Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz - The Enigma of Yiftach and the Parah Aduma - Chukat 5778

[Music] everybody well and today I'm really a little bit undecided which think I should talk about because here's the problem we tried to take that tour and then connect it to the parsha and yet it's very very fascinating that although it's a fairly long haftorah the part of the parsha links up to is a part of the part that nobody ever talks about which is actually very interesting you know if you ask anybody what is this week's parsha about the answer are they going to say right away is it's about the parado months it's the mysterious ritual of the red heifer that if a person is contaminated by contact with a dead body so the purification ritual requires that they be sprinkled on day three and day seven counting from the day that they touched the mace with the ashes or the water the water the ashes mixed with spring water of the para duma and then on day seven to go to the mikveh and they enter and of course that is called the hulk in an explicable law and there's also an element of paradox to it because the people that get sprinkled there time a and they become pure and the people handling the para duma becomes Tom a and that's why it's coke and that's kind of the dominant theme in the parsha although there are other important things in the pressure as well Moshe Rabbeinu hits the rock and doesn't go there urges rel that's a biggie but da vitória doesn't even deal with that one so that area does not deal with at all para Duma and the Avatar does not have any reference at all to mojo Rubino's a sin it actually deals with something that might be a little bit peripheral and the other thing I want to point out is that precious hookahs the part of para uma is actually read twice a year it is of course read as the parsha of the week the Shabbos but the beginning of it for special party Oats before paisa part shots part and precious para only reads the Paloma and it's interesting that the haftorah for precious para does make direct reference to the para do mate is from your festival but the have colorful parts just cooked us has absolutely nothing to do with the para uma at all so in a sense I'm little torn because I do want to talk about part I do but I also want to talk about that story and unlike the case in most part Rios there's really no connection so let's talk about that story first because that's my contractual commitment and that is this deals with a show fit who indeed it's quite an interesting character and a controversial character the show fate that is called the eve time and you can see that although by definition if somebody was a show face he must have been a person of stature but because I looked at IFTA somewhat negatively in fact when it was I'll make a point that you have to honor your leader even if he's not the greatest so the expression that's used is you've stopped adoro issue Obradoiro gift odd in this generation is like schwa in his generation small of course is the greatest of the show Tim Schmoyer was considered to be equal on some level to Moshe and Dharam and if cuz our making the comparison of Egypt up even a gift you have to treat like a smile the implication is if Schmoyer was a give dr. Z and indeed and I feel that you still have to honor him because he is the leader the best Shem has has appointed now if you read the circle quite literally you actually get the story that the if that seems to have been some type of a gang leader or juvenile delinquent it says I mean literally this is what it says first of all it mentions that he was been Isha's ona his mother was a prostitute so he was born out of some type of prostitution and then it mentions that his father did have regular son sons born in wedlock and they drove away gift us because he was considered to be disreputable and therefore what it mentions is he could not live in his father's home gift uh ran away and he gathered unto him a nut Shem rakin empty people riffraff and they kinda became a gang in which they would make raids on the ammonites and the like so you see me but someone like a gang leader basically and somehow the ammonites were waging war against the jewish people and if that finally was made leader very unlikely leader but again in an error that sees Donald Trump and other unlikely people in Caesar power we can understand that when people are desperate they will turn to anyone that seems to be like a strong man someone that's capable of galvanizing somebody that's fearless he's not afraid to do what needs to be done even if it's not political right now and of course if the acts very offended he says oh you know when I was young I was driven away I got no respect and now you're coming to me to be leader alright so the whole tone here is a little difficult to reconcile with the idea that we normally have that all of the show stem were greatly righteous that is correct devonric was rejected by his brothers as well although it was not as Extreme as he obsession and of course there's certainly no indication that dove it was engaged in gang leaders leadership or whatever it is okay okay so here here is where we have a very very bizarre mattress at a very very amazing mattress which you would not get from the sukham at all and that is if you remember when Shmuel was commanded to anoint double anointing son of yishai so he told he shy to bring his children and Hashem told - well that this is not the one this is not the one this is not the one and then he asks me shine do you have any other sons Anish I said well there's a boy that's in charge of the Sheep etc and bring him to me and that was double develop so the question was if she won't told them initially bring me all your sons why didn't he shy bring down it so look listen to what the Metro says the Metro says until that moment yeesh I did not realize that Javed was his son he thought dub it was the son of an affair that his wife had with another person what's those stories so it's a very strange story yeesh I was of course a grandson of Ruth the Moabitess and he sure was a very great Sadiq and towards the end of his life he began to ponder the Torah says Moabites cannot enter the congregation of