Parsha Review Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

00:01 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
You are listening to Rabbe Arya Wolby of Torch in Houston, texas. This is the Partia Review Podcast. All right, welcome back everybody to the weekly Partia Review. This week's Partias, partias Hasino. It is the 10th portion in the book of Deuteronomy, in the book of Devorim, and the 53rd portion since the beginning of the Torah. Now a couple of disclaimers. Firstly, I am very, very ill-prepared for this class, as I am with all the other classes about the Partia, because the wisdom, the godliness in this Partia is so beyond my comprehension that I can continue preparing for years and years and years and still not know what this Partia is talking about. Yeah, there are many parables and if you look in the commentaries you will find extensive, extensive lessons about this week's Partia. So I am just as a disclaimer before we get started. I am going to do the best I can to get practical understanding, to get a grasp on what is going on in this week's Partia. Okay, there are 52 verses in this week's Partia, 614 words and 2326 letters, and no, there isn't an extra letter, word or verse in the Torah. There's one mitzvah in this week's Partia. It is a prohibition and there are no performative mitzvahs and the Partia begins.

01:39
Partia Hasino is the second to last Partia in the entire Torah and it consists of only one chapter, 52 verses. Most of the Partia is a song as mentioned at the end of last week's Partia sung by Moshe to the Jewish people on his last day. As with other songs in the Torah, partia Hasino is written in a special format with two parallel columns. Hasino means listen. There are deep lessons to be derived from the song as it speaks to the Jewish people about their experiences together and rebuking them for the wrongdoings and reminding them that even though Hashem gets angry at their sins, hashem will always come back to his people. So the Partia begins. Moshe calls heaven and earth to be a witness to the calamities that will befall Israel if it sins and the ultimate joy that will come with the final redemption. Hashem reminds the people to examine world history and note how the Jewish people are rescued from obliteration in each generation, that Hashem pulls the strings of world events so that, bene Israel, the Jewish people, can fulfill their destiny as Hashem's messengers. And if we quote from the portion in this week's Partia, it says for Hashem's portion is his people Jacob.

03:00
He discovered him, meaning referring to him. Every time you see, you hear the word him in this week's Partia. It's referring to the entire Jewish people. It is referring to us as a unit him. He discovered him in a desert land, in desolation, a howling wilderness. He encircled him, he bestowed understanding upon them, he protected them. As the pupil of his eye, he was like an angel, arousing its nest, hovering over its young, spreading its wings and taking them, carrying them. Hashem alone guided them. He made him ride on the heights of the land, on the highest places of the land, and have him eat the ripe fruits of the field. He let them suck honey from a stone and oil from a flinty rock.

03:46
So this is the verses in chapter 32, verse 9 through 13. There's a lot more depth and I urge you, don't just take what we learn here in this class and say, oh, I got, hasino, I figured it out. It's unbelievable prophecy. It's unbelievable foretelling where Hashem is guiding the Jewish people, explaining to us what's going to happen, and we'll talk about this a little bit more in the important lessons segment. Hashem's kindness is such that Israel should be eternally grateful, not just for sustaining them in the wilderness but for bringing them to a land of amazing abundance and for defeating their enemies. But this physical bounty leads the people to become self-satisfied and overindulged. Physical pleasures corrupt their morals. They worship empty idols and indulge in depravity. And if we look at the verse, you ignored the rock who gave birth to you and forgot God who brought you forth.

04:47
And then the portion continues. Hashem will then let nations with no moral worth subjugate Israel and scatter them across the world. The purpose of these nations is to act as a rod to chastise the Jewish people. When these nations think that it is through their own power that they have dominated Israel, hashem will remind them that they are no more than a tool to do his will. The purpose of the Jewish people is to make mankind aware of the Creator. That's our job, my friends. Our job is to make the nations of the world aware of Hashem. Hashem will see and be provoked by the anger, and be provoked by the anger of his sons and daughters, and he will say I shall hide my face from them and see what their end will be, for they are a generation of reversals, children whose upbringing is not in them. We are going to rebel. You know what's going to happen when we rebel Hashem is going to take the nations of the world to give us a potch.

05:58
We have all of these organizations dealing with anti-Semitism. It's much easier. You don't need to waste money on organizations. The Torah tells us exactly what needs to happen. You need, instead of an ADL, you need a torch. You need people to be inspired to feel a connection with their Judaism, and then the nations of the world are powerless over us. Complaining in the UN about anti-Semitism is not gonna help, and writing articles fancy you know with seven syllable words in the New York Times is not either, gonna change Antisemitism. The Torah here very clearly tells us what is the cause and effect.

