Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: The Pain You Cause Others Will Come back to Haunt You

[Music] hi everybody Shalom and uh we're still uh doing our shim from our remote location I sitting in the one of the libraries of of which is my day job um I do want to say though that hasem starting next week we hope to be back at our regular location uh in the base knesset onov uh people should go to the website y i b o n.com and find the address and the and the time so uh we will go back to at least somewhat of a live a live audience uh the sh today is dedicated forua for all whose Health has been affected by the war and of course a speciala for success in release of all of the hostages I would also add that should also be safe and of course everyone living in the affected area in addition a Rua for hadasa badria and Denise Holland and Al for all of those who are recently murdered or died defending the Jewish nation and of mosheim again we hope that the of should bring Rua Yeshua gaah uh for all of Cl Israel and in addition Al for those who have left the world uh we also have an anonymous sponsorship once again that Hashem brings quickly and safely safely the return of all hostages with complete Health to their homes and for the Fast N of all of our soldiers so they may all return home with health and victory soon and that we Merit the gaula now and finally uh I and all of you ban want to give special thanks for all those who have contributed to the sites andin fund uh we now have six pairs of tfillin on the way to the front lines and of course theit so many are are needed that we can't even make them fast enough for the demand which is very great uh it's a tremendously wonderful thing that you know if there are silver clouds in darkness obviously uh war is something we very much would pray that we shouldn't have but when it happens these are opportunities that God opens up that brings the Jewish people together with akos and with unity and with love and concern uh let me just remind you it's piled into insignificance now but if you remember the months before October 7 the months before Sim T how the state of Israel was being torn apart by all sorts of dissension all sorts of makus and now because of the danger that we face I think we've put all those differences aside uh and among the wonderful things that are happening is the unity the is and also many many are returning to God embracing various mitv and when there's a demand we have an we have a responsibility to meet the supply uh andem again your money can really help uh in these vital beautiful projects uh of course all of us know that we have three Patriarchs we have Abraham we have yak and we have yob but as they say in families you know the middle son often gets ignored uh so too in the Torah the middle patriarch has much less space devoted to his life than the other two uh there are several parot about Abraham and of course Yakov is intimately mixed in with Yosef and all of yakov's life is explained and elaborated upon in great detail uh y seems to be a bit of an enigma uh we have very although he actually lived he lived longer than any of the others y lived 180 years Abram was 175 yob was 147 Y is 180 and yet we know far less about y than we know about any of the other ofos Y is kind of a mystery person in many ways Yak is otherworldly the the the experience of the AA kind of removed him from normal life and there are different ways of understanding exactly what is y's role one way of understanding it is that everybody has a different mission in life sometimes a person's mission is to innovate to create to make something new to be aadesh other times your goal in life or your role in life is to preserve and nurture that which was received and lovingly pass it down to the Next Generation so some understands that arino was the great innovator he created the system of bringing people to God right everyone who walked into his tent uh learned about Hashem and he created a system of which we would call ethical monotheism would be the modern term that we use and yes he was not making everybody Jewish that wasn't the issue but the idea of creating a Muna Yakov particularizes kind of the Abraham Vision into a the formation of a nation that becomes CLA Israel these are both Innovations abam you can you can kind of call him the global innovator and Yakov is the creator of the Jewish people as a separate entity I understand that people commonly say Aram is the first Jew but in terms of who is the direct forefather of the Jewish Nation there's no question that it's Yakov indeed that is why we are called Ben Israel Israel was jakob's other name the children of Israel Israel is none other than yakob is that's what we're called so what was y's role y's role was BFA not to be the innovator not to be the Creator not to build something new but to preserve nurture protect the legacy of AR sometimes people are bored with that type of responsibility I mean all I'm doing is preserving and handing down yeah maybe it is less exciting y certainly traveled less than uh Abraham and yob right y was not a traveler he was not allowed to leave AR justra and yet it's vital that when goodness is created there needs to be something that preserves it we know in the world that people who are constantly innovating again I'm not saying this about aam of course but as a general observation