Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: The Secret of the three books of Bamidbar

[Music] are you leaving everybody I'm going to talk tonight about a very interesting aspect over the overall structure of the book of a mid Boer slow maja Mela says in the book of Mitchell a croque-monsieur Shimbun Sbisa the wisdom of a woman truly builds a house a home qotsa amudha hashiba she excavates with Seven Pillars Seven Pillars of wisdom and the Midrash says that this feminine in this plastic is not only referring to a physical woman and the Seven Pillars of wisdom are the seven kumejima of the Torah the Torah is comprised of seven commotion what does that mean all of us know it's Kamisha whom Sato and in fact the very word Cornish means a fifth so in what sense are there sevens for him so the Gemara says that the book of Bamidbar is actually three books so therefore you have gracious as one Schmo Sisto by ikarus three by mid boris three and the volume is one that gives you seven books what are the three books of a mid boy so it's very asymmetrical the first book is from the beginning of safer by mid boy until by Lowe's hotel the middle of last week's parsha when the Jewish people leave our scene I remember people don't realize we were at Mount Sinai almost a year we arrived at hi-c nigh Rosh Hodesh seven basically seven almost seven weeks after we left miss ryeom and we didn't leave our seen eye till three weeks into the month of a or of the next year so it was really 11 months in three weeks and then we finally we couldn't leave until the clouds of glory lifted up giving us a green light and on the 21st of ER the clouds of glory lifted up and we were finally able to leave during that next destination now when we left the Torah mentions that the aren ha'qodesh trav in front of us to level the hills or level the mountains etc and when the are guanaco dish left miraculously in front of us moshe rabbeinu recited two verses that we still recite when we take the tour out and we put the torah in by he bin so our own behold when the around the ark traveled by yo mare moshe moshe declared kumara Mariah shall be a photographer may your enemies be scattered via Newsom ISA Nahanni pinaka and may those that hate you flee from you and then move anew Hoyo Mar and when the ark came to rest Moshe said chuva hashem river voz alpha Israel returned your Shekinah to the myriads of Israel and these are two verses by he been so Haram and even ookayama and they are book to book two of Bamidbar are only two verses book three of Bamidbar is the rest of say Furman midpoint so the way you get seven commotion is you divide the book of a mid bar into the into these three very unequal sections the beginning until leaving har Sinai but he been so harrowing the two verses of I he been so harrowing and then the rest of safer by mid bar you will also note in a safer Torah it's also indicated in the commission that the verses by he been so our own and of nicoya Mar are set off they are demarcated by a nun in an upside-down inverted position is called nun half Fuuka we don't pronounce it we don't read it there is nothing that would be you would hear by at all reading and yet this is such an important a lotta than if they say first hour does not have these two reversible nuns the Torah scroll is actually puzzle you have to fix it so the question is what type of the book is to have just two verses and what's the significance of dividing the book of a mid bar into three anyway and why do we have these nuns what does all of this mean so I want to share with you a thoughts from ascetic of lublin who basically says book one represents a certain ideal book 3 is the sordid reality and the little book 2 is the explanation how do you get from here to there book 1 is essentially the ideal type of Jewish society that occurs for who desires in which we have 12 tribes each of which having their unique mission their unique configuration I think we've already spoken about the idea that why our tribes importance MacLeod I one but it's very very clear in the Torah that tribes play an important role every tribe had its own flag and at its own nutsy its own prince it had its own jewel in the cohen girdles breastplate its own designated place in the camp and when we get to Eretz Israel the tribes are going to have their own designated land now it's true that bisman Isaiah we don't have that much of a tribal consciousness unless you're a Cohen or levy most of us don't even know what tribe we belong to the fact that you might be so far and on my piece of woolen or whatever it is is not something that seems to be important to us but certainly in the Torah and in the time of the at least the first base on MEK - tribal affiliation was something that was extremely important you weren't just a Jew you identified part of your self-definition was your eruv a night or a shim a night or whatever whatever it would be and one might wonder why is tribal affiliation of any importance whatsoever aren't we introducing just another disunity factor into Claudius well shouldn't the only thing that matter is that we're Jews we have to start arguing and let me point out that this notion of tribal pride was not just a matter of you know sitting around the Shabbos