Yisro - Hashem Speaks So We Can Hear

You're listening to the weekly partial podcast with Ari Goldwag recorded with never running assistance in Shamish Israel 5786 2026. This week's part is part Israel and we have M Hari. We have the amazing experience of the Jewish people. Million and a half people all hearing the voice of Hashem, the revelation of Hashem, which that voice talking about the voice of Hashem. The says in reference to the says 5:1 19 these matters Hashem spoke to all of your congregation a great sound that didn't end an unending [clears throat] sound. The Jewish people hear this sound. Until today, 3,300 years later, we're still hearing the sound of entire world has heard this sound. There's a sound. There's a voice that's heard at Hari. And we're going to see together the meas that speaks about the fact that this voice splits down into seven and splits down into 70 different languages. Each person hears according to who they are. The voice of Hashem and before we get into that so I'd like to share with you the medish. The medish is actually earlier in chapter 5 of Schmiss in par I'm sorry chapter four of and it's on the Pik that says that Hashem spoke to Aaron and said to him go out to the wilderness. Moshe was commanded to go back to Egypt, leave the house of Israel where he'd been for many years and redeem the Jewish people. And Aaron is told, his brother Aaron is told, "Go meet up with your brother." And the Med says an amazing thing. The Medus says that when Hashem spoke, he spoke with one voice. He wanted a meeting between these two great sadikim, Moshe and Aaron, two brothers. And the voice came out and was heard differently by two different people. Moshe heard it as go to Egypt and on the way you're going to meet up with your brother. and Aaron heard go to the wilderness where Mosha is going to be but it was the same voice that splits into two voices says do parten that same sound is heard differently by two different people but it's saying the same thing it's a unified voice that splits depending on who it's speaking to this is a really important concept and we're going to see how it applies in the giving of the Torah itself that there's a voice there's a call one sound that comes down. We can think of it as light splitting up into different colors of the rainbow. Each person sees the color that has to do with them. Each person hears the sound that has to do with them. Moshe and Aaron hear two different things, but it's one thing. The entire Jewish people, each person hears according to who they are, but it's one thing. But before we get to that, I'd like to share with you the first part of the message, which is really beautiful. And it says something like this says brings a job 37:5 the Pik says Hashem makes heard loudly with his voice great wonders. What does it mean that Hashem makes it heard loudly? The measure says that when Hashem gave the Torah at Mount Si, Hashem showed wonders, wonder of wonders to the Jewish people. Now listen to this. How is it? Hashem's voice came down. He would speak and then that voice would move around the world. We'll see what this means. Listen to this. It's a puzzling mish, but it has a very deep implication. The people of Israel would hear the voice. It came to them from the south. It sounded like it was coming from the south. They hear the voice in the south. They run to the south to hear it to hear it better. They get to the south and suddenly instead of the sound being coming from the south anymore, it starts coming from the north. So they would run to the north to hear it better. They get to the north, they finally think they can hear it, and suddenly it's coming from the east. They run to the east. Then they get to the east, and it sounds like it's coming from the west. They get to the west, suddenly it sounds like it's coming from above, from the heavens. So they looked upwards to try to hear it better. And then when they thought it was going to come from the heaven, suddenly it's coming from the earth from below them. And then they would look down to the earth. And interestingly, that's where it stops. That's where the measure stops as far as how the the sound was going. We have to understand why does it stop there by the earth. Hashem makes her heard his voice from the heavens. Pik says in the in speaking about the the minai hashem made his voice heard in a way that caused pain. It was it was a challenge and imagine you're you're trying to hear hashem's voice. We're trying to understand what is it Hashem wants from us in this world. And every time we think we got it suddenly it seems like it's something else. That's painful. It's painful. But where does it stop? It stops when you get to the earth. It sounds like it's coming from the earth. Which means to say when you're looking down perhaps you can say in humility that's when you can still hear the voice. The voice doesn't go somewhere else. Maybe that's the message finishes up and says the people of Israel said the following also in wisdom from where will it be found? May from where will it be will it be found? Now the word may can mean from where but it also can mean from nowhere. Right? The word also in the in the context of the famous may I will turn my eyes to the mountains from