The Power of Positive Words — Parshas Matos

okay this joke requires a little bit of knowledge of modern Russian history and geography in order to get the joke but you're gonna see it's too perfect of a setup for this topic not to have used it so the KGB arrests this old Jew and they're trying to intimidate him back in Soviet Russia KGB so they say to the old Jew comrade where were you born he says Petersburg and where do you live now Leningrad and where would you like to die Petersburg okay like I said it takes a little bit of background but you used to call Petersburg communists called a Leningrad now it's Petersburg you know New York is me New Amsterdam and Istanbul use me Constantinople okay why are we talking about this in parshas matters Reuven been a roofing the tribe of roofing they go on a conquest of lands on the other side of the Jordan River okay Avery yarding the other side modern-day Jordan and when they're conquering these lands we read something it tells us that movin a row Vayne bono as Hesh brainless Allah lay the ace curious i-i'm the descendants of roofing built hash Bane and de la ley in Korea signed these are names of cities that's neva neva is another name of a city less bowel mine about mines another name of a city Musa boys shame Mousavi Shaywitz Mousavi shame Rashi says that these are the names that they used to have Masami che means their former names that the the Emma writes the pagans that used to live there they named these cities these names after their deities and therefore when Reuven conquered the lands they renamed the cities and they stripped away the idolatrous references and they gave this cities good Jewish names so that's what the the verse continues to say the you cruel the shame a sesh Mesa are immature Banu they were called with names of the names of the cities they built built here means that they conquested and they rebuilt and the point is that the the cities used to be called something that had an idolatrous reference and now my Nehru vein gave the the city's holy names all right now in toto we read a lot about conquest a lot about war the latter was a lot of war in the ancient world and but this is the only place where we explicitly find a reference to changing or renaming the the the idolatrous name of a conquested city to a do it to a holy name not that it never happened anywhere else but this is the only place that it speaks about it so then the question becomes you know nothing's I've nothing's by accident what is the connection between Reuven's conquest of the lands outside of edit sasural proper and the idea of renaming the cities that they that they conquered that that's our first question second question is the shelah says that the parsha of the week always has a connection to the time of the year even though seemingly it's just you know a practical thing that we divide the the the Torah the five books of Moses into fifty three weeks in order to be able to finish in the course of a year but the shelah says there is an underlying connection sometimes you have to search for it between the parsha and the time of the year mathis masse and bottom are always in the three weeks the three weeks of the time of mourning because historically that's when the events leading up that is to do that's to the destruction of both temples took place so what is the connection then between this idea and the three weeks all right so now we have two questions first of all why specifically we find this idea of renaming the cities in connection with revena and their conquest of the lands east of the Jordan and second question is what's the connection between that and specifically the three weeks the time of national mourning over the destruction of the temple so we're gonna get to that but I want to share with you first a story and this story is really a first-person account of an experience a slice of life the the story happened to a veteran an Israeli veteran named Yosef Yosef kabilov he was on patrol in the Golan after 1967 and a jeep that he was riding in drove over of Syrian landmine two of his friends were immediately killed two others were seriously injured he lost both of his legs he woke up in the hospital they had to amputate his legs and that was it and he said his life was changed forever at that moment not only because it's the loss of his legs but because he said emotionally what he was not ready for what happened to him the way people changed how they saw him he said first of all the looks of strangers when he would be on the street in his wheelchair and just the looks of dread when people would look away from him and ignore him he said but even friends even friends he lost his friends he became isolated he said why is it my fault but they look at me and they're reminded of negativity and they want to be around me and people were uncomfortable around me and he says I didn't just lose my legs I lost my standing in society I lost my connection I lost the camaraderie I I became completely alone and disenfranchised from society and it was extremely extremely painful so yourself was part of a group that the IDF organized to take a group of wounded soldiers what they called the the IDF bureaucracy called the new hey isa al the wounded of Israel and they took them on a trip in 1976 to New York somehow Al Abbar accosted found out the hotel that these veterans these wounded veterans were staying at he went to the hotel and he said to the group I can arrange that you should meet with the lobachev in 770 and most of the group didn't really know what that meant weren't really that interested but a few of the Hebda they knew who that ever was or at least they'd heard of the rabbit and they knew this was a big opportunity so they convinced everyone else guys we have to do this let's do it so they went to 770 and that ever spoke especially just to these wounded IDF soldiers and Yosef remembers he says you know we are men all of us who stood in front of generals and heads of staff and heads of state we know what it is to stand in front of powerful people but none of us ever felt the feeling of all that we felt in front of it a bit like standing in front of a king of old amela and Anna and I spoke with all of the members of the group afterwards and they said they all felt the same thing that when there ever entered the room there was a presence it was it was a different kind of a thing then the rabbit began to speak first that I apologized for his Ashkenazic accent in Hebrew and that ever told them if a person has been deprived of a limb or faculty this itself indicates that God has given him special powers to overcome the limitations this entails and to surpass the achievements of ordinary people you are not disabled or handicapped but special and unique as you possess potentials that the rest of us do not I therefore suggest that you should no longer be called Nikias royal the wounded or disabled of Israel but Mitsu Yana Israel the special the extraordinary the exceptional of Israel after the rebus spoke they never got up and walked to each one of these soldiers from from chair to chair and gave them a dollar to make them Ashley a mitzvah to give sadaqa and yourself says when there ever gave him his dollar that I've been looked him in the eye he says I saw many looks from people's eyes from the days I lost my legs looks of fear pity revulsion guilt he says that was the first time I saw a look of true empathy and that ever looked at me and told me thank you Yosef says all the years of pain and loneliness all of a sudden melted away because what I had wanted somebody to tell me and no one had told me I just wanted to hear someone say thank you at that moment would that ever said those words that was my healing Yosef says afterwards I spoke to everybody else and I found out that Emma had said something different to each one of us when that ever went one