NEW SERIES Tomer Devorah Introduction with Rabbi Aaron Dovid Poston

[Music] hey good day everybody welcome back to beyond the seven it's been over more than a month since we were with live with uh live from jerusalem with rabbi aaron david poston uh we finished the huge voluminous work the 48 ways to wisdom it was such a joy to churn through that entire uh book and uh it was an honor that rabbi poston actually did a a a a note about it uh at himself it was beautiful to see and uh all i can say is i know i've had a lot of messages saying oh is he coming back of course we're so glad to have him and he's going to start a beautiful beautiful deep work a book uh that's called tomer devorah uh which uh is a profound work by uh uh rabbi moshe cordovero written in the 1600s it's a classic work uh he was a great uh capitalist and uh from what i understand he was the rabbi of the aurisel um so um i'm sure it's huge it's deep and i've been chatting here with rabbi poston and uh i look forward to hearing what he has to say so let's just jump right in and see what the rabbis got to say rabbi posted it's so good to be with you it's been too long but we're glad to be back with you now with an exciting exciting new uh uh series and uh uh as you mentioned when when we we got together here online you want to start maybe working at this every couple weeks now i know in two weeks we've got passover so we're going to leave it at your discretion when you're willing to do these lessons but i look forward to hearing this because i have heard this work quoted in so many different moose or works as a resource material and i'm sure it's the source of a lot of great uh and profound torah thought and we're so honored that you're going to take the time uh to transmit it to us so uh you know i'm turning the class over to you sir you're live on the air with the noahide world center social media pages and our noahide society canada page so so good to be back with you it's my joy thank you dan i am so happy to be back i really am i'm happy to see your happy face and i'm glad to be uh sharing you know in from divine information with your listeners at the noah hyde world center and of course this goes up on your bun afterwards so our uh our subscribers also get to hear this uh fantastic stuff um yeah i missed you guys um we're back i i want to introduce first of all tonight is really just an introduction and actually we're going to deal with we'll call the prologue the book over my left shoulder is an elucidated um copy um who actually printed it i'll tell you in a second who's the printer here now wasn't this work originally in russian russian no in hebrew first of all you mentioned it was the 16th century it's actually the 16th century which means in the 1500s mid-1500s just so anyway this this one is by fell time publishers and it's only even though it's quite thick the book itself is quite tiny because most of this is uh whoever put this together um has a lot of commentary on it so i mentioned this is by um feldheym publishers and it was adapted the original hebrew by rabbi shmuel bayer okay so what we're going to deal with is only i'm going to say it's chapter one that's really what we're going to deal with the rest of the chapters which you can find actually targum feldheim puts another safer together that deals with the rest of the book now what do i mean by the introduction the introduction is really dealing with what we're going to call the 13 uh attributes of mercy and i'll just i'll describe what that is in a few minutes okay so this the what we're going to deal with in our series is only we're going to call the first chapter but it's going to be divided into about well there's 13 attributes so today's the introduction so maybe it'll be 14 um parts four segments episodes right um the rest of the book i mentioned is actually dealing with the sphero the 10 sphere wrote we for this for this maybe in the future but for this class for these this series we're not going to touch uh this sphero although immediately after pathak we do begin to count the omer which kabbalistically speaking uh over overlays this idea of the sphero so it could be that even as we progress we may touch upon some of these ideas but i want to mention in the introduction that with great fear and trepidation i'm approaching this work and i have to say it's really and i'm in my humility okay i'm actually quite a humble guy i don't even feel up to the task but it's such a necessary thing and even into introduction in one of the ideas that ramosa cordovero we're going to call him the ramak that's an acronym cordovero ramak wrote and mentions that when you have wisdom you have an obligation to teach it and we'll understand why one of the main i call thesis of his work is that what we do in this world affects the heavens the deeds with my own students from minochad students and one of the main points that i always try to get across to them is all deeds matter i hope they remember that all deeds matter to the point you know we were thinking about putting a bumper sticker together and this is going back five six seven years ago and you know since then all kinds of uh movements have started with uh certain things matter and uh i guess it's overshadowed but the bottom line is i think as uh martin luther king or maybe his junior uh martin luther king jr said that uh you know old deeds matter it's not the matter of the color of your skin but it's uh it's your the nature of your character right now where did he get these ideas from obviously the bible so we're going to go into a lot of source material to understand the relevance the importance of this work and um so we'll we'll start with a few ideas again i'm using the book on my left shoulder to discuss this idea keep in mind right you have a relationship with somebody anybody has relation with anybody how is that relationship built if you don't know your own position in the relationship if you don't even know who you are okay you have no way to even begin to i don't know just to rub hands right you have no i you know shake hands you have no idea how to address the person or like in other words depends who you are how you address the person as well you know do you stand up for the person or does he stand up for you right you have to know the relationship so one of the most important ideas and you'll find this in genesis chapter 1 verse 26 right to understand our relation with whom with the creator of the universe so if you want to read just the beginning part you can read the whole verse that's enough so many i know that people coming out of christianity some of them have been brainwashed to think that this verse is referring to something else perhaps hashem is speaking to i don't know a partner of his um the truth is yes that hashem is actually the rash the first rashi right there tells us that we learn something very important about hashem's own humility unbelievable humility that he he doesn't need to he doesn't need to speak to the angels but he speaks to the angels anyway because we human beings are part angel we're spiritual of nature and yet we're physical right and he actually asked them let's do it let's do it together like i want your advice it's so the important lesson and this is going to fall into the ideas that we're going to discuss about the nature of of mercy or compassion right imagine an employer speaking to somebody who is not obviously not on the same pay grade right and yet he asks the person or she asked the person who's lower in status uh i want your advice about something i mean this would elevate this person's own sense of i don't know the responsibility or not just the ego but the sense of satisfaction for that the boss is coming and asking me for advice we're not really looking at the people per se but we're looking at the compassion that hashem has even for the creatures that he created such as angels to um to consult with them that is who hashem consulted because he already created the angels when he mentions this let us make man in our image so just that was like a side point the main point is that we're created in god's image that's going to be the main point