Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: The Election of Israel and Everlasting Love

[Music] okay tonight she or is dedicated to the referee leymah of Heinz feed Mariska avi Yaakov ansara bail above Lima and alone Yehuda Yosef been on that Miriam okay yeah good evening everybody tonight I want to speak a little bit about the coming weeks parsha and the haftorah and until now purchase purchase purchase Noah the primary concern you might say is world history how the world came into existence the fate of humanity the regeneration of humanity but now towards the end of last week's parsha and now the beginning we now have a focus on a particular family within the Jewish race there are within the human race that God has chosen to enter into a covenant relationship with and that is of course Avraham Avinu it's commonly stated that Avraham Avinu is the first Jew that's a common statement that's made that's actually a very confusing statement because exactly what does it mean to be a Jew if you don't yet have the Torah you don't get that the mitzvahs certainly there was not my thumb Torah yet because I'll have a tradition that the avos kept the whole Torah before it was given but now that's a tradition and even if that even if that is the case it certainly was not mandatory so what makes somebody a Jew so to speak in the absence of Torah and how can you define algorithm as the first Jew if I promise progeny Yeshua L was not and even your tux at one of your trucks children also was not so of anything perhaps Yaakov could be called the first Jew because all of his children are Jewish no there's even a modern saying that people think what makes you a Jew is that your mother is a Jew it is Jewish but some say the truth of the matter is you're a Jew if your grandchildren are Jewish meaning you have to look at it in terms of the future not just in terms of the of the past but the one thing we can say even if maybe calling Avram the first Jew is not totally accurate Avram is the first human in history with whom God made a particular istic covenant that was limited to his seed now there's when God made a covenant with Noah that covered the entire human race when we come to out rom there's already a sense of narrowing of focus of choosing of what we call election right is the theological term the election of Israel which is actually a major concept in Christian theology whether that election was superseded or replaced we of course believe it was it was not and it's very interesting that the parsha begins with Hashem coming to Avram at the age of 75 and telling him leave your father leave your place of birth go to the land that I will show you I will make you a great nation and those who bless you will be blessed and those who curse you will be cursed and you will be the source of blessing for the whole world now before we even get into commentaries it's quite quite remarkable just say those words in best in Hebrew and think of those words and think about how true those words actually have been those who bless you will be blessed and those who curse you will be cursed many of point yep right I will bless those who bless you correct I will bless those who bless you if you think about for example many have said that the great great success of let's say the United States in becoming such a dominance world's power from relatively humble beginnings of thirteen colonies many have said it was God's blessing because they treated the Jewish people with relative decency and freedom God gave them blessing you know there was a columnist they mentioned this this article a few times I think in the course of our she aureum but a few years ago there was a column in one of the European newspapers I think it was in Spain it was a Spanish journalist who was writing about what's happening to Europe with the Islamic invasion of Europe in which really civilizations that are centuries old our kind of in grave danger whether it's Germany whether it's France to some degree to a lesser degree but even in even in the United Kingdom and the like and the person made the observation a non Jew he made the observation that seventy seventy five years ago Europe decided that the Jews were too much of a trouble that they were a hindrance they were a virus they had to be eradicated and therefore Europe made a decision you know in the course of the Holocaust to kind of get rid of the Jews and God said to them okay you don't want the Jews we'll give you the Muslims instead and now after seventy years which would you rather have chosen what was the better choice I will bless those who will bless you and those who curse you I will curse can the remark of a remarkable statement we have suffered tremendously we continue to suffer tremendously so perhaps we don't we don't always get the blessing that we bring to the world that's very very true but myself it's it is the case that we bring that blessing to the world but what's interesting is if we ask the simple question why did God choose our friend God appears to that realm when he's 75 years old and says I'm choosing you go to the land I will make a covenant with you I will bless you and your children and you will be a source of blessing to the world but if you ask the question why there actually is in the biblical text itself no reason that is given at least at that particular time later God says I love our prom because he does justice and kindness but that's kind of after I Shem has the relationship with him now we know because I'll give us a whole backstory that's actually not in the text of the Flemish itself remember cuz I'll say that Abraham's father Terah was an idle merchants and Avram was put in charge of the idols and Avram started chopping up the idols and he put an axe in the hand of an idol and when his father said what happened to the merchandise Avram said oh when I will attack the other Idol and Terah said that's crazy idols can't fight so Avram said so why do you worship them and Ephraim got into trouble he was thrown into a fiery furnace King Nimrod and Avram was saved from the Kipp generation that is why it