Parshas Matos: The Ghosts of Gilad -- Time to Confront Our Family Skeletons

welcome everybody today's class is dedicated by Dina dornbush with a blessing and a prayer for MIM for the release and liberation of all of our hostages amen thank you very very much next week there will be a classem and uh the week afterwards Tuesdays TSH so there won't be a class and a few weeks there'll be a break after that so next next week will still be a class okay you have a source sheet One Source sheet if you didn't get it should be on the beima we're going to explore something that at the surface would seem not so relevant and even if relevant certainly not so dramatic and even if dramatic not that dramatic or cataclysmic or so impactful something that at the surface would seem quite I would say maybe anticlimactic if that's the proper word everybody knows what anticlimactic means okay and yet upon a deeper reflection a whole new uh layer of interpretation emerges and we come to see and discover a tapestry that it's easy to dis it's easy to to miss and furthermore one with profound meaning and relevance all the way to this very age and to this very time this week we conclude SA it's the fourth book of or in the English name it's Genesis and numbers and Leviticus I'm sorry Genesis and exodus and Leviticus and numbers and Deuteronomy this week this week we finish sa midbar in many ways you could say that uh saer Bidar is really the conclusion of T to a certain degree because the fifth book is called Mish which means a repetition of and the reason is because all of does not record any events it records a speech the whole is a speech essentially it's not a story it's not things that happen it's a speech that's what the word means means words it opens up with the verse These are the words thata spoke and this is basically the final will and testament if you wish ofu who in the last five weeks of his life speaks to the Jewish people he shares with them their history their story their narrative their High moments their low moments lessons Mitzvah their Journey their destination their purpose their meaning that's the entire all the way till the end where He blesses them and then the last eight verses his passing and the torah's eulogy so essentially the end of the torah's stories is Saab midb the four books within itself the last two portions read this week are and M M is a record of the journeys it's like a Chronicle of the 42 Journeys that the Jewish people took in the desert from when they left Egypt until they came to the cusp until they came to the border of the promised land they went through 42 destinations called the MBE Mas is the 42 Journeys and the last portion ofid records those Journeys these are the journeys and it goes through every location they travel from Egypt and they came here they traveled from this place and they came here they traveled from this place they came here 42 locations until the end and then there is Hashem sharing with mosa how the land of Israel should be given to the Jewish people its borders who should Beque them the land who should be in charge on dividing the land and a few other Mitzvah connected with Cities of Refuge to somebody who kills by mistake and then at the end the story story of the daughters of who inherited land from their father and what they how in terms of their plot remaining within the tribe because and how they get married to people from manasha so that's M which is really the last leg of the tah recording the actual Journeys and a few Mitzvah connected to the land of Israel where does the actual tah end in many ways at the end of Paras Matas the end of Paras Matas that's where the stories of the T end as I said the whole book of is a speech ofu and M is a recount of the journeys and a few Mitzvah connected to their future settlement in the land of Israel so essentially what we're Happening Here is when we come to the end of matto that's where the actual story stories of the Torah ends the end of Paras matus which is the second to the last portion of Bidar we would then expect that the end of all the stories of the T maybe should end like you know what do they say end with a bang we would anticipate the final story of T the crescendo the Zenith the end of it all to teach us something profound meaningful relevant when you look at it at the surface the end of mat which as I said is the conclusion of all the stories of the Torah basically is anticlimactic and I want you to take a look how the portion of Mattis ends basically the Jewish people are on a long journey they still did not get into the land they're on the Eastern side of the land of Israel today's Jordan it's called trans Jordan the other side of the Jordan River which means the Eastern side where today you have the country of Jordan that's where the Jewish people are that area that region over there there are two kings Who come out to fight them and Destroy them you have you have and you have o they come they want to liquidate they want to annihilate the Jewish people in their entirety men women and children the Jews fight back and defeat which is now open territory and there are two and a half tribes of the Jewish people who decide that they would love to live there God and ruen and ultimately a half a tribe of manasha and they will settle there they will settle on the Eastern side of the Jordan which will remain Jewish cities and countries for a very very long time this is on the Eastern side of arel although most of the tribes will go into the western side of the Jordan and settle the other side of the Jordan What's called the West bang the West MV the western side of the Jordan River the end of mat describes now how that land on the East was taken and divided and these are the last verses you could see the children of a man named M who was the son of manasha now manasha we know of course was a son of ysf had two sons Ephraim and manasha so Masha has a son M so again we have yakob who has a son ysf who has a son manasha and manasha has a son M and the children of M the son of manasha go to a place called gillad gillad is a very very beautiful region we know exactly where it is it's in today's Jordan really beautiful with a lot of streams lakes rivers very pastoral very good for grazing and flock which is why they settled there Kua and they conquered Gill okay they expelled the amorites who was still there and they conquered this place called G and mha indeed gave this land called Gill to this man named M or his family the family of M the son of manasha and that family settled over there y a man named y from the tribe of manasha the son of manasha doesn't mean he was a direct son of manasha this is remember that YF has died before the Exile of Egypt this is a few hundred years later they were in Egypt for 2010 years but y from the tribe of he goes and he captures all the towns means all the towns around G and he gives them a name the towns of basically he names them after himself his name is y he calls all these towns around gav the towns of Y Rashi said he didn't have any children and therefore this was his legacy so he called it a man named and he conquered a place called Kos and its daughters it's Offspring meaning its towns around by and he named her also the name by his own name and that's the end of par mat that's the story so basically we hear about these obscure people who go and Conquer these emiro L lands called gilad the towns around gillad Kos the towns around Kos we hear about somebody named Yer from the tribe of manasha and he goes and he takes all the towns around gillot so these are facts that happened these are stories that happened and uh the fact that y conquered all the towns around Gil I guess is essential for us to know that's why the to wants us to know but nonetheless to think about that this is the last story this is the end of the T as I said m is the journeys and is the speech of M and the question is why is this the conclusion of all the stories of the Torah who really cares about it what is its relevance what does it teach us why do we need to know it and We Know It with all of these intricacies with all of these details anyone who studies knows that it's a book of great profound and quite dramatic events if you go back to saes the Book of Genesis every story deals with huge ideas ideas and stories and events with cataclysmic with with tremendous implications and results you go is literally story