Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: The Census and Community Building

my baby [Music] good to see you all and hope your preparations for matantara are preceding a pace are here tonight is dedicated for a refuge Lima Shimon benelka and to mayhemo Charcoal Israel and foreign and she has quite an unusual story actually the son sent me the story as a young girl she saved many lives in Krakow during the showa smuggling children younger than she in and out of the ghetto like quite amazing that a child was saving children younger than her and this is sponsored by her sons Mitchell and Jeffrey getzels of New York and we're very great grateful for the uh castora and may the delivery Toby not least for your mother who was obviously a very very heroic courageous woman uh we are beginning the fourth hamash of the Torah four out of five uh the book of babidbore and it's interesting that the Hebrew name for the book of member the the name that gazal give it is which means the Hamish of countings the Hamish of censuses actually Sensei which corresponds exactly to the English name numbers so numbers is actually the rabbinic name for the book of amidbar and the reason is because the Book of Numbers is bracketed by a census the beginning of the book is a census of the generation that left mitzrayim and then towards the end of the book not monish at the end butchas there is a census after 40 Years of the new generation that was either born in the desert or was under the age of 20 in other words the old generation had largely died out and we have the new generation that's coming in so census number one is the census of Jose mitzrayim those who left mithrayim census number two is the census of those who will be entering Eric Israel in both those countings there are various groupings that are not included for various reasons different reasons so for example women are not included we actually do not have a total of how many women there were the arivrev right the Arab is this huge amount of Egyptians who either converted or didn't convert but they left with the Jewish people when we left mithrayim and the madrish gives astonishingly large numbers for the air of breath one opinion says they were equal to the six hundred thousand who left with Ryan there's another who that says they were double and another view says they were triple quadruple it's quite amazing millions and millions of those arivrevs and there are a lot of things we don't know for example we do know that the men died out in the desert and the women did not the women were not guilty of the sin of the spies so perhaps they died of old age but there were older women of that generation who entered the land of Israel so that's the good news the a river route there's a lot of mystery about it some say the Arab RAV completely died in the desert and there is no remnants that would mean millions and millions and millions of people others say the area of rap actually entered Eric Israel and according to the bill in the ground the villagan assigns a huge role to the Arab wrath that all of the Sorrows that I'm Israel faces all of the machlokas all of the bickering all of the Sinatra it comes from the Arab that's mixed in now it's never quite clear if the villagon means that as a literal statement or a figurative statement in other words does he actually mean that like all the bad stuff within Carl Israel comes from those people who left mitzrayim as non-jews in other words it's mamish from that Arab RAB or is he using Arab as more of a collective term for rabble rousers and troublemakers and and the like but if you check the blood you will see that there are a number of bloggers who are almost obsessed with a rivrat they try to point out that uh you might get on an Arab wrap list if you don't uh don't watch yourself they're they're kind of always identifying people who are on the a river and the like now as far as the tourist concerns the Jewish people are essentially counted twice one census is the accounting of the outside mitzrayim and that this occurred one month after the mishkan was dedicated let me just remind you the Jewish people left metriam Nissan a year later minus two weeks on rosh khodesh Nissan the Michigan was dedicated and that's the beginning of the second year because in the Torah the years change in Nissan one month after that ER Moshe and Aaron are given a commandment to count the Jewish males from age 20 and up and that is a census of the generation that left mitzrayim and then as I said 40 years later or 39 years later there will be a census of the new generation so as far as the tour is concerned there's only two countings Rashi however points out that if you study the Hamish carefully you can actually figure out there was an earlier census of the Jewish population in the aftermath of the remember we left metriam in Nissan we got the Torah of the Ten Commandments not the whole tour of the Ten Commandments Sivan and then on the 17th of Thomas Moshe Raben who comes down he sees the golden calf he smashes the luchos and then Moshe has to spend time praying uh to Hashem and going up once for 40 days for prayer a second time and then the third time to get to Torah a second time and he finally comes down on Yom Kippur with the second Lucas and the day after Yom Kippur he gathers the people and instructs them it's time to build a Michigan now Rashi points out in the construction of the mishkan