The Pattern of the Musaf Offerings and Their Connection to the 3 Weeks by Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz

good morning everybody anyway I just want to announce that today's Shear is sponsored uh as always for the entire year by rever F and Sharon Alman in memory of their parents Edith and Riner Alman and their son harav shm and we very much appreciate the T not just for once year but M for the entire uh the entire year um again what we're going to be doing uh for the next few weeks we've been more or less approximating going along with the par there are many many topics in par that I'm going to be talking about in terms of mitzvos uh the one I want to talk about today is connected to the three weeks and Tish and it's a part of par Pinas that people almost never look at at all when you think about Paras Pinas everybody thinks of zealotry and the like and there's a lot to say about that for sure but I'm going to talk about uh relatively unexplored corner of the para which is quite large and that is the pattern of the mfim that are brought on chabas and yam Andes we know that inas uh every day of course there's a Corbin tmid of the morning and a Corbin tmid of the afternoon right that's the Corbin tamid and that's literally every single day shabas Yumer every single day that's why it's called tomit but in addition on special days there is literally an additional offering that is called the m and these special days include shabes all of the including and the are listed in and that is why you'll know that the T either the M or the regular of every is always from let me start off though with a very interesting thought from the O of Isel the O of Isel uh was very famous of the 19th century uh the or the and uh he says very amazing things in O Isel I've mentioned him a few times he says the following he says that he counts 21 sacred days in the Jewish calendar now the way he counts them are a little unusual chabas counts as one even though there are 52 chabas in the year chabas is one k shabas Roes even though there are 12 of them they count as one so shabas is one rodes is one uh then we have PES all seven days that's seven so that gives you nine then we have shab which is one that gives you 10 we have rashishana which is two because even in ER Israel you have to keep rashash so that's 12 yum Kipper is 13 and then Suk is another eight right that that gives you 21 so he says there are 21 holy days of the year and there are 21 days in the three weeks between sh the period of 3 weeks is 21 days so he asserts cabalistic the Holiness of the 21 days of Bim is the root of the Holiness of all of the Y like all of the Holiness of the Y including chabas are a spillover from the Kad that is T in these 21 days these 21 days are days of Yearning they are days of mourning they are seemingly days of deprivation but in reality just as was it Shakespeare that said absence makes the heart grow fonder uh the idea that in our sense of absence from God in our sense of distance from God there is actually a stronger closeness that is generated and that closeness is so powerful that the spillover from that cless closeness are the 21 y that's why he makes the point that based on the calendar par Pinas will either be right before the 17th of tamas or like this year right after the 7 ofas because since Pinas has the musim the the holy days all of the Holy Days come from the hidden Holiness that has to be shrouded in darkness and the O of Isel says that's why when mashia comes these very days of deprivation will become days not just of non-or but there will be days of and this is what the Zar says that these fast days will be days of s and Sim and it's very very interesting to this very day there are aspects of Tish that reflect the Sim so to speak in potentiality uh we don't say it is called a mo now Mo means an appointed time but but normally it's connected to Happy Days holidays and um there's an old Min old what they say an old Min of you shi women I'm not sure how widely it's practiced today that a Tish in the afternoon they would sweep the house as if to say we have to get ready for the mhia itself we have to get ready for the mhia the GAA the GAA is coming so you know who knows uh obviously uh I'm not going to be a Noby I know in ER Israel U people like to be prophets or like to prophesy or like to predict and like to say this year is the year you know who knows none of us know but we have to hope uh particularly in a time of adversity time of challenge a time where CLA Israel uh certainly init Israel and really throughout the world is facing the Resurgence of anti-Semitism and sin uh but once again just as the Soros of the three weeks contain within them within them a tremendous Holiness that draws us to Hashem so too the torus that call faces should be a catalyst to make us realize as the mishna says a that we cannot really rely you know we try to be friends with everybody okay certainly try to be friends but ultimately as the saying goes uh Nations don't have friends they only have interests I don't recall who said that so who who yeah so so we walk together as long as we can walk together but we have to realize last week's para we are a nation that dwells Al and we have to have as as Cooperative as we try to be in and you knowem the state of Israel the Jewish people uh contribute and help and and are involved in every type of endeavor we don't separate ourselves with any type of antagonism