here so to know who we are we have to get an inkling and i'm using that word i don't know if that's the best word to get a glimpse of what hashem is because he is infinite he's unfathomable he's unknowable he's beyond our imagination and yet he created us in his image so who are we we can only know who we are by the revelation that he gave us of who he is now i want to skip to a certain um concept so get my um ideas here this you can find in perky alvo chapter three perkiavo chapter three if i'm a mistake and it's mission of 14. i have it here this is a continuation of rabbi akiva's statement we had 14 you said chapter 3 mission of 14. it's like the second point that rebecca made uh it says uh uh rabbi uh dosa ben son of uh hurricane is said uh late late morning sleep stop there no no and he used to say beloved is man for he was created in the image of god per kilo chapter three and not all the number systems are the same uh i'm reading it on uh it would be the the following mishnah the second statement that he makes let me just um this is the one by rabbi ellie azer no rebecca maybe i'll maybe i'll just read it yeah i'm sorry i can't find it rabbi okay before i do that i just want to really stress a little bit more about how important this work is okay we're going to get into these ideas that we awaken things from below and i'm you know we're going to be all over the place so i i i'm going to i just don't think that stressing how important the book itself is it's called a segula by many people what does the word segula mean it means it's a treasure it means it's a treasure the jewish people are called god's treasured people in exodus 19 5 in deuteronomy 7 8 for example but what does it really mean it means some kind of remedy or protection in other words every hebrew word can have up to eight different meanings and you have to know the context you have to know the person who's saying it what they meant when they said it and it doesn't discount the other possible meanings but to understand the true meaning of what segula is and the rabbis have said that if you read this if you read this and understand this book you're automatically and that's a crazy statement to make a ben olam which means that you've you've found a place for yourself in heaven you've you've established a place for yourself for all eternity for the world to come now why is that so important because again it's establishing who you are in this world knowing your place knowing your relationship with god and fulfilling your purpose your purpose is to be like god because that's what he created you to be i want to just not digress but i want to just go back to another point that the word from mankind is adam adam and we understand that adam comes from the adama okay so that means earth it means soil it means the right i don't like what everything grows in i don't like using the word dirt okay but you understand he's coming from what we call earth what we're calling uh the soil but the aleph always represents always represents one aleph the ultimate in wisdom that's what aleph means wisdom and that god created the world with wisdom amazing hashem is just amazing so anyway so going back to this idea aleph represents hashem also it's a verb with two yuds which is 26. is six and the two units is ten that's how an olive is formed it's with three other letters okay so these these letters actually equal if you add them up 26 26 is the same gematria as you did and avane hashem's own gamatria for his name so when you take the word adama read it not as just ground right but as aleph hashem dome the aleph dalid mem hey that man is like hashem because the word dome means similar it means in the likeness of that's exactly what it is that's why man is created not just from the ground but he is created in the image of god what is god god is elohim as the verse said elohim is all powerful almighty that's what god gave you every human being the potential the potential to be like him to create the ability to create the ability to destroy unbelievable unbelievable powers and what we do is when we utilize them we are it's like using like ever pull on a rope or let's say shake a rope from down below and it's attached to the ceiling you can watch it jiggle i know that the uh whatever whatever you call the the distance of the jiggling gets less and less has the wave right but it still has an effect it ultimately has an effect in heaven and that we have the ability to to create and destroy and i will go into the whole idea of free will surely after we read this perkian vote uh in chapter three which i believe in most cases you're going to find it in the mission of 14 by rabbi akiva where he says like this beloved is man god loves man that he created him he created a man in his own image in the image of god now that's the first statement he makes now even more than that in other words as an extra and these are the words of noah weinberg okay i mean when he obviously is rebbe akiva but when rev north weinberg expressed these words he made it alive you know you understand he said so as an extra generous um you know gift right especially beloved was he that god did something extra special he made it known to him right just to just to be created in the image of god is one thing but if you don't know it if you don't know it is what a waste so god made it known to us because that he how did he do that he gave us the torah he gave us the revelation and and for example in genesis 9 6 so not only did god confer with the angels in chapter one he's going to make man in his image but then he did in chapter 9 verse 6 for in the image of god he created man unbelievable right but he made known so there's two points to this number one that we're creating the image of god but number two that we were made known how were we made known through the torah through god's revelation yeah i sold i sold automobiles for a long number of years and uh i remember uh i sold a uh one of my aunts a a vehicle and uh she had it for a long period and i remember chatting with her 10 years later oh you still have that and uh she was moving something and i said well did you know did you did you use this and she says no i didn't know i had that and um i says well you know i remember showing it to you when i delivered the car uh but but you know it came with an owner's manual you were supposed to review and if you didn't check out the manual how are you going to know uh you've got access to use such uh things you're 100 right i mean just imagine you get a computer back in the day when nobody knew what is you know uh copy and paste or delete or save and you you're lucky where the on button was you wouldn't even know how to make you wouldn't be able to use all the potential that it has obviously just copy delete and paste is not the potential but even that which is so useful for so many people it wouldn't even have had known how to do that so go to chat in deuteronomy chapter 30. now this is towards the end of the entire you know tonight entire five books of moses but in chapter 30 now i'm going to just pinpoint a few words in verse 15 verse 19 and verse 20. so after seeing what rebecca said about that god loved us and he made us in his image but he gave an extra special um um you know expression of his love by letting us know i want to before we read this chapter 20 30 in deuteronomy it tells a story the story went like this like if you saw a unfortunate person who's living on the streets and he has this duffel bag that he carries with him what does he have in it who knows maybe some extra clothes maybe a pillow a blanket i don't know he doesn't have a whole lot so he doesn't have that much in the bag that's really worthwhile except maybe it's his whole life meanwhile you have a million dollars and in the middle of the night you slip in a million dollars into the bottom of his duffel bag have you changed his life and you know if you think about it the true answer is no you really haven't until you tell him that it's there because like you said you know your aunt with the car if she didn't know she had she never but it would what if it was the air conditioner what if it was