Rav Yitzchak Breitowitz: An Intense and Awesome Love

[Music] okay okay everybody again I apologize for being a little late uh today Shear is dedicated for again praying for victory of our and all the fronts of the war the lasting Unity of am Israel and uh the rafu for all of those whose Health has been affected by the war for the safe return beem of all of the hostages that are still alive Al benzar and Kasia Bas shomo the mother of rinsky who's your it is on the e8th day of Shabbat uh next Wednesday night the night after this she uh February 12 I will host a traditional tuat seder I hope to be there myself and details are on the I website uh Ian's weekday shakit is going strong along with the challenges you can join every weekday 7:45 a.m. this Wednesday morning breakfast will be made pancakes Fresh Off The Griddle so if that doesn't get you there you okay also uh learning opportunities during the day are available i r PO is telling me that this has indeed become kind of a communitybased medis so besides the regular uh classes that are offered uh people come in they learn and uh you know if you have time in the middle of the day you want to sit and learn for a while uh and you're in the neighborhood this is a very excellent place uh place to come as well as having other learning opportunities uh interested just show up uh there is no registration requirement for it am I supposed to say anything about this I said it already mention okay all righty um okay so uh this para is of course the conclusion of the Exodus story uh the splitting of the Red Sea uh of course there's another thing I want to mention which is not connected to the spling of the Red Sea this is also the paraa that talks about the man falling the man that fell for 40 years in the desert uh the gmoran Tinus tells us that there were three very precious gifts that the Jewish people got in the desert and they came in the Merit of the three uh leaders uh the man fell in the Merit of Mosher Renu uh The Well of water came in the Merit of of Miriam and the ano the Clouds Of Glory came in the Merit of Aon uh the man came in the Merit of Moshe according to the war Bros Moshe is credited with the authorship of the first paragraph of batam Maan uh in gratitude initially to the m that fell minay uh now we apply it to our regular bread but the EMS is that M was the generator so to speak of the initial gratitude for kesu sustaining us uh in fact the far explain a little bit in a little bit more depth that you know in the case of man the gift of God is very obvious it was not a function of any work that we did it just came and it came in a very miraculous way meaning if you were a righteous person your M was right near your tent if you were not so righteous you had to look around now you may ask a question well wait a second if uh if I'm living next to it sadic and I see his M there why can't I just take his so I actually understand you didn't even see it your eyes did not see the man that didn't belong to you so you had nothing you had nothing to uh to take so man was kind of a supernatural uh Miracle actually I want heard to rashash describe this about Yesa guys who like to go out to restaurants so they say you know just like the sadik you know they eat the M that's near their tents and the Les sadik they have to go around looking at it so some people will just eat the Yeshiva food other people have to go far a field to Yehuda whatever it is so it's similar to the to the man but the man was miraculous ulous in that way and the M was also miraculous because it could taste like any food you wanted it to taste like could taste like steak could taste like ice cream whatever you want except the gamar says it could not taste like onions or garlic because uh pregnant women or nursing women may have cravings for that and that taste would automatically affect their milk and it wouldn't be good for the baby Etc so the m is Supernatural but here's the idea we are lulled into a false sense of belief that the normal parosa we make is a function of our efforts I go to work I train Etc so by essentially incorporating into batone a br that was written for the man we actually have to remember that even the normal parosa that we get is in fact also man it's hidden M it's not as open it's not as obvious a miracle as the man but we have to understand that it is a miracle there is no direct cause and effect between our our effort and the result we are M to put in the effort indeed that is normally going to be the case but it's not like because of my work I get the parasa the parasa comes from God's meaning everything is mine uh now as you know I'm sorry it's a little too late maybe I should have mentioned it last week but I'm I'm sure you heard this there is since this week is the para of the man and Tuesday is considered to be a very maala day in the Jewish tradition because it is the only day of creation where the phrase It's good is repeated twice it's so it is brought down in different that there's a special or a speciala fora that you say the Paran on the Tuesday of par so you kind of take the par of the man which is a br right some s you'll notice some people say the par most people don't but it's in the sitter uh some people say the par of the man every single day after daving for parosa but even if that's not your Min and you know it's not my either uh but some say on the Tuesday of par of course it's too late now uh but uh you say the par of the man and ideally you would say it in the form of MRA you would say theuk twice and read the Aramaic or the Rashi once and that is said to be a seula uh a benefit for for for parnasa now