Rav Yitzchak Breitowitz - Rebuilding the Temple in Our Hearts

just want to First mention that tonight's Shure is in memory of Abraham Ben manako Andia zman that's Rabbi Robert Anda clar thank you very much actually that was if I recall that was taken from something the show my wrote up uh and my wife and I left so was a bit of a quazi eulogy but thank you for the uh thank you for the very very uh kind kind words and always it's a pleasure and an honor to be here uh especially to speak on behalf of yan an organization that really fills a very very important need to facilitate Theus and unity in CL Israel and this is a need that is literally a 247 need it's a need that we have the entire year but especially uh during this time of year when we think about the reasons for the destruction of the BET mikdash and the reasons for our galut everyone knows thatal say that the first B mikdash was destroyed because of the cardinal sins of abara idolatry G sexual immorality and and murder but the second temple in which the Jews were largely Hally observant was destroyed because of sin hatred and polarization among Jews and the goes on and says that the firstan which was for the worst in the Torah only lasted 70 years the second Corban lasts to this very day so we see how great and awful and a is sin and I don't think I have to discuss proofs to you that we still suffer from that problem uh today so I'm always very very happy to participate in any Endeavor which tries to bring Jews together and again a tremendous uh to the Poston for for creating this this organization uh be it as it may we are of course in the nine days it is still possible and I hope I'm not just being naive that the Bas will come before Tish and among many other benefits that means there will not have to be a fast this year uh they do tell the story about a certain Rabbi every year on Arif Tish he would go to a bookstore a Jewish book and buy a keynote buy a Lamentations uh so the merchants once said to him listen I don't mind selling you a new book every year but why do you buy a new book every year what was wrong with the one you bought last year it had the same kenos he says last year do you think I save it after every Tish I am so that next year there will be a B mikdash I always put my Kos and sheos I put it away so if it looks like there's going to be a TI so I have to buy a new one but I'm not going to I remember years ago when the uh a goodish Israel first uh first rented Madison Square Garden for the seum of the doomi every seven and a half years the big seum of Shaz so at one point the crowds were big enough that they were able to rent uh these part of Madison Square Gardens so in the Jewish Observer they they I remember I was I was a boy in high school uh they put in an ad they wanted to be a from holier than b type as they said we are planning on having to see him in Madison Square Garden but if mashia comes we are going to move it to the pich yes which is the largest based Med in erel so somebody wrote If you really and truly believe what you were saying you would have said we rented the p b Med doesn't come we'll have to have it m beard so really what is the operating assumption uh that you have what do you really think is going to happen so to speak but be as it may we have to hope we have to yearn and that is really what's going to be so significant uh RAB Sal of ysf doic of sh University once made a very incisive observation he pointed out that the pattern of mourning for the bikash is the opposite of the pattern of mourning when we suffer personal bereavements when we have personal bereavements it starts off very very severe we have the laws of sha in which the mner does not even leave his home and people have to come to him and then gradually for 30 days uh you kind of put your toe in the water and you get more involved and for most relatives 30 days is the conclusion of morning for a parent we have limited morning restrictions for an entire year but the trajectory of auts moves from that which is very very restrictive to progressively relaxing the restrictions so a person can rejoin society when we look at the weeks of the year that are set aside for the a of theik we actually see an opposite pattern in which we start off easy and we build up to Greater levels of severity as times come on uh we we have the three weeks which really inar have actually have no restrictions at all other than the 17th of thas but we have a minut 3 weeks uh no weddings Etc no haircuts okay and then we move into the nine days and then uh spartum even then don't don't really have something for the nine days then we have the week of Tish which is more then we have of Tish reaching a crescendo in Tish in which we literally uh live like the MERS all the of ofas and therefore you are mov moving not from the to the cow but you are moving from the cow to the and Dr salic explained that is because the psychological purpose of the morning restrictions of of private versus uh communal have two opposite functions in private mourning a person is generally devastated a person has lost someone that they love someone that they care about whether it's a parent whether it's a spouse whether God forbid it's a child these tragedies happen they can break a person they can destroy a person and a is one of the great mechanisms of inner healing in which eventually through expressing grief and having outlets and by people coming and comforting the aail the sadness doesn't totally go away of course but the AIL is generally positioned to make a transition into society little by love they look from a psychological perspective which the recognizes is to provide a mechanism that facilitates reentry into ordinary life when a person is broken and shattered and devastated by the enormity of a tragedy you know I still remember just to give you a very Vivid example of this that stuck in my mind when I first became a rabbi in silv ring in 19 whatever year year was it 1987 so uh there was a member of my show who tragically lost his son I I bar I really didn't even know him I wasn't even officially Rabbi yet but a 12-year-old son just tragically died now this son was actually a product of an intermarriage meaning that this man became a baluba he divorced his first wife who was a non-jew but they had a son together who is I guess the son was not Jewish although I think he underwent the gas uh and uh so the whole show came out at the funeral so what I remember very vividly is they were a divorced couple so she came with her people so to speak and he came with his people they were not they were not a married couple although they were the father and the mother of this child and I still remember at the end of lah the Jewish man the father was surrounded by all sorts of rituals of comfort forming a sh forming a line a he had a sh to go to and we of course went over to the mother the mother was a mother who lost the child but she ultimately left the cemetery alone she didn't have the support system she didn't have the shiv she didn't have all of the mechanisms that are so healing for a Jewish person that's why by the way sometimes you know the if God forbid somebody dies on AR and L yam yam essentially cancel shiv there are cases in which shiv is not observed at all and that is tougher than you might imagine someone who doesn't have that type of ceremony that type of ritual feels they didn't have a real way to express grief so sometimes what we actually do is we don't have a whole Shiva but we arrange what you might call a fake Shiva in the sense that a day is set aside or a night is set aside after Y where people can come and reminisce and talk Etc to kind of provide the equivalence of a so be as it may rep says and by the way this is an important point because he said he recognizes