the uh the window washer in the back window i don't know whatever it was like reverse just to go around the circles our whole life right so obviously the knowledge is so important so look now in deuteronomy chapter 30 i'm going to read just certain parts of the verse right in chapter in verse 15 god says behold i've set before you today life and good death and evil so okay very nice he plays that before us this is the free will the rosh yeshiva of noah weinberg said what does it mean to be created in the image and likeness of god like we said the power to create the power to destroy this is the same thing this is it he puts before us free will right to choose between life and good between death and evil then uh it must be in verse 19 i have set before you life and death the blessing and the curse and what does he tell us you shall choose life unbelievable right he put before you uh natasha necklace it's very nice that he put us before life and death the blessing and the curse but he tells us what to do he tells this is in your interest if you want life choose life i know that you and your progeny shall live but just to go on a little bit more in verse he mentions to cleave to him this idea the bow because it's your life cling to him what does it mean to cling to hashem this is what the whole book is about it's going to teach you how to cling to hashem now we're going to see in the book that even moses asks for god to reveal his glory and god says nobody can see my face and live but turn your face and i will show you my back and this is when he tells him about the 13 attributes of mercy now believe it or not those 13 attributes of mercy are they are no doubt the 13 attributes of mercy however our book is going to use something from the prophets from the prophet michael that jews on rosh hashanah the day the world was created right the day that we're being judged we're going to say those 13 attributes of mercy truth be told the whole month of ello every day we're going to be saying it especially the week before roshana during the 10 days between russia and yom kippur rush run itself yom kippur all day long right we're going to be using these this magical magical a protective uh remedy right there's something that's supposed to change our lives but we also say it every day in tahanun for those who live in arts israel uh svardin outside the land of israel we actually say this quite often but not all day long these 13 attributes but in michael i think i've discussed this idea before the prophets never came to reveal anything new that's not their job their job was to rebuke if we had been perfect little children come into the land of israel moses would have come into built the basement came over we would have had just maybe joshua that would have been it there would have been no reason for any other books the bro the profits come to remind us of what we already know and what we're supposed to do and guide us and set us back on the right path so michael comes and tells us in chapter verses 18 through 20 he actually describes these 13 attributes of mercy in different words and those are the words that this book is based on those are the words that we say on rosh hashanah at a time of tashel when we chapter 7 verses 18 through 20. i don't want to read them now i'm going to read them slowly and go through each one of them during this introduction at some point before we finish our session so people become familiar with them i wanted to there's just so much here there's so much here for hashem um i will read that rashi on one of the verses that i quoted to i think it might be the the last which one is it i think it's verse 19 actually so rashi says when it says you shall choose life god says this is rashi even though you have free choice that's what that's the whole point you're creating in the images in the image of god i gave you free choice my instructions to you i instruct you to choose the portion of life that's very important to know okay now and well rabbi what what does that say for indecision those people that put it off put it off put it off depends what you're indecisive about i mean there there are times to to delay a decision there's no question about it i mean important things you want to really uh mull over and get down down correctly you know you shouldn't be too um what's the word uh hasty a rash yeah i mean uh i don't know what were you trying to say i mean obviously well indeci indecision is often uh uh you know an opportunity for for for wickedness okay so if there's a doubt i mean we have the instruction manual so you know when something is cleared like even when you went to a court you only went to a court to decide on something if there was a doubt if there was no doubt so you you're supposed to study right that ben north should know that stealing is forbidden and when something comes up he can ask his mentor his rabbi his big brother or whatever his hebrewta right what happened when that person you know i i gave him a certain amount of money and he didn't give him back the right change really he gave me less should i have said something so that is something that he right he might be in doubt but once he knows the right answer then he's no longer in doubt um just a few other ideas right just understand that a human being is the mirror image of the creator right if we say that the word adam is a man comes from adam and we described what adam is that it literally means that he's similar to hashem okay therefore the goal and i'm going to say the goal of a jew now what does it mean for a non-jew a non-jew as a human being i don't see why they if they pick up the nuances the understanding of judaism they don't have to be a jew to to come to the same realization that the goal of life is to resemble hashem through your actions okay just to go back to this idea of humility that as rashi mentions in the in that verse in chapter 1 verse 26 the name of god this is the most amazing thing i i read this in the clear car and i checked it out it's 100 true there's a concept of each letter having a value we call that the gematria however there's more than one way of um adding you know compiling understanding the value of each letter so there's more than one one understanding i'm just going to talk about it one particular one besides the standard aleph a is one b bet is two gimmo is three but each letter is actually spelled out it's called molloy it's the fullness of the letter so alif if you spell out olive it's alith lamin pay spells the word alef bet bet you're tough so if you take each letter and now equate the actual original value so let's take that bet you're tough 400 is tough unit is 10 and bet is 2. so it's a 412. the letter bet actually has a value in its fullness of 412. aleph is aleph is 1. lamin is 30 pay is 80. it's 111. you can do that with all of them then you can find the graph you go to google you you ask for the fullness of the gematria actually if you want to write in hebrew miloy the gamacher milo the fullness of the letters and you'll see a whole chart and it's the most amazing thing god created the language we call hebrew the the uh lush and hakodesh the holy language he created he spoke and the world came into being right the the fundamental particles of creation his own name his own name yud and hey and above and just add another hate to it those three of the letters you'd have are the smallest of the entire just look at the graph you're talking about 70 80 and up for all the other letters but the good i use 20 the hey hey hey hey you're hey they're mom-ish like nothing just look at it it's like when i say nothing we're talking about the smallest value right um you'd hey love you would love it's unbelievable they're small so they don't even if you took the uk above k is the smallest combination of the entire dictionary right not the dictionary but each word in the dictionary you can look up any word add it up the uk buff k is the smallest and that's god's own name i mean unbelievable wisdom and genius went into the creation of the language that created the world unbelievable wisdom when you contemplate that you just realize this is beyond fathomable