they go from idea to idea to idea to idea because they're always in a creative modality they're always in the notion of innovation but then the uh original plans that they created fall apart there's no one that's conserving them there's no one that's preserving them because I go from this thing to that thing to that thing to that thing so y kind of as an archetype represents the importance of preservation and handing it down as a legacy the yov so Yakov could do the next stage in creation the formation of an Ami Israel based on the beliefs of Abraham that were handed down and preserved by y so seen in that way Yak is seen as BFA not the innovator but the one who passes things down by preserving it without deviation that is kind of one view of Y but then we have another view of Y which moves in a bit of an opposite direction and that is everybody knows the idea of peros that the world stands on three pillars Torah the study of Torah avod the Divine service of coros sacrifices and prayer and the third pillar isos acts of loving kindness and the many mam say that the three of us represent each of these pillars in although in reverse order which is an interesting question a represents the pillar of loving kindness now again that doesn't mean he didn't have the other ones but his dominance way of relating to God and relating to people was through loving kindness Yakov who spent 14 years of intense Torah study in the school of Shame V A before he went to lovan's house and we'll talk about that in a few weeks from now represents the Paradigm of Torah study y who was actually elevated to be a corbine in the flesh is aod seen in this way it's not simply an issue of yit preserving the legacy of Abraham but y brought to the Forefront a certain aspect of spirituality that was less pronounced in A's time is the of Torah of is the the foundation of aod Yakov is the foundation of of Torah in that sense is AES as well he's a madesh by literally making himself a Corbin or becoming designated as a Corbin this idea is brought out in a very beautiful way uh by a famous thought by R Sim zel who is well known as the altar the old man of Kellum Kellum was a city on the German Lithuanian border and there was a yesan Kellum established by the altar of Kellum in the late 19th century that lasted until the Holocaust the fame of this yiva is that the altar of Kellum was probably uh the greatest disciple of rev Salander he was a master pedagogue in musar in building character in meidos a great great psychologist of the Soul all of the great muser leaders of the 20th century virtual virtually all of them are directly or indirectly Disciples of the altar of even the altar of slabodka who developed very much his own particular approach to muser and ethnical development was yes many people call him aant but that's only a very short time he was predominantly a t of the altar of Kellum although he broke away and had his own independence rev yukim rev desler all of these people are are come come from Kellum so the altar of Kellum has an interesting point remember that yak married beginning of the para very beginning Yak marries Rifka when he's 40 years old old and they are married for 20 years and Rifka does not have a child from Y and Rifka have no children so it says prayed to God for his wife or they both prayed and the PK says that Hashem listened to the voice of yak and Rifka got pregnant and then we have the story of Yakov and ASA which is the predominant story in the para so the question is if both yit and Rifka were praying to God why does the PK say that God answered yit and doesn't say that God answered them both or God answered Rifka so Rashi brings a medish that says that Y is a sadik benadik y is a a sadik the son of aad Rifka is a righteous woman but she's aad Bas I mean Rashia uses the masculine sad Ben but it's s Bas Russia right uh so the prayer ofad benad has a much greater effect than the prayer of aad comes comes from Russia and that's why God listened to y's prayer and not terrificus prayer so the question people ask on this Rashi and on this kazal is an obvious question logically we would say exactly the opposite a person who is righteous and saintly and good and holy even though they come from a bad destructive background deserves a lot more credit than the person who was righteous because they were raised by a righteous person just as kazal say and the ramam so paskin the place where the Bal Chua stands the person who does chuva is higher than the person who never sinned then by that same logic the sadas or the sadic who comes from the Russia should be held to a much higher level so why does hasem listen to the prayer of the sadik Ben sadik more than the prayer of the sadik Ben Raj so of simp the altar of Kellum says the following words the meaning of sadic s doesn't just mean he's righteous and his father was righteous if that's all it meant he would be less than it sadic Ben Russia but it means that he's at sadic in his own way despite the fact that his father was a sadic he doesn't imitate he finds his own D now on that level to be a sadic in your own way when your father is a sadic is actually a a harder and higher madrea than to be sadic the son of AR Russia because when I'm it sadic the son of AR Russia once I know that I got to live a different life I know I got to be my own person because I can't follow what came before