says a sham took over a mother for costume again in pewter shall make war custom is simply a place but literally it means the furnace of the Chaldeans that he was meet south from the kitchen IH but the important thing to note here is the Torah itself makes no mention of that story of war custom that nekoma Leibovitz tells an interesting story sheshe was making a point in one of her lectures that sometimes people confuse the Meldrick with the biblical text itself there are some aggression that are so familiar to us that were absolutely sure it's in the Commission and it's almost as if when we read the club pitch which we think we're reading this Meldrick when in fact the mattress is not in the Commish and she told the story that she was giving a krumitz class to a group of senior our officers of the IDF of the town and these were likely not religious people and she mentioned this points for example everybody knows the story of Avraham and the fiery furnace but it's not in the Commish so this gruff general who it was very far from being an observant person started saying zeldo no hog Anissa Helou madatha Hamas can she eat the yellow cotton I remember when I learned Kailash when I was a small child of course there's the story of Avraham in the furnace and he's a character so in a coma as she liked to be called gahafer mater knocked and said find me where the story is so language wasn't a problem obviously Hebrew was his language so he's turning the pages looking looking looking looking he can't find it so finally he says to nakami give me the whole text don't give me in the bridge to the volume and she made the point that were so used to Midrash him as part of the story that we think it actually is in the story actually I'll give you another example which is actually very very noticeable everybody knows in Miguel a gesture because Vashti refused to appear that AHA Pharaohs had her executed and then he chose Esther so if I were to ask you find me in McGill not Esther the pass silk that says Vashti was killed everybody knows that's what happened well if you open up the McGill address there you actually see that the simple suit Osho Micra is a share lotor velocity with mayhem Ella that she was banished put into the harem and was no longer permitted to have unlimited access to the king and the ebenezer indeed says that the precious out of the Pacific is Vashti was simply recycled back into the general harem and she no longer had her prominence as Queen it's only cause Alice interpretation that frosty was actually killed again I think this is an example that we literally think that the Pacific says it when in fact it doesn't so the question becomes this as far as the text is concerned if we ask why God chose chooses a crown there's no reason that's given at all it comes out of the blue because I'll give us a backstory the miracle of war custom et cetera but that's not in the text and why isn't it in the text so I just want to share with you a thoughts of the morale of Prague morale says a beautiful powerful thoughts perky of us tells us call ova she hates Hulu you over any love that is contingent on something conditional love I love you because of something well there's a risk in that love but Patel devar when the particular factor gets nullified but lava the love goes away Ahava Shana - Lia be cover but a love that is intrinsic and unconditional then even if the factors which caught might cause you to love a person initially go away that love is still going to endure generally speaking at least under proper conditions the love of a parent to infer a child is supposed to be at least an unconditional love I might be proud of my child because of his accomplishments etc but even if my age at I'm CEO he's not accomplishing I may be very sad I may be upset I may even be angry but I still love them so there is a silicon be sleep between what is called Alva Tolui observe what Varsha anatolyevich over the Morrell says the following the Torah wants to communicate to us that God's love for amuse realm is an unconditional love no matter how low we sink no matter how bad we become now granted Dobie punishments unconditional love does not mean everything goes unconditional love does not mean you don't have responsibility or accountability there is of course a look there is of course Quran and in many ways if you love your child you will have discipline when it's appropriate but God will never abrogate his covenant with them Israel so here's what the morale said if the Taira would have said because Avraham was righteous and he did ABC that's why I chose him that would have implied that the election of Israel is a Nava hallelujah a devar if it would be in our virtu Lu Yabba d'Ivoire then Hospital on Butler d'Ivoire when we become unworthy but La Cava so here is the story God certainly had his reasons God had his reasons however and was righteous I've run was holy of course got out his reasons but once God made the choice it becomes an unconditional election and therefore the Torah describes the choice of Avraham as God simply falling in love with the man with the man and what he represented and the Torah specifically does not give you a reason so it should always be an average ain't no Tagliabue doubler now the morale says therefore the notion of the uncondition allottee of a shem stress and as you know as i said in the beginning of my remarks this is actually a major issue in both Christian and to a lesser degree but in Islamic theology as well the concept that the Jewish people have forfeited their choice of God by God because of their sins and the like now it's very very true that we acknowledge that sins create galoots and sins creates horrible and since create punishment and we accept that and we say in the Amidah me Panera Mustapha Panera Tony no goalie no me are saying we were exiled because of our sins we don't deny that but at the same time it is the belief of the Jim that God's choosing the Jewish people as his nation can never be abrogated and the morale says because it's falls within the category of Allah Shana to Louie observer yeah yeah it's