of course that opens up um you know a much wider question about the role of skos erel in some places is in some respects is the land of suos but schoos is a very controversial issue I mean some schoos are just gimmicks they don't really mean very very much but School us that are connected to prayers and and turning to Hashem and growing in am as you we call them on I would consider them to be good schoolers they're not like just drinking water or wearing a red string or or that type of thing uh these are things that Focus you these are things that make us think about amuna in Hashem and those type of school house are actually uh you know good schoos I would say that that one could legitimately uh legitimately pursu so that was just a little thing about about the man uh as an aab as another interesting aspect about the man um the m one of the great commentaries on the brings a very interesting custom for this chabas which is called shabas Shir the shabas of song although has a little side I don't want to digress too much because then I forget my main point but shabash just reminds me of something else I'll just tell you really quickly Nim kski had a very unusual and somewhat strict sh about Jewish names he didn't like any names that were new he didn't like any like in Israel people have different names like Aras or whatever but even something you would think as relatively innocuous as the name Shir he did not like the name Shir because Shir is not a Biblical name it's not in the gamorra it's not in kazal so he says he doesn't like he felt that one does not not make up new names even if they're hundred years old or whatever whatever it is so a parent once said went over to him and said you know I named my daughter Shir because she was born the par of Shir the par of boser so I named her Shir keski said oh so if she would have been born Paras the par paruma would you name her would you name her par he said you wouldn't name her par he says don't name her Shir again I'm not I'm just saying this because of the humor I'm not giving any any on this particular issue but it's y that he had a thing uh he was against any names that are non-traditional the funny thing about it and again I'm sure he would have an answer it's not not for me to judge at all is that the name itself where where the name does not appear in tanak as a name so I mean it see it seems superficially at least that you know he's guilty of the very practice that well he's not guilty he didn't name himself but his parents were guilty of the very practice that he was criticizing but again it's a d borer that he had a I don't know what his terce would be but it's a d b that he did have a terce and um so I'm sure that's why he has that she yeah may maybe he felt it yeah didn't work out of course his full name was not was not was like so the I'm thinking now that I'm thinking the May been added because of sickness as a child I mean that's and that's a different getter um right so it may not it may not have been his birth name I think his birth name was and then they added so it became that's why a lot of have the word which means conversation in front of it because that's R okay on the other hand if I want to continue being critical which is not my right uh sh I don't know that that I might I might be wrong with that I have to check a concordance about sh y of course is is there so that that that for sure is is going to be safe so that's a little bit of of to remember about the man a final little about the man um I'm not sure if I mentioned here I think I mentioned it maybe in in another share so forgive me if I'm repeating is who was the great great RAV of the Washington Heights kahila for for many many years uh as a Young Man uh maybe 16 or so he was Z to visit the towards the end of the's life like 1932 or 31 or 32 and uh the uh had a conversation with him and R for his entire life would always lovingly remember the brief conversation he had with the and one of the things the asked was K say that the M could taste like whatever you wanted it to taste like right that's so 16y old what did the man taste like if you weren't thinking what if you're just chewing the man like chewing gum and you're walking around what was the taste of the man if you weren't thinking that you wanted ice cream or steak or something soab said he had no idea he he didn't know so the says I tell you there was no taste at all because man is not physical food fact it was not excreted Etc man is pure spirituality that that may take a physical form but it's pure spirituality Rus only works when you consciously connect to it meaning you have to think if you're not thinking about it it won't do anything for you and the says he compared it to Gar you learn gamara you think about gamarra it's so sweet it's so good you don't think about it so it gets just boring uninteresting Etc requires now as an aside there's a second thing told him which has nothing to do with the para but but I'll mention it because it's a very very important inspirational lesson he then asked rub if he was a Coen rub says no I'm not a Coen and then the said to him was your father a coing well so said no my father's not a coing says oh was your grandfather were coming soab was afraid that maybe you know was getting scile or and that wasn't so so finally said as far as I know none of my father's ancestors were Kohan okay so then said you know that I'm a CO and you know my father was a Coen and my grandfather was a Coen all the way back to AR a Coen so how come that so why do I go all the way back to AR and then you don't go back to AR so ra against no nothing particular to say