Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: The Superiority of Circumcision in Spiritual Terms

my baby [Music] thank you for coming and I want to give a special welcome to uh Esther jadak we just made Aliyah she was a very very beloved teacher for many many years how was it how many years 40 years in the silver in Silver Spring the Hebrew Academy and she was my my son moshe's second grade teacher and uh it's very very wonderful to have her be here in Everett Israel and you should be so hard to many many years of health and happiness and joy in Arizona together with your family your brother sister-in-law and all the other relatives who will be coming and in addition our share is dedicated tonight for a refuge Lima for Shimon Ben Adel Mendel Ela benfrida Freda Miriam and uh they should have a refuge limit Israel and uh this year is also sponsored by Jacob and dvora Shore again we're very grateful for and in addition they were for schleima for Brea batrava and khaya Marie Ben Rifka may they have a refuge Lambert Israel and once again we have a generous Anonymous donor so I want to thank Mr or Mrs or both or Miss Anonymous for their generous generous support so you know often right after uh we already started reading precious gracious and I have to admit I always get a little nervous for parshyas gracious and Noah I often tell people let's start the tour from because voracious is so mystical it is so filled with difficult questions and then you have all the scientific issues of age of the Earth and then with Noah you know did Noah have polar bears on the on the ark and you know I get these questions like every year and you know you say this and you say that so I'm kind of holding my breath till we get to leklicha which is the miyuka special history of the Jewish people and of course there are infinite depths of meaning there as well maybe even more so but at least we're not confronting necessarily all of the scientific issues uh that gracious and Noah raises so I can finally take a little bit of a breath as we begin the actual story of Ami Israel the creation of the Jewish people uh because avram it's a little ambiguous it's often said avram is the first Jew it's not clear what that means exactly because after all avram was prior to Madan Torah and avram was not the first person who believed in God we had other Marisha and we had Noah shame right shame is malfeased the king of Shalom who was a Kohan leke Leon so in which way was avram the first Jew and there are really two explanations in what way is avraham explanation number one is he is the first person with whom Hashem made a special breath to the exclusion of the rest of humanity Hashem made a brist with Noah but Noah is the founder of everybody the notion of separating out a certain person to be the art that his children would be the offshoot of a unique Nation with the unique Mission avram indeed is the first Hashem made a major dick of bris with avram and that passed down from avram was not included in the breast and then with Yitzhak the breasts passed down to yaakov to to the exclusion of asaph so that's one way in which avram avinu is because he had a unique covenantal relationship with akadishburg the other aspect which is avram was a man with a mission Noah believed in God Adam believed in God the many of the intermediate Generations believed in God but avram was the one who preached it avrah was the one who taught it avram went from place to place to place to place and avram's tent was opened Abram avinu made the name of God beloved among others this is why the Hassan sofa says that avram is called by the navi ishayal who is quoting God avraham ohavi avraham who loves me of all of the Personalities in Tanakh even among the Jewish personalities avram is singled out as the one who loved Hashem avraham the one who loves me in fact I believe one of the Arabic names for one of the guys I don't remember which game up it's called the Gate of the Beloved and it's connected the Gate of Abram they have a gate and honor of government it's called the Gate of the Beloved based on that verse in Yeshua the Kasam sofa says why is avram the one who loves God because here is the thing if avram was concerned only for his own Spiritual Development he didn't have to hang around with these low lives pray for sedome and and have his tent open to every Pagan every idolater he could have meditated he could have gone to the forest he could have concentrated on his relationship to God and that would have made him a higher McGregor in some ways but what did aphram do because avram loved God he was willing to sacrifice even the spiritual Madre guts that he could have achieved to bring greater glory to Hashem and the Sam silver says that is the actual meaning of Mercy West nefish now we use the word merci westnevres when a person is willing to risk his life but because that's not mysterious that's Missy reskuff I'm endangering my goof masira's nephesh is I even give up some of my spiritual attainments for the greater glory of akadishburg and that is avram oh happy this is an important message for people who sometimes wonder should they move to a certain Community to be mccarrative people but it's not as from and it's not as yeshivas or whatever it is well avram's Act of love was specifically willing to sacrifice some of the amenities some of the ease some of the comfort of living in a well-established Community to bring the glory of God to other people by the way the some sofa says there's a promise a Divine promise that one who moves to a community in order to bring others to Hashem as a promise that their children will not be harmed by negative influences there's a certain gives so last week we we spent the whole share on kind of the contrast between avraham and Noah Noah was a phenomenal Sadiq Noah was the only person in the world who was deserved to be saved now our family was saved only in the marriage of Noah imagine the whole world is evil and he was the only one so Noah's madrega is beyond our comprehension and yet as I mentioned last week the Zohar points out that Noah did not pray for his generation Noah was not so concerned for his generation