Rav Yitzchak Breitowitz: USA Presidential Elections - I Will Bless Those That Bless You

[Music] okay hi everybody thank you thank you for coming uh first uh the year tonight is dedicated and as always for the lasting unity ofel and for all of those whose Health has been affected by the war and an anonymous contribution for the of all of as well as theim the hostages to return safe and totally in Total Health uh to their homes and of course in general we ask for hashem's protection for all of Cl Israel for the G Sha uh in these in these days again it's a new year and be 5785 should be a year of Yeshua and and GAA uh I'm giving the share uh Tuesday November 5th uh by the time it gets on YouTube maybe the the US election will already have been decided um I am not going to issue any endorsements about candidates uh number one it's not my job and number two uh even if I hint as to my preference although anybody could guess it um I I get all sorts of negative mail so I'm not going to say anything about it I but the one thing I can say is that we should be missal that whatever the outcome of the election uh it should be a source of braa and Yeshua and GAA for cl Israel erell and really for the world as a whole and Hashem can manifest his will in any any direction so in a sense whatever outcome happens to happenes is going to be running the world either way so I think all of us can just uh pray that it should be a good and positive outcome uh for uh for all of us and I I will leave it leave it with uh with that um we uh begin now the first two parus of the Torah are Universal paros they deal with the history of the world the creation of the world Anda the expulsion of Ghan from Ganan the killing of Cen and he the degeneration of societ culminating in a flood that destroyed virtually all of humanity except for Noah and his three sons and their wives uh and the 70 Nations that are descended from Noah's three son sham and Yas essentially braus Noah are the early history of the world but at some point just like if you look at Google Earth right you have those Maps you first see the Earth and then you see North America and then you see Washington DC and then you see uh you know the street whatever 16th Avenue whatever it would be so too the Tyra progressively Narrows its focus because after all in the very first pk of the Torah when the Torah says Bim in the beginning God created heaven and earth Rashi brings a kazal that says because bis because of two things that are called RIS beginning did God create the world and those two things are Torah which is called RIS RIS the and rather and is that is called the choicest of God's grain meaning the world had a purpose now the derem the RAM does explain that the purpose is to bring godliness into the world uh or to use the bat all doesn't use it to make for hasem a to make for Hashem a residence so forgive me for combining the bat and the but the world had a Tas the Tas was to create Holiness and godliness to reveal Hashem in the world originally that was the Tas of mankind That was supposed to be the universal Mission this was the mission of Adam and in theory what should have happened what might have happened was this is the human race that is made but elim in the image of God to sanctify but eventually much of the world proved to be Unworthy of that so there had to be a progressive narrowing of focus so the the purpose of the creation was no longer left to the human race as a whole but it was narrowed down to AB and then and then even with abam AB had and it went to and had a Yakov and an as and it went to Yakov and it went to B Isel and therefore this is the meaning of a statement that is often interpreted very pejoratively and it's constantly used by anti-semites as an attack on uh Judaism and that is a statement of RAB Shimon bar that says you the Jewish people aream you are called Adam and the Gentiles are not called Adam that whenever it says the word Adam refers to B is it does not refer to the who are not called Adam so the anti-semites like to say oh what that means is we don't consider non-jews as human beings we consider them as animals and that is the Jewish attitude towards non-jews but the MSS the ramal and others say that that's a mistake of course all people in the world are entitled to dignity and respect Adam does not refer to human when it says you are called Adam and the gam are not called Adam it doesn't mean you are called human and they are not called human it's obvious they're called human too but Adam is a proper noun you have the mission of Adam Adam Harish had a mission that was supposed to be the mission of humanity and that mission no longer became the primary mission of the humanity it became the mission of Zarah Abraham so in many many ways Abraham is the one who took on the function of adish right from from Adam to Noah to a this is how the explains it so as a result we leave the focus starting from we leave the focus on universal world history and really the rest of the Torah is a focus primarily on the history of the Jewish people Mish both the good things that we did and the bad things that we did the failures that we had by the way that itself is one of the great proofs maybe it's a little bit numerous but I think it actually is a good proof about the divine origin of