Weekly Torah Portion Parsha Ki Tisa (The golden calf, idolatry) with Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz

[Music] hi everybody and again I want to Echo I hope everyone did have a wonderful and inspiring uh porm and uh we hope that uh the porm should be the opening towards Redemption and Gula just as it was in the days of morai and and Esther and of course uh Adar is always the precursor to the month of Nissan andal tell us we were redeemed in the month of Nissan and the Redemption shall take place in the month of Nissan how you reconcile that with the idea that mashia can come every single day is an interesting question on one hand kazal talk about Nissan as the month of Redemption on the other hand one of the 13 principles of faith is that I wait for the mashia every single day but but but the short answer is that mashiah can come every day of the year except of course on chabas yam and AR shabas also he won't come uh but there are certain times that are more auspicious there are certain times that are called y ratson times of Grace times of extra ra and the month of Nissan is certainly that and we're entering towards that period a be as it may uh we took a Hiatus last week to talk a little bit about porim uh but now I just want to focus in a general way on some aspects regarding the Mitzvah of construction constructing the mishkan because uh one cannot deny that the Torah gives an extraordinary amount of detail regarding the construction of the mishkan and there's a great deal of redundance apparent redundancy as well because for example you know we were given the whole description when God commands it to Moshe and then we're given the whole description when it's carried out now very often the T could simply say and butel did everything that God told Moshe there's no need to go through the entire thing over and over again in in fact if you study it carefully you will actually see that in various amounts of detail the description of the Michigan appears no fewer than five times uh in the book of Exodus and you know really you could have derived everything from the first mentioned and it goes over and over and over again as a general rule let me just make two points about that uh first one of the ideas of repetition in the Torah is that repetition signifies a great love that God has for a certain process so things are repeated over and over again to emphasize how cherished and Beloved the idea is to God uh but the point I want to focus on is a very very interesting M Rashi and the ramban regarding chronological sequencing now a lot of people find chronology not the most interesting topic but here uh it actually is a fairly interesting discussion uh if you read the Kash it seems that God gave Moshe all of The Commandments about the mishan while he was still at Mount Si for 40 days he then comes down sees the golden calf and this week's para smashes the lot goes up and prays for the Jewish people finally comes down on yum kipor with the second uh tablet and then the day after yam kipur he gives them the Commandments gives B the Commandments to build the mishun and that's when they start building in other words if you simply followed the chronological sequence of the Torah Moshe was given the commandment and the details before the sin of the golden calf although they didn't get around to doing it till after the sin of the golden calf was forgiven that's exactly the sequence in the Kish itself and that is how understands it right raban simply says Moses mosha was given the Commandment in the first 40 days but Theo was kind of an interruption in carrying this out and they couldn't go forward until you know you have to live right so mosha had to guarantee that they would be forgiven and then they start building it the day after yam kipur right this is U the normal sequence Rashi somewhat surprisingly has a radically different interpretation of this whole story Rashi applies the principle that's already in the talmud the Torah does not always follow chronological sequence and Rashi says the whole Commandments of mish was only given after the sin of the golden calf and after the of the golden calf was forgiven meaning you have to rip out take parum and the first OFA rip it out where it is put it after the and the Torah is totally out of sequence now Rashi does not offer any particular explanation for why he says that so there are different ways of understanding Rashi or at least the approach of Rashi I'm going to mention three Quicky approaches approach number one is that of the sorno the sorno was a great Italian uh commentator at the time of the Renaissance he was not directly explaining Rashi but he follows the same view as Rashi and offers an explanation the sorno says as wonderful and as magnificent as a mishun is it is actually a monument to a certain level of spiritual failure meaning in an Ideal World God is approachable everywhere every place is a Bas of MC this let it be your backyard uh there's no need to go to a designated place there's no need to have special people do it there's there should be no need to have a unique ritual all of those things on one level they're a sign of closeness that God is giving us the ability to connect to him on the other level it is a sign of distance boundaries containments limitation the sorno says had there not been the sin of the golden calf there would have been no need for a mishun and by extension there would have been no need for a Bas on mikash itself because everywhere would be equally accessible now I'm not sure how that would what that would mean I'm not sure but at least is as good as every everything is good and therefore the way the way the sorno understands and this is an a possible explanation for Rashi had there this is kind of a h hypothetical Torah had there not been a sin of the golden calf there would not have been a mishan at all the mishan according to Rashi was a response to Theo in the sense that we were