God now it's true how luckily that's not a problem because Ruth was a female mullah bike and the females are permitted and the male descendants of the females are also permitted but each I began to make a such boner nephesh that perhaps the halacha is not correct and therefore he separated from his wife who was a Jewish woman he took the position he was not allowed to be with her but he allowed himself to be with a non-jewish maidservant because he felt that if her luckily he's possible to enter into a Jewish marriage he can be with the non-jewish mates his wife was invited no no his wife was a Jewish wedding village it he himself he is the grandson Nisha is the grandson of Ruth the Moabitess Oh Ruth breaths okay so halacha Kalihi shy and dogged have no problem because they are descended from a female Moabite but he shy towards the end of his life began to doubt the validity of that halakha as a result he only had a union with his non-jewish maidservant which he felt was a lovely permitted know she was well she was a non-jewish maidservant so she was you know she went to the mix I mean ship the canalis so similarly to you dad tumbler missus he shy disguised herself as the shipper and Yishai actually had relations with his own wife and when he sees his wife is pregnant and he knew he was not to be was not with his wife so he thought she had committed adultery thinking she had committed adultery and um it was a monster according to that Madrid dumping was somewhat considered similar to Italy to the if docked in that in that way well you didn't have witnesses you know there there's a procedure capital punishment can only be imposed when there are witnesses you can't just there's no chance he could be the father of the child don't we consider that to be proof of adultery well not necessarily because it could have been raping me there are a lot of elements in order to punish somebody for adultery even if the child is a monster even if you know it's a monster you have to show that the woman did this willingly and pregnancy is not proof of consent in that in that way so practically speaking without witnesses you could not really impose capital punishment okay so then the story goes on in that surah that GiftA first negotiates with the ammonites and he says what's your problem guys why are you waging a war on the Jewish people and I'm on claims that their land was stolen because if you remember the land of Wabun as well as Moe of is east of the Jordan east of the Argentine River and that was the land that was eventually settled by the two-and-a-half tribes Ruane guard and Francis Schaeffer's Menasha remember they were the ones that wanted the lands east of the are day because that at rich pasture and was good for their sheep so now a load is coming this is more than 500 years later and saying this is our land you had no right to take it so hipster is really a lawyer this is a legal brief gives us basically argues as you see from the Commish itself we did not conquer any territory directly from the ammonites and the Moabites in fact Hashem prohibited motion from waging war against Amon in North because Ammon and Moab are descended from loads of rams nephew and they have a certain entitlement to the land but what the Torah says is secret in M erecting a Canaanite King had conquered the land from a moaning Lois and Moshe of a news war of the two enough tribes was only against seeker and not among us and consequently if that basic said you forfeited your title to the land when it was conquered by seecombe and we gained our possession by conquest from seek own and not from you and therefore you don't have a legitimate claim that we took your lands into a secret that took your lands we took it from seha now this is actually a shrine in its own as a Talmudic principle and the Talmudic principle is unknown LUMO of T Haru Betsy from the land of Ammon and Moab became purified meaning accessible to us through the conquest of c-calm now this establishes a principle in which you might call how logic international law that actually says that military conquest against an enemy when there is a war does confer legal illogic ownership of territory even though it was in effect stolen visible if it was in the context of a military campaign well well well under international line I'm not sure I mean how luckily that's not our bases our basis is a sham promised the land directly but even land that it was not subject to a divine promise if there is a military or conquest halacha recognizes what's called the Qingyuan the acquisition of key Bush Mohammed now it's hard to know exactly how this applies as it gives the girl a nice yeah could there be some modification absolutely absolutely so absolutely so even though many say parts of the Golan are not how logically part of the Land of Israel but it would belong to the Jewish people but virtue of a war now the parameters of this are very far from clear would this apply to an unjustified war of aggression you know it's hard to see that if a country you know improperly invades in way someone else's land they somehow have some right to it but certainly when there is a defensive war a justified war a war that was you know permitted moral and melodic a defensive water I love who recognizes that to the victor comes those despoil and consequently that would of course justify any territory that Israel got in the six-day war even if it would be outside of the boundaries of the the Land of Israel such as maybe parts of the Sinai and the like this would be the principle of key Bushmen Ohama and the truth of the matter is it's implicit in the Torah because at one end the Torah says do not wage war against among in my life and the other ends we conquered land that belonged to our mom and so that so it's implicit that the fact that it went through seafoam is going to be okay and you've stuck as lawyer makes the point explicit so the have tourist connection to the parsha is simply legitimating the Jewish people's claim the two and a half tribe claim to the lands that had formerly belonged to a moan and Noah again this fascinatingly does have relevance to modern military situations as as well again yes it's interesting that this is a fairly fairly