The Divine Destiny of America: Observing Shabbat Secures Our Future as Encouraged by President Trump

[music] [singing] [music] [singing] [music and singing] >> Shalom everyone. Um today is the 30 ninth day of the Omer. We are only mere 10 days from Shavuot. I'd like to explore some of the critical critical events that have happened in this past week and looking forward to Yom Yerushalayim. We'll be entering the 70th year of a united Yerushalayim. This uh which is coming up. And Shabbat Bamidbar, which has been called Shabbat shall Trump because famously President Trump has asked that the world observe that at least American Jews um all observe and maybe all of America observe the Sabbath of Parshat Bamidbar. Okay. This coming week's Shabbat. So I'm going to explore the bashert or the significance of why this Shabbat is Bamidbar might have been, whether he knew it or not, an ideal choice for that call. And of course it's um right after Yom Yerushalayim and still in the month in the month of Iyar, which is as we have been speaking about this past several weeks. The month of the rise of the Jewish people as a nation to glory. But before we analyze the significance of Shabbat shall Trump and Yom Yerushalayim, I want to reflect back just a moment on the events of of Lag Ba Omer and Meron. I was yesterday privileged to be in Meron. Um although several days past the Yahrzeit, but as my dear Robin mentor from Safed, Rav um Kenig or Ephraim Kenig, leader of the Breslov community of Safed and a very important um leader and an normal person in the in the world in the Haredi world today um and mentor to many, many people just an overall brilliant and holy person said that, you know, the tzaddik is always there for you. So, go. Whether you can go on the on the Yahrzeit 3 days before 3 days after, one shouldn't wear themselves out about it because the tzaddik is always there. So, now I was privileged with my wife to get there yesterday on Sunday. But prior to that, on Lag Ba Omer itself we experienced an interesting gathering in Yerushalayim which has stuck with me as we think about Yerushalayim coming. We were in Yerushalayim uh celebrating our 25th anniversary, I will say. My wonderful wife Chani taking out our children and we passed by the Kever of a different Rabbi Shimon, Shimon HaTzaddik. Now, let me explain who Shimon HaTzaddik was. His burial place is on the edge of the Jewish um I should I should say neighborhoods of Yerushalayim right by the Or Sameach Yeshiva and as you may know, there's like a line that you cross over the between the Sha'ar Sha'ul area and the actually very very well-developed neighborhoods of Har Nof, Har Herzl, Har Dafna in Yerushalayim. And the border point is pretty much the Kever of Shimon HaTzaddik who was as it says in Pirkei Avot in the first chapter, Mishiyarei Knesset HaGedolah, one of the great leaders of that group of 120 illustrious rabbinic personalities, including many prophets, who guided the Jewish people in their 70 years of diaspora. And I mentioned 70 B'dafka because of two connections. One, first of all, we're going to be entering the 70th year of the United Yerushalayim this week. Because this is the 69th anniversary of of unification. That means one day afterwards, we already entered the 70th year. That's significant. It's significant because we also read in the previous weeks uh Torah reading, Behar Bechukotai, which I'd like to reflect back on as a sandwich between these events. Cuz remember Lag B'Omer, then we went on to Behar Bechukotai. And then we uh are now um heading towards uh Shabbat Bamidbar, part preceded by Yom Yerushalayim, and then we're going to be moving on in a short order to Shavuot. The idea of 70 was spoken about at length in last week's parsha of the 70 years that the sabbatical year was not observed by a majority of the Jewish people or the remainder of the Jewish people in the land of Israel during the times of the first Beit Hamikdash, leading to 70 years of galut. As the as the Torah reading told us last week, "Az tirtza aretz et shabbatot." So, secha, "The nation of shabbat." Again, links in here because the sabbatical year, which occurs once every 7 years, was not observed. 70 sabbatical years were not observed. Now, if you take 70 sabbatical years, uh how long is that take to transpire? Well, it's 7 * It's 70 * 7, which is uh 490 years, close to 500 years. And we'll see what that actually means, including the over whatever. Point being that the 70 years of exile corresponded to the 70 sabbatical years. So, again, we touched on the notion of Shabbos. We're in the middle of Sefirat Omer, which again is based on the notion of the countings of the sevens, you know, seven times seven, 49 days, similar to the structure of the of the of the galut. So, what's going on over here? And this is the Shabbat that we're focusing on. Uh the national Shabbos for Jews of America, and perhaps it really it should be for around the world. So, I want to just take a little deeper look at this uh situation. The