Would You Rather be Rich or go to Heaven? — Parshas Kedoshim

there's a guy was a bungalow up staked in the Catskills and every Friday he drives up for the weekend he always sees on the side of the road this farmer with the sciences fresh tomatoes so one time he's driving up he has a little bit extra time he pulls over and he asks the farmer how much for a tomato so the farmer says it depends he says okay let me look he goes over to the vine he sees a nice big red plum tomato he says how much is this one he says that one that'll be five bucks says five bucks so it looks at the vine he sees a tiny little scrawny little green one just the baby it's not close to ripe and tiny little green tomato he says how much is that one is that one I don't fifty cents guy says perfect I'll come back at the end of the summer and pick it up in this week's parsha harshest condition we have 51 mitzvahs thirteen hours of Commandments and 38 negative according to the safe version and one of those mitzvahs is a mitzvah Kippur law which has to do with the fruit of a fruit-bearing tree being prohibited for the first three years first three seasons we read the piece of Vol audits when you enter the land the item code it's Michael and you plant a fruit bearing tree but altom or law says period shalosh on a mule ahem available a on the fruit should be held off or blocked off from you that's what Orla actually means for three years it shall not be eaten by shauna hut of yes and then in the fourth year Yakko PA que de Lune wash em all the fruit should then become holy what does that mean means it has a sacred status like my sir Shanee like the second tithe which can only be eaten in the holy city of Judah shall I become sort of like like like a corpsman like a sacrifice in a certain way of Hashanah Hamish's then in the fifth year faith Lewis PA you can eat the fruit meaning with no restrictions just eat it regular the hoist of lehem plus a and the purpose of this mitzvah following this Mitzvah is or to increase for you your yield on the Emily Canham I am I am your God who backs up this promise that the purpose and the end effect of adherence to this Mitzvah is to increase for you your yield this is an interesting Mitzvah there's much to be said about the mitzvah of Orla but one simple question is let's just think about the chronology here the the progression or the story that the fruit goes through we start off first three years of the tree and the tree is prohibited the fruits are prohibited like link non kosher food I mean that like non kosher it is it is non kosher it's prohibited which means it is clipper to use the Kabbalistic term it is the husk the shell that's a term we use for the extraneous dimension within creation that hides the life force that creates everything prohibited things are our clipper there that we don't see the spark of Hashem within them even though everything does expire commission within it an order for it to exist but it's it's covered meaning it's opaque we don't see its divine purpose and therefore it's inaccessible to us like like things like all things that are prohibited now what happens after three years is that it becomes holy becomes holy and that's why yes we brought to you - life to be eaten there holy lake lake lake a Corbin like an offering is holy and then in the fifth year and subsequently after that continuing after that it becomes regular okay so what happened here it started off as the lowest of the low that's prohibited flip or what we call fellowship with us at Emmaus irredeemable clip then I became the highest of the high it became condition holiness and then it came back down it became neutral what we call Kabbalistic weekly bas Naga or the translucent or the glowing husk why is it called glowing because it's not opaque its translucent you can see the glow so to speak of the godly spark within it something that's neutral it's not holy it's not designated fur for Holi purposes for for serving a sham but you can see how it could be used that way so anything that's neutral most of the physical world is neutral meaning it can be used for good or you know god forbid for the opposite and that's called clip-on I got that in between or neutral phase so it's very funny here's the story don't bump starts off at the lowest goes to the highest and then it becomes nil seemingly if the trajectory should be it starts off at the lowest then it becomes the middle like neutral and that it ends up being holy and that's the climax that's the pinnacle of it all so it's very funny you know boom boom no comes back halfway down so we have to understand that in addition in addition we have to understand not only does it follow that trajectory but the verse told us that the purpose of the whole observance of this Mitzvah was for what purpose we would like we read lo hice if la gente wasa to increase your yield meaning the yield in the fifth year in all subsequent yield years what does that mean it means that we go through that whole process in order just to come to the the middle level where the fruits are neutral where they're neither holy nor nor profane they're just sort of in-between so that the whole purpose of the whole Mitzvah was to come to that neutral level as if that's the goal it's very hard to understand the goal should be they reach the highest level after then we go higher and then come back lower so sounds almost like the thermidorian reaction thermidorian reaction is a political science term two steps forward one step back I think in the French lucien took place in the french they made up new months the month of Thermidor was the french revolution so they said that they took two steps for by getting rid of King Louie but then they took one step back with their with the French Republic or maybe with Napoleon and the point is there you talk about a practical thing that when change happens it's a radical change of big change of revolution but then things settle back down that's very hard to look at amidst it that way that at first is this big burst and everything goes to a very high level but then it settles back down that's not how it works that's not how you this guy works no we're Milan bercovich we ascend in matters of holiness everything's always going higher we're always progressing toward the ultimate goal I mean not to get onto a side topic but that's what that's what the whole history of the world everything that happens as we're working toward mushiya every development is ultimately progress