Shem and Avram vs. Today's Nimrod with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz

Heat. Heat. [music] [singing] [music] >> [singing] >> Is he [music] [music and singing] [singing] cradle of and the Okay. And the um the cradle of civilization which is Mesopotamia. Okay. And then in addition to that we find a western a western countries the countries of Europe and then the African countries. So we span basically from Iran, Persia and the gateway which is gateway to the east, the far east all the way to western Europe, east west and then somewhat north into Europe and then Turkey and Europe and the Balk that Balkans area and then south uh which is from Egypt going downward to Kush in those areas. Who got what? Well, if the Shemmites got the um area of Mesopotamia and Aritus Israel, cradle civilization, because remember, don't forget that the ark rested on Mount Ararat, which is clearly in Turkey, and that's from where they emerged. That's where the starting point was. But you don't have to learn that they stayed there and all mankind stayed together until Nimrod arrives, emerges on the scene. I like to suggest that Pericud is the story of the first settlement of the earth which Nimrod then comes to erase. Let's see. In other words, Noah had a plan. He gave out three districts. um Middle East including arch Israel Europe and Europe goes all the way till Iran and then comes Mitsim and Africa the land of the cursed land as we see in this week's para that sur was so beautiful and Aram says listen these people here in Africa starting with the Egyptians they're not quite all black like Erits Kush which is Ethiopia just below but they haven't they're they're dark and sworthy They're they're the brothers of Cananan who was cursed, okay, to be in a in a uh slaveike position. We know ironically and sadly the slaves came from Africa. Not that it's their fault, but there was implications for mankind. And Noah, this is what he did. He put them in Africa. He said this unit here is not going to be the ones who will carry forward the tradition of Adam and Shem. Shem's children will carry it on. They'll be the light to the world and they will elevate all of the human beings in the world to their highest heights. But it's not going to come for a person like Nimrod whose whose essential roots go back are are part of the family of Kam which is certainly not the origin of good. But as we mentioned in different occasions, the remnants of the generations pre-mobble which survived only in the form of na who came from the children of cen wife of Noah which mingled in to shame and found its unfortunate expression of evil in the ta by kam and cananan who have cananan secondarily. They carry forward the seed of cayenne which needs rectification. Okay. Now listen to the words of the paric. It says told us who are he was the actual physically oldest go that should sound pretty familiar like go gee where is that? Some suggest as far as Russia, some suggest Germany, some suggest a combination of the European nations plus other people. Then Madai which is clearly Media close to Persia. Yavan Greece which is on the Mediterranean. Tuval Vameas Rash identifies as Persia. So from Western Europe which is as far as France and Germany everyone and possibly as far as Spain at this point even till Iran is the domain of the sons of Ye but not just that and of course we have more Ben Gome Ashkenaz that's real northern Germany reastorma toa could be Spain and then Yavan who's the Mediterranean one branch Elicia which is Cyprus Tarsish which is North Africa Kitimodanim are the islands in the Mediterranean Europe Europe and all the way to Iran and Persia are Indo are Euro Euro Asians these are European nations they are the progeny that come out of of um Yees primarily Christian secondarily Islam only in the later eras Now, wait. Languages. Languages. I thought languages are only after the the sin of the tower of could be that yes, it's talking about the future. Or it could be that this process started early. In other words, people were making their way out to these destinations. Ye children came to a place called Yavan and they populated it some of them and some went to Iran and some went to Ashkenaz and they were beginning to develop that way until Nimrod interfered in the process and decided uh uh uh we are not dispersing. We are going to aggregate and bring everybody to what it was right by the emergence from the TA. We're going to turn the clock back 300 years till the day after the flood when everybody was together and let's see if we can build a world that does not require the teachings of Noah Sadic and Shame and A who came from them. We're gonna build a world based on our will, based on gi based on military strength, based on pursuit of power. And that's why Nimrod stands face to face against Abrainu who is the Yores of Shem and from whom the voice of Hashem would stand up to the world. Now, if that's the case, what happened to the children of Kam? So, as I mentioned, look at the names. Kush Ethiopia Mitsim that's in Africa putan so that's Africa eastern it would be called eastern Africa going down till and it says Benushabila shva malashvah we assume is even south of Ethiopia could be what is known as Somalia today or even further into Africa and then all of a sudden Nimro. So you have to say without any shadow of a doubt that Kush is the father of Nimrod and therefore geographically they're Africans. Okay, beautiful place to live. Could have been a wonderful existence except things did not go as planned. Continue the puk. It says that he says g nimro like his name rebellion rebelss against hashem and that rebellion against hashem impacted the entire spreading out of the world. Yaf's children expanding shem's children expanding. Who's interfering? The children of Kam, Kush, Nimrod, and the Canananite nations, they