Torah Study as Self-Care (Parshas Noach)

this is our first uh class of this series which God willing will be an ongoing Series so we're doing roughly Parsha based Torah portion of the week and look what Hashem did for us to fit the theme preparedness no yeah he made a flood outside so it's pretty good right is anyone else thinking that when you're coming in like no it's like a theme park it's like uh I thought it was very befitting you know there was you guys were probably some of you and shul on shmini at seros that was last week remember that last week yeah and they have Filas gesham right the prayer for rain very beautiful prayer for rain and uh that they that the the last day of pesach or The Seventh-Day is the prayer for do and then the the last of the seventh The Eighth Day actually of circus which is the prayer for rain this is the most tedious setup for a joke in history but it is a joke and if you'll wait for 30 more seconds it uh should become evident God willing so at any rate there was a synagogue once where the the Canter was uh quite enamored with his own voice and as some cancers are and not all but some and he got up and he said that philosophy of the prayer for rain and just as he was praying the prayer for rain there was a Thunderclap and uh both of lightning and it started storming outside and he after the prayer he turned to the congregation he said did you see what I did look what I did I was praying for the prayer for rain and look immediately it began to rain look at what I did I prayed for rain I made it rain look how I made it rain the rabbit couldn't take it anymore he said yeah and a few more guys just like you made a whole flood okay so that wasn't the joke by the way that was this is still the setup for the jump and somebody give me a punchline that works okay that was I that was a really like it was dead silent okay very good and a few more like you made a whole flood see consist no no don't ruin it it's it's supposed to bump okay so um now I I bombed so bad I forgot what I was going to talk about tonight I'll make something up okay so um yeah okay maybe this this joke will work and this is like Italian this is a this is actually thematically connected to the topic there was once uh you know there was a stetal in Eastern Europe uh inhabited by two corrupt Brothers they were uh partners in business and they swindled everyone in the whole town these guys were absolute Crooks and one of them died and that's not the punchline and one of them died and the other one the surviving brother went to the rabbi and he said I want you to eulogize my brother and here's a hundred rubles if you say he's a Sadiq so the rabbi is like you want me to say about you know you want me to you and your brother you robbed everyone in this whole town you want me to get up and I should say he was a Sadiq he says yes and you have to use that word you have to say it's a tadiq so how much 100 rubles don't worry I'll do it I'll take care so the rabbi gets up he says the deceased was known as a crook and he robbed everyone in this town him and his brother but I got to tell you something between the two comparatively speaking if you compare him to his brother he was a tadiq okay he already had the hundred rubles so and they couldn't do a charge back on the credit card because they didn't have credit cards um so compared to his brother it's a very responsive crowd compared to his brother he was inside like okay what's the tie-in to the partial no very good okay so first verse in this week's Torah portion Ayla Tyler these are the descendants of Noah Sadiq tomim or Noah was a righteous man righteous or complete perfect in his Generations why in his generation of course in his Generations whenever he lived in his in his in his time so Rashi explains to usov in his Generations comes to tell us something yes we have a division between the sages some sages take this word this uh uh this this phrase in his generations and they say that it is a it is a praise it amplifies what was just said it said that Nayak was a tadiq oh you don't know though how much of it's had the because it goes on to say call chicane how much more so he would have been a tadiq if he were in a righteous generation so he like he grew up disadvantaged or morally disadvantaged in a in a bad neighborhood and look what he made him made of himself and if he had had the advantage of growing up around righteousness think about how even more righteous he would be okay um he would be even more righteous okay however there are other sages who say this is none this is a disparaging comment It's actually an asterisk it's like a disclaimer yeah the Toyota just called him a Sadiq but don't get so carried away not such a big Sadiq lafid only relative to compared to his brother right so compared to his generation he was a tadiq the Elohim if he would have been in the generation of Abraham for example he wouldn't have been considered anything he would be no big deal at all you wouldn't even be hearing about him so uh okay the relative Sadiq maybe he is maybe he's not depends on the context that's that's the idea there okay so everything in Torah is instructive you know that everything is instructive Toyota is not a history book Toyota is an instruction manual ever heard that before by the way that the acronym Bible you ever heard this