Should We Demand Moshiach? (Parshas Devarim)

so this jewish mother brings her little child to the beach and he's sitting on the beach and he's playing with his little bucket this little shovel building sand castles and all of a sudden a giant wave comes crashing onto the shore and picks up the little child and brings him out to sea and the mother she turns heavenward she says oh god please save my child do a miracle save my child all of a sudden just like the wave came crashing onto the beach the wave settles back in the same spot and drops the little child back down in the exact little spot where he'd been playing like he'd never like he'd never left just boom places him right down the exact same spot she looks up at heaven she says he had a hat i don't know you know that one that's an oh it's an oldie it's an old one he had a hat okay this week's passion paschal's devoted you're gonna see the tie-in the joke always has a tie-in you know that right okay this week's passion towards the end of the first aliyah maestrobaino is giving his farewell address to the jewish people and he gives them a bracha he says to them hashem the god of your fathers ye safe allah should increase upon you meaning increase you increase your numbers multiply you population-wise literally as you are times a thousand thousand-fold and hashem should bless you as he promised you okay so it sounds like there's two things here first moshe says hashem should multiply you a thousand fold and then and hashem should do as he as he told you as he promised you what are these two different things rashi actually explains that this verse is a dialogue it's just we don't hear you know sort of like a phone conversation where you hear one end of the conversation so we don't hear the the other part of the conversation but the tereshabal fills it in the sifri explains and russia brings this in his commentary and says the basically these two lines that maisha was saying it was his first line then bene gave him an answer and then he answered back so now let's fill it in the way it really goes explains it is yes she says hashem should increase you a thousand fold and russia asks mahushuv so then why after that does it say if you ask him he should bench you like he said he would allah but rather here's the story um they said to him says to me after his first line after he says hashem should bend you a thousand-fold right okay so that benesal says back to him you're putting a limit on our why only a thousand a thousand vote why only a thousand the holy blessing he already promised our ancestor avram what what did he tell him if someone can count the stars then they'll be able to count your descendants meaning infinite growth so you're giving us a thousand fold hashem already promised us infinite growth so why are you limiting it amalaham so he said to them zuma shalihi when i said a thousand that was mine i was giving you my bracha aval however you're right who hashem your vodka asked him is going to bend you kashidi balakam like he already told you he would so those are the two lines masha says hashem should multiply you a thousand-fold hashem should do to you as he promised basically masha says hashem should bend you a thousand-fold and you'd be like only a thousand thousand was my thing that was the the gravy i put on top but the the steak is what hashem already told her from he's gonna bend you and multiply you a thousand fold okay why does moshe speak in a way that is able to be misunderstood why does maisha say it in a way where they have precisely reaction that they have in other words if moisture's adding his own interpolation of the bracha let's call it why does he say that first and then they get scared and then he's oh yeah yeah but that was just my thing and then you're right the real bracha is the one that you know about that was promised you by by since of rama and and and then furthermore why does mushy even have to add his own bracha to it like what's the point of it like why take it like just exactly as they as the benaysal complained like why are you talking about a thousand fold when we have an infinite promise so the whole thing's a little bit difficult to understand if we can understand this story we can also understand in general fila davening when we pray why do we pray hashem knows what we want so why do we pray also if we understand this story we can understand how we're supposed to observe tisch above kish above is coming up in uh less than a week so how he's supposed to observe that how are you supposed to observe these nine days that we're in right now the volume is always in the nine days there's a concept that the the parsha is a tradition from the shallow that the parsha is always connected to the time of year so there's some type of connection between devoted and the nine days so anyways we want to understand this story we want to understand also in general the idea of philo and we under we we want to understand how to properly observe the nine days and and and tish above and the connection between this story from partial devoteem and the uh and the nine days of mourning for the destruction of the holy temple okay fine so that's that's our agenda here i'm going to tell you a story story is that before the baal sham tiff was revealed he used to travel around with his uh tell me them with other sadiq stadium with hidden incognito holy people and uh so one time the balchamptov visited in there balsham to visited a very poor man and woman who lived in a little uh cottage outside on the outskirts of town they showed up on an air of shabbos the basham the venus tell me them showed up on an