The man who saved a Billion lives — Parshas Behaaloscha

have you heard about the garlic diet yeah the garlic diet after every meal you eat a bunch of garlic and you don't actually lose any weight but from a distance your friends all think you look thinner this week's partial Pasha's biological we discuss the miraculous superfood the Munn the bread from heaven that used to fall and nourish the Jewish people in the desert for 40 years and it was a wonderful food perfect nutrition no waste and could taste like anything you wanted and yet they were complaining about it what were they complaining about so here's the thing it could taste like anything you wanted except with a few exclusions in the terms and conditions this is what we read this week the Jewish people are complaining and they're recalling the remembering that back in Egypt what do we used to eat a statue Liam they sawed off to him the ASA hut service habits all of the ACE ash Humam we we used to eat the cucumber and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic why were they mentioning these foods so Rashi comments and he says am i rebbi shimon the Tana be Shimon bar Yohai said and this is Rashi quoting rabbi shimon ben yokai's opinion from the city why did the month taste like or could taste like all the flavors in the world with the exclusion of these few items he says mean a shame caution limini choice they are harsh they are difficult on nursing mothers like we say I am Leticia we say to a woman I'll playfully shuma but Suleman a actinic if she's nursing we say don't eat onion or garlic because it's bad for the infant for the nursing infant and then be shimon youkai says a muscle he says marshall amalaki hulu this is a parable or it's described by way of a parable of a king what what's the parable the king it says he hired a tutor a Malamud for his son and before he gave the son over to the charge of the of this of the teacher the king Cole he gave the allergy list to the teacher he told the teacher don't feed my son this and this and this it's now it's not good for him and then the son this is on the marshal de Derbyshire menu hi says in the city which would which Raffy quotes explaining our verse that the son hears that the King gave his teacher a list of foods he's not allowed to eat and the King hears and the son hears this and says oh my father the King hates me he wants to deprive me that's why he told my teacher not to feed me this and this and this and so to the Jewish people were complaining that OH Hashem won't let these foods taste like this and this and this he's being mean he's trying to deprive us okay so a few questions here a few questions first question is as we say in Jewish pocket like yeah indeed why did everyone have to be deprived because certain flavors are not good for nursing mothers and their infants I mean it's a small small small segment of the population and because of them a concern for them everybody has to miss out from from these flavors so that's the first question question number one question number two why does Rashi mention that this explanation is from the Panna rebbi shimon magna carta Rashi is always quoting cazali he's always quoting our sages but he doesn't necessarily say the name of the specific sage that a teacher that a teaching comes from and in this case he does so what it must be significant and question that's a second question question number three the parable that rebbi shimon gives doesn't seem to exactly match up because in the parable the King didn't want the Sun to eat certain foods because those foods were bad for the Sun the Sun had a problem with those foods in the actual case that the parable is supposedly describing Hashem prevented the month from tasting like the like those foods not because it would damage the Jewish people but it would damage or would damage a small minority segment within the people so in in the parable it was protecting the person for his own good not to eat food that would be damaging to him but that doesn't explain the complaint that the Jews had which was why should we lose out the foods not bad for us that's not damaging us it would damage you know nursing mothers and their children but that's them not us and so how does the parable explain that how does it give any more clarity to the contrary it just magnifies the discrepancy between the case that the the metaphors which is is describing which makes sense you don't let a person eat something that would damage him and then the case that actually happened where people were being deprived of foods that wouldn't be damaging to them it would be damaging to someone else so which is sort of like our first question packet yeah why why indeed then everyone miss out because of this small segment of the population okay and that's a third question so question number one yeah why did everyone have to miss out on those flavors because of you know nursing mothers and babies and you know we're really not a certainly not a significant number of people okay that's first of all second of all why does react she mentioned specifically this as a teaching from rebbi shimon youkai and third of all what's the parable about because the parable seemingly doesn't explain the thing that were confused about the parable is about someone not eating things that would be bad for him where the actual situation is people are not being allowed to eat foods that would be bad for someone else okay fine good so I want to ask you a question have you ever heard the name Norman Borlaug no probably not you're not terribly ignorant most people haven't heard