this the parsha is Behar. We have to examine why it is that Shabbos is so integral to Eretz Yisrael and to the how shall I say success of the Jewish people in the land of Israel. So, let's just look at a couple of pesukim uh that describes that. One might think maybe there are other things that are equally important. Important, we know many Jews keep Shabbos. There are unfortunately many Jews that don't keep Shabbos as of yet. Uh we hope they do. We hope that Shabbos, as the president encouraged, would be viewed as a positive thing. By the way, the comments of the Jewish community in America were logic were on, you know, predictably split on this concept along the following lines. Those two were in the Orthodox community praised it. Shabbos wonderful. They praised it either because they want Jews to be more observant or because they see the value of the concept of Shabbos that is a bris that is the covenant between Hashem and the Jewish people. And that's one of the rich contributions of of Klal Yisrael to the world is the concept of Shabbos. On a deeper level, it also represents the uh the idea the concept of a destination in time. In other words, life doesn't just drone on. There is there are mark there are points there are achievements. The Shabbos concept gives man meaning gives man purpose gives man also a sense of timing and destiny that there is a world to come that there is a much to accomplish in this world. Lo alecha hamlacha ligmor v'lo ata ben chorin l'hivatel mimena. We are neither in the Shabbos period nor in the uh quote unquote six-day-a-week period in our history. We're in both. We're we're progressing towards a Shabbos. This is the eye concept of Mashiach the eye concept of redemption that of all things good form their form their foundation on the idea of destination. There is a destination. There's work to be done and reward to be achieved. So this was a great great contribution as I mentioned in the shiur that I will release today uh um it wasn't lauded uh in Congress by uh King Charles that much. He didn't go in that direction. That king didn't go in that direction at all. But you have to listen to the previous shiur when I analyze his remarks. But we we can say that Hakadosh Baruch Hu made a very very powerful promise. And he said as follows, Im b'chukosai seilechu, if you're going to follow all of my commandments, v'nasati gishmeichem b'itam, you're going to have financial success in the land of Israel. You're going to have military success in the land of Israel. Isn't that what we want? And what do we want more than anything else than military success right now against our mortal enemies our incredibly dangerous non-stop resilient and evil beyond belief. Every day the Hezbollah are sending are sending explosive drones that are having damage. Every day the the Gaza terrorists are testing the the yellow line of protection. Every day Iran plots how to break out of its conundrum and hold on to its hope of a nuclear weapon to destroy Israel with and America with. It's unbelievable what's going on. The bigger and the tenacity of evil is not to be believed. It's it's something that confounds the mind. Isn't it enough? How much can you be beaten or defeated? No, they cling to the hope of evil of living to cause harm another day. Unbelievable. And that's their meaning. That's their understanding of what's meaningful in the world. Unfortunately, we have to contend with that. But the says, if you want to have success against these incredibly um you you know, reprehensible and irrepressible enemies, shabbos will help. Shabbos is the key. Uh and and if you don't, then what will you leave below to us all? Then what's going to be? He says, unfortunately, and he says also to him, Sham says, you're going to have a lot of you're going to have a lot of problems. So, following the Torah, more importantly, following a connection to Hashem and his mitzvahs and wanting to be connected to Hashem and his mitzvahs. I'm not going into the details, just a general desire. You know that in the October 7th and the hostage debacles, many of those people created a very powerful connection to Hashem through their prayers, through symbolic mitzvahs like lighting candles or making kiddush, they didn't you know, they weren't worried about making a roof top ceiling you know, necessarily. They didn't know about those things, but connection to Hashem they found they found and that's what mitzvahs really are a way to connect with Hashem. Leshon tzav tzav. Tzav tzav means a connection. It's very important to remember the idea of connection and as I will share with you the vav, letter vav represents chibur represents connection. When they built the Mishkan the parshas that describe the building of Mishkan I start with the letter vav. Almost every word starts with the letter vav because they put the Mishkan together piece by piece by piece. Mishkan represents the unified klal Yisrael. We'll get to that more in the moment when we speak about Bamidbar, but but