Rav Yitzchak Breitowitz: How to Recieve the Torah

[music] My birthday [music] is your [music] heart. [singing] Oh [music] my [singing] Okay. Um, hit. Okay. >> Yeah. Okay. Well, hi everybody. Thank you for coming. Uh, we had today in Orsame an annual gathering of uh all of the not all but many of the Bali yeshivas for beginners. We had Asia Torah or Seamels Mloma Makov. And this is the third year where we all get together. We rotate from place to place. And this was Orsame's return uh uh engagement. So I had to uh deliver a few remarks at the end. So as a result, I couldn't get her before before 9:00. And uh first and foremost, I think all of us want to send our condolences to Rabbi Poston on the sudden loss of his father. It's amazing. We had a tubata Sunday night and he had just learned that his father was nicked two hours before and like a real trooper he went ahead and he helped uh manage this great tubisher and then he had to fly to the United States. [snorts] Uh so we wish him much much in may God comfort him with all of the aim of and uh in addition as always uh we are praying for the lasting unity of Israel which will lead to victory and for all of those whose self has been affected by terror and Israel Benadina by Brandy and Jeffrey Gals again a very very good friend of Bonand of myself personally. Aliat Nishama in loving memory of Roa Zagorski Risha D'vor Basyako Fako that I just read what's in front of me special education for Carto writer. It's very wonderful presentations which we partake of very regularly and value immeasurably from uh David and Ruthie Eisenberg. I will send the check in the mail afterwards. Okay. Um this is the para that is really the culmination ofas mitim and that is matan tora. You know I remember in the 1970s when there was a great deal of agitation to let the Jews go from the Soviet the former Soviet Union. So they all all the synagogues orthodox conservative reform had big signs that said let my people go and that is of course taken from the verse shalak ami send my people. But the only problem is that that phrase leaves out the next word. Send forth my people so they will serve me. Freedom is a wonderful thing for freedom. But freedom does not define the purpose of your life. You can't say why why am I alive? I'm alive to be free. To be free to do what? Freedom may be a condition so you can accomplish what it is you need to accomplish. But freedom itself does not give you the content of that life. So too were liberated from slavery. But being liberated from human bondage does not give me a purpose. We were liberated for a purpose. And that purpose is in this week's para to receive the Torah from Hashem. So we will live our lives in accordance with his will. That is why Pes and Shuos are not really two different holidays. They're actually one holiday because you'll notice the counting of the omare. We'll talk about it more when we get to that part of the year. But the counting of the omare is a linkage between freedom and responsibility, between freedom and the purpose of freedom. and Eric from who happened to be Jewish and he was a Talmud of Sigman Freud who also happened to be Jewish although neither of them were observant but he once made a very he once made a very poignant observation and he said we make a very big mistake when we define freedom as freedom from something the real meaning of freedom is freedom towards something not freedom from but freedom towards and that is the journey to harina the journey to her. Now, in truth, just to just to clarify a little bit of the the definition here, uh when we say we got the Torah, well, what does it mean we got the Torah? We traveled and uh on Shuos on the 6th of Son or the seventh is Maklo what day we got the Torah. Now, we didn't get the Torah. Actually, uh we just heard the ten commandments and even that may not have been uh the whole thing. According to Rashi, we only heard two commandments. Then we asked Moshe to give us the rest. And so much of the Torah consists of stories that occurred after Matan Torah, the sin of the golden calf, uh for example, you know, after the ten commandments. Korak, we didn't get the Torah there. So what do we mean exactly [snorts] get the Torah and when did we get the Torah? So here there are just this is just some basic clarification that will I think can help people. You have to know what you mean when you say the word Torah. The word Torah itself has multiple meanings and sometimes what it means in one context is not what it means in another context. Sometimes Torah refers to the five books of Moses. the pentatuck, the safer Torah. If we ask the question, when did the Jewish people get a complete safer Torah? The answer is they didn't get it until the last day of Mosher Rabenu's life, 40 years from this event. And on that day there's a tradition that miraculously he was able to complete 13 cifray Torah. Uh one Torah was the master Torah that was placed in the ark of the keshim and then the other 12 each tribe got a safer Torah authenticated by Mosha. By the way toos asked an interesting kasha. There is a tradition that Mosher Rabenu died on Shabas you know Shabas Mina uh after the repetition of the Amida we talk about the righteousness of God's judgments that's called sed kadin and uh it is recorded that the reason we do that is there were three righteous people who died shabas afternoon yose fatadic Moshe Rabenu and David Hamelik And that's why the kadin the accepting god's judgments there are three verses one can negate yoseph one can negot one can get David so toos in monakos asks a very interesting question how can we say that mosher raenu completed 13 to scrolls on the day of his death the day of his death was shabas not allowed to write on shabas so tossus gives a fascinating answer to