the Torah people say well how do you know the Torah comes from God you know maybe you know we just made up our story the answer is if we would be the ones making up our story we certainly wouldn't write it that way all of the mistakes all of the failures all of the sins why why would we write our story in such a such a negative way El it comes from God God is true right is the source of of Truth so it's actually one of the proofs again not I'm not saying it's an ironclad proof but one of the proofs of the Divinity of the Torah is the fact that there's so much negative stuff about am Isel but still that is what made us a nation okay okay so I want to just make a few preliminary points about a uh the first point is a very powerful observation of mar the T begins with I'm sorry begins with Hashem appearing to Abraham when Abraham is 75 years old and says go to the land that I will show you and I will make you a great nation and those who bless you will be blessed and those who curse you will be cursed and you will be a source of blessing to all the nations of the world and Aram goes even though he has to leave his father but AB goes by the way those words are so powerful just without any commentary those who bless you will be blessed those who curse you will be cursed and perhaps this is maybe an election comment I can make not with respect to any candidate and that is it's been pointed out that the United States of America may have a very very unique suus in the history of modern times because it was the one country where Jews were allowed to come in to practice their religion not to be persecuted open free think about the Statue of Liberty inscription or give me or Tire give me for written of course by the non-religious but Jewish poest Emma Emma Lazarus and many say that the unparalleled success of the United States becoming for so many years the dominant power of the world was a fulfillment of God's promise that those who bless you will be blessed and that was that'sa and when as some people a lot of the United States might be turning against the Jewish people again I don't want to go there necessarily but these are ideas that people Express that will prage a decline in America because then you have the other circumstance those who curse you will be cursed and in Europe we see the the the same idea that eventually the countries that persecuted Jews eventually declined into ruin and when they rebuild and their matah it is primarily through the fact that they try to do Chua for what was done and then they have success even in Germany uh which is a relatively successful country but part of it is that uh Germany attempted at least to make reparations and other types of other types of deals so this is what Hashem says Asim appears to aam and says I will make you a great nation it doesn't mean great numbers necessarily but great in influence great in idealism a source of morality a source of values a source of Ethics a source of inspiration directly or indirectly and those who bless you are going to be blessed so here's the question this is called call it this is God choosing of if we ask ourselves why did God choose Abraham why did Hashem come to this one person and say I'm going to make a covenant with you you will be the founder of a great nation that will be a source of blessing now it's true that kazal give us a long backstory of many many great things that Abraham did he was thrown into the fiery furnace as a child because he refused to go down to idols and he was willing to die and a great miracle happens and we're also told that he and Sor spread godliness among all the populations right Abram was m not to make them Jewish but to make them noites he was M of the men and S was M of the women so we're given plenty and plenty of reasons why Abram was special Abram was righteous Abram was holy but the thing is none of those reasons are in the Kish itself if I ask you take out par and tell me why Hashem chose Abraham you're not going to have a reason yeah give us reasons but the reasons are not in the itself why doesn't the tell us I'm choosing you because you're righteous I'm choosing you because you're committed I'm choosing you because you're devoted there seems to be no reason now a common statement that people say is Hashem chose AB because AB show hasem and know that that is certainly true but still that reason is not given in the either so why does the not give us any reason for so the moral says a very amazing idea the maral says that it says in peros any any love that is dependent on a circumstance I love you because I love you because you're rich I love you because you're generous to me and as I love you for a particular reason call that conditional love but when that reason goes away the love goes away because the love only exists because of that reason but when you have a love that is unconditional a love that is not connected to any external circumstance like the love of David and yonathan right Jonathan was sh's son thenal say that love is indestructible that love is even if it's butla even if a lot of the good things are taken away the Love Remains call that unconditional love so here's what maral says if the Tyra would have said I choose abam because he's righteous I choose abam because because he's good I choose AR because he