Re'eh - Israel's Victory is Spiritual

You're listening to the weekly para podcast with Ari Goldwag recorded with Hashem's never- ending assistance in Israel 5786 2026. This week's par I'd like to share with you a medish which connects the beginning of our para with the end of last week's para. What does it say at the beginning of our para? Behold, I am placing in front of you today a blessing and a curse. What is the blessing? The blessing is to listen to the commandments of your God that I'm commanding you today. What is the curse? If you don't listen to the commandments of Hashem, your God, you turn away from heaven forbid the path that I'm teaching you today to follow after other gods that you didn't know, which I like the uh uh translation of the living Tyra which is Raaria Kaplan. It translates translates as following other gods to have a novel spiritual experience. The Tyra gives us the spiritual experience that we need. Now in the previous the previous section it starts off. It's not it's not just that you're going to see blessings and everything's going to be good if you listen to the and heaven forbid the opposite if one does not. There's more to it. If you will keep, and it uses a double language, and we're going to talk about this. If you will keep, you will keep all of this commandment. What's the commandment? To love Hashem, your God. Hey guys, >> loving Hashem is not a uh is not an option. It's not like optional in in our religion. It's an obligation. You have to love Hashem. You have to go in Hashem's ways and to attach yourself to him. What's the result of keeping the Tyra? What's the result of focus on words of Tyra? Tyra, learning Tyra, keeping the mitzvah, loving Hashem. You want to know who are our strongest, most powerful army officers? It's those who are sitting and learning. Hashem will take away all these nations from in front of you. You want to know how we get rid of our enemies both within Israel and outside of Israel? Learn Tyra. Love Hashem. and you will inherit nations that are much more powerful than you. It's a spiritual secret. Do what it says in this book. Do what it says in the Tyra and you're going to overcome your enemies. Anywhere where your feet step, it's going to be yours. from from the wilderness to the to Lebanon from from the river. Doesn't say from the river to the sea. It does actually. It says nahar pras from the Euphrates River. Okay, that's way north until the sea. That's going to be your boundaries from the river to the sea. Israel will be free. No one will try to stop you. Your fear, the the the fear of the Jew will be placed upon all of the land that you will step on, that you will walk upon as Hashem said. Okay. So, pretty clear. Pretty clear. It's important. It's important for us to know because we think and this is I believe the of our door the the test of our generation is that it's our power that's going to do this that we will succeed because we are going to fight. We're not going to go like lamb to the lambs to the slaughter. Okay. I have a lot of stuff to share with you today. I don't know if we'll get to everything but I want to first start off with the mush says like this right away points out the beginning of par what does it say immediately before it says if you will keep you will keep what does it mean when it says keep all of this mitzvah it's singular which mitzvah is it talking about if you will keep this mitzvah so then everything will fall into place. So we're going to take it out of the piphat the does say which mitzvah it says etc. create there's a mitzvah that includes everything and it's our God is one sages say it's because it corresponds and it's equal in in weight it's equal in its seriousness and its importance corresponding to all of the mitzvah Now I'm going to skip a section here and I'd like to bring you to the end of this mish no I'm sorry I will not yet first I want to share with you what the marz says the marzen he always gives us a deeper insight now first thing that he says is look over there in you'll understand better here which we're going to do shortly But first I want to read what he says about what's the idea of why is saying reading the words which we do every day twice a day. Why is that so powerful? speaking about Hashem's oneness and he says this is what we see also later on in the medish that through by recognizing that Hashem our God hashem is one I'm protected from evil spiritual forces mazikin mazikin or shadim devils yes we believe in that there is something called mazikin and the mazikin as we'll see in the metric fill all of reality. They're actually present right here around us right now, all around. We don't we can't perceive of them with our five senses, but they're here. And they cause damage. They wreak havoc. They cause problems. They're spiritual semi-spiritual beings. We could say, how do you protect yourself from these damaging spiritual powerful beings? That's it. That's it. He brings in a number of different places in the garra, in the mish. What does it mean? If you will keep, you will keep. It means if you keep, it will keep you. That's what it really means. You hear about great power. A nuclear armed Iran sounds very scary. They're evil. They want to destroy us. You hear about a great spiritual power. I don't know maybe there's other people who are so spiritual they have some kind of connection through the dark side right and they have the ability to mind control that's what we see by the mazikard the talks about in g somebody who is compelled seized by possessed by devilish types of creatures How do you protect yourself from that? You know how you protect yourself from that? It's very simple. It's called you believe there's one Hashem, there's one God. And you reinforce inside yourself that incredible powerful belief. the belief or I would say better the the recognition of the reality that there's only one Hashem. He's higher than all negative forces and I accept upon myself to do his will. The Gomorrah says that came and said that if we could sum up the entire Tyra, all 613 commandments, all of the all of the Zor, all the secrets of the Tyra, all everything, if I could give you one sentence, here's what it is. The righteous individual lives by his faith. Which means to say I believe I I recognize. I reinforce