story after Story you know the story of creation and the story of the first betrayal and the story of sin and the story of a snake and the story of a brother killing his brother Etc the corruption that happens the flood the Tower every story is a story that describes the struggles the triumphs of The Human Condition each story no exception each one contains a major lesson for the story of humanity in one way or another and yet as we reach the end we come to mat the end of all the stories the final story at the surface it seems insignificant random and seemingly no implications okay so this guy Yer went and he conquered a bunch of towns and he decided to call it by his name kav y but as I said that's at the surface if you would compare this story to the story of YF being sold by his brothers aay killing heav or ASA wanting to kill yov or being expelled from the etc etc it would seem that this pales in comparison in terms of significance and relevance it's just facts it's almost like just you know Jewish trivia about who went where and what did they conquer and in order to appreciate this we're going to focus on a little detail that seems like an anomaly but it's fascinating and T every little detail opens up Vistas to much larger stories there's no small detail at the surface it's small but it's not small and that becomes a technical issue with lineage here it says clearly y y came from the tribe of masas he was a son of manasha we know with tribes Jewish identity is based on the mother the maternal lineage but which tribe you are is based on the father aen is based on the fact that his father is aen ETC so if my father is from the tribe of Ley I'm from Ley if my father's from the tribe of yood from Yehuda so y it says clearly is y is from the tribe of manasha there's a book in tanak called The Book of Chronicles over there we have the story of Y but there's a completely different story in terms of where he comes from and it's very rare to have such a blatant contradiction in tanak about the same person if he comes from One Tribe or another tribe you will really really have it because this is like a real contradiction of fact it's like either he was this family or that family so if you take a look your second Source this is Chronicles 1 this Chronicles 1 and 2 Chronicles 1 chapter 2 it's referring to the lineage of Yakov and Yehuda Yakov our third patriarch had a son Yehuda Judah Yehuda had three sons a sha a and died they married a woman named tar they both died prematurely and then Shaya was left T wanted to marry Shaya Yuda didn't want T to marry Shaya everybody knows the story and T disguised herself and she was together with Yehuda and pars as as zorak and they had birth together that she gave birth to twins parrots and zorak their father was Yehuda their mother was Tamar called so Yuda has five Sons a who died prematurely Shaya and then parot and fine beautiful B parrots who are the children of parrots the grandchildren of Yehuda so we have and okay beautiful needs to get married right his mother said it's time to get married soetan comes and he gets married to a woman she's the daughter of M M remember is the son of Masha he's the father of Gil M has a son Gill and who was the son of parot who is the son of Yehuda marries this woman the daughter of 60 years old and she give bir she gives birth to a boy named z don't get too confused there I'll just clarify okay but you're going to be tested on all the facts but it's not so complicated there's a man named Yehuda he has a son parat parat has a son right needs to get married like every Jewish good Jewish boy is told as you tell your sons the right time you got to get married so ketrin finds a wonderful woman who is this woman she is from the tribe of manasha she is the daughter of a man named n m who happens to be the son of manasha maker is the father of gillot so she's a sister of gillot and she marries this manin and they give she gives birth to a boy named zg okay beautiful so Z's father is kin whose grandfather is parat whose great-grandfather is Yehuda and Z's mother is the daughter of the daughter of B and gave birth to a man named and he had 23 cities in the land of G so if y y was a son of Z who was a son ofet who was a son of parot who was a son of Yehuda which tribe was was he from Yehuda he wasn't from the tribe of Manas it's true his grandmother was from the tribe of manasha that's true his grandmother because ketra had married the daughter of M who was the son of manasha so she was a granddaughter of manasha and she gave birth to a boy named zg and zg was the father of Yar so yar's grandmother right his father's mommy his father's mother came from the tribe of manasha but it's clear that his father's father grandfather great-grandfather this is as you as judan as it gets pun intended so we have here a very blatant contradiction in our you say well who cares he was connected to masas he was invited to masha's khaka parties okay perhaps it was his grandmother but why would you say he's Ben man from the tribe of manasha it really did not work that way the T clearly says that when it comes to the tribes it follows the father's lineage so this seems like just you know a little contradiction between pares mat and but it's these little contradictions I told you that open up Vistas to profound Reflections and the class today is credited to a friend of mine an older colleague of mine whose name is Rabbi David foran from the five towns who has the website aliv beta on and tanak and many works also on and tanak and this is an Insight I heard from him I'm just going to develop it a little bit but the inside is his really uh UND digging I would say it's it's it's a work of archaeology textual archaeology of Excavating deeper themes in the text and the whole KES has so the whole tanak is so multi-layered that literally every verse every story you can dig up deeper and deeper dimensions and it's a work of intellectual and spiritual archaeology so I credit him and I want to attribute credit for this for the main theme of this class and a few additions that I'm going to give just with some explanations from some other sources as well in order to see the picture and then realize that maybe the end of mat is not as anti climactic as we would think it is but perhaps it's indeed a good summation of of the T we need to go in a little bit to discover this name of this place which country which what's the name of the place that was conquered by the children of M the son of manasha the Apple answer is gillot the place is called gilot and Y from conquers the the towns around Gil so we're focused on a place called Gill so we think did we ever hear about Gill before in Kish the truth is the name Gill is mentioned dozens and dozens and dozens of times tanak because it became a flourishing Jewish Community since this conquest and settlement although today it's in Jordan but for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years it was a blossoming Jewish Community but the question is where did we hear Gil the first time so we have Gill in terms of names because as I said Masha had a son M and M had a son gillot but that's in terms of people in terms of countries locations did we have gillad before the first time we come across gillad takes us indeed back to baras and as we will come to discover today I just have no better way of saying it gillad has a lot of ghosts there's a lot of ghosts associated with Gill I know maybe there's a better term for it but gillad has a lot of Darkness or secrecy or mystery pain anguish associated with it ELO is called speaks about the fact we read it on we can't find any more doctors and Medicine in gillot so gillot became a center thriving Center of Jewish life on the Eastern side of the Jordan River where's the first time we meet gillot the answer is we go back to Bas Genesis it's the story of Yakov spending 20 years with his father-in-law lover and after 20 years escaping the home he consults his wife ra and Leia and they say we have nothing left here we can go and Y one day takes his entire family meaning ra all of the children who are still quite young and they make what's called a they flee they flee from a place called Kon that's where Lan of course lived and that's where Yakov lived for 20 years that's where he built the entire family the first family of the Jewish people 11 of the 12 tribes were born in Karan and we still know where