it's just unbelievable so we're talking about hashem's own humility and therefore that's why i'm coming to you not out of a false humility but out of an absolute humility i have no idea how i can tell over what this book is about um and and each one of the character traits because i am so far from implementing them in my life but i'm hoping and praying that through teaching this over that i will help myself in bed right because we're talking about clinging to hashem walking in hashem's ways i have a few other verses just to show that that's what god requires of us that's what god wants of us god wants us to right to cling to him i mentioned that one verse it was the end i think was verse 20. right so there's other verses where it says let me just find it real quick in deuteronomy chapter 11 verse 22. yeah we'll get we'll get back to that at the end i want to go through them because that's really part of the introduction to the rest of the other 13 paragraphs so to speak correct verse 22 reads um for if you keep all these commandments which i command you to do them to love the lord your god you to walk in all his ways and to cleave to him and 23 says then the lord will drive out all of these nations from before you and you will possess nations greater and stronger than you yeah it's beautiful so what does it mean to walk in his ways and to cleave to him so in hebrew right how does one walk in hashem's ways he's invisible he's almighty i mean come on you cannot even begin to fathom however the tour itself is a book if someone would say to you what is the book about it's fine you gave me the the book called the bible i hear it's like the best seller for the last couple thousand years right it's but what's it about so you can have a cheat sheet right well let's look in the beginning let's look at the end maybe somewhere in the middle and i'll get an idea right so the very first thing hashem does is give give somebody who has no clothes clothes right the very end someone who needs to be buried he buries moses so and everything in between is all the same it's all about it's all about compassion it's all about it's all about unbelievable so what does it mean to walk in his ways so that's why actions mean everything and what you do down here this is what the whole book is about is shaking the heavens where it's called an awakening from below that's going to not just affect hashem so to speak but then hashems flow it's like if there was like a loose pipe if you just pull on that string a little bit it opens up you know i mean the valve and pours down the blessing but it has to be the proper tug it has to be in the right direction right you can't just uh chaotically you might have a lot of broken pipes and a lot of damaged goods right so you're talking about very precise and this is what judaism is all about this is the biggest lesson if judaism you know i was not brought up religious i was brought up secular and one of the things even a secular jew pretty much understands right that it's all about your actions i'm not going to say faith doesn't matter but at least at that point in my life faith did not matter but what did matter what was brought down through the generations is and my mother told me as a young age i said what is exactly what is heaven and she was a very spiritual person it's what you make it's how you act in this world if you're a good person if you act properly she didn't know to tell me well the instruction manual is sitting here right in front of you but if you act properly then what you do in this world is going to continue to the next world and she was so very right although we have an instruction manual and the instruction manual tells us how we should behave okay where are we going from here let me just look at my notes here i wanted to mention a few other points because i mentioned the segula that um let me just let me refer to what rabbi could devour the remark himself writes he said regarding that if you have some knowledge you should try to share that knowledge with others and this will whatever benefits you you know whatever things you have it will benefit others so this is his words it is proper for each person to share his wisdom with others and this is unbelievable of noah weinberg said if you know aleph go out and teach one letter whatever you know and remember this is like before the the um what they call that iron curtain in in russia i mean he talked about people who were oppressed religiously they couldn't even have a brit miller they couldn't um go to synagogue without being spied on i don't know if anything's changed but let's just some things to change but back then it was your life was in your hands and yet people did this they had schools that were under the ground what do they call underground uh you know put their life uh at risk just to teach whatever they knew and anyway let me just read it's proper for each person to share his wisdom with others in order to teach and benefit all each person according to his ability he should let his wisdom help others as much as he can and not let anything disturb him from this i want to stay one more time i heard from ravnock's own mouth he said my favorite book my favorite book his favorite book was the tome of devorah now we know that he was really enter into mrs silva sashariman uh derek hashem and all the wonderful classics nevertheless this is what he told me personally this was his favorite book and um thankfully you're sharing it with us now rabbi tomer devorah what what does that translate to isn't that like very good so um the uh the palm tree of the voir the palm tree of the voir as in the sense of shade um i i don't really know what we would call the the deepest understanding why he chose uh that i have to admit i can look into it and try to get back to you about that i'm looking here maybe he mentions it and first of all i want to mention that the remark was the arizon's teacher okay the arizona the greatest kabbalistic teachers till today and yet this rabbi was his teacher i mean they should tell you a whole lot um we're talking about uh many of the books that the remark wrote are composed he composed an extensive range of kabbalistic texts right kabbalah is some of the deepest the most esoteric secrets of the torah um the tournament of what happens to be the the best known it's um based on deep concepts of kabbalah making it very hard for the layman to receive the full benefit it has to offer but he stresses what we're trying to do is to understand it's not enough like there are certain things that we jews do that even if we don't understand it we do it anyway right whether it's the reading of the the reading of the scripture if you don't know hebrew you should read it in the original hebrew your prayers they should be read in hebrew psalms all the mystical letters of psalms that king david wrote have a deep effect on your soul but when it comes to what we call the oral torah and this is the the the book of devorah that one should actually try their best to try to understand it and not just read it because it's not going to have the same effect i don't see in the introduction any reason for the name but i'm sure that somewhere in the book it does mention it now something else about this particular book is this just an introduction what they do the authors did was they wanted to go through each one of the 13 attributes and um and we have five let's say five like it's a an outline five things that they're going to touch on in each one of the 13 so number one the definition of the attribute it gives practical examples of the attribute the actual source of the attribute menocobalistic level the explanation of the attribute and examples meaning in tanakh so let me just describe each of these a little bit better we're talking about what does it mean the definition we've described before that you cannot even begin to to have an argument or to even discuss a subject without knowing what it is you're talking about yeah exactly you have to define it so each chapter will include a description of the offense in other words the character fault the proper response according to the term of devorah and