Tisha B'av: Hear No Evil - Rabbi Yaaqob Menashe

[Music] it says in seph regarding the uh the war with midan and they said Toom your servants what does this mean literally they counted the heads of the men of War which are in our hands it's an interesting way of putting it the men of war in our hands and not one Solitary Man was lost in battle it says in thei that the generation of King David were all righteous this was an extremely righteous generation unfortunately there were some we'll call them slanderers among them what was the net result is that they would fall in battle the generation of King David on the other hand you have the generation of aab that all they did was Abazar was a very bad generation but none of them spoke slander and and we're told that they would go out to war the generation of Ahab they would go out to war and win what this shows us for a start very clearly is the severity of the sin of any kind of slander and so on it can even make those fall in battle I mean that's huge we should think about that just how great that is or how bad it is so ask the why are the fingers of the hand the shape they are have you ever thought about it if you haven't studied the G they're fatter at the bottom and pointy at the top yeah the the gamar asks why why the fingers of the hand the shape and it answers that they're like pegs because if a person should hear something that is inappropriate stick them in your ears we have to be very particular not to hear let alone not to speak not to hear inappropriate thought talk by the way that's also why the uh loes of the ears are soft the way they are so you can push them up and they hurt a little bit which makes you realize that it's a bad thing when you hear Bad something bad you cover your ears now we see from this that the true weapons of war when B went to war with midan and in any War which help us succeed in battle are what the tips of of the fingers of the hand let's look at this verse again let's look at this again and they said to Moses the people your servants counted the heads of the men of war the soldiers if you like which are in our hands says that's what it is the men of war that help us win the war are our fingers and where are they in our hands we have to use them to ensure that we don't hear anything inappropriate right let's continue on that line the that is always the before why different explanations one of them is because they have reproaches rebukes M was as a we telling off the Jewish people you did certain things that are wrong you got to pull yourselves together make sure you don't do it in the future I'm not going to be there with you you got to make sure that you do the right thing as a matter of fact many times in the year we out of the land of Israel and gal and the diaspora are out of sync with Israel in terms of Torah reading I think you're aware of that why because let's say PES we outside the land of Israel have the Y we have the additional day of any holiday most holidays we have an additional day and let's say that additional Day falls out on Shabbat so what is the Torah reading for us for that Shabbat the one for the holiday but in Israel it's not Shabbat anymore I'm sorry it's not this is definitely Shabbat it's not the holiday anymore so what are they reading they're reading next week's parasha but we're not going to get to it till the following week so we're out of syn Israel's ahead of us the whole time till at the very latest were one Shabbat before deim deim Israel and the world have to be reading before so then what we do is we do and together which is what happened this year okay it says in speaking about the spies now this is very very important for tab it was the it was the the the sin of the spies as I'm sure you've probably heard many times over the last 20 whatever it is hours that caused God says you're coming in and crying for no reason I'm going to make this day the that you're crying now that you've come back out of the land of Israel where you spied it and you saw what it was and you've said the you said bad things about the land and remember we're just saying don't say bad things it's a very bad thing if you want to if you want to win a war you said bad things about the land was on and now m is reminding us about it he says and they took some of the fruit of the land in their hand as we know they came back with these huge produce and they brought them down to us and they they brought word to us and they said the land that God is giving us is good oh wait a minute hold on hold on hold on hold on that's not what they saidu is not saying the problem this is what and said the two good guys in the story they said the land is exceedingly good and that's what Rashi says on this he says this the land is good this is and is not saying any anything about this is a land that devours its inhabitants why what's going on he's trying to rebuke trying to reproach and he's saying the good stuff former Chief Rabbi of Israel of course has an explanation for this it's the why he doesn't mention the words of the spies only of c and Yoshua he says mosu is coming here to teach us something very fundamental and that is not just what we should and shouldn't say but we have to know to whom we should listen and to whom we should not listen And if someone speaks badly about the land of Israel he should not be listens to we have Men of War to help us protect us against that and it would seem to me that this message is very very pertinent on on the nth of when we're suffering because of the sin of baseless hatred it's a time that we have to double our efforts not just not to speak but also not to hear any kind of bad speech at all speaking of Shalom he was some who was so particular about kashu I can't tell you there's some amazing stories about him that he was so modest I had I had the that he was one of the people who gave me many many years ago but such a modest person you would speak to him you would sit with him you would feel that you were the important person that's how he made you feel I was a young guy he made me feel I was important he was just a you know just somebody sitting there that's how he was the stories about him that have come out they make your hair stand on end but one of the things about him is he was very very particular about Kash and especially for Safar the whole matter of is a very very big deal and there was one story that I just want to share with you and I want to end with this and the story is as follows he was giving a shi to the Yesa and they brought him a cup of tea and if you ever see the shooting the a lot of them online he moves his hands a lot and what happened was he splashed the tea so they came and they mopped it up very quickly and then they brought him another one now he was very careful so what did he do he watched his hands but somewh or another he pulled the tablecloth and again it spilled he said no there's something wrong here this never happens and for it to happened twice there's something wrong I want you to investigate it so they investigated it and they found that a non-jew had borrowed the kettle okay so what so if a non-jew makes water in a kettle it doesn't make it not caser so he said it's not possible look into it even further they found that the non-jew didn't boil water in the kettle he made non kosher food in the kettle and because he was so particular about kashrut they say he was saved inadvertently from doing something there's a very big lesson here for us and the lesson for us is very very simply that if we're very particular to do the right thing will help us and if helps us then it means if we're all doing the right thing and he's helping us that we're ready to receive the bash let us make sure that we are at the level where who wants to help us won't let us stumble and may we all meet again next year in amen