no longer worthy of the notion of unlimited access God in his Mercy accepted our repentance accepted our chuba God in his Mercy did not destroy us God in his Mercy kept the covenants and God in his Mercy gave us a way to connect to him all of that is wonderful but there are now boundaries there are now limitations there are now so to speak office hours and you know different people come at different times and therefore the mishkan is a magnificent Monument to spiritual inadequacy as it were that came as a result of the now obviously ramban has a very different view since the ramban does not accept in this context he sees the mishkan as something intrinsically good that even had there not been a golden cap we would have had the mishkan the Kish is that even after the golden calf hasem didn't take it away from us but not that the golden calf was the reason why we had a a mishkan this is the approach of the sorno uh which could be offered as an explanation for Rashi now there's a second approach that's much earlier than Sao in fact it's earlier than Rashi and this is revi in the kusari ri in the kusari points out a very interesting point that if you look at the sin of the golden calf all of the Ron make this point that the sin of the golden calf was not pure idolatry it wasn't simply they thought that this thing that they made somehow was their God that created heaven and earth in fact it's very clear from The Narrative that the agel was viewed not as a substitute for Hashem but it was viewed as a substitute for mosha what happened Moshe rabenu was up at Mount sa for 40 days and there was some miscalculation when he was supposed to go come down so they thought mosha was dead wasn't coming back and they didn't think Moshe was God because the p says says Moshe it's almost a Superfluous word Moshe the man is not here we have to make now it does say kumu Elohim let us make for ourselves a God but but you understand the word Elohim and I say Elohim because obviously in the context of the ago we're not referring to the almighty Elohim is a bit of an ambiguous term it does not always refer to God for example judges are called Elohim Elohim are powers that have a certain shalita or control over nature or even over the Affairs of man so the concept was this R says says that the of Isel or at least those who wanted the golden cap wanted something was that they perceived of mosha rabeno as a spiritual intermediary they could not connect to a god without material uh definition to an incorpor God they thought they were not worthy uh they were frightened of God you see this from Matan Tor itself when they're hearing hearing the Commandments and they tell Moshe you you talk to God we'll just hear it from from you and when Moshe is gone they panicked and they thought they needed some type of physical spiritual channeling now we don't quite understand the process because the agel is an inanimate object but somehow they saw this as a spiritual Channeler via a material representation fact ramban goes on and even explains that if you look at the NES which describes God's Celestial Throne the celestial Chariot the mova so you will recall it has four faces on the Chariot there is the face of the ox there is the face of the Lion there is the face of the eagle and there is the face of the human being and basically God's divine power gets channeled through these different faces to where they needs to go and the ramban says that mystically and the raban was one of the first commentators who openly used cabala in his commentary mystically since the ox is a creature that can graze in the desert so to speak uh the ax represents God's div Divine protection in desert conditions so they thought somehow this would be a channeling Force so it's not a vodar mamash they believed in the supreme god but they thought they needed some physical intermediary channeling mechanism and the process is something that we quite do not really quite understand but there is this notion of concentrating Divine energy through a physical object which is a representation of an aspect of God's Celestial Throne so here's what rud Lei says it's a very interesting idea rud Ley says that when a person demonstrates a certain weakness or inadequacy all though it would have been better not to have that weakness God will give him a substitute uh to concede as it were to the weakness that exists and therefore Hashem said I will give you you a physical mishkan that can serve the role of a material channeling and not only that but in the middle of the holy of holies I'm going to give you something that resembles a form of idolatry what what what what do you see when you walk into the KES you have the arodes and the arodes is covered with a gold cover called the kores and on top of the gold cover are the two kin two cherubs two cherubic like uh images of children so on one hand the Torah is so much against physical representations of God so much against AAR that's the biggest one of the biggest it is the biggest of all and yet in the holy of holies we have statues we have things that look like Idols because the Keri says a very important psychological point if human beings have needs God will give a way way to satisfy those needs even if the need is a sign of weakness or inadequacy and it would have been better to transcend that need the problem is don't do it by yourself do it by virtue of divine command the agel was B Israel's own attempt to circumvent relationship to God God says you need the crutch I'll give you the crutch but I will give you the crutch and I will Define the crutch don't do it your self now what's interesting is the gamar inul says this even applies in something as mundane as food the says every type of try food that you're not allowed to eat there is something kosher that tastes just like it mens one fish there's an exception a certain uh uh fish in Spain uh nothing like that right okay but everything else right so when people say