where will my help come? Can also mean my help will come from nothing from nothingness. Right? And Hashem is called the a ultimate literally it could mean the never ending one but it could also mean the ultimate nothingness and Hashem is the ultimate thing that we can't understand. Is the opposite of us. Your thoughts are not my thoughts. Your ways are not my ways. Hashem says the opposite of anything that we could think. Our egos have a certain way of a certain understanding of reality. I got to do things. Hashem is may I Where does my help come from? I I want help from Hashem. He has all the power. He has created this entire world. He's the oneem. I got to trust in him. Right? So how do I get there? May I from nothingness? Every time I think I got it, every time I think I understand Hashem's will for me, I got to remember I for it's not there. It's somewhere else. I got to keep the even within spiritual things, even within rrookness, I have to make sure that I don't ever think that I got it. That's my ego already. Got to watch out for the spiritual snobbery as I call it. So that's the first part of the medish and it's related very much to the second part of the maj and it's also related to the concept that the Jewish people in receiving the they said an amazing thing they said he said we will do and we will hear what is this concept of listening hear oh Israel what's the concept of hearing I was thinking about it we spoke about it in different terms previously but I was thinking about it in terms of how do I identify myself? What's my experience of myself? It's my thoughts. It's my worries. It's my fears. It's my memories of things that have happened. It's my identification with my my story. When I listen though, if you're listening well, if you're listening well, so then you're putting all your thoughts on pause. You're putting all of your ways of coping and dealing with reality on pause. You're putting all of your memories on pause. If a person really listens and I'm able to receive something else that someone else is saying, I'm able to understand what the has to say. Is stop all the things that you're thinking. Remember, it's I'll do whatever you say. I want to hear what you have to say. I'm willing to let go of my own reality. and receive what you would like to give me. Receive the reality that you want to share. So the message continues and says where is Hashem coming from? Is it from the east? Is it from the south? All the different directions. The voices can the voice of hem comes from many directions speaking about refers to the the fact that the zorak which means the shining of the sun it's the root of the word misra which means the east because the the sun shines and and rises in the east. So Hashem's voice is heard in the east. It's heard in the direction of the sun. Look at the light. Look at the light of his voice. Also says that God will come from the south. The south a second we'll get to that. The idea is again that Hashem's voice seems to come from different directions. And every time I get there, every time I get there, I have to return to a place of humility of of I don't even understand Hashem's will for me. I don't even get it. I don't even know what Hashem wants. I'm going to keep learning. And whenever I think I got it, I got to keep learning. I need to have humility even within spiritual matters. Now the says, Everybody sees the voices, sees the sounds doesn't say the voice, it says it plural, the voices, the sounds. And that's to imply that that's which we said earlier, which the mages quotes again. Excuse me. The voice came down. The voice came out of its place, out of heaven, out of a state of unity, out of a higher dimension. And it splits into 70 pieces, 70 voices. And 70 languages. Why 70 languages? Jews only speak one language, maybe two, Egyptian and Hebrew. 70 languages. The voice that came down from Sai when Hashem revealed himself. It wasn't just to the Jewish people. That sound was heard throughout the world. That thundering sound was Hashem revealing himself and it had an impact on us of course on the Jewish people. But it had an impact on the entire world. Everybody heard it. Which means to say there was a call which down to this day the nations of the world have heard right even they learn the what they call the Old Testament. They believe, even the Arabs, the Muslims believe that the nva of Mosher Raenu was a real nva. Everyone heard this in the 70 different languages. They were not ready to receive it though. They didn't have the capacity of Shia, of hearing, of letting go of their own thoughts and their own beliefs and their own mechanisms, call it, [gasps] and saying, "Okay, whatever you say, I'm going to do." They didn't have that ability. So they would hear in in the language in their own language. Their souls went out. Their souls left them. They died. Meaning they couldn't have a spiritual connection to Hashem by being connected to Hashem's will and bowing and listening to what it is that Hashem was saying to them in their language. people of Israel, however, were able to hear and they weren't damaged. Okay? So, the voice comes down and it has an impact on the entire world. Hashem's voice is revealed or I also thought about it in terms of Hashem reveals his