air of shabbos and they basically invited themselves for shabbos so like i said this this poor couple they didn't have money which that's what it means that they were poor so they didn't really have shabbos fare that was suitable for guests especially multiple guests so they took all the money in their house and they they went to town and they bought shabbos food and they cleaned them out that was it they had to drain the savings account that was it so and they were happy to do it because they were poor but they were happy with their lot they were always satisfied even though they had very very little and they were they were happy to to be hosts anyways after shabbos the balchamptov says we're going to stay okay well they're going to stay they don't have any more money they don't have money so and they already you know they spent everything they started selling stuff in the house they took whatever the valuables they had whatever they had didn't you know didn't have much and they went to town they sold it and they bought you know brunch for sunday morning bagels and locks whatever you know they brought it back balsham david is tommy them to eat comes monday says we're going to stay so they look for more stuff to sell tuesday wednesday each day until finally the guy has nothing left to sell um and he doesn't want to be rude he doesn't want to say no he doesn't want to say i can't do it so finally what he does is he looks his wife says you know our one way of making parnosa our livelihood not much but we have this little scrawny cow and the scrawny cow you know the scrawny cow gives milk a little bit of milk not much milk it's a scrawny cow but the scrawny cow gives milk and uh you know that's what we live on but we sold everything we have a value and now it looks like we're gonna have to sell this granny county we're gonna sell the scrawny cow that's our entire means of making a livelihood but what can we do the this this and he doesn't know it's the basham too he doesn't know it's even at sadiq he just knows it's a jew who wants lodging he says but these guests they want our hospitality so let's do it let's sell the scrawny cow so the wife she was also very kind and she was also very very humble and simple and she says to him okay go sell this granny cow so he goes to town he sells the scrawny cap and after he sells a scrawny cow it dawns on him this is it like you know his whole life he never ever complained about money he never darvened for parnosa he was always content to get by on what little he had but now things are serious because now he sold the scrawny cow see the scrawny cow wasn't much but at least it was a way of making a living now that's gone there's no way of making a living so he was depressed he started walking and he walked into the forest and as he's in the middle of the forest where no one can hear him or so he thinks as you'll see he says he says a prayer he says hashem in my whole life i never darvened for parnosa i never asked for money i was always content to get by on what little i had but now you see i sold the scrawny cow even the little meager amount of livelihood they were able to scrape by selling the the milk from the cow now i don't have that we have nothing and i've never done this before hashem i've never done this but i have no means to making a livelihood anymore i have to ask please hashem help me we need money so as he's davening he hears laughter in the middle of the first which is very strange why is he hearing laughter he looks over and he sees the town drunk the town drunk he knows who the town everyone knows the town drunk the town drunk's lying in the forest and he's laughing and he says listen you look like an honest guy i'm going to tell you my secret i guess i i just have to tell someone my secret it's too delicious to keep to myself you see everyone thinks i'm a drunk they don't know i'm a man of leisure this is a lifestyle choice this is this is how i want to live i'm really very wealthy they think i'm just a bum i'm not i have a fortune i keep it here in the forest in the tree in gold coins and i go into the forest i take a gold coin out of the tree i go into town and i buy drinks with it and i get drunk and i come back in the forest i pass out and the next day i take another gold coin and do it again i have enough to do this for the rest of my life nobody knows my secret and now you know and i trust you very strange encounter okay fine whatever i don't know what the connection is with that and you know dominating for money i mean this is this is the money belongs to the drunk guy okay all right fine the next day our protagonist goes into town to go um look for work he doesn't have any means for making a livelihood so he figures i'll maybe i'll do some menial labor i have two hands i'll i'll go work and i'll schlep i'll i'll do something with my body and i'll make a couple coins and you know maybe we'll be able to eat today so he goes into town to see if he can get some you know basic like day day employment and as he heads into town he sees there's a there's a funeral so he asks oh no who died they said oh it's the drunk and he has no family nobody to pay for the funeral the havrakadisha is paying for the whole thing the burial society is paying for the whole thing he died so he just realizes you know light bulb goes off and he runs back to the forest he takes the gold coins this drunk died he has no heirs he has no family he takes the coins he goes to cover kadisha he pays for the funeral and he gives a nice extra bonus and with the with the money that's left over he goes and he starts a business and with the business