Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Nature of The Priesthood - Passion and Consistency

[Music] okay hi everybody thank you thank you for coming and uh tonight's share is dedicated to Ben zel as well as for the liberation of er Israel from its enemies safe return home of the soldiers and the hostages lasting Unity of the people of Israel and for all of those whose Health has been affected by the war and we also are thinking very much about the release of Arvin nanel Ben Sona the young man in Iran who has been sentenced to death and we very much hope that he should have a Yeshua Alat kers benzar and Daniel Ben Leora and AR again the all that uh need Aliyah need Rua need Yeshua the Merit of should be for them um I have to give a disclaimer up front I don't see too many people who are at my oi this morning this is going to be kind of a repeat a little bit I I did warn people in the morning who asked and uh so if anyone wants to leave you can walk out but you never know I I find myself that even when my conscious intention is to repeat a share it does come out a little differently based on the audience so so you never know in other words um I can't even say I'm going to repeat a share because maybe it won't be a complete repeat but it may be so just want to warn you a little bit uh I'm going to start I'm going to go a little backwards I'm I'm going to start with the present para and then I'm going to go backwards until last week's para uh you know obviously the book midbar sets up the Jewish camps and it assigns roles to kohanim and levim we have kohanim and we have levim kohanim of course there aren't that many kohanim in the midbar in the midbar all you have is Aon Aon had four Sons two of those sons died not of a so it's Aon and his two sons and then there's Pinas who's not really a full Coen yet till the 40th year of the desert so pinus is only a little kid at this point uh and the like uh but uh we do have many levim and the levim in fact the very word Ley is to accompany someone to be Malave someone and that actually means that leim are Malave they accompany the kohanim the kohanim do the actual service in the B mikdash and the L have Shir zimra song both vocal song and instrumental song and the like and music was actually part of the um part of the aod spikes even on chabas in fact one of the reasons historically why the reform movement called their synagogues temples was because they wanted to introduce the organ and since uh you know there's an is to play musical instruments on chabas outside of the beta mikash they wanted to co-op the name Temple for their synagogue which is not totally inappropriate because in the book of ycel bit asset is called B mikdash mat so the temple is not such a bad name for a show but they there was a specific agenda that this was their header for an organ on shabas and and and the like now the mishna inul makes a very interesting observation now it doesn't give the reason for it it just makes the observation the Mish says that which makes kohanim ineligible is kerim is valid for leim and that which makes a Ley puzzle is valid for kohanim and the mishna explains what that is a Coen gets disqualified through physical blemish there's a whole list of mum just like animals are invalidated for coros if they have what are called M so kohanim themselves cannot do the other if they're a bow M so kohanim are invalidated by m but they are not invalidated by age there is no mandatory retirement age for a Coen even if a Coen is 95 if he's able to do the aod he doesn't so for kohanim the is M and not years for a Ley it's exactly the opposite a Ley that's about can still serve in the B mikash but the Ley at least in the midb if it applied had a very early retirement age a very as I the older I get the earlier I see the retirement was Levan worked from between 30 and 50 50 retirement at 50 now there was a time in my life uh in which well 50 well sure 50 is uh is ancient of course what do you mean well that time is long gone uh but levam had to retire very early from active duty so it's interesting so the mishna now how you know this is very clear because you simply look at theim the Torah mentions M for kohanim and not leim and the Torah mentions retirement age for leim and not kohanim so how you know it is not the issue but the one thing that is not explained is what is the logic of that like why should it be that way why is there a man mandatory retirement for the Ley and not the Coen and why is mum such a disqualification for the Coen and not the Ley so there's a beautiful thoughts offered by The Who is the third rebi of kabad or at least it's based on it I get in trouble here because uh people often ask me tell me exactly where it is and I'm I'm having difficulty finding it so maybe I I shouldn't say it's clearly in thetic but I I believe it can be inferred and interpreted based on his thoughts and he differentiates between the nature of the avod of a cohain and the nature of the avod of AI and these represent two different dimensions of a religious personality a Coen represents the person we'll call him the Yi maybe who goes by the book anyone that studies the laws of corbano certainly in the gar but even from the Kish itself understands this is a very exact and detailed procedure there is no room for improvisation there is no room for creativity there is no room for originality just do what it says follow the book If there is even the smallest deviation from the detailed rules of coronos the whole corbon is invalent uh if it was a sin offering the sinner has to bring another Corbin uh if it's the Corbin tamid that's brought every day they have to bring another corbon toid a corbon is invalidated with the smallest deviations so the coine represents what we might call the model of faithfulness and dedication to the word of