the Jews were commanded to give a half shekel that was melted down to make the sockets that held the boards and the half shekel had a double function it was a material as part of the construction of the Tabernacle in other words the silver sockets that held the beams the boards in place but it was also a census device because God said do not count the Jewish people directly by heads count them indirectly by counting the half shekels and the Torah does give us the total of the half shekels in terms of its weight so Ravi points out that the first census of the Jewish people was not in Eeyore a month after akamata mishkan but it was sometime during the construction of the Michigan after Yom Kippur we don't have an exact date when they gave their half shekels so if that's the case Rashi has two questions question number one is why is there a need to count a population in less than six months I mean let's imagine that the first census was shortly after Yom Kippur that's the unrecorded census that's the census by implication by counting the half shekels so the first census is around Yom Kippur again we don't know exactly the second census is in ER that's six months later why would you have to count the same population six months later that's question number one question number two that Rashi raises is how could the populations be the same because the problem is you count everybody once they hit their 20th birthday now that means anybody who had their birthday between Yom Kippur and ER is going to be included in the second Count Their 20th birthday even though they weren't included in the first count and yet if you add up the half shekels and you compare it to the count of six hundred and three thousand in the ER count the population is the same how could it be that in six months nobody had a birthday their 20th birthday which would have elevated them and increased the population count now you might answer or this would be quite a coincidence that yes there were additional people who were added to the second census but maybe they were equal to people who died who were included in the first census and therefore if the deaths and the births are considered exactly the same then your numbers are going to be the same even though your individual population units are not going to be the same that's a possibility but number one that's statistically unlikely and number two we have a tradition that there were no natural deaths in the desert other than the deaths that are recorded now quite a few deaths I recorded whether it's korak whether it's miraglim whether it's the people who died in or after bilham whether it's the whole generation of the midboard that died over 40 years those are plenty of deaths are recorded but any debt that is not recorded does not occurred there were no natural deaths in the midboard so consequently deposit that people died between Yom Kippur and Eeyore when there's no event that records any deaths would be difficult so we're back to square one how could the population be the same in those six months why wouldn't there why would there not be a change because people had their 20th birthday at some point if they were born between Eeyore epitome Kipper and virtually here so these are the two questions so that's interesting a lot of people assume that you were not counted above 60. now the Hamish does not say that says you have to be at least 20 to be counted because that was the age of military service and the like but there are mid-russians that say people over 60 were not counted so it's 20 to 60. uh that idea of course that would also explain a possibility that the birth of the people who hit 20 were equal to the people who hit 60 and therefore but even that would be a coincidence you know that would be a little unusual so these are the two questions that Rashi gives us question one is what's the purpose of counting the same group of people in six months it's not like the second census that's 40 years later and a different population group this is the same population group of people who left metriam and number two how could it be that in six months there would be no change in the population figures and if you add up the People based on behalf shekels they're the same as the Eeyore population so Raji gives a separate answer for each question with respect to answer one why count them twice so Raja gives kind of a general answer and Rashi says repetitive counting is a sign of love and affection so to speak God counts and recounts his people just as a miser might count and recount his money or his jewels right he has his treasure box are safe and he's counting his municipal bonds or whatever whatever it would be it's a sign of love and affection and God loves to count the Jewish people whenever there's some pivotal event that they're going through so after the a gal he counts his people to see the survivors I mean God knows but he wants to kind of tangibly connect when the Michigan is built and he is putting his divine presence upon us he wants to count this again so Rashi says yeah there's no particular reason for the counting but counting is expressive of Derek it is a way of showing affection and love to count and recount and recounts and recounts and of course it highlights the idea that every individual is precious in the eyes of God now with respect to the second question how could the population numbers be the same here Rashi actually gives