Storytelling | Parshas Noach

so first of all a good clay dish today is respect - and I also want to mention the today's class is Lilia knishmas in loving memory of Alta Shula sward love from yerushalayim who's 10th to your siteís today she was three years old when she passed from a tragic accident and Alta Shula bossy little Haim Tatum abuse of Yitzhak and the shona should have in alia try to shift gears here they say back in Soviet Russia there was a guy sort of a $1 and he was sitting around not doing much one to amuse himself he picked up the phone he called the KGB so they answered they say yeah he says is this the KGB they say yeah he says okay tell me a joke so they say sure what's your address he tells them the address five minutes later the door bursts open KGB officers come they arrest the guy they throw them into a work camp in Siberia for 15 years 15 years later he gets out he goes back moves back into his old apartment he's sitting around bored wants to amuse himself so he picks up the phone and he calls the KGB and they say yeah I said yeah is this the KGB they say yeah it is he says tell me a joke so they say sure what's your address he says no I know that joke already okay so the question is today about jokes stories they don't get old you know how many times can you tell the same joke and people still laugh how many times can you tell the same story and people are still interested and yet what do we see today is we mention Sarastro dish but it's also the second week of the new cycle of Torah readings were in partials Naya and what we're doing is we're telling the stories all over again started last week with veracious with creation with Adam and Eve and now we're we're talking about Noah and the flood and next week will be Abraham in his life and Isaac and Jacob and all the the forefathers and the patriarchs the matriarchs why do we keep telling these stories why don't these stories get old so that's a general question then I want to ask a more specific question and I forgot a hummus is there a comic bodacious I think there's a how much bodacious back there on the shelf the blew up a little bit higher the blue for them and I hope does have Rashi could you take a look and just make make sure it has Rashi yeah okay perfect all right excellent right so let's do this correctly how could I forget my Amish all right purchase niya starts like this a little is nayaka these are the offspring these are the children of Noah we're familiar with genealogy we've had it before already in in Torah know if Sadiq Noah was a righteous man Tom him oh yeah bid a race off he was complete or perfect in his generations as well Hakeem his hallelujah Hashem the Lord our God went with escorted accompanied no yeah alright now there's a blaring question the Rashi addresses which he presumes that a five-year-old would would ask which is we set it up we said Eilat a listener this is the genealogy of the descendants the the officering the children of Noah and then we didn't say it I mean in the next verse it says for Yale had no official a Shabbat him know every fathered three children as Seamus harmless the office that's the genealogy those are the toiled days the children of Noah but it says these are the children of Noah but then he doesn't say the children now what does it do it tells us his greatness it says he was he was a with he was a righteous man he was perfect in his generations Hashem walked with him so Rashi addresses this he says hey Oliver he's cute I since we mentioned him SOT there to be shift way we relate his praise how do we know that's a thing shanell like it says says in King Solomon the wisest of all men wrote a book of private proverbs Mitchell a Shannon is a katatak LaRocca mention a Tzadik for praise and if you actually look up broschi on that verse in Proverbs Rashi says when you mention it Sadiq bless him so that's the first thing that we learn we learn that when you mention it Sadiq even though it might be sort of like a parenthetical statement or it's off topic or it doesn't follow through with the flow of the sentence I was gonna tell you the lineage that descended from there but you know I mentioned Noah and I gotta tell you his credentials I got to tell you his greatness and that's that's a teaching okay now it's known the after ever said the ballot Anya that Peter Shashikala himesh is yeah initial theta yay no shelter is from the word gain it's the wine of Tyra wine we know about wine it says sniffing is yang Yeats a sight that when wine goes in the secrets come out now that means on a you know by a biochemical level as well but also wine symbolically is that which brings out hidden mysteries in fact yawn and side are the same game Adria the both seventy so the wine of Tyra is Peter chachalaca chachalaca much as we mentioned was written to answer the question that a intelligent five-year-old would have about the simple meaning of the verses and yet it's not so simple it's simple and at the same time as deep lessons there was a sick huh a gathering matzah Shabbos Pasha's gracious meaning the Saturday night after they read bodacious in 1974 it was already tough Shin lawmen hey where the LA Bob should ever spoke to a group of mache Chabad women and girls and in this sefa that ever gave many many teachings that are applicable to women and one of the teachings was based on this verse with this ration that ever asked the question what's the deeper lesson we understand the simple meaning just as we just explained but what's the deeper lesson and the instruction to us that's embedded also in this in this ration okay and as I was mentioning also we had a general question we're starting the first of the five books again and we're telling the stories of the page in the matriarchs again what's the deal with telling those stories again okay so you following the basic question you have a general question why are we telling the stories again and we have a more specific question what's the deeper teaching in this rashia that says that when you mention it's attic you relate his praise so in order to answer these