he starts making real money and one thing leads to another he becomes very wealthy extremely wealthy he becomes so wealthy he moves out of his little town he moves to a big city he buys a big house and he becomes a very uh respected head of the community now after he became wealthy this gentleman he had a pastime he used to use his money to go travel uh the kind of tourism he did was he liked to do sadikim tourism he would go meet rabbis he would go if you would hear about a holy person he would go to that tsaddik and gera bracha and that was his thing that's what he liked that's what he spent his money on so he hears about this tsadik called the balsham to measure bush so he travels to major bush to meet the the holy beljamtif as he comes face to face with the with the holy belgium he recognizes him this is the guy who came to our house years ago remember our story now is years in the past this is the guy who came with his friends to our house on air of shabbos didn't leave invited himself stayed for a week and literally ate us out of house and home and this is the the holy bosh now he knows you don't second guess it's he knows that knows what he's doing but it's so confusing he says i'm not questioning but it's so difficult to understand what happened the first time that we met val shemtel says yeah i can explain that let me tell you something you're rich you know why you're rich because you had a fortune with your name on it in heaven it was allotted to you and your wife pronounces because of the wife usually the money was in your bank account up there there was one little problem you never made a withdrawal you never went to the bank and made a withdrawal so you have the money and you can't you never asked for it you never daven for parnasso your whole life and i knew that the problem was the scrawny cow that as long as you had that illusion that oh this is our means to parnasso you were limiting it you were limiting hashem so i knew i had one mission when i met you had to get that scrawny cow out of your life and force you to go ask hashem to give you what hashem wants to give you like zaina huston is according to his broad thinking not your limited thinking so that's the story let's talk about our parsha meisha baino says to the jews this is his farewell address he's getting them ready to enter erzestro he's finishing up his work with them and he says i want to sort of you know tie a few uh loose ends up here and i want to make sure that you uh receive your bracha and i want to give you a bracha it's really hashems bracha for infinite growth but i'm going to state it in human terms who can speak about infinite we don't even know what infinite is i'm going to state it in human terms it's a figure of speech you know like i've told you a million times not to exaggerate okay it's a figure of speech or like when we say that for hashem that that a thousand years is a day right it's a figure of speech so hashem should multiply you a thousand times it's a figure of speech it's a way that human beings are the way that finite creations talk however what do i want you to do when you hear that this is my talking what do i want you to do when when you hear me say that i want pushback i want you say hold on a second only a thousand he had a hat he had a hat what are you talking about he had a hat you're right you're right you're right it's not a thousand it's infinite kasha diber like he said like hashem said and that's the key it's not hutz but it's not i'm trying to see how how tough i can be in the negotiating room how how far i can push i'm asking for what's mine already kashidabe like hashem said hashem already said hashem already promised to have rama vino infinite growth so it's not like i came up with this idea this was told to me that this was the deal so if i was told infinity i just want to make sure when you say a thousand you don't mean that literally so moshe was really teaching us how to pray malaysia was teaching us that hashem has promised to give us everything hashem wants it to be good for us and when we're lacking it's not that we're complaining it's that we're saying hold on a second hashem you already told us that it's going to be good for us we don't want to limit it and that's the connection to the nine days we all know meshiach is coming eventually right eventually no can't be eventually hashem you told us you told us that this is not how it ends the goalless is not the end the gula is the end we didn't come up with this idea this isn't our idea this is your idea hashem and therefore we are we're demanding give us your promise according to your broad thinking not ours you know there are people will tell you that of course we want meshiach but let hashem figure out the timing let hashem figure out when to bring meshiach it's like a very casual attitude toward something that forget about the fact for a second how many people are suffering in gullahs how many people are suffering with with with all types of issues the health and and and money and family issues and and emotional issues and trauma and so just the cruelty of saying yeah let's wait it out a little longer just but let's forget about that for a second and let's just address this primarily from a theological perspective hashem is the one who told us that the whole point of creation is to end with a perfected universe where this earth becomes holier than heaven so it's not about me when i'm complaining it's not me saying oh what can i get what can how can i milk hashem to give to give me a better deal no no hashem already promised us infinite growth not to ask for is to limit hashem not to ask for