a fascinating answer Rashi says that birthdays were not based on your date of birth everybody had a uniform birthday every every Rosh Hashanah every titrate I think China does it that way every tishray you became one year older so for example it's made no difference if you were born last Tish rate so a year later you would be one years old and if you were born the 29th of aloe you only lived one day when tishray came you would be one year old so people could literally be a year apart but they would have the same birthday everybody had a uniform birthday of becoming one year older tishre now based on that it's very interesting therefore between Yom Kippur and ER nobody had a nobody had a birthday because even if you were 20 in the middle you didn't become 20 till next Rosh Hashanah and therefore indeed there were no deaths uh and there was nobody who qualified for the second census who was not in the first census because there is no Rosh Hashanah between the uh betinium Kipper and er right very very interesting that we have uniform birthdays as I said I believe this is uh the way the Chinese do it and this is how they that's how they assign birthdays to race horses also based on the year every January 1st the horse is one year one year older okay the way that's also the you know the mission measure Center says that's how we that's how we calculate the Reigns of Kings although sometimes we use Nissan meaning to say every Nissan it's one year so even if the king became a king the 29th of Adar when Nissan comes he has entered his second year he has completed one year and he's entered his second year okay so these are the two points that Rashi makes now the truth of the matter though is I think we we could we could take this a little further and that is yes the Jews were counted after Yom Kippur and they were recounted in ER after the Michigan was built Rashi looks at it as pure repetition as an expression of kriba an expression of love but in reality The Way We Were counted the first time is not the way we recounted the second time the the counting in parashus through the shkalum that were given to the mishkan is not the same as the counting of parashastra midboard and there are really maybe two ways this was done first of all the counting through the shekel is a very Anonymous Counting we are not given a tribal breakdown we don't know how many Ru veins how many shimmons how many yehudas and indeed no individual had any interaction with the counters whoever the counters were emotion I run into like people dropped money half Checker in a pushka and the only thing that was counted were the half Shadows in other words what is characteristic of the first Counting is it's anonymity it's facelessness and as an extension of that there is no breakdown on tribes it's just an undifferentiated Mass by contrast the minion in the book of babidbar is clearly differentiated with much greater granularity number one we are given a tribal breakdown we're not just given a total 603 000 people we know how many ruvens how many shimmons these suffers a woman there's a tribal breakdown which did not exist in the first Counting number two there is also a greater sense of individuality even within the tribe now here this depends on a Mach Locus the Tyra says when Moshe and Aaron are with the museum are commanded to count the people from 20 and up it uses the phrase Miss par shamos now how do you the word shamos means names what is Miss power so miss Prime means the counting of names but ramban says Miss par does not only mean Counting it also means narrating telling your name and Rahman says in a very beautiful way that when you gave your half-sheka which will actually be in my closet I'll get to that you didn't just drop it into a charity box and motion Aaron counted it you actually went in front of Moshe and Ira you introduced yourself you gave your name very very interesting if you think about it you know that there were a lot of Jews in the desert and Moshe and Aaron are the two leaders how many Jews ever got to know Moshe rabeno how many Jews did Moshe Rabino actually know he was the leader he was the navi he could speak to Hashem whenever he wanted but Moshe was a scary guy remember at some point after he came down with the second luchos his face shone with the radiance of Divine Light that people could not even look at his face and he wore a veil I mean imagine this where they say at the coronation there was this a strange figure in England it looked like the Grim Reaper you know the representation of there should not be somebody who a kind of a janitor or something in the Westminster Abbey or a person who involved in maintenance there but people were like the Grim Reaper but it's a scary thing now the have deal a million have dealt like you could imagine this person covered up because of the Divine Light he walks by how frightening it must have been so what the ramban is saying is a very beautiful idea it's very important for a Jewish leader not just to serve the nation as an anonymous collectivity but to try to have in mind that these are ultimately individuals with families with struggles with issues iron lamisa was better at that iron indeed was involved in making Shalom we talked about this last week but most robino needed to have this sense as well that I'm not just he's not just serving Omni Israel but every single Jew is a Priceless individual so miss farshamos tell me