God without bringing in any part of your individuality any part of your creativity you are just supposed to be a robot in a sense follow the rules do nothing else the Ley lives in a very very different world the Ley is the world of emotion the world of spirit the world of improvisation now we don't always realize this because in the course of time even the song of the levim became cified know the the different Psalms of DAV but you have to understand that that was not the original way in the when the Torah says L would sing what would they sing they would sing their own compositions they would they would they would improvise they would uh by the way some say you may have heard this and I really don't know if it's true that the Gregorian chants which are very very ancient music in the laab and the Catholic Church are remnants of the music of the Levan in the B mikdash because after all you know that music was brought to Rome Rome destroyed the Bas of mikdash and they brought kohanim and people orim who remembered that music and it could have infiltrated into the church and the like so we really don't know and I'm not sure if there's any way to prove it but uh this is what some people speculate the older the old Garian chance but whatever it is the world of song and music is a world of improvisation a world of creativity a world of emotional expression a world in which all of the different things that you're going through again just like the hill itself there is Joy there is Jubilation there is Thanksgiving there is despair there is pleading for God for salvation right to H much of which was intended to be sung in the betam mikdash is really an encyclopedia of the gamut of human emotion and feeling that's why to this very day theim is so beloved among the Jewish people and the truth is even among non-jewish people uh in its various versions because into Helm we can find everything went through everything in his life he had Triumph he had Victory he had exaltation he had honor he had Glory he had defeat he had bereavement he suffered the death of children tragic death of children and therefore so suffered sickness as we go through all of the different cycles of life we can connect to those words and through those words connect to Hashem so the point that the is making at least inferentially is that the Coen is the one who follows the rule and the Ley is the one that is linked to religious ecstasy and emotion individuality creativity autonomy because again originally the sh and the zimra were not a pre-selected text they were you know what you come up with now each model of aod has a strength and has a weakness the strength of the cohain lies in his consistency day after day he knows what he has to do and he does it he doesn't have doubts he's not affected by his moods you know it's interesting I um I mean I I knew such people growing up in the sense these are an interesting model of aalay that's almost extinct today and that is the babat at least in America who had no Yeshiva education because remember yeshivat before World War II they were not that many isas around but somehow they were raised religious they were raised from and what they keep is what they keep I mean I I knew a man when I knew him he was in his 90s already but you know to go to sh twice you know twice a day for Shak and then it was Unthinkable of him to miss a minion I mean I I still remember him trudging through the snow I mean his house was not so far from the show but it was a block and a half 5 Ines of snow 90 years old it took him an hour to make that walk he would not even think of missing it I would think of missing it but not him you see this is where learning can lead you astray sometimes I start thinking you know this and that that's why they always say a good Ritson never lets her husband near the kitchen cuz the husband's going to wash a mil knife with a flake spoon a flake uh um sponge and start saying well it's not a Ben yomo you whatever come up with a million different why it's okay and the good Ron says how dare you use you know a milk sponge and a FL right so a good represent doesn't let her husband touch the kitchen because the husband's going to use his learning to look for loopholes and andum and same thing with minion this guy didn't go to Yesa this guy didn't know this gumar and that gumar he knew a Jew goes to sh three times a day or you know twice a day cuz menar of we're together says you go to show you do what you do so that's really the Coen of course the Coen is learned but but the Coen represents this notion you got a job and you do it makes no difference if you feel good or don't feel good this is what you do this is your your job right so the Mila of the Coen lies in consistency it doesn't fluctuate based on mood the Ley is much more volatile the Ley you know there are times of exaltation when there's joy and then there's depression and that's the Ley fluctuates back and forth back and forth back and forth back and forth the deficit of the Coen other words what is the problem of the Cain is that sometimes religious life becomes routinized it just become I do this day after day after day after day there's no passion necessarily there's no excitement there's no investment other than the investment of time and energy but there's no emotional connection to it you're just going through the motions the Ley on the other hand is emotionally connected to the highs and to the lows so Mila of Co is consistency of Coen is routinization Mila of Ley is passion and emotion of Le is volatile mood changing I'm not into it today now it's very interesting let me digress for a moment we spoke a few weeks ago about the very very famous argument between rabi aiva and benazzi as to what is the most important verse in the Torah everybody remers Raba said loving your friend as You Love