and that is the greatness of of ramaphino so a Jew by definition what makes avram the first Jew because a Jew is concerns for others and a Jewish concern for the glory of Hashem and they don't look at about Hashem as simply a way to get brownie points a way to get reward but rather one is motivated by the glory of our kadishburg so that's one one particular point now I'm from who's called avram at this point he said avraham yet avram is actually introduced to us at the end of precious in fact if you add up the chronologies by adding up the ears of all the generations until avram avram was born amazingly enough in the year 1948 not not 1948 of the secular calendar Abram is older than the state of Israel but avram was born 1948 years from the creation of the world and by the way once you know that date you can figure out a lot of dates you can then figure out you'd see out some Italian and you know because based uh around how many years we could figure that out so that's an important day to remember in terms of computing biblical chronology chronology you can figure out the building of the first place I make this because the Torah says that's 480 years and I'm saying not to tell you the book of Bologna says it's 480 years after we left with Triumph so once you know avram's birthday which is actually fairly easily easy to compute you can figure out many many biblical days and you're going to be okay until you get to the second base of mcdosh where we have the famous chronological problem which I'm not going to address today I talk about it on Sunday of the missing 166 years of the Jewish calendar but Anton Makoma La Harris and that particular question and interestingly enough at the end of precious Noah we actually read that avram and Tarak decided to go to eres can not on and they let from a place called and they stopped that kharan and tariff dies and then Hashem tells him keep on going keep on going so what's interesting is that even before Hashem said avraham was already journeying towards the land of Eric Israel and even his father who was my Gallagher now why were they going so hazal see this as a remise to a famous story that everybody knows but is not in the hummus it mentions that avraham and tarach left or costume to go to Canaan and they came to kharan that's where you know loving the Suave that's where they eventually were and terrex died the chronology here is little murky Rashi does points out terrex actually did not die until many years after Abraham left but the Torah covered that up because it didn't want people to say oh avram left his elderly father but be this it may offer him with uh avram and Tarak both left or accustomed to go to ariskanat so ghazal's midrashic interpretation is that the word or it's not just a place name but it refers to a burning furnace customers simply the Babylonian nation and the concept was that Nimrod was the Melech and Terra was an idol Merchant and avram smashed the idols and Tarak his own father like turned him in to nimrod and uh Nimrod gave him a choice you either affirm a votazara or you get thrown into a kipshan or a fiery furnace and avram was thrown into a KitchenAid he was willing to die and miraculously he was saved but Tara himself felt you know who knows if the second time middle works or we better go interestingly enough avram had two brothers har run don't confuse it with Harlan Karen is a place harun is avram's brother and nochar an happens to be the father of Sorrow so I've run married his niece he married his brother's daughter now Hara dies too and the medrish gives us the backstory that haran was sitting on the fence he didn't know he says if avram gets saved I'll believe in God your problem dies I'll stick with the idols so avram gets saved Horan becomes a True Believer he gets thrown into the fiery furnace Harmon dies now people ask Akasha but it's not really a Tasha he says I mean is Horan a bad person I mean why I mean Horan saw a miracle and he did show up by seeing a miracle he did children and believed in Hashem what is so bad about that and the answer is very pleasant there is nothing that is bad about that haran in fact is considered to be a subject that is one of the reasons why he has the Success Through Sarah to be also the founder of the Jewish people the only thing is he was not on the madrega where he would be zoka to a supernatural miracle that's all in other words if somebody gets thrown into the fire and they die it's not that you know there were Russia it's that they weren't on the magnitude to get the miracle now to put it another way you are zoha to the supernatural Miracle only if you're willing to die fresh him that kabbalistically is the whole idea the shalakadish brings it that when a person says I love Hashem with all of my heart with all of my soul they should have cavana that they're willing to die al-qirish Hashem and if they have Cabana that they're willing to die okay they get all of that connection to akadesh in a sense avraham was willing to die okay because he was willing to die okay he didn't have to die just like by the Arcada his willingness it was the same thing with the Acadia the willingness to be most significant takes away the need to have it actually done harun was a righteous person Harvard was a balchuva for sure but Harlan was not willing to die it was the other way Horan basically said if Barbara dies I'm not going in so because of that Harwin is excited no question about it but Harmon was not safe to the next okay so this is called the miracle of War costume so the question becomes why does the Torah not tell me about this great miracle why does the Torah I mean it's a remise in the name of a place called the orcasm I am Hashem who took you out of War custom now literally that just means that's where I called you to come to Canaan because Al darshan I took you out of the furnace but it's only Aramis tells the story she's this part of a long article that she had about the notion of what is the role of midrashian in teaching Hamish and she made the point that although midrashram are very important they're part of our Taurus but it's important for a child to know the difference