one Bible b-i-b-l e is that did I spot right yeah it's an acronym basic instructions before leaving Earth I like that yeah you like that okay so what no what no no if it was a joke no one would have laughed it would bomb if it was a joke um yeah so Toyota melation the word means instruction is instruction everything encoder is instructive it's not a history book so here's the question if we are told that Nayak was a Sadiq and not only were told he was a static but we're told two perspective sort of like Quantum I just heard they some guy proved last week that the universe is not locally real did you hear about that nobody heard about that you heard about it what does it mean you also read the headline on Google News okay fine and as they say the according to Quantum Theory the universe is not locally real I'm not sure what it means but I think it has something to do with the fact that like there are different perspectives and you can Google it don't Google it now um so Nayak is like this Quantum Sadiq he is like Schrodinger's he's he's not a Sadiq but that can't just be trivia for the history Buffs if it's in Toyota it has to be instructive it has to be instructive somehow so I want you to think about that this idea that there has to be somehow instructive and we're going to come back to it and if I don't come back to it remind me to come back to it deal yeah okay fine so I have well I have here I printed out paper from The New York Times from oh my goodness February I can't even read it 1983 I think it is um I'll pass it around but it says sharonsky tells this is a the front page of the New York Times February 13th 6 1986 okay says here's the title of the article on the front page of the New York Times sharonsky tells how he clung to Psalms captors captors tried to seize what does that mean captives tried to cease what are the Psalms the captives tried to seize a book of yeah a book of tell him it was a safer tillum was a book of Psalms that the Government tried to take away from him they actually they put him in solitary for 130 days for having Contraband and he still wouldn't part from The Book of Psalms and then when they finally let him out on a prisoner swap they released him I think in East Berlin and that's when he famously he walked zigzag on the bridge it was his final Act of defiance they told him walk straight out of here and he looked zigzag just to flout them but when they were taking him to the drop-off point they uh they knew that the Psalms were important to him so they grabbed it from him they said go ahead like right on the brink of letting him go they said go ahead and he fell in the snow it's in this article a pastor you think this one of these made up stories that rabbis tell it's not it's not one of the made-up stories of rabbits it's a real story it's from New York Times all the News That's fit to print you know rabbi's make up stories right do you know that 83.7 of all statistics cited by rabbis and sermons were made up on the spot [Laughter] 83.7 percent okay at any rate yeah sometimes rabbits make up stories it's not made up anyways I'll pass this around so you could see if you have a microscope or a Jeweler's Loop you could see there yeah I printed it out Okay so spoke about this after they uh after they let them out and he said that his wife she was already in Israel and she was able to send him stuff officially he was allowed to get stuff and she sent him This Book of Psalms and he said that was his Solace the whole time he was in prison he had that book and he would push it read till him just reading the words of King David the the balm the healing words of of that poetry of those lyrics that that was his comfort and to the extent like I said when they they threw him in solitary confinement over it 130 days and uh they tried to take it from him and they threatened and they're not going to let him go and and he he wouldn't he like I told you what he fell in the snow he said I'm not gonna I'm not gonna go without my book of Psalms so I mean obviously that's a remarkable story it's a very inspiring story but it's it's reflective of a general attitude that our people have toward the holy healing words of the Torah that it's not just academic for us it's not just scholarship for us it is our greatest comfort it is our greatest solace and and we literally we take shelter in those words and those holy words I heard a great story on the lighter side of things from a friend of mine um her friend Kaya Marcus who he lives in LA and he is friends with Mel Brooks may he be well too long healthy years I forget how old Mel is but he's he's up there about Hashem anyways so he's friends with Mel Brooks and he said they were schmoozing one time and Mel Brooks told him that when he was growing up as a kid growing up in New York so uh he always knew that he he wasn't raised religious and he couldn't read Hebrew I don't think he had a bar mitzvah actually but he had a certain reverence for Hebrew letters Hebrew words he understood that that's the holy tongue literally we call it the holy tongue so he he told my friend kaim a story that one time he was uh playing around I think in the kitchen of their apartment and there was this holy book a Hebrew Book and uh what was it really it was the uh the Yiddish it was the Jewish forward but before they were in English it was