table it actually resulted in bloodshed we've had our own civil wars at the end of the book of shelf Tim if you remember the story of P Lagash forgiving in which a woman was was raped and ultimately murdered and the tribes demanded that benyamin the tribe of Benjamin deliver the offender being human refused as a matter the way the Rambam explains it of states rights they basically said we are not going to extradite wrongdoers into the Tri into the territory of other tribes because every tribe is like a sovereign nation albeit we have the same religion I mean it's uncanny if you're if you study the American Civil War but you will see that the American Civil War was not fought over slavery directly it was fought over the issue of a state having the right to secede from the union this is ma ma SH what the story of P luggage forgiver was where shavette Binyamin refused to acknowledge which you might call National Authority in matters of extradition the matters of criminal criminal offenses and the like so this was a serious thing people took their tribe seriously because indeed the Torah takes the tribe affiliation seriously question is what is important about tribes when the short answer is that the Midrash explains to us based on Jakob Levine whose blessing in which he identified unique characteristics of each Sabbath each shavette had its own unique approach and I vote as a Shem so on one hand we have a common uniformity of Torah and mitzvot but each tribe did it in a different way and the lesson here is community is not one of conformity it's not one of sameness it's not one of everybody being the same but it is also a celebration of diversity and a celebration and a recognition that each tribe and by extension each individual brings their own uniqueness in avodah Shem and that uniqueness cannot be crushed should not be squelched and that is why there is such a celebration of tribes so going back to part one of my mid Bor as the ideal it creates this tribal division it expels from the tribe's those factors that are destructive that Herta may for example were told the leper deserve the one of the gunnery of the discharge and the tommy mace the one that's in contact with the dead ends rep sadhakas maas beer that they are symbolic of negative Cocotte and i'm Israel just as there are three positive powers Torah learning of Torah avodah divine service kamila scoffs Adam and loving-kindness and they keep the world alive there are three negative destructive factors jealousy excessive lust and the desire for honor and ego gratification ken a type of a covet might seein as Sodom Mena olam they take a person out of the world and the altar tional vodka used to say don't think that only means you're going to lose your world to come that's obvious but it means even your life in this world is going to be miserable because when you're filled with jealousy looking at the other people and when you're seeking evil ratification and when you have an incessant desire for hedonistic pleasure you will not enjoy the life that God has given you your life will be miserable in this world so the basic idea is that part one is the ideal Jewish world both in terms of recognizing individuality through the tribal affiliation banishing the forces of impurity Keynote IVA recover understanding that each person has their unique role and that represents the way things ought to be now part three of the midpoint is the sordid realization of failure because starting from our leaving of rc9 most of the rest of my mid bar is going south as they say we have the story of the complaining of the month about the month where we get the quail which represents Tyva and excessive lust we have the story of the spies a lack of faith in God we have the story of Korah which is called seeking honor which means to say what you have here is part one of the mid boar is the glorious potential of what could have been part 3 of the mid boar is the monument of failure to what the door amid burrow ventually became out key they caught that of course they had to die out and they were not even permitted to enter the Land of Israel except for the women and yoshu and koloth so how do you go from the heights of holiness that the beginning of Burma represents the Michigan has been dedicated and all of the tribes are aligned around the Michigan and all of the factors of tumour and destruction are expelled from mommy's realm well you get it from those two versus those two verses are the fatal transition because I'll tell us when the Jewish people after over 11 months almost a year were finally given the green light that they could leave Mount Sinai they did so with a great sense of joyous anticipation in Rossi's description taken from Cazale they left Mount Sinai Cuttino how barea me basis a fare like a child running away from school and I would add in our experience the last day of the regular semester meaning to say right before summer vacation you just run out of there what were they afraid of they said well listen we've been at Mount Sinai for almost a year we got 613 commandments if we keep on staying at Mount Sinai who knows what more Commandments were going to get but real Hashem we couldn't believe so we got the permission to leave but Brooklyn we can get out