Hashem said is vishavti es gaon uzchem. Don't think that it's your might alone and your you know, sense of great intelligence, military prowess which is certainly there is venatati es however shmechem kevarzel es not going to grant you prosperity. And you might be disappointed. Velo titen artzechem lach, the land will not cooperate with you. Eretz Yisrael is not like other lands. It is a land that exists in a state of the future of other lands. Let me explain. You know, we the world is created out of four elements. Domem, tzomeach, chai, medaber. The highest level of those that speak human beings. There was a time when animals spoke. We know in the in the time of Noach such as the donkey of Bilam, such as the nachash in Gan Eden, right? Such as the cows that sang songs when they brought the Aron Kodesh back through Beit Shemesh to Yerushalayim. But that was a taste of what the next level reality is. In other words, there'll be more that will join the world of debor. Uh but everything moves up. So, if everything moves up a notch, minerals are not minerals anymore. They grow. They are veg- veget- vegetable-like. They said in the base of Megillas Shtar HaMelech, gold trees bore gold fruit. How can that be? Cuz minerals will upgrade to vegetable. This is a concept I've discussed on many occasions. The The vegetables step up to be like animals, and the animals become medabrim. And what do we become? We become a higher, elevated, spiritual form of self. We grow out of our animal-like um fleshiness and desires and become angelic. We become When we're still going to be human beings, but we're going to be more angelic, much like Moshe Rabbeinu, whose face shone, much like Eliyahu HaNavi, who was taken to Shamayim. And actually, the uh Nachman of Breslov speaks of this idea in a in a in a shiur about Chanukah, in which he speaks about the dreidel and the world going round and round. He said, "The world is constantly like a wheel, and much like the as we know, the astrological signs of the zodiac spin around, you know, come back to the same point a year later. That's how we know a year has transpired, along with the the evidence of seasons and so on." So, he says, "That's what happens human beings do. There are some human beings that rise to the level of angels. There are some angels that fall down to the level of human beings. We see it all the time. Rise and fall, rise and fall, rise and fall. That's why you should never ever get discouraged, because if you're on a down time, let's say a parnassah and health, it doesn't mean that there can't be Like, think of yourself on a merry-go-round. You're on a merry-go-round, you might be on the lowest point right now, but that doesn't mean you're going to stay there, cuz merry-go-rounds keep moving. Your life will keep moving," says Rebbe Nachman, so don't despair. So, if what happens here is that the land of Israel always retains a quality of being more than mineral. Okay? It's more like a or vegetable. It's a lot more than that. It's almost like a a state which is close to human. It doesn't speak, but it relates. It can have feelings of love, much like an animal. Loves his master. Is loyal to his master. Dogs are famous for this. Not so much cats. But dogs are famously loyal. They'll die for their master. Unbelievable. They'll do unbelievable things. They'll protect them. They'll protect their children. It's incredible thing. That's Eretz Yisrael. Eretz Yisrael will protect us. Will feed us. Will be kind to us. Right? If we are holding by what it demands of us, which is holiness, Torah, and mitzvahs, which is why the land of Israel, like people, keeps the Shabbos. It's incredible thing. The land needs Shabbos. What does the land need Shabbos for? The land also works, you know. It works hard. We work six days a week and rest on Shabbos. The land works hard for six years and needs to rest on Shabbos cuz it's a spirit There's a spiritual component of the land of Israel. And it's mentioned miraculously in this week's in this past week's parsha, as it says that the land of Israel will never flourish, will always remain a churban if the Jewish people leave. It says, "V'shamah shamemu aleha oyveichem hayoshvim bah." This is in paragraph vav, pasuk lamed bais. "If I destroy the land because you don't want the relationship with the holiness of the land of Israel. You're not interested in the Shabbat concept. Okay? You're not interested in a spiritual destiny, in a rising. You're just interested in your work. You're interested in your 6 days a week, your technology, your growth, your prosperity, your your your work. Then then you're going to miss the point. And the land of Israel doesn't want that. It wants a lot It wants a relationship with you. As you mostly on the earth and just as you abandon the land and its spiritual and quality, then the sham will lay out of a him. The the your your enemies will come and destroy because that's what that's what Israel had. It's either in two states. It's either flourishing for the Jewish