you know U when they start making mock shrimp and mock all these different things so some people say oh you know I shouldn't eat that what I'm supposed to make leave I'm eating tra well there actually is a point a little bit somebody actually somebody told me they once went to the buser rebi uh this is the the old bus rebby was ni a few years ago I merited to uh be very close to him when I was in Boston many many years ago so somebody wanted a zealous person wanted to complain about the M shrimp and he says I need to talk to the rebi about the mack shrimp are very concerned and the rebi said yeah it tastes pretty good I mean you know ahead of time I'm sure the Reby didn't really care about it one way or the other but he wanted to make a point that you know you don't have to begrudge people enjoying certain things and thear says everything that God takes away this is an important lesson in parenting you take something away you got to give something in return right to live to be a religious Jew sometimes has so many restrictions so many limitations so many things you can't do and indeed very often it's necessary to keep away from things but we have to ask ourselves what do we give what can we give right one should be careful not to become overly user with everything because if all you do is take away eventually a person's Spirit gets broken they lose their Joy they lose their enthusiasm and then Shalom they'll throw the whole thing off if that's all it took then why didn't Hashem give us the the the cherubs before the golden Camp before we made the golden the concept seems to be the concept seems to be that God again this is always the conundrum of God knowing the future but God wanted to give us the chance to live by the higher ideal when we demonstrated we couldn't he says okay uh I I see that you're not ready for that higher level I'll give you the lower level it's kind of I don't want to call it a game because in some ways God knows the outcome that's always going to be a problem but God runs the world I don't want to say the illusion of free will that that that's a little bit of a strong phrase but God runs the world on the basis of giving us a chance to Aspire to the highest ideal even though he knows that we're not going to get there so this is the kery so instead of looking at the mishkan as God saying I'm putting a distance between you the kuzari looks at it in almost the other way God is saying if you have a disability I will compensate for your disability it's kind I will make it wheelchair accessible so to speak meaning I will give you what you need based on your weaknesses and that's an important that's an important idea because in many many ways this is how we have to be as parents as teachers uh to kind of understand that when people have needs emotional needs there has to be some way within Torah and Judaism that those emotional needs get addressed in some way within a Hally permissible way I can just tell you this is often an issue with you know people who are were not religious and they're becoming religious that often there's kind of an in sometimes an internal pressure and sometimes an external pressure to kind of give up all of the pre Chua activities which were very very meaningful to them now obviously some things you have to give up if somebody was a a strip dancer whatever it is mean some some things you're not going to be able to do in its purest form so to speak but people were musicians people were poets people uh did did writing and they're kind of so no you can't do that anymore you have to uh learn and Doin and don't write poetry whatever it is that's normally a fairly destructive appr apprach because if a person has discovered things in life that give them deep satisfaction there should be ways within Torah that those uh aspects be nurtured and be encouraged and be developed and then they become part of how you serve God and part of how you glorify Hashem with the talents and the interests that Hashem has given you a talent and an interest is not necessarily something that you're supposed to squelch or avoid it is something that one can celebrate and then bring it in to the mascera to the framework of how you serve right so this is the approach of the kar they needed visualization Hashem gave them a kind of visualization the appearance of channeling and and the like uh now the third view is uh the simplest view really and you know it's it's it's not necessarily a separate View and this is the view of the medish rabba and the medish rabba says yeah the AEL a response to the golden calf only in the sense that because the Jewish people sinned Hashem had to give them a tangible sign of his love to show forgiveness meaning there is a concept that Hashem couldn't just say I forgive you so to speak but there needed to be this physical sign because this reassured us of the essence of divine love now the sad shave the common denominator of support Corno R and the medish is that the mishan is a response to the as opposed to ramban that says there would have been a mishan even had there not been this is an interesting example of whether we apply the principle now the Mish goes into many many details some of which we had already discussed previously uh so I'm not I'm not going to repeat it I just want to mention a few isolated observations uh the very first thing that is mentioned that that had to be constructed was the ark the arodes right the arodes was constructed and the arodes will contain the luos the tablets and in fact the gar explains that the arodes that was in the mishkan not only contained the second tablets that were whole it actually contained The Broken Pieces of the first the gamar then derives a very very beautiful lesson from this it says if you have a great who has forgotten his learning due to age dementia s cility you must still honor him and respect him for even the brok L that no longer contains the Torah we're given a place of honor and this