Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Nothing Else But Him - Ein Ode Milvado

[Music] okay hi everybody thank you thank you for coming and we have a special dedication I'm just reading what it says by Gan and ra Levan in honor of Rabbi brtz and dedicated to the release of Arvin nanel Bena in Iran this is was quite a serious case that really needs ouros someone who was condemned to death and Hashem should release him as well as the safety of all of our and the return of our hostages Galia mosha Ben dorah and Bor Ben feda for the liberation of er Israel from it enemies safe return home of soldiers and hostages lasting Unity of the people of Israel and for all those whose Health has been affected by the war Alat shama yit Ben alzar as well as Shana eser B Sasha and Freda and the Y side is Utes ER and it's by Freda angard uh finally an anonymous contribution was made for the of all of our and the hostages to return safe totally healthy and hashem's protection of Cl Isel for the G in our days and once again the should be a for the families and really for all of Cl Isel um I really want to talk about two things tonight I don't know if I'll cover them both one is a little observation about the to which I'll talk about and then about uh the continuation of the counting of the OM which is not directly in the para but it's connected to the season that we're going through we are in of course the last par inra and the majority of the last para is what is called the to the to are the awful and awesome curses and punishments that God says will befall the Jewish people if they reject the Torah this is very ominous it is very scary it is very frightening the custom is that we don't even give an Aliyah to a regular person the Balor takes the Aliyah himself not to curse the person who gets the Aliyah although that's not really wouldn't really happen and it's even read in an undertone and in many shows it is read very very quickly I still remember from high school when I was in Nel High School uh I never saw balore who read the to as quickly as the 10th grader who's he was really an expert balkur but he really he really read it absolutely uh quickly because you want to get over the curses as quickly as possible now there are two places in the Torah where there's a long list of curses and punishments that will befall us one is at the end of aayra which is bosai and the other is towards the end ofarim in Paras kava there is a famous comment of the ramban that says the curses in vayikra that we're going to read this week are referring to the destruction of the first temple and the curses in devarim are the destruction of the second temple including of course the galut that were still in so if you want to match up the Pim to current events you would actually look in the because the VRA is connected to the and as I say it reminds us that there is accountability in life that if the Jewish people sin eventually there's a cost to pay but I want to just share with you a short story about the to that's so beautiful everyone knows that the first founder of kabas was of shman of lead the author of The Tanya who is known as the alter Rabbi the old Rabbi the first one he had a son ROV be who became the second rebi of kabad and he goes by the Appalachian the Midler rebi the middle rebi why is he called the middle Reby because the first rebi was the alter rebi who was Reby for more than 30 years the third rebi theed was also a rebi for 30 years the middle Reby wasn't a Reby that long so he's called the middle rebi his name was ROV be and this was in honor of the bat's own rebi R do be the mid of mesarich Who was the baltov Ted muak so he gave his son the name of his rebi that the balatan loved dearly and the rebi loved the balatan dearly and the mler rebbi was an extraordinary sadic tremendous tremendous sadic a Mystic sadic very very unusual person he was not Reby that long they tell one story about him which is not the story I want to tell but I'll mention it since I mentioned his name that he refused to be called up to the Torah he refused used to get an Aliyah except on Sim Torah when children got an Aliyah he went up with the children he said he was ashamed to stand before God's Torah he says what gives me the right you know God's Torah is connected to God right we say Torah and God and Israel are one he says I'm in the presence of God he says I'm ashamed I can't stand I can't do that when little children go up so I can go up too but he would only have an Aliyah when little children okay but here's the story I want to say that's connected to the to it really is such a a marvelous and a beautiful story he says one time the Balki was reading the to that this is going to happen and this is going to happen and there'll be famine and sickness and disease and you'll eat your children the worst things imaginable and the mler rebbi fainted he was so distraught over this pain over this suffering over this punishment he couldn't take it he fainted eventually he was revived but somebody asked him a very obvious question this is not the first time you've heard these pukin red you hear it every year and with the other to twice a year you never fainted before why did you faint now so he said well most of the time my father is the Balki the alter rebe was B when he read the to it didn't seem so bad this week the balatan was out of town so I heard it from another balore for the first time I realized how bad it is I fainted what does he mean when my father read it it wasn't so bad because one of the things you got to know about the to the to describes God's