but in our heart of hearts we do have to realize that we're kind of alone in the world it's with us us and Hashem but but the truth is when you're with Hashem you're not alone so uh you have that ultimate power so so that is why the of Isel says just to go back to the the basic thoughts that all of the Holiness of the moadim the 21 holy days get their kadha from the 21 days of Bim so as a result when we study the musim we're really focusing on something that comes from the BAM so I'm going to uh do something fairly technical but but it's really really nice because if I were to ask you know anybody tell me what the mus of PES is you know they wouldn't automatically be able to recall it necessarily but I promise you that after this year you will be able to answer the question so you will actually walk away with Mastery of a certain knowledge that you know I I won't tell you to ask your Rabbi if he know you know but that sometimes even a rabbi will not always be able to answer so that's kind of the bonus of this particular sheer uh and this is really based on the sorno uh the sorno uh lived in the Italian Renaissance in the 1500s in Italy uh he was one of the great biblical commentators he made his pinosa two ways he was a doctor and he was a Hebrew tutor to leaders in the Catholic church in Rome uh so actually his clientele included many Cardinals I don't know if he actually taught the pope but he taught Cardinals Hebrew and Al likee in fact they even use this as a halic issue because you know technically you're not supposed to teach a go Torah so the question is is teaching somebody Hebrew tan them out to teaching B Tor since you're giving them certain tools so the postum actually bring a little bit of a proof from the sorno who actually did tutor uh non-jewish clerics uh in Hebrew that this was not a violation of the prohibition of teaching uh the G to in fact it's interesting if you look at Advanced books in Hebrew grammar and it always astounds me but you know Hebrew is Leakes but it's also a language that a lot of the leading scholars in advanced Hebrew grammar Japanese people I mean people like why is this Japanese guy writing a writing a book on Hebrew in point of fact yeah I mean a lot of the scholarly work uh in in in advanced Hebrew is in fact from non-jewish academics uh who kind of explored the explored the language okay so uh Bas now the Soro in addition to his commentary on the Torah wrote a very brilliant introduction to the Torah which is called kavanot Torah the purposes of the Torah so this is a little bit of an essay that is taken from theot tah if you have a mcrose gas at home you might have difficulty finding it because depending on the addition inim it's printed before braus which is the logical place to put it in other additions it's printed before vayikra because much of it deals with carbos so if you don't see it in the in youres go to bikra and you will find it there it's called kav and he basically posits the following uh there is a basic Musa structure and then there are a number of spin-off exceptions the basic Musa structure is a 217 structure by that I mean two blls one ram a ram is an adult male sheep one ram and then seven l Lambs younger Lambs 217 all of them are olos they are burnt offerings meaning to say they're totally consumed on the m and the kohanim do not eat any of the meat 217 this is the musaf of rosesh this is the musaf of the seven days of pesak and this is the musaf of shos the rest are going to be exceptions in various ways but since rodes already is 12 of the musim although the after only counted R is one so the 217 is the most prevalent pattern so let's first start understanding what is the symbolic significance of the 217 so the sorno says a bull a par is obviously a very very powerful animal right you don't want to mess with a with a bull so a bull represents the powerful emotions that Propel Us in aod hasem that we have to try to develop and inculcate within our personalities and these two powerful emotions are aasem love of God and hasem fear of God but by fear of God I don't mean the lower level of fear that you're afraid God's going to punish you but I mean something along the nature of awe and reverence right even in human terms you know if um a king or a queen maybe maybe less so today but if Queen Elizabeth when she was alive would walk into a room you know you're not afraid she's gonna even in England you're not afraid she's going to cut off your head that's not the way monarchies work today at least constitutional monarchies but you'd have a certain sense of awe reverence uh respect the respect the office uh again whether that applies to the Presidents today I'll leave that another question um but there is a notion of awe and reverence so in Year too there are two different ideas here there is the basic idea that I I have to obey God because if I don't there are consequences that's called ones but real is har a reverence for a KES seen in this way and AA are not really opposites they build on each other you seees and Ava seem to to be opposite emotions if I'm scared God's going to hurt me then it's very hard for me to feel an emotion of Love towards the one that's going to hurt me but if you understand that Y is not simply fear of punishment but Y is a sense of awe and reverence as I contemplate hashem's ultimate Perfection which is a form of Beauty in fact the Y leads to the AA they're not contradiction from the ER you come