very interesting God did make yeah the question was that after the golden calf God did say to Moshe I will destroy this nation and I will make a new covenant with you and Moshe Rabbeinu refused the deal what rana said if you erase them then erase me so there are two possibilities so the question that's being asked is if it is true that God's relationship with the Jewish people can never be destroyed then how could God be suggesting he'll destroy the Jewish people and make a covenant with Moshe so right so one one answer I think the simplest answer is Moshe is Jewish so God is basically saying yeah I have this irrevocable covenant with the Jewish people I'll make it with this one tenth of one percent of the Jewish people and the rest I'm going to cut off that's one answer another answer might be and this is already a bit theologically tricky that God sometimes states positions that he doesn't really mean because he wants you as the defender of Israel to argue dr. Doleman mo is a good example when Hashem says to Avram I'm gonna destroy Saddam he wants Abraham to argue and for such a district did the my son destroy Saddam but sometimes I coach Mark who states something that might appear to be a missionary and unjust in order to invite a response he wanted Moshe to fight he wanted Moshe to come out and argue with him that itself was the ruts own ruts on of Hashem yeah well the reason is because I've runs arguments that you where he wanted Avram to make the attempt in the case of Moshe it worked a little different there it actually motions arguments actually worked but there is a concept that Hakodesh barker wants people to become defenders of others because that's part of how they develop qualities of kindness and empathy that is a possibility yeah that was going to be my other topic tonight but yeah yeah that's that's correct as you know it's a very well known statement of the ZOA Ricardo's that Noah should have prayed for his generation that could very well be that that's a possibility you have to look at Noah's drunkenness as an expression of sadness at the devastation of contemplating a destroyed world I mean imagine if we woke up one day and like the twilight zone stories the guy was hiding in the bank vault or whatever it is and he comes up and there was a nuclear war it was a famous Twilight said about a guy who lost his glasses whatever it is okay he loved to read and finally the world was empty finally he has time to read and then his glasses breaks and well okay whatever but the point is he wakes up to a world which is totally devastated one can understand that you just have to drink away your sadness and if Noah felt he had some responsibility for not praying then indeed that would compound that sadness so that is a good point yeah you know showing up around this unconditional love with return to God yep that is a good point that the Abraham's commitment to God was an unconditional commitment yeah yeah that could very well be that's right that's right and in fact I want to go back again I've mentioned this before - forgive me but I want to go back to a story of the Navajo Shia Oh Shia was a Navi of the ten tribes this is before the destruction of the temple not yahushua Hosea and the book of Hosea begins with the very strange commandments where Hosea is commanded to marry a well-known prostitutes whose name was Gomer that was her name and he marries this prostitute because God commanded him to marry the prostitute and even after they're married she continues to practice her trade but Hosea who was obviously a man of God he was a prophet became very very attached to her he loved her and when God said to him I'll get rid of her he begged God let me keep her now this is a very strange story a very bizarre story in fact after they talked that some commentary say the whole thing was a prophetic dream meaning Oh Shia did not actually marry a prostitute but this was a dream a prophetic dream that God said them others say it's an actual my Sasha aagha but still what's going on so here cuz I'll give us a very fascinating backstory Hashem comes down Shia and says to him tell the people did their children Oh Shia says to God the Jewish people are like an adulterous wife who has been unfaithful to her husband Oh Shia says to God replace him get somebody better at the very thing that Moshe declines how Shan says replace them get rid of them so Hashem wants so Shia to understand what it's like to be in love with somebody when some level is undeserving but your love is unconditional so you want so Shia to fall deeply in love with an unfaithful wife and when God says get rid of her and their Shia says I can't God says now you know my problem now you understand right now you understand whatever Shana Tolu you the govern the nothing had to experience in his own life whether it's be via dream or or in MYSA had to experience the divine pain the divine love and the morale says this is built in to why there is no reason that is given for the choice of Avraham yes a Shem had reasons of course but the Torah wants to communicate it as if there's no reason and the election of Israel is is such a fundamental pijl that's why as you know the establishment of the State of Israel posed grave grave theological problems for the Vatican that is why for many years I think they recognized Israel now but but for many years for many many years the Catholic Church did not recognize the legitimacy because their concept was that the permanent eggs they looked at exile as a permanent statement of God's rejection of the Jew for not accepting Jesus as a savior and therefore they said it was theologically impossible for the Jewish people to be brought back to the land of israel the God has abrogated his covenant with the Jewish people in fact the Catholic Church one of the names of the catholic church is the new Israel I mean that actually is one of the names they are the new Israel God chose the church so to speak so when the Jewish people finally come back to the land after 2000 almost 2000 years and they have the State of Israel and Jerusalem and everything else the