yourself is the great great principle of the Torah that's RAB AKA benai mentioned another PK that God made man in the image of Hashem Salim now we explained then I don't want to repeat that share that rabi aiva emphasizes the love of action you love a person by doing for them Bazi emphasizes philosophical love I contemplate your inner greatness of the image of God so according to RAB AA action gives rise to emotion according to manasi it is the emotion and the philosophy that gives rise to the action okay but what I didn't mention at the time is there is a third midrashic view as to what is the most important PK in the Torah now it's interesting we actually don't have this medish this is a lost medish but it is brought in the introduction to a Yakov which is the book of the a of the tal and the editor of Yakov IB who lived in the time of yo quotes this med in his hak even though we don't have the med in our printed MIM and he says there's a third opinion that says the most important p is by the Corb the daily offering you bring one lamb in the morning and you bring the other lamb in the afternoon that's the most important PK in the Torah so that's a little hard to understand yeah of course there's a Mitzvah to bring the corbon toid in the morning and in the afternoon but it's a Mitzvah make all Mitzvah are important I means filling is important too but what makes this Mitzvah the most important principle and the Bali muser explained very beautifully the ambassis T it consistency don't let your moods affect your aod day in day out all of us want inspiration and inspiration is a goal that we should be inspired we should be passionate but at the end of the day we have to be Servants of Hashem even when we lack that inspiration the truth of the matter is that is actually part of growing up generally that is part of being an adult I mean you go to your job whatever it is you do you're not always going to be in a state of excitable joy and emotion right raising children right every second is a Sublime pleasure I don't think so you know but you know there are brashem there are many many moments of joy and many moments of Love yeah for sure for sure there are but there are times when it's not but if you're a good parent you take care of them anyway because that's what you got to do so the truth of the matter is you know even not speaking as a rabbi you know part of being mature is you get the job done even if you don't feel like it in r in spirituality in a Hashem it's 1,00% that way and that's what the medish means Tom consistency Somebody went to the and said rebi I have a problem I'm not inspired when I learned Torah so said I guess you have to learn without inspiration for a while now that's not a permanent State the inspiration does come but sometimes you know you can't expect to be in a constant time first of all if you are in a constant ey you wouldn't even know that we we we we can only gauge emotional highs by by by comparing it to when we're not there if you were consistently on that place you wouldn't even know what what what you wouldn't understand the significance of it and and and the like so that's the Milo of the coing consistency the danger is routinization the Ley the risk is volatility but the Mila is Passion emotion creativity and individuality these are two models in aod Hashem different ways people serve Hashem and most personalities gravitate again we're Composites to be sure all of these dichotomies are always composite portraits but people will tend to be dominant in one aspect and uh do or dominant in the other aspect right even though we're mixtures so here is what the suggests he says the reason why a Cohan is not disqualified by age is because age makes routinization even better meaning if I've been doing something for 40 years if I do it for 50 years it becomes even a more ingrained habit so like wine I get better by age I do more and more and more and more and more the guy who went to minion for 20 years and then 30 years then 40 years he's going to keep on doing it so age is not the coen's problem the way the co serves God he only gets better with age but the ultimate problem is physical disability the body sometimes goes out so mum which is representative of physical disability is what can stop the coin age will not stop the coin physical disability May right that's what happens at some point the body gives out we hope you know as late as possible but uh right so that's why the remes here is that the the challenge to the Coen is not a getting older the challenge to the Coen personality is the limitations of the human body now it's true that the laws of mum are not necessarily the same as physical disability I mean there are many woman where you're not physically disabled but nevertheless as a prototype it represents the notion of the limitations of the body now with the Ley the suggest yes it's exactly the opposite the Ley lives in the world of emotion the world of passion the world of emotion and passion can be so powerful that they can transcend physical limitations you know these things a lot of it is fake but you know you see sometimes the Christian healers so the guy's in the wheelchair and the person says get up get up get up and you know the guy stands up okay yeah yeah I mean I'm m him that uh most of that is just fake and the like but there is on some level in some cases an actual phenomenon that a person can be in such an ecstatic state that maybe momentarily at least they can go beyond the limits of their body I mean we see this in traumatic events the old story about the mother who lifts up the car her baby is trapped under a car mom who lifts up you know 3,000 lb now she may be in the hospital for the next 6 months but at that moment know Superwoman whatever whatever it would be because the emotion huho yeah yeah it's like a