me but if you're a son of AR what better role model could you have in the world than to Simply Be Another ab and yet y was not another abam he was aad with his own even though his father was aad that's even a higher madrea to be a sadic on your own which means this views Y in a different way in other words Y is no longer the passive recipient of abam who passes down but we see y as a madesh an innovator in his own right and this is an important yod by the way that in our relationship with our children we need to to understand and this will come back with yakob and ASV as well but just to say it at this point and that is on one hands we have a m we have a tradition we have something that goes all the way back to Moser with and indeed some things go back to AB Y and yob and we're not here to reinvent the wheel it's not like we're starting a new how to have a relationship with God we are given the rules we are given the Mitzvah we are given the belief systems and my job as a parent is like y with Abraham to hand down and preserve the Legacy that I was given at the same time we have to give our children the tools to become the individuals that Express the uniqueness of their personality Hashem does not want cookie cutter homogeneous imitators Hashem wants us within the framework of the commonality of M to develop our own uniqueness to be sikim sikim and not to Simply Be a blind carbon copy of what came before us and that's a big challenge you know in a sense like many many things it's difficult to navigate those two polarities you know you can have an attitude that each generation must ReDiscover the truth for itself but then you don't have a religion you don't have a community everybody's marching to their Different Drummer it reminds me of a joke I think I think maybe it may be a true story that uh a bunch of anarchists want to wanted to have a convention in Seattle uh but like nobody showed up at the same time because you're an anarchist you don't you don't you don't listen to rules so uh you know everybody's doing their own thing how are you going to have a meeting like nobody's going in account you can't tell me what to do you know and the like so obviously there has to be a framework there has to be a commonality but then you have people who are guess going to be mechanical Tin Soldiers just marching uh as everybody's exactly the same dressed the same thinking the same that's no good either right so how do you develop this is the challenge I I don't even have the answer but this is the challenge and the goal how do you develop creativity and in individuality within the framework of transmitting a messiah that doesn't change but these are kind of two views of Y and the truth is you actually see these two dimensions of Y in the story of the well which is actually a fascinating story it's not going to be the main theme I'm going to talk about but it's interesting on one hand the Tyra emphasizes that um y dug the well the wells because remember the Philistines have after Abraham's death filled up yak's Wells he was a victim of harassment they didn't want him around in fact that's one of the reasons why the 400 years of slavery and estrangement begin from the birth of Y because already in y's life we see he's being pushed around even in arel so on one hand the tah emphasizes these were the wells of Abraham and yit called them by the same names as his father now you might think well that's not a significant fact I mean if yizak just didn't have the energy to make up new names then don't don't say anything like why why is it important to say fact we don't even know what those names were we don't even know what names are were right why is it important to say he called them by the names of his father the answer is this wasn't a matter of laziness this is a description of his of his mission his mission is to preserve what ainu did and therefore he said I'm not innovating I'm not creating something new I'm not inventing anything I am preserving I am nurturing I am simply reestablishing what it was that my father did and again let me remind you that Wells generally are symbolic of divine knowledge and wisdom and Torah so the whole idea of a be is connected that way now but then we are told that y did dig some new wells and these Wells were given unique names uh one well was dug and the Philistines fought him over it and that was called asek asek means quarrelsome another well was dug and they fought over that and that was called sitna which means hatred and a third well was was dug and finally they made peace with it the Philistines didn't fight it that was called God has given me expans right the city of rovot is named after that PK so here already we see Innovation we see creativity and indeed the ramban writes that the three Wells are to the three mikash two of them we've had and lost and one beem we're going to have when mashia comes uh the first well was I'm sorry the first Bas and Mikes was destroyed uh primarily because of idolatry it says idolatry sexual immorality and murder but AAR was the big one that's called asek asek is fighting with God AAR is called asek the second bikash was destroyed by the Romans because of hatred polarization disunity among the Jewish people and that is called sitna hatred the third mikdash we have a Divine promise will never be destroyed right uh it's Nar that the B mikdash will be destroyed