your name who are you and this is necessary for the leader and it's also necessary for the people being led that there should be one time in their life where they get to introduce themselves to most rubbing now logistically how this worked with you know 600 000 people I don't know that's pretty hard to imagine but it was done so miss parshamas moreover ramban even suggests we're not even sure you know I I described this as people were giving a half shackle the truth is the Torah doesn't say that this census was to have shuttle and there are some reason we actually learn that the the census for the construction of the Michigan was through half shekels this was not this was directly a head count does say that this census as well was half sheka not a direct head count but even like Rashi that says they gave half shekels ramban says it was done through Miss parshamos by giving your name so it's not completely true that the second census is identical to the first census the first census is anonymous and generalized the second census is individualistic Miss parshamos coupled with the division into tribal units which was not a characteristic of the first census so a certain development has happened here and tracing that development can be a very instructive lesson for us in our lives today and in particular as we approach the holiday of shavuas everyone knows the concept of counting the population in halacha creates a strong symbolism of unity particularly if it's the half sheko we talked about this the notion of the half shekout instead of a whole shekout reminds us that each person is lacking unless they connect themselves to others so the lesson of the half shekel is one of actors one of Unity One of togetherness one one of interdependence and that's both a source of humility and a source of pride it's a source of humility because no matter how great I think I am I need you and it also says no matter how insignificant I am you need me in other words it builds up the rich it builds up the poor it's an antidote to arrogance and it's an antidote for a lack of self-esteem Unity we got to work together and like Mark Twain said about the weather he said everybody complains about the weather but nobody ever does anything about it and Sinatra the hatred and polarization is very similar to Mark Twain's comments about the weather everybody complains about Sinatra but how much do we do about it right everybody's in favor of Abbas Israel but okay what do we do and we have to build communities but when you build a community you want to create an artist you want to create a structure there are two different ways you can do it and I'll use the term Melting Pot and salad bowl one model of community building is the melting pots now let's take again I can get I can give you examples both from the United States and from the state of Israel itself in the early years the idea of a Melting Pot is that when you're trying to create a society of people who have different backgrounds different interests different talents different histories the only way you can get them to function together is by trying to obliterate the distinctions and make them into one type of faceless uniform homogeneous Mass now this was the theory in the United States in the late 19th century early 20th century when there were huge waves of immigration Jewish in other words whether it's Jewish immigration Irish Italian whatever it was the concept was you gotta blend you gotta mix so the notion that you would give in a public school classroom you would give instruction in the Spanish language I don't mean learning Spanish but I mean to teach kids in Spanish because that's their native language that would have been totally abhorrent what do you mean you come to America you learn English we're not going to accommodate you to keep your old ways that's called The Melting Pot obliterates get rid of your differences and in that way we can be one with Society and indeed that precisely was the model that Ben Gurion was very enamored of in the early years of the state of Israel in fact he saw the army I mean obviously the Army has many many functions the primary purpose of the Army is the defense of the Jewish people in the state of Israel I mean obviously but Ben Gurion signed the Army quite a different function as well it was a way of kind of creating a society I'm not even saying this negatively or critically of taking people from different backgrounds astronauts them Inspire them people from different countries and put them through a common experience and in that way they become a society by not emphasizing their differences in fact this is actually the core of what is going on today with the various different proposals about drafting Yeshiva students or array them or whatever it would be and I don't want to get into the the merits of this other than to note that a lot of the anti-army sentiment is based on the notion that a really a highly religious population is very resistant to when the attempt to homogenize or assimilate uh because it's the opposite of what a religious Jew does relationship with Africa does not assimilate and there is a fear Justified or not and again I'm not addressing it that the Army has served historically as a basis of cultural homogenization into broader Israeli society which Ben Gurion and many others saw as very positive but from a religious perspective but Africa could be very negative