says says since by definition he could do such a thing only miraculously it couldn't be done by normal human activity. So that which you do deres is not subject to the malos of shabas. The Torah prohibits only human. So this is very encouraging. If any of you uh either yourselves or your children want to go to Hogwarts and uh learn magic tricks uh you can do so even on Shabas because it wouldn't be maha although you may have another problem with the prohibitions against magic that's a separate prohibition but at least you're not going to be mal shabas so safer Torah when you say we didn't get a safer Torah at Mount Si Moshe did not come down even the second time with a safer Torah. We didn't have a safer Torah till the day Moshe died. Now there is a Maklo was the safer Torah written peace meal. Meaning after each event, Hashem told Moshe to write it down after Korak which means in a sense you can imagine Mosha's tent he had you know partial. Now was that distributed to other people? I don't even know. But Moshe wrote it as things happened. God dictated it. Or according to another opinion, nothing was written until the last day, which of course would make the miracle even even much much greater. But when we say in Perkyos, Moshe got the Torah at Sinai, it is not referring to the safer Torah. And if you think about that as a matter of logic, it couldn't mean that as well because what does that mean? Uh if we got the whole Torah at Mount Si that means Korak knew ahead of time that he's going to rebel and the ground is going to open that everybody is reading a script. All of the are scripts that people were handed. Okay, stand where that line is. Right? Obviously it didn't happen until it happened. So what is it? Do we mean that Moshe got the Torah in Sinai? It means that the 40 days that Moshe was in Hari, both the first time and the second time, Hashem gave him all of the commandments, not the text of the Torah. Torah does not mean the text of the Torah. It means the 613 commandments. Now, another point though, Moshe got the commandments at Sinai. We didn't. If you just read the kish, you you obviously see that Moshe is giving us commandments over the entire 40 years. Hashem is telling him when to reveal certain commandments. So the two points I'm making about the statement that Moshe got the Torah at Sinai. Number one, it doesn't mean the safer Torah. It only means the 613 mitzvah. And number two, Moshe got it at Sinai. We got it over 40 40-year period. Now, I can't give you a single explanation why Hashem chooses to reveal certain mitzvos at certain points and certain mitzvah at later points, but it's indisputably the case that mitzvos are revealed at different points in the 40 years. So if you were to take a snapshot of the Jewish people in the midbour at different points, there would be some mitzvah they weren't doing yet because they weren't given those mitzvah yet. Okay. So that that's that's an important point that people because I actually get the question a lot. He said, "Well, um you know, Korak must have known that the ground was going to open up because we got the Torah." You know, you have to understand what it means that we got got the Torah. Okay. And in fact that is actually the meaning of the ubiquitous p the most quoted puss in the whole hashem elos laymore. God spoke to Moshe saying what is that saying? It's like what's the word? The answer is God says to Moshe, "Now the mitzvah that I already gave you at Sinai, Laymore, you are now authorized to communicate it to the Jewish people." Laymore is the linguistic signal that what Moshe already knows, he is to communicate to Ben Israel. So when Moshe knew about a mitzvah and when we knew about a mitzvah are two different things. We're getting mitzvah for a period of 40 years. Moshe got all the mitzvah at Sinai. In fact I I don't want actually this wasn't the theme I wanted to talk about in particular but I'll just mention it very quickly. A very beautiful insight of the Kazenish. We find a number of times in the Torah where Moshe seemingly did not know the he didn't know what the den was. Uh there are actually four cases where Moshe did not know what the law was. Uh one case was uh with the uh the fellow who gathered wood and Moshe did not know what the penalty is for violating the chabas and God told him it is stoning. Uh the other is also a sin. A person blasphemed Hashem cursed God. Moshe didn't know the punishment. Uh the third is the first carbon pesak. The first and only carbon pesak offered in the desert. uh the second year. So the people were some people were tame ritually impure and they felt why should we be deprived of bringing a corbin pesak. Moshe didn't know and he asked God and God gave him the mitzvah of pesak sheni that you can bring it one month later and the fourth is the daughters of was a man who died without sons and there was a question do daughters inherit if there are no sons because his brothers were claiming the inheritance inherit Israel Moshe didn't know and he went to gods and god said daughters inherit now so these are the four cases, the Makosh, the wood gatherer, the Magade, the blasphemer, Pesakeni, the second Pesak, the one month later, and the uh rights of daughters to inherit. Now, here's the problem. If Moshe got all of the mitzvos on Mount Si, then he already knew the law that if you violate Shabish, you get the death penalty, and if you blasphe, you get the death penalty, and that daughters inherit. and pesosi they these are mitzvah so what does it mean Moshe didn't know he was already given those commandments and arenai so some midrashim say that Moshe for various reasons forgot hashem punished him by forgetting things but the has a beautiful insight the says Moshe knew the halaka but Moshe did not think he was