Rabbi Aaron Dovid Poston: The Nature of a Seeker and The Power of Prayer

[Music] streaming live out of jerusalem welcome everybody on skype welcome to the people here live we are parties todos we are in chapter 25 of genesis and we're going to talk about some very hot topics tonight mainly the difference between christianity and islam and the future of the jewish people which should be very interesting of course and we're talking about the power of prayer yes how powerful it is first things first we are i will actually we'll put a link bizrat hashem to a previous class where i discuss the difference between uh shall we say nature versus nurture and who's a jew and i think it's especially interesting to the benenor community to people who are not born jewish as well as those of course who are so mizrat hashem you can listen to the previous class where we discuss that at length again the difference between nature versus nurture in terms of who is a jew now we are in the still in the first verse where it says that these are the offspring of isaac who's the son of abraham and abraham begot isaac so we discussed all this also at length in the previous class but we're going to just focus in on these words that abram now we gave a different shot different uh meaning but now we're going to discuss it on a different level right a different level and one of the things about this particular class is people learn i hope they learn some hebrew as well as jewish philosophy jewish thinking and hashgaffer so the kliyokar who's basically who we use for the discussion mentions right away where it says avraham abraham is the one who gave birth to yet what does it mean holy lush and hither lush in hitho means causative it actually means that avraham according to the car abraham was the reason he was the cause for yitzhak to be able to have children now that could make sense on a very own scientific level of course correct but we're actually talking on a metaphysical level which is what we do here at the environment midrash we are into metaphysics and spirituality right would you mind close is the door closed all the way okay so he says holy lush and his feel it's a language of causation even though it's very um what's the word mid-dukdak it's very intense it has intent it's very specific and we understand it means that he was the one who is the father of not only the father in terms of teaching him torah but the father in terms of the dna but also kihazakar molly kevan is it really true that the male is the one who gives birth towards uh towards the children now it's the zachary okay this is actually another idea i'm not going to go into right now but let's say it's it's not the woman alone that can give birth but the male is responsible just as much mccomic so it's not only the female giving birth but the male is associated all throughout right tanakh you'll see this person male begot i like that word he begot so-and-so so we do see that the male is associated with the beginning however the word yolad and we'll see it several times he gives a few examples is past tense so in english we say this person begot so and so in our verse it doesn't it's not past tense it's causation it's it's abram who's causing he's the cause for yitzhak to be able to give birth we'll get into it but he brings a few examples for example you go to chapter 10 of genesis verse 15. kanan yolat it was kanan that gave birth you see throughout all throughout right parties noah so many people are begetting others right but the word you lot is used okay so you say so many other examples in particular so what is this causation what is the causative word this hithya halibe used here in our parsha so he says allah this is what it means pretty much what i said that it was avraham that caused yourself to be able to have children why listen to these verses because become familiar with it because we're going to be speaking about it for the next hour it says the yeta yitzhak right if you go to the english i don't know how they translate it in different places but it means to pray so the word in art scroll it's used as we're in verse one second it's verse 21 it says isaac entreated hashem meaning isaac prayed to hashem opposite his wife now what does that mean it means they were in the same room where does that mean she also prayed next to him because she was barren hashem allowed himself to be entreated by him the same word is used we'll call it um accept it as prayer in other words it's still related i in tough race is the root of that word as well which means to well we're going to discuss it okay because it doesn't only mean prayer and that's going to be the highlight of the class now paul the second part but it says like this again the yeti because she was barren the and hashem allowed himself to listen to the prayer and rifka became impregnated she conceived now i just want to mention rabbi gladstein what a beautiful neshama and a beautiful teacher if people are not aware of rabbi daniel gladstein he has a torah anytime and several other outlets that he shares his torah that one thing that yitzhak was praying for in the word leno the nun stands for noi the reshitables he was praying for all this and you know what this is what he wanted why shouldn't you want your child to have the same beauty that you have that's what noi means the physical strength that you have and also when when rifka is bothered which we will discuss she says why is this to me in kane the word hath if this is the case if he's only going to end up with half nun with what with kawak and noi what do i need it for i want wisdom she was bothered perhaps it won't be wisdom we're going to talk about that a little bit later okay so right now we mentioned that this word the yetar the giza diamond to hashem and it's also written that hashem was listening to him but guess what it says him we already know that she prayed that she also prayed because it says leno in front right right she prayed in his presence but guess what it says god listen to him lo not la la medve not lamid hey god listen to him well why is that so there's a concept now i want to mention this in brief beforehand there's a major argument who's greater who has a greater level maybe of spirituality or in love for god's eyes someone who went off the path and came back that's called about where someone who's at sadiq amor someone who never sinned who do you think is more beloved to hashem so guess what it's not resolved even the gomorrah does not necessarily clearly resolve this issue however when it comes to prayer okay so let's not mix the two that's one locus of who's on a