goes back to a a kind of a mystical idea that the Torah does not just enter the brain the Torah that a person learns enters their soul so even if a person does not consciously remember the information a person cannot retrieve the information the Torah that connected them to Hashem still connects them their Nish is still elevated this is why you may have had the experience yourself when you have um God forbid uh good sweet righteous people who unfortunately uh have Alzheimer's and they may not even recognize you but the sweetness which exemplified their life continues to exist because it is in their soul it is not necessarily in in their mind I I I know myself I had an aunt who uh who was a very very lovely and loving uh person and uh the last few years of life she had Alzheimer's and one rashash I just got a call from her daughter she wanted to bring her aunt and come over for rashash It's Kind kind of strange because the aunt wasn't going out very much and they showed up for rashash and I don't think my aunt recognized me I I don't think she knew who I was maybe occasionally there you know glimmers of recognition but you know she insisted on clearing the table and washing the dishes and uh the sweet person that she had always been when she was well she continued to be sweet even when she was impaired and that's kind of the T who forgets his learning is still a repository of the Torah now as you may know many of you probably know this uh there was no arodes in the second B of Mikes uh the AR AES and luos only existed in the first B mikash and uh what happened was Yos one of the last righteous Jewish Kings before Nadar came and destroyed the temple had the arodes removed from the Bas of mes and put into some right Raiders of the Lost Arc put into some Subterranean chamber under the Temple mount in order that the umot would never gain access to the are in a KES according to our M it is still there to this very day and occasionally we have stories over the years of various people finding it and usually the stories don't end very well so uh don't look for it and the like uh and in so so Anum Kipper when the K went to the kashim he put Inc incense between the staves of the of the Ark but in the second Bas of mikdash there was no Ark there was no lus all there was was the foundation stone the outcropping of rock from which God made the Earth the evania and the incense was placed on the evania as you know there's a lot of debate where exactly is the kashim and that's connection to the Dome of the Rock right Islam has one identification but Judaism different people identify it differently uh you know take the tour you can see all the different views about that uh but the one thing that is very very clear is there was no or aesh in the bayen there was only the EV and as far as we know the arodes was never unlike the manora in the famous Arch of Titus the arodes was never taken by the umos and that still contains the luos and the shiv luos as well as as well as a safer Torah that Mosher reeno himself wrote so three things are in the urin L sh and a whole saer Torah that MOS wrote remember the last day yeah that that that was in the Kash but that was not in the in the Aon the sa was actually in the Aron itself um mosh Reno on the last day of his life wrote 13 Torah one was put in the arodes and 12 each was given to a tribe of course they ask a famous question on this toas and Manas asked a very very very good question you know we have a m that three righteous people died chabas afternoon that's why after and chabas we say we acknowledge the righteousness of God's judgments it says Yad died chabas afternoon Moser raenu died shabas afternoon and David H died shabas afternoon so toas asked the obvious question question how could mosha write 13 Torah on the last day of his life the last day of his life Zar was shabas you can't write on chabas so toas gives an amazing H answer obviously to write 13 Torah in one day is a supernatural Miracle TOS says you are allowed to do and chabas through Supernatural means if you have that ability the Torah prohibits human activity uh the Tor does not prohibit Supernatural activity now uh so anyone that you know if you're if you're a sh shabas at Hogwarts at Harry Potter whatever it is uh you might be allowed to do all sorts of stuff on on on shabas okay is allowed yes yes now there may be a problem of magic that's another question meaning there are prohibitions over about magic whatever that would mean but it would not be a chabas violation uh per se in that in that way and that's the proof from from Moshe rabenu writing 13 T now the cleer points out a very interesting thing when it comes to the Aron we have an unusual prohibition actually this is not I'll get to it in a moment uh one of the prohibitions is that the oron is you have poles that are inserted in rings attached to the auron and the Orin is carried on the shoulders of the Levites two Lev in front two Lev in the back actually kazal actually say that the Ain actually carried them but but nevertheless it looks like they're carrying the A and these are called B the staves the staffs of the aurin and the Torah says that even when the Aron is at rest in the mishkan you are not allowed to remove the staffs of the auron from the Aon and this is serious law theor says MOS he who removes the poles of the Aon from the Aron when it is at rest gets 39 lashes it is a negative commandment loow y Sur men now you might wonder what's the big deal I'll put in the poles when I need to carry the ark and I'll take out the poles when I put the arc down like what what is this the Torah says there's a negative commandment I mean you know we only have 613 Commandments you know you'd think we're going to squander one of those Commandments on something like this what what is the message here so the says a very beautiful message the says the message is that we know that the ark represents Torah learning it's the repository of