on that so the said I'll tell you why that 3,000 years ago when there was a and many Jews were n in worshiping the andu stood up and said who will stand up for the glory of God my ancestors primarily ref frany to shave of glavy stood up and answered the call and your an ancestors didn't answer the call so you see that what your ancestors failed to do determines who you are today so then said in every generation there is a call from Hashem who will stand up for the glory of God and in every generation people are given the opportunity to stand up so said to remember to answer that call because your failure to answer that call is going to affect your grandchild and your great grandchildren until the end of time always be a person who is responsive to the the call of the time to stand up for Glory this was the final message that the gave that would always recount so you know it's funny people think oh was getting Cena the other way around there was a very very deep and profound profound message there of understanding that what we do does not just affect us it affects D Doros now there was a great Rosa of tadas who came from uh Europe and he became the of Tas in the um the 40s the early 40s uh came during World War II this was of schom but my own my own rebi was a of romman RL if you know the uh Eastern European Rashia Yeshiva was considered to be the talid MUA the closest talmid to the great rash who in turn was the talim salic right so that's schlim so schlim was a Riva in VNA and he had a Yesa he had like 300 t or so uh he came to America during the War years and in those days there weren't that many people in Yas at all so he had a very small group of tum that he was teaching and noticed that he was teaching like I don't I don't know the exact numbers but I'm just pick a number at random he was teaching like five tum with all sorts of enthusiasm and gesticulations and the like and the said to him I don't understand you're talking like you were talking in Villa to 500 people with all of the drama and the like there's five people in the room like why are you talking like there are 500 people in the room andiman said I'm not giving a share to five people these five people are going to have children and grandchildren and they will have students and students will have students I'm not talking to five people I'm talking to everyone that's going to come out of these five people and therefore I have to give them the enthusiasm and theas so they will be able to pass it on person looks at a longer picture of things we sometimes have tunnel vision by just looking at an immediate situation without without thinking about the long-term repercussions the long-term implications now of course I understand there's a lot about uh the future that we don't know as one of the yogi Bara aphorisms is uh What uh you know the future hasn't happened yet so you know can't you know how do we know about it uh but still uh one has to understand that the type of home that you create um the way you raise your children the way you teach your students if you're a teacher that is not just for the immed situation that will have repercussions that are cosmic that are intergenerational in many ways and that's what the was communicating to R but now to get back to uh the story of ofas yamu uh itself um again it's uh the whole by the way Rashi has a point about yamu in in last week's para that on one level for us is obvious but I I just want to point out what a tremend this amazing Kish it was if you remember uh it says by Mak AR the yam is mentioned in by the plague of the locusts right so it mentions that um an East Wind brought the locus to MIM and then a West Wind a wind from the West blew the Locust into the yamu into the yamu so uh that's when that's the first place where yam yamu is mentioned as yamu so Rashi explains that the yamu has two protrusions in other words you have the yamu the the Red Sea as we call it and there's two protrusions one to the east one to the West with the midbari Sinai Peninsula in the middle and Rashi determines that the Locust were blown to the Eastern one the further one because it's mhma they were blown a distance from MIM and if it would be to the Western prong of the yamu that would be adjacent to mitzraim you wouldn't need a ruak so I just want to point out that you know you read that Rashi and Rashi is simply describing the Red Sea as we know it but you have to understand that Rashi was never in arra it's not even likely that Rashi at least the comment at least foreign historians say Rashi probably did not even see a map of er Israel Rashi figured this out just from the text of the itself looking at different so what might appear as a commonplace observation from our perspective is almost a rues From rash's perspective so I just want people to understand that rashi's accomplishment in just identifying yamu is a very very remarkable uh thing to be able to reconstruct the geography based on the Kus description itself nevertheless nevertheless there actually is uh many many different opinions what yamu is Rashi does learn uh the the way most people the way we generally understand that yamu is the body called Red Sea and here I do want to correct a very common misconception I'm sure you've heard uh over the many many years that Red Sea entered uh got its name by either a printer's mistake or or or the like because yam Su suf might mean reads might mean reads and really it should have been read C but some printer of the English Bible left out an e so it became Red Sea and therefore that's how it got called the Red Sea the Emma say that that is just a historical mistake because