the fact he's identifying the fact that huic structures are supposed to be responsive to deeply felt psychological needs in other words psychology and are not two different Realms but a to is precisely designed to do among other things address the psychological needs of a human being now when it comes to the beta so that's why you go because the whole purpose of Avance is to give the person a sense of normaly so they can rejoin Society that's the whole point we want to build the person up so he can now become a member of society because it's God's will that we don't get Shattered by grief it's God's will that we do go on it's God's will that although we don't forget the pain but we can kind of compartmentalize it and put it in a part of our brain unable to keep on going that is the Russ of Hashem that's why you're still alive okay when it comes to the Bas of mikash we have the opposite problem how many of us are so shattered and devastated by the that we can't get out of bed that we can't go on with our lives that we need some transition to build us up so that we can live the generation that experienced theban was exactly that way bashra says when the temple was destroyed it's referring in context to the second temple there were people that said we can no longer eat meat because how can we eat meat if there are no coronos we can no longer so the said well if you take that logic then you can't eat bread because there's no longer so they said okay we'll live on vegetables so the's trump card was you can't have water because they poured water on the what are you going to do anything that the bikash Lost you're not going to put into your life you're not going to live and the said you have to live a Jew has to live but that was the first generation but us we have the opposite problem it's not that we're so consumed with grief that we need a healing mechanism to enable us to rejoin Society it's the other way around we simply have no feeling at all for what it is that we are missing and therefore the purpose of a over theban is exactly the opposite of the purpose of Avance uh in private context and that is to gradually through physical restrictions build up a sense of deprivation a sense of what we're missing a sense of pain again we start with the we start with external actions to be sure but that's supposed to raise a sense of conscious Consciousness about what it is that we've lost and therefore abic says instead of going from the to the C which is to get out of morning the whole purpose of these rituals is to put us into a sense of mourning and again it's hard for a person especially you know there are people who argue they he've argued this for many many years already that you know what is this thing about Tish you know we have a state of Israel we have a unified Jerusalem Etc uh what is it especially even the prayer draws its share of controversy an in the AM of Min we have a prayer in which we ask God to comfort the Jewish people and it describes as a city that's that is destroyed that is sh that is desolate that's bazya that is degraded now for many many years of course that was an exact description but one is a little hard pressed to apply that physical description thank God to the city that we are privileged to have and to a Jewish state so there were voices Al be to the left I mean again even Orthodox voices but you know the left wing of Orthodoxy as it were uh that called for a revision of the N prayer but in truth in truth one of the ways you have to approach it is the words of the prayer stay the same but what they mean May shift from generation to generation and that is perhaps hasem we've merited that in many physical ways Jerusalem is beautiful it's here Jews are living here although we still have you know Pockets where there where there are difficulties but when we talk about something being there are spiritual voids that still exist whether it's whether it's a lack of sensitivity to the love of God whether it's a lack of passion in our aboda these these are these are voids these are vacancies these are vacuums this is a certain sense of emptiness and that does exist until we have the Bas of English but it's hard to feel it because after all the person who was born blind cannot really understand color the person who was born deaf doesn't really understand the beauty of music because they never experienced we never experienced we don't even know what it is that we are missing and in many many ways that's the greatest morning you know they tell a famous story after The Six Day War when uh we had the great great Fortune to recapture the the old city and particularly the harab right the famous some of the older people would remember the famous announcement even if you were but you know you've heard it I'm sure a number of times the is in our hands and you know showed up and you know blew the chaar and all all sorts of very very great wonderful things happened that day and the story is told it's a famous story I don't even know if it's true maybe it's kind of it's almost become a legendary story about many of the religious Soldiers the Hester were at the cotel and they were crying and the re cook Cook's only only son and they were crying and dancing and singing you know different emotions and then there was a totally secular soldier who was also sobbing and crying and some of his friends asked him what are you sobbing or crying you don't even know what this wall is what what what do you care I mean it could you but you know uh what does it mean I'm crying because I don't know what they're crying about and therefore there's something missing in me that I don't know and in many ways that story of the is our story as we look at Tish we can cry not because we know what the B is and not because we know what it is that we are missing but we can cry because we don't know what it is that we should be crying about that is really the greatest goet of all when a person doesn't even realize what it is that they're missing so this is a time to be sensitive to this and indeed what is arod so there's a intriguing passage in the T ji the talami says every generation in which the basik is not rebuilt is as guilty as the generation in which the B of mikash was destroyed now that's a very interesting way of looking at it because without the Yi what I would what I might have said is this the past Generations whether it's the mikdash rishan or the mikdash sheni they they had real bad sins they lost the base of mikdash we're not as bad as them we just don't have the Merit to get it back you shall me says no if we weren't guilty of the same a that they had we would have it back to put it differently the Bas was not a past event rather every single day it is not rebuilt it is as if it's there and is being destroyed it is as if the bikas is being burnt right in front of our eyes at this very very uh moment so what is our job our job is to rebuild the Bas on now what does it mean to rebuild a basl well if you look in the r you actually see there's a positive commandment in the Torah called building a house for God this is based on the p in par truma which is by the Mish make for me a temple make for me a sanctuary so I will dwell in their midst so there is a mitzvah Arisa called b b Mikes so the question we then ask is so why don't we actively build the basa Mikes and as you know there is the Temple Mount group that basically says we aggressively and proactively have to go on the Temple Mount get rid of those mosques Etc start building the Temple well there is a source for their position although who knows what I mean again people say well what are you talking you talking about causing a nuclear war from Iran by doing something like that so they say be what do you mean you're doing God's will then Miracles are