questions what I want to do first I'm gonna tell you a story okay so stories like this the third Rebbe of Habad that's mr sadýk he was the grandson of the alter rebbe at the ballot Anya he had a closet a devoted disciple who was in his own right a great mystic and teacher he wrote siddik commentary and his name was Reb Isaac Hummel er you took Isaac homily there was one time the term ascetic sent him Isaac on a slickest to erosion erosion was the court of rebus Roe Friedman the great-grandson of the Miss Richard a maggot that's the Hasidic mich pathology there okay but the the roshan air sadiq rebus roll was a great Sadiq in his own right and he was as we mentioned a contemporary of the Thomas Attic the term italic centered up Isaac an analogous pertaining to communal matters and Isaac spent a few days in the court of the Russian air and being that of Isaac was from the Habad Court and he was used to that style of a Sidis and the Russian air was the Polish style of a sittest it was it was foreign to him and therefore it was very interesting to him so during his visit Isaac was closely watching the conduct of the Regina and trying to learn what they do different there in Poland all right so on the first day he was there what happened is a couple of the Russian heirs C diem came to the court and they both had fought him in fact they both had written for him one of them wrote a safer of he do IRA he himself was a great scholar and he wrote a safer of innovative teachings on Talmudic thinking the other had written a book of stories Hasidic stories so both of these books were presented to the originary Sadiq at the same time Reb Isaac was very interested when he noticed that although they were both presented at the same time the rusian are reacted and spoke about and praised the book of stories and then only afterward he mentioned that the book of hadoo sheiter was also good later he had his attendant right out in approbation a written as gamma and he first gave to the author of the book of stories and afterwards he gave to the author of the book of tradition and of Isaac noted this because in his mind it's a it's more of a feat or it's more of an accomplishment to write real Torah scholarship than to compile stories but he didn't say anything few days later it was rich a dish which month rich fetish I don't know but educators just like today's English and the ocean are used to have a suitors fish maybe she used to have a meal to celebrate the new month at the meal the ruiner began speaking and he said our esteemed guest the Lithuanian genius referring to Isaac Homer Lithuanian sometimes means non Hasidic but in this case the Habad Hassidim being from white Russia which was part of Lithuania as opposed to Poland where the bulk of a Sydenham were from so Lithuanian meant the Habad Hassan he says IRA steamed gas the list genius have wonders about my conduct the ocean air was a you know very holy and pure man and he you know as many such figures he was had some sort of clairvoyance he could read mine so he knew that the that of Isaac was thinking this so he says our guest our esteemed guest the Lithuanian genius he has a question about my conduct in giving acknowledgement to the book of stories before the book of scholarship so the Russian er says I only learned from the best teacher I learned from Hashem I learned from uh Shem that when you start the Torah you start with voracious and safe operations is full of stories and the first Mitzvah doesn't even begin until the second book and not even the first part of the second book it's not even till parties boy when you have a lady to say look I'm the Mitzvah of Rosh Chodesh interestingly enough that it was an Irish credit from the story took took place so in and in fact the first Rashi in in himesh on the first verse asks this question seemingly Torah could have begun with the first mitzvah finish as I look at why does it begin with all of these stories with Toro means high drama means instruction so why stories so Rashi says that this itself stories are instruction explained specifically what that instruction is but the point is that isn't I said I learned from the best H I learned from Hashem that before Hashem got into the mitzvahs first he told the stories about the righteous patriarchs and matriarchs and this too is the way that we are to educate ourselves and educate our children is the basis of yiddish kite are the stories and then we talk about the ideas we talk about the the deep concepts it's interesting I once heard a about dashing a you know speaker you once gave a piece of advice that I have found personally extremely useful and I try to live by it there's a there's a mission in picking Elvis that says call me shakaama same Aruba all myself anyone who has more wisdom than deed meaning someone who's you know like in the ivory tower the academic you know sort of so to speak the Torah equivalent of the you know the the the the the scholar he knows a lot but he's lacking in my say he's lacking in action he doesn't do as much as he knows to do so it says Hamas Hamas animus chemist his his wisdom will not endure as opposed to the person who maybe doesn't have so much Kaufman the Mishna says but he has a lot of my said there's a lot of action and therefore even what he knows will be preserved so this ball darshan said Cole Misha Hamas a mood rubra anyone who has a lot of information a lot of smart stuff to say but it's more than mice of than the mice in the micelle Simmons a story he has more information than stories hummus a meniscus you won't remember the information that he talked but if he has more stories that information then you'll remember the information so I try to follow this in fact I'm ostensibly following it right now so that's the idea that the basis of you this kite are in the stories and specifically stories of holy and pure and righteous individuals there's a saying that the rest of the world tells their children's stories to put them to sleep and we Jews tell our children's stories to keep them awake so if this principle of putting the stories first