placeo exactly right uh the the emotion is so powerful that it gives her a strength beyond belief religious is very much that way so the Ley is not pule by mum because there's a remes that when you're totally consumed by The Passion of the moment your body is not going to limit you but what is what the Ley faces could be danger routinization burnout you do it for many many many many years you can lose your passion you can lose your excitement so routinization improves the co-a it may hurt the Ley because you know I I remember this a little bit um I remember I used to be involved with ncsy in the 1980s and you know ncsy involves teenagers from public school backgrounds and um you know it's everything is pitched at an extremely high emotional state no no one these are teenagers so everybody's always crying and laughing and you know emotions are very very open and they tell stories of Mo shabas they have a kumit and of course the lights are out oh you have like a big hav Dolla candle and boys and girl girls get up and they tell their stories we used to call The True Confession I remember again forgive me for digressing I remember one time a 14-year-old girl told the story Mo shabas that Not only was she not from a shabas home but her parents didn't allow her to keep shabas and somehow she had to sneak away to come to this shabat tone and she says what she does every shabas is she waits until her parents go to sleep and then she goes into the bathroom room and she has a hiding place where she has shabas candles she lights the shabas candles in the bathroom at 11:00 at night she then blows them out she then turns on the fan so there'll be no smoke and then she has to hide the candles now you could give if you were testing somebody for Ain ordination you could actually ask him a question how many sins did this girl commit you know a gazillion of Aros and yet I can't speak for God but you know I I can't say but my heart tells me that hasem looks at this young girl how much she wants to keep chabas how much she's trying to keep shabas and I think God Treasures what she was trying to do even though she was obviously you know ill-informed and ignorant and didn't a million things wrong and maybe just maybe her lighting the C again I I can't say but maybe her lighting the candles in the bathroom on chabas and blowing them out might count more than the comfortable easy shabas that we're able to make where we keep all theas now who knows what hasem looks at but we know Hashem looks at the heart not just the action so ncsy was you know emotionally pitched that way so I remember that my wife and I we were really moved you know different stories we were crying Etc and um we spoke to the regional director who had been doing this for 15 years and he was a phenomenal person I mean he he did all of this but to him this is like what he does all the time like he does this every week so to him he was not even excited by it anymore just yeah yeah this is what we do all the time you know so it's like you can get used to anything and at some point you know you no longer have the passion the drive and the like and that's why Lev have mandatory retirements because emotion cannot be kept at a strong level for so many years so the coin improves with age but he is going to be subject to the limitations of the body the Ley can transcend the limitations of the body but the Ley can suffer emotional burnout with the passage of time and that's why the is different for Kohan and Le a very very interesting symbolic understanding of the two modalities in a now everyone knows the basic idea that the goal of every Jew is to make themselves a mishan for Hashem the word mishkan means a dwelling place for the Divine Right This is the famous words of the saer that's become a beautiful Mish in my heart I will build a dwelling place for God and some beautiful swarm also the Barm that rabie Su Schwarz wrote about serving Hashem in my heart I build a Michigan so each and every one of us we're supposed to be a mishun for Hashem and just as the mishun or the M mikash required kohanim and we have to incorporate in our B mikash the Mila of the Coen along with the Milo of the Ley we have to be meticulous conscientious consistent in keeping we don't substitute what we think would be a better way of doing it follow the rules because otherwise you're not serving Hashem you're just serving yourself you know narcissistic what makes me feel spiritual but at the same time don't do it in a routinized manner try to have the passion the emotion now in truth in truth if you want to go back this goes back to the earliest generations of this is actually one one of the core in which the old misn tradition I mean well Pras there were no misnagdim but the pric tradition emphasized the notion of exact Fidelity to and for many people what happened was it got routinized they lost feeling they lost passion so theic movements in many ways was a corrective by introducing conscious of course it wasn't a new thing all these things are in older sources but it was bringing things to the four that had receded pemus internality AEM passion but like everything else the pendulum swings to extremes at some point inas there was such an emphasis on inner spirituality that that was seen to be more important than so for example uh if if the end of the Kash man in the morning let us say is 8:00 a.m. but at 8: a.m. I'm still tired and I feel if I could sleep till 11: I'll have a wonderful shma full of kavana so theid might say again I'm I'm stereotyping here well what does God want more he wants a superficial half asleep shma that happens to be said before 8 A.M Orma with kavana with passion with feeling surely the latter would count more this is to use a fancy term this represented what what might be called the antinomian tendency I don't mean the