06:43
Then the parasha continues. Neither exile nor suffering can sever the bond between Hashem and his people, and In the final redemption this closeness will be restored. Hashem will then turn his anger against the enemies of Israel oh Nations, is the quote from this week's portion Seeing the praises of his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants, he will bring retribution to his foes and he will appease his land and his people. Hashem gives Moshe his last commandment ascend Mount Avarim, known as Mount Nevo, and see the land of Israel that the Jewish people enter, but you will not enter. After Moshe sees the land, hashem tells him that his soul will be gathered to heaven and he will pass away on the top of the mountain. Now that concludes the brief summary of this week's parasha, but there's some very, very important lessons to learn here.

07:42
Number one Judaism is not a religion. It's not a set of rules. That's not what Judaism is. You can ask the question that Rashi asks in the first Rashi of the Torah. If the Torah is about giving us guidance that had to live our lives, then just start with commandment commandment one, commandment two, commandment three do this, do that, and that's it what we need. All the stories, the story of creation, adam and Eve and Noah and the flood and the, and the Ark, and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Esau and and and Yishmael, and like what do we need? All the stories? We need the stories with the tribes and Joseph and selling him and down to Egypt, back and forth, and slavery. Just give us the instructions and that's it, because the Torah wants us to understand the most fundamental teaching of it all.

08:36
The Torah is not about the rules. It's not a religion. Judaism is not a religion. Judaism is a relationship with God. If we follow the Commandments of the Torah, we put on to fill in every day and we pray every single day and we keep the Shabbos and we do all the myths, visit the Torah, but we don't feel a closest to Hashem. It's useless. You know who says it's useless? Hashem says it's useless. Hashem says you look at the prophets, where the Jewish people, it says they were fulfilling my Torah out of rote, out of habit. They were fulfilling. Your myths is exactly the way God, oh God, doesn't want you to fulfill like, like a robot. God doesn't doesn't want 350,000 AI robots serving him. That's not what Hashem wants. Hashem wants us, with our struggles, with our challenges, with all of our ups and downs, happiness and sadness, to talk to him, to invest in our relationship with God. It's not about the do's and don'ts. The people get carried away by that.

09:53
My grandfather once saw somebody reciting the Shema. I was there, I saw it with my grandfather and this guy, young man, was very God-fearing, saying this facetiously, very God-fearing. He was reciting the Shema and repeating every word 17 times, making sure he pronounced it properly, because if you don't pronounce the words of the Shema properly, it says if you didn't pronounce it, you can say it. Be very careful. My grandfather gave a discourse after that, not in front of that individual, somebody else. And how was that discourse? My grandfather talked about that incident of we seeing this guy reciting the Shema, repeating every word so carefully.

10:38
He says if he understood that he's standing in front of the Creator in his prayer, he would never talk like that. No child will talk to their father say please, please, please I want to make sure I pronounce every word properly Please, daddy, please, daddy, can you please give, give me, give me, come on, you talk like that to your father? No, you wouldn't talk like that. So why does someone talk like that? Because they don't understand who they're talking to. The Chavitzchai was once asked. There was someone who was leading the prayer and it was hard to understand how he was reading. It wasn't clear. So someone said maybe we should repeat the prayer again because it's not. God probably doesn't understand what he's saying. He says God is a father.

11:30
You ever walk into someone's house and you see the little baby. The baby is going blah, blah, blah, blah. They're like oh, it wants a bottle. How do you know it wants a bottle? Didn't say that? Well, I'm the father. The father knows. The father knows what the child is saying. The mother understands the words of its young.

11:48
Hashem understands, even when it doesn't make sense. Hashem knows what's calling in our heart. Judaism is not a religion, it's a relationship. We have to feel a connection. Rahman al-Libaba'i, the Almighty, wants our heart, he wants our intention, he wants our focus. Don't just do puppetry. That's not what Hashem has in mind. Okay Now, the Torah is our covenant with Hashem.

12:23
You want to. You know, when a bride and groom get married in a Jewish wedding, the groom gives the bride a contract. This contract is a covenant, it's a treaty, it's an agreement, it's a binding document that commits the two of them that if one of them do not fulfill their responsibilities, then the other can bring a case against the other for non-fulfillment of duties agreed upon in the contract, in the covenant. Our Torah is our ketuba. It's our document of agreement between us and the Almighty, and you see that God holds us accountable to that document. You made an agreement. God is very merciful, god is very patient, but at some point God says enough is enough. And this is what we need to understand.

13:22
There's how many reminders in the Torah where Hashem says keep my words, keep the teachings of the Torah, because if you go astray, I'm gonna have to punish you and it's not gonna be pleasant. We're making a treaty. You want to be the chosen people. You want to be the greatest nation on earth. It comes with some responsibilities and those responsibilities are documented in this Torah, in this covenant, in this treaty.