is important even for adults as the reasoner acknowledged how much more so in the education of children who are learning the foundations of Judaism that their Judaism is based on stories so I want to relate to you I mentioned at the beginning of the class that today is the yard site of a young girl mentioned the beginning Alto Shula Buster a bottle of MBA Soviets Kaka and I want to tell you one of her favorite stories she was three years old so what kind of ideas of Toyota could she understand I don't know but she knew this story and it was one of her mother's favorite stories as a child and it was when one of her favorite stories and it was a story that she could connect with on a personal level as well stories like this there were two sisters named Leia and Rahul good names for some Jewish girls and Leia and Rocco were not just sisters they were they were best of friends and one day the dam broke and water came rushing through the town and washed everything away and Leia was lost and when she found her way she was in a different town in fact it was not a Jewish town was a non-jewish town and they assumed that her parents had been wiped out in the disaster and these non-jews adopted her and raised her as a non-jew at any rate was years later and Leia got lost in a forest and she was wandering by herself she's trying to find her way and it's getting dark dark in the forest there was really no way to find anything there no way to see and just as it was getting impossible to see her way if you saw a faint little light and just as it was starting to get dark she saw a light and as she followed the light and she discovered the light was coming from a little house he entered the house and she saw a candle she saw a girl her age standing next to the candle at that moment everything clicked and she remembered that was the Shabbos candle and that was her long-lost sister Oracle and Leia found Rahel through the candle obviously it's a very meaningful story to a little girl who was a shloka her parents were both American both from the states they went on Schlick has to editor kadish to the Holy Land specifically in Iraq Edition yerushalayim and that idea of lighting your candle and of course as you know that I was stressed that even three-year-old girls should light Shabbos candles so little Shula had her Shabbos candle and for her that was you know a life's mission even if she didn't understand the depth of it she knew what this story meant and she knew the idea of lighting that candle being that beacon for your long-lost sister which every Jew is our brother or sister and we like that light to draw them back home so I tell you the story not just lillian ich muss but i but i tell it as a great example of terrific parenting where a very deep concept was taught to a to a small child and it was taught through the story and that this this is this is the lesson for all of us that in the stories are contained the deepest ideas so now I'll tell you the answer to the original question we were saying in general why do we start over and tell these stories again when we know these stories and the answer simple answer is because we keep telling the stories because in the stories are contained an endless trove of meaning instruction guidance for our lives we just keep revisiting the stories of our holy Matri arcs and patriarchs and of all the holy people throughout the food throughout the generations but specifically remember asked a specific question when this was from the rebus addressed to a group of women why does she say that when you mention that sadiq you should mention his praise the never said like this there's a deeper lesson here till there's no yet means children and no it was it Sadiq the homage coulomb tsadikim all Jews are called Sadiq so really this verse is telling you how Sadiq should raise his or her child this is parenting advice for a Sadiq to raise the child of it Sadiq and every Jew is it Sadiq and every Jewish child is it Sadiq and the child of exotic so if you want to have toilets if you want to raise a child the way outside that raises a child here's the tip get excited about tsadikim to the extent that when you so much as mentioned the name you have to stop that ever says in the in the decision and the he describes the excitement he says ons as if unhappen me to meet a stylist they should be seized with with excitement the parents when they so much as other the name the mention of the Sadiq is a hurts addict libera all of a sudden you say I can't even hold back I want to tell you what that sada he was a Tommy amber he went with him this is the deeper hidden teaching in the Russia is when you talk to your children and you so much as mentioned that side that you get excited and say you know I gotta tell you a story about this static so I'll tell you one more story and the story is about a villain a real villain not unfortunately not a Disney cartoon villain a unfortunately a Jew by the name of shamanic ifer Shimon the heretic he was one of the leaders of the mask elem of the Jewish enlightenment and he was specifically a I don't know if you call him an emissary Ashley Ashley 'his for a mitzvah not for Nevada but he was sent out by the Enlightenment from Germany they sent him to Eastern Europe to to find the best and the brightest and to convert them over to heresy and then he would see he himself as a Talmud Holcomb and he used his knowledge for for evil what he would do he would impress the parents with his scholarship and then he would start teaching the children and then when he found a young man with with promise he would tell the parents oh your child he has such talent it's a shame to waste it here in your little chapel in Poland I'm gonna send him to a big yeshiva and what he really did is he sent him to Germany and he sent them to secular schools where they took him away from the true path so he was called shamanic - now he peddled his wares in a few different communities in Eastern Europe and he wrote memoirs he wrote a diary about it and how do we have his diary because I'm gonna ruin the end of the