by one to give dollars he said something different to each one of us to me I needed to hear thank you that ever told me thank you it's a powerful story but the purpose of my telling it in the context of today's lesson is very specific when there ever said this is 1976 you are not nefarious royal you are Mitsu Jana yes well you're not wounded you're exceptional this is long before PC you know political correctness politically correct language there's always been a concept of euphemism our sages call Russian Nakia clean language but generally speaking a clean language a euphemistic phrase means that you're just trying to be polite right there's an elephant in the room everybody knows what this issue is and it's not a good issue but no one wants to say it because it's not nice so you figure out gentle language how to sidestep the issue and talk around it when the never would speak positive and there never was so careful with word choices it wasn't to avoid saying the truth it was in order to stay the truth you see from the rebus worldview at least the way that it was conveyed to us in the way that I understand it a lot of people see that you know an optimist is not such a realist rose-colored glasses Pollyanna right deluding himself but they're Eva's worldview is that in order to be a realist you have to be an optimist because if you don't see the positive you're not seeing the whole picture and to call this group of men new hagas royal is not accurate it's not just it's not nice it's not accurate calling them it's who yawning is thrill is accurate you're exposing the truth by calling them exceptional and you're failing to expose the truth you're avoiding the truth by by just by labeling them just according to their most external appearance which is you know that you see that they have a disability or a wound and this this idea that to be a realist you have to be an optimist and it's physical specifically with language using positive language to bring out the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth you see this in many ways from the read but there's a there's a famous letter that they never wrote to a hospital director in telecom air and it's Astro and in the letter that ever refers back to a conversation that they had had in in person the letters in Hebrew but it's read in English that ever is telling the hospital director that why is a hospital in Hebrew called a bet the holy my house of the sick it should be called a bed roof wha a house of healing so that ever wrote even though this would seem to represent a semantic change in other words just you know word games here who cares what words you use the term bed roof wha not only brings encouragement to the sick which obviously that it that is important you know to encourage them and to speak positive we know in healing how important state of mind is but not just that this is the main point it represents more accurately the goal of the institution which is to bring about a complete healing therefore why call it by a word that does not suit intentions you see calling it a bet rofl instead of a bet column a house of healing instead of a house of the sick not only is it nicer gentler more encouraging more positive it's more truthful yes sick people go into a hospital but if you do that you're only looking at tiny little slice of you know a snapshot Oh sick people yeah look at the big picture don't be so myopic the big picture is that they come out well and that the purpose of the hospital is for them to come out well so if you look at the big picture at the whole truth automatically you're gonna see more positivity and therefore using positive language isn't just to avoid saying things that are unpleasant truths you know using positive language is actually the only way to bring out the whole truth the hidden truth that many people fail to see because they're only looking at it and they don't see the forest for the trees they're only looking at what's exactly right in front of their face at the moment you have to see the big picture you look at a person you see oh disabled whole doesn't look at the big picture there's a human being with a story with a narrative with with a background with a past the present the future and all of a sudden you start thinking of them in this expanded way you see this is an exceptional person so these are net-net hey you throw this admit Siana you throw and that was the devas approach with language positive language brings out the truth now how does this connect our first question how does this connect to Bnei Reuven conquering lands and renaming the cities so you have to understand the whole idea of the conquest in the first place conquering the Land of Israel basically means taking a mundane land a regular land and turning it into a holy land and it's a cage the holy land so the whole idea of conquest here is taking something normal and making it elevating it making it holy making it special at first the tribe of reuben told Moshe can we settle on the other side of the land and Malaysia was very apprehensive to say the least he said why do you want to not take part in this conquest where we're going to take the mundane and elevate it to the holy and the no we want to be part of it in fact we will go to the forefront of battle and they did roofing roofing and God who settled on the other side they were always in the front lines of battle so we're gonna help the forefront of battle helping this conquest to conquer the land for our brethren and then when we're done doing that we're gonna go to the other side of the land which is not even aired Cicero proper and we're gonna conquer that and elevate that to a holy status so the idea of taking the cities and renaming them taking them out of their idolatrous references and bringing them to a to a holy reference it's this it's very much the same concept it was a conquest a conquest through language and we make a conquest through language all the time when we label something in a positive way by seeing the truth the whole truth that there's an underlying positive aspect to everything we're really positive essence to everything and calling it out and using our words to describe that that's an act of conquest just like been a roving taking those those those non-jewish idolatrous cities and conquering them making them holy and giving them holy names now what's the connection to the three weeks very simple what is what are the three weeks a time of mourning well if you look at a snapshot yeah it's a time of mourning but if you look at the big picture no the truth is this is a glorious time in potential at least that album postions as a matter of jewish law at the end of hillcrist tiniest the laws of fasts that when Messiah comes not only would the will these three weeks that did the days of fasting and mourning no longer be days of fasting and mourning because mashiac will be here but not only will those days be canceled no they'll actually be capped but they'll be transformed into you may saw Sandra simcha days of joy and gladness why because ultimately Gaulish is part of gula exile is part of the process of redemption so if you see only a snapshot you see the negativity but if you see the big picture you see the whole truth now you see the positivity and we have to reflect that in our language and when we do when we name and label and call out the underlying core goodness in everything that's part of God's plan that is an act of conquest where we take something from the ordinary where it's positivity is not seen and we elevate it to the extraordinary where the positivity is seen we have this power through our words so let's exercise this power for conquest this power to bring the world closer to Messiah by seeing things in a bigger way in a more true way in a more accurate way and bringing out the positivity and naming it and calling it by those names