church has to figure out how does that fit with what it's called replacement theology or supersession theology therefore different where it's a real problem alright so they worked out a little bit they became a bit more tolerant John Paul the second called the Jews the older brother of the church okay whatever he kind of softened it a lot but some of the old-time doctrinaire catholics you know they considered him a traitor too you know ever since vatican ii with Pope John and they still have a lot of problems you can call them anti-semitism you can call it whatever you want but but theologically the exist number one the flourishing of the Jewish people and particularly the State of Israel is an enormous ly difficult theological problem for the proponents of replacement or Super Session strg and yet this is what how shia teaches almost a number of movie em talk about the notion that in spite of our sin we are still God's people again I do want to emphasize this does not mean we get a free pass we do not get a free pass as Jewish history indicates but nevertheless the same way a parent disciplines a child God disciplines us God chastises us but the ultimate love is still is still there so that's that's one point that Marah makes that I think is a very very significant point that God's chastisements our out of love and indeed Shalom AHA Melek says in Mitchell II a parsec initially a sigh sherry a a--have Hashem yoky God rebukes he or she that he loves the same way if my child misbehaves I might discipline my child if your child misbehaves I'll get less involved right in some ways discipline is connected to love the more I love you the more I want you to be the best that you can be if that requires chastisement to bring us to chuva then that that will happen now when that room is 99 years old this is a long time later this is after the birth of Ishmael my mom I'm now jumping to the end of the pressure so he's given another Commandments to circumcise and this is a bris called the Covenant right in fact this is a mitzvah theorize of course to this very day that Avram circumcised himself at the age of 99 quite an accomplishment and yet cluck was circumcised that's the next week's part no a week from now when he was eight days old yesh Moyle circumsized at the age of 13 and like I get so edgy this was a year before yet Scott was born when Avram was a hundred years old he had the Brit Milah when he was 99 and Yishmael was 13 in fact according a pretty to reveal the other purgatory a letter actually says that the greatest and most dangerous enemy of the Jewish people are the B'nai Ishmael and they will be our greatest enemy before Messiah comes because they have the power of spirit not just brute force but they have spiritual power number one they have the name of God in their national identity yesh ma l l and y Israel and number two they have the merit of Brits Mila says it's a spiritual merit the Arab Leoben a smile are they are the Arabs right so they are considered to be a dangerous nation because they have spiritual powers that other nations do not have even if those spiritual powers are employed for evil ways be that it made them a fortune mask Akasha if because I'll have a tradition that the avos kept the whole Torah before it was given Avram kept Shabbos I've didn't eat meat and milk in fact that's why when the Angels come he first serves them milk and then gives them meat because if you have the milk before the meat that's permitted etc so how come Avram didn't circumcise himself before God commanded him in other words if you're telling me somehow the Argos knew the Torah before it was given then he would have known about the mitzvot circumcision before it was given yeah right Sir William is roughly one of the great commentaries on Rashi not to be confused with the modern reveal sickness Rafi's as well Yama's roughly goes back to the fifteen hundreds says that there's a general rule that when you do a mitzvah that you're commanded to do that is greater than if you do them it's you're not commanded so every other men swear he could do and if he if he gets commanded he'll do it later Brits rely you only have one chance so he waited so he was commanded but I think there's a more basic simple answer and the more basic simple answer is that the mitzvah of milla is not simply a mitzvah to cut away some skin it is a mitzvah to enter into a covenant shal relationship with God you can't enter into a covenant unless the other side is entering into a covenant with you so until Hashem gave the commandments let us enter into a covenant hour from a venial cutting away the foreskin would have just been an act of self-mutilation it would not have had common mental significance the word Brits covenants that connotes relationship reciprocity connection it's table hood right that's what a Brit is about so what I want to say very very briefly for the remainder of our time is I want to just identify six ideas that the Brit connotes in our heats up hood with a cottage burger how does the ritual of circumcision connote or suggests this idea of being connected to God as his people so I'm gonna make six points like bullet points so to speak point number one the Brit is largely involuntary you're taking a baby that's eight days old you're doing a Brit he's entering into the Covenant he is not deciding to enter into the Covenant it's being done to him he is being acted upon in fact this has created some legal problems you may recall a few years ago a German Court declared now this was in the context of Islamic circumcision but it would have applied the Jewish Brits as well that parents are not allowed to circumcise their their minor child for non-medical reasons because it's considered to be a bodily assault without the informed consent of the victim not for a legitimate medical purpose so a German Court actually prohibited parental supervision of minors now somebody should tell the German courts goes a non-medical super see I'm sorry non-medical circumcision and someone should tell the Germans car it's going to hurt it's going to hurt a lot more when the