going to happen we say you don't rely on Miracles you have to uh act in a rational manner but there are two technical halic reasons why we do not actively try to build the base of M reason number one is the sh of Rashi that the third Bas on mikash is not going to be built by human hands at all the third B on mikash is to come down and therefore by definition there is no role for human beings in the actual construction of the mikdash that is rashi's opinion which is based on Mid the other opinion is that of the ramban that says that the building of the bik shall be done by human hands but it is the job of the me hhia who is supposed to build the B mikdash so until the revelation of mashia We Are not supposed to act now in defense of the Temple Mount they follow a third view of the yeli that says build the mikdash and that brings Mas but that is a view that is certainly a view but nonetheless we follow rashi's view which is why we don't physically build a basa mikdash but the question then becomes if we don't physically build a Bas of mikdash how are we fulfilling the torah's Commandments the and the answer is we build the base on mikash by building a sanctuary for God in our heart and in our soul remember what the PUK says the PUK says make for me a mikash so I will dwell in their M and say it does not say Hashem dwells in the temple but rather the B mikash is a symbol of the sh that is within the heart and soul of the Jewish people now the same way that you can read it make for me a temple and I will dwell in your midst you can read the PK in Reverse when I dwell in your midst you will have a temple meaning to say we build the base ofik by making our heart in our soul a place where God's presence resides and every time we do that we are adding a brick to the celestial Bas mikdash in sh and that is the one that's going to come down so we are building a base on M when we try to make our heart and our soul a repository for the the medish tells us that when the king of Babylon destroyed the first temple he was very proud of himself he basically said I vanquished God I defeated God I banished this God of the Jews from his house but Hashem responded to him I don't know exactly how it was communicated you didn't do anything I wasn't living there anymore you didn't destroy my house because I left the bikash when my sh no longer resided in the heart and the soul of the Jewish people and when I leave the it is nothing more than any other fancy building that anybody could describe in the language of the medish you ground up ground flower you destroyed something that was already destroyed and the N was the Nai who lived inel and actually experienced the actual he wrote was a contemporary of Y but he had been exiled to B 11 years before theban so he did not experience thean fir hand but Hashem showed him a prophetic vision of the divine presence leaving yusan in gradual stages each time waiting and turning back so perhaps the Jewish people would do children it left the and it remained in the courtyard Etc 10 stops till finally went to the har and disappeared into the into the desert that was the B so we don't build the base of mikdash by getting rid of mosques that will happen when that is supposed to happen we don't get rid of the base we don't bring the base on nias by physical Construction but we build the Bas of mik by making our heart and our soul pure making ourselves holy making ourselves a sanctuary you know as the song goes which are famous words from the I build a sanctuary for hasem in my heart and that is how we build the base of English so what would that mean more specifically well of course the kutari once said a beautiful thought he just said that where does God live so somebody answer well God lives everywhere so because said well not that's not 100% right God Lives wherever he is welcomed so God is a very uh unassuming guest so to speak if you don't want him he kind you know goes away you want him he comes so step one to Bringing Hashem into our heart is simply the idea of wanting Hashem to be in our heart you know it's very very interesting there's a everyone knows the uh wellknown gorra that mashia is born on Tish there's an explanation from the who gives a symbolic understanding of this it is not referring necessarily to the birthday of mashiach mashiach might be born you know any day of the year but it means the following it says that the spiritual power that brings mashiah into the world is the degree of Yearning For Gula that we experience on TI the stronger the more Redemption is going to happen rev hutner was once asked rev hutner was the rash of Berlin in in New York for many many years and then the Y came to Eric isra and he was once asked by somebody is there anything that he missed about someone asked what do you miss about New York so he didn't say uh better pizza places what whatever whatever it would be he said there is one big thing he misses about and that is the yearning to live in arous real and I think in many ways I think oim can understand the profundity of that comment now the saying in English absence makes the heart grow fonder is a very very true sentiment regarding aric Israel in many ways when we're not here there is yearning there is Passion there is desire and that creates a certain intensity of love that strangely enough we don't have when we're here here we either take it for granted at best at worst you know we're filled with uh different complaints different resentments in fact I've heard over and over from a number of people that before they made Aliah they felt every Jew has to live in Israel after they make alah they say well you know I no longer push it to the same to to the same degree there are actually reasons reasons for that that as well but the point basically is that it's a paradox of human nature that sometimes the most intense love and yearning comes when there's an absence and therefore in many many ways if other are a celebration of our closeness to God this is a period of time when we become aware of our distance from God but in that distance there's the generation of an intense love and yearning not only on our side but onu side as well and therefore it is through the distance that there is a closeness an unbelievable closeness it is the closeness of the pain of distance and the morale says that is the meaning of the idea that mashia is born on it is that now there's a thought from that adds on this you know there's again another famous rabic say all who mourn over Jerusalem Z ver will Merit and will see the S the joy and the happiness now I technically just mistranslated that statement because is not he will experience it is L he who Mourns over experiences its Joy what does that mean if I'm mourning how do I experience Joy so listen to what the said a very very beautiful thought the says that we find when the brothers sold yose and they wanted to convince Yakov that Yosef had died right so they took his KES they took his coat and they dipped it in the blood of a goat and they said hey this is yosef's blood and yosef's coat and uh a wild animal killed him so the PK says Yakov could not be comforted over his loss yakob could not be comforted and Rashi explains why couldn't yakob be comforted I mean der we get over things eventually the answer is the Gaz that human beings develop the capacity to get over a loss only applies when someone died so if someone's died they're not here so the aish gave us a that time heals us to some degree but since Yosef was alive although yakob didn't know it the pain doesn't go away now why didn't yakob figure out if the pain didn't go away that Joseph was alive that that's a good interesting circular question but is closure only comes where the person is dead and Hashem gave us that rock because otherwise Our