people and they had needs and they had demands Moshe could not spend the whole day talking to God so God would speak to him for a while then Moshe would have to do whatever he did maybe it was hours maybe it was days and then he would return back to God so the river indicates that Moshe is going back and forth from prophetic mode to activist mode the revit indicates activist mode he has to deal with a problem fire calm down people give counseling for shaman bias whatever moshe rabbeinu did and then he would go back and talk to God if you think about that that's quite an extraordinary accomplishment because normally once we're in one particular modality it's extremely difficult to disengage into the other modality you know if you're in a prophetic ecstatic state how do you then start dealing with you know people complaining about this or that and the other way around if you're involved in the day-to-day distractions of dealing with multitudes of people how do you get back into this ecstatic divine communion with the Almighty how do you move how do you navigate between these different types the my sir is to the Sadiq these are not different things everything is serving God everything is bringing holiness into the world one way you do it is through prophecy through Torah study through meditation the other way is by changing diapers running car pool building up the land digging ditches so the Sadiq is able to navigate between these types of experiences because all of these experiences are fundamentally the same thing they are simply different aspects of bringing glory to God that goes back to the gosh millionth of the physicality and their work needs and that is why Moshe could move from prophecy and communion with the Almighty to dealing with the mundane challenges they say with their mantra finds new remote refined steam if you ever read his true vote is responsa they are extremely intricate and detailed and very very complicated even great rabbis often have difficulty following the density of his thoughts and his argument now remote used to sit in the lace measure shove and J Pacific's Veracruz lime that was his yeshiva the Lower East Side and he spent all of the free time that he had whatever that was writing he would be writing his very intricate talks but he was constantly interrupted with all of the questions that are emotional Ison was interrupted with no these were not just a logic questions these were shown by his questions these were questions of terminal illness these were questions of tragedies and he came and people record and I knew her Moshe a little myself as well when I was very young that as busy as he was when you spoke to him you actually felt you were the only person in the world there was never a sense that he was in a rush there was never a sense that he wanted you to finish up the story so he can go on to something more important you were the focus by the way the barbecue Rebbe was was very much the same way we had the Rebbe short sight this past Shabbos Jamal Thomas and again the concept would be that's when they were dealing with a fellow Jew that you was the most important person in the world and then when they dealt with the next Jew that person assumed the role of most important and remote you would sometimes have to interrupt his writing for six hours then when he went back to his writing he was able to assume where he was in the middle of a sentence sometimes in the middle of a word now the problem is you know his thought was so dense and so complicated like you know how do you just get back into it you know if you would need time a half an hour kind of to get back into the sugah so to speak but the answer is that for these cattlemen there is no such things as discontinuities in life everything is continuous and therefore going back to the coverage time Moshiach could move back and forth between the old oh my gosh me and the OL amaru honey because it was all the same [Music] bilam on the other hand is a creature of mood so when bilham was in the spiritual mood of prophecy he couldn't get out of it like an alcoholic he was kind of intoxicated by prophecy and as a result the concept of Rebeck the concept of space for disengagement could not apply the bilham when he was in the prophetic mood he couldn't stop and once he was out of the prophetic mood he couldn't get out of whatever he was in he was a prisoner of whatever mood seized him and that is why parshat bilham is a continuous block of prophecies with no Reber may not fake him because to bilham bilham was a split personality bilham had aspects of holiness and connection to God when he was in prophetic mode and then he was a moose shot and he was a totally perverse person filled with Tyva filled with lust filled with arrogance and when he was in one modality he could not shift easily to the other modality his life was discontinuous in that sense his life was fragmented his life did not have a structural integrated integrity now in this sense I want to mention a very interesting Damari and Bracco's smart brothers is a little hard to understand but they weren't I'm just quoting Amari just over Tamar says the Gemara says that Bill Dunn had this amazing talent to curse where did you get that great talent like what was his secret what was the magic that he employed to bring down the curses from God so the Gemara Braco says the strange things warren brechler says every single day there is a fraction of a second where divine fury permeates the world this is called Eden riska Aramaic for a moment of fury and if you knew when that time was and you would curse in that particular negative window the curse would be effective but we don't know when that time was bill um Yoda bilham knew the Eden riska