to a fact the rambam seems to indicate that the notion of loving God loving God has actually two components there is what you might call egotistical love of God I don't mean that negatively by egotistical love of God means I love God because he's so kind to me he's so good to me whether it's to me or to the world meaning I sense his benevolence I sense his I sense his love so my heart is filled with love and that's linked to gratitude again egotistical maybe sounds too negative but it is egotistical in the sense that my love of God is because of what he does for me or does for the world but the rambam and that's certainly a major component a major component ofas is no question about it but the rambam seems to indicate that love exists in a more abstract idea it's the love of the contemplation of utter Perfection that when a person is confronted with beauty a person is confronted with perfection there's a certain love that they feel because they see that which is perfect you know a person might say when I see the Grand Canyon I am a struck and there there will be feelings that are akin to love although obviously you can't really love uh in an adate object you can't love a bunch of stones so aat hasem is predicated both in terms of gratitude and appreciation for the benevolence of God that I see in my life and it comes from the a that's that's where bills on of the utter Perfection which is beauty that's why the word beauty is used quite often in TM right God is described as beautiful beautiful now obviously that's not beautiful in a physical way but Perfection has a beauty to it right if you those of you that studied art which I did not so I am hardly any expert at all understand that there's a whole field of Aesthetics that try to identify what makes art beautiful in different ways and a lot of it is connection to some notion of a platonic Perfection of of things okay be it as it may therefore a Jew has to be motivated by two forces aatm andm you can go through the mitv and do them and every Mitzvah you do is important but without and the mitzvos lack an inner content in the language of the Zohar which the suppor does not does not quote in the language of the Z AEM andem are the two wings wings that bring your Mitzvah up to Shay like they tell the story that um the B once went into a non show misn show uh and he said ah so many mitzvos in this show so many mitzvos I it's amazing amazing Torah and Mitzvah the is so crowded so people thought the B was complimenting them he said no he says without all your Mitzvah stay down here they don't fly up so I'm saying your your sh is full of mitv they did not go up because of and and now every incorporates these two relationships we have with God the relationship of a and the relationship of love every BR or at least many Bros not everyone but many many Bros are non-grammatical they are inconsistent in their di let's take the braa over water over liquid or a lot of foods blessed art you everything has come into existence through his word so I start off talking to God in second person blessed art you Hashem that everything came into existence through his word you see the problem it should have said your word right so second person in in diuk is called No you're speaking to a person directly third person is called Nar it's as if they're not in the room right you often talk to uh rashash or GM whatever in third person even in in even in English his majesty Her Majesty Etc and and the like so why does every braa or leas switch from no to so the again I'm adding on to the the abam says because in every braa we are expressing The Duality of our relationship to God when I speak to God at I'm speaking the language of intimacy the language of friendship the language of familiarity right second person you you you do in Yiddish uh not there not ear so the concept here is that expresses a relationship of love love friendship connection intimacy and that's wonderful but then we also have to realize that I can't just treat God like my buddy that there has to be awe and there has to be rence so I switch from the no to the nister to use more High futin terms canotes imminence and uh no Nar canotes Transcendence imminence is that connection that God is right here with me Transcendence is God is Way Beyond me in fact I I heard from my own rashash Rak of Weber that part of the Great attraction of Christianity because because it's kind of amazing how how how many Christians there are in the world I mean even Trump is trying to get get out the the Christian vote uh and the like how many how many do need you know U but my R said that the attraction of Christianity was that it it so emphasized uh the the imminence of God that God is even willing to Die For Us Etc and emotionally emotionally that's an enormously attractive idea because it stresses the Friendship the camaraderie the connection and Judaism of course believes in that but we believe it has to be counterbalanced with the and that's why we have both ideas in our braah so this is a and and these are the Pim now let me bring in again I'm adding to the sorno the beautiful thought of the balat the bat actually says a Jew does not have to learn how to acquire andat these are the natural qualities that are built into your soul they are there this is the PIN sometimes they get covered up sometimes they get obscured sometimes theara kind of prevents me from accessing it but ultimately he says it is T and that's why