Rav Yitzchak Breitowitz: The Sale of Yosef and the 10th of Teves

[Music] n [Music] okay uh hi everybody hope hope you're well thank you for coming and we're now our second week in our new y facility continue to be uh in all ways uh this year is dedicated for the praying for the victory of arim in Gaza Lebanon and Syria the lasting Unity of people of am Israel and for all those whose Health has been affected by the war Raa Ben feda Balo Ben fi and Al for benzar Shalom Ben on the fth anniversary of his again the gers are here we very much remember and finally for official finlin by his children eim and Nomi finlin again I I say all the time they they have given us a number of dedications and Rabbi and Mrs splin were very very influential in my life growing up in Hartford Connecticut so we're very very maker uh to him and to his riton as well uh Roes uh yon will be starting a slow weekday shakr minion 7:45 a.m. with a delicious breakfast and learning program afterwards so new Schon town uh next to a bagel place and I assume you'll be serving breakfast anyway so it should be good uh dedications and contributions are still needed and can be made through the ion website and ion wants to thank all of those who have already contributed and please let other people know what a greatus it is to give to such an organization like ion so that way you spread the word you know actually say in if you kind of cause other people to givea that's even greater Mitzvah than you yourself giving and the reason is actually relatively simple when you give staka all you get is credit and admiration but when you put pressure on other people to give you often get insult and as a result when you do a Mitzvah and you get insulted or resented there's extra in that in that in that Mitzvah so the people who raise funds actually get perhaps more reward than the people who actually give the uh give the money okay um so uh I really have two things I want to talk about today but they're actually going to be connected we are of course finishing and we are also going to have on Friday a very unusual fast day uh it is very very rare uh that we fast on of course we never fast on chabas unless it's yum Kipper but uh we also don't have fasting on Friday because the same way you're not allowed to fast on chabas you're actually not supposed to fast on Friday because we don't want you to enter the Holiness of chabas in a state of deprivation and not feeling that good so normally fast days are not on Friday either but the one exception to that pattern is the fast of the 10th of Taves which uh indeed we will be observing this Friday we will be fasting until chabas it is the shortest of all the fast days because it only begins in the morning at dawn so the night before you can eat and it ends shabas is relatively early so it is a short fast day but it is a fast day that we observe even on AR of chabas there is a tremendous k a tremendous novel thought of Ravid aam who was one of the main main commentaries onila that in theory now this is an untestable preposition in theory if the tenth of tavas would be on chabas we would even fast on shabas now the reason why I say it's untestable is that under the structure of the Jewish calendar it is impossible for the tenth of Taves to ever be on chabas so you'll never you're never going to face the situation because again remember everything is connected to rosashana there are three days of the week where the first day of R can never fall out it goes by the acronym low Ro Adu is Al Sunday D is Wednesday V is Friday the first day of rashishana cannot fall out on Sunday Saturday night Sunday cannot fall out on Tuesday night Wednesday cannot fall out on Thursday night Friday right now based on that if you then extrapolate the lengths of the months Etc that's going to affect all of the holidays and words certain holidays cannot fall out on certain days of the week simply because based on rashash it couldn't happen so it happens to be that the tenth of Tes can never fall out on chabas but the aam says theoretically if it would it would even override the chabas now this is kind of a strange thought because if we were to ask the question which is a more severe fast which is a stricter fast the nth of a or the 10th of Tas there is absolutely no question that the ninth of a is much more severe much more strict than the tenth of tavas for the tenth of tavas you know if you have a bad headache or whatever it is we're going to be fairly lenient and say you could eat you try to fast but if you're really not feeling well you can eat the ninth of VI got to be pretty up there to permit that so it's a strange thing because if the ninth of a falls out on shabas we don't fast on chabas and yet if the tenth of Tas falls out on chabas theoretically we do and of course when it falls out on a of shabas we actually do fast so let me just share with you a quick thought and then I want to move to connect it to the paraa a quick thought from theam s theam s points out that there is one fast that we know that you can fast even on chabas and this is called a fast for a bad dream there is a concept in that if a person has a frightening dream a dream of a death or a dream of a serious bad thing that happens and you never know some dreams are prophetic and some dreams are just you know bad in digestion so in every dream there may be elements of Prophecy and elements of that can be ignored but if a person is worried and this is particularly going to be the case if if it's a repetitive dream