Parsha Review Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

00:00 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
You are listening to Rabbi Arya Wolby of Torch in Houston, texas. This is the Parsha Review Podcast.

00:07 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
All right, welcome back, my dear friends, to the weekly Parsha review. This week's Parsha is Parsha's Nitzavim. It's the eighth portion in the book of Deuteronomy, in the book of Devarim, the 51st portion. Since the beginning of the Torah, there are only 40 verses in this week's Parsha, 568 words and 2,575 letters. There are no mitzvahs in this week's Parsha. Now.

00:37
This Parsha, until the end of the Torah, records Moshe's last day. So it begins with the covenant. Moshe gathers the entire nation, the tribe leaders, the elders, the officers, all of Israel, children, women, converts everyone from woodchopper to water drawer, and Moshe reviews the everlasting covenant and bond between Hashem and our ancestors, the Jewish people standing here today and those who will be in the future. You've seen the miracles. And then Moshe continues with the warnings. Moshe reminds the Jewish people of how idolatry in any form is abominable and detested by Hashem. All the curses and punishments in this book, meaning the Seferat Torah, this book of the Torah, will befall those who serve idolatry or are disloyal to Hashem and His Torah. Beware and stay vigilant against all forms of idolatry and temptation of foreign philosophies as a pretext for immorality. These are the warning of the destruction of the people and the desolation of the land of Israel that will result from the failure to heed Hashem's word. The land will become dry and barren and stop producing its beautiful fruit. The Jews will suffer greatly in exile. And then the verse in the Torah, chapter 29,. Verse 28 says the following the hidden sins are for Hashem, our God, but the revealed sins are for us and our children, forever to carry out all the words of His Torah. We'll talk more about this soon.

02:23
And then Moshe talks about the return when the children of Israel eventually repent, no matter how assimilated they will have become among the nations, and they will return to Hashem. Eventually, hashem will bring them back to Eretz, israel, to the land of Israel, and he will shower incredible blessings and benevolence upon them. Hashem, your God this is a quote from the Torah Hashem, your God, will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring to love Hashem, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul that you may live. Hashem will circumcise our heart to help us overcome the hurdles and challenges of the Yetzahara and all our spiritual impediments. And then another verse from the 6th Partial when you listen to the voice of Hashem, your God, to observe His commandments and His decrees that are written in this book of the Torah. When you shall return to Hashem, your God, with all your heart and all your soul, the recipe for success will always be clear and simple. And then there is a word of encouragement from Moshe. You can do it. The Torah and its mitzvahs are attainable for you, not hidden, not distant, not in the heavens and not across the sea, but you, with your mouth and your heart, can attain and perform the Torah and its mitzvahs. Every single Jew can grasp, fulfill and observe their Torah and their Judaism.

03:51
And the pasha ends with the most incredible choice that is placed in front of mankind. Moshe summarizes the options of how we can choose to live our lives, and Moshe urges us to follow Hashem's plan and not attempt to charge our own course. See, I have placed before you today the life and the good, the death and the evil. That which I command you today to love Hashem, your God, to walk in His ways, to observe His commandments, his decrees and His ordinances. Then you will live and you will multiply, and Hashem, your God, will bless you in the land to which you come to possess it. And then, further down in the verse, it says and choose life so that you will live, you and your offspring. And that concludes the summary of this week's pasha not a very long pasha, but a very, very, very essential pasha for the entire Jewish nation. So some of the important lessons that we need to look at when we learn through this week's pasha.

04:57
Number one is Nitzavim. The name of the pasha is Nitzavim, which means to be standing. We're standing united. The Jewish people need to be always united. You may have different styles, you may have different customs, but we always need to be one people. We always need to stand together and be united.

05:19
There's no special privileges in Judaism, meaning we're all obligated to the exact same Torah. You've seen other religions like oh, you're an Imam, so you have certain obligations, but everybody else doesn't. Oh, in Christianity, you have certain people who you know. They claim that someone died for their sins and therefore you can do whatever you want, but if you're a priest, you're a minister, then you cannot. This is nonsense. In Judaism, everyone is obligated to the same exact laws the rabbis, the young adults, the women, everybody. It doesn't make a difference to your status if you're a very, very wise scholar, it doesn't make a difference. If you're a great orator, it doesn't make a difference. If you're a very charismatic personality the same obligations apply to everyone.

06:14
What the Torah demands of us is that we don't make exceptions and we don't make separate rules that only apply oh, you're a Sunday Jew, you're a Saturday Jew, or you're a Monday Jew, or there's no such thing. Or a one day a year Jew. God forbid where people only show up for Yom Kippur or only show up for Rosh Hashanah. I've shared this before, but I've heard this from the former director and CEO of our Houston Federation. Here in Houston and after he retired, he said that he was going regularly to his congregation. I'm not going to mention names. He said I am 68 years old and my wife and I are the youngest people there Friday night.