people or it's shutting down. And once it shuts down the sham will lay out of a him I used to be in the It's not going to respond to another master. It can't. It's loyal to the Jewish people. If the Jewish people spurn it like if a man spurns a friend or wife then that's a bad situation. You need shalom bayit. You have to come back together. But in the meantime, that marriage is broken. That doesn't mean that she's going to go and marry somebody else. Not the truth. That's that's just one of the remarkable uh proofs of the authenticity of Torah in this possible here. And we know that famously Mark Twain Samuel Clemens documented as far and as late as 1865 which was merely 100 years before the the reunification of Jerusalem, right? That there wasn't even a tumbleweed in Israel when he traveled from the ports towards Jerusalem. He couldn't even find a cactus. He couldn't find anything. Why? Because the Jewish people had not really in earnest begun to return. That was exactly the period where people began to really come back. They started to come back in the mid mid-18th century trickles, but the real return happens in the 1860s, 1870s, 1880s. And then of course, within a short order of time, Misholaim is reunited in 1967. So, that is a dramatic dramatic thing. We cannot ignore the fact that or or expect to live in the land of Israel purely on 6-day-a-week energy. And that's one of the things that is so remarkable about the Jewish people that we have an innate sense. We are we are just like Eretz Yisrael has an innate spirituality, Jewish people have an innate spirituality. And it drives us. It drives us to greatness. It It drives us to connection. It drives us to global influence. That's precisely what President Trump was talking about. You know, there's an important story about they're talking about the 250th anniversary and the Jewish contribution. It's a very important story about they put a big sign about George Washington crossing the Delaware, right? You know that story? Like that was the big story. George Washington did a sneak attack on the British crossing the Delaware, right? And what they don't tell is the story behind that. And there was a Jewish soldier who on that wintry day lit a Hanukkah candle in George Washington's camp. While he went looking around his troops and was prepared to surrender to the British cuz his troops were suffering from frostbite and cold and they just were no shape to fight and and Washington said, "I can't do this to them anymore. I've got to surrender." And then he saw this Jewish soldier lighting a Hanukkah candle and he inquired him what it was and he told him the story of of the Maccabees and that turned This is documented. It turned George Washington's mind around. He says, "If you have that faith from that many years ago that you could triumph, then we're we're going to be able to do it, too." And he gave the command to cross the Delaware because he saw a Hanukkah candle, because he saw light from Yerushalayim that gave a message of spiritual hope. And the story ends that sometime after the war, this fellow, this soldier, had a shop of some kind. Maybe he was a metalworker or something and George Washington, the first president, who was a very great man, by the way, by all intents and purposes. And this is what I referred to in the other shiur that I released this week, the contrast between how the British monarch described values and virtues coming from nothing Jewish, okay? Nothing. As opposed to Trump, who recognizes the Jewish contribution with of the biggest kind with Shabbos. It's just unbelievable. But here's that contribution where a Jewish soldier inspired with a tale of Hanukkah how the the small band of Jews could rise against this despotic horrific, um, you know, Greek >> [clears throat] >> mercenary armies. And uh and triumph because of the spirit and they did. And so George Washington comes to his shop and he gives him a present of a Hanukiah. He gives him a Hanukkah menorah. And that's how that story ended. And that's the real greatness of [clears throat] America that they were responsive to Jewish values. They learned Hebrew. They thought that th- their their Christianity was not Anglican and certainly not Catholic. It was rooted in the Torah itself. These are people who believed in God and believed in the goodness of the Hamish Humash Torah. And and the ones in England who did were the ones who wrote the Balfour Declaration. But for the most part, that's not the reality today. And I don't want to go into that, but the Christianity that's starting to flourish in America, sadly, is the kind that is rife with anti-Semitism. Just the opposite. It's hatred of the Jewish people, hatred of their values, and what they {quote} did to the their founding Jewish uh uh whatever you want to call it. Now, so so in this parsha Bechukotai, in which we say "Aretz shabbasosav." Let me Let me share with you what Rashi said about that. What's the calculation? It comes out that out of the 850 years that the