Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Fiery Enthusiasm and Establishing Boundaries

[Music] it's uh good to see you all um hashem i think uh legally at least outside i think the mask restrictions have been uh lifted and we hope as rest hashem that we've turned a major corner and uh there should be raphua into the world as i mentioned last week the whole month of eeyore is connected to the idea of refua er aleph is hashem's name and the rash is i am the god hashem says who heals you and that's connected to the month of er so kenya kenya tonight's share is sponsored once again by a very good friend of mine yosef kalimi an appreciation of the shiorim and as has been the case reforeshalema for number one binyamin israel benjamita the young man that we've been praying for for a long time khaya shifra so for all of them we wish them a reforeshalema but israel and may uh the learning and the torah that we say tonight and the other theorem that ibanez gives should all be for a reformer for them and for all of the holy emo israel you know that um we're doubling up on parshiots just like last week was a double parsha tazria mitsura this week is also a double parsha akhirimos and kidoshim the reason why you have this doubling is because in a leap year it's really the other way around in illegally you've got to split them in a leap year you have extra shabbatots so as a result we split the partios when you don't have a leap year you're four weeks short so you combine things that would otherwise uh be be separate why certain parshiots are chosen for kibour and certain parties or not is actually very interesting and difficult astronomical question which i will i will not get into now but we do have a double parsha and as a result there's quite a lot to talk about i actually have uh one one thought connected to acharya motes and the other another thought connected to kadoshim i'm not sure i'll get to the gdosian thought but if not i can carry it over because it's also connected to emor as well so in a way there are common themes throughout many of these partials uh but this partial the first of the two parshiots begins that hashem commanded moshe akaremos after the death of the two sons of our own who when they tried to draw near they suffered a death these are aaron's two oldest children nadav naville we actually read the story of their death a few weeks ago but here there's a reference that hashem gave a whole bunch of commandments and the torah emphasizes now the substance of the commandments that are given in acharya most is essentially the yom kippur service in point of fact the first half of acharamos is the kriya satora of yom kippur morning and it describes the idea of the cohen guttal going into the holy of holies once a year the different corbanos the two uniforms that the coming gutter has that when he goes into the kodachek dustin he is wearing pure white linen with no gold but then when he goes out he switches to a gold garment or a garment that contains gold thread because when you're in the holy of holies and you're seeking mercy for the jewish people you don't bring anything to do with the kid of the golden calf that's the famous saying ain't category senegar that the prosecutor cannot be a good defense attorney so that's why the cohen guttal goes back and forth between the white uniform and the gold uniform the white uniform in the holy of holies which he enters four different times onion kipper and then we have what he does outside where he wears the golden garments and it essentially goes through the whole young kipper service really from the beginning to the end the multiple immersions in the mikvah the multiple washings of the hands and the feet uh the switching of the gold to the white and the white to the gold all of the different corbanos of yom kippur and remember him kippur was a bit unique because everything had to be done by the cohen dodo that's very very unique the whole the rest of the year the cohen guttal actually never had to officiate if he wanted to he could but he left he led it he left it to the other kohanim yom kippur he does everything and when i say everything i don't just mean he does the special yum kipper stuff but even the stuff that is also done during the rest of the year the carbon tamid the daily offering of the morning and the afternoon the daily incense of the morning and the afternoon the lighting of the manora these are not yom kippur services these are the services that were done every day including yum kippur and it had to be done by the calling adult the yom kippur service itself is a very very fascinating topic that we could easily spend two or three hours on but i want to maybe focus on a more preliminary technical question and that is why is that sivoi of the avoda's yom kippur so linked to the deaths of around's two children there seems to be kind of a causal relationship here god gave these commandments aha what's the connection between the yom kippur service and the deaths of the two children of our own that should trigger all of these rules and the short answer is because essentially the um kipper service is based on the notion of boundaries of not trying to go to the holy places when you're not yet ready to do so that's what it says aliyah our own and all gohan the cohen goddess commanded do not enter the holy of holies whenever you feel like doing it rather there are boundaries there are restrictions