Lives could never go on but when the person's alive but you have no way of connecting to them that creates a pain that doesn't go away so here's what the say we've lost the Bas mikash for now almost 2,000 years why don't we get over it why why do we still cry why do we still mourn if the idea of redemption is dead we should be maab if we're not it could only be it's not dead therefore the says the fact that I am over you itself gives me a sense of joy and happiness that the idea of Goa is not dead because if it would be dead I would have gotten over it and I didn't get over it right that's whatam said okay so that is one idea the idea of Simply understanding how far we are from God and in that sense of distance can come an enormous closeness the closeness of Yearning but there are other many other things as well first uh let me point out that radok makes the observation that the three weeks before Tish are designed to be Ming three faculties within the human being if you look at the huras the first haor of the three weeks which is from beginning of Y begins div the words of Y the second T that we read shabas is also from Y and it begin shim sh and the third half Torah which is the shabas before Tish this year is actually on is from the and that is called vision and there for the three weeks are M our deor our speech our sh our hearing and K our vision like the saying goes at least in this particular order speak no evil hear no evil see no evil so let me start with the first one uh for a moment the power of speech you know it's very interesting that the first shus of the three weeks this year was Paras Matos this year was now least just cut up but in let's go with Eric we're in Eric so I can use the Eric calendar par mat starts off with the par ofua and if you think about this this is a wonderful amazing instance of the power of words to change realities I take an Apple the Apple is totally permissible it's koser I make a vow this apple is forbidden to me I have metaphysically stranged the spiritual DNA of that entity it's aling that entity has now become the spiritual equivalent of a piece of khazard if I violate an oath if I eat the apple I am transgressing a very very serious sin what gives me that power I thought only God gives mitv so is a paradigm of the power of speech to create realities says in life and death are in the hands of the tongue the medish gives a very cute story that all the limbs of the body were arguing I'm not sure how they communicated who's more important the leg said I'm most important because without me you can't move anywhere the arm said I am most important because without me you can't make things uh the brain Etc so the tongue says I'm the most important of all so they laughed at the tongue he you don't even have a backb you can't even stand up you got to lie lie flat why are you so significant the tongue said I'll show you and apparently this whoever the person is he goes before the king and he calls the king a dog so the the tongue articulate the word dog so the king says off with your head what type of person speaks to the king that way so all of the aim are now frightened and they told to the tongue you got us in trouble get us out of it so the tongue then says oh in my language dog means uh royal master whatever whatever it is and the King says okay you're off the hook so the tong said to the other I could kill you or I could save you but in truth as all of us know even though in that context it's referring to you yourself right your words will kill you or your words will save you I think Donald Trump is discovering that the uh the American uh election and and the like but more importantly it's not just what your words do to you it's the power of speech in terms of how we affect others speech can be devastating words of ridu words of pain words of embarrassment how the words we use can break a person break a child take away spirit and we have to recognize you know the old saying that we learned as children at least if you were growing up in America sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt is unfortunately not really true if anything bones can often heal but the hurts and the slights the embarrassments the humiliations don't really go away I remember seeing an interview years ago with Richard Nixon Richard Nixon who happen to be you know pretty good friend of Israel at various times but Richard Nixon went through the ring right he was President of the United States forced to resign and he was talking about all of the pivotal events in his life and I was quite amazed that he was talking about playground insults in the sixth grade that he still remembers and how on some level although he didn't draw explicit connection but on some level that was connected to kind of the behaviors he engaged in much later so words to be masake gbor is something that's very very significant but you know here in ER especially there is a great great consciousness of sh and you know we have these rallies but in some ways as important as that is that is only half of the equation because that's focusing on keeping your mouth shut that's focusing on not saying bad things but we have to recognize the other side of the equation speech not as something bad that you have to avoid but speech as something good and godly besides of course the words of Tor which are direct mitvah how speech can heal can Comfort can build up can make a person stay with a relatively modest invest because hashem's goal is not that we shouldn't use speech after all speech is considered to be the Divine attribute when it says that God breathed into man and became a a living Soul the tarus which very rarely departs from a very literal translation dep Parts here it says a living soul is a speaking spirit is Godly it creates it creates life it gives a person courage and what a gift it is to be able to use our speech in a positive kind way that's what shom is saying it is not just death that bad speech causes it is life that good speech C now uh not who was a not only a but an exceptionally fine human being in terms of his really a tremendous tremendous example for all of us so he used to tell the story he told the story he was a Coen and because he was a Coen he was not able to visit sick people in the hospital because there might be people who died Etc so an acquaintance of his was in the hospital so since he couldn't visit he in like a three line note simply saying you know hope you get better with Etc as he didn't even think of you know it was nothing it was just a throwaway gesture well the person unfortunately died shortly thereafter and rapan is at the L from the distance and the children are giving a husband and they want to point out they point out how beloved their father was with G Tor and they say R the great ofas wrote Our Father a letter and our father would show us this letter every day and everybody who came in in other words this letter which was a throwaway insignificant gesture which you know didn't even remember doing this was so important to this man that he cherished it he treasured it now granted most of us are not on that madrea that what we do make the difference but the point basically is that even the insignificant things that we do can change a person in so many ways I heard recently from a young Brash very nice point that had not occurred to me that when he goes into a cab and the cab is clean he compliments the driver and he says that he noticeably sees that the driver just becomes happy less it's something to think about the power of speech in a positive way to be Ming the of now um was the great great expert the great goo the great POS on the laws of lush and haran so there was a fellow who wanted to check out the he says I mean this guy really you know true I me does he