within myself the truth that there's one Hashem. His powers beyond all powers. And I will add there's no real evil in the world. No evil force that is more powerful than Hashem. Because he points out what does it say there? Marzu says it says you should love Hashem your God right here right what is it saying something very similar to what we just read in the end of last week's para which is that we are to love Hashem and we are to do his mitzvah we are to fulfill his will now think about what does it mean to love God I think it means that I know and I recognize or I reinforce what I what I see if I look carefully that God loves me any who who do I love I love my kids right that's not explainable but generally let's talk on a very superficial level who do I love I love the people who love me I love the people who do good for me I love my parents they gave me everything that I have gave me my entire life they supported me took care of me until I came of age and then they continued to support me and take care of me till this very day. Naturally, I love the people who love me. So, what does it mean to love Hashem? Is to recognize that everything that I have is from him and that he loves me and he wants the best for me. If I maintain that headsp space, everything is him. The stuff that looks bad maybe, no, I believe that this is also his kindness. We also find in the second part you're supposed to love Hashem talks about it places these two concepts together fulfilling all of the commandments and loving Hashem. This is the depth of what he's saying. If I want to be protected from mazik again mazik are uh spiritual forces or semi-spiritual forces that cause damage colloquially called demons shadim mazikimar talks about them. If I want to be protected from negative forces in the world, call them whatever you want. Stock mark stock market crashes, falling missiles, heaven forbid, the thing that protects me the most is the of Hashem. Recognizing that Hashem loves me, I love Hashem and I'm ready to do his will. Okay. I want to just read the end of the every single small area of the world has thousands of these mazik and thousands of these semi-spiritual destructive beings and each one of them has a mask on his face because if he would look at you or you would look at It would cause incredible damage. How does a person get damaged? The magic is explained. There's a spiritual semi-spiritual force that if its mask is removed, if it has the ability to see you or you see it, damage is caused. Which really means, by the way, if I look at evil, I give it power. If I if I see things that are bad and I am too enamored by it, too focused on it, it gives it power. Says says, "Hashem will save me. He will redeem me in peace from from battle cuz I have many with me. Which means to say there are many of them. There's many who battle with me. All these spiritual negative spiritual forces. But when I have Hashem on my side, which I get by loving Hashem and fulfilling his mitzvah. So then I have incredible spiritual much greater power of spiritual forces on my side. These are the positive spiritual forces, the the angels that protect the human being. Okay. Now, I I I must share with you this story in in Malakim Bay. Looks like we do have time for it. Incredible story. And it speaks about the spiritual forces that are by our side that are protecting us. Listen to the story. I'm going to try to read it and get it in here because it's a pretty lengthy story, but I want to read it inside. At this time, there was the Aramaan king who who was battling the people of Israel. He says to his his adviserss, I want to I want to lie an ambush for the people of Israel, for the Jewish people in a particular location. Isha ali now it's a good idea to have a prophet on your side and at that time there was a great prophet his name was Alicia Hanovi and he sends a message the man of God he had a direct line into he sends to the king of Israel and he says he said watch out for this particular location that's where the Aramians are are waiting an ambush is hero. So he the the king of Israel wanted to check if it's true and he sent messengers and they indeed went to check and it was true. There was an encampment of the Aramaans there and he was careful not to go there. The king of the Aramans got really upset. He said, "Who is the spy? Who is the the double agent here who has told the king of Israel not to pass this way? How does he know not to go here?" He says, "I want you to know that it's not there. There's no double agent. They have a prophet. They have a man of God. His name is Alicia. And he has the ability to hear what you are saying in your own bedroom. He knows what's going on. He has access to to a higher reality. Very interestingly, the king of Haram says, "I want you to find Alicia. I want you to bring him to me." He found out that Alicia is in a place called Do. So the king of Aram, it's kind of funny. He doesn't learn his lesson, but he sends a whole encampment to surround the city in order to capture Alicia. Alicia's right-hand man wakes up, I guess, in the middle of the night or maybe early in the morning, and he goes out and he sees that there's this incredible encampment. So, so Alicia's Alicia's Mashar, his servant says to him, "What should we do? They've they've surrounded us." Alira, this is the Pik that I wanted to share with you. Alicia says, "Don't be afraid. We have many more with us than they have." It looks like they have this incredible army that could beat us and that could capture us, take us away, but we have many, many more on our side than they have. Listen to this. Alisha prays and he says, he says, I want my servant to see. Open his eyes so that he may seem Alicia's servant, his eyes are opened. He can suddenly see something that he didn't see before. Surrounding Alicia is an incredible spiritual encampment of the whole mountain around them is filled with horses and and chariots of fire. They came down. Who? Who came down? Ah, before we explain the Aramains came down in order to in order to try to capture Alicia and Alicia said to Hash, he was misspellin that they should be struck with blindness. And as for explained, this doesn't necessarily have to mean literal physical blindness, but they were suddenly completely disoriented. They didn't know