there's a time there's a place there's a ritual not even a view and this is what i'm going to explore actually died because they did not have a sense of boundary and containment and that's really what i want to talk about and that is why it is the segway to the yom kippur restrictions [Music] now remember the chronology here the mishkan itself was dedicated on the first of nisan right for seven days before that moshe rabena was putting it up and taking it down every single day and actually moshe was officiating as the kauai but on the rosh nissan the michigan is put up to remain permanent at least until it's moved to the next location and that was a day of great joy a great day of great simbra a day that is as lofty the gemara says as the day of the creation of heaven and earth tremendous joy the shaheena came down and rested amongst vinay israel as hashem promised us make for me a sanctuary with some and i will dwell not only in the sanctuary i will dwell in their myths in their heart and their soul and in the middle of that great simcha the torah says that the two children of aram the oldest children aaron had four sons the two oldest are nadav and avilu and they took an aish zara they took a strange fire a share load siva but suvo abraham that they were not commanded to take i'm just quoting or paraphrasing the passage they took a strange fire for which they were not commanded vatate sayesh nayashem and a fire came out from god and consumed them and they died and this happiest greatest joy of all days was marred by the tragic death of nadav and aviv the kumar actually explains that this was an unusual type of death the fire entered their body and burnt up their neshama but the body itself was not mutilated the body itself was was whole and then we have the immortal words in the torah that when our own saw the loss of his two oldest children aaron was silent didn't complain didn't say why he accepted he understood in ways that really are beyond our madriga that whatever god does is right is good doesn't mean it doesn't hurt right it doesn't mean that you don't suffer but you understand that it is what it had to be and indeed the torah goes on and says on that very day around and his two other sons allah's or any summer who survived were actually commanded not to engage in mourning rituals they were commanded not even to mourn at least on that day because they had a job to do for the dedication of the mishkan now the problem here is though that what exactly not even of eu did is very obscure the torah says they took a strange fire or a foreign fire a zara what exactly is there a veyre now the simple interpretation this is just the simplest interpretation is this uh the torah describes that when the mishkan was dedicated and there's a mess back there's an altar a fire came down from heaven and ignited the wood on the mizbayach miraculously now when the incense is supposed to be sacrificed on the golden mizbayach the coals are supposed to be taken from the outer mizbayah so the fire that should have been taken is the heavenly fire on the mizbeach but not even avilu wanted to bring katoris with their own fire so they brought in quite literally a fire from a sauce other than the divine fire of the mizbayach that was in a sarah so me the kenegad meda right there rebelling against hashem with a fire that they shouldn't bring in hashem retaliates with a fire now that is the symbol that is the most literal interpretation of zarah others understand that they brought their fire into the kodashak dashing which actually ties in with ahrimos that's why hashem is saying be sure not to do that again because you see what happened the first time but there's a problem that all of these explanations of which which are what the word say are is not the average that rashi identifies and many mammary identify rashi says again rashi got it from the midrash that the sin of nadav navilla was they entered the mishkan after drinking some wine or intoxicating beverage and they cohen or anyone is not allowed to enter the mishkan or later the basa mikhtash again i'm not going to say in a state of intoxication because we assume they weren't drunk but even drinking a reverse of wine which is only four ounces that already said you can't enter now the proof that rashi gives is a bit of a perplexing proof because rashi says that's why right after the death of another view god commands the kohanim not to drink when they go into the mishkan now wait a second here those of you that are students of the u.s constitution may remember a well-known clause that congress cannot pass what's called an ex-post-facto law the next factor law is they can't criminalize something after you've already done the act you did something that was legal the government wants to get you so they then pass a law that what you did was illegal well that's not fair at the time there was no prohibition they could make a law that from now on somebody that does something is going to be punished but they can't pass a law to punish you for something that was not illegal at the time that's called the next post facto law so one second here rashi says none of an of you died because they drank wine but the prohibition against drinking wine was given as a consequence to their death so how could that be the reason that they were punished that's one question another question is how do you reconcile that with ace zara the torah doesn't give that reason