Balto himself but different followers and breakaways the antinomian Tendencies of early kasas antinomian is just a word that means against rules against law the most important thing is the inner spiritual State I mean like people say what God cares if I rip toilet paper on shabbath that's what serving God is about the ior is Passion excitement usem so the truth of the matter is at some points there were segments of segments that really kind of veered off the deep end that were basically saying Halas shouldn't be kept at all if they're not accompanied with inner spiritual state so there were two books that were written in order to refute that tendency one was written from the misn camp and one who was written from theid camp and surprisingly they have a thesis that is very very very similar the MN Camp ofan the disciple of the vagon his philosophical ethical work is called nephesh NE is a very popular work in the Yeshiva World in fact in many many ways the fourth chapter of NE about Torah learning is is virtually the mission statement of of the ISA world how learning is the greatest most important thing you can do and it makes no difference what you're learning even if you're learning things that have nothing to do with spiritual ideas you're connecting to God now the truth of matter is that NE has many other ideas besides that one but it's the fourth chapter that I should I shouldn't even say ne is a popular safer in Yesa the only thing as popular as the fourth chapter of but but there are there's a lot of other stuff in about prayer and the like but the first is actually his argument against which he never mentions by name in fact he refers to in very uh very complimentary ways he calls them mem those who seek God but he says they make a mistake to elevate the inner spiritual state above of the action the inner spiritual State augments the action it elevates the action but without the action the inner spiritual state is meaningless and this is directly addressing the antinomian Tendencies ofas and he gives a mus which is actually a humorous musel he says let's take a peser right so you've been working right the great night of PES the night that we s celebrates Hashem taking us out of slavery all of the beautiful meanings but you're dead tired you've been you've been up 2:00 in the morning for the past month cleaning the house scouring the house so what if a person were to say you know tonight is not a good time to make a Seder I'm too tired why don't I get a good night's sleep PES night and I'll make a Seder the next day it'll be wonderful rner says what would you say to that attitude you'd laugh at it right you'd laugh at it you got a Seder has to be at night meaning yeah the inspiration is wonderful but you got to follow the now it's interesting I I once gave this mus as an example of absurdity right like what type of person you know would not make a Seder the night of the Seder so a woman this was an nonreligious audience a woman said you know we did that last year we couldn't get the family together uh for the beginning of PES so we decided to make aadar the last day of PES or maybe it was the shabas after PES says it was the greatest seder everybody was relaxed and we went through the four cups of wine and the hag it was wonderful so tell you you know so what one generation considered to be absurd talk about life imitating art you know uh becomes an actual thing that people are doing beler said this as a as a joke something that's impossible to even imagine and people people actually people actually do it uh and and and the like so the ne emphasizes again he doesn't denigrate the importance of love of God and fear of God but he says this has to augment action now the other safer that makes the identical Point albeit with different sources was from the this is one of the fundamental principles one of the fundamental principles of T the importance of keeping the now again let me just point out the modern religious reader doesn't always realize why this is innovative I mean I open I open Tanya and it says you got to keep the Mitzvah so what might hit you is like okay like what's what's the big Point here I mean doesn't everybody know that the answer is everybody knows it because of the and the t meaning to say there was a time in Jewish history in recent Jewish history where that was not necessarily a shared assumption see this is the problem with great swarmm sometimes you go back and you read Classics for him and you don't know what the Kish is like I mean what is he telling me I got a where it's filling every day I mean you know who said not the problem is you don't realize what they were addressing in the time of the T in the time of this was a live controversy how important is detail as opposed to Inner spiritual State alive mlus even in learning of Torah there there were those who said and brings them that if you're not learning with a connection to God your learning is worthless and you shouldn't learn and rner disputes that and argues and uh brings Source after Source after Source after source and once again to the modern reader no the modern fir reader he said like you know what's the point here doesn't everybody know that yeah we know that because he said it he didn't know it until he said it now it's common yeah it becomes common knowledge to be sure now it's not even aish anymore but it was a tremendous Kish at a time that's why you need to know when you learn old you need to know historical background because then you understand where it's coming from what what is it addressing this was a live issue and that is why the Tanya was a very controversial work within the world it was almost as if the Tanya was accused of being a misn a closet mate because he was espousing learning Torah he was espousing keeping H hey that's not stuff right okay so it's of