greater level another idea is whose prayer would be answered right if you had one of these two people right who's who hashem listened to so we have a statement in gamora valmott that says that you cannot compare the prayers of a righteous person who's the descendant of a righteous person you cannot compare it to a righteous person who's descended from a non-righteous person which most i'm going to just make this broad you know statement uh many converts are not coming from righteous people many um many uh even jews who are about bali trujillo come from non-religious irreligious families right we're not making any judgments here okay but in general there's a lot of people that probably fit in the category of at sadiq ben rashad nevertheless god listens to the sadiq benzadik okay so we did hear from this idea that it was avraham's holiday so what does that mean for us you know why hashem listen to his prayer his prayer lo his prayer because he is the son of a sadiq such as abraham because the merit of avraham stood in you know the status of avraham's sikkis of his righteousness stood up for him and that's what caused hashem to listen to the prayer of yitzchak well if he says and if that's the case then listen to this then it makes a lot of sense when it says holy see that it was avraham who caused caused yitzhak to have children it's because of abraham that but it's not really wasn't really clear to us yet what how avraham was the one who did this and that's why it says that the yeti yitzhak in the presence of his wife which teaches us that she also prayed and we also have the word lo that it was that god listened to him and from this we're able to bring proof when it says that avraham was the one who gave birth we're not reading it like that but cause to give birth gets okay so that's just uh we're just warming up here okay now it gets exciting the verse 22 says that the children agitated within her now i don't like that necessarily i don't know what agitation is but rashi says that the word rats the word the itaratsutsu the root is rats which means to run so what's running it means quickly trying to move from one place to another okay so some translated as crushed or fought within her either they agitated within her they crushed within her or they fought within her but rashi says it means to run it has to has a language of quickness and movement in a certain direction so listen to what the clear car brings down of course this is from the midrash he says like this this is this running this type of running is what shiba avraham shame behavior that whenever she passed by the study hall of shame and abram who are shame and aver and what would they do with the study hall before the torah was given so they were righteous this was from noah shame was the direct direct son ava is the son of shame and they were righteous and they taught the seven noah had laws to the world to whoever would listen and they were basically i called them prophets we're going to talk about what prophecy is they were on a very high level let's say minimum and um so what happened if you wanted to inquire about god you wanted to know about god or you want to know what god thinks or what god says you go to the bateman josh you go to the study hall so whenever she passed by yaakov was in the far case let's say he tossed about to to try to leave the asap agyado yet asap held him back and whenever she passed by a church right whenever she passed by a house of idol worship ace on the far case let's say aesop was eager to to get out the yaakov ma gave out the goku that is the medrush now what's the problem what was she thinking we are going to find out what went through rifka's holy mind what a holy woman and she said like this the savra the clear car says what was she thinking of arcane this is impossible this either what there's a schizophrenic child inside me the bottom line is she did not know that she had twins she actually thought she had one child one uber uber uber is a vlad a vlad is a is a a fetus so she thought she had she didn't know she had twins so she thought she had one child she said right ella vlade there was just one child one uber one vlad one what's going on here this one child i have inside me is eager to get out whenever i pass by a church and whenever i pass by the study hall what's going on what could she be thinking maybe perhaps remember she is she's a convert you know to monotheism she left besuel's house lovin's house the area and padanaram which is full of idol worship and she gave everything up and she married yitzchak okay it was a good deal for her no question about it you know handsome rich powerful right and wise and she but she gave everything up so she thought whoa what's going on inside me is there's a pull here and a pull there maybe just maybe i made a mistake just maybe i haven't fully investigated you know this may be a reason why when someone wants to convert they really make sure the person truly fully understands what they're about to get into so she thought perhaps maybe it's worth investigating a little bit further maybe i made a mistake maybe there are two gods maybe there's more than one deity why is my insides churning about when i pass the bait midrash and why is it churning about when i pass by the house of idol worship remember she thought she had one child so in kane if that's the case she says to herself hast shalom god forbid shem maybe they're more than one god maybe there's a duality maybe there's two gods that's why she said lefie why is this to me whereas art school translates it why is it that i am it's not an easy you know uh phrase to translate but we're going to try to understand what these words mean i what is this to me kikamoni kashar nashimavorizar isn't it what are you saying am i really any different than those women who i left behind right they still worship idols i gave everything up am i really any different than them um what advantage why am i considered a supernova why would i be on a higher level why what advantage do i have over them god forbid if they really are more than one god therefore think about these words we understand the talent lidro says hashem she went and inquired of hashem what did she do she went directly to god no she went to the bay midrash of shame and aber to ask what wait to hear this what do we think because people explain it she went to find out what exactly the problem is but what was the problem she thought she had one child and she was really what it means when it says the talent lid roger hashem she went to inquire of hashem she went to inquire at the bait midrash what is the mizziot what