of Norman Borlaug he saved a billion people now you thinking yourself hold on a second first of all how can one person save a billion people that's crazy second of all if he really saved a billion people how come I never heard of him and you're telling us that you don't think most people have heard of and don't think most people have heard it so what's the story here who's Norman Borlaug well tell you Norman Borlaug passed away a little over ten years ago at the age of 95 he was retired professor at Texas A&M University and he was uh he was a plant biologist from Texas that's that's who he was and he saved a billion lives how okay so you need a little background you have to know that in 1968 one of the best-selling books was called the Population Bomb and this was based on all of the best science of that day which said that we were about to face a crisis called the Population Bomb where a billion people were going to die there was no way around it that's what was going to happen because if population would continue to increase people were gonna starve to death there was gonna be a massive famine why because there's only a certain amount of arable land that means land that actually produces crops and it's not enough nutrition the math doesn't add up you don't have enough land to produce enough produce that would provide enough nutrition for the amount of human beings to live that we're about to for that number of a populous the global population was about to to be in the 1970s so in 1968 it was predicted that in the 1970s there's going to be the Population Bomb and a billion people are gonna starve to death and die and according to everything they knew and everything they could have known they were right so how come there wasn't a Population Bomb how come we don't hear about a billion people dying in nineteen in the 1970s how come in fact since the 1970s there's a few more billion people on the planet and everybody has food and by the way you should know that there is more than enough food to feed the planet today and anytime there is starvation unfortunately it's not because of an inability to produce the food that the earth can't produce the food it's because of human greed and corruption we don't have a food shortage problem we have a food distribution problem there there there are countries that throw away more food than other countries eat so we the earth is producing plenty of food but how come in 1968 all the scientists said that we were hitting a wall where it would be impossible will be impossible to feed the to feed the world any longer because they didn't predict Norman Borlaug Norman Borlaug came along and he developed a new strain of wheat kernel that was more resistant to pests and to disease and it ended up yielding two or possibly three times as much as wheat kernels had used to had been accustomed to yielding and he perfected that with that strain of wheat kernel he sent it to India he sent it to Pakistan then he did the same type of adaptation with some with with with rice and he sent that rice to Asia to China and world crisis averted the famine that was supposed to take a billion lives ended up never occur and never taken place and indeed since that time many more billions of human beings are alive today all because of one guy Norman Borlaug but you see here's what I want to talk about for us Jews the idea the notion that one person could be responsible for a billion lives is not so far-fetched we have this idea we have this concept in fact the aforementioned rebbi shimon bar yochai the tana every shimon bar yochai that we mentioned earlier he said something similar about himself Lahab dill rebbi shimon in the Gomorrah and suka DAF mem hey Amin base he says yo colony lifter escola LM cool Amina din he says with my merits I can protect the entire world from punishment so not just a billion people but the entire world population we have an idea we have a concept in Judaism that there's the power of an individual on that individual can be equal to the to the to an entire world and when rabbi shimon york i said this he wasn't bragging it wasn't being conceded hospital god forbid even to even entertain such a notion but let me explain if you would ask Norman Borlaug tell me the truth don't lie did you save a billion people he would have to tell you yeah I saved a million people there we shouldn't I was saying the same thing it's a certain fact these are those awesome these are the merits that I have and it's it's sufficient to exempt the entire world from from judgment that's just a fact no arrogance whatsoever and this is an important concept this is an important idea that there is such an idea of an individual who can have global impact an individual who can save an entire world so with that in mind I want to tell you a story I just want to tell you one story it's a story about a failed lecture what is the failed lecture rubbish Leah in Melbourne Australia behind good Nick call of Shalom he used to come once a year to the debe and hinder some private audience and discuss what was going on in Australia discuss his work as ash Leah one year he came and the dabit told him that it would be a good thing to have classes in Paris Hamish Maha family purity mikvah the laws of mikvah and there'll be Rabi good Nick was nervous about it because he felt that it was a hard sell for the community at that time but that ever told him that you should do it so therefore he know that he should do it and when he got back to Melbourne he spoke with his wife and he said we're gonna have to make some classes on on mikvah because