the truth of the matter is designating this body of water as the red goes back to ancient times not not in Kaz kazal did not use that term but in in already in Greek and Roman historians uh where the confusion of Reed and red would not be a confusion it was called Red Sea now why was it called Red Sea is a good question some say because the cliffs the stone Cliffs that are around there have a reddish tinge whatever it would be but all I'm saying is that the red and read is not the origin of the term Red Sea be it as it may though the conventional understanding is that the Jewish people crossed the Red Sea but they didn't cross it in the body of the sea itself but they crossed it uh on the um the protrusion which I always forget is that called the G Gul of Suz uh or Gulf of the Gulf of Suz is where they crossed it okay however there are other opinions there are other opinions uh there are uh opinions that they actually uh crossed further north because there actually are lakes Lakes along the shore this is before the suest canal Lakes along the shore of the Mediterranean that are north of those protrusions and they actually crossed those Lakes now those Lakes are very strange Lakes because they are lakes but because they're mamish adjacent to the Mediterranean separated only by a sandbar so they are salty Lakes because the Mediterranean water pours into them and there's even views that they actually crossed part of the Mediterranean and since they went in a semi circle when they turned that actually put them closer to where it's Israel right because otherwise if you learn the Red Sea conventionally you do have a problem because if they go in a semicircle they they're back in Mitra like what did they accomplish all right some say they didn't accomplish anything it was just a way of drowning the Egyptians if if they went to the Mediterranean so they did wind up north of where they were so there are many many M here there are a lot of problems of precise identification apparently as late as the mishna and maybe much later it was known exactly where they crossed because the mishna lays down the rule that when you walk by the place where the Jewish people cross the UPS of there's a special broa that you make that at least it seems to be that the location of course it was a big location I mean he had a huge Nation um uh that that was that was known in the course of time for various reasons it gets lost but again rashi's own sh Rashi sha seems to just correspond with the conventional understanding of Red Sea orbe it the Gulf of of Suz uh but as I say there are there are indeed other other Shas in exactly where crossed how they crossed and uh you really need to get an older map because as I say the sus Canal changed a lot of the configuration but there were a number of lakes uh large lakes that they could have traversed as they went through including even going actually into the Mediterranean Sea proper fits again you pointed out it would fit the idea that there's another Rashi that says whenever it says yam without any modifier it refers to to the now yes if it says yamu that doesn't prove anything but in the sh in the the word hay appears many many times 23 times yeah yeah yeah so if if you're going to tell me it's the yamu that would contradict the principle that the word hayam is is is Mediterranean so that would be a little r on the other as they say rashi's own she seems to be seems to be not not that way okay uh but but what I want to uh bring out uh is uh is this uh there is a medish well let me start off with the the following if you look in the story leading up to theas yamu which of course is on the seventh day of PES seventh day of pesak so it mentions that you have twoim that are almost identical P first P says is I'm sorry first it says they went into the sea which became dry lands the water became a wall to their right and to their left now just a few PUK him later it says almost the same thing but it reverses the order a little bit uh the Dy land in the sea and it also says the water was a the exact same words but the the word for wall in the second verse is spelled differently it is spelled without a it is called and the medish comments that when the word does not have a v you could read it as anger and the fedish describes that when the sea was ordered whichever body of water it was but when it was ordered to split the angel in charge of that was angry it said why should we split for the Jewish people and then close in on the Egyptians the Egyptians are idolators and the Jews are idolators there was but AEM said I'm saving the Jews on credit I'm saving the Jews because of Matan Torah what they're going to do now there are three questions here number one why is virtually the same PUK repeated in such close proximity question one question two why is there a change of order in the first is and the second verse is yes question two question three Why is the double anandra of which we infer from the absence of v why does that only appear in the second verse and not in the first verse right three questions on these two P so the vagon offers a very brilliant single answer that answers all questions what did they say they say a little bit of a joke about the difference between andag like to give 15 answers to one question Miss nagim like to give one answer to 15 questions meaning part of the elu part of the Brilliance is you take one answer that answers a whole bunch of questions and here's what the vagon says the reason why we have two verses is because the PUK are addressing two different people two different groups of people if you remember when the Jews are facing