Karan is it's called today haran it's the Ancient Ancient City HR ran Southern turkey Northern Iraq and Yakov escapes and he begins a journey back to his parents his parents of course are living in Lan discovers three days later that Yakov escaped and he pursues him he chases after him where do they meet up anybody remembers very good Gill that's where Gill is introduced the first time and what happens there is a painful scene now I have just have to make a disclaimer we're going to be discussing a lot of painful stories today and each one of them deserves a whole series of classes why and what's the meaning and what's the significance and it seems un and these are very powerful questions that we're not going to address in this class simply because first because a lot of that I don't know and another reason is because of our time limits so I know I'm going to be opening up a lot of stories that are difficult to understand but I just want to focus on one theme we can't always cover everything andem in the right time if hem allows me and us to be channels will get to those as well at least to the best of our human limited abilities which is what we have so if you take a look in your Source it's your next Source let's just see a few of the of the major verses here this is that's Genesis chapter 31 went a few days away to share his flock ra goes and steals the TR that belonged to her father the does not say what these tram are and the commentators of course have a huge debate what are these tram they're mentioned in tanak again later we'll have a story that mikal the daughter of scha needed to save her husband David who her father wanted to kill and he ran away middle of the night and the guards came to search for him and she put truim in his bed so what a truim what is it that she had in her house she put truim in his bed and this camouflage the situation and the guards came and they thought he was sleeping and they let they thought you know he's still there and they could just protect him from outside later they find out he was gone we have other mentions of truim so it's not clear what truim are Rashi says and this is the the the interpretation in many commentators it even says in Z that TR was a form of a this was some type of statue or Idol that Lin worshiped and later Lovin is going to tell Yakov you stole my God so obviously he referred to it as his God as his deity the medish actually says that all of his grandchildren were there and they said zi we are quite embarrassed with you that this is your god that's what the M says BNA we're quite humiliated that our grandfather really calls these a God so obviously these truff were not just in interesting but they were extremely significant to the point that he could call them as God the ran Compares it to something that we would call today a horoscope it was like a form of a clock that measured hours but he used it as a horoscope others say that it was some instrument that he felt can prophesize to him and predict to him the future there's so many different interpretations what tram are but there's something that happens here and ra decides to steal to steal these TR steals the heart of Lon he doesn't tell him that he's escaping it's a very harsh term yob steals his heart what does it mean he steals his heart he basically deceives love because he doesn't tell him the truth yob escapes with everything he crosses the river and his face is heading to mount Gill Gill Lovin pursues him it takes three days Lovin catches up to that place and then Lovin starts screaming at him why did you run away why are you stealing things from me why are you hiding why couldn't you be open about it I would have sent you away with music I would have sent away you away with a c you didn't even allow me to kiss my daughter's goodbye you didn't allow me to kiss my grandchildren goodbye why are you doing this and after everything said why did you steal my God and that's when yob famously says I didn't think you would allow me to leave so therefore I ran and in terms of your God I never stole your God and I don't know who stole your God and he says these words if you find somebody stole your God if you find your God with one of my people that person shouldn't live in front of all our brothers you recognize you tell me what I have from you you tell me what I have stolen I have stolen nothing take it back the t is now giving its own interpretation you know shift drifting off the story yob of course did not know what really happened he did not know that ra stole them because he probably would have never said he would have certainly never said these words whoever stole your God should not live did take them she placed them under the saddle or in the pillow on the camel and she was sitting on them Lin goes and he searches everywhere he searches in her tent he searches Leia's tent he comes back to the other women he goes to Ra's tent and then he comes to the camel and what does she say to him she says to her father don't be upset I cannot stand up for you because I am in the situation of woman's nature and therefore I can't stand up and he searches and he can't find the TR so basically ra excuses herself for not standing up because she's not in that situation that she could it would be disrespectful to her and her father and therefore the truin remain hidden under her under her seat in the camel Lovin couldn't find anything it seems that yov was right Loven was suspecting them innocently and that's when Yakov Begins for the first time in 20 years sharing with love and what he really feels about him how it was impossible to have him as a father-in-law you know sometimes it takes 20 years and then when it comes out it comes out it ever happen to any of you huh when it comes out it comes out right so yob was quiet for 20 years but after 20 years as say and jakob's words you know yov does not mince any words with love and the ter feels it's important and Yakov bursts out and he says why do you see me as a criminal what is my sin why are you chasing me you see that nobody took anything you see that nobody stole anything and then he says in L very moving word 20 years I'm with you not one of your sheep or goats have ever had a miscarriage are use sheep goats nobody had a misc I never ate any of your Rams any of your flock I never came to you with a torn animal with a sick animal that was devoured and say oh look here's a sick animal I made up for it if there was an animal that was devoured there an animal that was sick I I gave it to you you came back to me could have been stolen by day stolen by night I took accountability you never lost one animal from me by day I was consumed by scorching Heat at night I was consumed by Ice by frostbite I did not sleep for 20 years 20 years in your house I worked for you for both of your daughters and then another six years for your sheep and you deceived me a 100 times in wages 100 times you deceived me if not for my God I would have been left with nothing I would have been sent away completely impoverished that's yakov's very impassioned decisive and unambiguous presentation to L lovin of course as Lovin always does it's called he says I don't know what you're talking about these daughters are my daughters these children are my children these flock are my flock whatever you see is mine I don't know what you talking about nothing belongs to you it's all mine but you know what let's make a covenant let's make a covenant and this will be a witness between us and as a tah continues here you could see takes a stone as a monument says let's gather Stones they take stones and they make a gal a gal is a mound a mountain they eat there has a name has a different name Lin says this g g is a mound a mountain of stones it's called a gal this mound of stones this Monument is a monument it's a testimony it's a witness and that's why the name became gal Aid gal Aid is a combination of two words in Hebrew Aid means an aid like aidis a witness someone who something or someone who testifies that's what a witness is and gal is the the mound of stones that yakov's people gathered and Lovin says this mound of stones this little Fortress of stones this is what is going to be the witness between you and I about everything you have done and everything I have done and everything you will be doing in the future very mysterious story and how does it end Yakov makes an offering and he summons his brothers