he makes the point that even the simplest Jew and even a Jew that rebelled against God in moments of great stress they are willing to give their lives Al kesem we have indeed individual stories in the Holocaust of uh Nazis asking or not asking ordering uh a a non-religious Jew to stomp on a Torah scroll and this was a Jew had not kept mitzvot from many many many years and the Jew just said I'm not going to do it I'm not going to do it and he was shot dead it's an amazing thing he died Al M uh because he gave his I don't want to get into a real controversal let you in other words there is a a general very important discussion is every victim of the Holocaust a death Al Kem again the rambam has a famous passage that any person who was killed because he's Jewish and we we can apply this to October 7th as well if you died because you're Jewish you didn't die in a car accident you died because you're Jewish that is called dying Alish hasem and uh that would that would include anyone who died in the shaah and that would include the victim of October 7th Pittsburgh all of the different massacres in which Jews were targeted whether they're religious or not religious based on this rambam they died all k hasm uh there are others who take a different View and they take a view that you die Al kesem when you're killed because of your adherence to Torah and mitzvos uh and therefore not everybody would be K I don't want to get into that issue it's a very delicate issue but all I can say is that this person who got shot because he refused to stomp on a saer Torah under every possible definition he died Al kesem and where does that come from that comes from the fact that in his is and even if it normally doesn't come out there are going to be occasions where it breaks through think about if you remember Daniel Pearl a number of years ago um was it Al-Qaeda or I don't remember but he was you know he was he was kidnapped or or Isis it wasn't was it Isis okay I don't remember but but but but quite quite literally uh you know they put I mean they put it on YouTube they took it down uh you know the knife or the sword or whatever is is on his neck and he's told to renounce being a Jew and he said I am a Jew got killed got killed on on on video where does that come from I mean he was not a religious person uh he was intermarried and the like but like the balatan predicted this the balatan told us this that the aat and theem is there it's not something you learn and it's not something you can even lose you can obscure it um again I I don't want to get to too far a field in in different hola remembrances but uh there was a meeting during World War II uh between RAR and Cutler who was together with Irving Bonham his his maturan and Henry morgantha who was the Secretary of Treasury and they were trying to negotiate uh various Financial ways to pay off uh to get Jews freed which were technically illegal and the like but they were trying to work work different things out and Morgan thou initially said he couldn't do it it would be a violation the United States cannot give Aid to an enemy and uh there's no way that he could authorize any type of financial transfers to the Nazis Soarin Cutler said in Yiddish he says tell Morgan thou that he seems to care more about his job than his people now bonam didn't want to translate it that way because he didn't want to be offensive so he just said in English he says know the rabbi is very upset over this and would like you to rethink Soarin somehow understood that bonam did not communicate this so he pulls Bonham's jacket and says say what I said don't soften it so budham finally says well well the Rabbi says uh you know maybe maybe you care more about your job and whether Jewish people Liber time so it's recorded that morgano took off his glass and he put his face in his hands for like two minutes and then he said tell the rabbi that not only would I give up my job I would give up my life to help my people they collected and they collected or Refugee but was was towards the end end of the war so they they didn't do as much as they could but he W he made an effort and and some things did happen some some things did happen so once again you see again and again and again the Pint yid breaks through Morgan thou was you know the prominent German Jewish families of New York very very very assimilated and the like in fact they look down at the Polish the Polish Jews who were considered to be primitive and and and and the like so be it as it may uh the balat idea that every yid has this and is such an important idea and that is why chuva in a sense is not changing yourself but quite literally it means returning you are returning to who you really are you're not becoming a different person behaviorally yeah behaviorally you're going to be a different person yesterday I didn't do this and now I'll do this or whatever but spiritually you're returning to God of course but you're also returning to you you're returning to you to what you really are okay but back to the so this is the two the and the now we then come to the one ram now here the thought is not so clear to me uh he basically looks at the ram as a symbol of imitation I'm not sure exactly why and in this case you emulate God now we know that there is a Mitzvah in the Torah called you should walk in God's ways and the gar asks how can you walk in God's ways I mean you know God is a and the answer is you walk in his ways by