anger God's punishment God's rejection but that's only Theus that is the external shell of those him in that externality there is an inner meaning that everything that happens comes from love God cares about the Jewish people God wants us to be the best we could possibly be he wants us to be holy and pure and good so when we're not doing the right things there's going to be a discipline in the world but the discipline comes from Love And the fact that the Jewish people may get it worse than other nations is because God cares more about so he said there's the of the there's the external shell of the and then there's the pineus of the to the inner meaning of the to when my father read it he somehow uncovered the inner meaning of it so I was able to Bear it the other B I'm sure he was a very person but he was not able to access the pineus all I'm hearing is Theus Theus is terrifying I painted I couldn't take it so that's why I fainted specifically for this recitation when I didn't do it when my father father ready and that's a meditation that we can have as we read about the awful things that will happen and indeed as we know the awful things that have happened to understand maybe not to understand but at least to believe and to feel that on some level that maybe we don't fully comprehend this comes from the love that God has for us to bring us to a better place to bring us to a higher place to bring us to levels of Purity and closeness to Hashem that sometimes take drastic measures we hope we can bypass those measures but that's part of the process of growth sometimes and therefore if we could access the pineus we could feel the love of Hashem even in the awesomely frightening verses of the you know the brisker r the last R of bris who uh came to erel after after the World War II and died in erel he and the Kish were considered to be the gdle gdle hador so the brisar was in the wara ghetto for part of the time uh he was managed to be smuggled out before the ghetto was destroyed and the brisar had what you might describe as a nervous temperament meaning he was always worried whether he did mitzvos properly he was say did I say Kish right did I because his us Shay was very very strong but in the warto the warto was hell on Earth I mean one has to understand what was going on in the warto uh there was St death by starvation there were disease there were dead bodies in the street besides the scheduled deportations you could be killed at random a Nazi might just decide to have a little fun pick up a gun and shoot I that's how it was you just be walking just pick up a gun and shoot you so it was a world that was so chaotic so filled with evil so filled with suffering and the brisar ROV seemed to be functioning pretty well he was giving his Shor he was learning Torah he was calm he was Serene so somebody had the nerve to ask him it is a nervy question he says you know Reby you're so nervous most of the time and how come you're so calm in the war so ghetto doesn't make sense so the brisar said I'll tell you I'm nervous whenever something is up to me to do mitos whether I do a Mitzvah properly or not is not up to God it's up to me because as say everything is in the hands of Heaven the decision to fear God is up to me me I got to do the Mitzvah properly hasm is not going to guarantee anything so I'm worried are myin Kosher is my M kosher that I say shma right did I say Kish right I am worried because it's up to me I can make a lot of mistakes but what if you're in a situation where there's absolutely nothing you can do there's no way you can protect yourself there's nothing you can do to make things better some people would go crazy some people might commit suicide but he said that's specifically the situation that calms me down because when I know that I'm not in control and I know it's not up to me then I know it's God's job if it's God's job it's going to be okay now let me explain something when the brisar up said it's going to be okay he he didn't mean it's going to have a happy ending he lost his wife in the Holocaust he lost children in the Holocaust he was not taking the panish idea everything will have a happy ending there is tragedy in life there is suffering in life things happen that are sometimes very difficult but he means they're not random they're not chaotic they are not acts of hatred or Revenge they come from Love And if it comes from love then even though I don't get it I don't understand it and it doesn't make sense to me I can have a Serenity as I ride through this crisis and the brisker upset I I want to maybe happy is not the right word but I can become I can manage it because it's not up to me and therefore that gives me strength to know that I'm not in charge empowers me to go through life with a certain calmness of spirit I'll tell you another story about the RIS grov that's connected to this the brisar eventually was smuggled out of the war Soto this is before the destruction of the ghetto and he found refuge in Switzerland now one thing I don't understand for some reason everybody in the world respects Swiss neutrality I mean even you know even Hitler doesn't touch Switzerland I don't know why I mean Hitler didn't care about anything else but Switzerland you don't touch right so the neutrality of Switzerland is the one you solded like every nation in the world no matter what Russia CH you know whatever it is Switzerland you don't touch so the bris had to get to Switzerland with with some of his younger children and I think he I believe I don't want to say for sure believe he had to impersonate being a non-jew I