a dream that you keep on having so it's brought down that one of the ways you can avert the effect of a bad dream is going through the Penance of fasting now many of us today don't do that we givea we give charity but but there is in the a concept of T and this was considered to be so important that if a person had a bad dream Friday night they're allowed to have a tinest khom even on chabas but it's a little strange uh you're allowed to fast even on chabas but you must then make another fast during the week as an atonement for fasting on chabas so even though you're allowed to fast on chabas but you need a kapara by having another fast now why would it be so that a Tinus is M shabas if other fast like you don't do shabas okay yamer is different yam Kipper is a Torah commandment that's that's not within our discussion so the explains that there's a difference between fasting because of mour and sad experiences like the ninth of above is a fast over tragedies the 17th of Tas is a fast over tragedies Galia is a fast over tragedies and shabas we're not supposed to be sad and and therefore we don't fast over tragic events on chabas but a Tinus khom is not about fasting for a tragedy it's about fasting as a prayer to avert a future Calamity and therefore a fast that is geared towards averting a future s is muchan chabas now based on that idea theam s wants to explain the tent of t now at first glance the tth of tavas is just like the ninth of a it is commemorating a tragic event what was the tragic event of the tenth of Taves this is when netar the king of Babylon began his Siege against jerus but if that's what it would be then you wouldn't fast on chabas it would just be like the ninth of a and the 17th of thas but the brings a very interesting idea that the tent of Tas is much more than simply commemorating a past tragedy although it is that rather it is considered to be the roana for building the B Mikes what does that mean on rosashana God judges us whether or not we will live in the coming year so on rashash there's a preliminary judgment that is called a a CA an inscribing and then on yum Kipper that judgment is sealed by God it's signed and then it's put in the desk drawer hosana Raba it's delivered to the angels to carry out and actually some say until khaka God could still call the Angels back he keeps on giving us more and more extensions but rashash is the beginning of a judgment who will live and who will die so theer says just as each individual has a judgment day who will live and who will die so too when Hashem decides whether we will get a B mikdash this year there's a judgment day for that decision and that is the tenth of Taves so says theam s we fast on the tenth of Taves not even if it's on chabas not because we commemorate a tragedy although we do but because it's a fast in order to get to avoid so to speak the curse of not having a b Mikes meaning we we pray that there should be a favorable gizar and that's why you would do it even on chabas because the Compares it to the Paradigm of a Tinus ausom you can do on chabas because it is a ESS of prayer to avert a future Calamity here to a is so to speak a prayer to avert the future Calamity of not having a bet mikash which means this Friday Hashem will decide if 5785 will Merit the building of a b mikdash if we have a favorable Den we'll get the BET mikdash Now what if we don't have a favorable Den is it hopeless meaning is there any point so to speak in praying for the Bas of mikash the day after well the answer is yes it's the same dynamic is why we D in the whole year meaning you might say why do i d in for life now Hashem decided it rash yam Kipper whatever it is but the answer is even after an evil decree was made it can still be ripped up but the thing is it is harder to rip up a decree once it's made than to prevent it from being issued in the first place so I would rather get my favorable judgment on rashash rather than petitioning hes to rip something up that was negative but L there's always hope which means there's always hope even if God signed and sealed and delivered evil decrees we can always turn to Hashem and ask for raim especially when it's with a when it's with a minion when it's not just you by yourself that one of the reasons why there's such an emphasis in trying to doin with a minion is that when there's a minion there's a greater measure of Divine Mercy Mercy than when a person is ding be and since every person would like the maximum Divine Mercy that they could get there is a concept of so this was a thought of the but now and this will segue us into the par I want to make another point that the tell us uh once again we have four fast days that are connected to the cycle of theban Base hamikdash the earliest of those days is the tth of T and that is when netar began the siege against Jerusalem that culminated in the destruction of the temple three years later the next day in the cycle is the 17th of tamos now this is a little confusing the 17th of tamas is when the Romans broke into the city to destroy the temple 3 weeks later but for the first temple it was the ninth of thas that's what the book of yo says so in reality we ought to fast on the ninth of Tas for the first Bas am Mikes and on the 17th of Tas for the second Bas of mikash but theim did not want to put two fast days so next to each other although said Som and yum Kipper are just as close but okay now the ninth of of course is the day of the actual destruction of the temple both the first temple and