twice once we have the third mikdash it will be forever and that's why it is called expansiveness and the like so the ran says that everything Theos do is a sign to what will happen to us in the future and this is again this is y as innovator and Creator right so you see the two faces of Y uh in in the story of the in the story of the well now but as I say the amount ofin the amount of space that Y is given is very very small and it's almost like he's a placeholder for the story of Yakov and ASV then we have have the birth of Yakov and ASV and they twins right twins you would expect BFA to be very similar and yet they physically look very different and almost immediately we don't have a year-by-year diary but almost immediately they seem to pursue different types of interests that asov is a hunter and yakob is a yoshev ohal a person who sits in the tents learning Torah again I threw out for a question what did mean exactly to learn Torah I can tell you for sure he wasn't uh opening a gamorra and learning a tyus those things weren't written yet whatever Torah means exactly whether it's the seven Noah laws whether it's what you might call kabala in other words Mystic understandings of God but yob was involved in spiritual Pursuits and then we read about how Yakov was cooking lentils and Yakov uh ASV comes back from the hunt hungry and Yakov purchases as's first born rights for a pot of lentils which are red and that's why another name for asov is adom the red one both because he had a red complexion and because he gave up the B for lentils now that story when did that story occur so Rashi makes a very interesting kesman that Yakov and asov were 15 years old when that story occurred where do you get the 15 years old because the tradition is that Yakov is cooking lentils because lentils is food that you give a mourner a person right uh our men we don't do lentil so much we did hardboiled eggs but for the same reason that you give a mner for the first meal something oval or something round and the idea is as if to comfort him by saying that fate changes there are bad times but then the wheel turns and there are good times so it could be lles it could be eggs now Yakov is cooking mner food to give to his father why is Yakov cooking mner food to give to his father because a died right then now let's figure this out we know that yak was born when Abraham was 100 we know that yakob was born when Yak was 60 if yakob and ASV were born when Yak was 60 yakob and asov were born when abam was 160 if the dentals are being cooked when Aram died and AR died at 175 Argo right simple mathematics tells me that yakob and ASA who are twins were 15 years old kazal make an interesting observation that until that day even though ASA was a hunter he was not publicly a sinner or publicly a Russia till the day that he sold Yakov the birthright and this was part of God's blessing to Abraham that he would not see any of any of his children be R even Ismael Ismael did shua before he died and asov did not become an open Russia until Abram died and most understand this this is like God's gift to Abram that he will not see his descend will not leave the world seeing his descendants sin I've always thought though again I don't have a source just a feeling I have that I think there's a psychological Dimension here that Aram was the grandparent maybe I'm using modern categories but Aram was the zadii that gave ASF a sense of belonging because in many many ways you would imagine that even if ASA wasn't to Russia he wasn't learning in the B medish he wasn't staging he was O and hunting that's not AAS for you see and again these are real scenarios imagine you have a family and one kid is like the best kid in Yeshiva and the other kid is a nice kid but he likes to play baseball likes to play basketball you know it's very hard as much as parents want to love all of their children it's very hard sometimes to have the same feelings so the kid who's not quite mainstreamed in the ASA world might feel marginalized might feel rejected well again this is speculation maybe ASA had that sense of rejection what compensated for that sense of rejection was the relationship he had with his Z the Abraham and indeed in real life you often see that a grandfather can connect to a CH rebellious child in a way that the parents are not able to connect so the notion that ASA became a Russia the day abam died might be understood as not simply the idea that Hashem protected abam from bad news but quite literally asov lost his his support system ASV lost the one adult who believed in him the one adult that gave him strength so in some ways you know ASV indeed in our tradition morphed into a Russia although by the way in the Kish itself you don't necessarily see that in other words if I ask you show me in the Kish where we see asov as an evil person we see know we see ASA as somebody who is very hurt and who even wants to kill yakob but on the other hand and you know there are reasons for that now you don't really see you don't amalik is Ace of descendant but you don't see the radical irrational total hatred of amalik in as of itself directly in the text but nevertheless our m is that asov indeed became a Russia but perhaps it is connected to losing his support system in the world which is something U we need to think about as well so what was the B right so Yakov bought the the with a