think he shaved off his beard to look like a Polish uh Polish person they were given fake papers but the papers weren't great so if anybody would check them you know it's very likely that they would be put and they're in a c you know in a cab or a car you know smuggling know the whole smuggling industry of taking people out of these out of these countries and the brisker of told his children and this is from their great great-grandfather of now the is not AIC book obviously and the doesn't have sigos or magic things that you say but there is oneula in the he says a person should always contemplate the verse that you were shown that only God is the Elohim there is nothing besides God and the bmov and say the same explanation does not mean there's no other God besides God it actually means there's no other thing besides God there is nothing besides hem we are just different manifestations or reflections of divinity if a person thinks in his mind there is nothing but God then all of the external en enemies that could drag him down they disappear they become empowered only by virtue of my thoughts that they have power I remove my thought from them and I realize they're nothing they become nothing I once heard from aabad sh that this is very comforting to him he has aabad house or a show has a show and he doesn't like the president and he do not get along so it's very difficult every shabas he has to sit next to the president so he say he thinks to him self this person does not really exist so he says it makes it much easier for him a only hasem only Hashem exists so that's a way if we have difficulties with people we might take this in mind Butner said if you meditate on a mil you will be protected now again I'm I'm not giving any guarantees to anyone because you might have to be on a certain level but this is what he said so the brisar RV told his CH children as we're going through all the different checkpoints don't remove your concentration from there is nothing but God and they were driving through many hours and they went through checkpoint after checkpoint they were waved through nobody asked to look at the papers and finally there was the spinal checkpoint that would give them I don't know the all the geography but you know many countries were already under Nazi occupation all the way up to the Swiss border was under Nazi occupation was the final entry into neutral Switzerland and initially they were waved through but then some guard said you know we ought to check papers we shouldn't just wave people through and they stopped the car and they're going to check the papers and the brisar said to his son did you stop thinking about anod noada and the son said yes I saw the guards and I got scared the bris says start concentrating again the sun started concentrating and all of a sudden one guard said to the other you know it's late we have a change of shift I want to go home I haven't eaten for 10 hours let the guy go what's the difference another person going into Switzerland who cares and they waved him through and that's how the bris Grove got the safety through the notion of recognizing a so a is how we look at the to as well that all of these come from God to elevate Us in different ways and if we can get Beyond Theus the externality and look at the pineus that could give us again I I don't want to call it happiness I mean you don't you're not happy in suffering that's wouldn't be the right word but at least you find a a meaning a calmness a Serenity an ability to move forward to go forward not to be stuck right and that's I think the beautiful story of the mler rebbi in which he says when my father read the to it wasn't so bad I don't know what what is but nevertheless uh two weeks ago but nevertheless we're in the season so I could talk about the OM for seven weeks that would be legitimate a legitimate discussion and I want to go back to the interesting point that the Torah describes the Mitzvah of counting the OM starting mimar the day after shabas you shall start counting the day after chabas now you know and I think I mentioned it I'm sure you know it over the years that the meaning of that was a major major argument between the SES that St Kim who did not believe in the oral tradition and these SES and this is followed by the modern kites say that shabas means Saturday like it always means and therefore the day after shabas is Sunday and you always start counting the OM the Sunday after PES in other words Begins the Sunday after PES our tradition is very different we do not say that shabas means Saturday in that verse rather shabas means the holiday of PES the first day of PES and that's also a shabas because we refrain from work andabas is the day after that holiday which is the second day of p in other words we interpret chabas not to mean chabas of creation but chabas refers to yam which can also be called shabas and this is absolutely our our messah right that's why we always count spus H the second day of PES whatever day of the week it is doesn't have to be on a Sunday so the question that one might raise as a technical matter is if shabas doesn't mean chabas in that verse then why does the Torah use the word chabas why does the Torah use chabas to describe PES it ought to say you shall count well the truth is now you might say well let it say you shall count the day after PES but that actually wouldn't wouldn't be good either because PES in the Torah often does not refer to the 15th of Nissan it refers to the 14th of Nissan when we brought the car P therefore would have been I'm sorry would have been 15 of right