the resulting flow of mercy that's going to come that's engendered through the proper response they'll give a practical example usually through like a story focusing on a made-up conflict you know let's say a hypothetical example where emotions get heated where they're likely to arise and how the protagonist manages to implement the actual required attribute in order to overcome the character trait the the negative character trait uh remedies the remedy the source of the attribute this is the response in heaven that's going to be engendered by man's deeds the flow of divine mercy that descends in the merit of a person who withstood a test of character the fourth we said is an explanation of the attribute which the chapter goes into greater detail providing background sources and the tomer devorah it's based on turbo itself as well as the writings of our sages so in other words it's going to compile what we call hazal the writings of her sages that fit in with the explanation of the attribute and then other examples in tanakh itself to illustrate the great reward for those who stood firm in terms in times of trial emulating hashem's attributes of mercy often corresponding blessings that descend from heaven is described as well okay so that is really cool that's how this book is outlined exciting um there's some really good stuff here and i don't even know if we're going to be able to do this introduction in this in this one session alone but i'm going to try we'll go over over time if you allow it sure rabbi no problem because what i found in the back of the book they attached another it's not another safer but it's a whole thing on its own and i thought this would be this chapter this paragraph would be appropriate for our um no no hyde group because at the very back it's called the microcosmic universe and it deals with some of the most unbelievable deep concepts so there's one little paragraph called the influence over other nations and then there's another idea influence over animals influence over nature this is all going to if you can do this proper it's going to affect the world so he brings down the idea that you know that yaakov was basically exiled from the land of israel to a certain extent not really on his own free will for that entire time you know he wanted to find his wife he ends up serving for seven years for leia another seven years for um for rachel and then another six years just to accumulate well so he's outside the land of israel and he's working by lavon and obviously it was not an easy trip on the way back he lost his wife rafael um when she gave birth to ben yemen um yaakov settled in shechem where unfortunately right his daughter dina was raped um we know that yaakov's sons uh shimano levy avenged her disgrace by devising a crafty plan and they killed all the people in that city now this was not an easy time for yaakov because jakku was not consulted and he was a little bit um um he was a little bit afraid of the nations and what they're going to do so the neighboring cities then joined forces toward wage war against yaakov and his family there were pretty intense battles and the yaakov and his sons they were pitted against these vast armies it was a very dangerous time and yaakov felt himself standing alone in the heart of battle with his own sword in his bow to defend his family now yaakov and his sons then departed the scene of the battle and it tells us the verse says then they journeyed and the fear of hashem was upon the surrounding cities and they did pursue the sons of yaakov so in genesis 35 5 so that's what it says they journeyed the fear of hashem was upon the surrounding cities and they did pursue the sons of yaakov so when danger loomed against them they were surrounded by enemy cities they suddenly noticed the pursuit they noticed that the pursuit after them stopped their enemies were paralyzed with fear wow divine providence in action eh yet not a single member of yaakov's household was harmed so what happened what was the cause of the sudden fear of hashem that descended on the surrounding cities so it all began when hashem revealed himself to yaakov and commanded him to return to bait el yaakov then instructed his family to do chuva yaakov said to his household and to all those who are with him in in chapter 35 verse 2. he said remove the false gods that are with you and purify yourselves this is called chuva right when you're not on the completely straight correct path and you readjust recalculate you get back on the straight and narrow so that's called chuva yaakov's family did exactly as they were told they purified themselves not only in the sense of ritual purity but the sense of purity of the heart for hashem's service strengthening their year chamine it was this year chimayan that yaakov's family nurtured within themselves it actually had an effect on the surrounding cities and it created a fear of hashem upon them and they were too scared to um to pursue yaakov from here we see that each person is called an olam katan each human being is considered a a unique and small world a universe and what happens is that is uplifted when we do the right thing and the influence is felt on everyone around us even the gentiles right so you might think that this is only limited to humankind both jew and gentile who can exercise this free choice but really and the next chapter really describes that it can even affect the animals i i don't want to really spend too much time but you have to ask yourself a question why were the animals destroyed in the flood what did they do wrong they didn't do anything wrong they were innocent were they not unfortunately we know that man was just soaked right corrupted the earth corrupted we have an effect on the environment around us and i'm not talking about climate change i mean we can actually change that through our behavior there's no question about it in our minds but i'm talking about the actual climate of how animals react why did god have to say only the the pure the thoroughbreds the ones that are you know the same species that made it with the same species can come on right to the ark because we were involved right the the sons of sons of god were mating with the sons of men there was what we want to call um intermating between the species there was corruption of the highest level of people taking advantage of other people there were people even having let's say bestiality and it affected the animals themselves and so the answer why the innocent they weren't so innocent i mean not that they have free will they have no free will they're not guilty of bestiality but because we were so low in our morality that we affected uh many of the lower lower um levels of the animal yeah okay and this is all the way true with everything else how we affect the entire world let me just make sure very profound very profound um okay so the schla hakodesh this is really part of the beginning he mentioned it's a segula the shlock kodish was the rabbi of the clear car for those who are familiar with some of my teachings and the shlock codes from vishai horowitz he mentions how it's a big segula to review this book once a month and you're considered ben olamaba and by the way the cleo car had two great rabbis one was the marala prague and he was the rov of prague before the clear car was then the clear car was for 10 years if i'm not mistaken it was like from 1609 to 1619 and when the clear car passed away the clear car was young and very ill he passed away at a young age his other rabbi the shlaw the shlokadesh one of the other great rabbis he took over and became the rov of prague so he had these three great rabbis of prague anyway the shlok kodesh said that the divrei khaim of sons rav north weinberg happens to be from that lineage from the sun's uh dynasty and this is probably why he felt this was a very important book because it was handed down to him uh through the the messiah through a tradition um beautiful um let's see i wonder who wrote this part one second i said this would be important to write ah so this is something that the uh the ramak himself says he says the segula of the 13 attributes as we're