is the existence what is the essence of the one of god maybe it's one maybe it's true maybe i don't know what it is i want to find out i need to know i'm a searcher i'm a seeker and i want to know the truth and that's what she went to when it says as hashem she went to find out about the what the methios of hashem she wanted to know exactly mahu what is hashem and you know what the answer was now before we get to that i just want to mention about there's a list of who the 48 prophets are and they're right in the tanakh right these are the ones that prophesies for the future and who are the the seven prophet tesses there are seven females okay rifka is not one of them how come was she a prophet so i just want to digress just a little bit prophecy is a word for the overall concept but there are different levels of prophecy so the higher level is called profit actual nugua but there are lower levels but it's still part of the overall concept of prophecy the lowest level is called ruach hakodesh the holy spirit and now we still have today but the higher levels of prophecy we don't have like the 48 prophets who are going around and prophesizing for the world for the future that involves everyone right but there were prophets again a lower level who were able to diagnose people would come to them when they were sick they weren't the doctor they were the soul doctor right you'd come and say listen i'm really physically ill what sin did i do and the prophet would be able to diagnose what sin the person uh transgressed and what they need to do to do to shuva okay so that's what the soul doctor that's what the prophet did but that's not national and that's not for the future that's the that's reserved for the highest level prophecy so she was one of three things either right that was not a prophet that talked about the future for all mankind okay so she could have been on the level of a seer she was able to prophesize for herself and have a deep knowledge of hashem and his will which i do believe she had so she at least had kodesh so why couldn't she have just going to through her own inner self so to speak and found out what god wants or what god's desire you know god's will was what like in other words what's going on inside of her she could have found out instead she went to shame and ava so we do have a concept in prophecy that to have prophecy you have to have a sense of joy you have to be on a level where you're not bothered and pained okay so we for sure she was that was what she was experiencing so she lost her level of prophecy um kodish what about going to abraham or yitzhak we know that she didn't even speak to them about it okay and we how do we know one of the one of the proofs that giza didn't know is because at the end of when he's about to give the brothers he doesn't even know he doesn't even know how bad uh asav is well shane thousand we'll talk about that in a second all right shamer aver was the one that spoke to him and her and we know that the the um the idea of two gen two nations one good and one bad was basically already revealed so there's no way yitzhak even is so why didn't she tell yitzhak or ask a vietnam because she already knew that if i ask him to he's also going to lose his prophecy because what is a husband a husband has empathy and sympathy and he'll feel her pain he'll experience her pain he'll feel bad for her pain and be pained by it and so he would also lose and so too the father-in-law avraham would also have lost you know just for that second moment the sense of prophecy also because he surely they would have been pained both abraham and yitzhak okay so what was told to her the young hashem law going there will be two nations in your stomach now she knows that she's twins before she only thought she had one child and this child was a little bit uh who knows i mean i said she thought she had one child but nevertheless inside of her was churnings for the left or for the right right for the one true god of israel or perhaps there were more so it was it was actually the opposite of what she thought so she thought i have one child and there's two gods and what was revealed to her is actually she has two childs and there's only one god and he there's only one god however the reality is but there are these two we'll call them the children but they become they're told they're gonna be nations hashem one of them will be a true servant and serve hashem faithfully and the other one will go out and to target ra to an evil way and serve idols so leola hashem she understood because she was at hashem she want to know the the essence of god that there really is only one god and there is no other none other okay now this is where it gets interesting because when we finish this next paragraph with the clear car i'm going to go into some um deeper study of this word the yeti the yet tar is the word used here where it says that isaac prayed to hashem and treated to hashem in the presence of his wife okay so some will say those words mean what what we already spent mentioned before he was a righteous person son of a righteous person therefore he had this i'm going to call it more than a belief he had this assurance from hashem that from his aspect she meets sado from who he came from abraham that he would have zara hagoon that he would have a um a proper let's say seed in other words more than proper in other words fitting and we'll call kosher that his seed would be kosher so he felt from me my dna what's going to go into my whatever you know into the makeup of this child will be fine but because my wife comes from this foreign land and this foreign culture right her father is besuel and brothers lavon i have what to worry about and therefore i need to pray he did have this concern on on behalf of or in regards to his wife right because she came from um this uh aramian nation area yet say me men their apostle right so he was concerned and worried that perhaps a nod kosher means blemished or not kosher seed would come from him why because she was barren the fact that she was barren he felt that this could be a reason why that hashem is not granting of any children so therefore he felt or really thought that the reason that they're not having children is because god is saving them the heartache and headache of um of having pasul or blemish children i can hire a penny manager ability therefore because of this concern in this wary that perhaps right that a blemish child should come kamoshi shiyatsu ishmael similar to the way that hagar produced right abram was married to hagar and produced a non-kosher child a um labilty hagoon such as ishmael