the torah gives the reason of h sarai foreign fire it's not the reason and not only that but if you look at the medrish and rashi does not bring all of these opinions there's a whole laundry list of sins that none of them of you did so we have rashi that says they drank wine or intoxicating drink that's one of their another aveira was they would they didn't get married they decided not to get married because they thought nobody is good enough for them a third of era that's mentioned is they use the pascan halacha in the presence of moshe and iron and that's not proper to do that you don't prosecute in the presence of your rebbe a fourth of a moving count here uh is that they were actually hoping or they would actually say to themselves at least when will moshe and iran these old people die so we can take over the leadership and another avaira was that they were not wearing all of the big day kahuna a cohen has to wear all of the kohana garments and they were not wearing all of them and another abherra was that really they were high of misa all the way back at matan torah because if you remember in parchas mishpatim it talks about the elders who saw a vision of god sitting on his sapphire throne and they were gazing at hashem whatever that means and they were eating and drinking and according to some midrashim that was not of an avil and they were kai of mesa at the time of matan torah but hashem didn't want to kill them because he didn't want to mar the joy of matantora so he awaited until the day of the mishkan very difficult so why would hashem want to marry the day of the dedication of the michigan okay and yet a final aveda so many available reiterate them afterwards opinions there's opinion involved no these seem to be different opinions uh different opinions is that really none of the navy who died because of our own sin in building the golden calf and really around and all four of his sons should have died but maisha rabbenu's prayer annulled half of the decree actually more than half of the decree so two sons survived and two sons died so again look at the number of at least possible loves identify we have drinking wine we have pascaline in front of moshe we have not getting married pascaling in front of moshe and aaron wishing for moshe and aaron to die not wearing big day kahuna the fate of gazing at the shakrina at matantora and finally it wasn't even their sin it was our own sin of the heidel egal for which moshe of banu's prayer only took off part of the gazera so two died and two survived now here's the problem you're giving me every possible of era except for the avera that the torah itself says the terrorist says it was a zara a foreign fire so you're giving me a million other availables what about the and the one thing that the gomorrah or the medrash does not say as an avaira was the aveira of acer so what's going on why are you giving all of these different availas hold that question we'll we'll come back to it you said the good morning doesn't say sorry it doesn't say well when the metric enumerates all of the average it doesn't enumerate ace sores and available that's what the hummus says so hold that question we'll come back to it but i first want to address the preliminary question of the exposed factor law let's take rashi without without looking at ay sarah rashid says their favor was they drank and then hashem said after they died anyone that drinks and goes into the mishkan is high of misa okay that's fine but how could that be the basis to be make them high of misa if that prohibition was not given until after they did it and died how can that be the reason for their death so the answer has to be just answering that question is that even though the commandment wasn't given yet they should have understood it on their own because of their level of holiness and therefore they could be held accountable for that which they should have understood even if we could not be accountable until there's a commandment because in many many ways if you think about it the prohibition of not drinking wine and going into the michigan is not intuitively obvious because we recognize the importance of wine in generating joy in religious ceremonies we use wine in religious ceremonies we use wine for kiddush we use wine for the four cups to celebrate freedom we use wine at a bris at a pigeon a ben at a sheva brachus right so wine is something that augments joy in the fulfillment of mitzvos this is what the passage says in tehillim david says wine has the capacity to give a person joy so one might have thought you're going to the base of mikdash you're going to be serving god it is the day of dedication let us celebrate with a toast let us celebrate with the kiddush let us celebrate with abraha so it wasn't intuitively obvious that this is a bad thing but because none of the video were so righteous they should have understood that the joy of the moment was so sublime that it didn't need to be generated by artificial stimulants utilization of an artificial stimulant means the experience itself is not pushing you high enough so if anyone else would have done it prior to god forbidding it it wouldn't have been a sin for them it was a sin and now that we have the mitzvah for us it's a sin that the basa mikdash itself should elevate us to a certain state of joy so in this connection i want to share with you a very interesting mishna in the 8th perak of massachusetts