between what the hummus again maybe Mr could appreciate this know the difference between what is in the Hamish and what is in the measures that's why people sometimes have a little bit of a criticism with a very fine set of books The Measure sets which even adults use and it's a very very good collection of midrash him but some have said that the downside of it is that the child or the adult kind of doesn't differentiate between what is actually in the Hamish and water hazal adding to the commission it's important that you have that said and the example that she gave was everybody knows the story of Warcraft him but people think it's in the hamesh and it's not in the Hamish so the story she tells was that she was teaching this to Sam because she heard a lot of her early teaching were to soldiers you know religious non-religious and there was a Gruff General that said he says you're telling me inside of the Torah says when I was a child and he wasn't religious but he remembers as a child of course it's in the Torah so she gave her my Tanakh and said Tim said look for it no he hadn't looked at a Tanaka many years but you know he knew Hebrew so he's leaping through it leaving through it leaving through it the beginning of gracious he doesn't find the story so he gives it back there and says zakira safer then so so she gave an example that sun midrash him are so beloved and so well known that we can virtually swear when in fact it's not in the commentary by the way another interesting example of Miguel sester you know everybody knows the story of Miguel the tester that Esther became Queen because killed vashti if you actually look at the text of Michaela tester it does not say that he killed her and in fact the simple implication is that she was simply rotated back into the Harem she was demoted from being queen says I share Lo Tavo vashti lmlf now that's interpreted to by gazelle to mean that she you know she was killed she'll never come again but the simple meaning was she was demoted that she could no longer come to the king like Jessica just like any other woman in the Harem that she has to be called Etc elima and the Ebenezer I believe actually interprets it that way that there's no Raya from the circum that actually was killed he was just demoted and yet everybody knows that the Magilla says vashti was killed so given this predicate that the Torah does not give us the story of War costume except for Remus Remus mamish illusion hint why does the Torah not give us that story so here the morale gives a beautiful idea not much a beautiful idea says call Ava she eats any love that exists because of a specific reason I love you because you know you give me things I love you because you're smart I love you because you're beautiful but lava when the particular factor that generates the love goes away the love goes away too because the love is that's unconditional love then no matter what happens that love is going to stay so here's what the morale says if we ask ourselves I read the Hamish why did God choose avraham why did God pick this guy out of the masses of humanity and say go to my land I will make you a great nation I will bless you and those who bless you will be blessed and those who curse you will be cursed and you will be a source of blessing for the whole world by the way uh you know we we had our elections today here and next week we have the midterm elections in the United States it's been well since been pointed out to me together we're not in the VM so that part of why America has been so blessed for so many years is precisely because it gave it was a Haven for the Jewish people and the whole history of the United States is in some ways a fulfillment of what Hashem said to avram those who bless you will be blessed that indeed was the case and that's why there's no accident as if anti-Semitism rises in the United States there are other things that are going on now the dislocations and the turmoil and the like because you no longer have those who bless you will meet less it's a beautiful power of God Andrew Feinstein wrote many many years ago that a Jew has to be microtov to the United States four because it was a mouth it gave shelter I mean obviously in all of our shioram you know we're always criticizing some of the decadent aspects of American culture okay that's true I mean the world generally is going through difficult issues but the idea of akara satov to give Jews a place give them opportunity give them participation but Moshe Feinstein says that's something that calls upon us to have a correspective so going back to the college Hashem takes this person out of the masses of humanity however many people the word says I want you why the answer is no reason is given but there is a reason or costume avram taught people about God but the Torah doesn't give a reason and here's what the morale says if the Torah would have given us the backstory and it would have talked about avram's righteousness avram's goodness avram's willingness to dial is what have taught us all about our custom and then Hashem says to Abraham that would have made the relationship fully of the governor I love you because you're so righteous now all of that is true but there's a downside if God says I love you because you're so righteous and good what's going to happen when the Jewish people are not so righteous and not so good and what's going to happen when we sin and what's going to happen when we don't follow the way of Hashem Ava so this is what morale says it is true that God had reasons but the Tyra wanted to establish the relationship as an Ava to William to guarantee that this is a love that can never go away and that's why or costume is covered up because the mice of War costume would have implied a reason for the bakira the choice of avram and the Torah wants to make it to luya a bit over now that doesn't mean you know anything goes obviously there's Corbin there's gold in other words God's unconditional love doesn't mean we get away with things but once again that's an aspect of love right the the unconditional love that a parent has for a child doesn't mean you let your child do whatever your child