perhaps this is the reason that she was barren i did want to mention something about this idea because one should ask the question so then how is it that avraham also gave in others why would he be so assured on his own so this is a bit a little bit more mystical that when avraham gave birth he needed to give birth to such a person as as ishmael to call it to get rid of the zuma to get rid of the contamination right and then from there you had a pure pure person such as so vietnam was so pure he was assured that he would have at least from his side a hundred percent no problem with a uh a kosher child but anyway he said perhaps this is the reason for her being barren because she and it wrote it to her bunny the cuba now as a result of the fact that she had this um we call it the agitation or this fight going on within her and one of them was the far case let's say one of them was trying to get out by the entrances to the saudi hall and one of them was mafaar case to get out by the uh houses of alvaro so within this ah she felt that vada yetzak did she write that she felt that certainly one of them would be righteous whether they would not be righteous and that's why she said why is this to me what do those words mean why is this to me because she said i'm no different than hagar if i'm going to give birth to someone who's lagoon who's pursue who's not fitting then i really am just like hagar oman no he is this what i prayed for is this really what i prayed for to give birth to somebody like ishmael so that's why she went late the taylor liddros s hashem she went to inquire of hashem and what was her act what was her request now of knowledge she wanted to know is this what i prayed for what benefit did i have for prayer um what benefit was my prayer and that's why the response is the umar allah yahweh there are two nations in your stomach and guess what who are these two nations right in your stomach in your room one of them is rebbe and anti nunes so who are they rebbe of course is yehuda nasi all those books behind me you see it's all based on his teachings right that's rebutta nasi the yuda the prince the exile arc who wrote who compiled the mishna and antoninus who was a roman okay he was a roman and guess what he gave all the money right he supplied all the riches and wealth so that yehuda nasi reviewed enos he could fork over his time to write the oral torah down in the mission form so guess what yes that your your prayers worked that even though you're giving birth to asaf okay and yaakov but there's going to be some really good things coming out of asaf okay you heard me say because grit and gamora voted sorry good aleph side a okay there are actually going to be a tremendous amount of r8 sadiq right right uh truthful and rightful converts but the first thing he mentions like this era that even asap will emit kosher c there will be some really holy rabbis and some really great righteous gentiles who go all the way like antoninus he never converted but he was righteous and other shari gary sadiq and other really truthful uh holy converts incan the ishmael now this may sound very cruel but we don't really see in history many famous converts i'm sure there are i'm sure there are converts but i remember sitting i tell you i used to sit in asia torah and yeshiva my job was sit by the door and anybody in the jeff's side dallas rabbi manchester brought in i was the one to talk to them first and then send them off to classes i once had a guy who told me was born in bethlehem i guess he moved to america came back he in american passport and he said he wanted to convert and it was very difficult to tell him whatever it was i had to tell him so i inquired and they told me that the ravenous really does not deal with arabs in this country converting you should go back to america and convert there first of all it's for his health meaning his life expectancy apparently in many what do you call those places a muslim countries it's absolutely forbidden i think about death penalty you know this i'm sure throughout christian history also there have been times that it was by the death penalty as well but anyway the government was looking out for his wealth there and tom go convert back in america and then you can kind of come back here anyway so that's how this ends that really that you the answer to rifku was you really are better than hagar because you're going to have some really great progeny come out of you okay so one of the questions one of my students asked me this week was she heard every she heard a recording by a famous rabbi and mentioned this as a mock locus right how old was rivka when uh when yusuf married her so there's an opinion she was three years old and there's another opinion she was 10 years old so i want to put this uh the tourist there's no mock locus there's no real mark locus we all know that there are two parts of a marriage one is called the betrothal and then there is the consummation the true the true marriage and in our case there's 10 years difference between those two sides and i'm going to put this much locus to rest first we're going to start off with the rambam and hopefully this is the laws of marriage that a man should not marry a barren woman an elderly woman and i i i will need that means someone who cannot give birth however there's only someone who's never fulfilled the midst of peru of having children or even you can't even not you cannot even marry a miner who's not fit to bear a child okay unless you have already fulfilled the missile which isaac had not yet fulfilled he was not married so he cannot marry a minor who's not fit so a three-year-old we all know is not fit so there's no way that he married her now what about if you're married already for 10 years you don't have children now that means trying to have children okay let me just speak to the case uh baby to the chase what i'm going to propose is like this that he betrothed her they were technically married when she was three years old but he didn't consummate the marriage until she was 13 in her 14th year and not i mean 10 years after they were technically married but you know when he prayed and she got she she what do you call she conceived only 10 years later why why did he wait 10 years or 20 years i'm going to probably only wait at 10 years the palace is that only after 10 years do you have the choice either to divorce her or to take on another wife in such a case okay so we have for example in genesis 16 3 when did sarah give hagar when did she give hagar to avraham remember she's barren she gave no they married for many years before they came to