emulating his qualities just as he is RA you should be Etc now the problem is that God has many many qualities and some of the qualities are he's a god of Vengeance he's a god of anger right so so apparently understood that you don't emulate all of God's ways vengeance is left to Hashem only Hashem knows the appropriate standards you only emulate Hashem in the midot of and and the other midot not so the one ram represents the notion that of the two Pathways ofes we are enjoined to emulate only one of those Pathways the of and not theid of God is the god of Vengeance God is the god of Revenge because God knows the exact measure that needs to be Meed out in any given circumstance of course we protect ourselves that's not the issue the issue of Defending ourself against an enemy that's not Vengeance I mean that's not Vengeance that's protection someone's coming to kill you uh you kill them first we're not dealing with that but to St have Vengeance even against an evil enemy we leave that toes it's not our mission and therefore the one Isle represents emulating the of RA and not the other way now we then come to the seven Lambs now a lamb is a symbol of blind obedience like unfortunately one of the uh aspersions people cast talked about the Holocaust victims is they went like sheep again that's a totally totally uh unjust uh unfair and callous statement to make but in in speech sheep prer to uh entities that don't think that are helpless uh part of why sheep are helpless by the way is two things they have extremely poor eyesight so they don't see very much in front of them and number two if they fall over because of the weight of their wool they can't uh put them write themselves up so sheep are very different than goats if any of you ever had pet goats goats are independent creatures that fra and play and they're very sure of themselves very confident right sheep are very vulnerable and very scared and very skittish in fact I I came across a book once very very interesting book uh called the Lord is my shepherd it was a little essay on the 23rd psalm Hashem Roi that was written by an Arab Christian Shepherd and he said you know Jews are not Shepherds these days although the others were shepherds and they don't really know what Shepherds do and if they don't they don't know what Shepherds do they don't understand what it means that the Lord is my shepherd so he describ of course we have this in midrashim too he described the vulnerability of sheep how scared they are and how the shepherd kind of has to comfort them and and he says that's what Hashem does you it it's very very nice to see it from a shepherd's perspective what it means Hashem is my shepherd now brashem today we do in fact have Jewish Shepherds as well uh in various places West Bank and the like uh but no not that many and the of course certainly the average urbanized Jew whether an average does not really have a great uh sense of what it is that Shepherds do and without understanding that you don't understand Hashem rowy so Shepherds represent I'm sorry not Shepherds sheep represent blind obedience they follow the leader because they're timid and seven is of course the cycle of time because we have the six days of creation followed by chabas and then time starts over again so the sorno says seven sheep represent presents unconditional submission to hashem's mitzvot on the 24/7 time cycle meaning it's not enough to be spiritual to have and and even to emulate God's ways of raim you have to translate those emotions in the concrete observance of Misses right A lot of people are very spiritual a lot of people say I love God I Fear God I rever God God but don't bother me with ripping toilet paper on chabas or turning on electric lights that's not spiritual stuff so the sooro says that's the symbol of the seven sheep this unconditional obedience even though you don't see it very clearly how it makes sense and seven is the cycle of time right so this is a beautiful General understanding of the 217 cycle uh to is the two blls of hasem the one ram is emulate hashem's qualities of Mercy but not those of Vengeance and the Seven sheep is unconditional submission to the mitzvot of hasem over the 247 cycle of of time because that's very very important it's not enough to be spiritual it has to be translated in a Lisa in Practical mitzvah again this is an important idea in and of itself in fact one of RA viner's criticisms of early kidas was that early kidas put such an emphasis on inner spirituality rightfully so that there was kind of less focus on the details of observance gives an example let's imagine it's pesak night seder night and you're exhausted certainly the women are certainly going to be exhausted with the men too you've been cleaning in the house and preparing and you're dead tired and you're not even going to be able to keep your eyes open at the Seder so what if you'd propose the following listen what is Hashem G to get from a Seder where I'm rushing through it and I not not thinking about it let's have a good night's sleep let's go to sleep early SED at PES night and tomorrow morning we're going to make the best Shader with abem andem and well that's a wonderful thing except for the fact that you know you're not doing a single Mitzvah you're not fulfilling the Mitzvah of matah and mor and ha you got to follow the rules now I once I once you know gave this example to a group that of people were not yet religious so and I and this