this body of water and the Egyptians are coming after them and by the way there are mountain ridges on all on on the other two sides so they're quite literally between the proverbial Rock and Hard Place and many of them felt they had no Escape they didn't know what to do they panicked they didn't have faith some of them wanted to jump into the sea not as because they believed in God but because they wanted to commit suicide we'll talk more about that in a few minutes but there was one person and according to another of you one tribe that had the courage and the faith in hashem's promise to even risk their lives in full that God will save them uh the one person who was identified as the Great Hero is nakon benav who was the Nasi of the tribe of Yehuda but what's interesting is the gar says the people who followed him were not the shave Yehuda who shave so it's a little bit of a interesting disconnect here jumps and shave it B yam jumps and they went up to their neck it didn't split right away or some say up to their mouth some say up to their nose and then the water split according to other mid the 12 paths that's another question and V Isel CR so says the V the following the first p is talking about and Sh so that's why it says they went into the [Music] sea they went into the sea that became dry land for them there was no the Angels couldn't say why are they different than the Egyptians they certainly are different than the Egyptians they had amuna they had masus nefes so in that first verse is only spelled with of ah but the second p is talking about the Johnny C lates it's talking about the other people who weren't willing to go in till the water splits so for them the angel had they they didn't have faith they didn't have auna why are they fundamentally better than the MIT so therefore it's not it's not repetitious the theuk are are addressing two different groups of people one was the Bal amuna and the other were the people that um did not have that did not have that amuna and there was a k a prosecution in sh and basically said okay I'm not saving them because of what they are now I'm saving them because of what they will become when there's to be Mel Torah and to purify themselves in anticipation of of Matan Torah so the M asks an interesting question on this idea and that is the Jewish people and Pyro MIM had just experienced an entire year of plagues right the the plagues in mitam lasted a year and every single plague Hashem Afflicted the Egyptians and didn't afflict the B Israel we don't find the angels in in heaven saying to God you know why Manish tanu why are the Jewish people different than the Egyptians we don't find that idea every Maka was only directed to Egypt and not to the Jewish people the very first time you see the argument Manu why are the Jews any better than the Egyptians it only comes up by creas yamu doesn't come up by the other plagues why is that why was K yamu the opportune time for this negative critique to emerge so says the m in fact if if anything M the Jewish people were worse because in MIT they actually were worshiping Idols by the time they came to the yamu they had done CH on that but they they still were tainted but they were not as culpable as they were in MIT itself so the M says a very very important beautiful uh yod foundational idea and we've already talked about this uh really a number of times that even though the Jewish people were over theod Zara except for the tribe of Ley and even though the men did not practice circumcision until the carbon pesak except for the tribe of Ley but they didn't change their name they didn't change their language and and the way we explained it the way the M explains it is the there was a sense of unity togetherness we in this together and when there is Will judge the nation with much greater and patience and tolerance and forgiveness than he might when we stand when we stand apart when we stand as we are much more vulnerable to a strong mid so in MIT what enabled the Jewish people to be beneficiaries of the makos was the AK that existed by not changing the names not changing the language not speaking lashara about each other not intermarrying remember this was not from kite this was Unity that that's the idea now what happened at Kus yamu was that in the Panic of the moment the Panic of the EXP exp erience they abandoned a sense of unity and each group and each person was looking for their own individual survival strategy do you remember the kazal that says that they divided into four groups each group was wrong one group says let's jump into the sea I don't mean like n let's commit suicide that's group one let's just kill ourselves group two Let Us return to MIT Let's Just Surrender and become slaves group three let us call out to the nations of the world to help us out un I always thought that was the most foolish of the groups uh and group four let us let us aggressively make mil these are four and and hasem says none of this is right just believe that I will save you so the M understands that this was not just a about strategy but this was more than that this was a disintegration of communal Unity where people were no longer thinking about what is best for the nation they were thinking about what they thought erroneously would be best for them ah so says the M once you have a disintegration of unity then God is examining you as an individual and then all of those AOS that may have looked at with greater R now come to the four which is an interesting point because what that's saying is when there's a lack of it's not just the sin of a lack of which you know an A and of itself but all