light in Egypt. Think about it. The same light like we spoke about regards to the Makosh. The same light is dark for the Egyptians and it's light for the Jewish people. Right? That same revelation of Hashem brings about 10 mock, 10 plagues on the Egyptians who had enslaved the Jewish people and had done such great terrible things to them. And that same light caused them destruction while it lifted up the Jewish people and brought them to a state of connection to Hashem. revelation. So that same light as it were of Hashem was dark for the Egyptians, light for the Jewish people. That same voice, that same sound, it manifested in in in many different ways. It lifted up the Jewish people who were ready to hear and it caused destruction amongst the nations of the world were not ready to hear. I'm going to skip a little bit. says, it gives us more detail. Not just not just was it true that the voice of Hashem split up into 70 languages so that the 70 different uh nations would hear it. Some would be impacted negatively but Amster will be impacted positively. But there was a a further split of that voice amongst the Jewish people how they heard it. I'd say it's come and see how did that voice come out for the entire Jewish people. Each one according to his power, the elderly people, they have a certain capacity to receive and to hear. Maybe they're hard of hearing, so the voice needs to be a little louder. Or maybe they've been doing things a long a long time a certain way and it's not going to be so easy for them to change maybe. So they had to hear it a certain way. That voice had to speak to them tailor made for them. For the elderly people, young people, there's more neuro elasticity maybe or maybe they're tougher. They have more strength. They can hear harder things maybe. So they heard the Tyra as it was meant for them. The children heard it the way that they could hear it with an encouraging word with perhaps a little bit more love. And the babies, the little children who were still nursing, they heard it how they could hear it. And women heard it according to their ability. Women have a different way of hearing and understanding than men. Hashem tailor made the voice. Hashem spoke to each person. It was the same voice. But each person heard what they were meant to hear. Each person heard it the way they needed to hear it. Even Rabenu was on the highest level. He was the of he was a soul that included all their souls. He also heard it according to his ability. Moshe would speak and Hashem would respond with with sound with a voice. Doesn't say with Hashem's voice says this is the voice that he was able to endure. Moshe could he had a perhaps greater capacity to hear. He had a deeper level of of humility. He had a deeper level of listening. So he could hear it differently than others. We find the says that the voice of Hashem is in strength. It doesn't say in his strength. The voice of Hashem is in strength. Why does it say it that way? Because that voice manifests based based on the strength of each individual. Interestingly, even the women who were pregnant was based on their ability to hear it. So we see that each person heard according to their ability which is really beautiful if you think about it. It's really beautiful because Hashem is saying, "I hear you. I hear what you can handle and I'm going to speak to you in a voice that you can hear." And Kalis says, "Nasel, I'm going to do it. I'm going to hear. I'm going to It's almost like a It was like a reflection. It was almost like a reflection that the Jewish people heard Hashem hearing them and they said, "We're going to hear you." It's quite beautiful. And I think it's a powerful lesson in what kinuk really looks like. We have to make sure that we sometimes can have an inspiration. We can sometimes be inspired by something but that doesn't mean that everyone else can understand it or relate to it. Sometimes we need to say the same thing in a different way for a different person depending on what they can hear, what they can handle. Now the measure says something also very interesting and I want to come back to what we spoke about with the voice coming from different directions. But first says an interesting thing says are you in wonder about this thing? It's it's really quite wondrous that same voice. How could it be that everyone hears it differently? How could it be that for an older person, they heard it in the way that was appropriate for them and a younger person heard it, it's the same voice. It's the same sound. It's the same instruction. [gasps] How does that work? Don't be wondering in wonder about this major from heaven that the Jewish people had for 40 years in the midbar. The man also had a spiritual component to it which each person received that which they were able. The young people would eat it like bread. Bread. I mean, today we add a lot of sugar to our bread, but in the old days there was no such thing as adding sugar to bread, I don't think. So, it had a rough taste. It was just it was more earthy, maybe we could say. There's another description of the month. The taste was like something sweet like honey. because there's different descriptions of what the mun tasted like because it depended on the person who was tasting it. An