13:56
So it's not such a simple thing for us to just say, oh the Torah, it's nice to study Torah. No, you're not just studying Torah, you're not just going to a Torah class. We're learning about our treaty with the Almighty. We're learning how to properly convey our responsibilities between us and Hashem, how to properly, you know, yes, we need to know how to act. We need to know how to put on Tefillin. We need to know how to put on Amazza on our door posts. We need to know how to treat one another. We need to know how to be a good husband and a good wife and a good father and a good son and daughter. We have to learn these things the Torah teaches us.

14:41
But it's more than just the technical stuff. It's about the heart of the relationship. It's like imagine a guy is married and he was told that every Friday needs to bring his wife flowers for Shabbos. See, he does it like a puppet no heart, no emotion, no care. I was told to buy flowers, and buy flowers that doesn't convey a very loving relationship. Forget the flowers. Show that you love your spouse. It's how you do things. It's not what you do alone. All right.

15:25
The next important lesson is that there's a caution on success. Huge caution. It says Jishorin, meaning the Jewish people became fat and kicked at God when someone has incredible success if they don't keep themselves in check. Success I'm talking about financial success, materialistic success If you don't keep yourself in check, you're bound to rebel, and the Torah warns us about this time and again. You're gonna be fat, you're gonna be successful, you're gonna have a lot of food, you're gonna have a lot of servants, you're gonna and you're going to forget about your responsibility With the Almighty. This is something that we see all the time. It's something that's constantly shown to us in the world. You look, look at the wealthiest people in the world today, right, and they forget. Suddenly.

16:38
We know we've discussed this many times that the Relationship between a husband and wife are similar to the relationship between man and God. So here you have a. Bill Gates was married for how many years? Made billions and billions of dollars and suddenly he divorces his wife. Now you have the same with you have with Jeff Bezos Billions and billions of dollars. You can make money, but you can't make your relationship work. You can make money To have in your bank account, but you can't make your relationship work. That's bankruptcy. This is the by the way. I bet you that it's not only in those areas that they're failing in their relationship. That's not the only area. They're also failing in their relationship with God Because they feel so powerful. I want to share with you an incredible story.

17:35
There was a man who was in this on the speaking circuit. He was supposed to make a presentation in front of Microsoft and he didn't notice the date that they gave him. And they pay the pay, a handsome fee, for this speaker, and the speaker is a I believe he's South African and he does. I'm not sure if it's motivational speak, but he speaks in front of all these big corporations. Give him a date. He looks at his calendar. He says, ooh, shabbos Is a show, more Shabbos, jew. And he says I'm sorry, I cannot speak for this event. You can do it on Sunday, you can do it on Friday, but on Saturday not gonna happen.

18:18
So the guy in charge at Microsoft for this event and Says to him what do you mean? You can't do it. I'm sending you a blank check, fill it out for any amount in the world and just make it happen. He says I'm sorry, it's Shabbos. It's Shabbos is our sacred day, our bond with the Almighty. I can't do it for all the money in the world.

18:45
At that moment Bill Gates Was on his private jet with his you know, high ranking officials on to Raj of Microsoft and they were talking about this. They said he says so, wanted to do what we always do just throw money at it. No, everything works out. He says no, it's Shabbos, he's not gonna do it. And Bill Gates said the following quote he said it must be amazing To have something that is so precious that even money can't buy. Know what that is. You can buy anything in the world. You cannot buy fulfillment. You cannot buy your relationship with God. That you have to be. You have to be present. You can't exist. You have to live.

19:46
Shabbos is not just a day of the week. Shabbos is the essence of the week. Kihi mekor ha'brahah. Shabbos is the essence of all. It's the source of all blessing, all blessing that comes to our lives, all blessing that comes to our world, comes from Shabbos. The more we observe the Shabbos, the more blessing we have in our lives. Shabbos is not to exist on this day. Shabbos is to live on this day, and that's an example to everything else that we talk about in our relationship with Hashem, not religion, our relationship with Hashem in Judaism.

20:33
Another thing is that there's nothing random in this world. We mentioned this previously in the Parshah podcast that there is a perfect execution of reward and punishment Perfect, meticulous, by the Yom Ai. You do good, you get good. You do bad, you get bad. We saw this in last week's Parshah, parshah's Nitzavim and Vayelach, where Moshe says Re'e aninosein lofne'ichhim ayyom esachayim esatoves amoves vesera. See, I place before you life and good, death and bad. These are your two choices, because if you choose life, you'll get good, you choose death, you'll get bad. It's the reality, it's embedded into nature. We choose our destiny. When we invest in good things, we get good things. Oh Rabbi, but I did a mitzvah.