it's interesting who were he didn't have brothers he had a brother as his children here are called his brothers he didn't have brothers yov had one brother and this brother wanted to kill him many years ago he wasn't here so what were his brothers his children and his Entourage maybe his servants people who worked with the family but these are all called his brothers interesting why you would call your children your brothers you ever call your children Brothers hey brothers it's dinner maybe they listen that way you say kids TTI is calling you mommy is calling brother oh okay you know I just thought about that but I don't know they ate bread and they dwelled they went to sleep in by the mountain which mountain haril and the story continu yov now moves on and ultimately he will end up by the river called yabok which is not far from gilled we know exactly where it is he will cross that River with his family he will go back and that's when he'll have a mysterious battle in the middle of the night with a mysterious person he will begin limping he will get a name change and then in the next scene he's going to meet his brother asov they're going to embrace each other ASA will go back to his country yob will go back to Israel and the story continues this is where Gil galade is first introduced now if we take a look in rash the next Source remember y's words to Love on inadvertently ly inadvertently he proclaimed a death sentence or a curse of a death sentence upon the person who stole the tram of L so Rashi says this tragically becomes fulfilled when RL dies at a very young age traveling on the way back from Len towards Canan of course she gives birth to her second son Benyamin and she passes away shortly after that Rashi calls it AA the source is med RAB you could see it's not rashi's own interpretation it's a type of a curse or a type of a death sentence and that's how ra died now obviously whenever we learn about these things is a lot of mystery here because obviously ra fulfilled her Mission this was part of Ra's Mission but this is how it comes about and all this happens where it happens in a place called gillad which is a witness this is a place of testimony in fact the word gal means a mountain a wave is also called a gal because a wave goes up like a mountain gal but the word Galos comes from the word what does gal mean a wave a wave right and what else huh right G and Revelation right open my eyes G is a place of galot in Hebrew what does legot mean to reveal to expose isn't that the job of a witness the job of a witness is right they used to say kill the witness right what does the mafia say kill the witness why because the witness is going to reveal that which we want should remain in closets ghosts live in closets skeletons live in closets demons live in closets opening the closet G will be an aid right one of the profoundest interpretations about history is the words of yesi he speaks to the Jewish people in the name of hem and he says AI hasem God says you are my Witnesses you are my Witnesses you kill the witness when you want to hide the story so when you want to get rid of God who do you kill who do you persecute who do you hate you with the witness it maybe consciously maybe unconsciously but there's no other way of rationally explaining thousands and thousands of years of Jew hatred even in conditions which seemed completely not inviting such hatred for example Harvard University or Columbia University or MIT or Yale Etc so gal Aid is really very connected yes gal means a mountain of stones a mound of stones it also means to reveal so this is a place where a lot of things are being revealed remember Yakov came to love on why because he ran away why did he run away because brother was chasing him and wanted to kill him his brother why did his brother want to kill him why cuz he took the blessings and how did he take the blessings what is it called once again he hid he went into hiding he hid he camouflaged himself as ASA and he took the blessings now again it says yov is again hiding he once again stole he deceived his father-in-law and who else is involved now ra is also stealing something ra is also killing TR so however we understand the depth of all these stories and each one of these stories is a whole other universe but there's a theme that unfolds and engal love and says I don't know what's happening here but all I know is I want God to be a witness cuz I don't know what's happening here yob says I'm innocent why you suspecting me and Lovin says everything is mine but I want God to be a witness for everything I know that this story is not over let him be a witness for the past and let him be a witness for the future and Lovin says I don't want you mistreating my daughters I don't want you mistreating my grandchildren whatever happens this is going to be a witness to everything that happens in your family everything this is going to be the galade he calls ITA yov calls it g so Lovin is saying this story is not over how it's going to play out heaven knows but this story is not over in fact some say that ra knew that those Tru are very powerful and Lin sees a lot of things through them and that's why she stole them cuz she didn't want love to know where yov went the gives a very interesting very original interpretation he says Lovin really had a lot of spiritual sensitivities listen he had a daughter ra he had a daughter Le so that means they their jeans came from somewhere you know you got to give them a little credit the the Apple sometimes Falls far from the tree but it still comes from the tree so if he had the daughter of RA and Le the two matriarchs of the Jewish people and in fact some say that bah and Zila were also his daughters so that means all the matriarchs of the Jewish people come from lava so this guy laan as a crook as he was there was energy there like it says about bam you know he was a great prophet on the level of M even though he distorted it and he misused it the fact is that love was also a grandson of Abu cuz I mean a grandson of 's family cuz he came from who was a son of was a son of so a was also his arm me they were caught they were all relatives so the M says that ra wanted actually that laon should have an experience of God but we know that in it says Hashem told mosha that he can only talk to him outside of MIT because MIT was filled with paganism so he couldn't speak to him over there so ra took away the TR so that love him would be able to have an experience of the Divine and what happens that night God comes to him in the dream so want wanted to have she wanted her father to have a Divine experience that's what the says there's many different interpretations others say she wanted to take away from her father but how do you steal an deser from your father you're just going to create a new one you know if it's a God if it's a god of that nature you replace one God with another God there may be also another interpretation that I once saw it's really Beyond The Realm but I just want to mention this R knew that La May understand very well why Yakov ran away her father was making him crazy he was deceiving him he wanted Independence he wanted to leave he wanted to grow his family he wanted to be able to build his own life Lovin would have not allowed him to leave so he left Lovin could have understood that and may He maybe would have not chased him but because Yakov stole or someone stole the truim his God now he had to chase him so R essentially forced a confrontation between her husband and her father there would have never been a confrontation yob would have never told him what's on his mind he would have left and gone on to a new life was RA really helping her husband become the person he was supposed to become because Yakov was a person who when he's born he's called Yakov why is he called Yakov he's holding on to the heels of asov that's literally what he's doing in other words you name your child Yakov imagine you name your son and when somebody asks you why do you name him this name Yakov Yakov means a heal oh cuz he was holding on to his heels brother to his brother's heel what would a therapist say about the level of self-confidence you're giving this child not only were you named after your brother you were named after the heal of your brother that's great it's not it's not like you got your brother's namea you got the heal of your brother really Ma what were you