course maybe it's not an accident that he actually was lak he was a was so in a sense he was the most the most L of all of the early teachers so that's why it's very interesting that t and Ne are very very very similar sparm in fact babbi actually took the position which I'm not endorsing that rner based the on Tanya was published first and he borrowed from the and he followed the teachings of thean even against his own rebbi the vnon I'm not sure about that I have my doubts about that but there is no question that these swarm are very very similar and it would be very kada for aent Tor who's able to learn these to learn both together and uh there are different and that's important but there's so much that's similar so much that is similar and the to is largely based on cabala just like the Tanya is based on cabala so Z zash the writings of the AR the writings ofha they make their appearance in both in both in that uh in that way so uh on one hand therefore you got to be a Coen going back meaning don't say the only important thing is my religious emotion you got to be a Coen but on the other hand when you build the Mish of your heart don't only be a Coen bring the Ley in as well we have to create passion we have to create emotion you know used to have a saying which is a a cute saying in some ways you know one of the things thatas were sometimes n and Truth is to very day is they were not careful about ding Min Before Sunset they would D Min after Sunset which is wrong even remarks as a joke little bit of a bitter joke that he himself was in where they wanted a and somebody said no it's before we have to wait it almost almost became an obligation to wait brings bring I saw this by with my own with my own eyes he doesn't call he doesn't mention the M but this is what he's referring to now this so so the so the lit Fox would the misn would criticize for not doing before so the gave an answer he says a you know got has more fear of Shia than of Hashem they don't think of Hashem they think about Shia now there is a little bit of fruit there and that is when you get so involved in detail you don't see the overall picture and that's where emotion and passion come in mitzvos the word Mitzvah the Tanya writes command but it also comes from saat orat that's to connect a Mitzvah is a connector with God and we don't we sometimes don't have that awareness I remember I was once talking many many years ago about developing a connection with AES and a person a friend person a learned person said he's very uncomfortable talking about connecting to God that sounds too Christian Jews don't talk about connecting to Hashem we talk about connecting to Torah I can't Torah adits us there's some truth to that but that's also a little unfortunate because ultimately our learning our Torah our Mitzvah are supposed to connect us to AES and when we forget about that ultimate connection we're going to be impoverished now again as as the says do it anyway don't say I'm not going to do it because I don't have that thing do it anyway but the level of what you're doing is going to be far far far inferior you kind of get overcome by the trees or the leaves in the forest so you never see the entirety of the Forest right I'm looking I'm just Tunnel Vision on this particular detail where is it taking me where am I going with it what's my relationship with hasem and like the man said oh Jews don't talk that way only Christians talk that way what a why don't we talk that way we should talk that way but again within the confines of the Coen you can't just be the Ley talking about spirituality but within the discipline of we have to bring that passion that emotion that feeling that gmak otherwise we go through the motions you know people a lot of people talk about kids at risk kids who go off the DK which of course is a very big problem but the truth of the matter is even people who don't go off the Derk people who remain observant can be very dead inside their n shamas are starving they're not getting nourishment that's why you'll find in the Yeshiva World this is a relatively newer phenomenon that more and moreas are being learned you know when I was in Yeshiva a long time ago so we had one person is still there Lans he was our one Mystic in the Nel faculty who taught ROK and and all of them he still still there uh but you know you wouldn't see You'd walk into the N Bas Med you wouldn't see at you wouldn't see these things or if you did them you know you were hiding them under the table now you can walk into any Bas matter I'm not sure about yet but Mir in and Kon panovich you see Tas and and saduk uh again I'm not sure how many people are actually learning them but at least they want to learn them they they have a desire to connect to these in because we're starving for an emotional connection toes and uh again this is not for everybody but but for many many people uhas or or generally nister some some element of cabala is a way of opening the heart and the emotion and not just the head and therefore in a sense maybe we're approaching the ban bam mikash as we're integrating the Coen and the Ley together right so maybe that's fact the V himself writes that mashia will come in the Merit of Torah learning but he says specifically the V the Merit of learning Kabal the right this not from and that is the notion that we got to connect our to God on all of its levels not just the cerebral as important as the cerebral is and this is why you you know it's interesting uh in ER Israel there's actually one person who gets all the credit for this as the originator this was rev desler rev desler came from well he was from Lithuania he then went to England then he came to erel and rev desler was a traditional Baler came from Kellum Etc but revler was much broader than most because rer was O A Lot in and cabala and