brings people to God that would have made it a conditional love now what's going to happen if in the course of time the Jewish people wander away from Hashem what's going to happen if they're not keeping a if it's but God wanted the relationship to Abraham and abah's progeny to to be an unconditional love meaning a love that even when the Jewish people sin even when they reject Hashem yes there's going to be punishments there's going to be gas there's going to bebin we're not saying that Hashem overlooks any of this but the love that Hashem has for am Israel is an eternal love and therefore even though it's V the case that Hashem had reasons for choosing Abraham but Hashem wanted to express the choice as if it was an unconditional choice because that assures a continuation of the love even when we are no longer worthy of all the good things that Abraham did right so the moral says Hashem wanted to be M to define the as that's the moral Point again a very beautiful point and if I could just bring in something from another book of you know the Novi HOSA in the beginning thank you thank youdon me thank you the nvi HOSA you recall there's a very very strange story in the beginning of the Nai HOSA he is told by Hashem to marry a prostitute a very well-known prostitute and he marries this prostitute and even after she marries him she continues to be a prostitute and Hashem basically says divorce her and HOSA more or less says it's too hard I'm in love with her what can I do now there is a big big M some of actually learn this never happened this was a dream HOSA was given a prophetic dream of this story others learned he actually didn't I mean imagine this H is a Nai a Nai is far far far greater than a godor I mean imagine a godor who marries a prostitute I mean imagine what shame and humiliation that would be HOSA the Novi marries a prostitute what's the point of this so thear gives us a backstory when Hashem comes to HOSA and says give the Jewish people muser give them to Anda basically says to God been there done that you know we give them mus all the time they don't change they don't improve he says to take another Nation drop them they're not worthy unlike mosha when Hashem says to mosha I want to destroy the Jewish people and I'll make a nation from from you what does Moshe say if you're going to erase them erase me I don't want a separate deal buta told Hashem get another Nation Hashem wantsa to understand the nature of unconditional love he tells H either by dream or reality that makes no difference to take a woman who is unfaith ful who is a prostitute but he falls in love with her and he's not able to separate himself from her because he loves her so much Hashem says to HOSA now you understand my problem the Jewish people are like an Unfaithful wife but I love them I can't get rid of them I'm stuck with them whatav what can I do he wanted the navi to understand the depth of hashem's love for am isra and the moral says that goes all the way back to the fact that the is described as an an un even though it was conditional in the sense that hem had reasons but it's expressed as an unconditional love and by the way the N of HOSA ends with the verses that we recite men recite every day uh as they put on their Fillin says I bet you to me forever I betro you to me with righteousness and faith and loving kindness and mercy I betr you to me with faithfulness Fai fath fness meaning it will never change and you will have an intimate connection with Hashem do is actually a reference to marital intimacy that's describing a certain level of a level of connection to our this idea of the unconditional love of of for which is implicit in the as an does not mean as I said before that there are no consequences to our bad behavior the tah itself is filled with warnings ofan and G the okay so it's not going to mean smooth sailing but it does mean that even the punishments and chastisements ofes emanate from Love and not from hate emanate from a desire that we do Chua and become close to him and not out of rejection and lack of care here so this is what the morel's uh first uh first point is the second point which is a little bit connected to last week's para but I'll I'll just mention it because last week I didn't talk about no so this way I'll mention it the Z Kadesh points out that although nah was a very great sadic Noah in Noah's Merit uh he was able to build a new world he was he and his family were the only survivors of a world that was so that God had to destroy it and yet The Zo does criticize Noah in one particular way and it criticizes him Vis because when n is told I'm going to destroy the world n builds a tava to protect himself and his family when Hashem tells abam I'm going to destroy sidom Abraham is misal to try to protect his generation even the degenerate rash and therefore it mentions that Noah is considered to be partially responsible for the flood that is why the flood is called May Noah the Waters of Noah because Noah could have done more either to Davin for the generation or to influence the generation to change the generation and aram's greatness was he was not only concerned for himself he was concerned for the entire generation and that was specifically why Hashem made a special Covenant with Abraham because the role of the Jewish