thinking what did your mother name you or your father name you I deal with this cuz my name is Jacob son Ben yov I deal with this so he's holding on to the heel of his brother you know what does that say just from a psychological point of view without getting into the spiritual depth on a very I'm talking on a very very basic even mundane level rashley says he didn't want to let him go out like I want to get ahead of you so asov represents this type of threat and indeed Yakov will buy off his Birthright and then Yakov will take his blessings and then Yakov will run away and now Yakov is going to run away from Lan and what does Raul say no you have to confront my father you have to speak to my father and heaven knows how emotionally difficult it is to confront people who have hurt you especially after 20 years sometimes our greatest survival mechan mechanism is to avoid our greatest survival mechanism and for good reason because a young child can't confront so what do I do all I can do is Shield myself all I can do is learn to be quiet all I can do is to please all I can do is I'm now applying this to our own individual lives some people indeed respond one way but some people respond in a very very opposite way and these are the mechanisms and now when you tell this person confront it could sound like a death sentence an emotional death sentence those of you who understand what I'm talking about know that if my brain developed a way of dealing with Life by avoiding by not confronting by having that inner inner shame it usually comes with a lot of self blame and what if I won't even be believed and what if I'm going to be rebuffed and what if it's going to happen again by the person denying it this could be one of the most painful and difficult moments that I'm sharing with you CU I know a little bit about this para unfortunately can feel like a death sentence for people it could feel like an emotional murder yet once again because they're really confronting the deepest fear from which they had to run away their entire life this touches the deepest levels of Shame this may be a deeper interpretation on a psychological level of Yakov saying stealing these tram and confronting you is a form of death you want me to stand in front of you and confront you as a person independent of you this for this can be a death sentence and ra pushes Yakov into this moment she forces him to confront love and of course later he's going to have to confront asov once again and the night before he's going to have to confront himself midnight when he meets that mysterious person the T says there was nobody there but this mysterious man because that person may have been inside of him s you know the angel of asov and it's that moment that his his name changes from Yakov to is Yakov to is is a different name Yakov means I'm holding on to a heel comes from the word you're a head you're a leader is you have fought with God and with men and you have prevailed it's a whole different name in fact raal even knew what happened with their own marriage yakob was supposed to marry RL her father deceived him and he ended up marrying Leia he came to Lovin and he said why did you deceive me but that was the end Lovin said because we don't marry off a younger sister before an older sister and that was the end of conversation and Yakov married Leia Yakov married ra and the story was never simple since then and ra if anybody knew about this it was RA and as a result of this at this moment something very very intense happens however we understand the full depth of the story and there's so many layers even I'm sure that we don't understand obviously yov says to Lan that whoever took these these Gods won't live not live but something else happens it's not only ra who yov loses he almost loses both of her children YF is sold by his brothers as a slave to Egypt bamin is taken as a slave to the prime minister of Egypt he almost loses Y and too so it's not only ra it's almost that whole branch of the Jewish family is almost lost it's fascinating it's like it was almost this branch of the family was struggling to exist ra passes away bamin barely survived he's born ysf is sold and he will almost disappear if not for crazy turn of events and then bamin is taken as a slave and he may end up as a slave in Egypt if not for another crazy turn of events which will happen throughout pares V and mik the end ofes [Music] these are the ghosts that live in Gil the place that reveals everything the place where nothing is hidden and let's face it let's let's understand something this is a painful thing I'm going to say but it's also a very healing thing very often in order to survive we create Secrets consciously and uncons consciously many families have secrets that nobody ever dealt with not because they're not good people some are very good people but it's almost like a generational secret that people don't even know but it sits in the genes and this creates all types of effects positive sometimes very positive things things that we don't even know about that we Beque in our geneses wisdom love depth commitment conviction remember our genes are thousands of years old we have the genes of all these people every Jew that lived were all children of it's a large intense Divine gene pool but there's also other things and sometimes there's toxicity and sometimes there's pain and sometimes there's Secrets people they know but they also don't want to know there was a he once said we say for the sin that we have done knowingly and unknowingly so he said there's things we know but we make believe we don't know I once asked the right means how you how are you in in English it means what are you making yeah so there was a what could someone who's made make already but someone else in y an expression I make believe I don't know making believe I don't know it was such a interesting response so often for the sake of inner peace delusional peace but inner peace we allow infections to Fester why do we allow them to Fester because confronting them is very very hard it's like if somebody has a disease inside they don't want to deal with it give me a Tylenol and I'll go to sleep the same is true with psychological stuff and spiritual stuff and emotional stuff and everybody knows it in their own life it can fester and fester and fester until it explodes and in many ways when it explodes the person is lucky because they have to confront it and they can cleanse themselves from it so there's deep things that occur and then there Comes A Time of galaid galaid means there's always a witness to truth nobody can hide truth forever it doesn't exist truth cannot be hidden forever it can be suppressed it can be held down it's like you're holding down Something In The Water you know you're working very hard and our brains do that you know when you have something and you keep it down in the water and the pressure is keep trying to come up and no no push it down push it down push it down this has been pushed down for so long but truth prevails reality prevails that's why it's called reality it's real g means everything comes out everything gets revealed many ways I think we're living in such a generation that no says in Dan that before comes things will become very clear things will become whitened from the word love love whitened things will become very conspicuous and ambiguous some people call it a curse really it's a blessing it's the only way you can go into Redemption cuz how can I redeem myself from Poison how can I redeem myself from negativity if I'm not going to face it if I'm not going to experience it the way out of pain is sometimes through pain I have to be able to experience it in order to get rid of it when we're dealing with sadik we always have to have the respect and the awe and the reverence of talking about people with a very lofty level in Yu's family there was inherent and intrinsic a very very deep split a very deep hatred that's why the brothers could sell y YF towards his brothers the brothers towards YF the split already begins earlier Ro it really begins earlier in yakov's own identity and his own confrontation between yov and asov we spoke about this in earlier years told K writes that you see in told when yov tells L yov to run away she says I'll bring you back when your brother stops being so angry at you when you stop being so angry at your brother so there was a very very difficult