israel but it says in the verse that it was only after 10 years in which abraham lived in the gland of canaan you know why because before they lived in the land of canaan meaning before they lived in the holy land that didn't count it doesn't count you're not even alive i know there's many people all over the world watching this right it is not the same when you come here you're born again you're truly like even if you were the firmest person you have the dinner of about the shiva according to the time by the way so life really only began on a certain level or restarted reset the clock either way you want to look at it so after tsar was here for 10 years after abram and sorry were here 10 years without any children then instead of getting divorced she went ahead and made sure that her husband would be able to have children now how old was yitzhak when she bore them he was 60. how old was he at the at the akedah he was 37 years old right and when he uh left right when he went they were told at the ikeda meaning right after the ikeda that his soulmate was born okay so if his soulmate was born that's why at the age 40 he married her she's three years old okay so you have a three-year-old and he's 40. but they were born when he was 60 right when i say that i'm talking about i get yaakov and asap because 10 years had passed 10 years had passed what that he was trying no she was too young he didn't even consummate the marriage until she was of age which in that in this case i know it may sound really weird right in today's age of a 13 year old but back then it was much different in fact the gamora even tells you that you should get married by your the year 18 for a male and of course if at least by 20 so you have this window between 18 and 20. but you know what it says if you want to shoot the satan in the eye you really want to overcome all of your inclinations get married when you're 14 14 for a so imagine who's 14 going to matt a 14 year old gonna marry i would say a 13 year old okay not younger and certainly not older okay so that would be the perfect i mean back then today i think we have a lot of growing up to do before then okay but in genesis 25 verse 26 it's on our portion it tells us that isaac was 60 years old when she bore them which shows that again everything i said is true okay now go to genesis 25 21 this is the verses we've been dealing with all along that isaac was 40 years old when he took rebecca the daughter of isuel the armenian of panama around the sister of lavon the aramian and took for himself a wife and isaac prayed right this is our verse he prayed to the lord opposite his wife because she was barren and the lord accepted his prayer and rebecca's wife conceived rashi on that verse tells us he was 40 years old when avraham came from mount moriah he was informed that rebecca had been born so in other words he married when he was 40 but three years earlier when he was 37 that's when the ikeda happened isaac was then 37 years old and that time sarah had died and from that time isaac was born basically from the time that isaac was born until the binding we know that he was 37 years old she was 90 years old when isaac was born we know she died at what age 127 so the difference between 90 and um and is 37 years okay now go to gamora sukkot in 14a now this is sounds a little bit crazy right when we deal with tuma atahara with food especially okay but also with um vessels but uh same thing with that in other words there's an idea that when the vessel itself is susceptible to spiritual impurity with the food it has to do with seven different liquids landing on it but what about the stem of the food let's see him an apple with a beautiful stem so is it just the apple that becomes susceptible to the tumor or does the stem as well okay so that was a whole discussion in the gemara however then the gemura discusses something called a pitchfork why am i bringing up a pitchfork and i'm going to tell you now this part is like a whole new idea i developed this class to say that the sutton right the pictures that you see when you go about here i have a picture here on the cover the power of prayer when you go out and see the world and whether it's comic strips movies uh maybe even certain bibles whatever certain illustrated things you'll see that the emblem or whatever you call the icon or picture of a devil or the satan seems to always have some kind of uh a fork my point here is to tell you you have to be sitting down that this fork that this is actually a sign i'm making this i'm not making this up it's in my head that this is a sign and it will be from this point on to tell you you can overcome whatever the sun is trying to push on you why because the word for prayer that we've been using all along in those verses that we just quoted in genesis 25 21 for treating hashem and hashem's the word prayer itself and what is prayer you will learn prayer is to overturn to overturn what we call meet something like a gazer from hashem some something negative and turn around to a positive right we know so many times we pray for people who are in uh severe straits right people who are ill people in prison people are lost people who you know are experienced difficulties in life so we have to ask the question and we'll be asked shortly if this is the decree from hashem what right do we have to pray to hashem to turn his attitude around to turn his decree around he willed it it's in his interest where do we come off spending our time trying to convince god to change his mind right god's almighty okay so let's discuss this little by little let's go through this gemara so this is something we've already discussed but okay let's go one by one hey good morning 14a i'm a rebel laser review are the prayers of the righteous compared to an iron tough race and art school translates it as a pitchfork and this is exactly why i'm bringing it up it's very strange that this word for prayer is a pitchfork it's actually coming to tell you something that this eterna just as the pitchfork you take you you shove it into the ground where there's grain like you're in a granary and you pick it up and you move it from one place to another is that really the purpose to a certain extent it certainly seems like it but there's another purpose which we'll talk about shortly so too i have to feel attention to so too this is what the world is telling us that the prayers of the righteous are to what mahaphir that to turn over or to overturn the attitude of hashem so to speak as if this is what's really happening from a cruel nature i'll say seemingly cruel nature or decree and turning to a