and in the eighth paragraph it is recorded a mach lokas between basilal and baishamai what is the order of kiddish friday night bait chamai actually says and we don't follow bait chamber of course first you make the brachan shabbos the long bracket and then after you make the brachav shabbas you make beret priyagufen and drink the wine so according to bait shamai the order of kiddish is the bracha of shabbos and then the bracha of wine basila differs and we of course follow basilo we first make the baraka of the wine we don't drink the wine yet but we make the brocco over the wine and then we make the bracha over shabbos as is usually the case 999 percent of the time when there is an argument between base hello and behind we follow basilla now there are different reasons the gemara gives but in sifrihasidas they offer the following fascinating explanation as to what is the basis of the mahlokas they still will invade china we know as a general rule based shamai is strict and basil tends to be more lenient that's the general tendency the mukubalam explained that that is because shamai and hillel and then their respective talmudim based on my basal those are the yeshivas their nishamos are rooted in different aspects of god's infinity bait shamai is rooted in god's meetha-sadin attribute of judge justice and that is why he is stricter he follows the strict law basil is rooted in god's attribute of mercy and now i want to explain what that means this is not a self-conscious thing it's not like basham i got up every morning thinking how can i make life harder for people and basilo says how can i make life easier for you that's not the way it works anyone that is honest and conscientious is looking for truth and this and you're looking at something objectively what is right but kabbalistically what you perceive as truth is connected to what your neshama is connected to in god's infinite messiahs the person whose shirish haneshama the root of your neshama is connected to me will tend to see ms emes on the side of compassion and the person whose neshama is rooted in medatadin will tend to see emes in the sight of strictness now who's right now remember this remember this the gomorrah says when god originally wanted to create the world he originally wanted to create the world with the attribute of strict justice you do an alvera you get zapped with lightning you do good things you get a million dollars justice truth but what that's why it says bereishis in the beginning elo kim that's the media of din was going to create the world but what happened god had second thoughts whatever that exactly means something and he says he saw you know the world could not survive unstrict in we mess up too much therefore hashem combines rachel and in and that's why later it doesn't say yellow kim created the world this is hashem eloquem hashem is so in a sense it turns out is the ideal world the way the world really should be is the imperfect realization of that ideal because of human fallibility it's kavyakov god's concession to the imperfections of human nature so we can look at it this way bait shamai is an idealist beit shamai is using halacha to promulgate the ideal way the world should be and base hillel is a pragmatist looking at the imperfection of the world as it actually is and the halacha is like basil because you got to be real you got to look at the world the way it is but that's why the arizona writes when mashiach comes there is also this the halacha is going to be like beijama because when the world reaches a higher and more spiritual level we will be able to live at the standards of the way the world should have been okay it's again a very very deep explanation as to the idea that bait shamai is rooted in god's original plan for creation and basil is rooted in the accommodation that god made due to human weakness and imperfection now you may think okay that's great what does that have to do with the order of kiddush so listen to this we know that shabbos is a day of great spirituality and holiness on shabbos we are given the gift of the nishama yasera the extra soul and rashi says in mr speza that the extra soul on shabbos is why you can eat more on shabbos because you're eating for two now at first glance that sounds a little trivial i mean the whole show me acera is i can eat extra cake and unfortunately the nacho misery doesn't take away the calories when it leaves at the end but some commentaries say that when rashi talks about an extra capacity to eat and drink he means soul food not physical food and by soul food i don't mean collard greens and fried chicken or whatever they they serve in harlem but soul food means that which really feeds your soul love of god reverence of god words of torah so when we say on shabbos we can eat more that actually means we have an enhanced and enlarged capacity to open our hearts to kedusha now i need to emphasize this is a capacity that means it's a potential it's not a done deal it doesn't mean we will experience this every jebus sometimes we won't we have to work on it we have to we have to access that potential we have to realize that potential right so something just like when say he who prepares an arab shabbat will eat on shabbos famous saying now on one hand that's literal if you don't either buy your food or cook your food or at least wangle yourself an invitation on friday you may not have a place to eat on shabbos that's true