the second temple and how many years separated them 490 years to the day because when the first temple was destroyed we had a 70-year Babylonian exile the second temple was built and it lasted for 420 so 70 + 420 is 490 and that means what from thean of the first B Mikes by the Babylonians to theban of the second B Mikes by the Romans day to day 9th of to 9th of was 490 years and the last of the cycle is the fast of Galia and what what is that in the book of we read that after destroyed the first Bas of mik and most of the Jews were exiled from ER Israel there was a small group of Jewish tenant Farmers that were allowed to remain to cultivate the land for taxation to the king and the like and nadet are appointed as Governor over the Jewish the tiny Jewish Remnant a man a righteous man called Galia B akik and as long as Galia was alive there was a sense of hope that perhaps we could be able to regenerate init Israel Galia was assassinated uh well again if the Corbin was the ninth of of Galia was assassinated actually on rosashana so you're talking about less than two months later less than two months later he was assassinated and in point of fact the Swarm tell us he actually was killed on rosashana but since we're not allowed to fast on rosashana we make the fast for the first available day that is not a and that of course would be the third of Tish now it's interesting that aares is only connected to the first temple there is no event that kazal identify in the second temple that happen in aares similarly Som Galia is only connected to the first temple there is nothing that happened on the third of Tish that is connected to the second temple Tish above of course is connected both to the first temple and the second temple and shivas oras is also connected at least indirectly because on the ninth of tamas the RO the Babylonians broke through the wall of jeram on the 17th of tamas the Romans so the 17th of Tas essentially is commemorating both of those things which were in close proximity okay now the main point though I want to bring out here is this according to our sages the fast days connected to the destruction of the temple are rooted in primeval sins that b Israel uh committed in the early stages of their existence as a nation so for example the 17th of Tas which was the day that the Romans broke through the wall happens to be the day that Moshe rabenu broke the luos when he saw the golden calf remember he went up to Mount Si on shos to get the Torah and he came down 40 days later if you count the 40 days that takes you to the 17th of tamos so the 17th of T the tablets were smashed so when I think about the Shish the spiritual root of the 17th of tamas it is the and then when I think about the spiritual root of the ninth of it was the ha of the morim because what happened mosenu sends out 12 Spies to check out erel and they come back and 10 of them they come back on the eighth of and 10 of them give a negative report that we're going to be defeated we don't have the kak we're going to get killed the Giants are going to eat us up and it mentions that night that night the nation cried not the women the women had Faith the women had AA but the men cried Andes decreed that night the night of you are crying for not you are crying for no reason this night will become the night of Eternal crying so the of thas is rooted in theel and the ninth of a is rooted in the of the moralia it's a little less clear but the fact that Galu was killed on rashishana gives us a little bit of a hint because rashishana is of course the anniversary of the creation of and that's a good thing on the other hand it is also the day of the K of the eight because the very day of their creation they rebelled against God so three of the fast days are rooted in pretty big Aus sh is rooted in the and the is rooted in the Andia is connected to so the question is what is connected to so fer who may not have been very well known outside of certain Yeshiva circles but he was a GU a very very amazing T who Not only was totally conversent in the talm and the medish but also a new cabala and new philosophy and new science he really was a polymath in in allas he brings sources it's not a clear Source in Kaz but he brings later sources that actually have a m they have a tradition that m y took place on the tent of Tav so now we have a very interesting kind of typology here a is rooted in is rooted in the is rooted in the and same Galia goes back even earlier it's rooted in the of the now in a sense there's a little bit of a paradox here and I don't have a complete answer for it and that is the following idea everyone knows the well-known gamar M that tells us that the sins that caused the destruction of the first B mikd with the worst sins in the whole Torah of odara idolatry gilah sexual immorality and murder but the sins that caused the destruction of the second Bas of mikash most of the Jewish people were keeping the Commandments they were from they weren't worshiping ofar or the like so what caused theban of the second B mikash in the hands of the Romans so the very famous statement of the gorah is it was it was the groundless needless hatred and polarization that exists among Jews that caused theban by his Shen so it turns out that is associated with the second temple not the first temple and yet m y which is the Prototype of is B is said to be the root of AAS which in itself has no connection to the second base of EX now I'm just pointing out that you're using an AA which spiritually