merciful and merciful decree now the gemura actually the art scroll brings down this idea in the verse we just quoted about the the tare yitzchaf the yitzhak prayed he the gomorrah says the root of the word the eter i in tough is pitchfork to describe the prayers of yitzhak and rifka right that isaac entreated hashem hashem allowed him to speak to being treated and they bring down rashitosos the martial which we're going to see i'm going to try to summarize them for all all of you out there in cyber world the next comment is scripture's usage of the unusual term there's no question that is very unusual to describe isaac's prayers alludes that yitzhak succeeded with his prayers in so much so to speak that he actually changed god's attitude which had rendered him and rithka baron so that he capital he would now bless them with children now tostos describes in french at the very last line kanpuri foreca he describes what an etter is he uses the word in old french pay valve raised koof alef how would you pronounce it forca i guess but it's a fork okay so here you have one of the proofs here that we've been talking about some kind of the pitchfork okay now the marsha unbelievable he describes i just you i have some other things underlined that's all i'm really going to focus in on it's a very long wash off you can see that here so bear with us we're just going to talk about a few lines here vodka parish told those but parches told us regarding yitzhak that he was 40 years old fine we know that and rashi mentions over there that there were 10 years ashanim until he married rifke at 13. so yes he engaged her at 10 but only married her 13. i'm sorry they started good he engaged her at three and then only married her at thirteen and there were ten years that he eagerly awaited he saw the team he eagerly [Music] look forward to commercial assa avi prasara just like the ten years that sarah that avraham was with sarah that she did not conceive in other words we know from the that pussyc when there was 10 years in the land of israel that's when she conceived so too he waited those 10 years after meaning after he married her see how right it explained to marshall that the first 10 years until he married her and then there was another 10 years after he married he looked forward to having children but couldn't and the other shiakara right she couldn't get pregnant and we're talking about sarah she was barren so he married her who shifted was not interested in having a handmade a polegish a uh a substitute for rifka so he was willing to wait and that's when he started praying knowing that after 10 years of trying that if you don't have any children he might have to divorce her and he was not not only not interested in divorcing her he was not even interested in a second wife this is also very interesting that the next is uh when somebody prays for someone else it's more powerful than if you pray for yourself if i would pray for myself and i pray for someone else at the same time my prayer for the other person would be acceptable or more acceptable would it be accepted first so why not pray for others you want to hear this most amazing thing that our forefathers would never pray for themselves and so what did abram pray for and who got pregnant not just sarah the measures tells us that when sarah got pregnant all the old ladies all over the world got pregnant and when rift got pregnant all the older ladies all over the world got pregnant and you know why because they prayed for other people they didn't even pray for their own wives you but right we thought he was praying for his own wife to get pregnant no he waited until he could he could pray for the whole world and let me just read the words because it's so beautiful he and that's what it says in the next line that i have the lion king i it has to be that they were praying for others because that is more acceptable and now let's just go to the box that i have here he quotes rashi lama nimshola to philadelphia so then why is why are the prayers of the righteous compared to this this fork this um pitchfork venera dimion who so it seems like the comparison is because you know what this does it's not just to get from point a to point b then when you pick it up it also acts as a means of separating the shaft the chaff c h a f f from the grain itself so the the the bad part it separates the bad attributes which in this case is the shaft chef shabbat from the good stuff that's in it so too that's exactly what the tufila the prayers of the siddique do it's it also serves to separate to overturn to separate um the book called me and by the way when i say medicine think about it that's what the sun is the sutton is what the executioner it's the prosecutor right that's what we think of and it's hashem's agent so it separates that meaning from the media from the the merciful attributes of hashem the nils karzai and this is also mentioned by isaac tafe much more than any other of the avos of the uh the patriarchs the three characters i did we all know that he was menacing and if you look in genesis 31 42 yaakov himself refers to him refers to the dread of yitzhak in his admonition to love on and it's called have told us and have informed us and it says this is what you do when you pray right the prayer of satik it will overturn or turn over the meesa dim that judgmental attitude of hashem into rakhimi to change in it the teva akarut the actual nature of barrenness and we know that how did i write this i didn't write this down basically it's like this it changed the nature sarah herself was not supposed to get pregnant i mean because she didn't even have a womb right that um you can overturn the entire you can overturn the entire world you can overturn nature okay so here we are now we're going to answer the question of why would it be permits why would it be permissible to pray for someone who's sick right or someone who's going through a hard time isn't that god's will well listen to this so when i mentioned the michelle it's like you're taking it from point a and you're just bringing everything to point b no there's a process in between of removing the shaft okay chaff so in a safer called d freight torah it's written by rebbe menachem el-azar from munkach and he writes like this so the hebrews at the bottom of the page you can follow the english for those but basically it's like this that what is the fork doing it's winnowing it's windowing it's separating the chaff and uh be reminders that to clarify this statement in the introduction there are many questions that rishonim asked and we should ask the same question how is it