of here by the way even based on their Cushman which was erroneous because Lamesa they continued to get mitzvahs even in the desert for for the forty years so leaving Mount Sinai did not terminate their getting mitzvahs but they thought it went so their attitude was Katina Cabrera Mesa safer they looked at the Torah as a burden they looked at it as something that they're stuck with and they have to do but they didn't at least at that particular juncture they didn't have joy they didn't have enthusiasm they didn't have passion and when you lack that joy in your enthusiasm you can go from the highest holiness to the greatest most sinful degradation and therefore the reason those two sukham which talk about believing Mount Sinai our bracket of as a separate book is when you leave Mount Sinai Cuttino Cabaret army base are safer all of the dreams of greatness that could have been achieved are going to be smashed into the dust Cuttino cabaret freebase are safer now what is the significance of the nuns so you may recall a Gomorrah in Braavos you know we have two helium core from em hey 145 that we popularly call ASHRAE although that's actually a misnomer because ASHRAE Yoshio vazaha Odia hallelu Casella is not part of that tale and it's actually taken from another chapter of daily Tehillim 145 actually begins to heal our lives of it and as you know it's the famous ASHRAE that we recite three times a day and every verse begins with a letter of olive bass except there is no verse beginning with the letter none we have Malka Malka S'Klallam in your kingdom is an eternal kingdom that's the mem and then the next pasta is summation Hashem supports all the false you go from them to summer there is no pursue connacher a beginning with none the Guarin Bracco's quotes Ravi O'Connor why is there no none in us right so the more brocco says because the letter nun connotes the idea of Nephila falling baling there's a per second almost who prophesied before the exile of the ten tribes Knopfler talking about the Jewish people she has fallen Losos if come she will not get up again this is a potential curse British and this was not MacWilliam but Hashem is saying that we could theoretically reach a state of no flaw we have fallen low so SIF come she will not get up again to su as yourself hit 'real so the letter noon connotes the idea of the Fila dove it hemella did not want to begin a pisaq with a letter that connotes no Fela he only mentions the Fela in the next verse that talks about Hashem supporting people who have fallen so many Russian McCullen over by the way think Maher goes on and says that in Eretz Israel they actually read this very disheartening Puttock in a more optimistic way it all depends on where you put the comma in instead of reading at Nullah she has fallen comma most social coma she will not get up again they read it this way not fluorosis she shall no longer fall comma come arise masuleh Israel so commas or a snack this whatever it is are very very important like there are lawsuits where the the wrong placement of a comma costs millions and millions of dollars in terms of decimal points and commas and and and alike and it could be that if you live in Eric Israel you have to be an optimist people my Reverend Eric just fell they interpreted the pussing anymore optimist stick gives it a pessimistic turn although he or he himself was also an average as well and mm ellic apparently understood it the same way mm Ella did not want to begin with none because none is negative so says rhapsodic that is why the Taira brackets those two verses which is the transition away from her seen I with the letters none to say that the attitude that you have torched or admittance even if you're keeping though that attitude can destroy you there will be a new FEMA if one looks at the tour as a burden if one looks at the Torah as a bother if one looks at the Torah is I'm trying to get away from whatever I can get away from and I look at the 613 mitzvot as 613 problems to be circumvented then class for Shalom you can fall now why are the nuns reversed or inverted because the important thing to know is that no matter how low you go and no matter how much you fail the Fila is always a reversible condition there is always Chava there is always coming back one should never have the feeling that they have reached a point of no return so this is how reps are though generally understands the structure of the book of a mid bar the ideal the reality the transition but the fact that even the negativity arising from the transition is reversible and not only is it reversible but indeed we can find that out of the new Fela itself can come insights and understandings that make me a greater person this is a complicated idea but once again we read in hazael that's the place where the BAL jouvert stands this is also statement to reveal content is greater than the place of the person who never sinned and why is that so somebody is such a good person they've never sinned and yet the sinner who does chuva is more esteemed than the eyes of God part of it is the Rambam says is that the person that sins and experiences distance from God knows what that is and has such a pain and a passion that their fiery commitment to our College Barca was even