really live up by by these standards so he wanted to spend shabas by the and kind of observe how the himself kept the laws of sh and in a way he was very surprised because the had a son-in-law who would never say a word unless it was to feeling was talking was joking so superficially he said hey why is the like such the great the great guyan I think the sonin-law is a better exampler but then he realized as he paid more close attention the son-in-law kind of decided not to use speech was talking a lot but he only used the speech in positive and good ways and that was a much more difficult aod right so that's one idea to think about the power of our words and to think about what can we do to kind of lift the spirit of people and of course the side benefit of that is that it lifts our Spirits as well you know one of the ways we get out of our sadness our depression is by thinking of others and trying to help others and when we get out of ourselves a little bit one of the great prizes aish bar gives is we feel better about ourselves too because we made a difference in the life of another person so that's one aspect but let me emphasize that controlling speech is not just about speech because people sometimes you know at a lar you might hear about the idea just you know keep your mouth shut bite your Tong because here is the thing lanara ultimately is much more about perceptions than it is about words because if you're filled with hatred and resentment against other people but you just control your speech well eventually like a pressure cooker you're going to explode because the pressure becomes unbearable so really you have we have to move not just from controlling speech but the changing our perception and this of course brings us to the idea that theik was destroyed the second because of now means what groundless hatred hatred without reason well I've never met anybody who is in favor of hating without reason you know I mean everybody has a reason I you know if if somebody says I just don't like that person and I say why says no reason I have a reason so if say so we have to assume that any hatred that existed at the time of the second temple the people who were engaged in that hatred had a reason for what they were doing if you would have asked them they would have given you a reason so apparently the that we get from the concept of sin is even when you think you have a reason it's not really a reason hatred can take many forms there may be hot hatred violence throwing rocks but hatred can also include indifference coldness clickish there is our group and some other group our P whatever that means right or left the it sa writes in a very very famous H for which he himself was criticizing that the of the was a sense of religious superiority which looked down at others who were not exactly of your religious orientation those to the right of me are Fanatics those to the left of me are aror or Heretics it is only where I am that Y and each person had a lam Shay justification for their additives and yet that is called now this creates an enormous challenge you know the truth of the matter is that erel is a little different than C in this way you know Americans like to say it again I have nothing against Americans I am an American citizen and some of my best friends are Americans Etc but a very common statement that that we make is why can't the culture in AR Israel be closer to that of the United States in the sense that in America you know which not always true actually but Jews know how to get along again that's not a totally accurate sta but we know how to get along conservative reform you know I can live with all types of different types of Jews I don't feel you know challenged I don't feel I have to fight them I don't feel I have to demonstrate against them but here feelings are so strong and so passionate not only against let's say religious versus secular conflicts but subdividing religious Jews into so many categories you have the then you have the then you have different types of to quote Rodney King why can't we just get along as it were so in defense now people say that people say you know Eskimos it is said have uh can identify 300 different shades of white because they have to know the different types of snow where it's safe to walk where it's not safe to walk we wouldn't even notice because we only know one type of snow basically so uh they say in in America we kind of know religious not religious in Eric Israel we can identify 300 different types of religious observances different types of kot I I I I knew I think I mentioned the story here before I I knew a fellow I know a fellow who sends his children to different schools some go to and some go to Etc so I was once with him dropping off his kids and he had five different hat cover head coverings the car he had a black hat he had a Kipas ruga he had a velvet yamok uh he had a like a cap a visor cap Etc and every school he was dropping I was get he he put on the appropriate head covering for that skull but one time he was running late and he ran I was in the car with him he ran into uh a school wearing the wrong head covering like in and he comes out like shaking I was told if I ever do this again one chance you know the kid is going to get kicked out of kicked out of the f I hav't never like now in defense I want to point out an interesting story that shom used to say the famous marget of Y he this is a story that actually happened him it wasn't a madeup story he said that he was once walking in shed and a child was riding a bicycle during the week and the bike hit a stone or something so the kid fell off the bicycle and there was a big gash in his forehead so the B know the boy was crying so shun picked up the boy and started running to a to a doctor so there's an old woman under mer peset she sees rug who was an old man are read running up a hill so she says R shalom shalom don't worry kids fall off bicycles they heal don't worry it'll be okay no big deal but he's running in her Direction and as he gets closer she sees it's her grandson so all of a sudden she start Shing mayor May and she starts crying almost hysterically okay so the boy was okay when ra met the grandmother later he said you tell me I have to ask you a question when you didn't know it was your grandson everything's fine no problem kids heal nothing to worry about as soon as it's your grandson all of a sudden it becomes a major tragedy you know Mel Brooks used to say it's good my BR used to say someone asked him the difference between tragedy and comedy he says okay comedy is when you break your leg tragedy is when I hurt my thr you know uh in other words when it happens to you or your family then it becomes a real issue so so R wanted to say that Torah is so to a religious Jew and er around that they get more emotionally distruct they they do scream now maybe it's not the appropriate response but it comes from a commitment it comes from a passion it comes from a feeling and sometimes if in other places we're more tolerant it's not because we have a higher level of Love of other people but it's simply because the Torah means L right so sometimes tolerance can be indiffer okay that's to think about but at the same time there is no denial that there's a tremendous amount of demonization delegitimation one thing I see often in all discussions in arel about that involved religious secular divides is that nobody sees any Merit in the other position it's not like I see your point but you have no point and you have no point and there's never an acknowledgment that there might be some side of emth that we can integrate and work with and come to some type of common ground because it's all wrong or all right but used to say when the Torah says there shall not be there should not