want out of Africa. They want in to the land of Shem and beyond. They want to take control. And this is exactly what happened is that it says um he tricked people. He turned them against hem. He knows God except he knows the truth and he's rebelling against God. What are you going to Baba for? You come from Kush. You are a Kushite. You belong in Kush. What are you doing going thousand miles away and going to the land of Bavl? The Eric Akad. You know if you're a scholar in university, you know about Aadian. Aadian is the people and the language that they want to compare to Hebrew. Oh yeah. Everything that's in he in ancient Hebrew is in Aadian and Aadian is Hebrew and Aadian. I don't know. I'm not that type of that type of scholar. But I know enough to know that those were Semitic countries Kait Shinar which is clearly Mesopotamia and Iraq. Now so where is NA going there? Because that's where the real superstars of God's creation and the hope of mankind exist. Shinaz tell us is the place where all the bodies of the Mabble fell in there and Nimrod chose that place to build this tower which was a defiance against Hashem building another uh bringing another marble. He said once every 656 years these are all open midrashim and rash. know them. If not know them, you're hearing them now. That so let's build foundations for the heavens so God will not bring upon us another marble. Now we at kipshuto will accept the kipshuto that that's exactly what he said or we can understand it a little bit more broadly and say the philosophy of nimrod goes we cut out god we unify man we ex we find our technological power. He discovered the bricks which was a tremendous breakthrough technologically to build incredible breakthrough and weaponry and uh we are going to control the universe. Mankind will not be split into nations here and there and a little Cyprus and a little Yavan and a little Germany with all different cultures and no world unity. The first world government that ever was proposed was proposed by Nimrod and he was rebelling actively against Hashem in doing so. He placed himself at the center of civilization in the future homelands of the usa of the children of Afrainu. Okay, which would later include Ishmael. But there were some who resisted. Who resisted? And I'll tell you ah Assyria even as Ninevea the great city of Nineve was built as a rebellion against the revolt of Nimro. They wanted to stay close to Hashem. They wanted to follow the traditions of Noah, Shem and Ather. God bless them. Okay. And so we find that there was a further deterioration. It says the patimas. All these nations were part of the progyny of Egypt. That's African, right? The aeratum escaptor. The pishim and the kafur are generally the ones that we assume invaded the land of Israel, which is what the rest of the Canananites did too. As Kazal tell us that the nations of Cananan did not belong in the land of Israel. It's not their territory. Stay in Africa. Stay in the beautiful dark continent. Well, I call the rich continent you know lush continent wellwatered continent at least in those days and mit don't come here. Don't come into the kenim into the substation where the Semites are where the children of Shem and later Abram would be. No. Cananan says I'm taking over what Erit Israel. Nothing has changed until today. We're dealing with the same at least in name. Isn't that amazing? Theim emerge out of Mitim, but they're closely associated anyway. Says a very sad thing. It says, listen to the puk. It says out, it says out of the patim and theim auishim. The pishim came out of there. What do you mean they came out of there? They're the children, aren't they? They came out of there. They came out of there because we couldn't determine their parents, says Rashi. It was so mixed up between the husbands and the wives. It was a little dorha going on over there where everybody was trading and the partnership was not clear. The whole thing that the tava came to correct to put everything straight to straighten out the world to set the axis back 90° which is the eventual position where it's going to go. I tried to straighten out the world and Nimrod comes to make it more crooked and he and his fellow uh Benam come and say no no no we're not accepting this. We're going to create one world and we're going to be the ones in control of it. An unfortunate thing. So the uh the that is all the introduction to the story of the door. And when it says in the beginning of I'd like to suggest it doesn't mean that they only spoke one language could mean that but it means that they had the same philosophy. They all wanted to quote to put the power in the hands of the people not in the hands of God. Now Hashem as we know it doesn't look unkindly at Afus. He kind of favors Afos. They liked it a lot better than the hash and of the dormab. Not everybody was corrupt. They were idealistic like the original communists and boleviks. We're going to have an ideal nirvana existence. We're not going to have money and we're going to have kibbutim and we're going to have everything and it's going to be so beautiful except that when the Russians introduce that or any other leftist or socialist country or as in candidate Mani is trying to introduce to New York we know ultimately it fails because it leaves Hashem out of the question out of the equation and denies the reality of Hashem in favor of self-made human-loving liberalist principles of equality. and fortune which are not never going to be able to hold the boundary and separate between to var which mani most certainly cannot do maybe not all his fault his wife is probably a bigger antennite than he is and you know showing bias and all that but I think that we're looking at in the week ahead a a great great challenge to this concept of will the world follow the plan of Noah which eventually becomes