pot of lentils what exactly did he buy so all thefor say that this was not a matter of money this has nothing to do with double portion of inheritance or anything else but rather before there was a mishun before there was a b Mikes the firstborn of every family was designated to be the Coen to be the priest who would bring corbano this was a zus to off iate so to speak in spiritual worship ASF said I don't need it I don't want it in the language of the Torah asov despised it and what did as see people look at this as oh Yakov took advantage of a starving man by taking away something really really precious the Tyra tells me that ASV did it because this meant nothing to him quite literally the beans were more important to him than the so when he says behold I'm going to die why do I need a b so some people understand it that you know he's on the verge of they make yakob look bad he's on the verge of death he's going to drop dead if he doesn't eat anything so you're taking I'll give you food if you sell me your B yeah if you if you look at it that way I'm G to drop dead then yeah uh essentially Yakov got it by coercion but there's another way of looking at it ASA is not saying I'm going to drop dead this is a philosophical statement behold after I die that's it there is no spiritual life there's NOA there's no future so what's the point of serving God eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we will die he doesn't mean I'm going to die now I'll die in 50 years but it's the same point I don't need it so there's no taking advantage here quite literally ASA says I don't need it it's not worth anything to me question think about the question well we Y and Rifka aware of this sale because after all this is a public event I I mean uh if the Bor is the one who brings coronos or what whatever it is so that means yakob is going to be the guy doing it not ASA so wouldn't this be something that Y and Rifka would would note right I mean they would know right because this is not a secret thing the doesn't say and this will tie into the next event in the life of Yakov and ASV the next event occurs many many many years later it occurs and Rashi gives you a very complicated chronology which I'm not going to go over but it's based on the gar McGill yakob and ASV are 63 years old and that means Y is 123 now this is fascinating y y lives 180 Y is going to live many many more years but y thinks he's about to die it's I mean the whole story of the blessings is many many decades before y dies right you wouldn't get that impression from the you get that impression that you know he's about to die he lives many years in fact he's alive when Yosef is sold but for whatever reason y thinks he wants to die and Y wants to give a special blessing to his son ASF and he sends ASF to go hunt and bring back something that he could eat and then he will give Asa a special braa and Rifka overhears this now remember Rifka is not a this is not like SAR hugger I mean you know SAR is not is's mother Rifka is asa's mother but still she doesn't want as to get the bras so she has this is the famous scene where Yakov impersonates ASA he wears the goat skins to have the hairy arms he wears ASA ASA also had special garments that helped him in his hunting these were garments he got from nimro that would attract animals why wasn't ASA wearing these garments Rifka didn't give it to him at that particular time and Y apparently thinking he's blessing ASV actually blesses Yakov and then when ASV shows up a little late kind of says too late I already gave it away now there are so many questions on this story I always like to say that this is one of the great proofs that the Torah comes from God because if we were writing Our Own Story we would certainly not write a story like that other words if you say the Jewish people wrote the Torah they're not going to write that the whole bra that yov got from ASV from from y was a matter of fraud misrepresentation so comes from God so God gives you the truth no matter what but let's break it down into a few discreet questions we're not going to be able to answer all of them question one is what was y thinking did y think truly that asov was better than yakob that asov deserved the blessing more than yakob now some learned well yeah y was blind from the AA the Angels no cried and they blinded him and some say the blinding meant even spirit naturally he could not perceive duplicity hypocrisy he could be fooled in various ways but here's the Kasha there are 100% textual indicators that y was fully aware that ASA was not a righteous man number one right before this story it mentions that asov took Canaanite wives and this was a a source of bitterness to and RKA to and RKA so knows ASA is violating the commitments of ab aino not to marry Canaanite women that's one indicator a second indicator is that when Yakov brings Yak the goats supposedly the product of ace of sun and Y says I want to feel your arms and Y feels the hairy arms so he says the famous PK that's become a a famous statement HOV the voice is the voice of Yakov but the hands the arms are the hands of ASF by the way kazal have a beautiful Dr and that is yakov's power in all generations is the voice the voice of prayer The Voice of Torah asa's power is physical brutality yakov's power again needless to say we of course need an army and I need to say this and we need to