and bilham was always able to curse during that he's on risk another guar actually tells us there is a way that you can know what time that is for that fraction of a second the red comb of rooster of a rooster turns white so the guar says Robbie Mayer had enemies that he wanted to curse and he knew this so he stayed up all night he tied a rooster to his chair for bed and he was staring at the rooster to see that fraction of a second but lo and behold it didn't work because obviously the time that it takes to blink I mean you know most people are gonna have to blink you know you're gonna miss it and the like and then he realized that God doesn't want him to do it and of course his wife Maria told him the famous statement of Gloria it doesn't say sinners should die it says sins should die you don't pray for the death of the sinner you pray for the death of sin by doing Chuba they should achieve and alike so both this story and Beria convinced Robbie Mayer that he should change the particular attitude that he had towards evil evil people now toast rose asks an obvious question given the fact that the Eids on ERISA is only a fraction of a second what could be love say in that short amount of time that would have been effective what curse could he get in during that time it's a less than a second two answers answer number one is the way the spiritual dynamic works is as long as you begin your curse within the records of time it has an effect even if you finish it after that time you got it in it's like you know you're trying to get on a bus hopefully if you got your leg in the bus the bus will not drive away although there's no guarantee of that but the is I'm already I you know don't don't drive away without me or don't drag me don't drag me along now by the way in sip Rika see this they want to bring a proof although we do not pass me this way you know one of the criticisms of many who see them is that they don't strictly observe the times for Krishna and for Dominic this was an old old concern so at least one of the early Cecilia reveries wanted to say well listen as long as we begin before the time is expired we could finish even afterwards and the proof is because if even with respect to a curse God says as long as you begin it in the right time it'll be effective if it continues afterwards and we know that God is more liberal with good things than with bad things so if he allows curses to work that way he will certainly allow prayers to work that way well notwithstanding the proof we do not pass them that way you have to say all of Sh'ma before the expiration of the proper time so that's answer number one meaning quite question was how could bilham get in his curse if there's such a short window of time answer as long as he began that's going to be enough but answer number two is there is a short one word curse that you could say in less than a second and that is the word column columns with a cuff cuff Lamech mem column destroy them column two syllables and that could fit within the Eden riska and that was bilham's a point he knew the exact time however he knew it yah da la havana etosha and he said coming so there's a beautiful explanation from this Assam sofa that really fits the coverage time starts and I'm elaborating a little bit on what there's some so for says and you know last week we talked about Caracas a Greek tragedy and in a way I'm going to repeat part of the same thoughts that bill um is also a Greek tragedy what do I mean by a Greek tragedy a Greek tragedy is when the tragedy is not something that is outside of you if a building falls on a lot of people kills them that is sad but in the Greek definition that is not tragic that is sad and it's awful but tragedy is when you are destroyed because of a flaw that is within you tragedy is when there is potential greatness and nobility but that nobility and greatness is never realized because there's something that's pulling at the person that never lets them become what they become bilham too is an example of a tragic figure on one hand his prophecy is equated to Moshe Rabbeinu he has given this phenomenal godlike power to bless and to curse but that power itself corrupted him as you see in countless myths and stories but this is what the Torah is telling us as well it was the power that corrupted him had he been corrupt to begin with he wouldn't have gotten those powers those powers must have come to him because he was on some level a righteous person but being the master of the universe so to speak corrupts a person until he's consumed with arrogance with power with control with ego and that created a tortured human being a human being when one hand is aware of his greatness but he's also aware of those flaws that are enslaving him like a chain in which he never becomes who he becomes he's a creature of mood as I said before when he's in prophetic mode he can't disengage and when he's not in prophetic Moody has no way of reconnecting the tragedy of bilham is that not only was he destroyed by the flaws within but he was fully aware of that fact he did not even have the illusory comfort of oblivion oblivion has its blessings of oblivion oblivion has its blessings ignorance is bliss not not really but the sense is if at least if I'm not aware of all that's going on inside of me at least it's not going to bother me but bilham was too smart for that bilham was too great for that bilham understood that he was great and he understood he was a train wreck out of control at the same very tragic a person knows their greatness and knows that they're in the kind of the power that they have a powerlessness they're in the grip of destructive negative forces that they don't know themselves how to control and how to