kid is 18 now it happened to be that the ruling of the German Court was overruled by the German Supreme Court so it's not an active problem but still this will come up at any time I mean there are various anti-circumcision movements that are making the argument that this is a physical assault on a child for a non-medical reason which he has not consent - but I think there's a significance to that the significance of the covenant being involuntary suggests the idea that we are the nation of God whether we like it or not our duty to Hashem is not a function of our mood our feeling I feel like governing today you know I feel like keeping Shabbos today rather there is a notion of course a Shem wants us to be happy in our abode SSM and to serve Hashem simcha but even if you're not inspired even if you're don't feel like doing it today a person has to grow with a sense of commitment a sense of obligation a sense of for a vote that you move ahead even if your particular feelings are not consistent with the Torah that particular day that's the notion of involuntary related to that is the idea that entering into the Brits involves a certain measure of pain it hurts a little bit now it doesn't hurt as much as parents think you know baby cries farther away the baby cries might be because he's cold that may be part of it part of it might be that the sundeck is pressing down on the the legs of the baby that could hurt because you know I was a Sunday yesterday and you know you're always scared to death you'll drop the baby or whatever it is so you you hold it very tight and you know that that may hurt the baby a little bit but still one can't deny that the breath hurts and that's also a poignant reminder that a life of meaning and the life of commitments does involve pain pain on many levels pain in terms of sacrifice pain in terms of giving up things you know you can't just eat anything you want to eat you may give up job opportunities a professional advancement pain in terms of Jews even dying for their beliefs I'll kiddush Hashem you know the old saying in bodybuilding no pain no gain is true in our vote SSM as well there is pain there is struggle learning Torah could be very hard it's very hard person has to concentrate a person has to work because I'll even use the phrase may meat that smell Allah you have to kill yourself over the tone so two preliminary ideas are number one the Brit is involuntary it's not your matter of choice and number two there is going to be pain in this connection there was a very gifted writer reporter journalist her name was Ellen Willis she died a short while ago but many years ago I think all the way back in the 1970s she came from a secular Jewish family in Queens and her brother Michael he still teaches nature therapy right still they still their rights is that yeah so he came to Israel he became religious and the sister thought that somehow he got involved in the cult and he got crazy and she needed to explore what was going on so she came to write an expose and she wrote a quietly a classic article in Rolling Stone magazine of all places I think Rolling Stone figured maybe there was some drug on your ankle here that they were and they gave her they gave her unlimited space I mean she wrote a Ganton article most magazines would not have given her the space that they gave her I remember at the time in the 70s I was living in Chicago and although you know all the rabbi's wanted to get a copy of the paper but they were a little embarrassed they didn't want to walk into a 7-eleven and buy a rolling stone in the middle of the day somebody would see them so I remember one rabbi Wednes moats a Shabbos 2 o'clock in the morning to get this rolling stone because he really wanted to read it and lo and behold two o'clock in the morning the kid that was his Shabbos guests that afternoon happens to walk into the 7-eleven for some beer or something so he sees the rabbi buying the Rowling's and says oh now I know what you got boys do Saturday night you know whatever whatever it is I think I think it's online yeah I think you can get it online so she writes it's a long long story about this and she writes about a conversation that she had with her of Noah Weinberg said Coronel de varela well you know she wants to know what is he trying to do what is going on here etc and it's an amazing conversation and have no aquino talked to her and says what do you think human beings are looking for in life and she said pleasure we seek pleasure and he said you're right he didn't call her a heed method yep we want pleasure says what do you think the opposite of pleasure is so you said well the opposite of pleasure of his pain he said no the opposite of pleasure was comfort so she didn't understand because pleasure comfort they seemed to be roughly the same thing he says no no all pleasure in life requires a certain amount of pain right the pleasure you have in your children is commensurate with the effort you put in to put them on the right path even I don't know if he I don't remember if he gave this example but the example that occurs to me is you have these teenagers who want to be a gymnast in the Olympics by high school kids or even middle school kids so they get up like 4 o'clock in the morning and they push themselves three or four hours before school and they work and they don't sleep and they can't go out and they can't eat pizza they can't enjoy all of the stuff that kids want to enjoy but then at the end there's a triumph there's a victory there's an accomplishment pleasure is what you get after that sacrifice in that work comfort is when you never bother to get out of bed but if Noah said Judaism is not at all a comfortable religion Judaism is a pleasurable religion because it does require struggle and sacrifice and that's the second lesson of the Brit Milah by the way the story the article is so poignant because she I mean you're really wondering what's gonna happen to her because as she's learning more and more about this process what Judaism is what Torah is and with no like anyway I have to tell you was was such a persuasive