Parsha Review Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

00:01 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
You are listening to Rabbi Arya Wolby of Torch in Houston, texas. This is the Parsha Review Podcast. All right, welcome back everybody to the weekly Parsha review. This week's Parsha is Vizos Habracha. It is the 11th portion in the book of Deuteronomy, in the book of Devarim, and the 54th and final Parsha of the Torah. There are 41 verses in this week's Parsha, 512 words and 1,989 letters. Not an extra letter in the entire Torah, not an extra word and not an extra verse. If there's a verse there, if there's a word there, if there's a letter there, it's there for a reason. There are no mitzvahs, no commandments in this week's Parsha. But this week's Parsha, vizos Habracha, is the final Parsha of the Torah and is unique because it is only read on Simcha's Torah. Usually the Torah portion is read on Shabbos, but Vizos Habracha, the conclusion of the Torah, is only read on Simcha's Torah.

01:08
And Vizos Habracha begins and this is the blessing that Moshe blesses each tribe of Israel, like Yaakov did for his sons, with its own special blessing, shortly before he passes away. Before blessing the nation, though, moshe praises Hashem. Hashem came from Sinai and then, approached with some of the holy myriads From his right hand, he presented the fire-retorah to them. Indeed, you loved the tribes greatly, for they planted themselves at your feet bearing the yoke of your utterances. The Jewish people lovingly and unconditionally accepted Hashem's Torah. And then we have the remarkable verse the Torah that Moshe commanded us is the heritage, the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob. Moshe blesses the tribes of Israel individually Reuven, the eldest is blessed with life in this world and in the next one.

02:09
Yehuda, with success and victory in the course of his battles. Levi, the only tribe to remain faithful to Hashem throughout the various trials and tests the Israelites encountered in the desert. Moshe declares they will teach your laws to Yaakov and your Torah to Israel. They will place incense before you and burn offerings upon your altar. Binyamin is beloved by Hashem and will be graced with the holy temple in their portion. Yosef is blessed with a bountiful portion that will be blessed with ample rain, dew produce and delicacies and sweet fruits on his land. Yosef is also blessed with unusual ox-like strength which he would use to vanquish his enemies. Zavulun, with success in trade and business endeavors. Yisachar with success in Torah studies. God with the strength of a lion who tears off the arm and head of his enemies with one blow, and an expanding portion in the land of Israel. God is also praised for choosing a portion on the eastern bank of the Jordan River, opting to settle in close proximity to Moshe's final resting place, and for leading the troops in battle in the conquest of Canaan. Dan is blessed with the strength of a lion, cub Naftali is blessed with a portion in Israel with fertile land and sea that is lauded as one that brings satisfaction to all its inhabitants and is filled with God's blessings. And then, finally, asher is blessed with sons and an abundance of olive oils, to which the Torah says he will immerse his feet in oil.

03:55
Moshe concludes the individual blessings and addresses the entire nation as a whole. May your borders be sealed, strong as iron and copper, and like the days of your prime, so may be your old age. Hashem, who dwells in the heavens, is always ready to come to your assistance. Fortunate are you, o Israel, who is like you. Ashechem Yisrael mi kamochah. As Hashem commanded, moshe ascended Mount Nevo, opposite Yericho Jericho. Hashem shows Moshe the entire land of Israel that he promised to our patriarchs Abraham Isaac and Jacob. Moshe, the servant of Hashem, died by the mouth of Hashem At 120 years. His eyes hadn't dimmed and his vigor hadn't diminished. Moshe was buried by Hashem. No one will know his burial place to this day. The verse says the children of Hashem wept, tearfully, mourned Moshe for 30 days. Then Yoshe became the new leader. Moshe was the greatest prophet to ever live. He performed incredible and awesome miracles before the eyes of all of Israel Chazak, chazak and itchazek.

05:11
Immediately upon the completion of this parasha, we begin reading from Beraishis again, because the journey of Torah study always continues. It never stops. Now to some of the important lessons. So, just as a personal note, I first want to thank you all because for 54 weeks we have been at this, learning every single parasha going through it. It forced me to take the time and put in a tremendous amount of effort to go through each parasha, hopefully diligently enough to have great clarity, and to produce these podcasts and these videos. So I want to thank each and every one of you, because without you I wouldn't be doing it. So I'm deeply grateful. That's number one.