the ribbon has specifically encouraged us to do so so they went and they planned the whole course a series of classes and they advertised they did a whole advertising campaign and they rented a hall that a big space because they advertised you know they're gonna have a big turnout and that fateful night came for the lecture in the hottest Mitch Buckland mikvah for all the women of Melbourne and they waited and waited and waited and one woman showed up one woman showed up you know I want to tell you something anyone who's ever run an event knows that having one person show up is worse than no people showing up because if no people show up what do you do you go home and if anyone asks hopefully no one asks but if anyone asks you say that was very nice it was a nice event well how many people were there I don't I don't count to count right but if one person shows up now you're stuck now you have a witness now they seem they are the only person who showed up so he was really really embarrassing he apologized to her and he said I'm sorry I'm gonna cancel she said no no I want to hear teach me so he says okay find out teacher so he taught her after that they said okay now we hope they said it was a series of classes so okay we have another week to really promote it let's let's try to get more people and they did everything they could to promote it to advertise came the next week and the one woman showed up same woman same woman yeah be good apologize profusely I'm sorry I don't know why yes she says it's okay I want to learn so he taught her he told her just one woman anyways the next year rabbit good Nick was again in New York and he won do you hear this with the rabbit and then I best specifically asked him about how were the classes for the women in Melbourne on out of so much Buckland and the laws of mikvah now it wasn't something the rabid good Nick was very eager to report on okay because it was a failed lecture so rabbi Gooden apologized and he said you know we promoted it we advertised it I don't know what happened but it was a failure never says what was the failure well we had a very low turnout what was a low turnout only one woman came was just one woman came it was a failure that ever got very very serious and they never said to have a good Nick Zog Mia lethal mom is what may should have been on the hot mare Vienna how many mothers did Moses have more than one or just one one mother one Jewish mother who gave birth to one little Jewish child changed the entire world as we know it so tell me you call that a failure that's not only not a failure that's a success of global proportions teaching one mother who's going to give birth to one child is not just a child it's a world it's a world because one person can affect an entire world that's the power of the individual that's the power of one now I want to make something very clear here when I say this is the power of the individual to the power one I don't only mean a rubbish combine yokai aura Mei should obey no I mean each one of us yes there are those who historically everyone knows their name and everyone knows their contribution and how they saved the world and the effect in the entire world and even millennia later people still are living with their influence yes that's true there are people like that but every soul every one of us came to the world for some unique contribution it is axiomatic that there are no redundant souls no two of us came to the world for the same mission if you came to this world you came here to do something for the world that that no one else can do and therefore in that way in that way you have a contribution to make that is global and that the whole world is waiting for so each one of us affects an entire world and that's the answer to all of our questions now now we can answer all of our questions first question why did everybody have to miss out and not have the garlic and the onion why cuz it just gonna affect a few nursing mothers and their babies what are you talking about a nursing mother and her baby is a world that's not an individual that's a world because every individual has a gift to give to the entire world that's the answer to question number one question number two why does Rashi say that it's Shimon Ben Ukiah cific Lee who provided this teaching well because Shimon ukiah is a prime example of someone who had a global impact johani lift there's Cola Elam cool a man I did like the Gemara says maybe Shimon with somebody who had that global influence where we see we see the global influence that the individual can have that's the question too and question three the parable seemingly doesn't fit because in the parable the father told the teacher don't feed my son anything that would damage him but in the situation with the Mun it was a little bit different where the Jewish people were being provided deprived of food they went damage damn it would damage somebody else the nursing mothers and the infant's ah but that's not exactly so is it because if a child is a world and has a gift for the entire world and can affect the entire world so then something that damages that child damages the entire world because then the entire world would be bereft would miss out would be lacking that gift that that child has to give to the world that answers our third questions and now we've answered all of our questions and the lesson is very simple and the lesson is very clear each one of us each one of us is a world each one of us has a gift has a mission that's unique and the world is waiting for each one of us to reveal what that gift is