be anyone like kak the right after K said there shall not be kak anymore used to explain this very beautifully he says kak was the last case where one side was all wrong and the other side was all right in any other mlus there are going to be theot of that you have to Tred to reconcile and so on one hand I'm not suggesting at all that abas Israel means you abandon principles one has to stand up for truth and one has to articulate those truths and abas Isel does not mean I'm okay you're okay and every type of deviation and every type of corruption uh gay marriage whatever it is is perfectly fine but there's still a modality where even if an idea has to be rejected in the way it is that one can respect the legitimacy and the Integrity of the person on the other side to respect them as a human being to understand what they're come where they're coming from to understand their struggle to understand why they formulate what they formulate and try to connect in that way you know I remember years ago I was giving a share in Columbia Maryland to a group that was to non-religious totally non religious and after this year a woman approached me uh and she began her question I don't I don't even remember the question but she began her question I'm not as religious as you but so I said at the time I don't know why you say you're not as religious as Me Maybe I am religious in the sense that I know more about chabas and culture than you but maybe you treat your parents better maybe you speak less Ling heart maybe you you know you have a better control over anger that's part of being religious too religious is not just shabas and kosher so I can look at a and there might be many many things that I can admire I could say you know I wish I spoke as kindly to to my wife as you speak to your wife there are bridges that can be built one can agree to disagree one does not have to compromise principle you have a sense of respect for the search that somebody I can respect the fact that somebody is a Searcher even if I think they're going on the wrong road and there is a great side benefit to this and the side benefit to this is the again's book of wisdom that says as water reflects the face that you show water so too the heart of one human being reflects that which you show it now what does that mean if I look at a pool of water the face that I show the water is the face that I will get back I show the water a smiling face I will see a smiling face I show the water I will see an angry face that's obvious schl says the heart of the human being will mirror back that which we show that human being I show a human being love care concern respect they will feel that respect and love for me I show them the disdain that is what they feel for me so in many ways you can see that the animosity and demonization is literally working against against your own self-interest because the more I demonize the other the more whoever the other is the other will demonize me right I call them Amit they call me parasite and it goes on and on and on and on and on and it never gets resolved now I'm not denying that in is there are very very severe issues that need to be discussed the role of the Army and the role of of of Yeshiva students and you know whether it's secular studies and you know all of you will have your own views on this and I'm not here to talk about that tonight but dialogue becomes Impossible on a constructive level unless there's a sense of respect when we have ralles that call people a mik or whatever it is that is not going to accomplish anything in a positive in a positive way and that is really the that was Mar with now again I don't mean this is not an anti talk again some of my best friends are and and I myself identify as as a but it goes on both sides but the reason why I put the bre on but really all religious people is as the expression goes somebody has to be the adult in the room that if we believe in Torah and we believe in the values of Torah and we believe in the teachings of K then we have to seize the initiative to try to eradicate and it's no excuse to say let the other side start first because with that type of attitude we never do anything because each one looks to the other side to take initiative the person that's a mind in and T says this is what I got to do and then we have hashem's promise's statement came for that which we show others they will feel for us as well they will understand if we understand and we're grateful to the Army and to even to the government and to the infrastructure of Med Israel that enables religious Jews to flourish then we would also expect that they would also see the role of Torah learning and the like and there would be this Mutual understanding that we're members of the same team were're on the same page we understand that each other all the different components the learning and the Army and and and all of these different mixtures are contributing to creating a better Society you know I think to myself was it it two years ago and I remember when there was a huge huge rally uh about protesting the decision to take away the uh draft exemption where yes was do again I don't want to get into the policiy of that and this was a huge a huge huge R and brashem it was not it did not degenerate into into name calling it was more or less a kinos subil but I thought to myself what would have been if at the end of this massive rally that by and large was well behaved there would have been a prayer for the in which we say that although it was their position that we have to have full-time Torah learning we acknowledge the role of the I personally think that mashia would have come that that very that very moment that very moment in which we celebrate the Primacy of Torah learning together with gratitude for those who risk their lives for the Medina that would have been it that that there was an opportunity to Mish bring my I I'm not I can't say for sure but that's my feeling to see the good in what everybody is doing you know R cook took it to an extreme maybe one might say R cook R cook even saw people who were doing AOS as contributing to the bilion art okay whatever it would be of cook used to say the Bas of M was destroyed with we bring it back with know unlimited unlimited love and the like you know there's a story about this the great of T certainly in he lived in but as you know is in so every day he would go to BU the gun so uh he was uh in a car with student and the students mentioned he was going up toat to Davin by the sadik by the graves of the sadik so told him if you want to D by the graves of sadik why do you have to go to this didn't say go to he said you could go to MZ and go to the K of who died to protect Jewish people and that's also something that will bring you a great Sur pretty amazing statement didn't even say go to a religious you wouldn't even know necessarily go to that's so this is a delicate you know you know there's kind of a conflict in our personalities in many ways because as we become more religiously observant we tend to become more zealous for the glory of God and we tend to look down at others who are not following in the particular path that we identified as correct that's the nature of a True Believer as Eric haer wrote you know many many years ago conversely when you're a tolerant open personality which is a good thing you might be a little less committed to religious observances I'm okay you're okay you know sure you want me to make a CH for a gay cuple you know sure you know why not you know why not uh the big challenge is so people are you know this or that in their terms of their personality somehow you got to be both at the same time you got to be a person of principle a person of passion a person of commitment and at the same time see the