06:01
I want to thank Bobby A Sarge and Linda Friedberg, who originally came up with this idea, and they we had a meeting here at the Torch Center about a year ago and we talked about the class that they wanted and to all of my friends watching and listening. If there's any class that you want me to start, I will happily acquiesce and dedicate my time, because there's nothing that gives me more joy and more fulfillment in this world than teaching Hashem Torah. It is a privilege and I love the opportunity, the challenge. You won't even, you can't even imagine how many of our classes that we have are, because someone made a comment once and said oh, I wish we had a class like this and that, and boom, we started a new class. So I thank each and every one of you. But there's another thing, and then it makes me sad. I mean, the Torah is such a magnificent gift and it makes me sad that we're at the end of it now. But fear not, my friends, we're starting all over again. We're going to start from Genesis and we're going to go through it.

07:06
And I also want to thank a couple of websites that have been assisting me, making sure I don't miss out on any points. I've used Ornet or Oredu, which is Orsamach's website. I used Chabadorg, I used Hcom, I used Alphabeta and Torahorg to collect all of the summaries and I've gone through. I've seen many of them missing, many significant parts of parishes. Sometimes they're all missing certain parts of parishes and making sure that I don't miss out on anything. I go through the Chomish myself, but sometimes, to be able to summarize a verse and to have clarity, I've relied on some of their understandings and I'm deeply grateful, of course, to the Living Torah by Rebbe Arya Kaplan. But none of this is mine, none of this is theirs. It's all Hashem's. Hashem gave us this Torah. It's not plagiarized, it doesn't belong to anyone. This is now ours and hopefully in the coming months I'm going to work on going through all of the parishes again, adding what I feel is missing from each parasha, because there are times that after I teach the class, I'm like I think I left out something, it's something that I should have had here, that, upon reading it again, I should have included this, I should have included that or that should have been done more precisely, and therefore I'm hopefully going to go through it again this year, not in a podcast per se, but to work through the sheets and make sure that each one is updated. So those of you who are listening online, those of you who are watching on video the link is in the description you can have the link to all of the parasha review notes.

08:56
Now some important lessons to talk about from this week's parasha. Number one is that there are three times in the Torah that the tribes are blessed. Number one in Genesis by the father of the tribes, yaakov Yisrael, here in Deuteronomy and later in Judges. It's also all the blessings are delineated for each of the tribes. I wanted to bring a comparison to see what each one says. But if you look very carefully, shimon does not receive a blessing here. All of the tribes get blessings. Shimon does not. And the reason he does not is because Moshe is not pleased with Shimon. Shimon had the rebellion that came Valpeor. They served idolatry. Zimri was together with Kazbi. Shimon got involved in some trouble. Pinchas needed to subside. Moshe is not happy with Shimon. He was a neighbor to Korach and we learned from here the influence you have, from your neighbors, from your friends, from your culture, from your society, from your news.

10:08
We are all being primed with information to think a certain way and perhaps sometimes it's not a good thing. The Torah tells us how to live our lives. The Torah tells us, the Torah guides us, the proper way to live, and Moshe here is giving by way of not mentioning Shimon, giving a rebuke to Shimon for their actions. Now, if you look at the Torah, it says that Hashem presented the fiery Torah to them because fire could be used for exceptionally good things. You can mold things with fire, you can cook things with fire, you can warm things with fire, but you can also destroy things with fire. And when the Torah says that it was given, when Moshe says that the Torah was given as a fiery Torah, you need to know how to use the Torah properly, because using the Torah improperly can devastate and can harm, and we need to internalize this idea.

11:15
The Torah is not just a book. The Torah is God's Word and when we learn the Torah, what we're doing is we're touching fire. Now, if we deal with it properly, it'll warm us, it'll enrich us, it'll feed us, it'll take care of us. But if we get too close in the wrong way, we use it the wrong way, it's fire and it devastates. Now, who owns the Torah? This is one of my favorite things to say. I say this as much as I can the rabbis, the scholars, the sages. They don't own the Torah.

11:59
It says in this week's parasha Morosh Shakihilas Yaakov it is an inheritance for every single Jew, chapter 33, verse 4. It is an inheritance. It's our heritage. It belongs to us, to each and every one of us. So don't ever feel like you can't inquire or acquire the Torah. The Torah is yours. It's yours for the taking. Moshe makes it very clear here, in the end of the Torah, the last chapter of the Torah. Moshe is making it very clear you know who this Torah belongs to. This Torah does not belong to the rabbis. It doesn't belong to Moshe. It doesn't belong to any one of the tribes. It belongs to each and every one of you, every person who wants to attain the Torah Yavov Yutol. Come and take it. It's yours. There's nothing holding us back from acquiring and learning the Torah and making it our own. It belongs to each and every one of us and we should use it as a privilege and take it as an opportunity to make it ours. It's sitting there. It's just like someone who gets an inheritance but doesn't collect the inheritance. It's just sitting there.