is obviously intended to be a reducto ad absurd Les is trying to say who would ever think such a crazy idea so a woman raises her hand and said you know that's exactly what we did we couldn't get the family together uh for the first day of PES we decided to make the Seder a week later and it was the best seder we ever had Mish everybody was relaxed and then you know we weren't going crazy so talk about life imitates art you know uh what what you think is so crazy that nobody would ever think about it in fact people people in fact uh have have have done it and the like so that's where the that's why the sorno ties in the idea that all of your spirituality still has to be rooted in the practicalities of MIT okay so 217 once again that is the pattern for rishes including rashash which is also a rodes offering although rash has a separate mus as well but it has the rodes so this is the 12 Roes uh this is the seven days of P this is shos so obviously there are some exceptions here so let's go over the exceptions and the sorno will show us how even the exceptions fit into this symbolism exception number one and two are Ros and yum Kipper on Ros now now is a little complicated because Rashana is the only holiday that is also Ro so people don't realize this but therefore rash there were two sets of musim that were brought there was a mus of rodes that was a 217 same as every roses but then there was a special rosashana mus that was a one one7 interestingly You' think the mus of as should be upgraded ated actually it's less meaning instead of two Rams I'm sorry I'm sorry instead of Two bows it was one bow one ram seven sheep and jum Kipper as well I'll deal with them together we're not dealing with the Kash service that's a separate thing we're dealing with a mus that was outside in other words in the regular M was also a 117 and I should add the third one to the list sh I'll get this as a whole is 17 okay so R yipper 17 so the RAM and the Sheep is the same meaning the ram is emulate God's ways of kindness the Sheep is unconditional obedience over seven uh over the cycle of time but why is the bull different so Theo says the following if the two bulls emphasize a andem there are going to be times of the year in which one emotion is supposed to be predominant over the other emotion Ros and Yumer are called Yim days of awe our life is in the B balance God is judging who will live and who will die what will happen to us in the course of the year on rashash there's a a preliminary judgment remember the N the very powerful powerful description of the awesomeness of God's judgment we that's why we don't say Hal on those days so as a result the sorno says you don't bring two blls because for Rashana and yam Kipper the dominant not the exclusive emotion but the dominant emotion is y more than AA and therefore instead of the two blls that's a we only have one ball to emphasize the centrality of y a and reference so that's why rashishana is 117 and yum Kipper is 117 again I'm not counting the now is also 117 but he says it's the opposite reason if rash the main thing we emphasize [Applause] is the culmination of is a time of Love Now now granted I I I realize of course that this year uh took on a very very different color and these are things that we honestly do not understand but remember you know even in oshit there were OB you know observances in various ways that we have to understand that these are days of Love even when there is apparently anger and fury and punishment but there is love there in ways that we don't always perceive uh and I hope once again I mean I hope by next all of the that are still alive will be reunited with their families and the will will be in peace you know we don't know uh but these are times of Love Now for those of you that are or are liturgically sophisticated let me point out a very very fascinating point that people don't realize uh you will remember that on T generally the same day uh there's parts of the Liturgy that are sung to the same as like the permeates the ly right for example AR would be right it's you know now why is that so so most people think that's just shtick because they say well listen is such serious day is a joyous day so we kind of have the humor of bringing in the solity of rash in other words kind of the humor of the in congruous but you know there's a deeper meaning for that traditional I know a lot of you know they want to do caruk stuff and everything else and know I'm not you know I love carach stuff I'm not at all against it but sometimes you know they don't appreciate the Hidden Treasures of the official and the reason why Y is used is to that the corbon of is the same Corbin 117 it's a Remis to the musim the commonality of sorry the commonality okay the commonality of what do I have to do was where where was it okay oh okay thank you thank you thank you very much thank you U so so the reflects commonality another thing let me tell you another idea in the of when we say the three times hasem has commanded you to come so we say so if you follow the those three words are actually said in the tun you wouldn't notice it because it's it's a you know out of context but it actually reflects the fact kind of the sadness of the fact that we don't have the b m so in the official there's all sorts of like hidden illusions that people don't always pick up uh so something to be uh to be aware of I um I used to correspond there was the of of Lincoln