good in others and respect the good in others even if there are pastors way to do it psychologically is to understand that being passionate about Torah includes the and not only way if I'm passionate about Torah learning I'm passionate about chabas I'm passionate about cus I'm also passionate about because that is part of the definition of being a Torah Jew fact there's a famous comment of theit Moshe y TR was a contemporary in the Bas ofat he pointed out a very interesting thing all of us know the Ten Commandments are twoos and one first five are man and God and the second five are now we also know however that the first five have a lot more words than the second five the second five are very short and yet they both cover the same surface area on the tablets so that must mean if fewer words are covering the same surface area it must have been larger engraving the font Engraving must have been larg it must have been larger engraving the font engraving must have been larger so whenu comes down with the and you put on your glasses whether it's the first that were broken but let's see the second and you're squinting in the distance to try to make out what those L say the maid says which Commandments are you going to see first because they were R larger right this is the says there's a medish in t that you know if it wouldn't be a medish I I would not I know I would be scared to say it that quotes was saying there are two things that I love with a 100% full love the Jewish people and the total Lei then proceeded to ask the renish but which do you love more that's a dangerous question right you don't ask a parents which child do you love more not supposed to say that not supposed to go there asked which do you love more and hasem didn't want to answer hasem said I'd rather not answer but he pressed it and he said is even even more than is an amazing and amazing statement and uh although again we don't have permission to compromise but it should make us realize what is is and it's true that says those who hate you God I will also hate but the B already writes that this is a complicated Dynamic there is a simultaneous love and hate at the same time that you may hate the evil that's being done but you love the godliness that is still within that Mish and that has to be treasured and nurtured and identified then we're back to you know it's interesting that uh sometimes a person wants to be zealous for the sake of Heaven I stand up for the glory of God but uh there's a beautiful thought again from R cook there's so much we can learn from R cook uh this is in his commentary to the sitter Olas it's really a very beautiful thought and that is we know that Shimon originally had 18 bras that's why it's called Shimon but later after theban a 19th blessing was added by raban glio in yav yav was where the sanedrin went after thean and this was a braa against the Heretics against the informers against the missionaries this is called against the sectarians and it's not people are still debating exactly who were the people against whom uh this was pregated many say it was the early Christians who were still functioning as Jews within the Jewish Community trying to convert people people uh to their beliefs missionaries apostates informers so thear says that ra identified a need for a br against these people but he didn't know who could write the braa who could write the braa against the meaning so finally he found the author sh hak means the humble and is actually the author of The braa so this is the so would have ask the question what is so difficult identified a need let re write the brother what is so hard to find somebody and if he needs a special person what is so special abouto so we know sh was very very great thear actually says that one time in a group of uh rabbis a boss call came from heaven and said there is one man in this room who deserves to have the rest on him like MOS and everybody in the room looked at they knew he was the one but still what is so difficult about so listen to whatook said cook said is different than every other every other asks for a blessing give us Rua give us Gula give us Yeshua give us parasa this is the only Braha that asks Hashem it's totally devoted to destroying wiping out eradicating you're asking God to punish and disable and Destroy R cook said when you turn to God and you ask for Destruction you cannot be motivated by anger or by hate that is an invalid thought that is a people that is a repugnant thought God does not function or God does not respond to hatred your motivation has to be because you love Hashem and because you love the Jewish people you pray that God remove from the Jewish people those adversaries those enemies that destroy the Jewish people but you're not concentrating per se on I hate this enemy so I want to eradicate it you're concentrating on the need of am is not to be destroyed and your real desire would be you'd rather have the rest to chuba but if they're not going to do Chua then what you need to do so re gumo is saying the following we've suffered so much from apostates informers missionaries Romans who could possibly write a prayer without feeling that hate without feeling that anger nobody can do it all of us have our hatreds and our resentments but we can't come to Hashem that way so this is where sh comes in we don't have a lot of statements from sh but we have one statement in peros which is not even his own statement it's a Mich but the Mich peros says he used to say this was his mission statement this was a statement he said over and over again and the PK that he said over and over again is do not rejoice in the downfall of your enemy Reverend gel said concludes rev cook he is the only person who can write a brother asking God to destroy enemies because he's not motivated out of hate he is motivated out of a love for Amel and ra used to say salvic that in order to be a true Zealot for God's honor you have to hate what you're doing if you love what you're doing if you love to expose the shortcomings of others if you love to kind of pry into the soft underbelly of potential appor if you love to expose others shortcomings and find another line of work the true kanoi gets no joy in AOS in bad things he prays and he loves the people that are even sitting and hopes those in chba and does what he can to bring them closer to God but when you need to protest and it's unavoidable you do it with reluctance you don't have a good time doing it and he compared legitimate K with illegitimate to a housewife who buys a cat because there are mice in the house the housewife and the cat have a common agenda that if there are mice you have to get rid of them but the housewife would be much happier if there were no mice the cat would be sorely disappointed there's a certain canos that loves to find fault that bre a cynicism that breeds a certain coarseness an inability to have an ey in TOA an inability to see the good in what people are doing and that's going to come back and haunt the person because even within his own religious affiliation he's not going to see the good because he's so used to being hyper critical and Hyper negative except of course when he comes to himself because often the desire to expose the shortcomings of others is much much easier than looking at ourselves and what we need to correct so sounds like I'm giving much I mean I'm talking you know to myself and and this is something that uh is very much an aoda that I have to work on and I I don't mean at all to imply any fault or any guilt or any culpability on the part of of other people but it is something that we need to think about and of course it even translates not only in the global or national issues of how we relate to different people but it applies to our families to our