underlying everything is that that constant ascendance toward the ultimate the ultimate goal so again the fruits start off as the lowest of the low irredeemable clipper meeting they're not kosher then they become the holy that they become holy they make a sacrifice they have to be brought to Jerusalem and then they drop down to regular to normal okay by the way before we continue this I just do want to mention not that this is a class in Halawa but people wonder is the midst of or Allah kept in in our day and is it kept in could slaughter in the day after outside of the Land of Israel and the answer is although that many agricultural laws do not apply in our time and in our input slaughtered but Orla does and we have to be careful about it is actually there's a story about the outfit eben when he was a little boy he was with his brother Rob you hood of laid and hood Elaine came over to the altar Devin the anniversary of Ichabod and he asked him what's the brook after 8:00 on an Apple it was a little kid I didn't know asking so the outfit ever says why asking he says because that lady a non-jewish lady gave me an apple he said where did she get it from and from that apple orchard right there he said oh no that's Orla so he actually as a young rabbit gave his brother a tick one he told him from now on never eat anything never put anything in your mouth until you have ascertained that it is kosher you look into the kosher status of anything you eat before you eat it every single time but the point is that Orla is a mitzvah that we we do keep even now and even outside of Cicero is a mouth like is between spider-man Ashkenazim macabre and The Moth regarded the fourth year and then it has to do with whether it's regular fruits or specifically grapes grapes as another category the fourth year method oh boy but even according to the Rome ah was more lenient about the fourth year that we do we do keep the fourth year prohibition in which case we actually because we without getting the technicalities we can't really keep the the laws as if it were my so shiny so we were playing that we redeem it instead but the first three years the program though the prohibitory years were the fruits are non kosher that's what the macabre No Mas vitamin Ashkenazim both keep this for all fruits so again a question what's with that weird trajectory of going up and sliding back down so I'm gonna tell you a story the baal shem tov before he was revealed he used to go from town to town and he would meet simple jews regular jews and he would ask them what's master how are you doing and the whole purpose of asking them how are you doing is because these simple Jews who were many of them were illiterate they couldn't learn but they had simple faith and when someone would ask them how are you doing they would say bought of Hashem or various different you know Yiddish colloquialisms dang tumba Shefford however they would say they would they would express their their simple sincere gratitude to Russia and about femdom had a reason why he was doing this that he understood that this was a very powerful tool in connecting the Jewish people to a sham and that this is something on high that in heaven was was was required and and and desired it caused tremendous NACA's on high for Hashem so he would go around getting people to say these praises of thank God and and the life in there in whatever day-to-day language they were speaking so the baal shem tov came to a town and he was asking - how are you doing thank god dr. Langston and then he found out there was a show where there was this Polish little polish punishes an ascetic sort of a recluse there was this guy who he lived in shul slept on a bench he only ate a little crust of bread once a day at night after a whole day of Torah study very very spiritual guy for at least in his own estimation so the marsh anthem comes and he finds this this ascetic this polish he says let's master B it was max - and the guy doesn't answer why because he's learning Torah and that's more important than answering and having you know having small talk so it doesn't answer so the chapter says again the end were smashed them how you doing my answer that keeps this roastmaster so they at this point he can tell the guy you know it guys like sort of like making motions like I could answer you but I'm not going to it you know the side-eye and finally the bow hunter says he says I hid why do you deprive hashem of his par Nosa of his livelihood well that's it now the guy he provoked him he got up he says how could you speak such heresy what he talking about giving Hashem his livelihood shelter said it's very simple it says in tehilim the holy Psalms of King David after Kaddish the a shifty LoCicero you Hashem our sustained are settled through the prayers or the praises that the Jewish people give you that's what gives - his par Nosa his livelihood so to speak is he consumes those prayers and those praises that sincere heartfelt gratitude when I do says thank thank I shall thank God bang boom a bishop and you're refusing to do it so you're refusing hashem is para no sir they shook the guy up so much totally thrown for a loop and he rethought his whole worldview there are some versions of this story that the punish was ranked Yusef who went on to be one of the great tell me Adam of the Baal Shem Tov but at any rate the point of the story remains the same what did Hashem want he wanted that a Jew should look at his day-to-day life his health his family the fact that he can put bread on the table regular day-to-day mundane things and see that that's from Russia in other words that our connection to a sham shouldn't just be in our religious life but even more importantly that we see the connection to a sham in our day-to-day regular mundane affairs eating drinking sleeping exercising all the things that we do just because we're human beings and we have bodies and we do that we live in the world those mundane things to connect that to Russia and that is how shams livelihood so to speak when we praise Hashem and we see a sham in the mundane and this is one of the most basic teachings of the Baal Shem Tov the idea of sanctifying the mundane of uplifting the coil the the the vaca dick the the regular day to day and making it holy by connecting it to our service of a sermon our love of a seminar often in fact the whole purpose for which your holy soul left the holy heavens and came down to this physical world was for that purpose was to sanctify