people is not just to be concerned for ourselves but to be concerned of course first and foremost for other Jews and in some level for all of humanity and the like and that was the unique quality of Aram now again I don't want to spend a lot of time in this because really it was more noil last week I just want I do want to point out though that Ru hutner makes the point that if Noah was less involved in his generation it was not out of callousness or indifference but it was out of self-preservation you're living in a world in which the entire world is evil and degenerate Noah had a very legitimate fear that if he gets too involved in that world instead of him influencing them to be better they could pull him down and as a result he needed to separate he needed to construct an arc that blocked the Raging torrential Waters which is symbolic of an evil that could destroy him in the interest of self-preservation and rutner points out that you couldn't have an aam until you had a Noah meaning just as there first needed to be an arc a tava that kept the evil out and only later could you have a mishkan a tabernacle a basa mikash that sheds its radiant light outwards so too in the life of every individual before you're ready to change and influence others you need to have a period of separating yourself from the negative environments so you become spiritually strong and as in effect the comparison between Noah and Abraham actually reflects a developmental stage that each human being or each religious person has to go through in which you can't just have the attitude as some people say oh once I know Alf I'll go out and teach alif because if you're not strong in your yish K you're not strong in your Torah you're not filled with a lot of uh Torah and the Torah learning then it's very very likely that the world will be a negative influence on you so you need to be insular for a while this is what a Yeshiva basically is to create a certain insularity for the purpose of then going out and being mashia and the famous mushel that they say they attribute it to different people I heard it for shame RAR and Cutler is that you have to be like an overflowing ksh cup the way it works is sometimes you have a a big Beck a big cup in the middle it's surrounded by little cups and when you pour wine into the big cup and you fill it to the top and it overflows the Overflow is going to fill the small cups that is what you might say is a model of how I influence other people it's the Overflow of all of the RAS all of the spirituality that we try to take into ourselves and therefore a putter made the point that it may very well be the case that Noah was not the highest level because Noah was a preoccupation with the self but it may be a necessary Foundation before you get to an Aram you need to have the ark the Tava and only afterwards can you have the mishun that generates uh uh generates light to the entire world in this connection I just want to point out a very uh well-known passage excuse me from the Cher where theer points out that in thei hasem describes Abraham as Abraham ohav Abraham who loves me in fact um one of the Arabic names around the C I don't remember what one of their names in Arabic for the uh some of the gates is the gates of the Beloved remember that's Arabic it's referring to a gate that they they to and the truth is the Gate of the Beloved actually comes from Isaiah from where abam is called oh but actually it doesn't mean beloved it means AB who loves abam it's a mistranslation Ab oabi does not mean Abraham that I love means abam who loves me thank youer says why is abam called AB who loves me because theam cyer says Abram was a man of God and Abram is surrounded like Noah was although not the entire world with a world of degenerates had he focused on his own Ras he would have separated himself from all of those people he would have focused on his learning his doing his meditation whatever form that would take and he would have become a sadic sadic sadic and forget about this corrupt world but he loved God so much that he was willing to give up some of his own spirituality in order to spread the name of Hashem to others and that is a sign of a person who loves God where he's not only willing to sacrifice his physical life he's even willing to sacrifice some of his spiritual life says that is the literal meaning of m nees now normally we translate m nees as my willingness to die for God but that's M that's giving up my giving up my body what's myus nees giving up your soul you give up some of your R in order to sanctify the name of God that was the maid of Abraham and that's why he is called Abraham ohave Abraham the one who loved me they tell the story about the Kish the Kish grew up in DNA and the truth of the matter is he he lived in pretty much obscurity till until he was in his 50s you know he was just learning he was not a RV uh he was not a Riva uh he was Anonymous he in fact his were Anonymous Kish is vision of man but is is AB yes so there were a few G who knew him knew him but but really he was a secret uh you know secret person nobody knew him at all and at some point in his 50s he was debating to go to ER Israel and perhaps take more of a an active role in things but he wasn't sure because he really wanted to spend his life totally