permitted to act on the basis of that because God did not yet tell him to reveal it. Moshe, in other words, this is what's literally inside information. Moshe knows, but this was not yet communicated to the people. And Moshe cannot communicate mitzvot to ami Israel till Hashem gives him the green light, Hashem, El Moshe. So we have to ask God, do I have your permission to reveal? This is a very very nice uh explanation because it it it it totally consistent with Moshe knowing but we're not knowing. Moshe cannot act on the basis of that and therefore it was not a matter of forgetting. It was a matter of getting the authorization to implement a mitzvah that was not yet given. Now again as I say this is really a study a major study of Kish. Why are certain mitzvotes revealed at certain times? And that's a very good question. I I don't think there's one master answer, meaning every revelation will have its own explanation. But it is important to understand that now we call Shivuos the day we got the Torah. We got the Torah over a 40year period and we didn't have a safer Torah till the very end. So when we say we got the Torah, what happened on Shabuos? We got the ten commandments. So why is that called got the Torah? So there are a few points here. Uh one point is that the ten commandments actually allude to all of the 613 commandments. In fact, the Ramban wrote a kundress. Ramban wrote uh an essay in which he shows how all of the 613 commandments can be subsumed under one of the ten commandments. So they are a foundation. And of course the great day of matan tora was also the day of mass revelation in which God appeared to the entire Jewish nation. Now this is unique if you think about this. Most of the commandments of the Torah we did not get from God. God spoke to Moshe and Moshe then communicated it to us. We didn't hear it directly from God. The Ten Commandments. So, this is going to be a big makus. Some opinions actually say the ten commandments are unique because we heard all 10 of them directly from Hashem and then we got scared and we asked Moshe to be the intermediary and God granted that request. That is shittita number one that we heard all of the ten commandments directly from God. However, that is not the shittita of the Gomorrah in Makos and it's not the shittita of Rashi. The Gomorrah in Makos says the following. Gumar and Makos says the familiar teaching. There are 613 commandments that God gave in the Torah. Uh and we subdivide them. There are 248 positive commandments. Thou shalt do and they they correspond to the bones of a person. And then there are 365 negatives. Thou shalt not do 248 and 365 is 613. And the remedu Moshe Moshe gave us tora and the gumatri of Torah is 611. So the Gomorrah says, "You just told me 613 and you quoted Gamatri of 611." The Gomorrah's answer is, "Ah, that's exactly right. Moshe gave us 611." But two commandments we heard directly from God. And what are the two commandments? I am the Lord your God. We'll talk about in a moment. What commandment is that? And thou shalt not have any other gods. So you see from the Gomorrah not like the first interpretation we didn't get ten commandments from the almighty we only heard two commandments from the almighty and we got scared after that and 611 commandments over the next 40 years know the rest of the ten commandments but then everything else we got from Moshe Rabenu okay so these are two shitos in in midrashim did we hear all 10 or did we only hear two and we heard the rest from Mosher Rabenu along with the rest of the Torah? By the way, as a little aside, what are the two that we heard from God? And they're two out of the 613. I am the Hashem who took you out of Egypt and you shall not have any other gods. Now a very big question is I am the Lord I'll use the standard English translation who took you out of Egypt does not seem to be a commandment. It is a declarative sentence. What commandment is in the statement I am the Lord your God who took you out of Egypt. So the Rambam says this is a mitzvah. This is the mitzvah to believe in God. There is a mitzvah of amuna. A mitzvah to believe in God. I am the Lord your God who took you out of Egypt. This is what the Rambam says. Mitzvah Ramban asks a very logical question. How can God command you to believe in him? If you don't believe in him, then there's no one that has the authority to give you that command. It's like an atheist, you know, let's say I'm debating an atheist. So, I finally tell the atheist, "You must believe in God." And the atheist says, "Why?" He says, "Because God says so." I don't believe that. So, how is it Shia? meaning either way you look at it if I believe in God I don't need a mitzvah if I don't believe in God what's this mitzvah going to make me do so the Ramban argues with the Rambam the Ramban says amuna is not a separate mitzvah amuna [clears throat] is a foundation that makes all the other mitzvah possible Now admittedly he's going to have difficulty with the Gomorrah and Makos because Norah and Makos says specifically that two of the 613 uh one of those two is I am the Lord your God. I mean the Gomorrah says that and the Ramban cannot argue with the Gomorrah. But the Ramban does take the position that it is not possible logically for amuna to be to be demarcated as a mitzvah. That's a good logical question. So what would the Rambam say to that? Meaning how would the Rambam understand a divine command to believe in God? So the Rambam himself explains it. The commandment of Amuna is not directed to an atheist. It's directed to a believer. So then you'll ask, well, if I'm a believer, I don't need a commandment. Answer, according to the Rambam, you who believe in the faith that you were given by your parents, you are obligated to examine the rational and