21:33
God didn't reward me for that mitzvah. Firstly, why are you cheapening yourself to say that you didn't get reward? Maybe there was a terrible illness that you were supposed to incur. God says you know what they did. Such a great mitzvah they're not gonna. Maybe the reward is not gonna be in this world because God says you know what In the world to come. It says that all of the pleasures of this world Imagine how many pleasures are there in this world? A lot, all of the pleasures of all of humanity doesn't equal of all time, by the way. So all 6,000 years of this world, every human being that ever lived and every pleasure that they experienced, doesn't equal one millisecond of pleasure in the world to come. So tell me, where do you want reward? You want reward in this world. What do you want reward in the world to come? Imagine if you get another month to stay in your resort hotel. Oh, it's so much fun, I enjoy the resort, it's great, free. They give us a month for free, like wow. Imagine if you get the greatest pleasure on earth or not on earth, actually in heaven, and you get more reward because of the mitzvahs you do here.

22:50
Aside from the fact that our mission tells us that we get the reward in this world and in the world to come, we don't necessarily have the barometer to understand how that works. But we see it. We see the eye for an eye how God, throughout the entire Torah, gives retribution to those who go against them. It gives reward to those who go with him. You see, yosef added two words. He stayed in prison two more years. Two words what's the big deal? That's always pretty harsh. Yosef, at the level that he was at those two words, was a blemish that God needed to clean up. In order for him to be the redeemer of the Jewish people, to bring salvation to Israel, to be the viceroy in Egypt, he needed to have that cleansing.

23:47
Two more years in prison, okay, finally, how easy it is for us to forget our miracles. It is so easy If we don't recall them. That's why there's a special mitzvah that if you pass a place where you experienced the miracle, you should say Baruch Sh'as al-Inais b'makum az-zeh, praise, are you, hashem, who made a miracle for me in this place, so that you never forget it? There's a corner in Brooklyn, new York, quentin, an ocean parkway where my mother was in a head-on accident, and every time she passes that corner she says that blessing thank you, hashem, for performing a miracle for me in this place. It's unreal. How can you forget a miracle. Every day we have a miracle, but it's when we don't remember. Miracles is when we fall into the traps that we mentioned previously. Everything is coming to me. Everything is not coming to you. Hashem gives it to you anyway.

24:54
This means that a person, on the anniversary of a miracle, should make a feast. Make a feast to celebrate. I was just two weeks ago on Chabbos. One of my neighbors called the entire community to his house for a kiddish on Chabbos afternoon. What's he throwing? Kiddish? For Four years ago he was driving on the highway in Israel and he fell asleep at the wheel at 80 miles an hour and the car was totaled, but he wasn't. He walked out. It's a miracle. He can just live his life without recalling that miracle.

25:32
And then what happens? You become a person who takes everything for granted. Or every year On that anniversary, you make a special celebration and you declare the miracle that Hashem performed to you in front of everyone. We all recall the miracles that have been performed for us. This is an obligation. It's an obligation so that we don't become people who just exist. We become people who live in our relationship with Hashem. Every day is a miracle. My dear friends, have an amazing Chabbos. Have an amazing Yom Kippur, have an amazing New Year. This should be a new year which is renewed with energy, renewed with blessing, renewed with success real success, financial success too, but real success in feeling fulfillment, in feeling our closeness in our relationships with those around us, with the Almighty Hashem should bless us with all good things this coming year. Amen.

26:36
I want to tell you something. It always bothered me why did the secular, anti-religious Zionists merit to found the state of Israel? It doesn't make any sense. It should be the rabbis, it should be the leaders of the Jewish people, ben Gurion, herzl. I mean, come on, I heard the most incredible answer. You have to understand that we have forces pushing us to do things and forces that are pushing us, stopping us from doing things. Those forces that stop.

27:08
For example, someone wins the lottery, so they want to now give a lot of charity. They want to help everyone out. It's not going to be so easy to do that. Why? Because the Yetzahara says if they give all that charity, look how much good is going to happen. I don't want that good to happen. I'm going to give them the Yetzahara that you know what, I'll invest it and then we'll have more money for charity.

27:32
The Yetzahara always creeps in and always tries to get us to not do the good things that we need to do. If the rabbis would establish the state of Israel, the Yetzahara would never let it fly. The only way the Yetzahara would be able to allow it to happen is if secular people opened it. It's like, oh, it's going to be a secular state, let them do it. It's going to be not God fearing, it's not going to follow. They're not going to follow the commands of the Torah. Let it go, no problem. It's the only way the land of Yetzahara would be able to be established.

28:07
So right, so there's two different parts of military. There's the combat units that go out in the field and those the combat, who are sitting in the study halls and learning Torah. They're equally fighting a war. Trust me, the struggle of sitting down and learning our Torah is not always easy. It's not always easy. I'm sure each of you, when you left your homes this morning, you're like, eh, maybe I should just stay home. Right, you had that thought this morning. Like, eh, I'm tired, that's the Yetzahara telling us. Don't do it. But yet you overcome your Yetzahara, you overcame him and you came to learn Right. That is the battle, the struggle of war. That is the struggle of war. No-transcript.