the Monday the holy is already holy but a Jew came down to this world to make the mundane hope to make this world holy and not only holy and and not only heavenly but ultimately when we share comes the ultimate goals to make this world holier than heaven so I'll tell you another story the great caution and my fear of hello Potter chip used to tell a story sometimes at a fab Wrangham can we tell a story what was the story it was a story about the Haram be Rotenberg who is the madam madam was born in the city of worms or we called remise in 1215 see he then he lived in France in fact he was present in 1244 at the Cathedral of Notre Dame the one that just burnt down last year when they did a mass book burning of the Talmud 24 wagonloads of the Talmud were burned in front of the notre-dame Cathedral in Paris and was present for that in fact he wrote later a poem a lament that we read and it's included in the the Tish above readings later he moved back to Germany persecution with us was also terrible over there and finally in 1286 he decided that he and his family are going to move to edits as well to the Holy Land and they set out from Germany across Europe they made it as far as Italy to northern Italy cool Lombardy and they're an apostate Jew who had a bone to pick with Jewish leadership and wanted to prove his loyalty to the Catholic Church he went to local authorities and he said that the madam is as a troublemaker he's a criminal and to arrest him and they did so and they sent him back the extradited him back to Germany and there the the King King Rudolf put the madam in a tower at a great fortress in a tower as a prisoner and said that he would not be released until a ransom of twenty thousand marks was paid madam told the Jewish community do not give them one coin because he understood that if it became a good business it became lucrative to start ransoming Jewish leadership then all rabbis would be at risk of such a fate so the madam had great self-sacrifice and he told the Jewish community do not pay the ransom and for seven years he was a prisoner in that power for seven years and he wrote Sodom while he was in in prison and he continued to teach but he was a prisoner and he died there in captivity after seven years after he died they begged that they should at least release the body so he could have a Jewish burial and that even that if they refused after 14 years I drew a wealthy Jew by the name of Alexander Siskind vim Fionn was able to bribe the authorities and to have the holy body of the madam released for Jewish burial after 14 years so finally madam was was buried with his people and sometime later during the ascetism a Achieva during the ten days of penitence between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur this sort of Alexander the wealthy man who had paid for the release of the body had a dream and in his dream the madam appeared there and thanked him for getting his body out and and burying it with Jewish burial and madam said to him I'm speaking to you from heaven and I want to reward you for what you did for me and I have two rewards that I can give you one reward is that I can make sure the money that you spent redeeming my body will be replaced and and even more so so that you and all of your descendants for all time will always be extremely wealthy that's one reward I can give you behind door number two the other option is I can bring you with me to my compartment in in paradise II made the mikito see you can come to my level of GaN Eden but if you want that one it has to be tomorrow you have to leave the earthly existence tomorrow and you'll come up to GaN Eden and you're gonna be with me on my level so they said I'm Alexander he woke up from the dream he understood it was a real vision and he went to his his wife and his children he wrote a will and he said goodbye to them and he explained to them he was being rewarded he was going to GaN Eden and to the highest levels with with the malum himself and that's exactly what transpired and he he left this world and that very day so the hillel used to tell this story and after he would tell the story he would ask the Sydenham who were assembled no and what would you do if you were given the choice sort of Alexander was given which would you take would you take the money or the guy named and generally people would would give the answer that they thought is the right answer to give the more spiritual answer the more refined the more lofty of course who would take the GaN Eden we take the Paradise what's money in its material we would take the spiritual and this is what people would always answer better uphill it would say fools fools you're gonna take a higher level in Paradise what good does that do anybody but you take the money and then you can redeem more captives and do more good and help more people in this world as we said this is one of the basic concepts the Baal Shem Tov taught that we were sent to this world to make this world a holy place to take regular day-to-day things the mundane the huddle and make it conditioned so now we understand the trajectory of the status of the fruits when it comes to the laws of garlic it does go from the lowest to the highest it is constantly ascending closer to the ultimate goal you know why because we have to rethink our whole way of understanding it we were thinking it starts off as a which is prohibited non-kosher then it goes to the highest becomes holy and then it drops down into the middle becomes ordinary no you don't understand ordinary is the highest the regular fruits which are clip ass Naga which are neutral which are neither prohibited nor holy but just regular waiting there with their potential to be redeemed that's where it's at that's why the soul was sent to the world in order to engage with all the things of this world that are neutral that are not holy but have the potential to be used for the service of a sham that's the ultimate goal and that's what accomplishes the ultimate goal of bringing machine of making this world completely refined and holy and that's why it says that the all purpose of the Mitzvah is the highest of lehem to loss a to increase the produce of of the fifth year in the sixth year in all the subsequent years because the purpose of the Mitzvah is not the first three years or the fourth year no the whole goal of Yiddish Kyte of Judaism is what happens with the ordinary with the regular stuff the day-to-day stuff and using that as a vessel to serve Hashem