Jewish people went from leaving Egypt till the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash, the last 40 years, even the loyal Jews of Judea, were kind of lost. They had been influenced by the wicked King Manasseh. And even though there were recovery periods by Yoshiyahu HaMelech, who lived in the time of Yirmiyahu, who was who was the prophet of the destruction, the last 40 years, the Jewish people had abandoned their Yiddishkeit and abandoned certainly shmita observance. The northern tribes, who were detached, again, no vav, they they were not attached as much to Torah mitzvot from their inception, because the very first breakaway Jewish king from HaMelech, Yerovam ben Nevat, put up right away idols. Okay, you can argue that it may not have been idolatry in its classic sense, but whatever it was, it was certainly a break from the ratzon Hashem and the and the Torah. And he's considered as having no chelek in Olam Haba, which is very, very harsh. So, that that meant that the northern tribes for over 300 years also did not keep Torah mitzvot. So, out of the out of the 850 years, remember they were exiled uh 40 years before the Beit Beit Hamikdash was destroyed. So, that they they were only around 370 years of the actual Beit Hamikdash. Rashi makes the cheshbon that the first 440 years everybody was pretty frum. There was a period of the prophets. It was the period all the way up to Shmuel HaNavi. And you know, they had their problems, but but ultimately the Jewish people reconciled with their nevi'im and listened to them. Once they got into the era of the kings and the building of the Beit Hamikdash, then the north northern tribes went off the derech. Isn't that sad that the kingdom is what led them off the derech. Yeravam ben Nevat led them away as a king. No navi would lead them away from Torah mitzvot. So, once we unfortunately copied the nations and installed kings as as we learn about in Sefer Shmuel, even though it was necessary on many levels, but still it was a downgrade from the true holiness of the Jewish people who just wants to listen to the prophetic words of Hashem from the words of the navi himself. And then everybody went off the derech and they stopped keeping shmita for hundreds of years, and that was the beginning of the end. So, however, with all the horrible things that the tochacha of Bechukotai, the the the story of our of our first galut according to Ramban, there's a promise. And that promise is very, very profound. It that that even though we are in the lands of of our enemies, Hashem will not abandon us completely. Says here in Parshat Acharei Mot Passuk Passuk uh Mem Bet, and this is what I want to analyze for you for a moment. It says "V'zacharti et brit Yaakov. I remember I will remember af ani eleh am ha keri even though I did all these things because you abandoned me and so on and I brought you to lands of my enemies, az yichan o yishkan levavchem ha'arel, your uncircumcised heart, I've got to we'll do we'll have uncircumcised hearts. Az yirtzu avonam, then they'll find teshuvah. They'll gain teshuvah and forgiveness. V'zacharti et brit Yaakov. I remember the covenant of of Yaakov, but af et brit Yitzchak. I'll remember and Yitzchak, too. But af et brit Avraham eskor v'ha'aretz eskor. Okay? V'ha'aretz te'azeiv mehem, the land will be in that first galut period, v'teiretz et shabbatoteha b'hashmatam mehem v'hem yirtzu et avonam. In other words, by breaking apart the Jewish people from the land of Israel, they'll each have a chance to recuperate, as it were, to regain, to reflect, to look at their separation and see that it's not ideal, that it's not what's necessary, and it's not what's desirable. And it says "V'gam zot b'yosham b'eretz oyeveihem lo ma'asti lo v'lo ga'alti l'chalo sam l'hafer briti." So, I will never choose another nation. And then it says "V'zacharti et brit rishonim asher hotzeisiha me'eretz Mitzrayim l'eini hagoyim." I'll remember what I did with all that I brought you out. Rashi says here, "Brits shall schlocken." Okay, let's analyze this for a moment. The first question Hazal asked was, "Why is it backwards? I'll remember Yakov, I'll remember Yitzchak Uh not not remember Yitzchak. I will also Also Yitzchak doesn't say remember by Yitzchak because the memory of Yitzchak's suffering is always in front of Hashem. It's another profound thing. The Jews who suffer don't need to be remembered by Hashem. Right? There's no memory. Their their memory is everlasting cuz they died of kiddush Hashem. It's like Yitzchak was ki'ilu slaughtered or was ready for slaughter. That mesirat nefesh of the slaughtered Jews will never be forgotten by Hashem ever. That's what we call Yizkor. Do you understand why we say Yizkor for a lost loved one? You don't have to say It doesn't say Eskor et Yitzchak. It says "Ofis Yitzchak." But then But then the Avram and then the land and then afterwards the Shvatim. Let's understand this. Is that the right order? Start Avram, Yitzchak, Yakov, Shvatim, land of Israel. That