Torah learning the polls are that which support The Arc in transit and therefore it represents the idea of Z we know the famous K that was the son of yob and the tribe that devoted themselves to Torah learning and Zulan engaged in Commerce and business in order to support the learning of isar and the Torah considers Zulan to be an equal partner with isar in all of yar's Endeavors and therefore when Yar gets rewarded by God for all of his T learning Zulan is going to be there as well and that's the lesson those poles that carry the Aron in all of its Journeys even when the Aron comes to rest it they will not be removed from the Aron they will share in that rest they will share in that reward they will share in that Repose that is the message of the S Zan partnership the Mitzvah of supporting Torah of course the Von writes that supporting Torah has really two different components there is the financial support of Torah but there is also the emotional support of Torah the notion of you know I could write a check to somebody and say you know don't bother me take the check and get out of here but there's kind of an emotional sport in which you convey to the person that this is an important activity this is something I M this is something I respect I'm not going to talk tonight about controversial issues of balancing Torah study versus service in the Army these are uh very very important and vital issues and people can come out many many different ways on these issues I don't mean I don't mean to take sides on this at all but whatever your position on the Army is certainly a religious Jew believes learning Torah is vitally important and people who learn Torah should be not just financially uh supported in some way one way or the other but should also be given the emotional that what they're doing is something that's important what they're doing is something that matters to the world and matters to CL Israel and matters to ER and that's the idea of isar and and z now the clear then makes a further observation for all of the utensils of the mishkan the verb that is always used is via you singular you shall make now although hasem is talking to Moshe Moshe didn't make it but Sal made it but the concept is that U is like thees is the only C where it says theu they shall make who is the they so the Cleo says there's a beautiful remise here the rambam says there are three aristocracies in Israel three crowns of Distinction there is the crown of kahuna if you're a cohain there is the crown of malus the crown of royalty and there's the crown of Torah the difference between them is the crown of kahuna is limited to a certain family if you're from Aron you're a Coen if you're not from Aron you're not a CO you cannot buy yourself in in any way malus also belongs to shud the only crown that is available to everybody that is totally Democratic is the crown of Torah in which every single person can acquire the crown of Torah and that's sayu they make everybody makes everybody can have a in Torah this is the great democratization you know I've mentioned before I'm not sure here or not that you know uh the the Catholic church for hundreds of years in the Middle Ages was actually against any widespread attempt to make people literate they were not in favor of non-clergy knowing how to read they didn't want it because when you give someone literacy you're giving them the ability to go to a religious text and uncover contradictions and offer possible interpretations they preferred to keep their community in ignorance so that they would be the only ones who would offer the authoritative Exposition now with Judaism it is kind of unique really among world religions that there is actually a great Mitzvah and we consider it to be the almost most important of Mitzvah that every single person Rabbi not Rabbi know the Torah know the Commandments understand when eldad and Maad were prophesying in the camp and yahushua didn't like what they were saying because they were saying oh mosha is going to die and Yeshua is going to be the leader and yua runs in and says to Moshe throw them in prison mosia said Hali if only all of the nation of God would be prophets right I don't want to be the only Prophet I don't want to be the only Rabbi I don't want to be the only we want the nation where everybody is empowered everybody is enabled and that is the great democratization we don't always look at Torah learning in that way because over over the years we've created aristocracies indeed but the ultimate idea of Torah learning was a great Great Notion of everybody having access to trying to understand what it is that God wants and that's why it says vosa now the clearer is really quite an amazing thing because he focuses on all sorts of details that most people wouldn't even pay attention to at all he points out that if you look at the dimensions of the Ark and this is something that nobody pays attention to all of the dimensions are in fractions two and a half length Amos by one and a half width by one and a half height or depth so he says all of the midot of the Ares are midot that Areo means fractions they're not whole numbers what's the meaning of that so he says there's another Remis in our attitude towards Torah and that is one should never feel that their Torah knowledge is complet you should always feel that you're missing something this is why it's very significant that the term that Rabin literature uses or even you know Common speech uses for a great great scholar of Torah is the phrase talid now talid uh you can translate two ways actually it could mean a student of the wise or a wise students however you want to translate it but it's a little odd that we'll look at a godor and will say wow he was such a phenomenal a student that's what you call or people say even on the Von they say the Von was the greatest of the past 500 years that's what you call the but the answer is very very instructive even common speech in