is more connected to the second temple as the roots of the fast day that is commemorating theban of the first B Mikes nevertheless this is what our tell us so here is the point therefore to think about and to ponder if the root cause of lay in then in effect it's incumbent on us as we approach the tenth of tavas and as we will experience the tenth of Taves to try to rectify in our personalities the evil propensities tendencies that culminated in m so let's talk a little bit about m y you know in and and all really all all Outreach ofas so one of the topics of discussion over and over and over again is what are your proofs that the Torah comes from God and it's not a man-made document right so we give classes and lectures and how do you know the Torah is from God so I'm going to give a very simplistic answer the Torah has to be from God because if we had be if we would be the ones writing the story half of the narratives would never be said we come out looking pretty bad in a lot of our stories so it must come from God because we would never write it that way right simple problem and one of the examples of something that really makes us look very very bad is the whole story of yosf and this is true on both sides of the equations first of all how could the brothers whom we regard as righteous people the founders of am Israel the progenitors of the nation of the Jewish people how could they I mean they wanted to murder their they wanted to kill their brother it happened to be that jeuda convin so ruang tried to push it off I saying throw him into a pit and Yehuda said let's sell him into slavery the original plan was to kill himem they reconsidered they just sold him into slavery now you know this is not just like you know losing your temper and raising your voice a little bit this is pretty bad stuff we would not expect this type of behavior you know even from a bad person so question one is how do you understand the brothers question two which maybe is less compelling but it's still a question is how do we understand yosef's Behavior 10 Brothers show up Yosef makes believe he doesn't recognize them he doesn't know who they are they they don't recognize him because he was young and didn't have a beard he recognizes them but doesn't identify himself and then after they tell him a whole story how bringing Benyamin down is going to be so painful for their father it may kill their father yoseph says bring Benyamin down and they have to bring Benyamin down they have to convince Yakov very very big struggle and then the peace resistance is that after Benyamin is down and after Yosef knows how important it is to Yakov that bamin come back safely yoseph has Benyamin framed and bamin is going to go to jail or become a slave except for yehuda's speech this is really last weekend yose breaks down but the implication is that he had he not broken down he would have continued this and the question is how long would he meaning had yosef's emotions not overpowered him how long would he have gone on with this so you have two different problems one is the problem of the brothers towards Yosef and the other is the problem of yoseph towards his brothers and maybe even more particular towards Benyamin right towards the brothers we could at least say Okay Yosef is angry at them okay but bamin didn't do anything to him and yakob didn't do anything to him so how do you understand it so let me first address very very briefly this is obviously a massive topic and one could spend you know a whole semester on this if not more but let's first analyze it in terms of the brothers how could the brothers have any type of supposition that they should kill their brother or they should sell him into slavery so there's a famous comment from the great Renaissance commentator raaj sorno who lived in Italy in the 15th century and the suppor says the following we see in the avice there was a certain pattern that was going on Abraham had Isel and a but the heritage of godliness and the creation of a nation of of hasem was given to and yes was excluded and then the pattern was repeated in a second generation where y passed on the spiritual Heritage of Abraham to Yakov and ASV was excluded now we now have Yakov who has 12 sons yoseph is feeding his father derogatory information about the brothers whether it's true or not that's another decision but yoseph is basically telling Yakov that the brothers are doing certain things that are improper the brothers fear that Yosef is trying to replicate the pattern of divide and conquer and Yosef has a very good chance they think of succeeding simply because Yosef and Benyamin are the children of Rael and we know that yov has a greater love for Rael than Leia I mean the Tyra uses the phrase that Leia feels hated but again it's not conceivable that this is understood in the normal term of hatred but it means that Vis the love for Rael she felt she was hated so the brothers are afraid that Yos is going to cut them off from the Eternal Covenant with God that represents the nation of Israel Israel is yakob yob is Israel and this doesn't only affect them this affects the eternity of their Destiny of their children until the end of time when you cause somebody to sin you cause somebody to be cut off from Hashem that's even worse than killing them if someone's trying to kill me they are called a Roda a pursuer and a Roda I am permitted to disable by any means I can even killing the Roda and therefore the sorno says the brothers considered Yosef to be a RI and