connected only to Torah learning he didn't want to get involved so he went to ask the in and was giving a talk at the time so first he would listen to the talk now there are many stories like this where people had particular shist they went to ask the and they just listened to a talk and somehow the in his talk always answered the exact shil they were asking him and the was talking about the responsibility that we have to help other Jews and not just focus on ourselves and said the following he said you know I spend so much of my time trying to bring other Jews to Tor by writing by giving talks by speaking to people said imagine if I would spend all of my time on my own learning he said even I even I Israel mayor could have become a it's easy to become a if you only have to focus on yourself he says even I could have become so it's amazing thing he saying he wasn't okay this is the humility and when the K heard that statement he didn't have to meet with he says that was the answer to his question and of course as we know the Kish lived in erell around 20 years he came um I think it came in the 1930s yeah he came before really before the Holocaust uh and in those 20 years um he was involved in every single aspect of the religious community in ER Israel although he still learned so much Torah but he was no longer a hidden person he became a very the most prominent leader of of the uh Torah community in ER I mean the truth is the whole Torah community of er Israel I mean there were many many G but the K I think was by far the dominant builder of the Torah community in there here you have a man who spent 50 years talk about first you have to have the Tava then you have the mishan 50 years more than 50 years totally devoted to his own spiritual growth and there's so much Torah and so much kadha there that he's then ready to change the World to Change Society to be Mas in ways that were really beyond beyond measure okay so now I want to mention another thing and that is Abraham comes to arel at the age of 75 but he's not given the Commandments of bris Mila until the age of 99 and by that time yesel was already 13 and Yak was born one year later and Yak was circumcised on the eth day after his birth but Brisa was not given until Arin was 99 years old meaning they were living in there Israel 24 years before there was a of br ask a well-known question on this and they say kazal have a tradition although it's not clear from thees that the a particularly Abu kept all of the mitzvos even before Hashem gave them at Mount Si that through rues he knew about chabas he knew about kasas he knew about all of the laws of the Torah even though there was no Commandments and they were not mandatory the of us were not commanded to keep the Torah but they understood the Torah and they kept it on a voluntary basis so if that's the case even before Hashem gave him the Commandment of circumcision ifu kept chabas andu kept kusu kept Fillin and situs why didn't he circumcise himself based on the fact that he knows there's going to be a Mitzvah of circumcision meaning why do we say Abu didn't keep the whole Torah shal so there are a lot of answers to this the great commentary on Rashi rabi was a 1500's Turkish Rabbi uh and he wrote what is really um the definitive pish Rashi that all of the other Rashi Bas base their works on the says the following he says that tell us when you do a Mitzvah you're commanded to do that's a greater Mitzvah than to do a Mitzvah you're not commanded to do because when you're not commanded even though it's a mitzvah for example a woman who sits in a Suka there is a Mitzvah in her sitting in the sua but since she's not commanded it's what you might call an optional Mitzvah it is not as great as an obligatory Mitzvah so here's the thing with most mitzvos Abu could do it on a non-obligatory basis and then if God ever commands him it'll become it Brisa you only have one chance to do it so if would have done it before there was a command it would have been an he would never have the chance to do it as AA and that's why even though he kept chabas and he kept kosher and he worked Fillin but he didn't do bris till he was MIT because had he done bris and not being MIT he never would have had the chance to do the Mitzvah as a this is what the mrai says but the mar gives a different answer the mar says the Kasha does not begin the statement that AR ainu kept the whole Tyra before it was given was only after he circumcised himself as a result of Brit Mila he achieved a level of Prophecy and understanding in which he kept the whole Torah until he did bris Mila he didn't know so it's m a tremendous answer meaning the Kasha was if who kept the Hala before it was given he should have done a bris M before it was given the answer is until he did the bris he didn't know about the Torah and therefore it's only when Hashem gave him bris and he did bris at 99 he reached the madrea of knowing the whole Torah this is the Marsha's answer beautiful answer which meansi until the age of 99 BR AB didn't keep the Torah he didn't know the Torah he kept the seven Commandments of of Noah so the question is this though what is it about Brit that would give a access to this knowledge and understanding that he otherwise didn't have until the bris in other words why would the Brisa