philosophical basis for the existence of God. So it becomes not just a received tradition but it becomes an intellectual certainty and therefore according to the Rambam my manes the Rambam the philosophical exploration of the proof of God's existence is actually required under the mitzvah of Amuna. Now this is so interesting because what the Rambam regards as the mitzvah of amuna there are other people that regard that as semi-heretical you know um in the religious world certainly in the kidic world and even in the orthodox uh yeshiva world the notion of philosophically exploring the existence of God is actually frowned upon exactly discouraged I remember it's almost that brings a little smile to myself I I remember a guy a man a man visited the base median in Arsame and he went to the shelf that has the Rambam's works and he asked me um where can I find the muhim where can I find the guide to the perplexed I don't know if everyone gets the little bit of humor here uh in a typical yeshiva based medish there will certainly be a shelf devoted to the Rambam's works the Mishna Torah the commentary to the Mishna the morim will usually not even be on the shelf. It's a philosophical work. Uh it's an argument proving the existence of God by aris by arisatilian logic. We don't want our yeshiva students to be exposed to the quai heresy of the marin. So the marbim is in a back room somewhere subb you know it's every yes shea has it but it's like buried away. It's not on the shelf now. So it's so interesting what the Rambam considered to be imperative imperative actually became discouraged in later years and the fear would be because once you start opening up uh the question of proof of the existence of God what happens if God forbid you're not convinced by the proofs right maybe it's better not to open a Pandora's box I have my faith I have my tradition Good enough for me. So, I'm not going to fully address this. All I can say is this has been a recurring debate in ami Israel for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. Whether one should ground your amuna in philosophical understanding or should it be more in the nature of a blind faith. I don't ask questions. I just I just accept. And as I say the Rambam obviously felt that faith should be grounded in intellectual understanding. Uh others uh took the position that way. I'll give you another example where this comes up. One of the greatest greatest uh uh ethical books that we have Muser is alavos duties of the heart. Duties of the heart is earlier than the Rambam. In fact the Rambam actually says that Kasalavos was his father's favorite savior. like the Rambam's own marin was written in Arabic and later translated into Hebrew. Now the above is divided into a lot of chapters and the chapters are called sh the gate of this the gate of that. So the first gate is called Shah the gate of unity which demonstrates the unity of God the existence of God and then he has the gate of the the gate of abatashem the gate of chuva. So a typical comment is that of the vagan who said all of the is sacred and holy but start from chapter 2. Don't read the sh because the most of the book is about ethics. Ethics are good but is there a god? Is there not a god? How do you prove it? Says stay away. In fact, there's a beautiful I mean was translated into Hebrew in the middle ages, but those translations are very difficult. So there's a beautiful flowing modern Hebrew translation of Alvabos by Lieberman. Beautiful, beautiful translation, but he doesn't translate. He just uh he puts it in there in the original and he has a 50-page introduction of excerpts of people saying don't learn Sharik. you know from the bill from other other people and the like so uh this is something that you're going to encounter a lot uh now in in a place where I teach let's say or so we do delve into philosophy a little bit more than mainstream yeshivas for a very simple reason that our student body have already been in universities they've already been exposed to atheism ideas so if somebody's been exposed to the poison you got to give them a medicine but >> that's what they say about their own that in that period was exposed to >> right right the Islamic right right >> so you had to do that in order to defend the Torah >> right so as a result in in what you might call the bala yeshivas or whatever they tend to do cover some areas that are not covered in mainstream uh yeshivas but I tell you there there are guys who come from mainstream yeshivas who are FFBS they've been from all their lives and they'll come to hear classes in the bali yeshivas because They explore topics >> that are not discussed in mainstream yeshiva. So uh whether the mainstream approach is correct or not I think may be up for debate. Okay. I just wanted just to show you how the locus of does have a lot of relevance on this particular issue. Yeah. Okay. All righty. So now though uh so we clarified what does it mean that Moshe got the Torah at Sinai? very very important uh thing. Uh but now I want to go backwards a little bit to the preparations of Mount Antora. The Jewish people of course left Mitraim on the 15th of Nissan and they arrive at the Sinai mountain mount si ro and then there's a series of preparations for mount on Torah. So the PK reads the third month again counting from Nissan the first of the month on that very day midbari they came to the desert of Sinai okay that's Pakal p then seems to go over the territory we already covered it says They had left the oasis of they had come to midi. They encamped in midci the desert and they encamped adjacent to the mountain. Problem is Pusk base seems to be totally superfluous. We know that the last stop before Sinai was the oasis of Rafidam. That is actually the end of last week's para. Rafidam