but it's also true for soul food you want your soul to eat the spirituality of shabbos you've got to prepare before shabbos a little bit shirashirim whatever it would be various meditation that's why many people have accustomed they try to be ready for shabbos in the middle of friday afternoon so there's a spirit of peace that descends instead of the last minute rush that is so characteristic of of how we uh often have to prepare for shabbos again it's been noted many many times that somehow there's always last-minute rushes i mean when shabbos is 7 p.m you know it's a rush and when shabbat says 4 pm it's a rush now if you could be ready in the winter at 4 then why can't he be ready in the summer at four why why does it get stretched out until seven but that's human nature the work i think is one of those murphy's laws or one of those laws work expands to fill the time allotted to it more time you know the work just gets bigger but whatever it is so shabbos is a day of sublime spirituality but at the same time shabbos is also a day of physical indulgence we eat better on shabbos we make meals etc we have festive wine people take you know extra sleeping on shabbos sacha sheena bashabas thai necks sleeping on shabbos i remember when i was in uh ninth grade but uh i came when i came to there you saw yeshiva in baltimore and you know uh you know kids don't sleep so i remember the first time i came as a 14 year old so shabbos afternoon everything was dead people everybody went to sleep and i was going crazy i was just wandering the halls you know nothing's happening here where did everybody go after a few weeks and i i picked up the habit of sleeping on shabbos but the problem is you see so shabbos is kind of a contradictory day a day of ruchnius a day of gashmius which is it and what's the relationship between the physical and the spiritual what's the relationship between my neshama striving to be connected to god and my body that has needs and pleasures and enjoyments for food and for wine and for sleep so baitshama and bashillo will look at it in two different ways based on the idealist versus the pragmatist the idealist would say the way the world should be is i am so overwhelmed with the joy of spirituality that i want to celebrate by wine and show it and good food in other words the physical celebration is a consequence of the spiritual joy it is the ruchnius that generates the gas mias that's how an idealist looks at it i'm not eating because i want the challenge i'm eating because it is a way that i celebrate the holiness and greatness of shabbos so based on that paradigm that's why bait shamai says first you make the bracha and the shabbos and then you make the bracha and the wine because the wine is coming because of the shabbos that's bashamah basilo would say this ideally that's the way it should be i should be so overwhelmed with spiritual joy that i want to celebrate in a physical way but realistically human nature often works the other way the thing that really excites me is wow the wine the chola the chicken something and filter fish wow the beautiful table and because i get so much pleasure from those physical things i appreciate the holiness of shabbos too in other words it's a reversal of the cause and effect according to bei shamai it is the spiritual joy that connects you to the physicality according to base hillel it is the physicality and the pleasure of the guf that can ultimately inspire your nishama so once again in this mach locus we have the idealist versus the pragmatist now nada venavio were very very righteous people in fact moshe tells our own they're holier than than us therefore they should have lived on the level of bait shamai where the spirituality itself is what inspires you but instead they were living on the level of base hill where i need the wine to feel the joy and hashem was taiva then hashem prosecuted punish them because they were using the physical to bring them to the spiritual joy when in fact the spiritual joy should have been self-sufficient in other words you could almost say that neither of you should have lived on a messianic plain and they were living on an earthly plane and that's why they were punished lefie their madrega it's kind of reminiscent of a story a custod once said to his rebbe he says rebbe it's a little bit why are you different than me i get hungry and that's why i take a banana and i make a broccoli and you get hungry and you take a banana you make it there's your brother what's the difference so the rebbe said you're 100 right you get hungry and you eat and i get hungry and and i eat but the difference is what am i hungry for what are you hungry for you are hungry for the banana i gotta have a banana ella my i'm not allowed to eat without a bracha so i make a bracha in order to eat a banana i'm the opposite i don't care about the banana but i get hungry i want to say abraha but never there's a law you can't make a blessing in vain so i gotta eat the banana in order to be able to make the bracha so the difference is are you making a bracha to eat the banana or are you eating the banana so you'll be able to make a bracha what's the relationship between the physical and the and the spiritual so that's point one about the drinking of the wine but point two is we have this laundry list of averages once again and the question is how do all of these averages relate to and the short answer has to be that they