Elevate him to be able to understand the Torah the Mitzvah before they were given so to explain this let's focus on another question we find that when abah a was commanded at the age of 99 to do a Brisa the command of bris Mila was connected with a command to change his name and to change the name of his wife right Abraham's original name was abam which is a shortened form of aaram he's a patriarch of Syria and now it becomes a ra H is hamon he is the father of a multitude of Nations and S her name is changed to Sarah and the way the medish explains it is that the yud of Sarai was split into two Hayes so one hay is in sar's name and the other hay goes into Abram's name so so actually everything comes from Sarai the Y of Sarai gets get split right this is called sh hasem the change of names so once again the question is why is the sh Hashem connected to circumcision so basically uh the two questions here are number one according to the mara why is bris Mila the mechanism that enabled Abraham to understand all of the Mitzvah of the Torah before they were given and number two why is bris Mila the occasion when Hashem orders the name change that could have been done earlier as well right so briser did two things it gave Abraham the hav the understanding of the Torah and it caused the shoi the change in the names of a so to understand this let me share with you a a thought that um anyone that uh was married had a religious chevas for sure heard this probably more than once at their chevas or if you've been at any chevas you've heard this famous vort about ish and Isa right ish and Isa man woman they share two common letters Al Shin Al Shin is Fire H and the man has a yud and the woman has a hey and yud and hey are the name of God one of the names of Hashem is y we pronounce it y right and therefore the gar says when God is in their marriage men are men and women are women and everyone's doing the proper thing take Hashem out of the marriage then your relationship will be consumed with jealousy and osity hostility each will be a destructive fire that will burn and destroy the others right famous famous word again I'm sure you've heard this gorra that the yud and the hay allow men and women to function as they should function take out the yud and the hay their relationship becomes a destructive egotism of fire okay bad that's the gumar yamas but the question is why does the man get the yud of the name and the woman get the hey of the name y hey man gets y woman gets a are we are we trying to say that men are you know double the the Merit of women so there's something the morale says that's fascinating says that Hashem created with the letter Y through the spiritual power of the letter Y and hasem created with the spiritual power of the letter he and that's what it means when it says with the and the he God created worlds what does that mean through the Y through the why is it so thata is a y world and is a he world so the maral says Y is a completely spiritual existence in there are no bodies there's no eating there's no drinking it is only the soul connected to Hashem even even though kazal use metaphors of meals and Leviathan and all that stuff those are only Parables those are metaphors for Spiritual pleasure there is no physicality in habah so as a result the letter that is connected toah is the least physical of the letters y is the least physical because it takes up the least amount of space so it represents a certain level that is removed from physicality so the of created what is hey hey the morale says is a composite of two letters d and the left leg of the morale says could be a yud I would think it's a but he calls it a y it's a d and a y actually if you look at a hey in a saer Torah it actually looks more like a y the Regal is more like Y in our writing you know it could be a hey but it could be above but it's a y now if yud represents pure spirituality doid represents pure materialism we talk about the four directions of the compass we talk about the four dimensions of matter right length width uh depth and time because time is an aspect of matter so is the is spirituality so what is you bring the Y of into the physicality of so says the maral fascinating point he says women get the hay because women are better than that at that than men men often get ruined in their encounter witha it brings out the testosterone the competitiveness the jealousies the rivalries so the same way somebody with empyema has to breathe pure oxygen because regular oxygen isn't isn't potent enough for them so the man needs to have his K needs to have his Yeshiva needs to have his sh where at least for a while he gets away from the world to breathe the purity of that oxygen so a man is a yud man a man is more makush to in an optimal sense the Godless of a woman and again we're generalizing with these are Tendencies the Godless of a woman is that she could bring the Holiness ofah into the mundane life of this world now it's true that that's less intense right the is y is only hey because it's true if I lock myself up in a room and I meditate and I reach nirvana that could be a very very intense experience but once you know once I'm uh doing carpool or changing diapers or going shopping you know I don't right in fact I hear from a lot of young marriage women