learning holistic response that he gives and this is the connection to the partial because the parsha itself talks about the war against seha which took the land that had previously belonged to unknown and that comes up in the haftorah now as I say it's actually a part of the parsha that people don't pay that much attention to so in a sense it's interesting that's October has and I resuits and a part of the party sure that we normally don't focus on now the end of the story since it gives you the whole story is one of the most difficult stories tonight and this is probably why because I looked at gifts are in a very negative way and that is the famous or the infamous story of Yitzhak's daughter and the story goes that after you've just achieved the great victory over the ammonites so you've made a vow and he said if you are actually made them up before the victory he said - I said if you give me victory over the enemies then the first thing that comes out of the door of my house when I reach her I will offer as a sacrifice to Hashem he obviously thought it would be some cow or some bull that would come out ourselves well yeah that's the other thing what did he think would come out and of course after he achieves his great victory and he finally comes son and behold his daughter comes out to greet him but to pay Ruby McCollum with with drum and with tambourine and of course it emphasizes to make it a bit more poignant that she is his only child he has neither son nor daughter besides her she's the only child that he has and when he sees her and she's so happy see him he rips his garments and he says alas my daughter you have got beaten well inflamed sir you have destroyed me by coming out to greet me because I spoke a slowly and rationally to Hashem and I am not able to change my mind why couldn't you go that's whatever so then she father interesting that she accepted it you have opened your mouth to a Shem do to me as you have vanity since God has given you such a victory and it actually says that she wanted a chance she said give me two months so I may go to the mountains and cry over all that I'm going to months to kind of say goodbye to the world and then it says after those two months she returned to her father and it says he did to her when he had vowed to do and this became something then it was remember that was permanently remembered that the daughters of Israel would go to the place where she had went for the last two months and they would cry over the daughter of them now a very very bizarre story first of all luckily her luckily this vow has absolutely no validity whatsoever I make a vow with our son's name I swear by a chef's name that I'm going to kill some human being as a sacrifice you don't need to go to a basin you don't need to go to any any type of procedure that is nomen point you cannot make oats to commit murder and you know although normally you make an oath you make a vow you're supposed to keep it but any vow to violate the Torah and certainly to kill somebody is no one going that's one thing second of all at the minimum he could have asked the Shila if you're going to tell me if tuck was ignorant enough that he didn't know this rule at least he should have asked if the question is you're going to kill your child you know you're not going to call up the rabbi and say I do want to have said do I have to do this right so it's very peculiar the other thing that's interesting is although that could be understood it does not say junk you know it's very [Music] not explicit it does not say he killed her his father was the first thing that leaves the door of my house I shall bring as an offering to God and then it says he did what he had vowed so fast intended to do it sir that's correct that's correct but of course our firm was commanded by God the right gift it is so fact this is what the Bible says the apartment now actually has a very very interesting shots that you've talked even gift us understood he can't kill his daughter I mean and there's no harm Amina that gift that kills his daughter that would have been inconceivable and at a minimum they wouldn't have kept him as a show face after that they would be he would be tried for murder or whatever it is but rather the barber Nell says that offering somebody to God can take different forms if it is an animal you can bring it as a Corbin but if it's a human being that you're offering up to God it is essentially she would become like a nun meaning the same way that she well I kind of gave Shmuel to God now of course that didn't mean he could marry such a travesty she did marry and her children but that he would devote his life to a bonus session so the Ravenel said that he was consecrating his daughter to kind of devote her life to the service of God but outside of the confines of the masticity now still that's kind of an unknown structure in our welcome number one can I do it to my adult child it doesn't say she a miner here and number two there is no notion of a nun that doesn't get married right we don't believe in celibacy Moshe Romania was the only exception and that was an exception of one but the Abravanel says that when the prusik says that once a year the daughters of Israel would go and cry over the daughter of um tux he interprets it to mean they would go visit her and they would cry with her meaning huh I don't know I don't know if we know where the places which means she essentially lived in isolation contemplative monastic isolation in which she only had visitors once here now that's still a very very odd situation and the other hand she seems to have accepted it as a way of expressing gratitude to a channel for this great great victory and that is why the puck does not say god forbid he killed her but he fulfilled his vow of consecrating her to me to the Almighty but either way it's a very very difficult or partial cover around what do you think you do I think happened well I think I think the majority of you and if you just read the narrative it's the narrative seems that he killed him and the fact that it doesn't say the word kill that that's quite understandable doesn't ones they killed it and he fulfilled his vow that's a euphemism for saying what he did that's