was the logical order. If you were writing it, that's what you would write. The Torah does not do that. Torah goes backwards. Yakov, Yitzchak, Avram, the land, and the Shvatim. What's going on over here? So, the answer I believe is also in the Hazal that Rashi quotes. Unbelievable. He says if you notice the letter Yakov is spelled in this week's parsha with a vav. Okay? Sometimes the name Yakov exactly five times in the whole of Tanakh appears with an additional vav. Similarly, five times the name of Eliyahu Hanavi, the herald of redemption, appears minus a vav. It looks like Elka. No vav No vav. No Eliyahu. It's just alef, lamed, yud, heh. Where's the vav at the end? Missing. Who took it? Yaakov took it. Hazal say Yaakov took five vavs from the name of Eliyahu across Tanakh and held on to them as a mashkon, as a security deposit that Hashem will follow through as he promised here in this week's parsha to bring them back to the land. Now you can really understand this as follows. Yaakov was the av of the galus. He was the end. He lived most of his life outside the land of Israel. Vayechi Yaakov be'eretz Mitzrayim, shiv'im shana v'sheva He ended his life, he spent most of his life um adult life when he built his family outside land of Israel and the rest of his life at the in the land of Mitzrayim. He was the galut of He's represents the tfilat maariv of night time, which is galut. He knows how to get us out of the galut. Yaakov was the one whose bones were carried from Egypt to Chevron, the city of melucha, where where David would eventually be crowned and then move on to Yerushalayim. He broke through. He is associated It also says Yaakov Yosef with the mashiach of Yosef whose job is to get us the heck out of there and back to Eretz Israel. So that's why it begins with Yaakov, you understand? Because Yaakov is the one standing in the galus. We're talking about extricating and bringing everybody back. So from the perspective of galus, the the last one we saw was Yaakov. Yaakov is extracted, extracted from galus with Eliyahu Hanavi. But why five vavs? Why five connections? Okay? And then we go back and we claim Yitzchak and then we go back and claim Avraham. And then we go back and pro and begin to reclaim the land. Not all the tribes and then finally is the ingathering of the exiles where we get the rest of the tribes. As you follow, so that's why the tribes are last because it speaks to the idea of an ingathering of exiles. Whereas the the bris, the the covenant is intact, but the numbers of population add on later. But Jacob is the key. Why five ups? So, I'd like to suggest a simple shot. We say on Seder night that there are five languages of redemption. Behotzeti, took you out of Egypt. Pitzalti, you saved me from peril. Right? V'ga'alti, you redeemed me, you gave me the Torah. V'lakachti, you married me and made a covenant with me at Har Sinai. V'heveiti, you brought me into land of Israel to actualize that shidduch, that marriage, and this is our ancestral home. Literally of the chosson kallah, so to speak, Hashem and the Shechinah of Israel. Okay. So, that's why the vav. We hold on to Eliyahu's tail, as it were. As if to say, ain't no way we're going to be lost. In no way we're going to allow ourselves to be completely detached, which of course was the message of Shimon bar Yochai, who promised that the Torah would never be forgotten from Israel and that we'll get the Jews out of galus, as I discussed at some length last in the shiur that's going to drop today, which was last week's shiur. So, it's it's incredible to note that the last thing that is assembled is the shvatim. Now, go to parshas Bamidbar, this week's parsha. And it's all about the shvatim. And Hashem insisted that on Rosh Chodesh Iyar, month after the beginning of the of the Mishkan, that we be counted. The mishp'chosam l'veit avosam. Says Rashi, it doesn't mean families in our sense. It means which tribe you belong to. So, if mommy was from Shevet Shimon and tati was from Shevet Yehudah, you go to the flag of Yehudah. Right? L'veit avotam, you go after the father, because if there's a if there's a husband and wife from two two tribes, you follow the father's roots. Which is why the Nebuch, the poor man uh fellow who was put to death because he cursed because he wasn't given a place in Shevet Dan was because he claimed it based on his mother's ancestral merit, but he his father was not Jewish. And that was the the issue. We can't go into that right now, but the concept there is that he cursed according to Hazal, God's name and mocked the showbread, the 12 breads that are always in front of Hashem, which represents the parnassa of the tribes, the common wealth, as it were. Which he he wasn't really part of He was part of the those who would benefit from the commonwealth, the gerim, and even this this week's parsha says that you have to pay the expenses of a non-Jew who accepts not to do avodah zara. Okay? In our territory, is part of the social welfare system. Even if he eats