wants that actually is not the sign of a loving parent maybe it's the sign of a lazy character or a confused parent a loving parent gives Direction gives structure gives boundaries Hashem does disciplines and the discipline is sometimes very very tough but it's a discipline that comes from Love the love of Hashem from Israel can never will never be abrogated and this goes all the way back that the choice of avram has to be Ava Aina wonderful wonderful idea now let me share with you again the beginning of the navi Hosea not yahushua Jose is the first of the trail sir 12 the English translation is Minor Prophets of course they're not minor but they're smaller they're shorter books so at the beginning of the navi hoshaya who was a navi before the Exile of the 12th of the ten tribes so it's more than 100 years before the destruction of the first place on mcdesh and I've mentioned this before I'll mention it again Hosea is commanded at the beginning of the book to marry a prostitute a well-known prostitute Gomer uh now this is my focus we've shown him did this actually happen or was this a dream that Hashem gave him but Peter said May whether it actually happened or was a dream he was told to marry or imagine a nobby of Hashem is told to marry a prostitute and he married to prostitutes and he has children from the prostitute and you know what she continues to be unfaithful to him even after they're married but he falls in love with her he loves her he can't send her away what's going on so the warm socket gives us the background when Hashem to give mustard to the Jewish people give them chastisement correct them Jose actually argued with Hashem he said you know what's the point of going through this game all the time I give them most of their other prophets give them what do they do they continue to say what's the point been there done that replace them with a different Nation unlike Moshe when Hashem said I want to replace benay Israel and make a deal with you Moshe says if you're going to erase them from the book or raise me Hosea said go to somebody else to understand what it means to love unconditionally and he has O'Shea take an Unfaithful life a wife who is not keeping any of the commitments that you make to your husband and he then tells Jose I get rid of her he says I can't Hashem says to him now you know my problem the Jewish people are like an Unfaithful wife that's a common metaphor in tanaki Hashem is our husbands I mean there are many metaphors but one is he's our husband we are the Unfaithful woman who commits adultery by Avada Zara and sin but Hashem is stuck with us he's not going to divorce US how Shaya needed to understand unconditional love and the morale says that is built into the very beginning of the of where it's now if we go towards the end of the departure though avram came to Eric Israel where everyone was at least commanded to come to Eric Israel Eric kananas was called then at the age of 75. now it's interesting that Rashi proves chronologically that Abraham had made an earlier trip five years earlier the famous Covenant among the parts when Hashem told him about you see a Smith Triumph we can prove occurred when avram was 70 years old so the truth is avram actually came to where it Israel five years earlier in fact it was the war of the Kings at that earlier point and the Britain up sorry then he went back and then five years later he comes again right so it's interesting that avram actually had two different trips in average Israel but whether we count his coming to arith Israel at 70 or 75 when he's 99 so he was there for 24 years or more he was commanded to do a Brit Miller a physical Covenant of the flesh and then shortly after the Britney law Ishmael was born when avraham was 86. uh Yitzhak was born whenever and was a hundred the British Milan was Ishmael was 13. right 86 to 99 and uh was not born yet he brisk the next year at eight days the mafortion asked a classical question and they say had a tradition that avram avinu kept all of the Mitzvahs of the Torah even before those Mitzvahs were given he was not obligated to do that he was not hired to do that the Torah wasn't given but he intuited with ruach hakodesh everything that the Torah says and he kept it he kept the Torah odd shalom in fact they even point out when he serves the angels in next week's Parsha milk and meat says he first gives them and then he gives up to me because I like it but you're allowed to have flight shakes after milk and the whole thing is dry button I mean the rice or the history of meat milk is only if you cook them together so right so you can have a glass of milk and eat meat but he was moshmer the first give them the milk and then the flight shakes he kept even rub onions this is a famous this is a mission of ram avino kept the whole Torah at Shalom so the question is if he kept the hotel before it was given then why didn't he circumcise himself before God commanded meaning to say he knew about Shabbos he knew about to fill in he knew about kashras we don't know how we knew about shikita he knew about meat and milk he knew about Brittany love if he knew about Britney laugh he should have done a brismila before God committed right so why didn't he do that actually so there's a lot of different answers that before she'll give one answer is the answer of Rebel young israqi he was a famous 16th century Turkish Ralph who wrote probably the most complete commentary on Raji and homage full of exploring all sorts of issues and rebel young Israeli writes that's gazal say that when you do a Mitzvah that you're commanded to do you're not commanded to them now most mitzvos I can do it when I'm not commanded and when I get commanded I can do it again I can do it again Rich me lie you can only do once so iframa Vino would have would have done Brittany love as an anonymous someone who was not commanded he would never be able to do it as a midservice somebody who was commanded therefore he had to wait in order that he should be able to do bridgmail as a mitsu that viosa that's another that's one aspect another aspect is that Brit a covenant is not something you can do unilaterally you see a covenant