therefore he was of Misa and yehuda's point was well listen we can get rid of him by selling him into slavery so we don't have to kill him and the light now again part of the problem here is that the brothers actually felt they had a hierarchically correct decision that they could kill him but in cases like this your judgment is going to be tainted by your personal je jealousy by your envy your personal agendas will Cloud your judgment so it is considered to be a sin but at least there was a purported justification for it and the Soro says the justification was the law of Roda the law of the pursuer so now how do we explain yosef's behavior so there are two approaches in the mafara approach number one is the approach of ramban remember that the whole story of Yosef began as a man as a boy as a teenager of 17 years old yoseph has two dreams dream number one the Sun and the Moon and 11 stars are bowing down to him and dream number two there are 11 sheaves of grain that are bowing down to a central chief that represents Yosef both of those dreams are conveying the message that he will be a king so in the first Dream the 11 stars are the 11 tribes the son is the father Yakov the Moon is the mother now Rashi explains it can't be yosef's mother who is Rael she's already dead but it would be bah bah was the maid servant of Rael who raised him after and the second dream does not have the father and the mother but it does have the Y sees his dreams as Divine prophecies which indeed they were prophecies that he will be a Mel that will be served by his brothers so because they're prophecies yose feels he has an obligation to ensure that these prophecies are carried out so initially 10 Brothers come to him and they bow down ah we're getting there 10 out of 11 but there's one brother missing I got to get bam now yoseph couldn't reveal himself because then he wouldn't be treated as a king he would be treated as a brother right uh prince Andrew probably doesn't bow down before King Charles whatever whatever whatever it would be so yoseph has to be a stranger so they serve him as a king and he has to bring Benyamin down so bamin will serve him as a king ah so why does he frame B Yamin because there's one more person plus his wife that he has to bring down and that is Yakov the ramban says it was yosef's plan that Yakov would come down to beg for Ben yamin's life not knowing this is his son Yosef and then the dreams would have been fulfilled and then Yosef would have revealed himself problem was it was prematurely truncated because Yosef could not hold himself back once Yehuda said I'm willing to give my life so again so so bit in summary the ramban's understanding of yosef's behavior was Yosef maintained he had an obligation to manipulate reality so that his would be fulfilled because he saw them as Divine prophecies this is what the ramban says the commentary of barbanel right barbanel Don barbanel was the finance minister of Spain during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella during the during the both the Spanish Inquisition and uh the uh Columbus's journey to the new world and uh the abarbanel uh when the Jews were expelled from Spain theel was given permission to remain in Spain as Finance Minister he was even given permission to practice his religion but he refused to take the offer he went into the galut with everybody else he was at the head of the procession uh but we know him today not as the brilliant Finance Minister which he was but we know him as one of the great great commentators on all of tanak virtually all of tanak and theel asks a number of questions on the ramban and the main question the arell has is do the ends justify the means I mean I have a dream I'm supposed to be king okay if it's God's will I'll be king I'll be king but does that give me justification to lie to cheat to cause pain to take revenge and to hurt innocent people like bamin and his own father what because I have a dream I can do anything to accomplish that dream at some point you do what you're allowed to do ethically then you have to leave it to God you can't justify yosef's Behavior by saying he had a dream even if the dream is prophetic so because of this the rinel offers a different thesis the rinel argues that the sin that caused the saale of yoseph even with the theoretical lumus of Roda and the light was ultimately a deep-seated jealousy and envy that the children of Leia had to the children of Rael they could never make peace with the fact and it's hard for us to understand that Rael was on a higher pedestal and that passed down to the children of Rael were in a higher pedestal and this jealousy turned into hatred and the hatred became so intense that it actually culminated in a desire to murder albe it garbed in a halic justification of Roda yoseph needed to determine says the barbanel that the brothers had overcome their hatred and jealousy now Rael only had two children or at least two boys Rael had Yosef and as far as the brothers are concerned Yosef is gone they don't know ysep is here and the only remaining child of RA is Benyamin ysf wants to put his brothers to ATT test I'm going to get binyamin down here I'm going to frame him I'm going to put him in danger and then I want to see how the children of Leia react do they kind of say well maybe it's good ritten you know we'll just tell our father Yakov you know this crazy ruler did what he did and really they're kind of happy that we no longer have a Rael child around or will they be willing