be profoundly grateful to all of theim that risk their lives to protect AR Israel and Amy Israel and hasem should bless them in all ways but we also know that although we must have an army because that's part of what is called Tas the human effort that we need the ultimate source of Victory comes from Torah and based on this idea coov so that's a Dr that's a an interpretation K has that's a very important interpretation especially now but let's let's go back to the simple meaning of the verse what does it mean the voice is the voice of Yakov so Rashi says it doesn't mean that yakov's voice was different than asa's voice yakov's voice was the same they're twins their voices were the same but it means that Yakov would use the name of Hashem in his conversation Hashem asov never used the name of Hashem and since Yakov said you know God has blessed me Etc so Y is saying huh that's not the way ASA talked so what do you see from that that again knows that asov doesn't use sham Shay so he knows yov is righteous the third Point goes back to my earlier point which I don't have a proof of and that is if Yakov bought the B so much so many years earlier it must have been Y and Rifka were aware of it so once again they're aware of the fact although I don't have a proof but I think Papas they're aware of the fact that Yakov purchased the B because so for all of these reasons the fact that as married a Canaanite woman the fact that asov doesn't use sham Shay and the fact that V it's a d p that was not fooled understood that Yakov is the more righteous son so why would y want to give a special blessing to his son ASF so the malim refers the NV with different variations they all have a very similar they all have a very similar idea and that is y knows that Yakov is thead y knows that Yakov will be the one who will carry on the legacy of abam and establish a Je Nation but at the same time loves as this is his son he wants to make something good out of asf's life ASV is a hunter ASV doesn't learn ASV doesn't do all sorts of good things but he's a hunter and ASF has many talents ASF can organize ASF can get things done so y has devised a plan this is a plan that's somewhat similar to a plan that yakov's Sons divide later devise later and this is the famous this is later the famous isar Zan Arrangement and that is isar was a tribe that was totally devoted to torist study Zulan were engaged in Commerce and business although they had to learn Torah too but that wasn't their main activity so Zulan supported the work of the learning of and therefore they became Partners they became in all of's tah learning now yako figures the following Hashem promised us that we will get er Israel ER Isel Is Our Land but when you get when we eventually get er Israel as a nation there's a lot of stuff you got to do you got to dig Wells you got to plant Fields you got to have businesses you got to have law law firms accounting firms stores now maybe this would take Yakov away Yakov is one who learns Torah teaches Torah I don't want Yakov to be so tur so preoccupied in building a society and fighting Wars and establishing an army so let's have a division of labor let's give ER Isel because that actually is the braa of I will give ER Isel to ASV he will run the government he will run the Army he will dig the ditches he will plant the fields he will build the infrastructure of society and he will use his resources for the benefit of Yakov and this is a great deal for Yakov and a great deal for ASF it's a great deal for yakob because this will free Yakov from all of the anxieties and preoccupation in building a society that Yakov can focus totally on Rus on spirituality on Torah on transmitting Torah and it's a great deal for ASV because ASV is never going to be somebody that's going to sit in the base Mish ASV is going to be a person who has to be out there in the world and get things done but let me give him a channel where he will connect and use his considerable abilities in a good way this is the plan of a loving father who understands that even though both of my CH My Two children have gone on different paths I even want the wayward child to find a way to use his abilities in a good way this is so now well y indeed is fooled because ASV is is not capable of this at this point but he's fooled on a much more subtle level he's not fooled in the simplistic way oh I think ASV is such a sadic because he asks me such involved no he knows who ASA is but he thinks ASA can have his redemption in that particular way now it's interesting that this may be a tikon an attempted ton an attempted rectification of something that happened many many many years before and whenever I say this thought I always get criticized but it's from shimal hsh so if you have a problem uh no it's refer not not me that it just mentions the young boys were growing up and ASA became a hunter and Y became Yos oel a dweller intense rers says the key reason why their paths diverged was because Y and Rifka tried to raise them identically you know people take twins they dress them the same meaning they took both of them put them in the Bas medis so to speak I mean using a metaphoric say you got to learn 12 hours a day but ASV needed basketball ASV needed to play ASA needed to run around rers says when you try to make an asov into a Yakov not only will you not get a Yakov out of him you will not get