by definition is entering into a bilateral relationship now just like you can't really make a contract with yourself you make a contract with another person you can't make a Brisk with yourself you have to make a brief with another person or in this case a bridge with a gem so until Hashem says I'm ready to have a covenant with you your your circumcision would only be an act of Mutilation it wouldn't represent the forging of a covenant with Hashem gritsvilla cannot be done on an optional basis because it then wouldn't be the Brit of mutuality than a covenant suggests that's the second answer but a third answer that the maharasha says is very interesting the rabbinical statements that avram avinu kept the whole Torah before it was given is only after he did britmina Rich Mila elevated him to a new understanding whereby he was able to perceive the Torah before it was given until britmila he was not on that level so you can't ask nakasha why didn't he circumcise he kept the whole Torah before it was given the answer is until he did Bridge me lie he did not keep the altario report it was given he didn't know so the question I want to explore in our remaining time is what is it about brismila that elevated of RAM avina to a superior understanding of the spiritual world right why did Bruce Mila according to the martial bring him to that higher level so under so to understand this let's look at another question we we know uh that the names of both avram and Sarai we changed right Hashem told of rum your name is no longer a from your name will be of raham on because you will be a father the spiritual father of a multitude of Nations again remember that we even use in English today the abrahamic faith Christianity and Islam are both outgrowths of Abram's Faith may be perverted in some ways but fundamentally they are based on that and sorry let's change to Sarah shinui Hashem but the Shinay Hashem is also in connection with britmila meaning to say it is only at the time of the circumcision or right before the circumcision that the names are changed right so what is it about Britney law that engenders the change of the name so let's first talk about the Shinu Hashem and then we'll go back and see why the britsvilla elevated avram that he could perceive the hotel uh there's a famous Gamora that is often I'm sure you've heard this or said it at numerous Chevy bracos over the years that take the name for a man and woman ish Anisha ish Anisha share two common letters alipshin the man has a good in the in the word ish and a woman has a hay Den hay is actually one of the names of God so the famous sport is when they bring God into their marriage men are doing what men are supposed to do and women are doing what women are supposed to do everything's great you take God out of the marriage then selfishness and egotism become a destructive fire without Hashem without yodane in the marriage man and woman become fire in which each one destroys the other famous famous chever breakfast vort that only when Hashem is in your marriage then each person is functioning as they should function without Hashem selfishness becomes age right that's ignoring you Wellness but my route wants to take it a little little further why does the man get the good and the woman get the hay and yet hey you know a woman is is only half as good as a man's surely not I mean you're just telling you hey so here's what my Rel says the gamara says in my knuckles that God created the universe through the spiritual power of the out of space that's safer you'd see with the book of creation foreign was created through the power of the letter yud Hasa was created through the power of the letter hey it is the spiritual power that engendered Allah hey is the spiritual power that engendered and that's the meaning of the verse foreign God created worlds why is your the letter of Allah is the world of spirit there is no eating there is no drinking there is only kadusha there is only godliness so as a result the letter that represents Omaha has the least material unit is the smallest letter U it represents the letter that is most distant from physicality so you had represents the notion of rookness spirituality that's not connected to materiality that's Allah what do you say so hey the morale says could be seen as a composite of two letters visualize a hey you have a dialect and you have a yield I might have thought of that but he says valid and yields doubt it represents pure materialism we talk about the four directions of the world or even matter has four dimensions we have length width thickness whatever and time so if you had represents pure spirituality dominant represents pure materialism but this world is comprised of both spiritual and physical so what is hey you bring the youth into the dark so says my realm a powerful thing men now this is a generalization I know that people don't like generalizations but this is a general idea men have problems with materialism when we get involved in the world the male ego asserts itself greed anger competitiveness so just like uh and then first with emphysema may have to go on pure oxygen a man's connection to God has to be forged by a certain disengagement from the world pure rookies so a man's catcher to God got to be a good that's why men go to show more they have a minion that's why they are yeshivas that's why they are called a lemon even if someone is in the Working World they take time off to separate from the outside world because the world drags us down so our tester to Hashem has to be complete roughness a woman is given a special gift a woman's special gift is to be able to take the yacht of life and bring it into the doubt in other words to look at the details of physical existence whether it's taking care of children or would are running a household and instead of that being a distraction from a voters Hashem that gets sanctified that gets elevated that's actually a more difficult avoda I mean a very simple example I mean many I mean let's take a day like Yom Kippur right Yom Kippur I think we would describe as the yield of the of all the days of the year it's a day of pure rookness Yom Kippur