so is not good either but the could have given a date the Torah says on the 16th of start hunting the why would thees use the word shabas to refer to P so let me share with you very uh interesting thoughts of the and he says the following if we ask what is the difference between shabas and yam Hally there are two halic differences between chabas and yum on chabas the 39 M are totally prohibited unless it's it's a matter of life and death on yum the MOs are permitted for cooking and for food preparation so yes there there are M prohibitions on yum but there's a head there of what is called nees food preparation and by the way that's broaden to include other yum need so I can carry a sitter or or whatever it is so difference number one between chabas and yam is chabas does not have a het of nees food preparation y has a heter of food preparation difference number two is in the nature of the Holiness of chabas and yam the Holiness of chabas is an automatic feature of the passage of time every seventh day the Holiness of chabas enters the world even if God forbid God forbid there would not be a single Jew who keep chabas the day would still be chabas the Holiness of chabas does not depend on any human activity yam is very different for the following reason yam all yam dates are based on rodes X number of days from a new moon R is day one p day 15 from Nissan suus day 15 right it's all based on r nowes in the time of theik was not an astronomical thing it required an official Proclamation by the Sanhedrin based on Witnesses and the gumar explains this a famous mishna even if the Sedin proclaimed the wrong day ases the holidays are based on their determination in other words if they proclaim the wrong day yum Kipper will be the 10th Day from the wrong Roes not from the astronomical roses in other words the Holiness of Y which depends on the sanctification of the new moon which depends on the Jewish people sanctifying it the Holiness comes from us not from God now you may say well that may be true when there was a temple but today we have a predetermined calendar we're not sanctifying it even today the ramban explains this is quite amazing the only reason we have yamim toim today is because the last Sanhedrin calculated all of the rishes in advance until the year 6000 that's quite a number of years and they declared ahead of time that those days would be holy without the kidush of a Sanhedrin there would be no yam at all no yam to let's take the year 6000s the Jewish calendar only goes up to the year 6000 now standing alone that's a meaningless statement because the the the numbers and the calculations of the Jewish calendar can be predicted to millions of years from now what do we mean the calendar ends the year 6000 we don't mean the calculations end but we mean the formal sanctification of rodes ends at 6,000 because we believe mashia will come on or before that point and then we'll go back to the old system of witnesses so this would mean if counterfactually again counterfactually mashiach would not come by the year 6000 the holiday cycle would stop it would stop you would no longer keep R Yumer sh por you would still keep shabas because any day that is X number of days from Roes and every holiday every Y is X number of days from a r has to have a Sanctified Roes because we control the kadus this idea that chabas is automatic kadua and yum requires our active sanctification is very clearly seen in the lurgical formation of the Bros in the amida on shabas we say madesh blessed art you God you God sanctify shabas we Sayes you sanctify Israel and through your sanctification of Israel they are able to sanctify the holidays very exact on chabas you don't say mesas there actually is a there actually is an opinion that says that but we don't we don't pass him that way so when it's both Y and shabas look at how exact the wording of the braa is see how logical the structure is you God sanctify the shabas without us theim the holidays come from the Holiness of Israel so these are the two differences between yum and chabas the dispensation for food preparation and the fact that we control the Holiness goes on and says these two differences emanate from a philosophical idea that explains both of them and that is shabas represents an ideal that is not directly connected to the Jewish people shab commemorates the fact that God made the world in six days and rested on chabas that is not a uniquely Jewish idea it's interesting that God gave us chabas as a gift but that's why it's a gift because it's not anything that really belongs to us rightfully shabas should belong to the world shabas existed before there were Jews shabas existed independent of a Jewish people and that explains why shabas does not Bend for our needs like cooking because shabas is independent of us and that's why we don't control the Holiness of shabas yam however is intimately connected to God's unique relationship with am Israel there wouldn't have been a PES had God not taken the Jewish people out of M there wouldn't have been a shos had God not given the Torah to the Jewish people Suk us whether it commemorates the Huts that we had when we left Egypt or the Clouds Of Glory it's all connected to the uniqueness of God's relationship with am Isel the sh are about our history our narrative our story our relationship with the almighty therefore says the because yum only exists because of us it bends to our needs if we need to cook if we need to carry we can do so because yam is kind of belongs to us in fact that's why the is very clear that you're not allowed to cook on y foru