the handing of the baton from the children of Noah particularly Shem and Aber over to Clal Israel to straighten the world out or will it fall to the likes of Nimrod who wish to push Hashem's existence out of the world and bring the lowest possible behaviors to corrupt and destroy in the name of mankind's technological unity and um and that's all that we left. We saw it in Soviet Russia. It didn't work out too well usually and we saw it in Venezuela. It doesn't work out too well any type even the kibbutim they never lasted. They were good concepts. Hashem didn't say that they were horrible. He didn't put them to death. He didn't wipe them off the face of the world. He says I love Akus. I love the generation of Akab which won every war even though they were wicked and evil. But I like the concept of aus because hashem is aus and he says if people are united and good to each other or somewhat good to each other I'll look away from their selfish or evil acts but to a point not if they're in open rebellion against me. Hashem will tolerate it. He spread them out. He said maybe by creating distance and by separating languages which not only means the uh the in terms of linguistics but also in terms of philosophies. In other words, you can one group can speak democracy, one group can speak socialism, one group can speak communism, another could speak atheism, another one could speak confucism. I don't care. They let them have all their deote. Let them have all their languages, but let them not unify to rebel against Hashem. Now, what have we seen? Therefore, and I I want to just add [snorts] to this to this thesis about the the pre the precedence of peric to perk yudracious is that we see these themes playing out today. First of all, the same nations, the European nations from Gog Mog's area till Tros, which is Iran, are one team actually even though Media and Iran turned to Islam, but they are not Arabs. They're not Semites, they're not Benish, just maybe in terms of the religion and there's a little bit of a merger there, but European in nature. They call themselves Iran, which means Aryan, which they took from Germany. They're much more associated with Germany than they are with Saudi Arabia. I'm sorry. And their religion is much closer, their form of Islam is much closer to Catholicism than it is in many ways to Sunni Islam, which is pure monotheistic and doesn't allow for any combinations of of personality cult in in a religion that gave a nod to paganism, which Christianity does. Okay. But let's take a look at another angle. All right. [clears throat] It says Noah found. So in his rebar pointed out I I mean I'm going to point out this is my question. I'll tell you what he answered. It says that Rashi Rashi brings that when there's hash when the world breaks down its boundaries when it's not straight when it's crooked when things are not where they're supposed to be partners with not with the one men mixed up with another then what cause what happens is andosia a a natural disaster comes whether you want to call it hurricane Katrina whether you want to call it whatever you want to call it the marble itself is a natural disaster and it doesn't distinguish between righteous and unrighteous people. If you sat in New Orleans when Katrina came, it didn't make a bit of difference if you were at Sadic or you were Russia, you got blown away. You got washed away. So, how did Noah survive? He might have been at Sadi, but what does that matter? It's a moble. And when there's a moble, Sadic and Russia, Rashi himself says, are going to get wiped out. So, how did Noah survive? And who needs Noah anyway? Hashem could have easily created a new being. Start all over again. Take somebody new. Create another man. Doesn't have to be continuation through Noah. Who says? Who says? It's just one person. What would be so hard to start over? You came almost started over just one little ta. So why not start all over? What was so special about Noah? Because it says at the end of safer end of braces there was a principle called now if you realize and are the same word just inverted the same letters Noah is as if to say Noah in his essence found favor in Hashem. Why? What was the what is when when a person has right who else had Esther Esther Hamala had somehow there was an appeal there was something about her that made people feel good that made people feel loved and accepted and then she knew how to speak and she knew just what to say and just what not to say charming I'll call it charm call Call it um a certain diplomacy. Call it a a gift of how to win friends and influence people. Mo had that gift. I'll give you a story to illustrate. Now I'll mention the yorts had a very special woman that from her life emerges this story about and her name was Jennifer Frank Sar baso who died in the prime of her life at age 36 but she has a very interesting story which demonstrates the Indian of very very much I believe she had a lot of and let's learn from her story she was a grew up in a in a in a orthodox home and went through a very unfortunate accident as a child in which she was running and caught her neck on a line that was separating from a wet cement. It was some sort of a metal line or something and she was knocked unconscious lost her caused brain damage which lowered her intelligence and her ability to speak. a little girl and she was therefore in yeshiva when she was sent to yeshiva couldn't keep up with the other girls would say things that didn't make sense because she had a co cognitive damage until in third grade her wonderful father started to give her some sort of reading therapy and we know that the brain is especially for young people has a lot of what they call neuroplasticity neuroplasticity is the ability to reform itself, reformulate itself, uh, fix itself as it were, and she started to come around and