stronger and it's out of their failure that that passion was generated so in a strange way it was the movement away from Hashem that engendered the feeling to be close to a Kurdish Bardo in a much more powerful way we have a saying in English absence makes the heart grow fonder and it is true that spiritual distance can give a person a yearning and a desire for closeness that can be much more powerful than the person who never had that spiritual distancing that's why there's an expression that is used and it's not much taken out of context uri de chelly he looks so riff alia a going down that is for the purpose of going up now this passage this this phrase is taken so much out of context I want to tell you the context first and then we'll see how it was used in a totally different way the particular context is a gomorian Moustakas Marcos the Gemara in the second Parekh discusses the idea of ear McClatchy Irma o'clock means if you kill somebody inadvertently without intention so the punishments in the time of the temple would be you would go to the cities of refuge and you would remain there until the Kohen Gadol dies and if you leave the city of refuge the relative of the deceased would actually have the right perhaps even the obligation but certainly the right to kill you and therefore you better stay in the ear MacLeod until the Kohen Gadol dies now there is a technicality that if the murder or the homicide was committed on the way down you go to a near me clot and I'm the way up not example let's assume that somebody is lowering a barrel from the roof or lowering a piano and the Rope snaps and the piano goes and they kill somebody so if the piano was being lowered when the Rope stepped that is called Derrick nearly died and the Gemara has different treasures that directly reside there is the punishment severe McClendon if on the other hand the piano is being lifted up and the rope snaps that is called Derrick Aliyah and again we don't necessarily have a good explanation for this but there's AG is a rustic Asif that if you killed somebody Derrick alia you are putter from Dulles you don't go to gull us to the Exile if you kill somebody directly read ah you're hi Evan Thomas so the Gemara has a Shia what if you were going down for the purpose of going up example you're climbing a ladder when you climb a ladder what you do is you put all of your weight pressing down on the rung to be able to propel your body upward so let's assume I'm putting my weight on the rung and the rung dislodges from the ladder and till somebody so is that called going down or is that called going down as part of the process of going up so obviously the phrase your reader let's Oracle yeah going down for the purpose of going up is a highly technical legal term that is discussing a technical problem are you high of an anaemic lot if my weight was pressing down on the rung as part of the process of going up okay that's the context in Moustakas Marcos but the citric acid s and the C famouser and the C free Kabbalah have adopted this race they've given it a life of its own and they've you know brought it into another family almost and that is it becomes a spiritual dynamic that's time's going down going away is part of the process of how you're uplifted and you come to a college part and this is a very very deep idea not that we're telling people go out and sin so you can become a ball trooper that doesn't really work but if in the course of a person's life there were all sorts of mistakes that were made doing chuva doesn't just mean I leave those mistakes but rather I take from those experiences a foundation in how I serve God for example the drug addict who manages to kick his habit he could actually use the experiences of being addicted as a mechanism of helping people that the person who didn't go through those negative experiences would be unable to do that gruff so they check often talk talked about the idea that there are two types of modalities of chuhwa there's a chuhwa that is a king to amputation where you take that pass and you just cut it away and there's another type of chuhwa which is transformation in which you actually take that negativity and that becomes the source of your evo decision sometimes in life spiritual amputation is necessary just as sometimes in life medical amputation is necessary but it is not a first resort it's a last resort because how do you get rid of 10 20 30 or 40 years of life that may not have been serving us yet you just want to amputate it well let me remind you when you amputate there is still a very significant phantom pain our to use another analogy when you try to delete a very complex computer program there will be as numerous people have found out in criminal prosecutions there will be bits and pieces of that program still hanging around but transformation says I don't have to escape my past I don't have to reject my past rather I use that past to create my identity as a never - M that's the phrase URI de Bie comes with cervical EO I remember when the mera Russia Shiva was necessary Finkel was snifter a few years ago and again he was a phenomenally great person he he serves a shaman II and he created this tremendous yeshiva serving a Shem in spite of tremendous disabilities