13:21
I want to share with you a story. My great uncle, raphaim Kreisworth, was a brilliant, brilliant man. One day after the way, after the Holocaust already, he was visiting in Jerusalem and he sees a pauper in a synagogue collecting charity. He asks him his name. He was a tremendously kind, generous person. He was a big rabbi. He gave it a lot of charity. He sees this individual and he asks him what's his name. He says I'm from this and this. He says one second, I'm just going to throw a name like Goldberg Goldberg from this and this city and this is his town in Europe. He says yes, how do you know? He says I've been looking for you for years. He says your father, before he died, told me to tell you that there's a Swiss account that has tens of millions of dollars in it and this is the number he tells them off, the code, the number for the account, and this person became an enormously wealthy person overnight.

14:30
Why am I telling you this story? Because we are all that child feeling disheveled, feeling poor, feeling like I don't have access. But we do have the access codes. It's ours, it belongs to us. The whole time we're walking around this world not feeling like we belong in Judaism because we don't have clarity or wisdom of Torah. Guess what we do. It's yours. Here are the codes. Codes are very simple. Open up Torah and read it. Open up the Torah. It's your Torah, it's your inheritance, it belongs to you and to your children and to your grandchildren, and give them the privilege and the opportunity of going to a Hebrew school, to a Torah school, so that they can know their Torah, their inheritance, it's their heritage. Fortunate are you, o Israel, who is like you. This is the verse, chapter 33, verse 29. Ashechem Yisrael, mika Mokha.

15:32
Another part, I think, of the importance of knowing our inheritance is knowing our status. There is no nation on planet earth like the Jewish people. We can never hide from this fact. We can try to be as inclusive, we can try to be as assimilated, we can try whatever we want. It's not going to help. The Jewish people are unique and special in a way that no other nation is. Other nations are jealous. I'm sorry, you had the opportunity. God offered the Torah to all the nations and only the Jewish people accepted it. Only the Jewish people wanted it.

16:13
So it's nothing for us to be ashamed of, it's nothing for us to be shy of, it's nothing for us to say, oh, I don't want to make my neighbors shy or embarrassed or no, you be proud of your Judaism. You don't have to stick it to anybody's face. They're welcome to join if they want. But we have to know our status. We have to know how special we are. Ashreichem Yisrael, mika Mokha, you're blessed beyond anything possible for our imagination. Mika Mokha, there's no one like you. We have to feel that pride. We shouldn't hide from it, we should embrace it. This is our unique role in this world. Now, sadly, moshe passes away seven verses before the end of the Torah.

17:03
And if we see that there was a 30 day of terrible mourning, the Jewish people were just crying and you know it was just a very, very sad time for the Jewish people. Their leader is gone, their leader from beginning, from the beginning, from when they were no nation yet. We weren't the Jewish people till we received the Torah at Mount Sinai. Before that we were Hebrews. Yeah, we went through slavery together, but we weren't yet a united people. We became a united people at the foot of Mount Sinai when we all said with one word na'a Sevinish ma, we will do when we will hear. That's when we became a nation. So the Jewish people are crying, but it says they cried till 30 days. At 30 days they inaugurated a new leader and move on.

17:51
We have to understand that the mourning process, the way the Torah prescribes mourning is that there is a very intense seven days of mourning. It's not just mourning when everybody comes and drinks and eats. That's not what it's about. It's about taking the time to mourn the person who passed away. It's a seven day period. Three days of those seven the first three are more intense, where you're crying your eyes out. After three days it's already, it's still mourning and you're still sitting low and you're still not wearing shoes. But it's even a lesser degree, like a half a degree less, I think. The Allah says that you don't cry after the three days. Then, at seven days, we get up from the Shiva. Then what happens? You have 30 days of mourning where you still don't shave, there are some other things that are different in those 30 days, and then the mourning extends to 11 months for a righteous person, 12 months for a less righteous person, and then you have annually a Yart site. There's a certain time where God says okay, now stop with the mourning and now it's time to move on with life. And psychologists, therapists will all tell you that there's a time where you just have to turn the page and now it's time to move on.

19:21
The Torah tells us this the Jewish people cried a devastating loss of their leader, but then comes a time to move on. Joshua is the new leader and now let's move forward into the land of Israel. So what is death? What is life? Death means that we lose the opportunity to accomplish in this world. Life means we have the opportunity to accomplish in this world. Life doesn't mean that we're breathing, because someone who's breathing and not accomplishing in this world is considered dead.