the good ASA that you might have gotten suffice it to say I think um we see this in families literally every day and this is what schlom said in Mish you must educate a child according to their personality it's not a one-size fit all we have to be able to accommodate the individualities of people to be able to steer them in ways that their talents can find a recognition and find an outlet within M within Mitzvah so what's interesting is if as rers explains the original mistake and again some people say you shouldn't talk about the OS that way but I'm just using refers for the idea if the original mistake of yok and R is is trying to correct that now I now recognize that as is fundamentally different he needs a different a different I'll give him a country I'll give him the land I'll give him Society I'll give him business and commerce and Agriculture and he'll use it for Yakov so what's the mistake with that the mistake is as we as we tragically say too little too late had this been done when the boys were 15 it might have worked but now the boys are no longer little boys 63 years old ASF is set in his ways ASF has been in a sense broken Rifka knows this so so so there is an the part of but it's a subtle it's a subtle daos stick as we say na Rifka who grew up in a home of liars and duplicity did indeed have a superior ability to unearth hypocrisy and the like in that sense y was not as good as Rifka in there by the way the NV has a very interesting point again these are kind of modern ideas but the N mentions it look at the difference between you know Aram and SAR had a problem kid is and Y and Rifka have a problem kid as but look at the difference when A and S have a problem kid s just says directly you got to send him away s is direct SAR is open S communicates Rifka has to engage in a deception why doesn't she talk to Y directly so the NV points out that the communication of yuk and Rifka was not as good as a and S A and S were like equal with yuk and Rifka number one on the most simple level there's a tremendous difference of age y was 40 when was only three according to Kaz according to Rashi number two because y had reached the Supreme elevation of an AA he was like a holy man it actually says Rifka was afraid of him I mean I don't mean afraid that he would hurt her but she was in awe of him she was in awe of her husband and therefore she felt she could not bring up things directly she wanted y to understand because the way it works is see this goes to another question people say well if y thought he was blessing ASV I mean this is not like a magic like a magic spell oh you know you got the ray gun I mean y was blessing asov the fact that this guy in front of him is yob that doesn't change anything but the answer is that yuk understood when ASF came back and yuk felt the presence of when he said he shall be blessed the end agreed he saw that this is the way it had to be so y indeed said the Bros belong to yov so the point basically is that it's a very touching story in a sense you know a parent never stops loving their child loved I assume that even Rifka loved as although you don't you don't necessarily see that from The Narrative but yit actually felt that maybe he had Short Change days of All Those Years first this was his attempt to make it up now here's what the ma adds that's why this is really a very interesting point that is why the BR that y gave to Yakov when he thought he was Asa was not the same BR that y gave to Yakov when he knew it was Yakov the BR that y gave to yob when he thought he was ASV is a br only in gash God should give you do God should give youa God should give you grain the BR he gives later to Yakov is God should give you the Covenant that was made with AB of spiritual Mission so says the Mal it's very m in theim the spiritual Mission would never have been given to ASV to begin with that was always going to be jakob's blessing was the of of is that we're going to give that we're going to give to ASF and that's the one that Rifka realized that if he gave it to ASV he wouldn't use it for yakov's benefit he would use it to afflict Yakov to dominate Yakov right so that's the right so that's the idea that there are two bras here there's a and then there's the braa of the abrahamic mission of godliness and kadha that BR would have always given to Yakov even had ASV gotten the first BR yakob would have given him would have given yov that second bra this is a a point that the ma says now it is interesting that there's another Point refers adds to all of this and that is again there's so many questions what about the deception I mean good so we explained what y thought and how yit was deceived but why but but Jakob Lisa is getting things through sheer so rers says this is part of the process because part of why y doesn't want to give Yakov the material blessings is because he says you're a you're a simple person meaning you're a holy person you don't understand lies you don't understand duplicity when you're in the political world everything is sheer let ASA handle the lies so Yakov has to show that when it's necessary he knows how to lie as well so not that he will lie in the future but if you know how to lie you won't be taken in by lies meaning he's basically showing I'm capable of living in this world because I'm capable of engaging in this deception when that's necessary so this is a fascinating