Hebrew conveys some interesting lessons that the essence of greatness is that you're always a student you don't say I have it you continue to learn they tell the story I'm from New England so this is a story from a small community I don't want to identify it because the story is a little bit of lanara uh but the there was a great Rabbi who spent most of his career in Cincinnati this was rabie alzar silver may have heard of him he was a big big got one of theor he was involved in Holocaust rescue in fact there are a lot of pictures with him wearing a US Army uniform after the war uh going to the displaced persons camps uh in Europe uh but the story goes that his first position he came to the United States in the 1920s and his first position was in a small New England town and Legend has it that he was fired from that position because the president didn't like the fact that was using up the electricity in the synagogue at night and when he said well I'm at night in the synagogue learning Torah the president said that proves my point I thought we hired a rabbi who finished his education you know we're not here to have you pay while you're learning on the job and you know that was the state of the way people look at it in which learning is like getting a college degree you get your degree and you're finished and yet we know that Rebel Yos to take one example of many but it's a very uh a very striking example was to live to was it 104 and uh he still continued to learn he learned uh what 98 98 years straight you know he still found things in the Torah to try to understand in fact they tell a nice story about this you know um we I don't want to scare anybody we're only months until PES okay don't panic and in fact you're supposed to start learning the laws of PES 30 days before PES which starts onur itself so somebody once wanted to spy in Rebel Yash before you know he was learning in a sh in abandoned sh he locked the door but this person could peer through the window at what Rebel Yash was learning and he noticed RB Yash was learning had a open and was looking at the first page of the laws of PES now if you've seen a the first page of the laws of pesak Simply has the statement 30 days before PES you're supposed to learn nothing so difficult there and he says yes stayed on that page for two and a half hours the guy stood there says says I have no idea what did he see on that page to spend two and a half hours but what does it show you it shows you that the greater you are the more you see all sorts of depth and subtlety and complexity even in the most pedestrian or simplest ideas this was not a complicated Su this was a relatively simple rule and yet he was exploring the different ramifications of it and that is the great democratization and that is why theot a person should never feel I have everything a person should always think I got to learn more the gamarra gives an example of a fish we find that yose gave epim and I'm sorry Yakov Yakov gave the famous to right then he says the Beautiful song the angel that redeemed me from all evil should bless the young the youth Rob and they should uh pergate they should multiply like fish so why are they compared to fish right yido is a of so there's a med that says when fish are in water they're in totally immersed in water and yet when there are raindrops coming in they're rushing to drink the water now now obviously it's not because they're rushing to drink water they think it's uh food but in terms of visually visually it looks like they're running to get the raindrops but why are they running to get the raindrops there's plenty of water where they are the answer is that no matter how much water a fish has again this is appearances it looks like it wants more that is our attitude towards Torah even if a person has so much Torah every little rangra now you want to learn a little bit a little bit more now the cleer then says fascinatingly let's look at another V CLE there is the Aron but then there's something called the shulan the shulhan is a gold table it was not in the holy of holies it was outside of the holy of holies and the shul was a gold table and what was the avod every single shabas Friday they would bake 12 loaves of bread non they're called but they were actually like laas they were not and the 12 loaves would be put on the golden table they would remain on that table till next shabas when the oldos would be removed and eaten and they were still warm and fresh miracle and replaced by the new and this is called so if you walked into the mishan building just to give you a sense of what it looked like so you're walking from east to west far west is the holy of holies with a par you don't really see what's in there but to your to your left which is the South as you're going east west to the left which is the south is the manora to your right which is to the north is the shulan and in the middle is a gold Altar for incense that's a small altar so the gar says The Following minora also represents Torah the arodes is Torah and the manora is the light of Torah the Shan represents God's blessing for an economic substenance so the gar deres a lesson from here if you want to pray for wisdom you should turn to the South because the manur is to the South if you want to pray for parasa you should turn to the north because the shulan is to the north now this is a problem really because the what do you mean north south we we have a single direction that we always face that is if you're not in yush you face towards and if you're in yush you face towards The KES aash so what do you mean north south I mean wherever you are you have to orient yourself towards Jerusalem but theforum explain that north south means a little bit of a leaning meaning to say of course I face my is Kash but if I want prosa a little bit to the north North if I want um Torah to the South okay so thean represents so here the cleer points out that in thean we find a mixture of