it was a Yiddish newspaper so he didn't know what it was he just he saw Hebrew letters so he was looking at it he was a little kid he was looking at it he was turning the page and he ripped it and he was so scared he ripped the holy book so he said he ran out of the room and he went hiding so nobody would associate him with the this terrible Act of uh desecration of this holy book you know the the the Jewish forward it's it's a newspaper it's a Yiddish newspaper anyways so he didn't tell anyone about this was his like shameful secret he didn't tell anyone about it and he said it was just gnawing at him and two weeks later he told his older brother he had a brother who's a couple years older than him and he said I did something really bad I didn't tell anyone I I tore a holy book so he's like which which book and he took him over and he showed him the stack of the newspapers at that one that was here and his brother was laughing and he said that's not a holy book that's the Yiddish that's the Jewish forward that's just a newspaper you know like uh like the New York Times but it's in it's in Yiddish but it's it's more than a cute story you see from that here's here's a kid who unfortunately was not raised with any religious training and unfortunately uh wasn't taught out of base and and had a Davin but that only makes the point stronger it only makes the point stronger that he had this almost like visceral reverence for the Hebrew words Hebrew words totally okay so there's something in our DNA as a people where we have this reverent connection to the words I mean every people has a language but the words of Torah are to us um I mean I'll tell you what the kabbalistic teaching is the kabbalistic teaching goes as far as to say that the Torah is not a book written by God the Torah is God in book form says a rise of the kuch the Torah and Hashem are entirely won says that when Hashem said I am the Lord your God took you out of Egypt you use the personal pronoun so we're told that's an acronym not like basic basic instructions before leaving Earth but or maybe like basic instructions before leaving Earth but the holy tongue is which is an Aramaic phrase for I wrote myself and gave myself through the medium of Torah so again the Torah is not a book authored by God Torah is a vehicle or a a a mechanism whereby God gives himself to us and and and you can see that I mean that's a very esoteric concept but you see that in Natan sharonsky's clinging to those words of Psalms during his imprisonment and you see that even in little Mel Brooks um instinctively albeit erroneously revering the words of the of the Jewish forward um so here's what I'll tell you um in this week's Parsha as we mentioned there's a flood and in order to escape the flood God tells Noah to build an ark and the word for Ark in Hebrew in the in Scripture is Teva the table built the table it's interesting the word Teva in Hebrew is a homonym you know what a homonym is a homonym is one word that has multiple Divergent meanings you know what I mean like here I'll crack you guys up because I have a really strong track record with my jokes over here okay get ready why was Cinderella bad at soccer because she always ran away from the ball was that good why no was it worse than the flood joke that I opened with this was slightly better okay okay why did the cat run away from the tree because he saw the tree bark should I keep going no okay those are homonyms those are homonyms like the ball the ball be like a ball or could be like a ball I don't know how to pantomime you know dancing whatever anyways the word Teva is a homonym one meaning is I told you two minutes ago but I erased your memory already with my bad jokes the ark very good okay you're on a roll this morning you remembered pedagalf of Tanya it's very good okay the other meaning of Teva is a word a word homolytically set that hashem's instruction to Noah by El hateva come into the ark is actually an instruction to each and every one of us that when there's a flood a proverbial flood when life becomes too much to handle where should you take refuge where is our proverbial Ark the word the words of Torah and Fila tell her study and prayer so I think it's a very important concept again like I said Torah study for us is not academic it's not just about being smart or about being a rabbi it's interesting the Jewish people are probably most unique there's a lot of things are unique about the Jewish people but I think probably as a religion I'm not saying culturally although there's an intersection of religion and culture here but as a religion probably most unique in the the level of Education religious education of of the lay people generally speaking in in a religion you have the people who know what the text actually says and then everybody else so you know you ask the cleric to tell you what it says and the Jewish people famously um every man woman and child had a direct relationship with the words even if it wasn't deep talmudic scholarship even if it was just reading words of of Psalms but there's something peculiar peculiarly Jewish about having that one-on-one relationship with the words of the Torah and and viewing it not as as a as a scholarly Pursuit though I want to know more I want to be smart but like literally as and I'll use a 2022 term self-care that that Torah