discussing here is such that in the same way a person acts here below he merits opening the channels through that which the attribute descends from above precisely as he behaves he receives the same flow from above causing the same attribute to shine into the world therefore we should never underestimate these 13 attributes as the verse in michael chapter 7 verse 18 through 20 should never cease from our mouths so that it may serve as a reminder when an event occurs necessitating a person to make use of one of these attributes he should remember it and say now this is very important in other words we should accustom our accustom ourselves to actually think not just think but even say when we're about to perform a kind act or when we're working on a character trait and keeping our mouth shut so to speak or uh you know not saying the wrong thing not upsetting somebody not having compassion on somebody but actually having compassion on somebody say these words this issue depends on that certain attribute whichever one of the 13 attributes and i will not veer from that attribute unless it disappear from the world right you you're we're our partners with hashem wow what a way to state it now this is a very interesting thing that i think really only applies to jews however anybody who's not jewish and joins the jewish people in their i'm going to call it religion in their belief i think can benefit from this idea the stars amis explains that harsh decrees occur in order to awaken awaken the community to do truth now i'm going to speak about what happened in inva shortly because that's also a non-jewish community so if a member of the group dies and unfortunately saw that rev koniewski died recently right but anyway if any member of the group dies the entire group should say they should actually begin to worry they should worry what do we need to do nowadays people are so alienated from one another and insensitive to another's needs the suffering that strikes us god forbid awaken us to pray on another's behalf there's no question this applies to everybody but there's something about see the jewish nation we actually just share one soul we share one soul and i'm sure that all of mankind actually share let's just say on the lower level whatever the different levels of our soul are there's a uh let's say a global soul that all mankind shares but as a group the jews actually do share one soul so much so that if a jew does a mitzvah in one place with great intent but doesn't really do the mitzvah fully and another jew does the same mitzvah fully without the full intent hashem combines us okay this is a deep concept i don't want to go too far off the path but we have to understand that the jews are considered like one i mean that's you know we we say maybe you've all heard this before that hashem the torah and the jewish people are one now does that mean that's like the holy trinity that we're all one not necessarily i will say that's true we really are partners with hashem and the torah is hashem's mind and really we are one but on another level what it means is these are the only things that are won in this world there's only one torah there's only one god and there's only one jewish people so anyway that's a whole other thing we could talk about he mentions the idea that this is something you should know that you can do right going back to we said in chapter 30 of deuteronomy hashem says look at the few verses before that the torah this whole idea it's not so far from you it's not on the other side of the ocean it's not only on the side of the other side of the sea here let me see if i can pull it up if you go back to let's say um 12 no chapter 30 verse 11 for this commandment which i command you this day is not concealed from you nor is it far away this whole idea is doable everything we're going to discuss is totally completely doable okay nor is it far away 12 it's not in heaven someone's going to say who's going to go up to heaven for us and fetch it for us and tell it to us we can fulfill it nor is it beyond the sea that we should say who's going to cross the other side of the scene get it for us to tell it to us we can feel it rather this thing is very close to you and in your heart la soto in order to do it and then we get into those verses that we quoted already right so that whole section is absolutely contrary to the christian position for sure for sure i mean they told me when i was not religious that the whole law was just a test to see you can't do it the whole thing is nonsensical anyway i want to go back to i mentioned about nineveh right yon is told why is he told to go to nina that's a non-jewish city it's a non-jewish province right go and tell them and why people syria yeah why do we have there's no other navy that runs away right are there any in the veeam that are just so afraid to go and do their job what is yon is so afraid of so let's get a drum roll we haven't had a drum roll let's get a drum roll right jonah was afraid that they were going to listen to him what no yes no yes he was afraid they were going to listen to him why would a navi be so afraid because he was a jewish prophet and his job was to come and tell the jews what they're doing wrong and he told the jews over and over and over again and you know what he didn't see any progress he didn't see any real progress and he said to himself this is really going to look bad for the jews i'm going to go to nineveh i'm going to tell them to do truva and you know what they're going to listen to me and what's going to look like i've been for years telling the jews and they're not listening you know enough so first of all why would why would he think that nimbe would listen to them because he knew the leader of ninja was none other than pharaoh himself right for those who think pharaoh died and was drowned in the in the sea of reeds well you got another thing coming right it says everybody died but one read it you'll see it go back to the chapter everyone died but one okay so pharaoh actually survived the tumult of the sea of reeds coming in the whole egyptian army was devastated kaput but pharaoh survived and he went and became the king of nineveh and if a jewish prophet came and said hey guys and let's go let's look at it let's take a look what he said he comes to town right and he says to them chapter 3 verse 4. in another 40 days ninja shall be overturned so what do you think happens that's in verse 4. in verse 7 right so what does the king say by the council of the king he says everybody has to fast and we're sackcloth right not beasts not man and not beast not cattle not sheep shall taste anything they're not going to graze nor should they drink even water everybody by the by the decree of the king has to what do something to change however look in chapter 3 verse 10 what do you think god saw them fasting that's what it's all about no it's not about the fasting it's not about the the sackcloth but it says in chapter 3 verse god saw their deeds god saw their deeds it says and they had repented of their evil way and hashem did what he changed his mind meaning he didn't change his mind god's not a man to change his mind right and the lord relented right whatever it means that he he wanted them to repent yeah and stay therefore concerning the evil that he had spoken to do to them and he did not do it he did not overturn ninja and why because he saw their deeds what deeds were they obviously it was not the fasting it was the truva it was the actual true one so that's very important lesson see this is the point it sounds like it's so simple right if we work on our deeds we work keeping our mouth shut right when we have to right working on our character right doing more charity okay that is what it's all about um there's another story rabbi tan huma so there was a drought and he this rabbi told everyone you know do true true well i know how much trouble can you do nothing really happened right nothing happened they they prayed they fasted nothing happened there was still a drought and the rains didn't come and um so one guy saw another guy do something that looked very bad and he said well that if this guy's