story but the alter epic caught him and chased him out of town and when he fled he left behind his writings so we got his diary and we found out all of his nefarious plans and everything that he had been involved in and all the operations how he had done it he wrote about the fact that when he would go to Poland and he would try to make inroads among the Cosette him there he said their style was more emotional so he says they were easier prey he said because all he had to do was sow seeds of cynicism like he would just you know sort of make cynical comments sort of you know denigrating or scoffing and that was enough to sort of get his hooks in them he says he had he had a lot of problems though with with the litte Fisher hassidim which is sort of an oxymoron I mentioned before the original referred to Isaac humbler as a litte fishin today literature means decidedly nang'k acidic but Chabad is sort of an anomaly being the literature see them so the doctor Deba in fact among the tell me they are maggot I have to tell you stuff dimension because I mentioned the after data you know I've heard just one dimensions of the about the after ever the ball shan't have had 60 sheesh him tell me Adam and the maggot was pshhh nyam he had double like Elisha was double Evelio and prophecy the maggot had 120 students now obviously had tens of thousands of followers and people who were influenced by him but I'm saying actual disciples those 120 disciples were the all-stars of Judaism and we were talking about the rebellion melech and absortion and the highs in that I believe me it's for Berdych ever and smell chemicals but and his brother the Bala floor I mean just the All Stars and then there was the the sort of the different one who they used to calm the Litvak they called him the Litvak who was it the market called him Salman you know schneir Salman of the ADI and he had a different style in fact they say yeah and this is off topic but I mentioned the alte Rebbe and I'm excited I want to tell you something look lady it's a ever said that we all ate from the same Bowl but the lip-lock took the cream you know man you know how cream is the you know rises to the top so they were eating I guess from the same Bowl metaphorically meaning they all heard teachings from the maggot but the Litvak meaning the out that ever took the cream and they say that the altar was the only one who didn't follow the altar that was the only one who heard an entire teaching of the maggot from beginning to end why it wasn't that the other talmidim or playing hooky that's for Sean they were great tsadikim he was the only one who didn't fall into a trance of sort of an otherworldly state the other talmidim were so holy and so spiritual as was the out there ABBA but they would hear the teachings and they would sort of like it was too much for them to blow them away and then they would not hear the rest of the teaching so then you're gonna ask well if the Alpha devil was also holy how come it didn't have that effect on him why because he was the Litvak amaya shalt I'll live like it says in Tonya the brain rules over the heart so even though he was also blown away but he had a certain stoicism a certain measure of you know intellectual control over the emotions so he wouldn't allow himself to become blown away by the story and by the by the teaching by the teachings of the of the market I'll tell you also that when the outer I became to message one of the things that he heard from the other tell made them was I believe he heard this from the the Magid son the mala Rebbe of ROM who who was the Russian heirs grandson a grandfather the oceanarium rebus throat was the grandson of of a from the mouth I believe at any rate the the mala told in the Mucky was called the mouth because he was so holy he told the altar Abba when he arrived that by us a teaching at or teaching Sidis that the Dabba teaches is terrible path oral torah but a myself in latin a story from the rather either about the river or from the raba that's terrible south that's the written that's the written Torah so at any rate I'm sorry I got excited about the Alpha deficit told you bunch of other stuff but Shimon a kafir he said he couldn't he had a hard time with the literature to see them with the kibbutz it and he says because one is their very intellectual but he says he had a way around it he had to work harder but he all he himself like I told he was a Torah scholar so he would dazzle them with his scholarship he said but the one problem he said the one thing he couldn't get past and he decided just to forget it because they were you know just too hard to deal with he said he noticed something among these hid them that when they would mention the rabbit when they would so much as mention that ever if they would mention the rabbit or someone who mentioned that ever to them or any topic they would stop whatever they were then he said simple women and and grandmothers would stop they would go find water they would wash their hands three times like Nutella said I am and then they would come back to the conversation because they didn't want to talk about that Sadiq before they wash their hands he said once he saw this he says I can't deal with these people because they have that level of attachment to holy people when you have that kind of relationship with living breathing examples of Judaism it's very hard to be subversive when people's attachment is more conceptual more abstract okay so I also know some smart ideas I can you know twist it and I can get into their head but when they have tsadikim in their lives when they have role models when they have like I say living breathing examples of Judaism that they know and they love and they feel attached to forget it you can't undermine their Judaism so let's all remember to enjoy the stories of the obvious Nimoy's in the Commish to enjoy the stories of the holy jewish men and women throughout history throughout the ages throughout all the generations tell them to your children and tell them to each other and tell them to yourself I'm going to cry this