that they missed the Seminary days when they were in seminary they were able to think they were able to discuss they were able to analyze it was so spiritual so holy so uplifting not everybody has positive experience in the Seminary but those who did will often describe it that way but now I spend my day you know cleaning up a house or changing diapers or uh picking up toys where's the rookus where's the passion where's the spirituality that is a challenge to be sure it's only going to be hey it's not going to have the intensity of Y but the morale says it's actually a higher MRE because you're taking the Holiness and you're bringing it into the physical to be able to transform even the physical and the moral says that's part of the idea of a wife being an AER cono to be a helpmate to her husband to teach her husband to teach her husband that Holiness can reside even in the details the mundane details of everyday life that Holiness is not only separating yourself from the world but engagement with now how that actually plays out you know every couple will have to you know work it out but you know as they say you know going to your son's hockey game or your basketball game again in her maybe the these mum don't work so forgive me for my American melum that I still use but that could be holy aod that's holy aod to give my child encouragement to give my child the sense that I care about him so maybe formally it's not learning Torah it's not doing Mitzvah but that's bringing the yud into the he and the moral says that is the superior madrea of women who can instruct men how to be able to move in that particular direction that's the AER connect and the woman gets the H now when we come to Brisa there are many many aspects of brism that we could talk about but one of the aspects is brought down by the the points out that the Mak of Mila the Covenant with God is effected in the anatomical organ of the body that on some levels might be regarded as the most physical and material and least spiritual the male organ is either used for urination or used for sexuality which is often on some level arousal is beyond rational or voluntary control so it represents the most material this is the same for the most animalistic part of a human being and by putting the bris there that is a limit that even the most physical and material part of ourselves can be dedicated to Hashem that it's not just our higher selves our minds are but even the part of the Goof that is most m that's most material most animalistic can be dedicated says that's why the Brisa is BFA on the organ of of the lower body that that represents you know involuntary control elimination sexuality the thing that we have exactly in common with animals and yet that can be dedicated consecrated elevated seen in this way we can Now understand why there is a shin Hashem because the shin Hashem gave both Abraham and Sarah a hay in their name so even the man got the hay if we understand that the notion of hay is to bring the yud into the D of abah developed that capacity precisely through the process of Brisa that gave him the to be madesh to sanctify even the physical right material animalistic so that's why Mila is connected to the change of name because it involves transformation of gashat elevation of the physical and the material now the ramban writes in Hil that a person could take every single activity of his life and he can make it to be service of God a person goes on vacation a person plays basketball a person takes a teal so one way of looking at it is I'm taking a break from my service of God but the ramam says there's another way of looking at it if I need to decompress if I need to relax if I need to take a break then that becomes part of my aotus hasem I could think in my mind I'm doing this to be able to be stronger to be healthier to be more relaxed to be more Serene so when I go back to my daving and my learning and my mitzvah I will do it with more enthusiasm says the rambam if you have that kavana then even the jogging and the basketball and the and the touring become AAS hasem for which you will get reward sleeping eating all of those things so you can have two people who are doing the same activity two religious Jews one is doing something as an escape from aod sashem and the other is doing it with the with he thought that I'm going to try to use this to help me in my and they're doing the same thing and one person will get rewards and one person will not right and the rambam quotes the know Hashem in all of your ways and he quotes the mishos call all of your Deeds should be for the sake of Heaven all of your Deeds all of your Deeds now there was a great great rashash Shiva really extraordinary person do schwarzman some of you might have heard of him he was a rash in he actually officially was actually rash as well but I would say that was more of an honorary thing that wasn't hisa schwarzman was a phenomenal uh but they say in his younger years something like I don't know if I'm getting the schedule right but this is an approximation of it he would learn like 30 hours straight he would then go for a 50 m bicycle right kind of then he would sleep for 20 hours it's kind of that that way so you know so he you know 30 hours of sleep and or 20 hours of sleep and a 50 mile bicycle in other