point but there's a final point that the medish makes that's a very very powerful one and it's says okay so ASA should have got the blessings and Yakov got it instead right or is intended that ASA should get the blessings Yakov gets it well what did Yakov really get the truth of the matter is the medis says the ultimate blessings of complete rule over ER Israel are not going to be realized until mhia I mean as as we can see even now yeah maybe there's a state of Israel bashem but you know complete rule peaceful rule and right about all the years of gulus and persecution and yakov's own life as a result of the deception he practiced against ASA he became vulnerable to all of the deception of Lan over 20 years with ra and Leia and with the sheep and Y I mean look look at all the deceptions that Yakov was victimized by he had to Works seven years to marry Rael and he gets Leia he gets cheated with the Sheep over and over again for 22 years he thinks yosea is gone it's AED you got a by R by deception you will suffer by deception kazal even say that when asov comes in after Yakov got the bras and he hears that y gave it away already and Y knows that he can't give it to ASV now because he feels the presence of geham there so the PK says ASA cried a loud and bitter cry and kazal say this is before you had computers that could check this that there's only one other place in tanak where that expression appears and that is in millas Esther when Mor hears of the Gaz of H and what do kazal say as a punishment or as a consequence of Yakov making asov have a loud and bitter cry a descendant of Asa hamon who comes from a who comes from a who comes from as causes Mori a descendant of yov to have now clearly it doesn't mean this was a punishment why would there be a punishment Yakov was doing what he had to do but this is a consequence meaning when you engage in sheer and deception and you hurt people it's going to come back and bite you it's like a Law of Spiritual nature it's not a punishment I mean the example would be if I dive into a fire to save a baby I did a wonderful thing but that doesn't mean I'm not going to get burnt and the same way there are physical laws of nature there are spiritual laws of nature the pain that you cause others will come back to haunt you sometimes you got to make a decision I got to cause that pain but think twice before you do that because you know people always say sh am I'm doing everything for the sake of Heaven that's not going to protect you necessarily from the consequences let me just mention I one other point that the say they say a very beautiful thing that in giving the braa that yob that that y thinks he's giving to ASA but is in reality giving it to yov Y calls him my son eight times B Ben so one of the just draws a beautiful parallel that we see this with David when AB shalam who was the son who wanted to kill DAV was killed remember what happened he got uh had beautiful long hair that got caught in a tree he's riding a donkey and yoav who is David's General has of Shalom killed and David didn't want that and David Mourns and cries and says of shom he actually says why couldn't I die instead of you and say why did he say Bene eight times because he brought him up there are seven chambers of geham deep levels each Bene brought him out of one chamber so the seven Benise brought him out of geham and the eighth got him to say you know everyone has a favorite place they want to dve in so they dve in the Cel you know kades the whatever it is's favorite place to D in was a place called Yad Shalom if you know Inon you know in the valley before the Mount of Olives there are a bunch of small monuments and one of those monuments is said to be the Monument of now the truth is it it's probably erroneous I believe it was called out by the Crusaders but but some had a belief that this is where shom is buried like to SH now you might think I mean why why should that be an auspicious M of of shom was a Russia who wanted to kill his father says because I can come to Hashem and say in this place or on this person who shom wanted to kill prayed and Dav was that a father has ra him on his son even when a son wants to kill him so I say to Hashem no matter how bad we are you're our father have remember ra over that's a beautiful right so y sh was a very a beautiful for him in that way so now it says the following it says that when yit smelled the garments of of he thought ASA was we but really it was yob right so it says and it had the smell of Ghan an apple Garden Etc butal say bav can also be read bav bdav are treacherous rebellious people y may not have known who's standing in front of him is it as or is it jakov but at that moment he did have a view that from this person will come even from CL Israel even from the Jews and therefore said B eight times to take them out of geh and bring them to the same idea as shom is what yob was doing in and actually say this is a reference specifically to two Jewish people who were rashim and collaborators with the Romans at the time of the destruction of the B mik that even they eventually should do cha and be to okay so these are some thoughts that we we can think about again U may all of our learning May the learning of all of CLA Israel forel for the for the people who are tragically still being held hostage for the forel may this be a precursor to the [Music] ga