are a commentary on asura meaning they're not replacing a sarah but they are explaining that a sarah can be understood in a metaphorical way how is that we know that h is often a symbol of passion of excitement of commitments you talk about a chat hurrah again it's a wonderful well just as warsamer happens to be a wonderful name it's my yeshiva but the fire of torah understand what that means fire reaches upwards it represents passion excitement enthusiasm as a general rule being filled with the fire of torah is a wonderful quality provided it doesn't turn into the fire of mach lokes and hatred it could turn into something bad but in terms of a fiery enthusiasm that's a wonderful thing right when you meet somebody that's filled with enthusiasm that's very moving and even contagious ish so none of the navio had an age they had a passion for spirituality but here's the problem you will often find that when people are very passionate about spirituality and they yearn for a relationship with god they don't have patience for the details of halacha that they regard as an impediment in the spirituality of that relationship you know you can give a million examples like this in other words to use a fancy term and i actually talked a little bit about this before pesach there is an antinomian tendency in the mystical spiritual temperament antinomian is simply a fancy word that means against law against regulation against detail against rules i want to embrace god i want to be connected to god what difference does it make if i rip my toilet paper on shabbos or not what difference does it make if i say shema by nine o'clock or 905 isn't the only important thing to love hashem and to revere hashem why do i need to preoccupy myself with all of these rules now historically let me remind you this was actually the major major controversy between the vilna gown and the early generations of casitas again it's a little bit of a shrouded mystery but what was going on in the not the belt of himself but some of the followers is that they were not paying attention again i'm not referring to everybody i'm appearing to certain groups within early hosting they were not paying attention to all of these laws they were basically saying the most important thing is feeling emotion passion who cares if you do the rule exactly this way or exactly that way and that is what the torah calls a fire that is foreign because it is not based on god's commandments it's a passion for godliness a passion for spirituality but it's not circumscribed by the details of halacha and i'll show you how each of the averages is symptomatic of that type of flaw essentially not even a view were antinomians they were spiritual libertarians they basically felt we can have a relationship with god that is not based on halacha might be the rules that regular people have to follow who are not capable of a true relationship with god so we give them rituals we give them things to follow but we can have the pure relationship we don't need the rules we don't need the boundaries we don't need the restrictions and the restrictions take us away from our connection now if i'm a legendary wrote or that only god's great talmud wrote a great great great safer called nephesh and it's a complicated safer there's a lot of kabbalah in it but if i had to summarize the primary thesis of the nepa shachaim in one or two sentences he was essentially addressing the importance of keeping the halacha that if you want your relationship to god it cannot be based exclusively on your emotion and on your feeling but it has to be based on god's own terms god defines the terms of the relationship now you read that today and you think well isn't that that's obvious you got to keep palakka but the truth is a lot of things are obvious only because they've been taught for hundreds of years by these swaras in early hasidis there actually was an orientation that emotion can take the place of detail and in things like new age spirituality today that's exactly what's going on in countless countless movements including even some movements that ostensibly go by the name orthodoxy i don't want to i don't want to get into the details of of that open orthodoxy and and the light but you you understand the you understand the problem here if khan valentine gives an example if khadra legender gives an example of let's imagine it's pesach now we just said pesach and the person is dead tired his wife is dead tired at the night of the seder so let's say the person would say the following you know the whole purpose of the sader is to feel freedom to feel redemption to feel closeness to god but i'm going to fall asleep at the seder i want to go through the seder in like a half an hour and get it over with what type of seder is that so i'll tell you what i'll go to sleep early tonight and tomorrow after show i'll make the greatest seder you'd ever imagine kavanagh and eon and learning the haggadah and inspiration after all isn't inspiration the most important thing about religion so why should i do a lousy seder pesach night if i can do a great saturday pays day but that's absurd because you might have a great experience pesach day but you're not doing god's will you're not going to connect to god in a way that god didn't define now i just want to tell you something about how life imitates art and sometimes in an absurd way rafael lushner used this as an example of an absurdity that