in many ways is an easier day than other young and children precisely because we don't have to worry about physical things like the meal and setting the table and everything else it's a much bigger challenge to bring the yud into the diet than it is just to function with the youth and indeed the morale says that the meaning of a woman being a Zaire connecto helping the husband is that a woman can teach a wife can teach a husband in the physical and material and not only in the spiritual that you bring the spiritual into the physical this is the color of a woman now again when we talk about man woman we're we're really referring to male Tendencies female Tendencies it gets very complicated because in any given male there may be female nutriots and in any given female there may be male details so we don't mean to say all men are this way and all women are this way but we mean that the male nitya is to seek a rochnius that is separated from physicality and the female Metea is to see the possibility of bringing the youth the nikudatayat into the town so now you'll notice the following you'll notice that the shinui Hashem of avram and Sarah involved giving them a hey each of them got a hay now I mean Russians you point out that maybe Hashem took the Yoda Sarai the law came from the woman and divided it into hey so Sarai got half of for Youth and avram got the other half of the end but whatever the origin of whether it came from the yood or not the bottom line was they were both given a hey and that actually means that avram and Sarah and Sarah man and woman were given this otherwise female capacity to bring kadusha into the physical and that is actually connected to britmila one of the very important lessons of British Milan is the capacity to elevate and sanctify even the most material even the most animalistic even the most involuntary part of the human anatomy points out there is no accident that the British Mila is performed on the sexual organ and he says in some ways of graduates on a baby but it is the organ that eventually will be the sexual organ in some ways the sexual organ sexual function is the least voluntary and it's something we share with animals all life and we know that there are some religions that actually say like the Catholics that the the highest righteous person will be celibate so why do we do britz Milan the lower part of ourselves so to speak so the safer says to teach us an important lesson that every single function of Our Lives can be elevated sanctified consecrated dedicated to God are eating our drinking our intercourse these are functions we share with animals but animals do it out of instinct animals do it out of simple taiva we can do it as a way of serving so now you understand the connection between the shinui Hashem the change of name and Bridge Mila when Hashem is ready to enter a covenant with avram and sorrow and this Covenant through circumcision will convey the idea that even the physical even the animalistic can be dedicated to Hashem Hashem gives them that power through the letter A which is bringing the youth into the dollar until britamila avram himself maybe Sarah may have had that capacity whatever himself didn't have that capacity to elevate the physical maybe avram needed to withdraw from the physicality just like Noah needed to withdraw from wine I similarly think but the British Milan represented a new evolutionary stage in his connection to kadusha and that was also symbolized by the shinoy Hashem the year than day now it's interesting that although the hay represents a higher level of bringing the yud into the toilet numerically it's only half a yodist head and a hay is only five that actually means the caducea of everyday life will not have the intensity and the excitement right when I separate myself from the physical and I have nothing but to think about other than about as Hashem I could be passionate I could be excited but then I got to do carpool I got to change diapers I gotta go shopping I don't have that excitement anymore and I think I'm functioning at a lower level it's a hey in reality it's a higher level the yud is still there it's concealed in the dollar it's still you but the reduction refers to the fact that in terms of what I sense I don't sense the condition it's more of a who said it's more hidden but it's actually a higher level it's actually a higher level in the language of the balatanya the famous beautiful language of the outer rabbi although he didn't invent this language people commonly quoted the name of Italian but the famous saying that Chabad will tell you a million times from the balotanya that Hashem wants to have a divine Hashem wants to make his residence in the lowest of the Worlds to bring Hashem into every low place that's the highest level to bring out not to bring Hashem and he's already there but to bring Hashem bring out the presence of Hashem that's there in the lowest places and that's what brismila represents and that's what shinui Hashem represents and that's why the Shino Hashem is badafka connected to the bris Mila so now with this we can go back and answer the question I started off with that is right the question that the fortune asked was if avra mavino kept the whole Torah before it was given why didn't he do a risk before he was commanded so the martial's answer was until he did a press he didn't know the hotel he only moved her because now why is that so so the question was why would britz Miller bring him to that higher perception because if you think about it the mitzvos of Hashem are vehicles by which we sanctify the physical world because if one only wanted to serve God in a spiritual way like why do I need to fill it I mean it's felony you kind of uh you gotta Chef the cow and you got to skin a cow and you got to process the leather and then they take the wool of a sheep and you make citiz and then you go and you harvest lulux and asteroids and all of these things why can't I just meditate why can't I just think why can't I just focus on weakness why am I doing all this stuff I gotta get like a quill pen and write the safer Torah by hand the answer is because mitzvos are how we Elevate