moderate so if bilham wants to curse a people from a spiritual from a spiritual perspective the greatest curse he could give them was may you be like me but there's no get is cursed like that there as well so here's what the kasam Soper says again I'm elaborating somewhat colm which is a one word curse colm destroy them can actually be rush eighty votes abbreviation for three words hello' yachts kidneys lave hearts MOA mind now in tradition again this does not fit modern biology that well but in tradition the clay oats are sometimes described as the seat of sexual passion lave is emotion feeling Moloch is the intellectual and moral sense of a human being the word as a whole means destruction the greatest destruction that can befall a person is when their intellectual and moral senses are subordinated to their moods their passions and feelings in which essentially the mind is a slave to the passion and the desire I think about sometimes the entertainment world the world of popular culture let's say music movies now the people who make these movies and make these concerts are brilliant brilliant people that mean what they come up with is really quite astounding and quite amazing but what have they done again I don't mean to generalize everybody but in many cases at least they've taken their brilliant minds and they've enslaved it to the service of animalistic passions and drives and that is called destruction where the emotion and passion and desire rule and control and direct the mind so the curse of column is may you be like me because bilham is aware that that's where he is now fascinatingly enough if you take the letters of column and you reverse the letters you get Mel left a king who is a king the moa the mind is show let it ruled over the lever the hearts and the passions and that's another MLF is not somebody who rules over other people Pirkei avos says he's a yugi-boy who is a strong heroic person Akhilesh as he throw one who conquers his hrrahh but in quotes oppressor Qamishli most shell Beru ho me lo said ear he who can rule over his spirits is greater than one who conquers the city Kobus all of us brings a famous mishal when they general came back from conquering an army and there was a conquering a country and there was a triumphal procession and everybody were praising the general throwing confetti so haha went over to the general and said you have come back from a small war now you must deal with the big war the big war is the war within yourself that's a much more difficult battle to fight so when the clay out and the lave rule over the MOA column that is destruction when the MOA rules over the lave and the clay out that is being a king a king over yourself now I do want to clarify one point because one might take this the wrong way one might look at this as being an automaton where all I am is a rational computer who is that fellow and the old Star Trek show dr. Spock right no emotion no feeling I just do things rationally that is not what I mean and that is certainly not with the kasam sofa means a Jew must cultivate a life of emotional life of feeling a life of love of Hashem and reverence for M and that should translate into the relationship of husband and wife and parent and child it would be the furthest violation of Judaism to kitten kind of live a life devoid of those feelings and those passions that's about Latanya rights that's why the casitas of Chabad is called karate and that he was the inventor about casitas Chabad is an abbreviation for Kozma bina does different stages of intellectual understanding and the alter rebbe the ballot Anya refuse Amin of Allah are they taught and we're so far in this idea that maybe we don't know he's appreciated that true and deep emotions can be generated from the mind he was very suspicious he was very mistrustful of superficial emotions that just come from external stimuli like a cow box minion or whatever it is because he felt easy come easy go you ah hi and that could be spiritual indeed but then it passes and you know it doesn't really last but his position was that through thinking through meditation through learning you can actually unlock within you great and powerful emotions of love and reverence which come from the intellect again we're so used to the dichotomy between the intellectual and the emotional we don't realize that at least in that branch of caseta thoughts the intellectual itself is can be connected to deep emotional experiences which are much more profound than emotional experience that come from the external situation now we sometimes need the external as well but that would be the equivalent of spiritual junk food now sometimes if you're really starving you need to get a candy bar you need to eat and then you need to eat it that'll give you some basic nutrition in the short term but the long term you needs a better diet and the deeper diet is that that comes from the rational so I just want to be clear that I do not mean to suggest the absence of emotion in life but rather the emotion has to be subordinated to the intellectual and moral sense and that is why you find an extraordinary thing among to tell them again I come back to the copy time over and over again when most of us are in one type of mood it's hard for us to disengage for example if we got angry you know it takes time for us even if the person who made us angry is no longer here and now I have to sit down and sit with my wife or learn with the Haab Russa I'll say something like you know I'll be you know short of breath and I'll say I need five minutes to calm down I think that's typically what we baby and we're highly agitated I need a little time to calm calm down so it's recorded that there were times when the coverage