when he became the mash of pich he introduced into pich and some of the older B muser didn't like it they saw this as a betrayal he says didn't learn Tanya what are you bringing in Tanya Andel didn't learn Tanya uh people even talked about after was ni we have to uh deize pavish there's actually such such a Lon we got to bring it back to the oldfashioned mus and yet ressler's methodology was extraordinarily powerful and that's the sherish of what goes on in most yes narra today in America we we have a similar Pioneer this was RIT hutner Rev hutner uh who was of course a tmid of the great L Yesa slka but he was also a from V brought in directly indirectly he doesn't always quote sources so he would say different R notes different thoughts without saying where they're from uh a lot of them were some of them were secular actually whatever putter brought everything in in different uh in different ways and he was the one who introduced Mar which is earlier maral isus it was before the B but maral was taken over by the in fact the maral himself was the great-grandfather of the alter rebbi so they're they're connected that way and ra of hutterer of desler in the history of Yeshiva education and its connection to What's called the pine the inner meaning of the Torah he's actually a Pioneer they the two Pioneers who brought it in and uh we see the importance of it we see that literally a Nisha can be starved a person could be from totally observant and they can be dead inside in fact the maharal says a very scary thought in many ways there is a gamar in that says why is it the case that sometimes the son of a will not be a there are many many exceptions to that but sometimes the son of a will not be a the asks this and gives different answers but the morale explains some of the answers the following way because the T can sometimes be so connected to the Torah that he's no longer connected to the Noor therefore it's like taking a fruit and cutting it off the tree as long as the fruit is connected to the tree it continues to grow once you separate it from the tree you know it's no longer connected so the moral says again I'm not sure if R would totally agree with that moral statement but the moral says you can be so connected to the Torah that you don't think about Hashem and then you're not going to be able to pass it on in that way so this is a little bit of a commercial for the What's called the Pia sator that so many people find very very helpful now again again I I I know uh by definition emotion and passion are not one siiz fit all so may not be for everybody there are people who you know this is not their thing fact people ask me all the time um if I don't uh learn cabala am I okay I say well you're okay you know it's not something you have to do if it doesn't speak to you okay that's fine you know you you you kind of focus on what brings a person closer but the point is whatever Avenue you use we have to work on this emotional connection to our KES and that's the avod of the Coen and that's the avod of the Ley let me just mention one other point I want to go backwards a little bit in last week's para uh which is the largest para of the Torah but it's not the hardest to Lan because uh at the end of the para it talks about each of the Nim bringing sacrifice Isis on the 12 days of the dedication of the mishan everybody brought the same Corban same words same trap same n so maybe Hashem had ra him on the Bal such a long para but he can read the same thing 12 times so the obvious question people ask is you know the Torah is very economical with words the Torah does not say in two words what it could say with one word so the Torah could have told us what the head of Yehuda brought and then say all the brought the same thing why is there a need to spell it out again and again and again and again and again so I'm going to give you two Quicky answers answer number one is that the Torah is actually teaching us a very important point that even when people are doing The Identical Mitzvah each person brings their own individuality to the Mitzvah the kavanot of Yehuda were not the same as to be an orthodox Jew to be a Jew obviously there's a great deal of Conformity we do the same things but we're not cookie cutter each person brings the individuality and uniqueness of their personality in that and therefore externally is it may have been the same thing internally every single corbon was different unique distinct and indeed if you look at the medish rabba a huge medish rabba in Paras naso you will see that the meaning of the ball and the meaning of the incense and the meaning of this animal it was literally a different symbolic meaning for every tribe that's why it's a huge medish un parous that's answer number one answer number two focuses in a different way the hero of the N story is who's number two yehud the famous one who jumped into the red see he brought a to z now the next day it's yar's turn nanel Ben he had to decide am I going to turn this into a competition or am I going to turn this into a collaboration he could have decided oh Yehuda brought that I'll do it better he changed this into a collaboration that's a great thing we're all on the same page we're not competing Aus hasem is not about egotism it's not about GAA it's not about self advertisement and therefore it's repeated over and over and over again to emphasize there was no competitiveness in this and that itself is a very very important lesson if I could quote the unlikely source of Ronald Reagan that I don't quote that often but he says there is no end to the amount of good that can be done if you don't care who gets the credit do the job the pich the great pich of yanan was the only one of 800 Community raban who survived the Holocaust 799 of them were wiped out he was the only Community R who survived