certainly true they're shown Ikra and the book have choked him anyway it's full of all sorts of atrocities in a way I mean there are many this is not the only atrocity in the book of shelf 10 although this has made me the worst atrocity of an individual judge we have P luggage begin by the concubine and giver that was ranked and murdered and was cut up into 12 pieces we have many many murders that Simpson committed albeit against the enemies of Israel and the light so the whole period of the show stem which lasted for several hundred years was a time of great great anarchy and social breakdown when the plastic says over and over again if they reframed the book of Shelton ich call how you char PA know everybody did whatever was fitting in their eyes this is not describing some type of utopia of know everybody enjoyed you know under their fig tree this is describing the lawlessness of a culture when people just did whatever they wanted to do because there was not a centralized Authority and all those small thoughts which would have been better not to have that centralized Authority but he acknowledged based on the way society was heading there needed to be the authority yes the dressing yes yes yes well I think that this I think the apartment outside there is a great deal of sadness when a young woman who was hoping to get married and have children now is going to live a life of relative isolation and solitude this was not the life she would have chosen this was the life she accepted because she wanted to honor her father's vow and in fact I think this is the one the once the one textual support for her Barban element is that it mentions that she was a virgin who had never known a man now who cares if she's going to get killed that's a bit of an irrelevant statement but if you understand the kind of a monasticism and a enforced celibacy so it's making the point that she never had the chance in her life to have a loving intimate relationship with a person you know even in the Catholic Church you know there are priests who you know who actually were married and you know they're widowers so then they become priests in the second half of their lives you know they had marriage the first happened when they go into something else and that's a difference different programmers they had the the emotional connection and then they're ready for a different type of service but there's something poignant and tragic about someone that who never have the chance to have a family love of that nature so I think in that way they would cry with her they would commiserate with her but again we know so little about this this is such a mysterious story that it's filled filled with ambiguities now the Gemara makes another point that I think more makes a point that there was a certain average of leadership here because at the time when you've done was the show sets Pinterest was very old that Fitness was several hundred years old if grainy enough was still alive as the functioning KO'ing the dome and when Pittacus was aware of the instance battle as the spiritual leader he had a responsibility to go to youth theft and tell him don't do it certainly if it meant killing but it mentions that pistols as attitude was will listen out of the Kohen Gadol you've said is supposed to come to me so I'm going to wait until he comes to me and gives us had the other thought that it's pitiless is wrong to initiate contact with me and therefore the tragedy that happens came because each one was waiting for the other person to initiate contact and if you have didn't hear from pin Haas hipster who went ahead and did what he did so there is an element here not only a big nuances of the Torah but the element of carve out and standing on your honor etc which could result in very very awful of an L yeah that that matters actually seems to assume she was killed yes they say the men that I mean the salesman Russian I don't think there's a Madras that supports the Bremen else understand yes yes very much so but by the thing destroying each of the strongest out can be literal and you can kill your child job commit suicide for example you know or you can destroy them from from within well that's the story where a good sto got sick got ill and you show you and nobody came to him it was a very righteous King but you shall y'all came to him and said you deserve to die because you didn't marry and have a child and you didn't fulfill true or vou be fruitful and multiply so Castillo said I don't want to have a child because I see what's wrong on television practicing that any child I have is going to be a Russia and you sure you always said that's none of your business you have to keep the commandments of Hashem and what happens in the future happens and you show y'all actually offered his own daughter to be Castillo husband wife hoping to minimize the danger and yes Castillo is 100 percent correct his son was Menasha who had the longest reign of any Israelite King he became King in 12 and he reigned for 55 years and Menasha was a tremendous Russia I'll go to Zara sexual immorality murder fact he murdered his grandfather he murdered the nobody show yo with giving it was her 32 because i'll sorry he murdered his grandfather you show there nothing oh they say oh they're nothing and some story about this and the question becomes was whiskey oh right you know yeah I didn't want to have a child when the child was a Russia and besides what do we mean you have a prophecy your child will be a Russia our children born evil our children born that is there something in evitable about that called bad seed right that's the expression that's that's used you know people always debate this when you have these no children that become murderers even at a very young age sometimes as young as 8 or 9 I don't mean accidents and accidents happen I'm talking about young just intentionally shopping somebody up so the way they understood it was this I actually understood it that's when the Castillo has this vision that his child is going to be evil that's not a done deal he will be evil but he will all very very strong negative tendencies but what happens is this if a parent is totally convinced that their child is going to be evil then that