of the other AOS now come to the four because I don't have the Merit of my Unity to Claus real in other words the kitr of idolatry now resurrects itself when there's a disintegration of that of that Unity so we have to remember that um the altruism and the selflessness and the caring about each other is not just altruism it's actually it's beneficial to us on a selfish perspective meaning paradoxically if the only person I cared about was myself it would behoove me to have AB because when I sever that Aus I myself become in Greater danger because my AAS come to thee come to the Forefront and that's says that that is what happened by there was a disintegration of of of so now let's look a little bit at this interesting teaching of the four groups the four groups at the yamu right group one said let's jump into the water meaning suicide not n uh group two said I don't remember the order but let's wage war or I'm sorry group two said let us return to MIM group three said let us call out to the nations of the world group four uh said let us wage war against the Egyptians four groups so I want to share share with you uh it's certainly not p in in the med at all but you know the balov uh had you know a number of great T although in the lifetime of Theus was not a big movement relatively small the real Creator ofus as a huge movement started with the Magid of mezich the the uh the successor of the balov bov had a small group of great great sikim that were M to him but the very of course just like uh uh in America right uh the founding fathers were not born American citizens uh so too uh the T of the B were not born they became all of them were misnagdim who became well they weren't mnim yet either but they were non who became uh but one of the bal's greatest TM was a rabbi called yob YF of Pia uh who was a famous mid famous preacher and he wrote the very first safer of T andish and this is called the toos yov Y and virtually all of the Torah of the baltov that we know now you can get a safer called bmov Al Torah but the bov didn't write a book Bor essentially the book B Al Tor is excerpted from the much longer toos Yakov Y where the B is quoted some 500 times so this is a classic safer ofas uh you may wonder you know if rakov yosf was the one who really disseminated the teachings of the BTO in writing why wasn't he uh the successor why was the maget of mesarich the successor more than the toak of ysf well the reason actually is because the toov Y was uses very language against non in the book meaning diplomatically he was not the right person to bring people into the movement he was too as Rich mag had a much more gentle lowkey style to shakov Yosef kind of sucks you know punches away at people who uh at so to speak who did not accept the beauty of teaching but that's a little bibliographical aside but in the hak to the toos Yak of yose he offers a beautiful allegorical interpretation of the four groups on the sea so I just want to share that with you again it's not it's certainly notat in theuk themselves but it's it's it's it's a very beautiful message he basically allegorizes the sea as the turbulent Waters of secularism the turbulent Waters of maah that this world is a stormy world it's a turbulent world it's a confused world and as we try to navigate our way through this storms and it's not just the external threats but it's also the spiritual challenges so there are different ways that we try to adjust and some of those ways are actually dysfunctional and some of those ways are destructive and he goes with the idea that kazal say of course it may have been derived from Greek culture but but but kazal adopted it that you look at matter as being comprised of four basic elements there is water there is Earth there is fire and there is air or wind and these are potentialities they start off as spiritual essences that eventually get concretized into matter but they are actually spiritual forces a spiritual force of fire a spiritual force of water a spiritual force of wind or air a spiritual force of of of dirt and they come in two flavors uh like vanilla and chocolate they come in a good form and they come in a bad form right there is the doodo of of kadia and by the way all this permeates the shame Hava four letters are connected the four elements a lot of different associations with four so there is the D of kadha and there is the doid Yos of Tuma kind of negative positive in kadus theod of the spiritual Foundation of a is enthusiasm passion and the excitements the spiritual Foundation of water would be pleasure and enjoyment in aod hasem in which just as water rejuvenates refreshes you one could feel their connection to Torah as refreshing as water Torah is compared to uh to water the spiritual positive side of uh air of wind uh would be kind of an ether contemplation of God where you're less involved in the gmas of the world and finally the their spiritual side of aor is humility and submission in which you don't have your your ego right so those are the four Yodo of Kusa that eventually find their concretization in physicality but they do represent spiritual forces now Al Tuma the for you sodos also exist as spiritual forces on the impurity side so h fire which in the positive sense is passion and enthusiasm can turn into anger and mlus uh water which can represent the pleasure of spirituality could degenerate in the hedonistic pursuit of material Pleasures in L of r uh the wind that could represent ethereal thought can turn into ego and GAA right you kind of in fact a Bala is called Rua the spirit is high hoty and finally dirt which in a positive way represents humility