to give up their lives and their freedom so that Yakov can be connected to the child of Rael if yoseph sees that the brothers are willing to sacrifice their own lives to bring bamin back that's a proof that they've overcome their hatred and their jealousy so again in terms of the makus here ramban sees yosef's Behavior as an attempt to fulfill his dreams abarbanel sees yose's Behavior as an attempt to ensure that the brothers especially Yehuda who is considered to be the king of the brothers has overcome the animosity and jealousy and envy of the B Lea towards the B ch so I want to add a point to the abarbanel because one might say the following problem could we not ask on the abarbanel the very same question that he asked on the ramban the barbanel asked on the ramban is it Joseph's business to make his dreams happen isn't that up to God what gives him the right to victimize Benyamin and victimize Yakov because he has a dream that's the abarbanel asks on the ramban so I will ask a similar question on the abarbanel yeah the brothers have to do chuva but do I have the right to lie and cheat and hurt innocent people to be sure you're going to do chuva I got to frame bam I got to cause distress to yako because you got to do chuva that's between you and God really why is it my business to do Chua to cause the brothers to do Chua other words the same problem the barbanel has on the ran we might have on the abarbanel so here is the point that we're going to add onto the Aban now and it's a very critical point that is you know yose's life is a very unusual life yosef's life is a miraculous life if you were to make a movie of the life of yosf a movie producer might reject the idea had it not been in the Bible because it's not it's too unrealistic you have a boy that is sold into slavery by his own Brothers he finds himself in Egypt and he starts off at the bottom of the totem pole a lowly household slave to somebody he works his way up till he becomes the master of the household the chief steward of the which is actually very responsible position and then he gets framed because the boss's wife wants to have sex with him and he refuses so she makes up a story he gets thrown into jail for 10 years 10 years the Tor doesn't talk about it so long but it's 10 years languishing in prison and then at the end of that 10 years he interprets the dreams of the Butler and the and the Baker and he interprets the butler goes free the beggar gets gets executed and then parro has dreams and the butler remembers two years after that that oh yeah this guy in prison knows how to interpret dreams so Yosef interprets Pyro's dreams about the years of plenty and the years of famine and all of a sudden ysep now becomes the second most powerful man in a world Kingdom of Egypt and affect L he's running the country and not just running the country but running the world because the whole world the whole known world is suffering a famine and everyone has to look to Egypt so when yoseph contemplates his life Yosef sees it's a very strange life it's a life in which he experienced the depths of Despair the lowest moments a human being can go through psychologically emotionally spiritually physically then he reaches the greatest Heights a person asks himself why and yoseph concludes there must be a mission that God is giving me and what is that mission to prepare the Jewish people to survive in Exile because remember Hashem had already told Abraham your children will be strangers didn't say Egypt but it says they will be strangers and slaves and aliens in a land that is not theirs for 400 years and the Egyptian Exile is the prototype for all Exiles and in Exile there are many many challenges there is the challenge of being oppressed and downtrodden and persecuted that's one set of challenges and then there's a challenge that might even be greater the challenge of affluence and wealth BB used to say it was easier to be Jewish in Siberia than Suburbia right the challenge of affluence and assimilation might even be greater than persecution in fact historically not not that we wish persecution we don't wish it but Jews actually do vetan persecution think about how the gdm and the Torah in Russia and Poland before the Holocaust compared even even today you know was much greater in those difficult conditions so yose understands that he has to be the role model for Claus to show how you can be faithful to God no matter what experience you're in so he experiences the lowest point of slavery and degradation and deprivation and remains faithful to God because he has the image of his father in front of him and then he reaches the highest positions of power and authority and once again he remains faithful to God Ys understands he is the advanced party to give us the strength the wherewithal the inspiration the role model to be strong in the gas no matter what we experience now the Jews were in mitan from the time that Yakov came uh for 210 years it was 210 years from Yakov coming to MIT toas MIT but let me point out that does not mean we were slaves in Egypt for 210 years remember the slavery did not again till not only Yakov died but all the tribes died so we were actually slaves for only around 90 years nevertheless even in those 90 years where our population exploded exponentially right over 210 years we went from 70 to over 600,000 the truth of the matter is that's only 1/5 four fifths of the Jewish people died uh in the plagues of darkness and even the 1th were on the 49th level of impurity and