affects how the parent interaction with the child and then it becomes so a self-fulfilling prophecy you think your kid is better then he's gonna become bad because he doesn't get that support from you that's why you know it's not always good to know everything that might happen because that way they used to say this I'm not I'm not endorsing this but he's just saying even by certain learning disabilities that you know at a time when they didn't always identify a DJ and all these other things so they simply taught a child you know I'm a certain way a lot of kids grew up carotids things once you identify it then it becomes a certain helplessness a certain victimhood status in which I'm kind of culture I'm exempt from certain because I am a victim I have this disability that disability that disability there was a time in which disabilities were not always clearly identified and it was treated of just the normal struggles of life and people got over them again I'm not necessarily endorsing Americans because their attention truth sometimes that was unfair and we need to help people in whatever way but there is some truth to the idea that when you label people as victims impaired handicapped that sometimes turns into a certain excuse in people not becoming what they would have been able to cut become when they didn't realize they had a problem so to speak they just don't I had bad to grow up they had to go through the process of learning what needed to be learned once you define yourself as being a problem so that creates a whole bunch of certain exemptions that you can carry you can carry through so that's the service with skills now one thing is let me digress for a moment it's not really our subject at all that you know we have the history of the Jewish monarchy of tonight is contained in two different books the book of millat him the lucky Maya the bay's the book of Kings and then we have the book of Chronicles give really young and the role of giving a young man - this is a very day is a little hard to define because every human has different types of information around 80% of the information is duplication so obviously you always have a problem why do I need the same story part of the real government is supplementation now that of course is a legitimate function it gives you certain details that you otherwise wouldn't have and the third component which is the most problematic is outright contradiction and so you have the array elements three strata there is duplication there is supplementation and there is contradiction supplementation is the least problematical contradiction is the most problematic and one of the most outstanding contradictions of debris ailment and Milan is the story of King Manasseh in the book of Malaga Castillo was a great great sadiq it was a great son he could have been machine remember it was in his day that the ten tribes were exiled by said hair but some say they've turned his armies towards Jerusalem and miraculously on whale Tessa a hundred and eighty thousand soldiers of some sailors died and Jerusalem was miraculously saved in the merit of Castillo this is one of the miracles that happened Tulalip essa and in fact in the songs we Boccaccio Lila at the end of the Seder we actually make a reference to them so Castillo was a great sonic but when he died his sudden Menasha was only twelve years old and Manasseh was king for 55 years and that is the beginning of the slide that culminated in the corporate base of make - Menasha Roddy Nevada Zara and gilja rio Sexual Offences shabeeha stung him when a shell was bad bad bad bad bad and in the book of Moluccan he is described as a russia for the entirety of his reign and he died as a Russia and the deep ignorance and head room says such a Russia does not have a say like in Olam haba yet that's right that's right because really the department makes meaning if you go through it on time to go through all the Kings but from Menasha onwards is a complete downward spiral culminating in the Babylonian conquest and the urban basis meaning with one brief with with the brief interlude of Yoshio another who was very very righteous who also became King at the age of eight and that was the last great hope that the Corbett could be averted Yoshio was killed in a war with Egypt but Yoshio zone children were reshot him and they they just destroyed whatever Yoshio did so Yoshio is the brief lights the golden lights that could have changed everything that is why in begin masacre which is your mios lamentation over the destruction the whole chapter chapter 4 is actually his eulogy over Yoshio it is not about the kirpan based on Macduff but he included it because in retrospect it was the death of the oshio that made the Corbin almost inevitable because Yoshio had spearheaded massive on and and all sorts of very very good thing now so in the book of Moluccan Menasha is an irredeemable character okay now I open up differently on them chronicles written by Ezra later and most of the story is to say Menasha was a bad guy or the zora neale erase realist um in but then it mentions and at one point he was taken prisoner buying by the Babylonians which wanted to exact a tribute seem to be like the hospital they can almost a very strange thing that you because it wasn't they war of conquest but it was like a he was literally like kidnapped and he had to agree to pay a great tribute and they were and it says as a result of his imprisonment he returned to hashem with all of his heart and all of his soul and he dies as king he was returned to Israel but when he returned to Israel he became a righteous man and died as a Sonic so this is absolutely a contradiction between the book of Malacca and the book of giving any other are you reconciling no secular biblical scholars like to say that different I love him is always a whitewash of the sins of the Davidic line material um tries to build up the Davidic line so whenever you have non righteous Kings it will tend to portray them in a righteous way and with Menasha you couldn't change the record totally but you could at least add some little story at the end there okay he was a bad guy for most of the 55 years but he did shoot at the end and they say that's consistent