Square for many many years was uh sh G and uh yeah he was a guy like who knew everything about all of this and uh it's hard to find so I used to ask him different questions and uh you know I'm not able to ask him anymore but he would always give me answers like even like uh the Kadesh before versus the kades before mus and he gave me a whole thing that the Kadesh ofal was the original Kadesh before mus ver and then somehow it got changed like so it's wonderful to have a sense of of how every Single part of art Fila not just the words but the notes and the tunes have a lot of deep a lot of deep meaning okay so that's one set of exceptions rashash yam Kipper is 117 because the emphasis is on Ander is also 17 because the emphasis is on a Feeling hashem's love and loving God okay now the other exception is sukot sukot itself is a huge exception sukot in a sense breaks the bank uh sukot number one by far has the largest number of carbonos and it works in descending order so first let's first talk about the bulls the bulls on the first day of sucos 13 not two 13 Pim are brought second day 12 Third Day 11 fourth day 10 fifth day 9 6th day eight and seventh day seven and then of course you move to so the number one start off at 13 and they go down to 7 now here already we have a comment in the gamorra that explains this if you add up the sum of all of the parim of suos they add up to the number 70 13 121 adds up to 70 kazal tell us there are 70 nations of the world that want to destroy us in various ways some destroy us by physical persecution and murder and some destroy us by assimilation that's also destroying us you know even if they're friendly and and the like assimilation and intermarriage now it's true that there are more than 70 members of the United Nations there are certainly more than 70 countries in the world but say there are 70 basic groups and the fact that in later times different countries get divided ethnic groups get divided which is actually one of the major causes for conflict when groups are put together or groups are separated that are the same uh but there are 70 and clel is described as a keeves a lamb that lives among 70 wolves 70 so the idea is that the 70 so this is a totally different meaning with the the PM generally correspond to the 70 nations of the world now that's a very familiar Association but then you have a question so what am I doing with that there are two ways of understanding it one way of understanding it is we are bringing coronos on their behalf that God should bless the Nations as well meaning we're bringing the Corban for them now that seems to be the gor's understanding in M because the gumar says that if the nations of the world would understand how much blessing AR coronos brought to them they never would have destroyed the B Mikes right so it's that's seems to indicate we're bringing a corbon for them on the other hand the Von makes the opposite observation why does the why do the Pim go down so he says we're bringing a corbon to diminish their power over us so as we approach mashiach they will have less and less power to destroy us according to that view you are bringing the corbon not for them you're bringing the Corbin to counteract their power and even though and and and we do believe as mssiah comes their power gets diminished and even though you'll argue what do you mean we're approaching mashiah hopefully and we see a Resurgence of sin and the like but again this is described as kind of a candle right before it goes out as one final burst of energy even human being before a person dies there'll sometimes be a certain convulsion so it is the death throws of evil that is having its last gasp uh in the in the world so we do have two different takes on this other words we know that the 70 Bulls are connected to 70 Nations okay granted but is it theat we're bringing corbano so God should bless them or is it theot that we're bringing corbano that their po should diminish with the passage of time as we approach mashia and by the way that we can talk about this maybe closer to Suk uh of all the even more than p is the most connected to mashia so is has many many to the even more so than you you assume P would be the more likely candidate but it's actually sukos that is the Messianic uh the Messianic par Excellence okay now I did hear somebody suggested to me that maybe you can reconcile the two views and that is we don't want Nations to be destroyed we want them to come to God so we want their evil power to be diminished and we then want God to bless them we want God to bless them Nations that turn to Hashem Nations that live with morality Nations that show kindness to the Jewish people Hashem should bless and many of pointed out it was no accident that the United States ascended to the greatness that it ascended and there may be a decline now you know who knows but but certainly for 150 close to 200 years America was The Shining Light of the of the world in many many ways and that is because some many would say that the United States gave a Haven to Jewish people I mean those words in the Statue of Liberty were were 100% true give me your tired you know written by Emma Lazarus and Hashem already told abah right those who bless you I will bless those who do good for the Jewish people Hashem is going to bless them and that was maybe it sounds chauvinistic but from our perspective that was the key to why the United States was blessed and if God