that's why God had to take us out early we were supposed to be there 400 years he took us out after 210 because said we stayed another minute we would have hit the 50th level we would have been irredeemable we were Idol worshippers except for the tribe of Ley we didn't do circumcision except for the tribe of Ley we were not from we were not shv that's why God had to give us circumcision before we left and the Corbin PES we were not worthy of redemption so how did we get redeemed so kazal say in various ways there were certain merits that we had that enabled our Redemption and the the lists vary from Source The Source but essentially uh the sources say we kept our Jewish names we we kept our language we spoke lashes According to some sources we didn't intermar we remained faithful to our wives we didn't speak Lush and Hara against each other and I I do want to point out that this primarily means we didn't turn over negative information to the authorities we did in fact speak lashara between us but we didn't kind of break ranks in informing the Egyptian officials now if you think about this these are not India of religiosity it's not that they were learning the every day and keeping the laws of lanara they were worshiping Idols they're worshiping AAR obviously they're not worshiping Hashem so what are these in IND indicative of they're indicative of Unity solidarity is in other words the Shish the root of what enabled us to be redeemed from Egypt was the avas Israel that we had for each other the sense that we're a nation that we're a people as Manifest we kept our language we we kept our our names we didn't intermar we didn't turn against each other now it's true that Jewish Unity is not the end all of what it means to be a Jew there's Mitzvah there's Torah they're all the Commandments of God it's not enough to have a Jewish heart and feel connected to the Jewish people so it's true that Jewish Unity is not the end point but Jewish Unity is the beginning point you come to Hashem by your connection to the Jewish people this is why even when the Jewish people are on the 49th level of impurity they merited Redemption because of the Aus and the unity I think I mentioned before when I lived in Chicago and those of you who know the area know Devon Avenue was a major major Jewish street now it's half Indian half Jewish still still very Jewish but a lot of Indian uh content but then when in the in the late 70s early 80s totally Jewish Street and uh there was a well-known restaurant I'm not sure if it's still there called The Bagel The Bagel is H or was a kosher style restaurant The Bagel was a trafe restaurant but they served you know kosher style food so I remember once coming back from SCH uh on a cold winter day Chicago winter obviously cold and I saw a sign in the window of the bagel that says we give a free glass of wine for every order of cholet so I was thinking to myself at the time this is an example of what is so superficial and wrong about gastronomic Judaism the emptiness of American watered down Judaism the wine is trfe the cholent is trafe someone comes in and handles money on chabas sits down remembers that his grandfather mumbled some words over a glass of wine so he buys some wine remembers that his grandmother made a stew so he buys the stew there's no shabas there's no God there's no there no there's no religion there it's nothing more than sheep airs sets sent mentality worthless stupid foolish so thought a 25-year-old person who was young at the time as I grow older hopefully wiser no guarantee but hopefully wiser I now feel that yeah of course there's a lot wrong with that picture but there's something right with that picture as well here you have a person he doesn't learn Tori he doesn't he doesn't know anything but he sees something about wine on chabas and cholent on chabas and he wants to connect to what his grandfather once did and what his grandmother once did this is what he knows and what he's basically saying is as superficial as it may sound he's saying I want to connect to my people I want to connect to I'm is I want to be connected and if you say but that doesn't count well isn't that what happened in MIT they also had nothing but that you see you know sometimes in the airport I'm sure it happens uh you can be well not so obviously if you're in the airport in benu and obviously everybody there is Jewish most people are Jewish airport and you know there aren't so many Jews around so I'm sure you've experienced this if if you look noticeably Jewish so somebody will come over to you and say you know hey they'll whisper almost conspiratorially hey you know I'm Jewish too or I'm a member of the tribe that's an expression they like to use and I have to admit that usually that kind of irritates me because I'm doing something else and you know hi fine you know but that's my problem that's that's my problem I shouldn't be irritated there is actually something sweet and something nice about a person wanting to say I'm with you we're on the same team we're one nation I rejoice when good things happen to the Jewish people and I'm sad when bad things happen to the Jewish people people's feelings about Israel right again unfortunately in in the United States today in Western countries generally there's a lot of confusion not all Jews necessarily have positive feelings about Israel that's unfortunate but at least when I was growing up uh it was almost invariable that whether conservative reform Orthodox secular you know Israel was the thing