with the notion that differently young men is mala made suits for mouth a based of it but I saw a very very fascinating thoughts that's the biographical information in Malacca material young men are focusing on two different components because every melon every leader his life exists on two planes his life exists as monarch his political leadership and he is also a private individual now the decisions that a king makes are not just private decisions they affect the fabric of society so Menasha who committed many many sins about Hazara jialeshui to summon these were not just the sins that he did as a person but he infected and poisoned the society of the Jewish people in marriage Israel now here's the problem when you are a person who is not only a Kota you're not only a sinner in your own right but you're also a mock tu cause other people defend when you turn around and do chuva maybe that fixes you but it doesn't automatically fix them so Moluccan which is focusing as on Menasha as king says he died as a russia because even if it's true that he personally rectified his own sense but the richest that he generated in Chloe's rail didn't go away and therefore the judgment of a king totally evil nothing redeemable Deborah Hammond is focusing on Menasha quite individual as an individual he was able to do two other but he could not do traversing knowledge it's reminiscent of the idea in fact that's really why mati is Sir Robin causing others to sin is such a severe thing because anything you do as an individual is rectifiable by children but what you do that causes others to sin and again in the Internet age know things spread like like fire George Shuba doesn't automatically correct it it's reminiscent to what the time when said about Western art somebody said to him I said listen are about somebody I want to do Chu what do i do how do i repair the damage that I caused so obvious I'm said I'll tell you exactly what you do get yourself a pillow that's stuffed with a lot of feathers climb up on a roof shake out the pillow so the feathers fly in all directions it's the prison said well I don't understand why that's chosen but okay I'll do that and what do I do after that oh then gather up all the feathers and put them to the pillow that's how you do chuhwa for Russian hora meaning he's saying how hard it is you know I spread negativity about people how am I gonna take it back not so easy it's like you know the false story is on page one and the retraction is on page of 55 this is always a problem there was that Mary I still remember this Amina it's happened a million times since but I just remember it was very vivid scene when round when Ronald Reagan was president so his Secretary of Labor was being investigated for criminal activity and it turned out that he was rare for a politician he was totally cleared there was absolutely no evidence it was planted by an enemy and when he was asked how he felt is he happy he was very gruff from very angry and he said where do I go to get my reputation back because what do people think people think when there's smoke there's fire you know just because they didn't like you and they didn't convict you that doesn't mean anything I will tell you again again I'm not going far in a field that I know a couple and I was involved with this fair for a number of years this is it was a very very painful and difficult story were a couple that lived in Silver Spring Maryland they're not there anymore they're in China they're 11 year old kids was accused of sexually abusing a slightly younger child and immediately immediately this turned into a real real tragedy for everybody because the parents were then accused of doing different things and their kids weren't allowed to go to summer camp or kicked out of schools and they weren't allowed in the shows did not allow and they were investment Gummer e county maryland has a very very strong investigative Child Protective Services and they were investigated over and over and over and over again three or four times and it was found there was absolutely no evidence that they were guilty of any abusive conduct but the community refused to believe it the community were so worried about their their children and again you can understand it on some level this family was mercilessly ostracized I remember I actually came to a meeting of one of the synagogue's not my own synagogue and I spoke out in favor of the family that was wrongfully accused saying there was a process here the process was Feldick meticulously and that was shown at I mean I wish I would that be people really so what happened was that the family felt they had to leave Maryland they could not live in Maryland anymore they relocated in Florida Florida and in Florida the news had spread from Maryland and people went to the rabbi and they told the rabbi if you allow these people to come to the synagogue we are going to resign we're not gonna go to this thing and the rabbi had to exclude these people so the net result is that the people stopped they're no longer religious their kids are no longer religious they simply moved with the and you know they live they live a life of non-affiliated Jews because they were mercilessly Hoggett now what they did was eventually is they actually brought a lawsuit they brought a defamation lawsuits against the false accusers and they want they want an undisclosed a settlement but they won quite a lot of money and not allowed to say what it is so I to date I don't know what it is but financially they turned out to be quite well because they shall show you how libelous and evil those accusations were the family that accused them to destroy them now again I'm going very very far afield here but I can just tell you that this is a real difficult problem because on one hand when accusations are made that children are being harmed you absolutely have to take them seriously you absolutely have to investigate them you absolutely cannot just say oh he would never do such a thing so of course you have to protect children that's very very obvious but unfortunately that still doesn't mean that there isn't such a thing as false accusations there are false accusations there are people out there that will try to