person I once had a long conversation with them I mean you almost on the verge of jumping off the roof if he told you to do so he really is was absolutely an amazing person in that way because she was so so committed to what he was teaching so he felt that truth and you felt that truth so you're really wondering is she going to become religious because she's agonizing over this and she's getting closer and closer and closer and closer and then at the last minute she pulls away she didn't maybe I shouldn't use this metaphor she didn't jump off the cliff I might imagine I shouldn't describe it that way so unfortunately I believe she never I believe she never became observant but she was very very close to it and her brother to this day he stays in South Africa refined Willis's a we know well-known Masonic and in the kirov in the kirov world but this is a classic story just a fascinating story because in many many ways the stories written by outsiders maybe have more credibility than the stories written by insiders for example the cousin is the best biography of the fuzzyness is really a fictional novel written by the Yiddish writer hi embroider I'm Greta was totally not religious totally not religious but as a young boy he his mother hired the cousin ish to be his tutor and he wrote about the husband ish with unbridled admiration quite amazing even though he himself is not religious and as I say I trust I am Gratus account more than the Tom Edom of the cousin is because if a man who was totally not religious still saw the husband nation's greatness then that's a pretty good indicator of how true that was it's a fictional character meaning save crime Grady wrote novels but his novels were thinly disguised with famous rabbis of the time and everybody knows that one of his characters in his novel was indeed modeled after the progenation this is a very very positive positive portrayal okay so that's lesson number two right lesson number one is involuntary lesson number two is pain no no pain no gain lesson number three is from the safer we know the safer cleaner points out that it's a it's an interesting observation that the Brit Milah the covenant with God is done on a part of the body that on some level is least susceptible to volitional control meaning it's kind of an animalistic function whether it's you know urinating whether it's later sexuality whatever it would be it's something that is not necessarily part of the rational part of man it's part of the animalistic nature of man and here there's a very important lesson then in Arvada hm we recognize that even the materialistic and indeed animalistic parts of our being can be elevated and sanctified and dedicated to a vote at a show you don't only serve God when you dive in and when you learn you can serve God when you're playing basketball when you're jogging when you're eating when you're sleeping it all depends on your motivation a person could understand that I'm going to work to do whatever good I can do in the world to support my family to make a ketose Hashem and then all of those hours of working are treated at service of a college wardrobe we make a very unfortunate dichotomy when we divide life into the spiritual and the physical once again that is a teaching that some religions have so in the in the Catholic Church once again the highest ideal is celibacy and even a vow of poverty and of course without addressing how successful that has been in that particular contact think I don't know get into that but that is based on the notion of fragmentation and dichotomy in which the physical animalistic urges are essentially evil or not good and you achieve holiness by disengagement from that to whatever degree that you can although total disengagement is not possible Judaism says you can embrace even the physical and animalistic and elevate it to God that's an important lesson in fact psychologically it's an important lesson because sometimes this is an issue I'll be very practical here in the her 80 world or in the Shiva world as a person is raised with the idea that only learning Torah is the only way you serve God and if you go into the working world you know you're a failure you're a flop you're not really serving a Shem that way and that creates a certain psychological dislocation in which when a person does that they may really really slide downwards because they don't see that as a modality for closeness to a college bar but one has to understand that indeed all of those physical activities can be part of a roguish em and that's why the bridge Mila is on a part of the human anatomy that is you know kind of animalistic are not susceptible to cognitive control now fourth element is the idea that the bridge Milla's on the eighth day the eighth day now what is the significance of the eighth day so the morale no so here we're going to bring another thought of the morale the morale writes that the cycle of the natural world is a natural cycle of seven because Hashem made the world in six days followed by a Shabbos and after Shabbos the cycle repeats itself so seven is the world of nature crowned by the Shabbat eight is a level that is above the natural world the morale says the significance of God's covenant with the Jewish people is that it transcends the laws of nature it is a supernatural relationship many of you might have heard of the famous British historian Arnold Toynbee now Toby wasn't as I said and they Semitic in many many ways but he was a very very notable scholar and he wrote a multi-volume work called a study of history and what Twain be did was Toynbee took I believe 50 ancient civilizations ranging from the Sumerians the Babylonians the Assyrians the Hittites all the way to the Romans all of the ancient Egyptians all the way to the Romans and she analyzed all of the factors that were responsible for the rise and fall of all of these civilizations there's a tremendous amount of data that he had to compile and then he was able to identify common denominators in all of these civilizations that caused a civilization to flourish and cause a civilization to decline