time got angry at something and as soon as it was finished the anger went away instantaneously there was no concept he needed to calm down he was upset because the anger itself was simply a tool that he chose another's whatever reason he needed to express anger against some sin that was being committed but it wasn't like a mood that took him over it was a rational choice that he made oh now is the time to be angry so I'm going to be angry for five minutes because this is what I'm supposed to do and when those five minutes were over I said okay I'm gonna put the anger away to be used sparingly when it is next necessary to be employed that's an example of the emotion coming from the influence there are intellectual moral decisions as to which emotion is appropriate that's a very foreign idea we look at emotions as this runaway train that takes us over when in fact it can come from the intellect itself that's what that is the assaut talk about casitas in fact one has to realize this historically it's very very fascinating that the alter rebbe was very controversial not only visa vemma snob him those who were opposed to fascitis he was very controversial these are the other groups of Cocina now to this day the bar which is a little controversial but for totally different reasons that's the machine fizzes that's a separate later later development but I'm talking about as a school of philosophy Chabad was quite revolutionary because well it's kind of the like the guts grew ever used to say when you walk in the middle of the road you get hit with traffic coming from both sides and that really was the problem with her bad because non car BOTS casitas emphasized emotional states of ecstasy the miss Magnum emphasized learning and Mitzvahs and did not talk about emotional states they mistrusted it the alter rebbe tried to mizuki a integration of the literature emphasis on mitzvahs and torah learning and the Hasidic emphasis on ecstasy by basically saying states of ecstasy come from Torah learning meditation and prayer and as a result the mesangium were a little suspicious of him and because he didn't were a little suspicious of it because it really was a meze ugh and that's why classical Chabad is the ha Cedars that is closest to not to see the sex he was the closest and that's why again if you're a student of the net boishakh I am of ruff lion vulajin errs book was disciple of the Vilna Gaon there are so many similarities between nefesh acharya Montagna in fact the nephew time came out after the Tonia it was the lubavitcher rebbe claim that roofline vulajin er was influenced by tanya in incorporating his own ideology I'm not again I don't know if that's true or not but it is very very true that the Letitia miss nage the ideology of refined religion is extremely close to the Cecilia ideology of the ballet Tanya and it's also true that tanya was published first so well if there is any influence if there is the influence would be from the outer Rebbe to of KM rather than than vice-versa and very very fascinating I happen to give a shear in both Tanya and therefore shocked I am and at least there are weeks in which I give the shet is a shame to share twice I'm wondering two different texts and I literally repeat repeat this years and when people ask me for recordings I say if you got the tanya share you don't you don't need this one as to say it was the same not every week not every week but but there are weeks in which it is my much the same the same shear ok but be it as it may therefore that's the idea of Mela and the idea of column and once again there's a poignant so you know you feel bad for the bad guys in tonight you know I feel sorry for Asaph and feel sorry for Co rocks and I feel sorry for billing because that really is the idea of a Greek tragedies are very powerful tragic dimension in which there is so much greatness there is so much potential and yet there is a weakness that the person just cannot break out of that ultimately destroys him and he doesn't even have the blessing quotation mark of being oblivious to his own weakness he knows it and it kills him and that is why the best or the worst curse he can think of is to say you should get that you should have the same thing well Pirkei avos says Pirkei avos identifies three flaws within bill mana and reserve these are general flaws it talks about I in raw I in Romneys an evil eye that means he be grudges the good fortune of others because he sees life as a zero-sum game anyone that has something is something he doesn't have it's called reactive OA which is arrogance diver and nephesh rahova which is a hedonism and unbridled desire for more wealth more power these are the flaws these are generic flaws but these are the flaws that villain is said to have had now one other thing let me just say a very quick thoughts and again this actually deserves a sure of itself perhaps I will expand on it next week that is bill um of course wanted to curse but God changed all of his curses into great blessings and some of those blessings have found their way in our sitter a lot of us don't say it but but the beginning of chakra is when you walk into the show the very first thing in the center is motto vu Oh hallelujah cove michigan osaka israel how good are your tents jacob your dwelling places yes rayul a praise of the Jewish home of the modesty of the holiness of the goodness those words are none other than the words of bilham who wanted to curse and God changed it into a blessing now it's interesting that the Rambam and all of the roshaniya actually see in bilham's statements many prophetic references to Messiah when bilham says for example I read oh I see them below our table but not now I surrender I gaze at them for lo koro but