destroy other people and then the question is it becomes impossible to get your reputation back because even if you're cleared people will say there must have been something to them and I know this first end because that exactly is what happens to this family they have not gotten their reputation understanding back to this very day in spite of in spite of everything okay I don't know we got activist but but be it as it may that's the story of well I'm just making the point that the negativity that we create by our sins even if we do true it doesn't go away and that is how we understand the discrepancy between Menasha in the book of kings the book of Moluccan and Menasha in the book of devrait debris on Yemen blocking focuses on the political leadership of the King to bring any young men focuses on the personality of the king now one interesting thing though which gives a little creases to the whitewashing argument let me just mention this and that is the sin of dubbing and bathsheba is mentioned actually not in Malacca but it's mentioned in the book of soil and it's not mentioned in different any other services that may lend credence to give a Jungian tendency not to talk about the negatives but again there's a very big difference between omitting a story and falsifying a story meaning I can understand that the amendment would not include a negative story but that's not the same as saying they would falsify Menasha doing yoga if we're not sure okay so that's kind of the connection of that summary of the parsha again there's a lot in that area there's nothing to do with the burger but the one connection is Yip stocks acumen in a horror flick international law in which he basically says we have a legal ideologic entitlement to the lands that belong to amo because your title alone was vanquished with the conquest of seafoam Miller where Moby and we conquered the land from Sehun not from our Mon in no offense okay so that's that's the half Jerry now let me just say a little bit although it's not connected to the after at all about the para Duma just because that's the parsha and let's begin with the first three words those who sat around this is the law of the Torah and we know that the word hope is always a term that is used for mitzvahs which don't have an intelligible reason meaning things like don't kill don't steal don't commit adultery they are called Mishpatim because even without direct revelation human reason could come to the conclusion that this is moral and this is good but a Hulk is a mitzvah that if a sham wouldn't have given it to me I would never have figured out the logic of it and para uma is considered to be the Hulk par excellence and in particular what is so coke about the para Numa is not just the mystery of the red heifer you know why I read ever and all that but it is the paradox para Dilma embodies in inherent contradiction and the contradiction is that anybody that is to marry from contact with the dead and only with the dead other forms of tomorrow don't need the sprinkling become purified by being sprinkled with the water and the para doom ashes but on the other hand everybody that handles these actions transporting them moving them mixing them they become to me so how can the same thing that purifies you can be a vehicle to make you to me as you pointed out in earlier it's not the same tell me that that is correct it is not the same time you need to know that because otherwise you would have the dilemma of last guy holding the Banach meaning meaning the question that people sometimes raise but it's not a question but people raise it is but wait a second here when was she as comes we want everybody to be in a state of purity now how that's how is that going to happen every single person that has ever come in contact with a time I met needs to be sprinkled with the para Dilma okay so so some person let's say let's think we've only one person is doing the sprinkle although you'll have more people so this one person is but I had a thousand people but because he's handling the address he becomes to me now if he becomes too mad he needs somebody to sprinkle him so whoever sprinkle Simmons got to become something so the question is how does the last guy become torn right that's some kind of an infinite regression problem totally amazed right right so this is the important thing to keep in mind that the tumour of handling para uma hashes is not the tumor of corpes tumor it's a new independent tumor that's only a one day to learn and it goes off by going to the mixer and having the Sun set so consequently everybody who was in contact with the dead needs to be sprinkled with para uma and the guy doing the sprinkling doesn't need somebody to sprinkle them with para uma he will be taught by going to the mikveh and he'll be taught at night so Tomas may hunters this is called the tumor of the para Duma mixture of ashes and water is not hm a space and does not in itself need the sprinkling of parati America okay now I just want to explain a little bit know obviously paradox is a hoax oh so to say we have an explanation of it is impossible even shallow more irrelevant understanding but nevertheless the Supra casitas try to give us a little bit of an insight and how can the same thing be one and the other and they point out the following deaths came into the world because of the eating of the ate Sadat's right the fruit of the ate sawdust which actually was not an apple but whatever it was whether it was a grape or wheat or an ester oak right that's faith brought Mesa into the world well some book says what was the enticement for that sin so he wants to say it was the knock lashus claimed that the day that you eat from this fruit you will be like God knowing good and evil essentially this was an appeal to the ultimate ego trip this is a God pill somebody offered you a pill take this pill and you'll be gone now God doesn't want you to do it but you know you can be done whatever that means I don't know what it means exactly sure of southwark says death came into the world because of ego arrogance hubris because in many ways man is godlike we are made in the image of God we have autonomy creativity the power of reason we can create we can destroy within