ever mutually how could we ever pray for someone who's sick or someone who's experiencing a lot of pain isn't it god's decree that the person should be sick or that the the the person should be impoverished or afflicted [Music] how could we ever pray to overturn or to change god's mind or god's will the answer is drama role please that god himself the truth is god wants the person to be healed god doesn't want the person to be sick god doesn't want the person to experience this pain he wants to save the person from his poverty the nietnam the mata says why did god put the person in this position in this situation rock only because he wants you to pray to increase the prayer because he desires the prayer to siddique him he wants the prayers of the tzu deacon and maybe this is the reason why good people suffer right god wants their prayers and remove them from their pain he wrote me teeth that's the true will of hashem you're not overturning god's will you're not changing his mind his mind was to never get you there in the first place he doesn't want you to suffer he doesn't want you to be sick think about that this is the understanding of why there's this comparison of the prayer of the siddiquim to this pitchfork right that yes it's true that this pitch fork moves the grains from one place to another but guess what if you think that's all it's about you're making a big mistake if you think that's god's will you're making a big mistake that what just to move it to a second place la vir mean la mucha machine you know what he wants is to that second what you call second place is really the original place meaning his original motive was to be clean from the shaft and the the cleaning of the shaft with the separating the shaft is the process of moving it from place one to place two no according to the truth that the uh the goal is not just to move it from point a to point b voiceover cane rock the cadet and to do it only in order what that there would be some control within the ruach the ruach is i know it means spirit but we're talking about the wind at the time that you are removing the shaft by lifting it up and so therefore other robber the truth is that after you do god's will it'll return and be placed back in its first in its first original place because the goal is to get rid of the shaft to get rid of the sun to get rid of all the chaos and confusion the kahu the gazer scottish baku this is the good decree of god shane rodzano the real decree is that you do not remain in your pain you do not stay sick that's not what god wants but that one should pray from the depth of their heart the yotuni menu the oculum of coma richon and to remove himself from that place and to be put back into the original place which was god's will from the very beginning now remain in the higher right something interesting now this is a little bit more i'm going to call kabbalistic but it's it's not it's this is basic 101 judaism he mentions the statement what about this um this atar this atari this pitchfork that what that overturns the grains in the gorad we muck from the malcom from one place to another the the clarification of what is this attar what is exactly this pitchfork that is overturning the grains how does it work it's from below to above you're digging into the pile of grains and then you're lifting it up so we think of when we pray we're praying from below and it's reaching the heavens okay now that's what happens within the the mind and the thoughts of the righteous person who's praying he's in this world and he's bringing his prayers higher and higher and higher but it starts from below what happens as a result the result is that there's the shepherd there's this amazing i call it amazing grace i don't know what else to call it it's this flow of heavenlyness coming down from above so it starts from up down below and goes up and then as a result of the prayers there's a response which we call moire hashem where the chef of the heavenly influence is going to come down and rain down from above that's the remaining baha'i now the meiri explains like this the miri says regarding even the prayers of the righteous overturn the das the intent of god from meena's aksar youth from this cruelty to this merciful action or reaction he says really keep this in mind leola a person should never give up never lose faith from prayer paragon the gates that some kind of wall that's locked it's never locked it's never locked from in front of you uh derhara as a way of proof it actually says right the yeti hashem that he prayed to hashem so what was the the gomorrah says why are the prayers uh compared to this pitchfork so here we see that sara emenu was an ilanos she was barren she couldn't have children we know that ain loved lot of filo baseball she not only couldn't have children she didn't even have a womb she well it was when you call not 99 impossible a hundred percent impossible to have children and nevertheless what did prayer do nistana villadola the entire nature within her changed and she menstruated right a 90 year old woman menstruated and she was able to have children [Applause] okay now the benishikai there's several safari that i like to use the yahoo and the ben yoda so here we're going to start with the binahu and he mentions like this that regarding our gamora that speaks about overturning the character traits or attitudes of god from a cruel attitude to a merciful attitude so if you don't know hebrew bear with us there's a word called nega neg is a plague nega is the um like leprosy the the spiritual leprosy that we get on our clothes on our house on our body and it's the same letters nega as onig owning is the joy the the pleasure right shabbos is owning it's the same letters but a different order keep that in mind nega what about a nikof also that's a plague it's the same letters as gethin what's a geffen a gaffin is a beautiful vine right talks about your wife being a vine your children being a vine right having wine right it uplifts the heart the catheter is a good thing what about pasha le shafa else by the way so negoth and gethin are the same letters different order pasha and shepherd is pesha is sin and iniquity and shatter is godliness and flow so it's the same letters but are switched so this is what utakovino did he saw the no no remember it says in the presence of his wife but no means actual present tense like he's going to use the word as nocacho in the presence of the letters the word rifka is by the way if you take the letters that follow every one so what follows the reish is a shim follows a bet as a gimmel follows a coup is a race and