if they were coming or going. They lost track of who they were, what they what their goal was. Now, Alicia was no longer identifiable to them because of their confusion. And he says to this this incredible encampment that the king of Aram sent, he says to them, "You're not in the right place. You're looking for a particular person. Follow after me. I'm going to bring him to you. I'm going to bring you to them. He brought him to Shamron which was the capital of Israel at that time. Hashem says, "I'm sorry." Alicia says to Hashem, "Take away the disorientation. Let them be able to see straight now." suddenly they they come out of their trance and they're surrounded inside of the city of Shamron. The king of of Israel, the king of Israel says to Alisha, "Should I should I strike them? Should I kill these these soldiers?" He says, "No." Interesting. If you capture people with your sword and your bow, so those you can strike, but I capture these guys with spiritual forces. Give them food and drink. They won't pose a threat anymore. And that's what they did. They had a whole meal. They gave all the army. This is incredible story. They went back. That's what they did. They made this incredible meal. They went back to their to their master. And no longer did these militants come to try to to to lie in ambush on the people of Israel. Okay. So the Torah is offering us here with this story a very different approach than what we're used to because we live in a physical world. We live in a world which lacks the depth of spirituality that we so wish we had. The magish is telling us and the sukim are telling us that it's possible it is possible accessible to every single one of us to have incredible protection as through the words is here here oh Israel our godm is one which includes as we've said loving hashem committing to fulfilling the mitzvah of the tyra now I'd like to share with cuz we do have a few minutes left. Wasn't sure I'd get to this but we can. So the referenced and there you know we're about to we're about to benches we're about to go into the lead in about five weeks from now is rashashana. So the lead into Russashana is now we're we're going to sanctify the month of El. So it's appropriate that say over there in Amore in Vayikra it talks about that on the first day of the month the first day of the month of Tish is when we have the the holiday of Russash Shana as we all know it's based on the Gmorrah. The Gomorrah says, I'm not going to be able to read this inside, but the Gmorra says we're hashem, we make hashem our king is that that's that concept as well. It's very similar. Now what's interesting is just as over here we had inim there's the blessings and the curses and there's a reference back to what was talked about in the previous verses which had to do with how do we protect ourselves from our enemies the spiritual way love Hashem keep his mitzvah and that's the connection behold there's blessings and curses the blessings come through spiritual means that's the Jewish people's unique our unique Messiah our tradition there's also right beforeash right before the talks aboutash it talks about the mitzvah there's an obligation to leave over part of your field when you reap when you take in your crops you're supposed to leave the corners of the fields for the poor and as we'll see in the medish there's a teaching here and that teaching thing is you want to succeed on rashash, you want to you want to have a good year coming year, you want to have a so the way that you get it is through spiritual means. The way that you succeed in the world is by reinforcing our spiritual our spiritual side. And we do that through it's like saddaka, giving charity, being aware of others, being aware of the poor. But listen to the how the says the says in says this idea that we're talking about well I don't have the pseudute the way of life is above to those who are wise and the end of the says in order that a person's turn away from the darkest depths that are below. I have two paths in front of me. The Pussik says in Mish, if I want to succeed in this world, normally I think of it as okay, I got to do physical things in order to succeed. But the Pik tells us the secret, which is spiritual success is that which leads to physical success. What is the the the the path of goodness, the path above, the higher path? That's the tree of life to those who hold on to it. There's another explanation that a person going through challenges and difficulties that also raises a p person to the higher path. The last in the is that how does how do I there's a wisdom here of lala of rising above how do I get to that rising above and how do I succeed in the world it's by looking at the mitzvah of the Tyra it's by noticing what's going on by by noticing what the power is of the Tyra It references again this by leaving all the corners of our field. And then it says the last part of the which is not here but it's quoted by the manusca from the from a different place. It's by in order to get away from from this dark deep hole of darkness which is a reference to the nations of the world. How do I escape from the nations of the world? both in a spiritual sense, getting away from what they teach, and also in a physical sense, getting away from the destruction that they could potentially cause me. That's the secret of the Tyra is through spiritual means. Leave over the corners of your field. Give to give charity. Worry about others. Don't be self-centered. Don't be egotistical. Take upon yourself the all the the yoke of the commandments. Love Hashem. Love Hashem. The way to succeed physically. The way to get away from the from the darkness of the world is by focusing on the spiritual things. By focusing intellectually on that which is above on the spiritual things. I want to bless you. Ask you to bless me. should help us indeed to hear it. Recognize it's all Hashem recognize that we got to love Hashem. He loves us. We got to love him too and keep all the mitzvah. Hashem should help us to make that commitment and keep that commitment. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful Shabas. This podcast was made possible through the gracious donations of listeners like you. For more podcasts like this, please visit www.argoldwag.com or search on iTunes Ari Goldwag.