20:00
The Talmud says that the righteous in their death are considered living and the wicked in their life are considered dead. Why? Because life is not about breathing. Life is about accomplishing, and our life should be a life which is dedicated to attaining accomplishment after accomplishment after accomplishment. That needs to be our goal To never stop setting new sights on new goals, new agendas. That's living. Someone who has no challenge, someone who has no vision, someone who has no aspirations, that's a dead person, even if their heart is beating. Moshe was no longer living in that he couldn't accomplish anymore, but he's living because we learn his Torah. He lives on. Moshe was the righteous of the righteous. So when we say about the righteous after they pass, it says when we quote the Torah, when we quote Moshe, when we quote our sages, we don't say he said, we say he says as our sages tell us sif sosam dovovos their lips are still uttering words in their grave. Why? Because their Torah is alive, still. So you'd imagine, the greatest leader in Jewish history, in world history, the greatest prophet ever, they will never, ever, ever be a prophet like Moshe, as the Torah says.

21:43
What kind of eulogy would you give for such a man? I mean unbelievable. He would be endless. We can write books and books about Moshe's life, about his great deeds, about his great miracles, about the unbelievable things that Moshe Rabbeinu did, but that's not the eulogy he gets in the Torah. The eulogy he gets in the Torah is two words. It says Vayamos, moshe and Moshe died.

22:07
Eved Hashem, servant of God. That's it, the whole eulogy for Moshe. It's a little odd. Why would Moshe have such a simple, such a short and almost seemingly insignificant eulogy? The Talmud teaches us that every person acquires their domain. Right now, things that are in my hands belong to me. The things that are in my domain belong to me. But what about a servant? Everything that a servant acquires becomes his masters, because a servant doesn't have any of his own domain. All of his domain is not his, it's his master's domain, because his master owns him. The greatest eulogy in the world is the eulogy that Moshe got, because Moshe was a true servant of Hashem. Everything that he did in his life was for his master, creator of heaven and earth. Moshe did nothing for his own personal good. Moshe did nothing for his own personal agenda. Moshe did nothing for his own personal, out of his own personal will. He did it because it was the will of Hashem, and that's why those two words, like they say less is more, those two words qualify everything. Moshe had, the greatest, the absolute greatest commitment to Hashem, one that no one like Moshe ever existed or ever will exist.

23:48
Now we finish the Torah on Simchastora, and then what do we do? Immediately after we begin the Torah again, we start over again. Our sages teach us from this that whenever we conclude the study of Talmud, the study of Mishnah, the study of anything that we're learning, you don't just stop at the end. You start the new beginning, the next beginning. Every single insight that you can have in the entire world is all in the Torah. Every single secret of medicine, every single piece of wisdom about agriculture, about anything you can possibly think of is in the Torah. There's no limit in the wisdom of the Torah and every time we continue to learn it, again and again, and again and again, we will soon see new insights that will make us feel as if we never learned it before.

24:50
We'll learn Bereshish Barah al-Akim, which is the beginning of the Torah. Bereshish Barah al-Akim as Hashemayim, as SRITS. In the beginning, hashem created the heavens and the earth. And we start looking at what is Barah shis Hashem created the world in six days. The first word can be split into two Barah shis Hashem created in six days. Bereshish Barah al-Akim as Hashemayim, as SRITS. Seven words hinting to the seven days of the week.

25:21
There was a person who wrote a book about the seven days of creation and he brought it to one of the great scholars, one of the great sages, rp Simchol Wasserman, and he said I've been working on this book for 25 years. Can you give me an approbation? This is 25 years. 25 years to discuss the creation of heaven and earth, that's not enough. 25 years is nothing. And you know what, if we learned it for a hundred years, it still won't be Every time we look at it, whether we're a child four years old, five years old learning the Bereshish for the first time, or we're 105 years old learning it for a hundred and fifth time. Every time it's new, every time it's fresh.

26:12
Hashem should bless us all that we should always merit to see the light of the Torah. We should always merit to connect with the Torah and learn from its wisdom and elevate ourselves every single day of our lives. Hashem should bless us that the Torah should always be Mizsuki midvashvin, opus stufim, sweet like honey and like the comb of a bee's nest which is filled with honey. Why? Because Torah is so sweet that when we immerse ourselves in Torah, we become Torah. Hashem should bless our journey of learning. It should never stop and we should merit to review the Torah time again, again and again. Hashem should bless our ways always. Amen. Chazak, chazak benitchazek.