was an oasis and that's where we were attacked by a Malik and we achieved victory. So there's no reason to repeat. We traveled from Rafidim. We know that from paras. And then it says, "And they came to the Sinai desert." Well, that's what says. And why does it say they came to the Sinai desert and they encamped at Sinai? And then a third time, they encamped next to the mountain. In other words, B tells me nothing that I don't already know from Pak combined with the end of Bashal. The Torah does not waste words. Torah doesn't just repeat something. So what is the the purpose of puk of puk base? So the orim Benatar the great Moroccan Rav who came to Jerusalem and uh he has a commentary on the and uh he's often called the oresh again I myself I'm not really sure why certain commentaries I mean we don't say why certain commentaries are called I don't know but the orim is one of the very very few commentaries that are often called or hakadosh. He's buried in haram here and I believe the art site is the day before the fast of tamas. So it's the 16th of tamas and in haramim there are thousands of people actually thousands of people who go to the kev of the orim on his on his yard site. The orim says that the purpose of the second verse is not referring to the physical journey of the Jewish people, but it's referring to their spiritual journey. That the journey spiritually to Matan Torah has four steps to it. Step one, you must travel. I'm I'm just going to enumerate the steps even without explaining then I'll explain them. Step one, you must journey from Rafidim. I'll explain that in a moment. Step two, you must come to the desert of Si. Step three, you must encamp in the desert of Si. And step four is they encamped adjacent to the mountain. meaning he divides it up into four short declarative statements and each one of those is a step spiritually to be able to receive God's Torah. So let's first look at step one. So we now have a fourstep plan to how we receive God's Torah in our lives. Step one is leave rafidom. So here we have I have to go back to paratalik. If you remember at the end of paras the Jewish people came to an oasis that's called Rafidim and we were attacked by a malikal have a drussa on the name Rafidim that rafidim is not only a name but it is really a contraction for a certain attitude that made us vulnerable to our malik. Rafidim can be divided into two words rau. Now this is an idiom which doesn't really sound that sensible in English but ra means their hands were weak from the Torah. But this is an idiomatic expression. When a person is not interested in something, when a person is not passionate about something, it's as if he's holding on to it in a very loose way. Let's imagine you're crossing a rifoyam or you're crossing King George. So if you have if you're holding a baby in your arms, you don't have a carriage, you're literally holding your baby, you're going to hold the baby very tight to you because it's very important. If on the other hand you have a tissue in your hand even if you're not a litterer shouldn't be a litterer you know you don't deliberately throw things but you know you're holding it loosely and if the wind blows it out of your hand you know you're not going to most people are not going to run after it to try to retrieve it. So riffia a loose grip is an idiomatic expression for a lack of passion or a certain sense of complacency and kazal have a dra that what made us vulnerable to amalik was kind of I mean amalik is evil and of course nobody is giving amalik a pass that's never that's never the situation but there is a concept that we become vulnerable to the external amaliks in the world when we are spiritually not as committed as we should be and this is exemplified by now of course there was no Torah given yet but whatever mitzvah they were given now this is important you can be from you can be Torah observant you can be following all of the rules but if you do so without passion Without gishmak we say in Yiddish without excitement without joy you're suffering what is called riffion that can make you vulnerable that can make you vulnerable to a malik. This is an important idea. Feinstein used to say the old Yiddish expression. It's hard to be a Jew. He felt was a very destructive expression because you're communicating the notion that this is burdensome for me. Yeah, I'll do it. I'll keep Shabas. I'll keep kosher. I I'll keep the but it's a burden. Well, what message are you giving to your kids? And in a modern society, your kids don't have to take that burden. You know, maybe there were times where a Jew didn't have a choice, so to speak. But today, you have infinite choices. So Mosha Feinstein used to say that the attitude that we have to convey is the joy and the privilege, the passion, the gishmach of being a Jew that has staying power. Of course, the problem is in order to communicate it to your kids, you have to feel it yourself. [laughter] And that's the problem. I can't People always ask, "How do I get my kids to be more interested in domining and everything?" Well, the answer is, "Yeah, well, if you're more interested in domining it, it'll it'll rub off in that in that particular way." It's unfortunate. I mean, Hashem, there are many examples of children who surpass their parents, but you don't have the right to expect it. No parent has the right to make the assumption that my child will be better than me. Right? So you have to any value you want your child to have, you have to exemplify in your own life. So that's step one. You want to accept God's Torah, leave Rafidim. Meaning not just the physical place called Rafidim, the attitude of Rafidim. Embrace the Torah with passion, with joy, with excitement. Now, step two and three, you'll notice that the word desert