words for a Jew are self-care it's not just study it's not just scholarship that is how we nurture ourselves it's how we replenish and rejuvenate that's how we we find hope and strength to go on and and it always has been when there's a flood outside go into the words that's really talking about our relationship with the words of Torah as as a as a as a refuge as like a a spa for the soul so to speak um I'll tell you something interesting also the Ark you know the dimensions of the Ark not many people know did you ever go to Home Depot and you realize you forgot the dimensions of the Ark no if you built an ark that sometimes it happens and then have to go back home get your Commish never happened to anybody okay anyways I'm just trying to be relatable over here I thought maybe yeah okay what 50 is one of them yeah please stop showing off okay seriously okay yes yeah 50 was the depth the depth was 50. yeah and you know how how uh wide 30. and the length 300. so I'll tell you something cool if you if you like Gematria I don't personally like Gematria but some people do so if you like that kind of thing you're gonna like this no judgment okay I didn't even like this I'm just saying it because some people are into this thing so what so what do you say um I think it's manipulative is that an interesting statement yeah yeah it's like pulling a fast one at any rate I'm just not personally impressed but to me it's like Bible codes but at any rate you want to hear cool Camacho yes okay fine so the Arc was 300 qubits long and it was 50 cubits deep and 30 cubits wide and so um what you may call it so 30 is you know 30 is what letter 30 is lamid and 300 is shin and 50 is none lotion lushen means language or speech or tongue literally yeah so again the arc represents the words that's where we find our salvation and our rescue okay fine so I asked you to remind me of something do you remember what it was none of us remember what it was oh yeah what's the lesson yeah the lesson of what you guys I blew you away with my jokes so you can't even remember the original question generation yes yes exactly yes that's what it was so we said that Nayak was a relative Sadiq and we asked what is the instructive content of that statement and uh see here's what I'm going to tell you a person could think you know thank God spiritually I'm doing really well and I'm doing so well that I don't really need saving right now and therefore I don't need to take refuge in the words sure I'll learn whatever I have to learn to know what I need to do or even learn in order to brush up on my on my my knowledge my scholarship but that type of learning that we're describing where we take shelter in the words where we immerse ourselves there as as a as a form of of therapy that I don't need because thank God my life is good right now so we tell that person hold on a second a real Todd like a big Todd such a big Sadiq that even in his corrupt generation he was a Sadiq you know if he would have been in in a in a healthier generation he would have even been a bit of bigger Sonic and such a big tit and nevertheless Hashem told them take refuge in the word so even when you're riding High take refuge in the words take refuge in the in the words that's one teaching conversely a person might think I'm so low right now I'm so spiritually bankrupt it's not going to help me at this point to go immerse myself in the Holy words to the contrary it's hypocrisy it's a mockery it's a travesty I'm gonna you know what you know what I'm going through right now and I'm gonna go into the holy words as if they're going to shelter me a bum like me it's not going to happen so you know what we tell them we say mister was a bigger bomb than you according to those who say he was to the extent that we're told that he was not even a real Sadiq he was only at Sonic compared to his brother joke never gets funny does it okay all right compared to his brother he was Italian but you want to know something guys by the way I promise you you guys just I'm just pointing out preemptively the hypocrisy tomorrow at work you're all going to tell that joke compared to his brother he was a Todd you know how I know you are because every Jew thinks they know how to tell a joke better than the guy they heard it from so you can say yeah Tao bombed when he told it but I'll tell it right and you're all going to tell that joke tomorrow let me know if I'm right okay um so Naya was a bigger bum than however big of a bum You Think You Are and nevertheless Hashem told him go into the words they will absorb you they'll take you in so here we have a very important lesson from the fact that Nayak may or may not be the biggest tadiq or a total bum both sides of it teach us something important and anyone who has a normal life you know sometimes you're like this sometimes you're like we go we have our ups we have our Downs we have our Good Hair Days having a good hair day soon good yeah okay um sometimes you're not doing so well and One Thing Remains the Same it doesn't matter if we are spiritually thriving or if we're spiritually struggling really bad right now either way we can and we must take refuge in the healing shelter of the Holy words of Torah it's a constant in the Jew's life unchanging now since we started this class this week and it's Paris I have something's bothering