the bending ofes is because yam is the special relationship God has to the Jewish people that also explains why we control the timing we control the kadha yff comes from us therefore on some level we're masters of yum in a way that we're not masters of chabas and that's why it's shabas that's called a special gift because a gift is something we didn't earn that doesn't belong to us because chabas doesn't belong to us but God gave it to us see PES is not called a a gift in a sense because of course PES is a Jewish holiday because we're the ones that were taken out of Egypt so if we understand that shabas represents something which we didn't earn which we're not entitled to of which we have no control over and yti represents something that belongs to us so says the of all of the holidays p is the closest to shabas it's not quite chabas because l p is certainly a celebration of hashem's unique relationship to us but there's something shabis about PES because pesak was something we didn't earn PES was something we weren't entitled to number one we should have been in MIT for 400 years but God took us out because we were descending to the 49th level of Tuma and Beyond had we stayed another minute we would have disappeared he took us out early K describe us as being naked from the mitzvos without Merit we didn't deserve but God gave us a gift beyond what we were entitled to the maid servants saw at the Red Sea what even the naesco did not perceive when he saw the Divine so PES is a y to be sure but pesak is called chabas because it is the least earned see shabos we earned we earned it a little bit shabos we earned it by working to purify ourselves sukos comes after yum Kipper when we worked on P is an unearned gift and therefore it's very analogous to chabas that's a mat that's a mat so now let's take this a little further the Mitzvah of counting the OM is the day after chabas as as defined why the day after why not the first day why don't you start counting especially if the whole idea of SP is you want to connect Freedom with Torah so start on the first day freedom and Torah why the second day so let me start off with an interesting teaching of rman of bre who said this in the name of the balov the bmov was his great grandfather he says how come it is that when a person becomes a balua you become new to Judaism everything is so vibrant everything is so fresh everything is so exciting everything is so beautiful and as you get habituated things become routinized wrote I lack gmach I lack excitement how could it be that I get bored with Mitzvah now the simple answer you'll give me is well it's human nature the human nature uh is that uh the more you do something it gets boring but that doesn't make sense when it comes to Mitzvah diminishing returns is not a logical construct because if doing Mitzvah and learning Torah bring me closer to God then how can it be the bmov asked that the more I do the less close I feel that's perverse that doesn't make sense you're telling me do Mitzvah it makes you close to God but I do them again and again and again more and more and more and more and it doesn't seem to change me in that way so the BM gave a wonderful musall of a baby imagine a baby that's learning to walk the baby's ready to walk and what happens is the parents hold on to the baby's shoulders and the baby takes one step and another step and look it's going good at some point the parents let go because they feel the child is kind of ready what's going to happen inevitably is plop the child is going to fall now one thing I have to remark on that is no matter how many times the child Falls he will get up again that itself is very remarkable a child never gives up we are hardwired to keep going if we learn failure in life that's an acquired behav Behavior that's not an innate behavior the notion of I give up I mean I remember when my son now as a father of his own in his in his 30s my son in Baltimore mosha I remember when he was learning to crawl this is before walking even crawl and crawling was so excruciatingly hard he was pulling himself on the floor and I was thinking to myself why is he torturing himself why is he bothering to do that who's telling him he has to move his toys are right there what's in him is propelling him to go the answer is this is the mysterious Force Hashem put within us you got to keep going and when it comes to walking as many times as the child Falls he will get up and by the way I think I mentioned last week that that was an important lesson of LBA om itself that we sometimes neglect that after AB hea lost 24,000 students he started again with five now from a pragmatic perspective a person might as well say 24,000 five I what's the purpose of that and yet from that five came the mishna and the Talma the Babylonian tal the Jerusalem tal all the commentaries all of the you don't give up you keep on going but the child does fall now the child might be frustrated the child could verbalize their thought the child might be wondering why was it so easy a minute ago to walk and now it's so hard why is it so hard what's going on the answer is it was easy because Mom and Dad were holding on to you now you got to take what we showed you make it your own that's going to be hard but it's much more meaningful because it now becomes yours says the balov this is how the Chua process works when a person is very far from God they're not connected to Torah they're not connected to mitzvos so God has to carry them God has to show them that this is good so so there's kind of an artificial high oh shabas is wonderful and kosher is