everybody would understand is absolutely crazy right that's what he's communicating well i gave this mushroom once to a class of people who were not yet religious and a woman raised her hand and said you know that's exactly what we did we couldn't get the family together for the first for the seder night so we decided to make the seder the shabbos after pesach when everybody came and it was wonderful great satan it's an amazing thing which of chain velezner gave as an example of the inconceivable actually becomes becomes the real it's one on my hand oh okay that's right so uh the reducto ad absurdum becomes the enokinami it actually happens uh but that's with haim's point so here let's go through the another video and see how everything works out that way uh so essentially this goes back to my earlier point that's why the laws about not entering the holy of holies are connected to the deaths of aaron's sons al-yawab khalee salah you want to approach god but you got to follow the rules hashem has rules hashem has procedures hashem has limitations you can't just say i want to connect to god in whatever way i want defines the parameters of that relationship yes love of hashem reverence of hashem not doing mitzvoth coldly or mechanically is extremely important god forbid no one that no one is recommending a yiddish guy devoid of passion and feeling but it can't be zara it can't be foreign it has to be integrated within the observance of so now let's go through the list just to show it relatively quickly so another one of you took wine once again since according to them the most important thing was the intensity of emotional feeling so they figured if wine enhances the emotions let's go with it although alcohol is actually depressing but at least in the short term it makes you happier they didn't want to get married they took the position that physicality like celibacy just like catholic like the catholic church they took the position that family marriage sexual intimacy take us away from holiness we want a holiness that is separated from the physical world well that may be your ideal in theory but that's not god's ideal god's ideal in the very first mitzvah of the torah be fruitful and multiply and you don't sanctify god by escaping physicality you embrace it and you elevate it positioning in the presence of moshe and iron right that's the third that's the third one so here i would suggest the following mosha and arun are symbolic of what you might call the received order right moshe and iron are the transmitters of the halaq system when they would pass kin in front of moshe and iron it's not just the technical violation of pasconing in front of motion iron but it's a certain attitudinal shift in which they're basically saying let's forget about the rules and let's focus on the feeling and the emotion similarly when they said when will these old people die that essentially means let the rule-oriented order pass and by the way let me point out that in some ways this was the very argument of christianity without going into arichus that is the notion that faith passion feeling can replace the laws of the torah play replace the halaq system not wearing garments think about the role of clothing clothing is a barrier right it separates me from you from if we're totally nude we're exposed to each other they didn't want barriers in their so again taking off clothing is symbolic of the idea i don't want a barrier between me and god i want there to be a direct connection gazing at the shaking of matantora once again not obeying the barriers looking gazing going into levels that you're not able you're not supposed to go into and even the sin of the golden calf was the attempt to make god into an image that we could perceive in a physical way meaning to say making god in our image in a tangible physical way as an intermediary so bekitzer i gave you this long list of avedos and i then asked the question it's not h zara the answer is they are manifestations of a sarah if a sarah means a displaced passion that is not rooted in halachic subservience and recognition of boundaries all of these are connected to the aish zara and that is why once again in acharya mouse you know there's a famous thought i think it's from the first guaran all of you know the the famous madrish that before hashem gave the torah to the jewish people he went to all the nations of the world and he offered them the torah first he knew he knew how the story would come out but he had to go through the motions of offering the torah first and all the nations then asked well what's written in your torah and hashem gave them a mitzvah that was very hard for them hashem said to one nation don't steal can't do that don't kill can't do that et cetera in other words they were tested hashem gave them a mitzvah that would be hard for them and they said no what test did he give the jewish people to kind of see if they were sincere now one simple answer i really don't understand the question that well because the jewish people didn't ask for uh they didn't ask for a test they said na seven ishmael we will obey the torah before we know what's in there but the criticism says he wants to make it a parallel if hashem gave the ishmael a mitzvah that was very hard for them and hashem gave asa for mrs very hard for them what did he give the jewish people that would be hard for them and nevertheless they accept it ahead of time so he