forbid the United States departs from that and again I'm not expressing political opinions then the United States will suffer will suffer as well just as the European countries suffered so tremendously because of the complicity and what was done against the Jewish people uh during the during the during the Holocaust so that kind of explains the so the is really a because it's not conected to Ava and Y it is connected to the 70 nations of the world now in addition the the the the the Rams are two Rams instead of one ram every other holiday Sher only one ram we have two Rams so here is the idea if a ram represents emulating the path of God and normally we have one ram because you only you only emulate God's rim and not God's in and therefore of the two ways that are available to you you only take one way but since Suk is a remise to yot mashia there is another way we emulate God and that is immortality because it's a Remis to so the two ways are the path of RA and the immortality that attends resurrection of the Dead okay that's that now the Sheep the the Lambs are 14 double okay so again understand the the sukus here the Pim go down in number from 13 to 7 the Rams remain at two and the Lambs remain at 14 which is mamash double every other mus of the whole year so here the sorno explains the 14 in the following way he says as we approach mashia because is a Remis to mashia there will be many many trials and tribulations for the Jewish people these are called the mashia these are called the birth Pains of mashia just like before birth there is pain and struggle we hope we hope we've experienced the worst of the mashia but who knows I've mentioned before a teaching of the vagon that the final war of Goen mug will only be a 12 minute War now what nobody understood for 250 years nobody understood what type of War would take 12 minutes now we horrifyingly understand what what could take 12 minutes a nuclear war God forbid or whatever what whatever it would be uh but there's mashia and and the SP points out mashia will not only decimate the Jewish people physically but even spiritually I mean consider uh you know how small a percentage of CLA Israel keep the Torah not that many you know we have Chua we have the chuva movement but the chuva movements ultimately if you just looked at numbers and numbers are not the only measure is really a trickle it's a trick compared to uh the massive massive numbers 85% not connected to Torah and Mitzvah so the sorno writes and this is an interesting perspective on K culture that if the Sheep represent blind obedience and seven is the cycle of time 14 represents an intensification of observance of mitzvos in a stricter higher level with draan added to D because when Society BFA is falling apart and people are becoming spiritually weak we have to have various fences around the Torah that might not have been necessary in earlier times I'll I'll leave you to ponder the implications of that um because to some degree that might explain you know the ins Solarity let say of much of the religious world because as the outside world gets more and more degenerate so we sometimes circle the wagons now again I am not uh here to Advocate uh that in particular I'm here just to share share with you this soo's thought that he makes the point that Jews are going to have to become more m in things as we approach the Messianic age simply because the societal Temptations are going to be greater and greater and greater and therefore we need to have more Sim more fences around the Torah now the truth of the matter is just on a very basic level you can see that that's true if you look at again I'm thinking more of the United States if you look at the uh decline in the public schools you know if you if you would go into a public school in the 1950s you would see kind of well-dressed children they would recite the Lord's prayer before school which re was actually a good thing because at least it gave them a sense of of God uh in the world uh and and the like and in the 50s they did a survey as to what teachers considered to be the biggest problems in high school so they said chewing gum uh spitballs you know those were problems very very disturbing problems so they they did the same survey like in already the 1990s a long time ago already and it was you know guns uh cocaine you know so there was a difference in other words it used to be at some point uh you could send your kid in fact many you know at a time when day schools were not so prevalent before World War II there were kakama people who are rashash shibas today you know gum today who went to public school and maybe they were even in Christmas plays or whatever it would be but yeah they sang carols uh so so it used to be that Civic Society had a certain base level of morality and Y in which a religious Jew could could survive you know obviously would have to be augmented with all sorts of things uh today that's no longer the case so so in a sense the need for a certain degree of separation the doubling so to speak of the observances uh would be warranted because Society has degenerated in so many ways but be it doesn't matter I just wanted to share with you the sorno so now you know if I ask you what is the mus of PES you will know what is the mus of you will know so there's a kind of a a corner of the Torah that people often do not pay attention to that the sorno has given us the key to understand so have a good weekend take care