older person in order to eat it needed something to be extra sweet. [cough] Excuse me. them like mother's milk. It would be sweet like mother's milk had it taste like the like the milk for someone who was sick. It tasted like flour mixed with honey says another description of the And there was the rav who came along with the Jewish people. They tasted it differently. They tasted it tasted like tasted very bitter. Finishes off his statement and says the man was one thing. It was one spiritual food. Each person tasted it differently depending on who they were. It had a different it it it was sweet for those who needed it to be sweet and it was bitter for those who needed it to be bitter. Interestingly, this medish as I'm for explain is in opposition to the medish that says that when the Jewish people heard Hashem's voice, they died. This message doesn't hold that way. This measures holds that when they heard Hashem's voice, it was tailor made for them. The same voice, the same sound each one heard according to they to what they could handle. The Torah was given the voice of Hashem was heard according to what they could handle. [snorts] How do I know that that same voice split into many different voices according to who they were? They shouldn't be damaged. Everybody saw the voices. It wasn't just one sound. It was many sounds. Hashem shows us with his voice, with his with his instruction. He makes a great sound that is wondrous. Each one of us hears something different. There's lots of people who may hear a duvar Torah and each person will come out with the thing that inspires them that they relate to that they hear. That's the power of the Tyra. There's a resonance inside of each and every one of us to the truth. We know the truth. Perhaps it was taught to us inside of our mother's wombs. Maybe that's hinted to before we mentioned the the woman who's pregnant. But the Tyra is taught to us at a primal level. We have it inside of us. We have a sense of what a relationship with Hashem really looks like. And when we hear it, we resonate with it. When you hear a voice, when you hear an idea which is true, it doesn't feel new. It feels right. It feels right. And that's the power of Tyra. It's a voice. It's a sound that is an all-encompassing sound. You're going to hear what you need to hear. You're going to get what you need to get. But interestingly, when does that happen? It happens when we listen. It happens when we kind of let go of all the noise of our mind, all of the egotistical thoughts, the gadika thoughts, the the I need this, I need that, I'm jealous of this one, my feelings were hurt. We let go of those things. And the voice of truth is already inside of us. And when we hear it coming from outside, it resonates. It it rings as true. And then I think is the when it says that Hashem's voice came out, it was in one direction, a different direction. This everywhere you went, it's like we said before, it's as I get closer to hearing the truth, it resonates, but it also has the potential to to cause my ego to inflate. And the moment my ego inflates because oh, I know it. I got this. I lost it. I get closer and closer to the sound and I lose it. And when I lose it, it sounds like it's coming from somewhere else. And I got to remember it's about humility. Where does wisdom come from? It comes from nothingness. It comes from me resonating with Hashem in his aspect of quiet. The mama is told by Hashem in his revelation in his excuse mem's voice. Hashem is not heard in the noise. Hashem is not heard in the wind. Hashem is not in the fire. Call the mama. That's where Hashem's voice is heard. It's a sound. A call the mama which means doesn't move. It's d Dhaka it's very fine it's very fine sound the voice of Hashem is very fine we have to hear his voice it's not as soon as it gets louder and louder that's it's going to come from somewhere else we're trying to amplify it get it better understand it more even the even the trying to understand is part of our ego is part of our separateness It's already there inside of me. Shem's voice already spoke to me. It was planted inside of me. I don't really need to find it. I just need to uncover it. I just need to resonate with it. It's very beautiful. [gasps] I want to bless you and I ask you to bless me. Hashem should help us to be able to hear to be able to hear his voice. Shim should help us to be able to clear out, to clean out the noises inside of our heads that block his voice from being heard. Should help us to recognize that the voices inside of us. And if we hear from outside, it's just something that's resonating with what's inside, something that we already know. Sh should help us to understand that he speaks to us according to what we can handle, according to what we can hear. And to the extent that we make ourselves like nothing, we limit our ego, we even limit our need to know. To the extent that we do that, Hashem should help us to be able to hear his voice more and more. That voice should grow inside of us. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful Shabas. This podcast was made possible through the gracious donations of listeners like you. For more podcasts like this, please visit www.rigoldwag.com or search on iTunes [music] Arig Goldwag.