and in the United States going back to America so the notion of imagination resulted in intramarriage resulted in a whole Lost Generation of not keeping the midst because we have to be American I'm sure you've heard the stories some I mean there might be Legends I'm not sure but they've become like urban legends of people when they're on the ship approaching Ellis Island they throw their fill in overboard because they say we don't need to fill in in the new Promised Land right we're going to be Americans and this was a very very powerful rhetoric that I'm going to be American I can show you on there all sorts of Yiddish writers right we're bemoaning this and then they were talking about the notion that the new generation didn't want anything to do with Judaism I don't mean not Ortho you know whether reform they didn't want anything to do with it because they thought it would prevent their acculturation into American society so this is what we mean by melting pot you create societies of cohesiveness by eliminating differences and the fewer the differences the greater peace and Harmony you will have in a society Melting Pot um again to use maybe an unsavory example let's take children's right so children and Shabbos you know great you see meat and potatoes and barley and beans wonderful wonderful every single ingredient is very very clear but then if you have leftover children so by the time Wednesday or Thursday comes around it's a glop of undifferentiated stuff and you don't know what it is that's melting pot no it's no longer beans no longer meat it's everything's a glop now in recent decades maybe past 50 years there was a different model of community building and we might call that multiculturalism right multiculturalism versus Melting Pot and I might if I can use a gastronomic term I'll call it a salad bone and that is multiculturalism says that the way you create communities is not by obliterating differences but by each group preserving its distinct qualities its Beauties it's histories again I'm not even referring to Judaism right now I'm just talking in a very general terms it's Beauty it's traditions and in that way each group can appreciate what the other group is doing and it creates a tapestry a garden a mosaic many different metaphors you can use a salad ball where you see the lettuce and tomatoes and the chickpeas and the mushrooms and the onions and each has its own color and texture and taste and together harmoniously they come together so in the building of communities generally I'm not even talking about Judaism yet we have these two models do you build community by melting pot obliterating difference or do you build community by celebrating difference now there are going to be costs and benefits in each type of modality in Melting Pot you're destroying the individuality of people and communities you're creating a homogenization which might be boring flat unproductive non-creative that's a bad thing in multiculturalism the problem that you might face is people are going to be so fixated on their particular identity that they're not going to be able to work at all with other people this has been the problem with Islam in Europe basically if you talk about say what's happening in France and in Germany and then the United Kingdom with the great influx of Muslims who are so into the Multicultural aspects of preserving their tradition that there's a total inability to integrate right so multiculturalism can be a very very dangerous point because instead of promoting artists it can create sectarianism sometimes to the level of violence of course I see that Jews may have the same type of problem of the brick Hashem they generally do not resort to violence so which is the Taurus model how does the terrorist say we should create communities and here I'm talking about communities of Torah observant Jews because that's the legitimate Community the Torah wants but within the framework of toll road servants should we strive for homogeneity or difference so the truth is the ultimate idea of the Torah is that we should be different communities should not be based on conformity every person is individual every person is unique as Jose the same way every person has a different face every person has a different personality a different contribution and again whether it's tapestry mosaic salad bowl Symphony because the beauty of Music are the different notes not just playing the same notes over and over and over again we see this from the concept of tribes tribes are a very big deal in the Torah tribes had their own Flags tribes had their own special place in the camp they had their own to see him their own priest princes who were heads of the tribes when they came to Erich Israel every tribe had its own special allocation of land in other words when we had that system and again it got defunct after the destruction of the first step when we had that system you didn't only identify yourself as a Jew you identified yourself as I'm a Jew from the tribe of ruvane shimum leaving now today tribal affiliation is virtually defunct except for Colleen lady that we still have but you know are you a Ruben are you Hashem you know who knows no none of us knows what tribe we are from and by the way I just want to add even though people think oh the Lost ten tribes are lost so by definition if I'm not a Colleen or a lady I must be from you you're a Benjamin a lot of people