me which is I don't know if this bothered anybody else but it bothers that we never spoke about boracious and that's really about was it bothering you it was bothering you totally you're saying that to make me feel good or it was bothered yeah it was bothering me too so I'm going to tell you a quick gracious thing this this this is a this is a short one don't worry don't get scared you think I'm starting up all over again right I wouldn't do that I wouldn't do that to you it's like when you fly into LaGuardia and they start landing and then they go up again and they're like oh yeah we gotta it's not it's not a there's no Runway available you know you know what I'm talking with you I know that's probably more of a JFK crowd but LaGuardia right they go in the holding pattern you go back up again oh we ran out of fuel we're going back to Orlando okay anyways so I I know I'm landing I'm not going to go back up again um this is just like a quick I'm just gonna fly one time around the airport okay we're not not going for a long trip boracious first Parsha first Torah portion it's interesting the the talmud doesn't say that it tells us that the Torah begins with gamelasadim and ends with it begins with kindness and it ends with kindness how does it begin with kindness clothing the naked Adam and Eve were naked God clothed them clothing the naked how does Torah end with kindness the very last Parsha in fact we don't even read it on a Shabbos we read it burying the dead it says Moses passed away God buried him so Torah begins with kindness and ends with kindness okay so the question is is there any specific significance to those instances of kindness other than the fact that it's a nice concept that the entire Torah is sandwiched between two acts of kindness but is there specific meaning about those specific instances of kindness okay so first of all what do they both have in common who was the bestower of kindness in both cases Hashem himself that's right so Hashem is the one bestowing the kindness okay now the recipient of kindness in the first case is Adam and the second case is Moses and they are at two opposite extreme uh levels when they receive the kindness um Adam was at the lowest possible level when God clothed him in fact he only needed clothing because he became aware of his nakedness because of the sin when he ate from the Tree of knowledge he became ashamed of his nudity and that's why he even needed clothing before that he didn't even need clothes also homolytically symbolically his actual physical nakedness was a manifestation of being spiritually naked he was bereft of the one Mitzvah he was given he was given one commandment and he dropped the ball so now he was spiritually naked which manifested itself uh physically so he was at the lowest point that anybody had ever been and nevertheless God bestowed upon Him kindness contrast that with Moses's situation on the day of his passing Moses's entire life was ascending in Holiness we are told that there are 50 Gates 50 Gates of understanding Moses reached the the 49th gate which is the I'm going to use a word now that I like to use penultimate okay penultimate penultimate you know what penultimate means the second to last that's right so the 49th gate is the penultimate gate and um the thing is that's the highest that anyone can reach because you can't get to 50. no human being 50 is infinity it's off the charts you can't reach 50. um this is of knowledge of being of understanding yeah yeah understanding godliness you can't reach 50. it's like amps that go to 11. you cannot get to 50. so you got it okay and you can sit in the front row next week as well um so on his and at the moment of his passing he reached the highest level you know sadika are even greater in their passing than in their lifetime so at that moment he reached the 50th gate and that's why you know where he was buried where God buried Moses Nevada is known by none 50. we said 50 already Bai is in it so he reached the 50th level so he was at the highest possible level that a human being could Attain and at that level Hashem bestowed upon Him kindness he buried him and what does this teach us Adam was at the lowest level Moses was at the highest level no matter where you're at right now whether you're having the worst day of your life or the best day of your life you can and must turn to Hashem for his kindness that's the gracious teaching and the noise teaching was also whether you're having a worse day of Life The Best Day Of Life or anything in between we can and must immerse ourselves in the comforting healing words of Torah now if you would like to have a convenient way to immerse yourself in the comforting healing words of Torah at least once a week you could come you could come here Mondays 8 30 P.M at the livia took Library where you are literally immersed in words that I think over ten thousand books here I think go prove me wrong and how many words do you think well we're gonna have a prize for whoever finds out by the it's like counting the jelly bean jar and then you're gonna be entered into a raffle whoever gets closest to the number of words you're entered in a raffle for a raffle it's not it's not exciting enough yeah okay so that's that's the I don't have any more jokes and yeah okay yeah a little bit fun yeah yeah you finish the cookies please