right this is a study in history he saw Universal rules but there was one problem 49 of the 50 civilizations fit his pattern one civilization didn't the Jewish people no I say perhaps as a joke that's why he became anti-semitic you know a guy spends you know 25 years working on a historical thesis and 49 out of the 50 civilizations absolutely support his analysis but these Jewish people are slugging him up refuting him well yeah I would be pretty mad at them too because based on his scientific or pseudo scientific historical analysis there ought not to have been a Jewish people for most of their history they didn't share a common language Jews did not always beekeeper they did not share a common land we were not inherit Israel for most of our our history all of these different factors there shouldn't have been a Jewish people he couldn't figure it out why are they here so because of this he developed the idea well the Jews are a fossilized nation it's like you know it's like you would find the dinosaur in other words yeah they don't really belong here somehow they survived as an appendage and this was a big debate the late yakov protect was president claim her sex brother Yakub fruits egg was both from and a big Tom McLaughlin the son of the chief rabbis first chief rabbi maritza Kurt sack so ya coffered said and arnold toynbee could win all over the world and college campuses debating the idea are the Jews a fossilized nation these are called the Hertzog Toynbee debate I believe you could get it on YouTube so at least some of the some of the sessions so be here what I want to suggest is this I think Toynbee is a very strong point and it fits very well because if Toynbee's argument is that based on the laws and dynamics of history there ought not to be a Jewish people I would say yeah he's right that's exactly what the morale is saying Toynbee is Maha van to the morale the Jewish people are a historical the Jewish people should not exist under the laws of history they are connected to the number eight which symbolically is lamal la minute ever transcending the vehicle Emden says a vehicle rammed in wrote this in the 1700s before the Holocaust before many things that have happened since then that people always ask why doesn't God do miracles anymore why doesn't God do a splitting of the Red Sea or whatever it is your Galco Benton says if you contemplate the survival and the flourishing of the Jewish people it is a greater miracle then you'd see estimates ryeom the ten Makos and the splitting of the Red Sea and if we can add the State of Israel and all of that you know it's it's quite amazing the fact that we're here and we're not just here like you know people hiding in a cave under a rock I mean we're here in in such a positive constructive way now they say when you ask people who are not Jewish what percentage of the world's population is juice so typically they'll say I must be 25% 30% 50% and they're pretty amazed when it's tiny tiny tiny tiny County was it less less than 2% 1.5 percent I think I think it is it's less than 1% okay okay yeah yeah and yet and yet the impact of the Jewish people on the world is it's absolutely it's a miracle it's not it's not explainable in fact one of the without getting into the polemics about proving God and everything else but well one of the arguments that is often often brought out is that the survival and flourishing of the Jewish people in the Jewish state is a supernatural miracle it is not a normal process and therefore 20th right Toynbee is defining historical factors that bring nations into existence and he is correct that based on his historical factors there shouldn't be a Jewish people yeah he's right but we have the BRIT of eight i'd say that's the morales point that eight is the idea of print sixth idea is that you know one of the arguments of the anti-circumcision movements they sometimes make a religious arguing although it's pretty it's pretty absurd to make a religious argument against circumcision that God commanded but they make this argument hey if God wanted Jewish boys to be circumcised he should have made him circumcised who are you to improve on God's creation now the emesis this is actually a metric a Roman matron imatra Nita asked rabbi akiva if your God wants the Brits Mila why were the children not created moo-hoo l'm already circumcised why does God create in a defective incomplete state and then says fix it up Surabhi Akiva said how come God does not give you bread from the field you have to plow and you have to plant and you have to harvest and you have to Thresh and you have to grind and you have to mix mix it with water make a dough and then bake now we say how much he left him in Aris God brings forth bread from the earth but not really God doesn't give me the bread I gotta do quite a lot to get the bread maybe a keeper said because God deliberately left creation in an incomplete state because he wanted us to be his partners in bringing Crete bringing completion to creation that's the greatest tribute we are god's partners in creation but first says that's the meaning of the phrase i shared bara elokim la sucks god created lot of salt so we will do thus for example it's incumbent upon us to drain the swamps to conquer disease to fight injustice we don't simply say God will take care of it God says you have to be my partner I need you to finish my work I left my work incomplete because you that are in the image of God goes ahead incomplete in TOR it's the same way if you think about the structure of the oral torah whereas shem gives us principles and in every generation we have to grapple and figure out how to apply those principles and that's why there's always mock locusts because as the Rambam says two great people can have the same first principles but they differ how to apply it and that's very confusing by the way that's that's again this deserves much more treatment that is why mark locust is not a contradiction to revelation people up and that's the question if God gave the Torah to Moshe including the oral law and how could there be disagreement the answer