think that that actually is not true because although it's true that the kingdom of the ten tribes was destroyed and the only Kingdom that survived until the destruction of the temple was the kingdom of Yehuda which is but there certainly were remnants and refugees of the ten tribes in in in in the in the mouth of studio so therefore any given Jew you might be a isaka you might be as a villain you might be a Ruben it's not true to say that every Jew that's a Israel is from yehudan Benjamin don't have a sense of tribes being important but in time of the first base I make touch try both by the way I have to tell you I I love this joke but it's anti-semitic so I feel guilty saying it uh but it's a witty joke even though it's anti-semitic uh you know in the 19th century uh there were a lot of British expeditions to try to locate the Lost ten tribes for some reason once in a while uh in England these some Christians get these like biblical grandiose ideas were going to find the ark we're gonna find the lost ten tribes so they went to a British Lord I think it was Lord Palmerston or something and they asked for money to locate the Lost ten tribes so he said I'll give you money if you can lose the other two he said he says I'm not going to pay to find the habitat yeah and that's made a joke but I thought that was quite it was somewhat ready but anyway uh the point is this so the question that you might ask is why should tribes even be important what difference does it make I'm a Jew just like sometimes a non-religious Jew might say what difference does it make that I'm a Jew I'm a human being okay so we don't accept that you know being Jewish is a special thing but is it really special um special okay Cohen is one thing maybe I'm special because I'm a soccer I'm special because I'm the villain what difference does it make why does the Torah make such a big deal about what tribe you came from and by the way this had political repercussions that were quite powerful if you remember the very sad and tragic story at the end of the Book of Judges about the concubine who was raped and murdered and uh in The Tribe of Benjamin in binyamin's territory and the Jewish people as a whole demanded extradition of the wrongdoers so they could be Tried by the country by the nation for a crime against humanity The Tribe of Benjamin refused to extradite because they claimed we are like a sovereign country and we have the right to judge or punish our offenders and that resulted in a civil war in which the Tribe of Benjamin almost got decimated although they inflicted tremendous casualties on the other side so this notion that tribe is an important thing they literally had a sense their separate nation right in your sovereign state and until we had a king in some ways that was the case a king Unified so the question is why is it important like why don't we have enough things we fight over we got to fight over tribes but the answer is this it's very very clear that each tribe spiritually had a unique Pathway to God he suffered at a certain so what God is saying is I don't want a homogeneous Jewish people they want the Jewish people with diversity with color with difference again within the framework of the Torah just like all of the tribes surrounded the mishkan in the middle in other words obedience to hashem's law but within that obedience Hashem wanted to foster a heterogeneity Community is not based on conformity but it's based on a blending of differences in a harmonious way to achieve fundamental Higher Goals and that's why tribes are important because Hashem says I want a salad bowl community not a Melting Pot Community I don't want faceless anonymity where everybody's doing the same thing and there is a message people always ask me where it is I've seen it quoted I have not been able to find it in the measures itself that the beauty of a garden for most people lies in the different colors of the flowers now there are Gardens that will have ten thousand red roses and you know they're pretty but most people see a greater Beauty when they're hit with different colors and textures and that's why even today we don't really do things based on tribes but that's why we have ashkenazim that's why we have svard him that's why you have to see them that's why we have temanem and of course ashkenaz is not monolithic and spargum or not monolithic within ashkenaz you have the German the Yaki minhagen the Polish and the Hungarian uh then severity is you know Morocco Algeria Iraq Syria and taimani which many people love best Friday but really take money is a separate Messiah and then you have much smaller neutral out that are also very very rich in Tradition uh in France and Italy but the Italian minhage Mark very very there aren't that many to practice them but they're very very interesting unique not just in tefila but even in general Italy by the way is an extremely important country in Jewish history because Italy was the first plot from Marriage Israel that when Jews left Eric Israel and he went to Italy so Italy had some of the earliest Min hug him from the time of the talmud and even before the time of atonement because a religious law reached Europe reached Germany then Poland Russia via Italy first so Italy was a source of a lot of things we don't always pay attention to there aren't that many great recent him that we know from Italy but the tys was read was Italian rabi nassan who compiled