debilitating illness for so many years but he also has a very interesting prior life story people know him he grew up in a religious family that that wasn't the issue but he grew up in Chicago and he went to a co-ed High School Jewish co-ed High School he was on the debating team who was on the basketball team regular American guy then he comes to mirror and eventually he becomes Russia Shiva of Mayor so when he died tragically and very suddenly so I remember hearing the eulogies and the eulogies essentially had one uniform tone to them and that was you see what a person can become notwithstanding his corrupt worthless environment an environment of tumor and look at how he managed to transcend the garbage in which he was raised and they were praising him because he came from an environment that was totally bad totally bereft of any redeeming value and he managed to become who we became now since I came from roughly a similar environment I was a little offended actually that can hire I don't regard you know Hartford Connecticut as you know junk or corrupt and I would suggest the following I would say that part of the rocha Sheba's greatness is not in spite of the environment he came from but it is because of the environment he came from yes he went to a co-ed High School and you know most certainly most hurried him and I include even myself we wouldn't look at Lila want to send our children to a co-ed at high school to this Janos okay anything army not the best environment but if you look at the receivers life and you see that one of his extraordinary powers abilities was the ability to relate to every type of American kid there were American teenagers who come to Eretz Israel and you know they're not familiar with intensive Torah learning they're not familiar with an advanced yeshiva and they look at colum and they look at learning and they don't even know what's going on and then they finally get to meet the Russian Shiva the guy will not be able to relate to them in any way and yet he can then talk to them about basketball and a hook shot in the jump shot and his was he was able to show generations of American kids and I assume kids from other countries as well that's you know you can be normal you can be in sports you can be you can even have girlfriends as a teenager but you can still become a never touch him and you become a great time at for him what he did was he took from his environment it's not a question of simply making bleep I know other people and again they're well-intentioned who came from modern environments and some of them are great pressure Sheba's and they make believe they make believe that environment just didn't exist at all in fact I get into into English and Russian her across her shallow but in my in the Maryland where I come from there is a sister of a prominent Russia Shiva and the sister used to pour out her soul to me they said she just couldn't stand that her brother was denying the origin from which they came which was orthodox but it was like a modern orthodox and the brother is making believe that didn't exist when in fact it did exist so there are people who literally deny where they come from when in fact in many ways we have to embrace it you know you come to cherish as well and you know you may come from Montana North Dakota you know wherever it is and you meet people who have been here for 300 years five hundred years generations of rabbis tell me they shall come in tsadikim and we naturally feel a little bit overwhelmed like who am i you know on a good day I'll speak Hebrew as well as his fourth grader you know how much Torah will I know you know the kid in by sixth grade may know more more than I know at least initially and we get overwhelmed because we see people who have such greatness and we're so far from it but here's the secret he was very very true that the tenth generation you show me has something very very precious that we don't have absolutely but it's also true that the person from South Dakota has something that the 10th generation you saw me doesn't have that can also be special that can be nurtured because keep in mind it's what psychology our crew that decided where we would be born and in what family we would be born so to simply say if I was put there that was a waste you're really questioning eye color sparklers wisdom if I was put in a certain environment there's a reason why I was there and if I deny that connection I'm never going to figure out that reason so this is the inner meaning the deeper meaning of the reversibility of Nephila it is not the news it is not simply escaping the negativity of my environment its transforming the negative into the positive in which my strength and my insights from my life is not something I'm ashamed of but it is the source of who I am and then basis of how I serve our College Board and this again will solve a check would call the chuhwa of transformation rather than the true ver of amputation again amputation has its place sometimes a person's God forbid a person's relationship with his parents might be so toxic it might be so deadly that unfortunately there may have to be a distancing that is often the case not always but it's often the case if there was severe physical or even emotional abuse