situation on many leap levels and although you're talking about great great people but here the way we apply it Len is here addressing and the word Lan like every name comes from a very mystical Source comes from the word Len which means whiteness which means when you cleanse things sometimes the L in my life who deceived me and the one who was changing everything in my life and shifted my trajectory 100 times really comes to bring out who I really am and me giving me the gift of facing whatever I have to face and facing what you have to face means going from a place of Yakov to a place of isra in fact it says in cabala that says yob had two wives he was supposed to marry ra he ends up marrying Leia and before this name shift ra passes away and he says the wife of yov was RA the wife of is was Leah so there's two names yob and is the word Leia in Hebrew means exhausted you know that Leia is exhausted ra means a sheep a you the gatri of RA is 238 there was light we spoke about this once Ra was the wife the woman that yov chooses naturally organically Leia is the wife that he discovers he got in a marriage very often and I know this is sensitive stuff and I'm going to make a disclaimer that everybody has to work on themselves but in a marriage very often you all know there's the husband you chose or you thought you chose and there's the husband you ended up [Music] with and it goes the other way around if you'll ask your husband when he's drunk he'll tell you there's the wife you date and there's the wife you end up marrying that's called ra that's why we do AES why do we cover the bride you ever wondered why do you cover the bride by the wedding shouldn't we uncover the bride so you see who you're marrying huh you never thought about that exactly the whole reason we do ab is cu yov didn't see you he got married to he married the wrong woman so I would say at every Jewish wedding we should do an un so we can make sure it's the one it's a very deep there's a very deep thing here the Banes is basically saying that what happened to Yakov happens in every marriage there's the part of you that I see and there's the part of you that I don't see there's the part of you that I see there's the part of you that I don't see not because I'm blind I'm stupid that could be [Laughter] too but it's much deeper than that because that's what life is I do I even know myself how much percent of yourself do you really know how much percent of yourself do you have access to how much percent of our s is hidden from our own perspective never mind other people's perspective it's a life journey of going deeper and uncovering everything the good the bad the ugly but mostly the good Leia makes you exhausted you know why because she makes you work on yourself I have to confront things ra is the spouse that Yakov marries organically of course how do you not marry ra she's beautiful Le it says Le represents the unconscious World The Hidden World you get to the unconscious you're dealing with very deep stuff but that's the place where you know yourself Now relationships can exist on two levels one relationship is more superficial where people have a good marriage but it's more superficial in it works but their deepest inner self may not be in the relationship we just don't go there but once a person goes to a much deeper place I have to work things out and once I have to work things out I have to face things and that's where galade comes in and the journey of the next of saes is the Jewish Family working things out and in a very difficult way and as is usual inish it's brutal too it's like you know it's not just in a therapist's office it's brutal and part of the family is almost amputated do to the family themselves not from Outer influence due to the family themselves now now I'm going to go through the next piece fast because it's going to be linguistic but those who appreciate language and ter language Hebrew language will appreciate it but I'm going to show you and again credit to RAB how the stories and bares that begin with galade the same words are employed in the following stories and it's the way of T showing the connection of all these stories one of the principles of how we learned T we say in the morning there's 13 ways how we interpret the second one is means when you find a word in one story and the same word is employed in another story there's a connection you say what's the big deal it's the same word we assume that it's the divine origin of copy paste you know what copy paste is that's the concept of it's not just a word here it was copied from here and pasted here copy paste is not Bill Gates Microsoft KES it comes froma if you look in the next source is second to the last source this is the whole story of ysf sale Y ysep is sold and I want to I want to look at twoim in the source of a the third Source on the page and the second to the last Source on the page when Yakov promises L that the one who stole his truim would die what is his language take a look again this is the fourth paragraph the line starts whoever you find your God with should not live recognize look recognize search what is with me what is with me that belongs to you so his language is who whomever is found your God should not live do we ever hear these words later in the Torah this combination H very good T will confront you and say but here we have another word not only the word h but yob says whoever you will find your God with Tim that combination of these two words of course these are the exact words with which the sale of Y was perpetrated take a look in that Source in v and I want you to look in they took y's tun they dipped it in blood we found it can you recognize is this your son's code or not number one number two look at the the last one he called his brothers to eat bread and I asked you why are you calling your children Brothers is there ever a time again that Brothers will sit down to eat bread exactly the first time we hear about brothers eating bread is right here by love on what is the next only time Brothers just sitting down to eating bread and of course if you'll take a look what happens right after the sale of Y what happens is it says the brothers sit down when Yakov called his children to sit down and eat bread it wasn't his children these were brothers brothers who would eat bread when they sold their brother YF exactly the same story story when Yakov comes to ra and says hi ra what's going on with the camel and what happens ra took the TR right you remember she took the she put it in the pillow of the camel so she took ra the word keeps on being used now if we listen to the word TR phonetically not the meaning of the word phonetically what does it sound like forget how it's spelled a moment tra twice tram is plural is there a plural TR anywhere Yim y was devoured that's how he describes what happened when he sees the coat that was dipped in blood now takes she puts it means in the pillow but what else is the oldest she takes these she puts it the oldest who is her oldest so she placed her oldest son on the top of that that Camel did she take her oldest son and put him on top of that Camel indeed indeed take a look in your second to the last Source they throw him into a pit M whoa there's a caravan of ishmaelites coming from Gill Gill and their camels are carrying spices and they lift up YF and they give him to the how was YF taken to Egypt on what animal on a camel on a gumel galim which also means reward gumel re right Li to give what goes around comes around what comes around goes around so it's like he put her she put her her oldest son is her on this camel and what does she tell her father why can't she stand up and she says I can't why not and we know the words it's that time of the month I can't what was she really saying father H well what she was saying was that it's the time of the month D that she can't because it's not going to be appropriate that's what she said however we interpret that what did she mean with that the Shah said that a isame so since she's sitting on a so she's T that's what she meant there's other interpretations but that's what she said so now let's think about this wasn't she really saying father forgive me I can't get up cuz the way of woman is upon me this is how she evades detection by her father what she's really saying is and I'm saying this simply to show you the synchronization here is if I stand up what