neveilos, he eats treif he eats all the treif meat, he just doesn't do idol worship, some say he accepted all the seven mitzvos of Noach, but whatever it is, they're part of the social welfare system. So, he could have said, "I'll rejoice in that." No. No, he wanted it to be a tribe. You can't be a tribe if you're not a tribe. The tribes have that special connection to Hashem, they're the vov hahibur, they're the ones that bring the blessing down to share with the world. Okay? So, that was that was the problem with that perspective. Okay. So, now, what have we what have we seen? We've seen that the um the tochacha came with a promise of two things. One, we would never be lost because Yaakov Avinu and Eliyahu Hanavi would hold us in. Now, we know Eliyahu Hanavi comes to two occasions famous in the Jewish uh lifestyle. One is the Seder. And the two is the bris. Every bris we put a kisei Eliyahu, we put a chair out. And and and on Seder night we put a cup out for Eliyahu Navi to drink from as it were as he visits the Seder. Why? Cuz I'll explain. Because Eliyahu Navi like the rabbis of Yavneh who Rebbe Shimon bar Yochai responded to said the Jewish people I'm the only one left they have all checked out. They're checked out. They're gone. I'm the last one left. So Hashem says you think you're the last one left? I'm going to show you. I'm going to make you in your spirit form attend every single circumcision of the Jewish people throughout history and every single Seder night where we regroup as a family I'm a beta of a time. And you are going to bear witness for me Eliyahu Navi that the Jewish people are going to be still loyal to me to whatever extent to whatever numbers but essentially in their spirit will be connected to me through the covenant of bris milah which is our not intermarrying and being sacred and holy families teaching children learning Torah and also not only that but the Seder which means that we have a connection to leave Egypt heading towards Eretz Yisrael. Those are the two connections. Our personal holiness and the holiness of the land of Israel. And when you get those two together so President Trump had a really nice idea. I think he should have come here or he should come here for this Shabbos. I'm inviting him to my home. Okay, for Shabbos lunch not Friday night. But Shabbos lunch and we have a minyan afterwards for mincha. I'll give him an aliyah. No, I can't give him an aliyah. I can't even give him a hug. Maybe I can give him a galila I think. Maybe we could do that. Then come on. Tell us tell the Jewish people in the land of Israel to embrace Shabbat, to embrace their spiritual side, not to be only worried about military power or financial strength or beating our enemies in purely warlike fashion. Yeah, but in the promise of the Torah it says that our military success our profoundly positive military success is predicated on belief, not on on just bombs, no matter how proficient. So, there you have it. Um I I do believe that this year this um week the parshas by Midbar should not be ignored. The Midbar always speaks about the assembly of the Shvatim. That means that the Jewish people preparing to enter the land of Israel. The we were supposed to make it to the land of Israel a matter of days, three days. It would have taken from that moment, from this in this month of Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Iyar. Well, it took a couple thousand, you know, years, a few thousand years, but we did get back to Yerushalayim, you know, eventually, 70 years ago. Maybe there's a 70 I mean beginning of the 70th year. I Maybe there's something symbolic about that. Maybe there's something inspiring about that. Maybe us here to always say Shabbat shalom. Maybe our 70 quote unquote figurative years of galut are over. Notice the number seven. And part of the galut is galut from our Torah and mitzvahs, from our sanctity, for our holiness. Shabbat is a bris. We don't go around throwing stones at people and yelling at them Shabbat shalom. Okay? That's not going to bring anybody home. But you got to bring them home if you can show them the beauty of Shabbat. If you can talk to them in a language that they'll maybe appreciate, this is our job to translate the observances of Torah in a way which people feel fed and nourished on a spiritual level. Feel the joy of Shabbos. Today in the shuls they focus on the singing, the music. Unfortunately, a little bit too much on a little uh heavy kiddush, not in Israel. In America, sometimes there's a lot of drinking. This is a problem. But what do they really want? They want an experience, you know? I remember my years as a rabbi in Young Israel of Oceanside, how difficult it was for a regular baal habayit to grow up in a modern Orthodox home to be able to really feel three three hours of davening on a Shabbat morning without running out to the kiddush club. I get it. I wasn't happy about it as a rabbi, but I get it. You know, there's there over there there's camaraderie, there's joking, there's