is repeated twice. It says they came to the desert of Si and they encamped in the desert. So, there's a desert one and the desert two. The orim says this is because desert has two separate symbols in our spiritual preparation. One aspect of the desert is its simplicity. You know there are people who really love deserts not because of the heat so much. The heat is not a pleasant factor but they love the emptiness of the desert. Now modern society so cluttered with things with stuff the desert is beautiful in the stark simplicity in which nothing there although it's interesting some you go in the negv or even even in the Judean desert you know uh on the way to the dead sea so you have these like hills of sand or whatever it is but then you have a meadow in tent with the TV antenna going all the way up right there so things not quite as empty uh even in the desert as it once was. But there are people who love the desert because it represents a simplicity. So says the oray, the second step to receiving God's Torah is not to be overly involved in material accumulation, to live a simple life. Now this is a little tricky because on one hand Judaism is not aesthetic. We don't tell you to deny pleasures. We don't tell you sleep on a bed of nails. Uh in fact it's brought down that for a person to have extra fast days in addition to the fast days is actually sinful. The nazir is a sinner because he's depriving himself of wine. I I think I mentioned Sunday night the Jewish Shami says a person will be held to account for every pleasure they could have enjoyed that they didn't because God said I put it here for you. So we're not against pleasure. Pleasure can bring a person happiness, joy, and ultimately gratitude to Hashem. But it's important that your pleasures don't control you. You control your possessions. Your possessions don't rule over you. When in your life you're overly committed to material pleasure, you become less sensitive to the spiritual. Just as for example, a person addicted to junk food is not going to put in the time and the effort to make a three-hour French meal. And just like somebody who is addicted to web surfing, I'm using secular analogies, is not going to have the patience for William Shakespeare or even William Faulner. So too, when we become overly connected to the physical pleasure, these spiritual pleasures, they take too long. They're slower. They're not as immediate. They're more lasting and more meaningful, but it's too much work. So, a person needs to try to strive for a simple, uncluttered life. Again, I'm not referring to deprivation, but not to get overly involved in stuff. You know, I remember years ago, Pepsi Cola had a campaign uh that if you bought a certain amount of Pepsi, you got points for every bottle and you can turn in the points for prizes. So, the commercial went, "Buy Pepsi, get stuff." And I thought to myself, you know, it didn't even say what the stuff was. I just want to get stuff. I don't even know what it is. Stuff. I need stuff, right? I need stuff. And that's kind of the mindset we have. I just want stuff, right? Although I'll tell you another thing about Pepsi, not nothing to do with the share, but I remember it from my law school teaching days. At one point, Pepsi had a commercial, which was a joke commercial, that if you got like 20 million Pepsi points, you would get a carrier jet. And the commercial actually had a high school kid. You know, the other kids are bringing their bike to school and this kid like flies flies a jet. Now, they picked a number that was so high that nobody in the in a million years would would get that number of points, but some kid managed to get it. Maybe he was working with Iran. I don't know what he was doing. So, he actually demanded delivery of this jet, this this this war plane carrier jet, which is illegal. I mean, a private citizen, you know, even you know, Trump could not buy his own war plane. Uh but he sued he actually sued Pepsi for breach of contract uh in not delivering the jet and the you know there's an opinion in federal court. The judge wrote an opinion. Come on kid this was a joke you know whatever. So he lost his case but but he actually brought the brought the lawsuit uh to get to get the jet. How he got all of those points is really there there must have been some foreign governments that uh were were trying to get involved. Okay. Uh but be it as it may that's the first midpar right. So rafidim is joy, passion, gishmach. The first midbar is make yourself like a desert. Strive for a simplicity and le less of an involvement in the material. And the third lesson of midbar, the third step which is the second mention of midbar is a midbar is a symbol for humility. In its simplicity, it is humble. It has no pretensions. And that's an important step that in order to receive Hashem's Torah, we must be humble. We must be modest. Now, it's interesting that Khazal make the same point not by focusing on desert, but by focusing on water. It's interesting. They use an opposite imagery that one of the reasons why Torah is compared to water is just as water goes from the high level to the low level, right? Water goes downwards. So too the words of Torah leave the arrogant and they go to the humble. So it's interesting switch. In other words, what kazal see in the idea of Torah compared to water theim sees in the second desert midbar. That is a sign of humility. So so far these are our three steps. Leave rafidim, leave complacency, embrace passion and excitement and joy. Midbar simplify your life from the clutter of possessions. And this third level is humility. And why is humility so important? Because when I'm filled with my ego, I'm not open to hear the word of Hashem. Number one, I don't learn from other people. And once again, my ego