the arak which is a great great talmudic dictionary but it's not just the dictionary he also has many opinions in he was in Rome and uh and andelank so I think it's fair to say that the Torah wants a community that emphasizes creativity and individuality so here is my point I want to suggest though that this might be the difference between the first Counting after Yom Kippur and the second Counting seven months later there are times in life where you got to put aside your individuality and work for a common cause and don't March to the beat of A Different Drummer there are times where there are National emergencies cataclysmic events that threaten the very survival of the Jewish people at that point you got to put aside your agenda even your spiritual agenda and commit to the great crisis that you're facing an example might be the Holocaust itself during the Holocaust people attempted in the United States and other countries rescue missions trying to get people over trying to make deals with Nazis whatever it would be whatever it took Andrew Byron Cutler you know didn't have his Yeshiva during those years 24 7. he was involved in hat solo work trying to save people meaning when you're faced with a crisis you got to put your individual needs aside and address the crisis and that's where you need Melting Pot communities so the aftermath of the fdm Kippur was actually a moment of crisis God had actually wanted to abrogate his Covenant with the Jewish people God wanted to destroy the Jewish people and make a separate private deal he finally relented and Yom Kippur is the great day of forgiveness we're not out of the water yet we're in a state of danger wherein when the Jewish people are in a state of danger whether it's spiritual calamity War Holocaust devastation you got to focus on the need of the community and that is why the first census in the aftermath of the golden calf is so non-individualized you're part of a faceless Mass you join with everybody else to do what has to be done but the second census is telling us is The Melting Pot may be a necessary adjustment in times of extreme need but it is not the permanent constituents nature of a community eventually when things settle down you gotta move from melting pot to salad bowl and that is why we have a second census which is focused so much on the individual and the unique drachim of the tribes because that is the graduation from collectivist and anonymity to a celebration of the individual who through his individuality contributes to the clown therefore there are two visions of unity that emerge from these two different content accountings now it's interesting again I don't want to insert myself in in political issues that that much um but you know I mean it's no secret that within the khairady culture the khairadi world particularly in Irish Israel there's kind of only one official path although no there are many exceptions the official path is that if you're a young man uh you go to Yeshiva and you stay in Yeshiva basically you go to Colo Etc you stay in Colville as long as you can humanly stay and call them and sometimes even when you can't humanly stay in parallel you stay in Cologne anyway you try to avoid again the word avoid is not meant to be negative just just it's the fact you try to avoid having to work as long as you humanly can and if you have to you do the minimum that you can do because your role in life is to sit and learn Torah in fact even teaching already is considered to be a little a little bit of a concession although it's a much more respected profession than than you know business but still ideally not even teaching Stan Cola I know people who have been in collel 30 years 35 years 40 years you know no particular plan of of stopping that now let me point out something the architect if we could assign any one person to be the architect of the kharadi worldview and you can you could you could have a number of great rabbis who would be connected to this but I think it's fair to say that the Nish who died in 1953 was kind of the architect of this notion that you have to get every single person who can learn full-time full-time without stun now it's instructive though actual statements about this issue he made these statements in the aftermath of the Holocaust the last years of his life he was fortunate enough he actually came to wherever to show in the 30s so he escaped the Holocaust and by the way he expressed sadness he actually said he wished he could have had this Hashem with the other Jews in Europe he actually felt sad that he didn't have that Merit but be it as it may obviously Hashem needed him here and the question is said that the devastation in Europe was so massive the destruction of Torah was so great that we're in a state of emergency where we have to get every single person we can to learn Torah full time as long as they can because that's the only way we will build the critical mass of Torah leaders that we need now at that time the whole karate population of Eric Israel was small maybe two thousand the whole the whole thing was right right and therefore they were the heroic people that just had to do this and the question who said it would take 70 years to create that critical mess we gotta push this for 70 years well the news is the 70 years are are indeed up and Hashem world has gone bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and the point I'm making