acting so bad how we how we expect to uh how do we expect that the rains are going to come what did this guy see you know what he saw he saw a man give charity to a woman it wasn't just any woman it was his ex-wife now when you get divorced right one of the 613 commandments in judaism is to give a a safer crisis a a document of separation complete separation it's like surgery right you were one flesh not anymore this is exactly right the torah describes they called a safer crisis a document of separation and therefore you have nothing to do with that woman anymore and yet somebody witnessed while everyone's fasting and you know you know what he was giving charity to his ex-wife she was in need and he had no obligation in fact no obligation whatsoever to help her right and yet he did and so the rabbi saw and he said to hashem and this person who claimed this person was doing something wrong no it's in the merit of people like this who are going out of their way and i'm obviously a divorce can be dirty and perhaps this person had nothing really to do with her and yet he was going out of his way to be merciful you know overcoming sometimes you know and so the rabbi actually used this to petition hashem and say and says to hashem see your children you know the children of abraham isaac and jacob look how they're doing mercy for people they have no obligation to mercy for and when hashem saw this and heard this and that's when everyone saw this and heard this that the the reigns actually did come so that was a great a great um great story beautiful beautiful um now let's go into the actual um some of the verses they're going to describe i want to go first into the torah part in other words we're going to go to meek at the end but i mentioned that is only describing what the 13 attributes of mercy actually are in other words in the torah itself we were given i want to go this kind of in order but i might have to skip some things in exodus chapter 33 okay let's go through quickly in verse so moses says show me now your glory moses wants to know what the essence of god is really so in verse 13 he also kind of the in infers the same idea and now if i have in deep found favor in your eyes pray let me know your ways that i may know you and i may find favor in your eyes okay so already and now verse 20 god responds you're not able to see my face for no man shall see me and live that's verse 20. now go back to 19 he said and i will let all my goodness pass before you i would claim my name i will proclaim the name of the lord before you and i will favor when i wish to favor and i will have compassion when i wish to have compassion but it's really only in chapter 34 verses 6 through 7. those are the 13 attributes of mercy okay as the torah describes them lord lord benevolent god who is compassionate and gracious slow to anger and abundant in love and kindness and truth preserving love and kindness for thousands forgiving iniquity and rebellion and sin yet he is not completely clear of sin he visits the iniquity of parents on children and children's children to the third and fourth generation what i want to do is go to michael and describe to you actually before we do that just as a little introduction the actual ep prologue of the um of the termite of itself because that's where he goes into that so he says like this it's actually proper for a person to resemble to represent we're representatives of god on this earth and then we will enter into the secret of the supernal being selim the image and likeness which i'm going to just describe it really means his deeds now god forbid if all you do is uh mimic or are similar to god in your physical being first of all god is not even physical but if that's all you're doing because we were creating the image of god but not in your deeds then what you're doing is you're being untruthful about who you really are you're being unfaithful you're totally misresent misrepresenting who you are you're falsifying who you are you're not living a true life it's almost i would say a waste of life but broke hashem we have 120 years not what you're here for yeah we have time to get our act together but start now the omru olav you know what people will say about this person sora noah yeah very beautiful you know physical body but his actions are truly disgusting and ugly shray because the prime the prime the icker the the main um selling the mousse then the main image and likeness is what is the actions the supernal being of who we are is based on our actions and this again what people are going to say what benefit is it to him to resemble the spiritual form in the shape of the moose of the limbs now the truth be told the the rest of the book describes the different sphero so there is an idea why it would be that our own body is made up in a sense through this like through the image of the spirit so that's why i think there's the image of the limbs here whereas if he does not resemble his creator through his actions what's the point of his life so that he he he begins the next paragraph introducing michael chapter seven so he says like this left therefore roy it's actually fitting that it's most fitting that he um specifically emulate the actions of what we call the crown your deeds should resemble the crown and i want to make this clear the word ketter cuff tough race is the gemachi of 620. catcher means the crown and i hope i'm going to say words that i'm sure if i say them people understand because they we don't want to get a sensor or a from the world health organization or right we're going to talk about that that word that gets censored last two years yeah i don't want to say right i don't want to say that so i mentioned the word ketter ketter means crown so whatever that disease was called was like a crown corona anyway so it's 6 to 20. actually that's how many letters are in this this first set of the 10 commandments 620 letters the last two words are a share the last seven letters make up two words which are to your neighbors 613 of those letters represent the six thirteen commandments and the seven last seven letters represent the seven commandments of hashem i said two years ago when this disease was named what it was called it must be and i got censored i got a a a check mark that says if you want to know more information about it go to the the who website like what was i saying i was saying that if we want to bring a refueler to the world we want to cure this thing in its ultimate way is to bring the ketter the crown back to where it belongs which is what judaism is saying for the last three thousand some some years at least two thousand years to return the crown of hashem the king of kings back to its place and that involves the non-jews we have 620 letters in the word qatar 613 for the jews get your act together get with the program and the same thing for the non-jews get with the program so i'll give my little spiel go back and listen to session one of beyond the seven right that's what it's called this whole session is called beyond the seven because we're talking about what really is lying beyond perfection in this world we we're all looking for something more than just perfection in this world seven represents perfection in this world and uh we're talking about the world to come okay so go back and watch it from the beginning anyway so he says so what is it how do you properly resemble the deeds of the crown it's through these 13 attributes of mercy and they're hinted at in this verse so let's go through the 13. and verse 18. um ver i'm going to read it verse 18 through 20. but i'm going to read it slowly i'm going to read each one in hebrew and english so who hashem is like you that's one me hashem who is like you we will go and it doesn't look like it's an explanation of what we just said in um a chapter 33 of of exodus but it is who is like you no say avo number two is who carries sin hashem what does it mean carry it means to forgive okay and who's who removes sin to the remnant of his inheritance so that's number four and he doesn't maintain his anger forever that's number five he desires kindness okay that's number six yeshua you're ahamenu