are you going to see you're going to see blood that's what you're going to see what do the brothers present Yakov with a tunic of blood yob is looking for YF all you're going to find here is blood Lin is looking for his TR ra says all you're going to find is you're not going to find tram which is T you're going to find blood we have no idea where he is RA says I don't know where the TR are all I know is that there's blood and the brothers say the same thing we don't know where YF is all we know is there's blood figure it out he figures figures it out and they're coming from Gill somehow this is the long secret ghost of Gill extending itself trying to schlep YF away on the camel into Egypt tear him away from Yakov ra is gone and now YF is gone T ra disappeared from jakob's grasp and now yv disappeared from jakob's grasp don't worry this class is not going to go on forever it's going to come to a close I know you want but not you're like is he going to go through the whole tanak now I'm not a prophet I just feel the energy if you take a look at Yakov explod so to speak bursting out exploding his sharing his emotions with Lan he says to Lan and you can take a look again in this is the fourth source what's 20 years I've been with you and your sheep and goats have never miscarried I did not eat your Rams nothing ever disappeared I shielded every animal from the Predators I was the one who brought a back if it was stolen by day or by night and we look at these words and we ask do we ever hear these words again and of course what does remind us of RA what an interesting word your R never miscarried wow RL never miscarried she was pregnant with bamin and the labor would be very very difficult but she did miscarry in fact she gave birth and she died instead of the child if she would have miscarried maybe she would have been alive but raal gave birth the baby survived Byam raal didn't survive TR I never brought you a TR I never brought you a TR those are the words yov will use when he's presented with the bloody coat and now he says I did not bring you take it from my hand you take everything from me I'm responsible when do we hear this and the uh Yehuda very good Yehuda Yehuda comes to yov and says the prime minister of Egypt will not let us get food if we don't bring bamin and yov says I'm not letting bamin go I lost my son ysf already and what does yud say you'll come demand him from me I am the one responsible Yuda says you can come claim him for me he's echoing the words of his father yob says was stolen by day it was stolen by night where else do we have a double GH a double in again who says it Y in prison twice I was stolen from the land of the Hebrews I was stolen I was kidnapped everything yov says to love on comes back in all of these stories ra doesn't Mis carry I never brought a trer to you I was responsible for every animal if it was stolen by day or stolen by Night YF is almost lost and now we come to Byam what happens to Bam Bam comes down to Egypt YF sees him we're on the way home what does YF do the Prime Minister he hides his goblet in the bag what happens then he sends out a search to pursue them and what do they do the man starts searching who does he start with the oldest one he ends up in the youngest one they open up in yam's sack what do they find the Goblet there's the ghv this is the gav the Goblet what does y say what do I do with this goblet this is how I predict things this is how I know everything these are my so to speak and this bam just sto them and the brothers say you're right but we didn't steal anything before the search happened we didn't take anything just like yob we didn't take anything and they even tell him you could look for the person who stole it and if you find him you can kill him that's how certain they are that he's not going to find it they didn't do anything they didn't just like yakob didn't do anything and indeed the prime minister's man says you're right whoever stole it we won't kill him but he'll be my slave and you can go free and of course as you'll see in the last they find it inam and they take back bamin to be a permanent slave of the Prime Minister and now they're going to come back to says go back to that's how mes ends and all is good stays here and what is about to happen yakob is about to lose his last child from ra YF is gone and now bam is about to be gone that's where the story is holding and it's the only time in that a story is interrupted mid sentence with this mystery suspense till today even though I know the end of the story I read it a couple of times but till the end when I get to the end of M Kates I'm like come on don't do this to me I'm not waiting another week I know the end of the story but it's so gripping when the Prime Minister says I have my prisoner he's a thief he be my slave such beautiful words go back in peace to your father you could be at peace you didn't do this in fact the Mish says they didn't know that this was a plot they thought binyamin really stole and you know what they told bamin what do you think good Brothers tell a brother they said the Apple doesn't fall far from the tree Mama knew how to steal and you also know how to steal Mama stole zade's truim and now you steal the prime minister's truim this is great jeans that you guys have now right classic Jewish response you can almost you can almost hear them say it you know what that's what the Mad says you're just like your mother now bamin never knew his mother he grew up an orphan she died when he was born but they knew her mother his mother she was their aunt they knew ra very well they saw what happened over there with L and they probably knew that she stole it if they figured it out or not we're not sure we you know where she put it afterwards and at this point that moment of gillad is about to materialize in the most tragic sense Raul passed away YF has been gone for 22 years from jakob's perspective he has been molded by a wild beast and now binyamin is about to be taken as a captive for good a slave is a slave you stole indeed the gal Aid somehow the split in the family the unresolved tension in the family the hatred animosity however we can explain it however we need to explain it but somehow it's all coming out now and it's like the story is over and when ysf the prime minister they don't know what YF says go back in peace to your father what does he mean in peace how peaceful and his point is will you really be at peace will you really be at peace when one brother you sold into slavery and another brother you just allowed to become a slave will you go back in peace like this is the ultimate profound test how much sh are you going to have you'll go back to your father yob will say where is B and they're going to say it's not our fault tati we could save our brother if he's normal if he behaves he stole the prime minister's goblet TTI what are we supposed to do like he used to say Mish can help if you want to jump off a roof but not to jump onto a roof you can't jump onto a roof you can jump off a roof what are we supposed to do the guy stole what should we do they don't know really what happened he didn't steal but they think he did why would they think the prime minister of Egypt put the Goblet the M's back that is what we could expect and the Prime Minister says go back in peace you can be at peace you have a family now you finally got rid of Ra exactly the way you want it Lan's Lan's long hand of Gill has come to an end but that's not what happens that's not what happens and one of the most moving moments in Yehuda approaches the prime minister of Egypt he does not know who he's talking to and he says I cannot go back to my father if my father sees that bamin is not here his soul is intertwined with Soul he will not live how can I go back to my father without a child I can't go back to my father and say he's a rotten kid he stole he's the black sheep in the family just like ysf was we'll have a beautiful family without them I cannot do that these are inseparable from us and then he tells the Prime Minister I have a solution I will be the slave let bam go back to the father his father I'll be fine I'll be be the slave that's his solution and what happens then YF can't control himself YF can't contain himself why not you contain yourself all this time of course YF sees healing happened the same man the same man who said take him out of the pit and sell him Yehuda is