is the disagreements are about application of those principles but why didn't God just give the answer to every question why do we have to grope why do we have to debate why do we have to argue the answer is God says I'm not going to give you the final answer I'm gonna give you a process and you have to work it out because you become my partner that is why Emunah and Judaism is not passive it is not quite yet since it is active it is in taking the initiative it is proactive now rebbi akiva says that's why God gave us the midst of circumcision he created at least the male of the species in an imperfect defective state so that we take the initiative there's Rabi Akiva compared circumcision to the process of wheat Hashem doesn't give us the bread we have to make the bread Hashem doesn't give us wholeness we have to make the homeless so that's an important lesson in a person recognizing their strengths their power their responsibility we talked about this either last week or two weeks ago in Rev soloveitchik San alysus of Adam one justic man without repeating that that share but circumcision is the great remnants of that power right so so far I've mentioned five kind of bullet point that maybe it may be a little longer than bullet points we talked about the involuntary nature of the Covenant the fact that it involves pain the fact that we sanctify even the material the idea of eight our connection to God is above nature and the idea that we must take initiative to make the world better we cannot simply say God will take care of it the final remiz the sixth and final remnants of Britta Mila is really more of a message to the parents and that is when we enter our child into the Covenant of Avraham what we do is we cut and we expose right the Brit realized to follow him cutting and then folding over that's called Priya and maybe the lesson is that as a parent and as a teacher the way you bring your child into the Covenant is not by trying to change him but by uncovering revealing exposing the greatness and the goodness that is already within him Shalom wanna look says in Mitchell a con Oakland honor of Peter Coe you must train a child according to his way and the real McGann explains this is and this is how the plastic is understood by many many people every person comes into the world with the unique personality a unique set of talents a unique set of abilities and we make a mistake when we try to superimpose over a child's personality some other framework perhaps of our dreams are our desires or of convened you know society whether it's religious or not religious society when in fact the goal of a parents and the goal of a Rebbe it's very important to understand a teacher should be like a parent and a parent should be like a teacher so my parent is my teacher my teacher is my parents in the ideal situation Tom medium are called by name etc and that is to be attuned to the individuality of the neshamah that Hashem has entrusted you whether it's in the home with the classroom and to bring out the coat that are unique to that particular child you know sculptors saying again I ain't not being an artist I can't say I know this but firsthand they say when they look at a piece of wood it's not that they're making the carving but they see it imminently there and their job is to remove the blockages so what is already there comes out that is also the goal of a parent and the Rebbe to take away the blockages to expose the goodness and the uniqueness that is already there and this is indeed a problem obviously that this is this is exactly why the ideal Torah education the ideal was home schooling so to speak every parish Enon Tamla Wanaka every parent we teach Torah to their child that was based on the idea of a one-to-one relationship that didn't become feasible because some parents weren't capable etc so we are the first civilization in recorded history to create a compulsory public education system this was in the days of the Second Temple Yehoshua Ben gamla that's a monumental accomplishment that every city created school you know the Heder we would call it that was dedicated that was funded not tuition parents didn't pay tuition the original plan was just like a public school it was funded by all members of the Jewish community but this very day people are debating this there's a very fascinating debate you know in the United States less so in Israel where tuition is a lot cheaper in elementary schools but in the United States one of the major financial problems people face is a very very high cost for Jewish day school tuition very very high and if you have more than one child maybe you'll get a little bit of a discount but you know you could easily be a middle-class family might have to pay eighty thousand dollars in tuition for a for a number of kids so it's somewhat of a crisis now if you're really from you know you'll send your kid no matter what but there are people who are you know they're on the borderline and money makes a difference they will not know some of them will send their kids to public school because it cost too much money and one of the proposals is why don't we go back to the original model of funding Jewish education which actually was a public school model in which every member how you going to enforce it obviously but every member of the Jewish community whether you have children or not pays money for the maintenance of schools and that's an interesting point that would reduce individual tuition to a much less - elestra but but be it as it may on one hand were very proud that we are the first ones that have compulsory education but on the other hand you also see it was the second best option the best is one to one parent the child son Oakland ROP Jarkko and that is the lesson of Britt's milla to uncover the greatness that is within so these are some symbolic lessons of the brits milla that we should think about when we are at a Brit when we have a child your grandchild being circumcised and even in terms of our own they are the own covenant that we have with our misra so you'll have a good week and take care [Music]