spouses to our children it applies on all levels in terms of how we try to connect to people and how we try to make it and how we try to be positive all of this is our aspects of that is when we create these these barriers let me just uh end with uh one uh one other one other thoughts that RB sodok after he gives two explanations one explanation I I Shar with you more or less that uh the three weeks are to be Ming uh Speech hearing and perception K but he gives another thought that the three weeks are designed you know before you put up a building the very first thing you have to do is clear the building site of debris and junk right get rid of all the junk so the three weeks are clearing the building site clear clearing out our heart from all of the garbage so that we can make our heart and soul a dwelling place for God and the garbage of the Soul says is what tells us k k is jealousy TAA is lust for heathenistic material sensual pleasure and cavod is seeking glory and ego gratification they destroy a person these are the giml these are the three forces that destroy a soul and the three weeks are designed to enable us to work on these three negative forces now R further makes a very interesting comparison in which he says that this symbolically represents the three impure people who are supposed to be expelled from the Bas of Mikes in in paraso in the beginning of midor we read that there are three tum that are expelled from the B the mikdash one is the leper the MS the other is the zav the person that has a goral discharge and the third is a someone who has come in contact with a dead body so explains the mits corresponds to jealousy why is this so because the mits gets his Sarat because of the sin of lush and Har but L har is really a symptom why do I speak evil about other people it often comes because of a sense of jealousy and insecurity and a sense of inadequacy in terms of what God gave me meaning if somebody if I perceive somebody as smarter than me stronger than me richer than me prettier than me whatever it would be so that gives me a certain discomfort that gives me a certain insecurity that gives me a certain bad feeling why are they up there and I'm down here so one of the psychological mechanisms we have to readjust the balance is I want to pull them down you think you're so ready I'll tell you something about that so the of says actually comes from jealousy and jealousy in turn comes from an internal insecurity that one does not appreciate their own self worth one does not appreciate what God has given them right so when we banish the we're talking about banishing jealousy when you want it to come close to has the which is a Garo discharge is obviously connected to an overabundance of tyba and that represents the idea that although Hashem does not want us to be aesthetic and renounce normal pleasure but if we get overly invested in the gmas world of material pleasure that diminishes our spiritual sensitivity right so m equals k z equals now T is a little less obvious but he connects it to why because and were originally supposed to live forever but death came into the world because of the of the and wants to learn that the E enticements of the eat from the was the line if you eat from this fruit you will be Godlike Yoda to ver Masters over good and evil it's a god pill the ultimate ego trip take this pill you'll be God well that's pretty impressive you know that's a very very tempting type of offering and in many many ways human beings are Godlike we are created in the image of God that does not mean a physical image but we have intelligence creativity Free Will moral autonomy we create we dest D we are Godlike the great challenge of human beings is not to take our Godlike attributes and become arrogant be filled with uas to understand that ultimately everything comes from Hashem and that is why death came into the world because death is the ultimate reminder that with all of our power we're not God there is a unbridgeable gap Chasm between the B the Creator and the so every time we encounter death every time we become aware of our morality it is a reminder that Cod destroys Cod destroys and that is why the purification from the Tuma of death is through the ashes of paruma now I'm not going to explain paruma per se but the concept of Ashes because ashes is a symbol of humility modesty and submission like abrah ainu said death came into the World by arrogance and G we are liberated from Death by humility and submission but the T mat represents the the negative effects of GAA and arrogance and K so therefore kin of a are mirrored in and now it gets more complicated I'm not do that tonight because the three tumas have different levels of camps they're excluded from and Subic beautifully works that out as well but for our purposes this is maspic but I just want to end with this thought R writes that Cod is a double- Ed sword on one hand C is the worst me of all and on the other hand it's the most necessary for Spiritual Le if a person feels they are nothing at all then they will not think their mitzvos have any value so side by side in the famous statement of R it's not a medis people call 19th century alism the person has to have two ideas in their pockets all the time I am dust and Ashes I am nothing without I am nothing at all I am dirt and in the other pocket hasem made many cows and many dogs and many CS but he only made either one human being or one man and one woman depending and the lesson there is the whole universe is Justified for one person for me now that's not going to lead to arrogance because the same way the whole universe was created just for me it was also created just for you so this is not going to be an arrogant thought but it's an uplifting thought a person has to know that they're significant know that they matter and that in turn actually helps in because as they say a lot of times we put other people down because of an inner insecurity in not recognizing our own value so part of is also To Love Yourself to appreciate yourself to understand that you have unique and special qualities and then when you admit when you acknowledge that in yourself you then become more open to see it in others without perceiving that as a threat against who you are because you have too you have also so I can see what someone else think andok's words are very beautiful he says just as a person must believe in Hashem he must believe in himself because what type of God would put you in the world and give you a mission and not give you the tools to be able to do that and if you're alive right as The Story Goes every morning you open your eyes you check the obituary to see if you're supposed to get up this morning and if the answer is yes so you get up so what is the creator of the world telling you you have a reason you have a purpose you have a mission I have confidence in you I have so when we get up in the morning that's the message that we are getting from the highest possible Source from the itself that he has Faith say that the phrase which is taken from your faith is great so really if I'm saying I believe in God I should say my faith is great why do I say your faith is great so okay I me grammatically actually there's another answer to this inak does not mean faith it means dependability reliability and faithfulness okay that's me that's that's the grammatical answer but taking amuna in the colloquial term of Faith the thought is R God's your faith in me is great and therefore I will try to live a life where I will repay that Faith you have faith in me I'm going to try to make that Faith Justified so I hope that for all of us this will be the last Tish and as tells us these days will become days of days of redemption days of Joy days of peace and may it be preparen amen you know