and we recognize how buckler recognizes that sometimes you have to cut off your connection with your parents but that's a last resort when I hear all sorts of questions people always ask me they have wonderful parents who may not be religious you know should we let our children go to our parents you know assuming that the parents will not try to sabotage Joshua send the light then why not why shouldn't they be connected to good people to people of me those two people of integrity to people of love I mean there are religious people who might be more dangerous if they're me--don't you're not good I think you know bad me doubt they're actually more contagious then not keeping Shabbos it's one thing you notice about religious children and it's a very big tribute to them that little kids please see very very young kids they love rules and structures so if you kind of tell them don't eat any candy that doesn't have this symbol on it they're going to look it's gonna become a game with them except we even have stories with a guttural adore emotion Feinstein's know gave a cue to candy and it didn't have the Heckscher that the parents over - so he looks - yeah but he says can I eat this you know it doesn't you know so kids kids understands we don't turn on the lights on Shabbos we don't eat something without the supervision they understand that that's kind of that feeds into the ritualistic behavior of small children but you know what's contagious when people yell and scream and lie and they're cruel those are things kids are gonna pick up so if you're really worried about negative influences on your children be worried more about that interpersonal me doubts then whether somebody is Mehadrin there or what it would have whatever it would be we're worried sometimes about the wrong things and I think I mentioned the story before so forgive me for repeating I remember I have a friend he actually lives in there at Israel but he grew up in a totally secular environment and when he graduated college he took a trip and he's one of his stops was Israel and he became about rubra and not only to become about true but he became a Garrick russet very unusual because Gera does not have active outreach Strymon and that's not a horizontal family's Puttock it's called that's kind of be tall vertical strangles kneesocks yiddish-speaking and that was invited to his wedding and lo and behold somehow they were supposed to be the only two garibaldi true in the world he met a woman who went through the same process they're getting married I was invited to the Costner the Costner was in mayishan room and I wore a hat in dark suits but I felt a little out of place it wasn't my usual venue his parents came from the states and for them if this was the twilight zone this was absolutely for I mean that they could not believe what it happened they couldn't believe what their son looked like they couldn't believe the idea that the women were not in a different room that were in a different building the women were a block and a half away they couldn't believe it they were in a daze they were just dazed they were in a state of incomprehension and at the end of the wedding they finally brought the collar back for chevre broca's and the cousin gave a little to russia before the shove a brother for benching he first spoke in Yiddish which was quite amazing how would he know you know he's only been from for a year and a half and then he spoke in English and he spoke to his parents and he said mom and dad I know that the life that I'm living a life that I've chosen is not the life that you would have chosen for me but I want you to know that 90% of what I am is because of you and the 10% that is different is because you gave me the courage and the strength to find my way in life based on what was best so he says I owe everything to you even though my life is very very different now a lot of the people there where I see them they were they were they did not know English but I remember seeing these huh sit next to me you didn't seem to know any English but he was nodding away because there was a sense that something powerful was being said and it's to varios him in our life it's not similar although maybe you never know maybe he was also an American but you never know who is who in this world and I thought and I remember this story really my whole life because to me this exemplifies the idea that you embrace the totality of your being that your parents did make make you who you are they gave you basic values they gave you basic us cover they're good people why this becoming from have to mean a process of building walls and creating barriers and then trying to be somebody that you're not which in the long run is only going to create frustration and inner revulsion and indeed this is part of why we have off the derrick phenomenon and also Jarrett is not just a kids problem it's a problem with adults as well and even if you're not also Derek you could be what I call the Living Dead meaning you could live as a religious Jew but inside you're kind of dead inside you know a tree can have fruit and leaves looking like it's alive but nothing is really there and part of it is because we're squelching so many aspects of who we are so the paradigm of