limits there's a tremendous amount if there are gardening qualities within the human personality but those godly can bring a person to arrogance and it was the arrogance of competing with God or displacing God and indeed even the story of the Tower of Babel however you understand it in a literal way involves some notion of we don't need that we can make a world that can push God out of the way that takes many many different forms so death is the immortality is the ultimate reminder that as godlike and godly as man is there is a chasm there is a gap between creator and created that can never be bridged there's mortality we can't live forever so well southern rights that is why the purification ritual involves ashes that we're not explaining why a cow and why red but the notion of reducing something to ashes because ashes is a symbol of humility submission self-abnegation think of the which is the Greek myths of the Phoenix burden which actually is echoed in Kazan but the nets in which this bird is burnt to ashes and out of the ashes comes a new creation there is something very profound in that story because what that is saying is sometimes I achieve my wholeness by a denial of my ego and my arrogance and then I become unified with God so if death comes into the world because of the arrogance of competing with God how do you become purified like that from that purified from death by connecting yourself to the ashes of the obliteration of the ego like the bottle of Tanya writes over and over again and other another super juicy DeLuca bubblin the notion of beetles IH nullification of yourself beetle Hamid feels now that's a very very high level and it's brought down you can't nullify yourself till you have a sense of self we make you haven't achieve they says there's nothing yet to nullify but there isn't my Draco beetle yet so now we understand the concept at least metaphorically how the same force that can purify you could also be a negative force of destruction because on one hand obliterating my ego and adopting humility and submission to God is a wonderful thing it purifies me from my arrogance but on the other hand as we explored last week with Taurus what actually connects if you truly convinced yourself that you're worthless that becomes destructive and you no longer become a vehicle for goodness in the world because you believe you're so ineffectual that's whatever you do doesn't make a difference so there's kind of a warning label here meaning the ashes which represents beetle age can be a vehicle of the greatest purity and holiness but when taken to make you worthless and executive and passive it can engender spiritual impurity the same right and that's the important balance you know there's a famous my version I think it's not a my mother everyone says this is a mine versus L it is not it is from the casinos remember Garifuna mapper cisco in the 19th century so it's not a bad rich but he says every person must have two ideas in their two pockets at all times pocket number one is a Nokia for being fair I am jerk and I am ashes I am nothing at all and in the other pocket this viele never Hashem made many dogs and many cats and many cows and many elephants but he only made one man and one woman and the reason is so that each individual she don't declare because of me every person any person the whole universe is justified so you need that's called bfree we never although now you need both if all you had was the humility of a Nokia for VA fur you would be passive and ineffectual you would never do anything you wouldn't even do missiles because in what way is what I do important to God so you need be feeling it for a home to recognize your power your talents your accomplishments but if all you have is between leaning for hello love then you have arrogance and Gaia therefore life is the dialectical tension and balance between AB negating the ego and recognizing your inner greatness and your inner potential and that is encapsulated in the paradox of the para uma in which the ashes are both a vehicle of purity and the ashes are a vehicle of impurity at the same time by the way just as a joke language Shiva referred a man once said you know I'm sure all of you would know the organization and csy he'll use a youth organization I don't think they're there they do too much in Israel but in America they're a great great force that has really brought probably thousands of kids together certainly under its really wonderful organization and I know you actually work many years ago I was involved with NCS wife for a number of years and I actually saw the transformations of kids I remember kids who came in who were like totally not religious and wild and everything and then watching them two three four years later the real tremendous transformations now NCS why is a co-ed organisation and you know obviously things like kaliesha Snee if some of these things are not not enforced that much because you're not dealing with a population that could live up to that those standards that's at that time in their lives so one of the dilemmas that the Shiva's face is should they let their single boys participate in NCS why shuttle tones on one hand if you don't allow a key Shiva elements to participate you're you're depriving the public school kids a very good role models on the other hand you're also exposing the against the things that you'd rather have them not not experience so that's the way matters as he put it he says he thought he'd see a swag was like para Duma he says it takes people who are two men who are very far from me this night and he purifies them but there's also a fear that it might have a negative effect so he says that a lot of things in life something can be very very good for some and maybe a bit detrimental for poor others so that's kind of a a dilemma how it worked out I'm not entirely clear I think your Shiva was very selective meaning to say some boys were different permission to be involved than other boys we're not given operation to be as well it wasn't relevant to me cos by the time I was well I was already married so I wasn't under that particular jurisdiction but but I know that this is a was a recurring problem okay do me well and [Music]