is this in a sense this does tie into the thesis I'm sharing with you and that is in a state of emergency you got to focus all your resources in addressing that emergency it's not a time for individuality it's not a time for finding your own way it's not a time for developing your personal relationships put aside whatever you want to do this is what you got to do but once the state of emergency passes it's time to create heterogeneous communities options different approaches it's no it's no secret that although many many people become great great great Torah Scholars by this unrelenting hasmada and that's a wonderful thing there are others who are not well served by being told they have to sit in a basement they can't they can't concentrate they're not growing they're very depressed inside they're not developing in the areas that they are good at because they're kind of locked into something that is not really the right thing for them and maybe there was a time where that had to be done because we just have to force you to do it because we have to get some job done but eventually you need to move away from a one-size-fit-all type of modality to a modality that encompasses and Embraces the individual needs of each person says educate a child according to his way as the only God explains everyone has their personality you know there is sometimes a rigidity in which people think there's only one thing that's Ms only one way that's right and it's my way whoever whoever the me is anyone to the right of me is a fanatic because I'm as firm as you get and anyone to the left of me is not Victorious where I am happens to be right whoever whoever the eye is the I could be a leftist or rightist or whatever it would be but we have to recognize that the beauty of quality Israel and the beauty of the Torah is that within and again I'm emphasizing within the framework of Torah sashem there are many many many paths and each neshama is attuned to a particular path and we hope that we'll find our path and when we find our path not only are we better for it but we are benefiting quality Israel by developing the unique connection we have with Hashem because the beauty of a community is in the diversity and that's why people sometimes say you know people make this argument now that we have medinati Israel and we have a Jewish country why should we keep distinct communities that are remnants of historical circumstances of the Exile why have Ashkenazi and why have swaraj and why have this met we should have achid the controversial he was Chief Rabbi of the IDF and then when he was when he was Chief rabbit of the IDF he was promoting should say the same diving and by extension every Jew you do the same thing why Preserve differences well differences are bad when they lead to machlocus bitterness animosity but if we could learn to see the beauty in those differences they actually add a vibrancy on a kadusha to a cloud Israel that we otherwise would not have so the Israel sashem I hope that all of us will be zoc as we approach the holiday of Shibu house where the Jewish people accepted hashem's Torah TI is one man one heart that we should do so not by denying differences not by trying to obliterate differences but by appreciating the uniqueness of both each Community within Cloud Israel and each individual even within those communities so I feel ya yes I appreciate the creativity and the independence the homogeneous community there's something in the Torah that talks about in the nurses gave the first fruits yeah they all came the head of each 12 tribes they all came that every offering from each Nasi was the same it was the same it was the same explain that and how does that mean yeah that's next week's pressure we'll talk about it next week right but I'll tell you but Keith soar that some actually make the opposite point that the Torah wants to emphasize because after all if it's all the same let it just say and everybody brought the same why repeat it 12 times the repetition was that although externally they did the same action and therefore the lesson is we all do mitzvot but we bring our own perspectives to it and The Madras rabba on that Parsha shows each Nasi had a special symbolism in what they were doing so you could actually make the opposite point from that okay uh yeah so Rashi well well again arashi got it from his attempt to answer her question meaning [Music] I think Russia had any Source word at all this was rashi's ingenious answer to a question now there now the thing is you are right there are other answers to the question and if there are other answers to the question Rashi has not proven his point by giving this as an answer that much I think is true I do not think there's any direct earlier source for rashes which is a little unusual actually the rest you would say such a kidish normally you know people don't realize ninety percent of what she says is an anthology from Gamora or madrish now I want to emphasize that does not take away from his genius because Rashi judiciously chose which mid Russian and witch gamaras he doesn't just bring everything and there's a great great profound wisdom in rashi's choice of sources and again that is actually it could be a whole talk in and of itself so this is a rare example of rationally not having any source for that statement okay I'm sorry I do have to run but there's nothing here Mr Samuel we'll see you next week [Music]