follows the haze above her her um her her name rifka spells out if you follow the letters directly come after the word rifka is divorce he saw that if in her present state in her present state there's only one option and that's going to be divorce the ramos the regime it hints that if she remained barren he would need to re divorce her but he prayed that she should become pregnant and therefore it's the opposite of the word garush garuch means divorce but there's another word the same letters as garu that means to come together and that is so rude well we all know there are that are knitted so i needed people is called surugi right there's a famous tv show or something like that i heard about modern orthodox people it's called surugi i never saw it but i heard that such a thing so so regime are also the the lattices that are on many windows here in israel it's the bars right it's it really means to be um what's the word weaved it's weaved together that's what's seruk right knitted weaved woven right so basically that's the opposite of garouche means separated and divorced right so he took he could take the letters of garuch and he re imagine them and as woven together it's a language of togetherness like and he gives a few examples in in which is the lamentations his lamentations uh chapter 1 verse 14 and again similarly in the targum on the first kings chapter 7 verse 17. when i say the targum that's how they translate over there of putting the beds ah so in moet cotton the gomuramoid cut where it talks about the laws of mourning sleeping with your wife not sleeping with your wife there's this idea of massaging the samitos of when you can actually uh combine the beds back together after a certain period of time um so when the idea is that when a woman gets pregnant she will have a better relation much stronger connection with her husband and would not get divorced so that is the upshot of the video but he asked a question a very good question accrued regarding the idea of being barren for rifka one should not think at all that these are punishments coming as retribution and anger no ellen it comes from a loving place from hashem in order that they should pray in order to that hashem loves and desires and wants the prayers of the righteous and as the beneath now will explain they never prayed for anything that they personally lacked nothing specifically because they were they were happy with their lot number one they didn't feel anything missing and if they did they wouldn't pray for themselves that's going to be the point there's this famous concept if you're stuck in prison you need somebody to come and help you escape you you cannot escape escape prison on your own you need someone remember the old westerns they used to come up with like some rope on the the wall the um the bars on the wall and they would come and pull off the pull down the wall or someone would help you by giving you a cake and it has a file you know what i mean you could like you'll take 100 years but you can eventually get out but you need someone from the outside to give you the key basically you know so there's no way there's no way to get out on your own you need someone else to help you furthermore lawyers knows me massiveness in the heavy advancement that they would not want to benefit from miracles done on their behalf this is going to separate the men from the boys from the women from the girls okay you're at sadiq you're righteous you're going to pray for him give me a miracle come on pray for the pray for some other people hashem will provide right what about other people thinking about others is going to get you much further than dominating for a miracle for yourself that's what he's saying here that they did not want to benefit from miracles on behalf of themselves ah however what would they do they would pray for others who would be lacking the same things they would be lacking but they wouldn't be praying for themselves mammalian niskanen but in the end automatically of course if god provided the miracles they would also benefit because if they said oh my wife's not pregnant i can pray for her but what if i what about all those other women who aren't pregnant i want to pray for them and if i pray for them and then mamela as a result my wife who's not pregnant would also get pregnant came khan yitzhak so to hear yitzhak shalom love it he didn't pray specifically for his own wife elliot he prayed for all the barren women who in the world mama nith khadeshto and for sure as a result his wife was remembered and this comes to actually answer another another question we had why did he wait 20 years die laham team esther name shouldn't he have it's true he he he really wanted to pray 10 years earlier even for all the barren women of the world they called him shana but 20 years earlier lo mata barucha kodesh he didn't have the the the holy spirit the clarity meaning he he had ruled kurdish but it was not clear to him that the the generation was fitting yet that he should pray for them it was only after 20 years that through kodesh that's when he prayed for the for the sake of the world but nayla his wife well and automatically as a result his wife was also answered and that's what we mean when kazaal said specifically that when sarah was remembered all the barren women of the world were remembered they all got pregnant with her and so too by rifka this is embraced rabba when she got pregnant all the barren women were also answered um the truth is i'm gonna end this now i do have a lot more to say but i have a feeling that i'm going to lose people so bizrat hashem there's quite a lot more if you want to go i'll tell you where go to the banish high in the safer day near on this gemara and we write in 14a who said that was in sukis 14a that's a great source to find out more because the relationship between a razor blade which is and what what is the what does that do and as well as he discusses this the obama 64b go again to the benice kai and he discusses amazing stuff i'll leave that for the more advanced students and bizarre i wish everyone not just a great shabbos but a great life and more intense um concentration when you pray okay have a lot of kevana the what pray pray more for other people it really will get you much further in life and your prayers will be answered right i i'm going to say i guarantee it but i don't have to this is words to the wise become selfless all right altruistic spend some of your time praying for the health the wealth the the ease of others and guaranteed your own personal needs will be met and with that signing off until next week [Music] is