the physical world and turn physicality into holiness but when did avrah mavino get the understanding that even the physical can be holy Chris Mila and therefore he didn't understand why would God care if I shake a palm a branch of a palm tree or a natural why would that even be important prismila gave him the insight to be able to understand all of those all of those in young and so as a result therefore britmila is the reason for shinui Hashem and British me lies the reason for his understanding of kalatorakula Shalom the ability to perceive the Torah even before it was it was given now the truth is Brittany law obviously has many many other uh lessons as as well let me just mention uh very quickly just a few a few lessons uh one lesson you know um and again over the years I I mentioned this uh there was um a a journalist uh Ellen Willis who unfortunately died but many many years ago she wrote uh an article in Rolling Stone magazine about her brother I think still may still teaches Nisha Torah yeah he became a balcuba they grew up in a secular family in Queens he became about Silva he became haredi learning in Yeshiva and Ellen Willis wanted to investigate what type of crazy cult is going on in Jerusalem uh and I thought since Rolling Stone suspected there might be a drug angle there they kind of gave her unlimited Pages a huge article to be able to write whatever she wanted because they figured she'd find something I remember years ago when this article came out I think it was in the 70s or maybe very early 80s so uh I wanted to get a copy of all rabbis wanted to get a copy of this because it was a very major article but it's a little embarrassing to walk into a 7-Eleven and buy a Rolling Stone magazine uh somebody might see you a student might see you so I remember I waited I was in Chicago then I waited till two in the morning Saturday nights to uh buy a 7-Eleven I'm trying to buy a rolling stone in the 7-Eleven in Chicago and of course as you would expect the guest we have for Shabbos the boy we had for Shabbos was there buying some beer and he sees you know me buying a Rolling Stone magazine so he said oh no I know what you rabbi's doing your free time type of thing uh but the article was an extraordinary article really uh and it was very quite amazing she recounts many conversations she had particularly with her of North Weinberg what's kind of amazing is there was a certain tension introduced into the article rev Novak has many of you might know I know Rivera knows was an extraordinarily not only passionate person but a very persuasive person he could really talk you into you know anything and he was on and she was mamished on the verge he kept on talking to her and explaining things there and the tension in the article was that she was like on the verge of making this commitment to be from itself and at the last minute she pulled away last minute I was going to say she was ready to jump off the cliff maybe that's not the right way of describing it but she was right there ready to go and she pulled away at the last minute and you were not rooting for her to make this decision to stay to go to Torah and the like but in one of the conversations with Ralph Noah this was in the article so she recounted again he said this other other places as well like what is it that human beings want above everything so he said uh so she she said they want pleasure which he agreed with that's exactly right human beings are pleasure seeking entities he then asked him what's the opposite of pleasure says well they want to avoid pain so he disagreed he said no all pleasure in life by definition involves a certain amount of pain no pain no gain write the pleasure of something is commensurate to the work and the effort you put in the opposite of pleasure is comfort so she said she didn't understand she said wait in pleasure Comfort they seem to be the same thing why are you saying they're opposites he said no he says imagine they gave him Marshall imagine somebody wanted to be uh an Olympic gymnast so like you have these high school kids that get up at three o'clock in the morning and they practice four hours a day before school and they work for years and years and years and then they get to the Olympics and they achieve something that's called pleasure Comfort is the guy who doesn't get out of bed so it's comfortable but there's no pleasure because there's no accomplishment the pleasure even of making money which is maybe a low level pleasure but this could be a pleasure but even then the pleasure is often in the struggle and people who Who start businesses and get very successful they will often say later the happiest part of my life in business was when I was building up that business now it's just that money's coming to me okay to say there but I don't have that pleasure of building that's why sometimes you have these guys who are like get rid of the business and let's start again I mean granted they're starting with a you know a few million dollars but still the concepts I want to start it again so if Noah said Judaism does not make a claim to be comfortable being a Jew does involve sacrifices it doesn't involve commitments even if I can't eat where I want to eat I can't go where I want to go there are restrictions so no one's going to tell you it's comfortable to be a Jew but Judaism ultimately will be a great great source of pleasure because it'll give your life a meaning and a purpose even in relationships the more we work on our marriages the more pleasurable it'll be the more we work on developing a relationship with our children the more Knockouts we're going to get from it precisely because in fact that's the rights in a famous essay why is it the case that the love of a parent for a child yeah maybe not always but tends to be stronger than the love of a child for a parent the old yet is saying right one parent can feed 10 kids but 10 kids don't take care can't take care of one parent sometimes so what answer they give they give one answer is the reason is because the relationship of parent to child uh other Marisha didn't have a parent I mean he had Hashem but he didn't have a human parent