he was obsessed with why God gave him life and he saw his mission which he pursued relentlessly to rebuild rebuild yeshivas rebuild orphanages marry get the women married whatever organizations after organizations after organizations yesos after yesos hospitals everything and as a result although he was a g Torah he said he gave up all of the learning all of the writing all of the him he could have given in panovich which he largely did not R and rovski I mean the panovich was not uh an active rashash panovich because he was building building building building for Claus the saav used to say in 1968 when they had the first moon launch and people were discussing is there life on other planets so the Saab said I don't know science I don't know what the scientists say but I am convinced there is no life on those other planets because if there would be the punov would be their collecting money and if the punov has not been to Mars there is nothing in Mars oh wow that's what he said the punov so the pun ofev was really a legendary fundraiser because number one I mean he was a god old B Torah but he was also funny and he was loving and he cared about people and he could relate to people at all levels even a person who had no background to put could make him very feel comfortable so he was a very beloved he talked to women very very beloved beloved beloved person so he used to travel all over the place South Africa was a very fa favorite place he went to Chicago he went to America a few times uh as far as Chicago and even La so one time he comes to Chicago to collect money and this is before there were jets so the trip uh from Mar toell was a much longer trip than it was today and and uh the same time that he comes into a show there's a m from a much smaller Yeshiva in b naric as soon as the M sees the pich he turns white because he figures I got no chance here pich is the greatest like fundraiser in the toor world so initially the person was very very upset but then he said okay listen I don't have to collect every day today I will just be in the audience I will listen to a beautiful Dr I will be inspired okay this is not a business day for me I'm going to take it off and enjoy the drer so he sits in the P of Kadar gives a wonderful Dasa filled with Torah and with stories and with jokes and then with abas Israel beautiful beautiful and at the end of the the pure says I just want to tell you there's a very from B who's here in the audience a very fine Yeshiva that I'm personally familiar with I want to ask you that please all the money you were going to give me give to him because his Yesa also needs a lot of help well suffice it to say that the naric michul did a lot better than he ever did before because he was getting the money that the punov would have gotten which is a lot more than he would have gotten so he goes over to the pitov afterwards and says you know rebi I am so grateful but I really don't get it you traveled all the way from mared to sell you're an older man you're not healthy uh you have your own Yeshiva and not only one Yeshiva you have all of the things that uh you you you do how could you just give it away to another cause and the pun of said and this is almost unique the only other person who was like this was ress the only other one no one else P said I don't know what you mean giving up the money to another cause we have the same cause we're on the same page we're doing the same thing if the money I collect could can enable 20 people to learn Torah for a year why do I care if they're under the roof of the panovich base mess are they're under the roof of the naric Bas mess the point is we're working so people will learn Torah I'm not giving anything up I'm I'm on your team we're on the same team this is very very remarkable because even even great gum even great gdm they do have a proprietary interest that R once said it's a bit of a Sharp word maybe maybe it's unfair even that somebody was once describing the nv's love of Torah and he said the NV would come in the middle of the night to vagan yiva and he would see the tum learning and the NV would just cry out of Joy the love of Torah now this I think is unfair because said he would be more impressed if the was start crying going into another Yeshiva and seeing people okay it's it's an unfair statement and the truth is the NV would cry either way so I'm not saying it about the NV but when we sawant was making the point that people have a proprietary Shas in their Yesa and yet the P did not and that's very very remarkable think ofir was the same way I understand when he went on fundraising uh the uh the administration of Mir did not allow him to hold on to the money because he would see a guy in Lakewood and give him the money and a guy in there would give him the money he said this is Mere Money you can't just so so as soon as someone gave money like they took it from him right away because he also had the sh he didn't care his Yeshiva that Yeshiva that Yeshiva so those are the two people I think are very worthy of admiration one thing I'll say about the PV you know I I came to nerel as a ninth grader in 1968 pitov was nifter in 1968 so I was just in ninth grade I didn't know that much about the P although I had heard the name when he was nifter so the rashash Shiva who knew him well rman calleda came for a hpit and it was in Yiddish I didn't really know Yiddish that well but the one thing so it's kind of falling asleep in the middle but all of a sudden I remember this and I've never seen this since I've never seen this since the Riva directed that everybody sit on the ground like a sit on the ground is a veas I I've I've never seen it since but this is what he said he said for such everybody sits on the ground like so this is a true true Adam in that way okay yeah be well and thank you [Music] I