words he did exercise and all of these things but all of this was to give him the to do what he was able to do so his is not only in the 30 hours of learning but also in the bicycle ride and in the in the sleep as well now this can also explain my and the mar right the mara said that a didn't understand the Torah till after bris Mila and the question was why would bris Mila give him that understanding so the answer is actually pet if you look at mitzvos generally mitzvah mitzvos are actually about taking the physical things in the world and using them in the service of God here I take Fillin I take leather I take ink I take parchment these are physical things why would Hashem care about physical things Hashem should just tell us close yourself in a room like a Buddhist monk meditate contemplate why is it important to take the wool of and make you know makeas out of it filling what is the lesson of mitv that even the most physical of the world can be elevated and Sanctified so in order to understand the mitzvos of the Torah before they were given you have to have this idea that physicality can be elevated and that came to Abraham as a result of brism and once he realized physicality can be elevated he was now able to understand prophetically the idea of mitzvos mos mitzvos MOS practical mitzvos and and and and the like um this is a very important idea in the of our children obviously learning Torah is an extremely important thing the most important the greatest of the Mitzvah but the reality of life life is that not everybody is always capable of full-time learning all the time maybe that's even true for most of us so if a person's AEM is circumscribed exclusively as kind of a learning doing Focus then when the when they're not in their modality they're kind of bereft they're kind of like well you know I'm not doing that so I might as well do whatever I want it makes no difference and that's a mistaken thought because one has to recognize that in the physicality of the world there's a lot that's a as well whether it's whether it's setting up for malava Mala whether it's helping you know clean the house for shabas uh whether it's shopping for COV shabas or just to have food in the house these are Mitzvah these are these are sanctification uh and we have to teach our children and teach ourselves that these are also mechanisms and which hashem's name is is is glorified and that is one of as says that is one of the lessons of Brisa the ability to sanctify even the physicality of the world I just went with one other thought which is totally unrelated that is another teaching of Brisa I think it's also very very important uh what is Brisa how is it done the forkin is cut it's cut and then it's folded over to expose right these are two steps the first is called Mila which is cutting and the second is folding over which is called Priya and that's absolutely essential now the third step is not because of bris the third step is MIT that's when the wound is sucked the the original way of doing it was by mouth and lot of them still do that today many mo do it by by a tube okay I'm not going to get into MIT be or MIT bishes but that's not part of ver that that is really a health concern to remove any excess blood that might have gotten infected or something out of the wound so it could heal more quickly so there are three steps in a in a there is MIL Priya and MIT but MIT is not a of the mitv of Mila it is only Mila and Priya that's a so what is signific about the idea of cutting and folding over and exposing I think there's a very important blesson here and that is when we induct our children into the Covenant of Abraham we have to recognize that our job as parents is not to remake our children but to expose and reveal the goodness and the greatness that is already there Al dark educate a child according to their way and the vagon is Mazar every person has their unique way of connecting to Hashem and the goal of is to direct the child in the way that their Nish is most responsive so in many many ways is not about changing somebody is about revealing what is already there within their Nish that's a that's a very very Big Y you know people have different personalities they have different nios different inclinations they have different talents they have different abilities they have different enthusiasms and the best is a that builds on what is already within the child instead of trying to uproot and destroy that with is which is within the child and I think that's that's a remas in the Brisa that the Covenant with God is to reveal the greatness that's already there you know sculptor say although I can't say how you understand this when they look at a piece of wood or a piece of stone they see the sculpture in the stone and they're just removing the impediments to reveal what is already there again I I can't say I fully understand that but that that's how an artist will describe this process that's exactly what's going on here my goal is to see who my child is and then uncover the greatness within the child and this is an obligation of parents and this is an obligation of teachers because every parent is a teacher and every teacher should be a parent so be may this be a lesson that we should apply in our own own lives thank you for coming Ines [Music] it