in a negative sense can be self-loathing a lack of self-esteem a lack of appreciation of your value because that's very destructive spiritually right if a person does not recognize their significance does not recognize their value that could be very very destructive so the toov Y again it's it's D the told wants to say that the four responses the four incorrect responses to the turbulence of the yamu represents a connection to a dysfunctional aspect of the for Yoto so the one that said let us jump into the sea says let us embrace the Hedonism and pleasures of the world without limit water represents that pleasure which is spiritual suicide the one that said let us wage war is utilizing anger and resentment as their approach to life the one that said let us call out which is the wind that represents arrogance and conceit the kak of for and those that said let us surrender to Egypt is loathing and lack of self-esteem in which we're like dirt we're like slaves and therefore the muser of K so to speak is that when people embrace the four yodot of Tuma the four yodot of Tuma they're going to drown in the sea the sea splits only when you convert the four Yodo of Tuma into the four Yodo of kadia again I as I say I I admit that this is very very far from the basic of the med but it's an illustration of the early Torah ofas and why it indeed excited many people because it gave them something to think about and apply in their in their aod hasem a practical level fact laabi once gave a very very nice Marshall he was asked about what is the relationship between cabala andas know cabala zo mystical teachings they predated the balov the AR was before the Balto from moso r r i mean these were way before the B the Z itself and yetus is based on cabala even though it doesn't always make that EXP it butas is absolutely built on cabalistic foundations so what exactly is the difference betweenus and cabala so the rebi said a nice thing he said the relationship of cabala to kasas is the same relationship as Anatomy to medicine so think about that Anatomy lays out a structure it's the structure of the physical body where things are how they work how they interact medicine takes knowledge of anatomy as well as other things and tries to use it to heal or address illness sickness or dysfunction right so Anatomy is describing a system medicine is a Practical Art to try to use the knowledge of that system to cure people so he said like this pure cabala is essentially mapping out all sorts I mean the maps are very very complicated you you learned the Aro for I let's see open up Aro so he's describing an enormously complicated and deep map map of the spiritual Universe this world that world and this thing and that but it doesn't tell you anything to do with it what do you do with it it's giving you a map it's the anatomy of the spiritual universe and God interaction with that spiritual Universe it is describing the cosmic system whatas was designed to do is to take that knowledge and utilize it in practical ways in which you can become healed you can become NRA with whatever the sickness of the soul is so that's a very very uh telling mus that cabala is like an Adam andas is like is like medicine of course that has interesting implications just as you know you can't be a doctor unless you know Anatomy so that's the interesting question can you really be a without knowing cabala okay I'll leave that to to uh debate and and and discuss okay um so that's kind of uh the the idea of the four groups now the final point I want to show again I'm just giving you kind of a PO paret of of different different uh little thoughts here uh is uh an interesting idea that the by yam says and we say this every day in ding B Israel saw the great hand of God that he did to and they had fear of God or they revered God and they believed in Hashem Moshe and then Moshe his servant by the way as a little aside uh there's a famous thought that's expressed by many many commentaries that M renu's name is not mentioned in the hagada because in the hag we only want to stress that God is the Redeemer we don't want to assign any role to human Redemption but you may want to get your kids look for this there is actually one place in the ha m is actually mentioned once and only once and that is uh towards the end of mid there is discussion of how many plagues God brought on the Red Sea remember one says 10 in MIM and 50 on the Ys and one says every Mak in MIT had four parts so it's 40 in MIT and 200 on theam and another opinion RAB AKA says every plague had five parts so it's 50 in MIT and it's 250 in the yamu and the idea is that the makos are called The Finger of God and the yamu is called the hand of God so whatever your makos are multiply by five so it quotes the PK how do you you know that the yamu is called the hand of God says right so uh if you want to keep keep your kids like interested in the you could say this could be an extra you know in addition to the afikoman price says anyone who finds moso's name you know gets an extra extra price and and the like so Moshe is mentioned once however me point out that the rambam didn't have that section in his ha so in the rambam's of the MOS is not is not mentioned although Ben Ram his only child testifies that the rambam said it even though he didn't have it in the official a the ram also said it but he held it was a minog it was not a an integral part of the but be it as it may I want to focus on the words they feared God and they believed in Moshe fear meaning revered God so the medis says the following enigmatic comment until this point they did not have fear of God Only by