interferes with my ability to live my life in accordance with God because I'm too focused on me. Right? A humble person. Now again, I want to emphasize [clears throat] humility does not mean you think poorly of yourself. That wouldn't be correct. When we say Mosher Raenu was the most humble of all people. What Mosher Rabeno thought he was an idiot. If someone asked Mosher Rabenu was shyly said, "Why are you asking me? That 5-year-old is smarter than me. Ask a 5-year-old." I mean, that would have been pathological. That would not have been something to praise. Mosher Rabenu knew his talents, but he wasn't focused on him. He was focused, so to speak, on the mission. The nature of humility is you serve Hashem. You live a life of service. It's not about you. It's not about me. You see, this is the common denominator between people with low self-esteem and people who are arrogant. Sometimes they're the same person. Because the common denominator between low self-esteem and arrogance is everything is about them. In their own minds, they're constantly giving themselves a report card. When I'm doing good, oh, I'm great. And when I make a mistake, oh, I'm bad. A humble person doesn't think in those terms. A humble bird doesn't think I'm great and doesn't think I'm bad. A humble person gets the joy of serving Hashem. And that is why a humble person on some level is almost indifferent if he does it or somebody else does it. I remember um when my son was in second grade. So uh you know this a school so uh this was a co-ed school a modern orthodox school in in Washington. So um in the silver spring so they have a shabas you know abaima thing or every week they would award the best student who would get the best uh award. So my son came home one Friday and he was so excited that his friend mayor got the prize. Mayor got the prize. And you know I didn't say this I wouldn't say what are you so happy about you didn't get it. [laughter] But yet as I reflect and I still remember this after so many years, it was such a beautiful thing that his sima at his friends getting this award was as great as if he would have gotten the award. He rejoiced in someone else's someone else's good fortune. You know, if Simka writes, we know there's a mitzvah to bear a person's yoke. No sabiel. If somebody is suffering, I try to have empathy. Ramire simp says it's much harder to rejoice in somebody's good fortune than it is to commiscerate in their bad fortune. It's hard because we are we I mean all of us I'm including myself all of us have this little pain of envy. No, when I see who got the Nobel Prize this year, I say why not me? You know, [laughter] not really. But you know, there is that little pain of envy that a person that a person has, you know, and the like. And when there's humility, it's not about you. It's about the job getting done. And and if it is about the job getting done, I can be as happy if someone else did a mitzvah as I am if I did a mitzvah because good things were done. And I am happy not because of me. I'm happy because has been given to Hashem. So that's step number three, midbar. Midbar number two, which is humility. Now step number four is already one that have identified because in step number four with the end of the encamped by the mountain. So here you'll notice is and here themselves give us the like one man like one heart. Unity is a necessary condition for Cababala Satra. Unity, love, togetherness, connection. So according to the or we have a very simple fourpoint plan to how we spiritually prepare ourselves to receive God's Torah. Number one, joy, passion, excitement. leave or feed him. Number two, simplify your life and become less attached to the material. Number three, cultivate humility and willingness to learn from others. And number four, love and connect to your fellow Jewish. Now this last element is not the that already is a thatal themselves have because it switches the verb instead of it says in fact that's the simple meaning in you know has this list of if God would have done this and not this it would have been enough to be grateful so some of the denos are a little hard to understand and it says if you would have brought us to hari and you wouldn't have given us the Torah deno So that's enough. That's hard to understand. What would have been so good about coming to Hari and not getting the Torah? The answer is if we came to Hari and we achieved that unity, even if it wound up we didn't get the Torah, that would have been a cause for celebration. You know what they say, you know, um the 70 elders who were commissioned to translate the Torah into Greek. So, King Talmi, uh the one of the Egyptian kings put the 70 elders in different rooms and miraculously they came up with the identical translation. This is called the Septuagen, the Targum Shivim, the Greek translation of the Torah to 70. So there's a famous vo that people say if they would have been in the same room and would have come up with the same translation that would have been a bigger miracle. So we fight. Now again the fact that Jews fight argue that's not a bad thing in intrinsically what is the Gmorrah about but argument debate. So the issue of fight I mean fight in the sense of arguing debating trying to understand that's good that's the process of Torah learning but when it turns into antagonism hatred dislike then it be delegitim legitimation that becomes a bad thing okay so now I want to end with uh uh quoting a bitsia which is a very very famous story I'm sure you've heard it before but I want to connect it to the and this is the story of the oven of a if you remember uh this was an earthnware oven and there was a big debate is it susceptible to ritual impurity or not and the majority of the sages said it is tame but Rabelzer was the only