but other mauritian had children so as a result the first love that humankind had was the love of a parent to a child the love of a child for a parent came came later so to speak I came in right the love of a child for a parent is a second generation love the love of a parent for a child is a first generation that's one reason but the other reason of destler says goes back to the idea again it really is real no it's fine maybe you're of not perhaps even derived it from if that's the discussion I don't know is that parents invest a lot in their children you work you struggle you sacrifice and as a result Your Love in them is going to be much stronger than the child that perceives stuff from the parent but didn't necessarily sacrifice for the parents and therefore the more effort you put in right so going back to Brittany law maybe it's kind of a hard a hard love type of introduction where we did we're introducing the child at a very young age to the idea that being a Jew takes some sacrifice takes a little bleeding takes a little effort that life is not always going to be easy but the meaningfulness of life is not a function of how easy it is you know Blood Sweat and Tears as Winston Churchill said and we're teaching the child yeah that's part of life too but you can get joy in it you can get happiness in it you can get fulfillment in it that's one important idea and the second idea to this I'll just add my route points out that there's a great great symbolism in the fact that it's on the eighth day seven represents the cycle of nature Hashem made the world in six days and then there was a seventh day and then it starts over again so Waldo shot this is kadosh Shabbos is still within the framework of the natural world eight is something that is above nature it represents something that's not connected to Teva hashem's relationship to the Jewish people is above nature besides the fact as we discussed even historically it doesn't make sense there was a famous British historian Arnold toynbee who wrote a multi-volume brilliant workout actually historians don't like it now and it's fallen into disfavor but it was a classic word called the study in history and what Professor toynbee did was he analyzed I think it was 50 ancient civilizations Babylonians Sumerians Egyptians through the Greeks and Romans and he was able to identify by cross-compairing all of this data what are the factors that create success in civilizations and what are the factors that cause degeneration he literally identified the common denominators of what makes civilization successful and what makes them fail problem was when he came to the Jews his formula worked for 49 out of the 50. 98 success rate but it didn't work for the Jews based on his calculations there ought not to be a Jewish people we didn't have for most of our history we didn't have a common language we didn't have a common land a lot of those factors weren't there now it is said that time B was an anti-semite which is probably was probably true but you know I think to myself forgive me you know I don't blame the guy the guy writes a 10 000 page book multi-volume and like you know the Jews the existence of the Jews refute his theory you know I would be I would be nice you know hey you guys and because of this time B came to the conclusion that the Jews are a fossilized people meaning he said I can't explain them it's like sometimes you can find a fly trapped in Amber that's if you believe in the age of the Earth being millions of years it's millions of years old it's like finding a dinosaur you know you're finding something the Loch Ness monster right who knows whatever that is might be a I'm not saying it is I think people think there might be some dinosaur in Scotland that's still hanging around in other words the Jews are a fossilized people now this was interpreted as a big insult this was interpreted as an anti-semitic slur and in the 60s uh yaakov Herzog uh the the older brother of climber took the president of Israel the uh in fact the uncle of the of the present president of Israel the son of rabies but also a very brilliant person and throughout some American and British campuses there was they called the herzade toybee debate are the Jews a fossilized people or not and I think you can even get some of the old videos on YouTube I think they even posted a few of those videos it goes back to the 60s a long time ago but what I want to say is that it might be that twine B is making a point here because point B is basically saying I have studied the laws of History and based on the laws of History they're ought not to be a Jewish people maybe the response to that is you are right the Jewish people should not exist based on historical processes that's exactly what the morale is saying we represent eight We Exist La Mila amen so Toby is actually making an interesting point our existence is Supernatural okay he called it a fossil because we can call it a different gun but if his point is we don't fit the historical paradigm ain't nothing that's exactly right and in fact one of the arguments for God even is how else could the Jewish people exist every nation great Empires Rome Greece Babylonia Egypt tried to destroy us and those Empires are not even in existence anymore there's a famous letter from Mark Twain who is not not a Jew where Mark Twain basically said this he said all things perish except the Jew you can get the letter on the on the internet he was a great great you know beautiful writer and he expresses it very beautiful that he says he stands amazed at the survival of Israel and not just survival it's not like we're surviving in a cave in Afghanistan but in terms of being a presence in the world and contributing to the world right so that's also so so besides the idea of Brits Mila as the capacity to sanctify the material number one it reminds us of nox point that pleasure is not always the same as comfort and there's going to be a little pain in life but we persevere but it also reminds us of eight that our connection is above nature so these are some thoughts think about mishawale a good Shabbat so we can thank you [Music] happy birthday yes [Music]