you read you literally is to understand that even the parts of your life that were not necessarily fully Torah observant become valuable hello Kim that you can appropriate and how you serve Hashem now and they become positive and they become good things okay but be it as it may this is the significance of the nun and this is the significance of the reversibility of the nun now I just want to share with you though the idea that ultimately the new Fela did come from a bad attitude we need to say the attitude that T no cabaret from great the safer I just want to get it get out of this so let me share with you a famous Gomorrah there's a masochist Nidoran interpreting a puck in yeshayahu where the navien are contemplating the destruction of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple of course this is a prophecy this is way before that happens but it says they will ask OMA of the Haaretz why has the lands been destroyed how could this happen and God answers ours rum ester se because they have abandoned my Torah the Gemara Nidoran explains what's going on it says the Navi MC desolation in the VMC destruction and they don't understand why now the gomorrah says if it means people are doing a varus they would certainly know that so what is it they don't understand and what does God mean they have forsaken my Torah so the gomorian adore him says it doesn't mean they were sinning they were doing mitts as they were learning Torah but they weren't reciting the blessings before the Torah and therefore the Corbin base on Nick - happens because they didn't recite Bracco's over the Torah that's a Gomorrah in massacres Nidoran the question is very obvious is this Russia talking about the first Masonic - or the second base ohmic - it is clearly talking about the first base emitter by the time the second basin mikdash was destroyed there were no prophets prophesy ended the beginning of the second base of McNish so then the vm don't know why the first temple is destroyed because i'll tell us that the first temple was destroyed for the worst of Eros avodah Zarah i don't worship gilja raya sexual immorality Jesus done meant murder so the new vm don't know why and i Shem has to give an answer because they didn't make blessings over the Torah the Corbin is because I voted Zahra Aguila my vehicle stomach and if you're gonna tell me that the VM didn't know they were doing that well that's absolutely not true because what do the new vm talk about but that they are saying that these sins exists so what's the presiding the Gomorrah the Gomorrah has to say put into God's mouth that God has to come up with some very obscure a very where they didn't make blessings over the Torah when you have much more serious a famous avodah Zarah Julia Reyes vehicle stomach so let me share with you the incisive explanation of one of the great great ballet Mooser of the 20th century of le olap young and well beyond says the following if you remember at the beginning of the book of Melaka mm Elif is 70 years old and he is shivering he is cold and even though he's covered up with garments and blankets they do not give him warmth so because I'll say why is that suffering that particular melody because years before when Shah who was pursuing him at one point shall went into a cave to relieve himself and he left his cloak outside of the cave and there were no security guards there and David went and he cuts a piece of the cloak and he was able to show show all from on top of a hill you see how close I was to you I could have killed you when you were vulnerable and therefore you should not have and against me and if you remember show started crying and show us a veneer my friend I love you of course that lasted only one day but but nevertheless that did cause a short-term reconciliation so cuz I'll say David acted improperly in mutilating a garment not because it was shows just mutilating a garment and because I'll say he who treats clothing with disrespect will eventually not get warmed by the clothing pretty amazing clothing takes revenge so when wives tell husbands you know whatever it is put your shirt away or whatever one should listen if your movies have a god damn it may have negative consequences and not only that it's not even the same garment the garments that didn't warm covered we're not the garment that he got but apparently there's some communication now we don't fully understand this but what what is the takeaway from this idea that when you treat something with disrespect and disregard it will not provide the function that it's intended to provide so here's rebellious interpretive leap if that is true for the physical and material that's also true for the Torah of God when the Gemara hadarom interprets the verse in Yeshayahu that the new Veeam aren't going to understand why was the basin mikdash destroyed they are not asking what sins caused the destruction of the temple that is well known the sins that caused the destruction of the temple are avodah Zarah gilja Raya Schriever stomach but they're asking what you might call a meta question that is given the facts that the Jews were learning Torah should not they're learning of the Torah elevate them she does not protect them should it not make them better people meaning