not in the near future bilham this is his final prophecy is having a vision this is what the Rambam rights of our high-risk I am in the end of days and there is much in bilham's prophecy that is a reference to Messiah and I want to share with you a third of the orihime who says an amazing thing there are Khayyam was rough crying benatar from morocco who came to air which Israel is your site do we have as your site is is in tom was I I think it's in the towards the end of Thomas so it's too big yard site this hair is a same and tens of thousands of people go to the orihime's cavern and he lived in the 1700s so way before Zionism and way before the State of Israel and he points out the following Neelam says I see them but not now and he says the rothko hug me Yaakov a star shall arise from Jacob become shavette and a staff from Israel and they will smite the enemies so this is a reference to mushiya the uruk-hai incest but the question is why are there two verses or two phrases a star will arise from Jacob and a staff will arise from Israel both of them are referring to Messiah what is the double parallelism by the way the idea of the star being Messiah that is why Rabbi Akiva called Shimon Ben Cao Siva Bar Kokhba the son of a star because Rabbi Akiva believes turned out to be erroneously maybe Akiva believed that Bar Kokhba was the Messiah of course that ended in immense tragedy but that was Rubbia kiba's belief we can debate was rebbi akiva Roman or was broke off a potential Messiah and the generation messed up that's always a question but be as it may that is the name Bar Kokhba coming from Jericho Hoth so here's what the rsam says the process of gula can come two ways for the Jewish people if we are righteous and holy Messiah will come through a supernatural process it'll come through miracles and that miracle is like a coach out of a star but if we're not righteous it may come by an old man hobbling on a cane or riding on a donkey or the shave it is using a crutch through a laborious process of political and social and military upheavals in which sometimes it's two steps forward and one step back and sometimes it's one step forward and two steps back it'll be a laborious gradual process with many difficulties and much suffering the gula has two different pathways there is the pathway of the supernatural and there is the pathway of the gradual painful laborious process one is called the Kohath and one is called the shaven these words are truly truly remarkable because in the 19th century way after the arcane when Zionism began as a political movement and when eventually the State of Israel was established in 1948 or let's say before the state people like ruff cook would describe the state as a permanent or the potential state or the return of the Jews to Israel whatever you whatever point you want to pick as a stage in gula a stage and redemption a stage in a process that will culminate with machine now a lot of the people who did not accept that ideology said and say today there is no way Mindi Nakia l could be Rea samir cart gulity no there's no way because number one so much of the founding fathers and mothers of the state were not only non religious but they were anti religious in some ways the state itself is largely secular we still have wars I thought the Messianic era is supposed to usher in peace how could something be a tally of gula if there is loss of Jewish life and war and suffering and terrorism how could that be gula and therefore it's not gula that was the conquer conclusion what is fascinating is the orihime give us a key to addressing those problems because the orihime says there is the Ghul of Kohath which is this sudden miraculous Redemption the lion lies down with the lamb or the wolf lies down with the lamb but then there's another type of gula which is gradual painful laborious limping the shaver dissident the our time says as a cane or a crutch or another verse in safari ax talks about the arne the poor man riding on the donkey and therefore the facts that we still have war and the fact that so much of the Jews in Israel are not yet committed to the Torah that now again I don't say that proves Google app but all I'm saying is it doesn't negate golem because there is a path of gula that may follow a torturous unknown road leading to culmination so the orihime's dichotomy has seen in the prophecy of Balaam is very very fascinating because it has a resonance to the events that we are going through know since 1948 and up to the present day and therefore this would at least permit the assumption that this is a race it's a miracle Latino this is part of God's redemptive process to create redemption and in many ways I think the Vilma Don himself subscribed to this ideology we know that there are too much yes right there's the Mashiach Ben David and then there's the Mashiach Ben Yossef and the Vilna Gaon rights amazingly and again this really there's a whole other whole talk that mashiac baño safe doesn't have to be a person it could be an ideology and is Mashiach Ben Yossef represents the movement to get the Jews physically back in the Land of Israel and by getting the Jews physically back in the Land of Israel that will bring my shipment of it the base on mikdash and everything else so instead of the idea we'll come back when Messiah comes the lesson is the opposite come back and that will bring the coming of the Messiah as a result therefore the idea that Zionism itself may be a stage in the redemption of the Jewish people can find some support even in the writings of the Vilna Gaon not just or of cook and you could trace it to even earlier than the velma gone that's the arc i am a kurdish can you have a good Shabbes and a good good day [Music]