and there was this idea of feeling oh the Jews the Jews the Jews so Jewish Pride again it's not the end all it's not the end but it's the beginning so now let's get back to yose if yose understands that his Divine mission is is to ensure that the Jewish people will have the kak to endure gut and if the only reason we endured the gallet of MIT was the sense of unity and togetherness in Isel ysph cannot allow the exile to begin he cannot give the green light to begin until he has put into place the mechanisms that show that the brothers have overcome the hatred and animosity just like K always say Hashem always gives the Rua The Cure before the Maka before the illness if the cure to the Maka of galus isas is in other words this answers my question if the idea of the brother doing chuva would have been an individual thing 10 guys did something bad to me and 10 guys got to do chuva we would have said it that's not yosef's business Yosef cannot use this as an occasion to inflict pain on Yakov and binyam but this is not just a question of a personal grievance against people this is a cosmic process that will ensure the survival of the Jewish people so they will not descend into the 50th level of Tuma after which they're irredeemable so Yosef has to say we're not moving forward with yakob coming down to MIM and everything else until I can determine that the brothers have eradicated the hatred from their hearts and then and only then is the Rua in place that will prevent us from descending into the 50th level of Tuma and then we become redeemable not because of our from kite we become redeemable because of our AAS Isel our connection to each other meaning the whole idea of not changing their names not changing their language is a question of unity You Are My People I want to be connected to you and therefore that's what ysph is doing ysep is teaching us that the necessary skill so to speak to survive in Galas is the sense of solidarity with the and the is Will Keep Us Together give us the kak to survive and if that was true in MIT that's true in every gas because MIT is essentially the Prototype of all the future godesses right so this is something that uh we would think about the 10th of tavas I've said many many times already that uh people forget that prior to October 7th there was tremendous tremendous division in Israeli Society over something judicial reform you would think it's wouldn't be such a powerful issue but in Israel all sorts of issues tend to get very very powerful and when I say tearing apart the country I I I am not exaggerating this uh many businesses were talking about pulling out uh There Were Soldiers and reservists miluim who were saying they were not going to report to duty and they all did report but who knows if this may have emboldened Kamas to do what it did because they were getting reports that soldiers were not going to show up and people were literally talking about Civil War maybe not weapons but a civil war within society and then came Sim Tor 2024 uh 20 23 rather October 7 2023 and that was tragic but if there's any Silver Cloud to it it did bring a spirit of unity and togetherness in am Israel where it no longer made a difference if you were wearing a velvet keeper or a knitted keeper or no Keeper at all there was a sense as Benjamin Franklin said we all have to hang together in this struggle or we will surely hang separately and there was a tremendous amount of AAS across the entire spectrum of Israeli Society secular religious whichever way you cut it people were working together people were dealing with this together strengthening each other comforting each other then what happens though is as the war drags on and on and on much longer than I think any of us thought it's not over yet so unfortunately we sometimes go back to our bad habits like an elastic band you can stretch an elastic band but at some point you let go kind of goes back to where it was so I think we we've been seeing in recent uh months a Resurgence people are now resuscitating the judicial reform thing and making different threats and making different arguments in the middle of a war so in a sense this is a tragedy that is compounding a tragedy uh the war itself is a traged try in terms of the in terms of the in terms of the displacements of families in terms of the bereavements that families have suffered in terms of the injured in terms of the effect on businesses even in terms of the fear and anxiety that we have even ifem our lives are going fairly normal but you know we you never know what's going to be tomorrow so that's tra all of that is tragic but it's a tragedy on top of a tragedy if we don't use this as an opportunity to build Bridges and to build Abel to have it s and not grow from it is a tragedy on top of the tragedy itself so we hope that as tell us as the Z tells us all of the fast days connected to theban will be days of s and so even this even very weak maybe there'll be no fast on Friday can come tomorrow we should be but if we're not to the b in in actuality we should at least be to the idea that decrees there will be a but in order to be Z we have to rectify the reasons of theban and in particular the connection of M highlights the idea of being the just as y had to be m in it so it's incumbent Upon Us each person to effect the tikon that they're able to do so again I hope we will not fast this year but if we do have to fast I hope it'll be a meaning meaningful fast that will inspire us to try to rebuild the Bas Mikes [Music] oh