yam did they have fear of God yam gave them fear of God or reverence for God they didn't have that until then so what's going on once again we have this problem there were 10 Macos the Macos were Supernatural the Macos were miraculous uh God took them out uh not in a normal way this was the Revelation that Hashem controls to all the forces of the universe the mightiest Empires crumble and if God wants to make them stubborn he'll hold on to them and manipulate them like puppets at the end of a string so they didn't have hasem after the makos and yamu gave them hasem also another question to ponder is this we know that the word the name Hashem the y v is normally the mid of not the mid of elim is the maid of den so there may be a little bit of an oxymoron to say they feared Hashem y I mean if they're fearing that God can punish them if they don't behave correctly it should have been vuim right so the two questions are what do we mean that they got a year Byam if they didn't have before and why is that called rather than him so there's an observation of the Basi he doesn't he doesn't ask these questions but I think with his observation there is a good answer to these questions he points out that cras yamu is very different than the other makos in the following way if we look at all the other makos all 10 makos you will always find that the miracle of the Maka is the punishment aspect and the fact that the Jews were not affected was simply leaving them under the natural Order of Things know let's take blood what is the miracle of blood that the water turned into the blood right the miracle of the plague of the firstborn is that all the firstborn died now if the Jewish people were not affected by the Mata that's not God doing a special miracle for them that's God simply saying I will leave you under the natural order and I will do miracles to punish the evildoers meaning all the makos the miracle is the ones theah is the yam it's interesting observation is exactly the opposite way what's the miracle of Kus yamu that the water split that's a miracle the Egyptians died because God simply took away the miracle you take away the miracle the water comes back again so it's an interesting observation that withas yamu the na is the saving of am Israel and the punishment is removing the miracle going back to nor going back to normal the Egyptians died because God just removed the miracle God stopped the Miracle why is that significant so here is the idea when the Jewish people left MIT they saw very very clearly that God ultimately punishes evil God will change the universe to punish and destroy those who defy him because that's what God did God changed the order of the universe to be manes the MIT and that's certainly gave them elim we better behave because that could happen to us but they were not yet fully convinced of the love of God that will God do a miracle to show his love for us K yamu was the first of the Miracles that was a miracle of love and not a miracle of Retribution and that's why yam is described with the Y name of RA now so you may say wait a second so why is that connected to fear it should have said they felt God's love ah so here is what maral says all of us know the well-known dichotomy between fear of God and love of God but the morale writes there is fear of God fear itself has to levels there is fear of punishment and then there's reverence we'll subsume that in y both ideas then there's love of God but then the moral says there is a fear of God that's above love of God so it's like fear love fear what is that fear where your love of God is so intense that you are afraid to do anything that could bring some pain whatever that means to the it's not a fear of punishment and it's not even reverence it's a fear coming from love again we have we have you know examples of this even in normal life let's say that you have to get up very early uh but you don't want to wake up your spouse you don't wake up your wife so you tread on eggshells you go so quietly now you're afraid you'll wake her up now what do you mean you're afraid are you afraid she'll tell I'll use a male example speaking as a man are you afraid she'll take a frying pan and hit you over the head that's ones maybe do you rever her like she's the queen of England no that's not not what it is but you care about her when you care about her you don't want to do anything that will bring her discomfort so that level of fear is actually an intensification of love and it's a fear coming from Love and the way it worked was since by the splitting of the Red Sea we perceive the depth of God's love for us because it's a miracle of Love unlike the maros that generates within us a love for God and that love for God resulted in a fear not to do anything that would take away God's pride in us and God's joy in us it's a that comes from AA and that's called hasem K not elim if you remember with the Philistine King who abducted uh who abducted s uh and uh AB said or he said to AB why didn't you tell me so AB said said the phrase there is noat elim in this place meaning you guys certainly don't have love of God that that's I'm not even going to bring that up but at least you ought you ought to have been scared that God's going to punish you that's elim is a higher level that's the idea of my love for God is so strong that I am afraid to do anything that will bring Hashem any element of pain or SAR right there and that was the unique idea of wish you all a very very good week andem next week is is tvat as we said but you know we'll have a share before T bishvat so I will wish you a good tuat next week take care [Music] go