he desires kindness i'm sorry um after chuva he will have mercy on us that's number seven and number eight is he suppresses our sins yikvosh avanutenu okay that's number eight and may you cast all their sins into the depths of the sea now you can understand why we do this on rosh hashanah we go to a body of water and we confess our sins and we throw them into the water when we say these verses this is what these strange jewish people do so in hebrew is this tash you cast all their sins into the depths of the sea that's number nine and number ten is give truth to yaakov titan emis liako number 11 is kindness to avraham which you swore to our forefathers me make hadam from days past okay now he says this is appropriate to find these 13 attributes in the verses and then he says we're now going to explain these ideas so the truth is it we're gonna have to do this in you know 12 13 sessions to right so i just want to like bring some of these ideas to to ahead um who am i how what is my relationship with my creator so i have to know something about him and since i'm creating his image i'll know something about myself and only that way can i even have that relationship okay that's gonna be like the basis for this idea we all want a relationship and we want to make the best out of it um as we said in rabbi akiva uh in the beginning of perky vote god created and created us in his image okay but he also let us know that that's the truth that's the case and that was a just a generous gesture of his and he has well made himself aware through the torah we mentioned about it's only through an awakening below that we can create a change from above that will then have an influence on the entire world we gave an example of a rope if you're tugging on the rope it obviously has an effect and um one should have intention the best thing is so you have to know what these attributes are how they're going to affect and how you should react under certain circumstances because you are constantly being tested and that not only is going to affect you is going to affect the entire world just know that god created you in his image he is the elohim the master of all powers which means you have the potential you have the same you're a miniature you're an olam katan you're a miniature world god gave you that power the power to affect the whole world as we discussed in the back um how you we can even affect the animals and affect nature and affect everything around us we have the power to create and the power to destroy we're we're told that jewish people have three character traits now it doesn't mean that non-jews don't but this is like the identifying mark for a jew and you can also acquire these traits and that's to be a gomel to to want to do kindness to be a um a a baishon someone who has a certain sense of modesty a certain sense of um uh shame right and number three and i think this is like the icker here remember there's no special order to this but a jew is also someone who's supposed to has so much empathy empathy and compassion and one might ask as a non-jew i'm looking at the torah it's constantly saying even in the first mitzvah of the ten commandments i am the lord your god who brought you out of the land of egypt as we're approaching pesach pesach is about the jews leaving egypt it's so many mitzvahs are do this because you were slaves in egypt the jew who experienced hell on earth 3 300 years ago in egypt 70 80 years ago in europe maybe even some people experiencing that today um it's supposed to break us to the point where we understand that what there is no possibility of yeshua there's no possibility of true redemption without reliance on hashem yes that's true right nobody's going to help us but hashem but the idea is that you were one slaves in egypt so you will understand what it means to like you can help other people with downtrodden you can help other people who are broken you were broken and now you're fixed right how does that song go i was lost but now i'm found right you were lost you were a slave you were in egypt right you were in maitsar you were in a s tight constricted place and you had been saved and you can save other people so that's what a jew is a jew is full of rakhamine and other people can acquire these traits there's nothing holding you back from acquiring these traits yeah beautiful and uh just to end off know that the prophets never came to reveal anything new they only came to explain and that's why mikha these 13 attributes that we just described we didn't even describe them you just quoted earlier we don't know what they are yet right so we're going to use the oral torah to explain what these 13 attributes that nika talked about how they parallel with in exodus chapter 34 verses 6 through 7 the 13 attributes that we're all familiar with and how they all fit together so that was the introduction and i did skip some stuff based on time but i hope that we can i'm sure we can that each one of the other chapters and maybe even do more than one at a time try to condense them down to within an hour okay so uh with that wow that's just wow rabbi i really think this is a life-changing and earth-changing material for sure if it's put into play and it has that effect i hope it just sends shock waves throughout the whole planet and turns things around for sure true repentance that teshuva happens all over and that we can we realize we can affect uh our uh communities uh for a uh uh a better world and uh it's just a beautiful beautiful introduction and i look forward to hearing more uh of this series now uh i know we were talking earlier about your schedule and making it fit now i know two weeks from now uh is um passover so that's a no go on on passover right um it'll have to be uh maybe a week or two after passover okay um so are we off for the next few weeks then is that what you're saying off for the next few weeks all right folks so there you go you've heard uh there's the introduction hopefully it's wet your palate uh to learn more of the divine attributes of mercy of hashem that you might understand it integrate it into your heart and then into your actions and that it actually changes wherever you are we hope you'll come back for some more so please keep uh uh tabs for our postings that we'll be uh putting out there when we come back with the chapter one and rabbi posted it's such a joy to be with you once again thank you so much for taking the time out of your very busy schedule and staying up so late in uh in jerusalem i mean it's one in the morning now for you is it not is five minutes to one wow wow and i know you have such a busy full schedule there and uh you know folks you can always catch more rabbi poston on his uh website ybnei.com or his uh youtube channel yibane just like it's spelled there on the screen um i enjoy and watch a lot of his plus i get i love tuning in to rabbi uh yitzhak breidawicz's uh shears they're just they're just so deep so profound so well put forward and we're so grateful that yemen a is uh made those available to the public uh it's just a wonderful opportunity so uh rich rich deep torah being shared and i know that uh your life is an example of uh doing some great work there uh in jerusalem so uh i understand you've got a passover event coming up yeah that's also why we're everyone's usually busy anyway but we're expecting probably about 100 people for our passover meal guests and whatnot and [Music] rabbi breitwitz is going to conduct the service the the seder and we're looking forward to it if you're if you're going to be in jerusalem if you want to come to jerusalem there's probably a few places left so it's on my bucket list can't make it there that quick though but uh you know in the future for sure i look forward to it uh it's definitely uh in the in the in the bucket list uh but thank you so much rabbi so we will be back and we'll inform you when with more of this tomer devorah this divine attributes of hashem and how to integrate it and change the world and make it a better place and uh thank you so much for sharing with us and uh folks have a wonderful wonderful week and uh we'll see you soon bye for now [Music] is