wonderful and benching is wonderful right there's all sorts of jokes I mean they're they're cruel jokes but there's a lot there's some truth in them un it's often the case and that you know they say the goal of a BAL Chua is to be fully integrated into the F community so I can walk into a sh and I wouldn't know that he's a balua right that's the goal total normalization so how do I know when I've achieved that status so all of the answers are uniformally negative when you talk during doting you've made it you're normal when you bench in two minutes you're normal in other words the concept is we think all the passion and excitement is only oh the guy's diving too long of Shimon he must be a Bala he's not he's not one of us you know I remember I went into a show I don't want to say what city and they asked me as soon as they entered the show in my talker or a non- talker so I said well I I you know I'm more more or less a non- talker I'm not fanatic but you know I try to be a non- talker uh so they said okay we reserve the upper right hand quadrant for non- talker they literally had like two uh rows for non-talkers and the rest you know you could kept on going and going and going so uh the Balto's idea is when you're new and you're far God lifts you up to show you how beautiful it is he then puts you down and says I've shown you the mountain now you have to climb it with your work and with your effort and just like the baby ABA and IMA are still there to protect the baby Hashem is always there but he lets go a little bit so it becomes us we have to internalize it we have to take what Hashem has shown us and make it our own through our effort and through our work and therefore the balov says andman concludes that counter intuitively when a person experiences difficulties in their service of God that is hashem's vote of confidence that they're ready for Hashem to let go a little bit so they could make it their own therefore don't get discouraged it's God basically saying I'm letting go so you can make it your own this is a thought the rman says based on the bov's teaching the Elder Reb who of course does not quote rman well he sometimes quot B but he doesn't quote any of them here but he offers a very similar thought and he says that's the difference between PES and shab PES God gave us a gift that was beyond our comprehension we saw the hand of God in an open Supernatural miraculous way the 10 plagues of Egypt the splitting of the Red Sea we saw Miracles we saw Miracles beyond what the greatest prophets saw it's as if God lifted us up even though we're on the 49th level of Tuma and we were undeserving to show us what a relationship to God could be he then says I've shown you what you can become now I'm putting you on the ground and you got to become it and therefore unlike pesak which represents suddenness of re of Revelation shu is a gradual incremental process day by day step by step we improve ourselves a little bit at a time we walk slowly so we reach Mount Si and the like and that is why the balatan says the counting of the OM is the day after chabas because chabas as chabas represents what God gives you that you didn't earn and that's what PES is PES is like chabas in that way but this is the next day this is the next step this is a different PES showed us our potentiality and Shas are focused on the actualization of our potentiality the balatan concludes that this may be the meaning of a verse in shirim you know shirim of course is written as a love song and uh there's actual erotic imagery although it's mild but there's very passionate erotic imagery that there were rabinal opinions who wanted to exclude shirim from the tanak because they said it's romantic it does it's not holy the great savior of Shir was RAB Akiva RAB AKA taught if all of the songs of Tanakh Are Holy shirim is the holiest of holy because it is a metaphor it is an allegory it is describing the passionate love that Hashem has for the Jewish people Hashem is the male figure and the passionate love that the Jewish people have for Hashem for they Israel are the female figure and therefore every aspect of Shir has to be understood in the allegorical deeper meaning of the relationship of am Isel and so just to give you an example of how poignant this is there is a scene in shirim which even even on a romantic level is very poignant and moving about a woman who is pining for her lover and they've been separated and she's gone to bed already she's in her bed and the lover comes and is knocking at the door saying please open up the door I want to be with you and the woman plays a little COI a little hard to get she says oh I've already gone to bed for the night I've taking off my shoes how can I get my feet dirty you can imagine playing a little hard to get and finally she gets up and she opens the door and her lover is not there anymore he left that's that's always the danger of being hard to hard to get he left so she wanders the city in the middle of the night looking for him and people beat her and people abuse her and they say what's so special about your guy what do you care about him and she says how special he is now even in a very literal even the The Love Story aspect of it he kind of moving and Powerful but think about it in terms of God and and am Israel call do my beloved is knocking I want to redeem you I want to be close to you I'm ready for G but we're not ready we're sleeping and we finally get our act together and we're ready it's not the time the time has passed now is not the time and we're looking and we're looking and we're looking but it's