goula now is to limit hashem i'll tell you there's a a well-known passage very very well known from uh from the navi from the prophet jeremy yo about rahul well known pasuk about rahul rajalimeno about our matriarch albanella right matriarch rocco she's crying for her children that means for the jewish people it's a very beautiful concept that rahul isn't buried in madison michaela and tavrein she's buried on the side of the road why because that's the way where the jews were taken into gullis and the first goddess when they brought into bubble and she comes out and she cries for them and just like she cried for them when she was when they were brought into gullis mama rojo's crying that the matriarch of the jewish people sees the jewish people in their exile both sociopolitically and metaphysically she sees us estranged from our from our true selves from our essence and she cries for us when i tell you though from from the al-shah i'll read it to you the simple way and then i'll tell you that the way that al-shakh [Applause] a voice is heard in rama it's a place wailing crying bitter weeping there's three words that mean crying what is the crying rojo alba rajo is crying for her children she refuses to be consoled for her children she's inconsolable because they are not because they are they are gone she refuses to be consoled for her children who are gone who are gone into into golis okay that's the simple meaning which is already incredibly moving i want to tell you how the al-sheikh reads this al-shah says like this really it's a funny word if you know a little dick duck if you know a little grammar it should be boy but here would mean rajo cries me vacca means she makes to cry right that's what that prefix that ma'am me vaca that formulation she makes two cry she makes people cry now rocco be here rahul cries she makes cry the al-shak says like this he says on marshall there was once a a woman whose baby was sick and she went to the doctor the doctor says we don't know if he's going to live for 24 hours and she brings the baby home and it's shabbos and it's friday night in the house and it's dark shabba's candles already went out it's dark there's no light and she can't see if her baby is alive or not alive she doesn't know what to do so what does this mother do she knows that when babies hear crying right every mother knows this and father's tooth to some extent that when you know the chain reaction right the toddler wakes up with a nightmare and then the baby hears the crying and wakes up and then and then boom boom boom boom domino effect and everyone's crying including the mother and father so she knows the the trick that when when a baby cries when someone when someone cries when a baby hears someone cry a baby starts to cry so what does she do she starts crying but she starts crying a little bit at first whimpering small crying to see if that's enough to get the baby's reaction but she doesn't hear anything so she cries a little bit longer a little bit more intensely a little bit louder she doesn't hear anything so then she lets loose she starts wailing to hear if the baby cries this is thou she says this is what it means three types of crying one more intense than the other first nahi then then means bitter tears then she ups the ante she gets more and more intense with the crying to get the baby to cry she's trying to get her baby to cry and she hears nothing she hears nothing manali nakhima she refuses to be consoled for her child ki nano because he's not because he's not crying she refuses to be consoled over the fact that her child's not crying so the al-shaikh says this is a muscle for all claudia that rahul is up in heaven rama rama also means in the heights in him and she's crying not but she's trying to get the jewish people to cry her children her babies we us we're her babies and so she lets loose a little cry and she's trying to get us to cry but we don't cry she will not be consoled about her children ki nanu who are not crying because the greatest grief for the mother is that the babies aren't even crying anymore if they're not crying it's a sign that god forbid they're not alive the fact that jewish people refuse to be complacent in godless refuse to stop crying is a sign of life it's a sign of life so when it comes a nine days it comes a tissue above what is the reaction how are we supposed to conduct ourselves how are we supposed to feel we're supposed to cry we're supposed to weep not because we feel like broken people we feel like helpless hopeless people to the contrary because we know hashem promised us something and we have every reason to expect it hashem has promised us infinite growth so set aside like i said before all of our personal reasons for wanting mashiach set aside all of the human suffering that's in the world right now set that aside for a second hashem promised if you're not screaming for me you're limiting hashem you're saying maybe you can maybe you can't it's okay you know what hashem it's fine you could you could give me a half of what you promised no hashem said infinite we're demanding infinite and if maisha even maisha says something that leads us to believe for even a second maybe he's negotiating us down maybe it's only a thousand-fold instead of infinite growth we say hey he had a hat that's not what we were promised that's not what we were promised we as claudius we have to say we were promised not just things get better better could mean twice as good 10 times as good a thousand times as good no no we were promised things are gonna get infinitely good and we're gonna keep crying out until we get it should be now