yes we know they did our voters are ideally right because dumb him the question is what rocked them to that level it's like a person learning in yeshiva I'm learning in morning Seder 9 to 1 really good learning I have a two hour break so I go somewhere and I rape pillage and murder and then I get back in time from inside and I have a good afternoon Seder there's something wrong with that picture doesn't taurah elevate people shouldn't it make them better shouldn't it make them righteous shouldn't it certainly shouldn't it elevate them above the worst of arrows that is what bothered the Navi him not what was the sin that caused the Corbyn we know what the sin that caused the Corbin was but the question is how could people who were learning Torah being guilty of those sins and that the answer is they didn't make a Braco over the Torah now that's exemplary of an attitude they didn't appreciate the tour as a gift they looked at it like a burden they were movas etc so the same way if you treat clothing with disrespect it will not give you warmth if you treat Torah with disdain it's not going to elevate you it's not going to consecrate you so you could spend a few hours learning and then go out and do the worst the worst of areas and that's Mohammed wrote southwark says the attitude of tina cabaret if we base our safer can cause the greatest type of Mithila so what this means basically is that in our own lives we have to try to engender a sense of passion and joy in a vote assertion or emotional function used to say the old Yiddish expression severe its design a hint it was so hard to be a joke promotion said again with some exaggeration Moshe said that was responsible for the loss of an entire generation of American Jews how is that so because if you consider the turn of the 20th century and when after the aftermath of the Russian pogroms many many hundreds of thousands of Jews from Poland and Russia came to the United States many of them not all were religious Jews they were religious Jews but they were living in an extremely difficult existence they were poverty-stricken employment was extremely difficult if you did not come into work on Saturday you often have to get a new job on Monday Sunday was off but you know yeah there were there was though there was no legal protections and the attitude that kids that were born in America were hearing over and over again is how hard it is to be a Jew well they were living in a free society and as a result the vast majority the vast majority of the children of the Orthodox Jews that came in the early decades of the 20th century people but the vast majority simply left it and this even includes children of very very distinguished rabbis they left it I don't mean and I don't even mean becoming reformed I mean you know intermarrying in the grandchildren are going and and no trace so i've Moshe suggested now yeah I mean I mean obviously there's a million reasons you can't give a single reason but he said that if the child absorbs the attitude that Judaism is hard that it's an inconvenience that involves suffering even if somebody is devoted I'm carrying out the Mitzvah that's not going to be transmitted to the next generation because the next generation is simply going to say why do I have to suffer I don't live in an environment where I have to suffer I could be whatever I want to be sure Moshe emphasized the importance of trying to create in our Jewish lives a positivity a happiness a joy and excitement and that's something that no gets transmitted to the next generation now of course the truth of the matter is it is rare to be yet everyone cannot deny it being a Jew involves many many sacrifices British M in many ways it's a lot easier in Israel although Israel has its own challenges but in the Diaspora where the working schedule is not based on an Torah it is indeed quite a challenge I mean I remember particularly in academia when I was a professor and when you teach semesters begin in September you think about the number of cancellations you know dashana Yom Kippur suckish meaning and service you know if you're not working at home or you even have that you know so it's difficult you know things are difficult but still the dominant attitude has to be one of joy when if simcha and when they're Simpa that becomes contagious when they're suffering that's also contagious but the problem is it's contagious in a way that the person may simply throw it away after after a while and that is the idea of beer cosas de bricassart or is the joy and appreciation of Hashem story that would have prevented the other of errors from being done my shame came when the tour is a burden then your movas etc the same way of your movies etc Mufasa is a baguette you don't get chemo lavage etc you don't get the caduceus they could you just a Toa so in that way yes we're still in the afterglow of the holiday of Shavuot and hopefully we're still in the process of receiving and being the Cobell occur the sparklers Torah may all of us be so good to do so with joy and enthusiasm happiness passion ashrae new motto of cocaine how happy is our lot and it's that simple that we'll have the real staying power that will go intergenerationally @bs mushiya bemay Revere may have a good week [Music]