the man who now says for the second brother from I'll be a slave instead of him let him go back to his father YF reveals himself and he says two words I'm that was enough the story came to a conclusion the family reunites yov has y yov has B they become an indispensable part of the it's not so simple bamin soon guts later 100 years later has a whole story P that a whole new de a whole new a whole new M where B almost again gets torn away from the Jewish people but at last y are reunited so the same Yehuda saved these brothers three times ruven had him thrown into the pit because he wanted to save him he would have died in the pit Yuda wanted to sell him but he got him out of the pit and he sold him so he saved his life once then Yuda saves Ban's life and in the process he brings back y back to Yakov so Yehuda is the one who brings it all together now we go through b we go through we go through VRA we go through bbar we come to the end of T we come to the last story of mat and as I said before that's really with the stories of T end because darim is the speech and Mas is the journeys of the Jewish people towards the land of Israel so we now come to the last verses of Mattis and I said it seems a little anticlimactic for such a great book you know God's blueprint for life this guy Y is running around conquering towns giving it his own name okay nice next I don't see any great message here for us every story in is a lesson but indeed we just have to remember that one word gillad gillad has since been lost to the Jewish people it never really belonged to the Jews it was where laan and Yakov ate bread it's where they made a covenant and and they moved on now they went to Egypt all because of YF they survived Egypt they were liberated from Egypt they stayed in the desert 40 years there were only two spies that did not remain disloyal that did not toway the Jews and that was one tribe from Yehuda K and the second tribe from YF yua was from 40 years later s comes to war War he's from gillot and now the Jews have access to gillot so this man named Yer who calls himself Ben manha from the tribe of manasha he goes and he conquers all these towns and he settles them who's y we know y comes from Masha so it starts over The Story of B Ben manasha the children of M the son of manasha conquer Gill mha gives it to M and then y goes and conquers all the towns around but one second y belonged to Yehuda not to manha we just said you remember the contradiction in y's mother y's mother y had a father Z and Z's mother came from manasha that's true she was the daughter of M that's what we learned in our first Second Source was a z was from y son of parrots who is he is he from the tribe of manasha who was the son of YF is he from the tribe of Yehuda and why would the tanak give us such a contradiction but here is a final Act of reconciliation centuries after Yehuda vanquished the ghost of Gill by reuniting YF and bamin with the entire family and of course with their father Yakov a child of Yehuda a child of Yehuda y was a grandson of KET the son of parrot the son of Yehuda captures gillad but now he doesn't only capture the Demons of gillad he captures the territory itself called gillad one more time but he who does he do it on behalf he comes from Yehuda but who does he give it to the tribe of manasha the son of ysf so here is somebody from Yehuda who adopts adopts the identity of manasha not legally but emotionally and he conquers it not on behalf of Yehuda Yehuda will settle the other side of the Jordan he conquers it on behalf of manasha Y ensures that gillad will become part not only of the Jewish territory but of whose territory y's territory because manasha is the oldest son of YF it will become part of the tribe of manasha his grandmother is a daughter of M Ben Masha why would Masha name his son M what does m sound like M what does m mean selling what else what's another word it makes up to recognize when I sell you do I recognize you very good thank you when they come back to Egypt and they meet the Prime Minister what does it say YF recognized his brothers they did not recognize him they never recognized him so he names his son mashe from all the names in the world he chooses the name m wow and M has a son and what does he name him Gill we see him parishes Pinas we see interesting why you naming your son Gill Gill is a place I know that because of course this is all the story of gillad this is all galade so he names his son gillad gillad has a sister the sister also needs to get married and somehow there's a sh between T's grandson and what happened to Tar T wasn't supposed to marry Yehuda Yehuda didn't recognize YF and who else did he not recog recogniz his wife his daughter-in-law he thought it was someone else it was Tad and the only one who's called a in the t is and then Yuda is like OMG not oh my Google oh my God he finds out that he was with t and he was about to send her to the steak you remember the story why because of promiscuity it wasn't promiscuity remember before Mar was also with a father-in-law just like today it's with a brother-in-law if there's no children so Tam was completely legit and he was ready to kill a woman with her pregnant Twins and then you would have said wow is it possible that I have a difficulty in recognizing people maybe if I made a mistake with t or maybe I made another mistake many many years ago with another brother and that moment Yehuda is completely transformed that moment of humility when I realize how I have to make a reckoning of my entire life that moment when I see I was looking at things from such a narrow perspective that's the moment of there's a reason that mhia comes from Yehuda because to trust a person with being the ruler of the world it's only a person of such humility because power corrupts absolute power corrupts absolutely only Yuda who can come out and say's right many I'm the one who did this and you can imagine the whats ups that went around that day when Yuda the greatest of the king of all theat came in and said me many you know I'm the guy I'm the culprit you know y could have given an excuse I forgot some TR whatever he could have given an excuse so manha names his son M the same name of the S and now M has a son just like M has a son [Music] gillad now M has descendants now comes a child Yer the word Yer means what light that's similar to the word g Aid bring things to light Y is the one who will bring things to light but not only bring Darkness to light transform Darkness into light it's not only they remember what happened to Gil he goes back to Gil he goes back to the ghost he goes back to that place and he wrestles it so to speak from the demon and transforms it through light because y understands that the secret of light is that it's rooted in infinity and therefore it's not afraid of Darkness it can transform Darkness it can wrestle the darkness from itself and redefine it real healing is not just I escape I avoid maybe temporarily that's important real healing is that ability to know that your light is so powerful that even your darkness is really only a catalyst for your light it's all your light and therefore y will transform it and he goes and takes that Gil and he brings light into it and even though he's Yehuda he conquers those Villages he calls it but it doesn't belong to Yehuda it's going to YF so the Last Action the last story The Last Action piece so to speak again the stories afterwards Ines are not actions that happened they're either Mitzvah or conversations like the daughters of like the Mitzvah or a recounting of the joury but the last piece of of action of the 40 Years of the Jewish people souring in the deserts ends with what brothers taking care of brothers and with this moment of true graciousness and Reconciliation of authenticity Yer at last helps to Vanquish the ghosts of gillad one last time and then of course makes sense that we always read mat during this time of the year we finish sa mid M always during the three weeks because it's the fighting of brothers that became the greatest source of Jewish destruction that fighting of brothers so we come and we read this story to remind us how Brothers can take care of Brothers how Brothers can stand up for brothers how Brothers can protect brothers and how to make amends when we hurt our brothers and sisters and reveal the True Light which is always the light of Oneness have a wonderful week