fun, there's even a dvar Torah. We used to have divrei Torah over there. Sometimes I came and I gave the dvar Torah on rare occasion. >> [laughter] [gasps] >> Uh but they want to feel they want to feel something. So I was in the holy city of Tzfat this past Shabbos. It was a beautiful beautiful experience. I stared at Mount Meron. I went down to Shimon bar Yochai's kever on Sunday instead of the past Tuesday. And when we were by the kever of Shimon bar Yochai, which I started with, on the actual Lag BaOmer, there were tens of thousands of Jews singing, dancing with the band. Rebbe Sholom Arush, who's a very inspiring person in the area of emunah, who never needs a refuah shleimah, he had a terrible stroke and he struggles to speak, but one thing I heard from him, he said, "Emunah means you have to believe that Hashem loves us like a father loves a child unconditionally." He says, "That is the definition of emunah. So whatever your hardships are, whatever your heartbreaks are, whatever your disappointments are, whatever your struggles are, don't think for 1 second that Hashem doesn't love you the love of a and you're a parent, if you are a parent, or if you ever felt your relationship with your parents, you know what parental love is. Everyone knows what parental love is. And that's what it is. Well, if he loves me so much, then why all this stuff is going on? Don't let it crack your moonah. Don't let it crack your moonah. Don't let it It's a challenge, but hold on. Hold on to the faith and a lot of those hostages taught us what it meant to hold on to the faith in the darkest moments. And there are a bayam. For this Shabbat shall trump parshas by midbar. When we organize in the land of Israel to connect to one another and connect to our holy our holiness. Let's hope and pray that for all that we weren't in Meron this past Tuesday, right? But there were a lot of celebrations in other places like Shimon HaTzaddik in Yerushalayim. Rabbi Elie Melech Biderman, I think he didn't light in Yerushalayim not far from Shimon HaTzaddik, by the way, till about 2:00 3:00 in the morning and there were who knows how many hundreds of people hundreds of thousands of people flooding the streets of Yerushalayim. Maybe, as I mentioned last week, it's the time to spread Meron around a little bit and take it to all the tribes. You know, Hashem's Shechinah does not only reside within its hidden sanctuary, but it's got to come out to the to the average person and this is our hope. We see signs of Eretz Yisrael being thought to be reclaimed. Little story. They said an Arab was buried near the brandly the newly recovered village of Shaanur. Shaanur. Shaanur was abandoned in the 2006 not cute, if you recall, the uprooting of Gush Katif. They also uprooted a few communities in the Shamron. Well, they got permission to go back. And then a stick happened. They buried an Arab in an Arab cemetery right on the edge. And then it became clear that it was an attempt to halt any potential expansion. And the army was there protecting the Arabs. And for some unknown reason the Arabs got out. I don't know why. I don't think anybody pushed them out. I don't know about that. I mean, we're protecting so so so you're right. You're right. Justice. Justice. Justice. Justice is very important, right? But the holiness of Jewish people is even more important. Cuz justice is ultimately din. Okay, you can say by din, by law. God just Shiva bracham by law, you got to do it. And I get that. I really get your argument. But then who will love Shabbos and who will love um the kedusha of bris ice bris kodesh? Who's going to be the ones to love it? If you're going to take them to environments that don't necessarily support neither Shabbos nor the kedushas of bris to the extent that they could. If the army were similarly like-minded. That is it's about the chibur of the mind and the heart coming together. Let's hope beshas Hashem. We heard it from the most unusual place. Jews, your biggest contribution is Shabbos. >> [laughter] >> That's what you brought to America 250 years ago. You brought Shabbos. Many Jews lost Shabbos in America. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions lost Shabbos in America. But maybe maybe it's time. Everywhere and anywhere that we should be recognized for who we are. Oh, say we are an Am Kodesh, And in a land that's Kodesh, and people should support us and not denigrate us and try to destroy us. If we are truer to our roots, um or if we just managed to all get here together and accept each other to whatever extent the observances are, but at least to respect each other and honor each other, that's also a kibbutz that that should collect the five verbs of Eliyahu Hanavi and hopefully bring an era, a new era in the as we enter the 70th year of Yam Yerushalayim by us Tirtzu Ares Hashavua Shisha, and we will see a restoration of Yerushalayim in its truest and highest sense. Have a wonderful week. >> [music] [singing] [music] [singing] [music] [singing] [music and singing]