whole midot and fractions unlike the AR which is totally fractions thean some of it is whole some of it is fraction so here he says here we see that when it comes to to we have a different attitude the wholeness represents who is a wealthy person he who is happy with his life when it comes to parasa I shouldn't want more than I have I should try to habituate myself to whatever Hashem gives me that is the notion of wholeness be happy with what you have so why is there a fraction the fraction is a muser to a person don't fully indulge Your Lust meaning to say uh there should be part of you that doesn't go all the way with everything that you want to do right so there's the point of all of this is that that every single detail has a lot of meaning a lot of teachings many many different messages are being are being conveyed now uh let me mention another thing uh which is really relevant to this parti directly and that is two weeks ago or three two we we read about we actually read the first part of this para because that was par we talked about the the half she and you recall I don't want to repeat everything that uh the thing we mentioned about the half she is that this went to the corbano this went to the offering and the notion of uniformity rich and poor are equal is the notion that no matter what your talents are as long as you do the best with what God gave you you stand before God with equality of dignity and respect and worthiness but I did mention that paradoxically the that is being addressed in this para is not the annual half shek that was given for carban rather this is a one-time half shek of silver that was melted down and it was used used for the sockets that held the boards in place okay so there are two different MK that are involved here there is the annual that funded the operating budget of the B the M used for carbos and then there's the one time Mak that is the adim the sockets right if you remember that that each board had two prongs like a sockets and they were inserted into these heavy silver blocks and that held it up and when the mishun was disassembled the kashim the boards were taken out of the Adon so here there's really an alternative message to what the adim represent and that is there's a gar at the end of M makos that makes a very interesting point it says God gave Moshe 600 3 Commandments but the later generations were unable to kind of keep 613 things in their mind too complicated so the different Generations try to encapsulate these principles in a fewer number of things and the goes through davik did it with 15 and someone else did it with 11 okay so it goes down all the way because as the generations get spiritually weaker there's fewer and fewer things they can really remember so finally we get down to as low as you can go and that is well before we get to the bottom which is one obviously negative numbers don't work here uh it mentions three the navi mik gave three principles which are very very beautiful a very famous verse what does God ask of you to do Justice to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God these are three beautiful principles of mik do justice love kindness and walk with humility got it down to two shim do justice or keep Justice and give now this roughly corresponds to but you'll notice that yes left out walking humbly with your God why would that be why did he leave that out so some want to suggest that the me which is not at all limited to women's dress that's a total Distortion but SAS is a certain modish and humility in how you relate to God when you do mitzvos you do them privately you don't do them publicly you don't do them with ostentation but maybe there's a suggestion that when a generation gets spiritually weaker people have to go out of their way to do Mitzvah so their children should see in other words there is a time in which you're not supposed to be overly modest because you need to be a role model and an inspiration I tell you I knew a person this is quite anual thing whose father I didn't know his father but his father was apparently a very learned person a very righteous person but his father was so humble he never wanted even his family to see him serving hasem so he would only learn Torah when the children were asleep or not in the house when they were in the house he never learned Torah now what happened basically was his children grew up and didn't become people who learned Torah because they didn't see it so sometimes a parent has to be a bit of a showoff meaning to say you have to yield your modesty a little bit in order to inspire and to show people the good right if because if you're overly humble it can sometimes turn into the notion that people never learn from you and you're not a Force for good in that way that's why left out the not because God forbid it's not important of course it's important but these mames there are times in which you need to not be so sonua in that way so we went from three to two but then we get to kabak kabak is one of the 12 prophets we call them the Minor Prophets but that's crazy they're not minor Propet they're just their books are small so they're called trar and says you know two things are too much they used to say about President Gerald Ford he can't walk in true gum at the same time two things too difficult he came up with one thing and that is sadik the righteous person lives by the one quality that is the foundation of everything is my faith that Hashem loves me and Hashem cares about me and Hashem runs the world and runs my life and when you have amuna there are many many gifts that you have you have resilience you have hope you have optimism you have courage you have a desire to serve Hashem because you know that he's there for you and therefore from amuna you will come to everything else because both gives you hope and it gives you incentive and therefore amuna is the one principle that underlies everything so now when we come to the mishkan and