says it was the commandment to separate from mount sinai if you remember the torah says when the divine presence comes down on the mountain you must be at a distance from the mountain do not approach the mountain that's a very profound idea that our relationship to god has to be so referential that there's a certain boundary and the legerium says for a yid to be separated from god that's the hardest thing as that is as hard as a ishmael not stealing as an ace of not killing to observe boundaries is what is hard for issue and this is actually the dichotomy that exists in judaism if you take a bracha let's take a very simple bracha that you make on water hashem [Music] blessed are you god the king of the universe that all came into into existence through his word do you see the grammatical anomaly in the bracha the bracha starts off in second person blessed art you god but it ends in third person it should have said baruch hashem shall call everything came into existence by your word so in the middle of the bracha you're switching from directly addressing hashem to indirectly addressing hashem in the third person uh in in dictu that's called no no is you're speaking to somebody as a you versus mr as if he's not there so the abu dhram says this is because in every bracha we encapsulate two relationships that we have with god on one hand god is close to us he is loving he is our friend he is our protector we have an intimate relationship with him that we can turn to him at all times to pray even to converse get the habit of talking to hashem that's the atta it's as if hashem is with me again the fancy theological term for that is the imminence of hashem the feeling that hashem is with me at all times and that is the feeling that is connected to ava to love but then we also have to recognize god's omnipotence his power he is beyond us you see and that is what creates awe and reverence and yeara and that's the nister that's again the fancy theological term is the transcendence of god so in every brahma we encapsulate in a short little bracha the relationship of love and the relationship of fear or the imminence of hashem the transcendence of hashem and that's what's encapsulated in the asara problem the age perceives hashem's love and and has a tremendous desire to connect to akaddish park but the era says you got to follow the rules you got to follow the regulations now there is an idea that dropdzado talks about that is potentially so controversial that actually it was censored from the earlier editions of his books from his notebooks later they published it so i may get in in big big big trouble before saying it that's kind of the disadvantage as the shoremen get disseminated i used to be i'm only i only was talking to the people in the room uh no big deal now i gotta you know always be thinking about this but i do want to share it because it's a powerful idea but i want to emphasize it is not for implementation and that is what setup actually suggests that it might be possible that none of an avio were actually right vis-a-vis themselves meaning it may be it may be the case that certain individuals can have their private relationship with god and the torah may not apply to them because they're in such a madriga that they don't have to follow the rules just like the son of a king may not have to follow the rules for royal access but the reason they were taken from the world is not so much that they were punished but they could not possibly be a role model or a leadership for the rest of claus israel so god took them because that's not what leadership is because we have to live by the torah the private deals that exceptional individuals can construct is between them and god but it's not for anyone else to even be aware of now you can see this is extremely controversial idea because all sorts of people could try to make these arguments for themselves all i can say is that in nine whatever it is in a in uh 999 thousand out of a million uh they're going to be wrong right but but there may be such a madrega and based on that idea dustin and baviram were taken not because they were sinners but they were taken because they had reached a level of righteousness that was beyond the confines of olam and therefore they could no longer be part of this world because they were living on a level that was beyond this world so this is actually uh just end here this is actually the big challenge that we have as religious jews because you see the problem on both ends of the spectrum there are jews who are spiritual who are joyous who love hashem who want to connect to hashem but sometimes they feel impatient with the details of halacha that they regard as an impediment that's not even the age sarah but then you have the opposite people who are sticklers to detail but without passion without it without enthusiasm kind of operating on automatic pilots dead inside and that's also a tremendous loss and somehow we have to find in our yiddish guys a way to keep the passion and enthusiasm but within the boundaries of the relationship that hashem structures to feel the loving imminence of the creator which is abbas hashem but to also recognize the transcendence of hashem and therefore the need to be obedient and faithful to his commandments so may akaddish who helped us to try to achieve both of those goals each person according to their madriga but thank you and uh have a good evening [Music] foreign