by fifth grade she was right back on par with all the other students. It's a miracle in itself, but because of her difficult childhood, she was was a bit of a rebel and ran into problems in high school. had to leave different schools to go here, go there. You know what they call a you know troubled kid until such a point where she had done something which was a very serious uh problem involving u uh damage to school property, setting a fire or something along those lines. Something that was uh worthy of jail time and in ju in court. and uh she was brought into court and the judge did something incredible. He said to her and to her family, "You have an amazing attorney." There was an attorney who was a friend of the family pleaded this girl's case that she shouldn't go to prison for what she had done. It was criminal mischief. It was worse. And this lawyer, Jewish lawyer, I don't know his name, but was just brilliant. and he had he found favor in the eyes of this judge. The judge says, "If not for your attorney, this girl would be behind bars. I've had girls who did a lot less than this one than this Sara who was also behind bars in this week's para taken by taken by parro." And I would have put her in jail, but not this attorney. He f his arguments found favor in my eyes. And therefore, I'm going to release her to probation. But not only that, not just probation. I'm gonna let her skip the remainder of high school and go straight to community college. What an opportunity of right if not for that lawyer who knew how to address the din the the severe judgment and sweeten it which is that's the job of all of our sadikim to be our lawyers to sweeten the judgments that come out against us. And they got her this opportunity of a lifetime to go straight to college and begin her life again two years later. there. It was a community college. The family was called in and was told, "Your daughter is the most outstanding student in the entire hundred, maybe thousands of students, and we're going to choose her to represent our school, which was NASA Community College to Albany to receive a special prizer award. She was the most outstanding all-around student. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant girl." This is from a girl who had brain damage in her youth and couldn't read in third grade. You understand? And somehow she got Hashem took away the din and gave and is a remarkable ingredient because it overcomes even disasters. We see just as she avoided a disaster in her own life and we don't know which direction her life would have gone. Noah did the same. Noah survived. He had that mid of and when somebody has they tap dance around din even greater than a regular sadic at the end of braces where it says doesn't call noic of course he was a sadic but that's not the point that would have gone down with the boat but somebody who has and that's what how Esther talked to she says mati remember all the language that she used in the migilla. She just was able to get this angry um bipolar in insane person addict akash to grant her the baton of mercy. That's exactly what we needed and that's exactly what we need today. And she went on to become a criminologist and a detective who did daring projects with the Mossad and also with American investigative uh agencies on behalf of the United States. And she even interacted with Erdogan who was the head of Turkey who considered her a confidant and an adviser even though she was really a double agent working on behalf of the side of good. But she was able to find in that dictator's eyes. So much so that when he had a critical situation that she advised him what to do and he says you should tell your people to write such and such a letter and it's in the interest of your security or economics. He said I want Jennifer Sara to write the letter herself. This is Erdogan. no great fan of the Jewish people of the the leader of Turkey who was a Islamist um and huge supporter of Kamas but she found favor in this man's eyes and he trusted her implicitly this is the great gift of and in his first Torah speaks about the idea of he says the Jewish people have lost their sadly in the eyes of the world we're viewed with disdain and not we need to regain our and this is will restore the power of our tilos and our ability to influence the world. Nimrod in his power was able to hold sway and shower disdain among the children of Noah of the Semite or origin including the the Jewish people including Araminu but Aram ultimately would regain that. That's our tilos for this week, for this year of Gishm led our full [snorts] escape from the horrors of these past two years and the and the to see the of Israel restored the tough which is the year of punishment of our enemies uh come to fruition as it did in the times of Akash as it did in times of Esther as it did in times of Arau. We should be blessed in our personal lives to find and he should find our deeds pleasing and our pleasing. Know how to talk to Hashem. Know how to charm Hashem and speak to him in ways that says in your own words using your own. And that is going to be a shortcut to success that even a normal and great sodic cannot accomplish. But Israel as a whole and individually can if we learn how to be. So added what is the key to never to anger to stay calm to be pleasing not to show fear aggression worry but to be calm. Esther in front of a think of that. Think of her, right? This mad [clears throat] man who could execute her at any second and she stood in with sweet and pleasing words because she had a this is what Hashem would want her to do and she rescued our entire nation. We should be to find our we should launch into a magical month of Gashem and keep your umbrellas handy. Have a wonderful wonderful week. Heat. Heat. [music] [singing] [music] [singing] He [music] [singing] sh [music and singing]