here you'll have to take this on faith in fact I I even have to take it on faith I didn't count it Raya says there are actually 6113 details in the construction of the mishkan and every single detail corresponds to a particular mitzvah that's the mishkan and here is the thing when it comes to every other part of the mishkan other than the sockets everybody gave whatever they wanted to give some people gave gold some people gave silver some people gave wool because when you build a mishkan you build a mishkan with your uniqueness your identity it's not a one-size fit all but the only part of the mishkan which everybody gave the same are the sockets because the sockets represent the commonality of foundation and what is the commonality of foundation kakuk says amuna and therefore everybody builds the mishkan in their own creative way no uniformity but it must rest on the common foundation of the Adon which is amuna so now here's an interesting point there are two per Kish and that teaches us is a double pronged thing there must be a Muna in God and there must be a Muna in yourself that's why the ad which is are two huh the sockets the sockets sockets two sockets r s writes indeed this is exactly's very very famous just as a person must believe in Hashem he must believe in himself you must believe that you're worthy to be connected to God you must believe that God Gave You talents abilities that there's much that you can give to the world much that you contribute and that is why the adim is the foundation and in that Foundation we have two adim and why are the Adon made from the half she half sheo so here because the nature of auna means we have to tell ourselves we only understand half of the story because the big challenges to amuna generally is there is so much in the world that appears to be inexplicable the problem of evil the problem of suffering the book of iov and this can greatly greatly greatly challenge a person's amuna but connecting amuna to the half she reminds a person I understands half so the two prongs okay the uniformity everyone gives the same that reminds me that although everybody builds a mishkan in their own way but the foundation must be common amuna the two prongs because amuna is both in God and in me and the half is amuna recognizes the limitations of human knowledge you know I I I read uh this a little bit little bit connected it's really very very beautiful stories I wanted to share it with you and I I'll L here that um on the kabad website they have the story of uh Victor Frankle famous Victor Frankle that Victor Frankle spent his last years in Vienna actually many many years in Vienna and uh he would send money to the kabad there every uh every year even though he was not a practice well well he was married to a Catholic woman and he seemed not to have been a practicing Jew although it was discovered afterwards he put on fill in every day in private but okay uh and the The Story Goes somebody ask like why do you give to kabad you know you don't identify as a Jew you don't go to show you don't do any of these things so he said that uh after the war we had gone out of the concentration camps and Franco was teaching logotherapy man search for meaning and you know we have no control over what happens to us you know all all of those beautiful themes but our only uh mission in life is to make the choice and he says he was really mocked by conventional psychotherapists who were freudians particularly in Vienna and they basically said you know man is simply a product of his biological urges and his neurosis and what you're talking about is simply Bubba mises or made up things uh fit for sermons which is the lowest form of rein sermons are the lowest form of of teaching uh so he said that laich rebi had met with a woman from Vienna and he just said to the woman hey when you go to Vienna just go to Dr Frankl look him up the Reby never met Dr Frankle and just tell him these words keep on working keep on teaching don't give up hope believe that you have something worthwhile to say and eventually the world is going to appreciate now the Reby had never met Franklin Franklin didn't even publish anything yet but somehow the rebi as he always knew kind of knew what was going on and Frankle you know says uh now the woman rang his doorbell the woman tells him I have a message from a rabbi in New York this is what he said and Franco burst out crying he said he started crying he said I was just about ready to give up I was just about ready to stop teaching this stop doing this nobody was listening nobody was paying attention and here I get a message from a rabbi in New York that I have to have faith in what I'm doing that it's something good and something that will help people he says and that was the message I needed to hear so paradoxically the very person who teaches the importance of making that decision needed to have that the decision he was making was something that was worthwhile and important and actually it's a quite quite quite beautiful story that uh that Victor Frankle got his from theab Reby and uh therefore although he stayed married to an Nan Etc and there was actually a very very good person in many many ways very special person it's always it's always a bit of a of a problem when you're confronted with that situation but as I say uh he never openly did any mitzvot but uh privately he doed every day and he put on filling every day in fact his son-in-law once said he once walked into a room and he saw his father- wearing fill and and father was very very upset that uh his privacy was was interrupted that way but you know see you never know you never know so be it as it may this is the remes of amuna in the ad and God willing we should all be Z to build that foundation and a house is only as strong as its foundation and the strong stronger we have this Yuna the greater will the success in our life be and the greater will our connection with our be have a good