person who said to and he refused to give in to the majority he just refused and he made all sorts of arguments they didn't accept him so what he then did because he called upon Hashem to do a bunch of miracles to prove that he's right. Ultimate appeal to ultimate authority. He said, "If th is like me, let the carob tree uproot itself and jump away." And the carob tree uprooted itself. And the said, "We don't listen to trees." Then he said, "If th is like me, let the river reverse its course. And the river reversed its course and the said, "Well, you don't listen to rivers." And then he said, "If thou is like me, let the walls of this space medish collapse inward." And the walls began to collapse inward. And Rabbi Yeshua said to the walls, "Don't you dare." So the walls didn't know what to do. Should they keep on bending like Rabbi Eleazar? Should they straighten up like Rabbi Yeshua? The Gumar says that's why this particular B madrash had sloping walls kind of explaining an excuse and once again as you would guess the said we don't listen to walls we don't care about rivers of trees we don't care about rivers we don't care about walls so finally he got the ultimate big gun if th is like me let there be a voice from Hashem that I'm right called the Bas and Abas Hashem himself said and said the most amazing thing. We don't listen to you either to God because you said in your Torah the Torah is not in heaven. It was given to us to interpret. You Hashem have to follow your own Torah. Now this is an amazing point and it seems like a tremendous but the garra records that somebody met aloha and said what was baku's response when they told him mind your own business and they said he said was laughing and he said my children have been victorious over me I will stay out of their fight now the ultimate meaning of this passage deserves much more time. We don't have time to go over it. I will actually talk about this closer to but I want to focus on what might be a peripheral aspect but the peripheral aspect fits the symbolism of the three miracles. That's a that's not the main point of the story. But miracle number one was the tree. Miracle number two was the river. Miracle number three were the walls of the beta midash says the bill nagon. When Rabbi Elazar is trying to convince theim to follow him, he wants to demonstrate to them that he has all of the qualities that needs. And the first quality is simplicity. You'll see you'll see how this overlaps with the simplicity and not being overly involved. in material pleasure. And this is symbolized by the carob tree. If any of you had buxer, dried carob the other day. Buxer is pretty much one of the, I think, at least for me, one of the least appetizing foods. It represents the epitome of someone that is not involved in the pleasures of the world. And therefore the carob tree is a testimony that Rabelzar is not involved in physical pleasures. That's what he's trying to show. Now the water even though the orim used modesty used desert to show modesty but often use the water to show modesty. He's doing a miracle to show that he's humble. Of course, you'll ask me the question, gee, does a humble person do a supernatural miracle to show how humble he is. >> But the answer is yes. Because if he needs to make a point, he's, you know, basically saying it's not a matter of ego. I am not a person with ego and Hashem will confirm I'm acting without ego by doing this miracle. Okay? So, so you see the matchup so far. The tree matches up the simplicity of lifestyle. The water matches up the second mention of desert which is humility. So the first mention of desert was simplicity of lifestyle. The second measure of desert was humility. That corresponds to the two steps uh of the carob tree and the water. Now the third level uh is the basa medish and the vagon says that's devoting the hours. You could be humble and simple but if you don't spend the hours learning now what generates within a person the desire to to learn Torah. It's his passion and his joy in learning. So this correlates to leaving Rafidim. So what's interesting is this is from the Vil Nagon. The Vil Mone's interpretation of the three miracles corresponds to three out of the four elements of the Oraim's list. So which element of the Oraim's list is missing from Rabbi Elazzar's miracles? The very last one, unity. Because that was the one quality that wasn't present because he was refusing to concede. So he had three of the qualities. But the there was a pagan there was a defect in the I just wanted to correlate the Vagong's explanation of the three miracles. Um so be you know the Ramban writes you know in the sitter there's something called the six things you're supposed to remember all the time or one of them and the Ramban counts us as a mitzvah is to remember not just that we were taken out of mitz but every single day we should remember standing in harai and getting the Torah which means we are supposed to experience matan tora every day and one of the ways we experience it is by incorporating in our lives the spiritual steps that the Jewish people needed to undergo in order to receive Hashem's Torah. So, may we be Zoha to receive Hashem's Torah every single day as a new thing. You know, you don't eat breakfast tomorrow because you ate it today. You eat breakfast tomorrow because you're hungry for breakfast tomorrow. So too in our Yiddish, we don't keep the Torah today because I was doing it yesterday or the day before or 10 years ago. I do it today because I want to do it today. And we accept with that passion. And if we have passion, simplicity, humility, and unity, the four steps, we will be in a wonderful way. So again, thank you. Thank you for coming. [music] >> [music] >> My birthday is he [music] [singing] >> [music]