not the time because there's a time a time in a place we don't know exactly the dynamic but not every time we want it is it going to be there Hashem has his schedule so that's the thing of shiram that it's always this double meaning that you got to keep in mind this is RAB aka's Insight that shiram is a mush of the love between God and the Jewish people so in the very beginning of the song where the woman is speaking she cries out to her lover who's not there but this is almost an imaginary thought that she has like as if she's talking to him she says pull me after you pull me with you naruta so we can run together so the Zoar says the following comments pull me after you is what happened on PES so we can run together is sh what's theot pull me after you is like pulling a sack of potatoes pull me pull me PES we were not worthy we were not deserving we didn't have any autonomous strengths so God pulled us out of Egypt but by the time we get to shos we have a certain reciprocity we're running with God we've worked we've improved we've internalized we've raised ourselves not that we're equal of course that's not the case but we're no longer the passive recipients of God's grace we have earned it through our aod and what you earn through your aod may not be as exciting because it comes with effort and suffering but it's much more meaningful than the freebie gifts that a person gets you know um I'm sure all of you know the minog that when a boy is born so the shabas before the bris we make a party Friday night before the bris we make a party that's called Shalom Z we welcome the Z and one of the foods that's served at the party is arbis chickpeas right so why do you serve chickpeas because chickpeas is the food of a mner because it's round and uh it Comforts a person that bad times become good times why are you serving arbis though mourning what are you mourning about so it says you're offering to the baby because before the baby was born the baby learn the whole Torah in the mother's womb and when the baby is born the angel hits the hits the baby on the lip and the baby forgets everything but apparently the baby is aware that he has forgotten everything and that's why babies cry they cry because they mourn the Torah that they no longer have so we Comfort the baby that's why by the way it's interesting people ask the question if if the mother and the baby are in the hospital where should you make the Shalom Zar the truth of the matter is the Shalom Zar should be made where the baby is I understand it's not easy to make it in the hospital and people might people might might not be able to come they're not there but Hally the Shalom Zar is not for the parents the Shalom Zar is to comfort the baby for the baby's loss of Torah learning so you could ask a very simple question number one what's the purpose of teaching the baby Torah if the baby's going to lose it all so there the answer is the Holiness gets imprinted on his soul just like they said by bicycle riding uh you never forget how to do it so yes he forgets all the information but that Holiness is there so when he connects to it again there'll be a Deja Vu experience that's one thing but then the question is so why does he have to lose it if he learned the whole t let him keep it the answer is I mean I know I know it would be difficult to have a baby who starts talking about Ramba mosos but in theoretic let him have it the answer is the Torah he got without effort isn't worth that much and therefore God says I showed you this Torah but now you got to make it your own in fact again it's not such a strong question but let me just mention this people ask a question that why am I not obligated no you're obligated to stand up for a right a big comes in you're supposed to honor him so when I have a pregnant woman who might be carrying a baby who knows the whole Torah shouldn't I be obligated to stand up for a pregnant woman so One technical answer might be well since he's inside of the woman's body that's like being in a in a separate house right if is in a house across the street I don't have to stand up for him so the mother's body is a separate domain that's a technical answer but the other answer is hey I don't honor people who happen to know that's like saying I have to honor a computer because uh you know all of the Torah is on the computer do I have to stand up for a computer even for AI for chat I don't because it didn't work on it I honor because of the work that they put in not because they happen to know a lot right so that's the idea that P is this now again I understand that we work plenty cleaning the ases what I'm talking about what God showed us what God showed us was a Revelation beyond our effort as opposed to shos we had earned it we had worked for it and therefore It ultimately has more enduring value and that is why the counting of the OM is the day after shabas because it represents a madrea above shab it's the madrea of what you as opposed to what you are given they say about the vong that Angels would offer him all sorts of explanations of Torah as gifts and he ref refused to accept them if they weren't a product of his concentrated effort he turned them down as where he said I only want the Torah that comes to me through my effort and through my work so want to wish everyone a a wonderful chabas and uh we should all be to prepare for the cab and uh once again uh just to repeat the dedications but we all have to think about this that all those who are suffering all those who are in distress among is should have Yeshua and GA andu and it should be [Music] some sh