07:04
This is a tragedy, because if we're not realizing that we need to maintain our connection to Hashem, we cannot think that oh, that's for some types of Jews, it's not for me. No, we're all obligated on the same rules, on the same precepts. It's like someone saying the speed limit doesn't apply to me. There's no exceptions to the rule. The speed limit applies to everyone. By the way, even emergency responders, by law, have to follow the speed limit. Now, they'll turn the blind eye to it perhaps, but you have to follow the laws, just like everyone else. Laws are not meant to be selective. There are no special privileges in Judaism. There are special privileges in being Jewish, but there's no special privileges in Judaism where you say, oh, this rule doesn't apply to me, I'm not obligated to this law.

08:08
Okay, we see a commandment that's repeated over and over again, and that is that we are obligated to teach our children and to train them to accept the treaty with Hashem. You see, every person has their own treaty with Hashem Every person. There's no such thing. Oh, you grew up in a religious home, so therefore you're religious. No, every person needs to make their own decision and make their own treaty with the Almighty, and nobody should resort to saying well, this is the way I grew up and I'm comfortable with that. Well, maybe we grew up with a less privileged household. I had a friend of mine who told me he says Rabbi, you don't understand. My mother fed me shellfish when I was three years old. That's the way I grew up. That may be true, but every individual needs to make their own choice, their own choice, their own decision of how they're going to live their life, and not base it on what? Well, that's what my parents did. It's just like we wouldn't necessarily vote a specific party because our parents voted that. We have our own choice. We have to vote to that booth and we vote. It's our decision. Our relationship with God needs to be the same thing, where we decide and we determine, and that's why there's an obligation to teach to our children so that they make the right decision, so that they understand their treaty with the Almighty. And that's why we have, in the Shema, repeated v'shinan tam, levon nechah and you shall teach it to your children V'dibar tabam. Teach them the words of Hashem, teach them the words of the Torah, because it's their decision to make as well.

10:06
Nobody is born a Rabbi. You have to acquire your own wisdom, you have to attain your own connection. There is a story, though the group of elderly Hasidic people who came to the Gerer Rebbe. The Gerer Rebbe became the Rebbe when he was 18 years old. His father passed away when he was 18. And now that's it. He's ear to the throne, and it's a massive Hasidic dynasty. And some of the elders asked him. They said you're 18 years old. We're like in our 60s 70s. We have much more wisdom than you. We have much more. Why are you the leader? It's a very good question, he says. It reminds him of a parable.

10:50
So there were once these people who decided they're going to climb all the way up to the top of Mount Everest. They're going to climb all the way up. So what happens? They need to prepare and finally they get to stage one, stage two, they're finally getting. It's wearing on them and they're getting older and older. Finally, after 40, 50 years, they make it all the way to the top. They get to the top, to the summit of the mountain, and they see a little child there and they're like this is crazy. We've been working for decades to try to get to the top of the mountain and you, little child, are here already. How did you get here? He says you don't understand. I was born up here. I was born up here. So for me, this is my natural state. I'm at the top of the mountain.

11:37
That's true, but there still is required for every person to attain their own level of greatness and connection to Hashem, to maintain their status, to maintain their level. It's very important for each and every individual to make their own decision, not because I have friends telling me oh, you're going old religious on us, oh, no longer keeping Shabbos. I need to tell you something. I had a guest who was over at my house this Shabbos, who came from Huntsville, alabama Very special man, and he told me this is the first time in his life that he hasn't watched the Alabama College football game on Shabbos and he said do you know what that means? That's a huge step. That's a huge step that he did not watch. This is Bible in. In Alabama, nobody misses the football game on Saturday. He said when he told his family that he wasn't going to be watching the game any longer. They're like wow, now that's real. We all have our things. There are our barrier To transformation.

12:51
There was a woman who became religious and she asked the rabbi to come kosher her home. So the rabbi comes and he brings all the pots and pans and all the water is boiling up and he's spilling the steaming hot water on the counters, cleaning, costuring it. Now it's like brand spanking new. It's all costured. It's now neutral. No more non kosher food. It's it all. The previous status is removed.

13:19
So as the rabbi is packing up to leave, he sees on the coffee table that she has these, this gum, the chicklets on her coffee table. So he looks at her. He says those chicklets, they're not kosher. So she says, rabbi, I Can do the kosher, I can do everything, but those chicklets are not going anywhere. We have to understand we all have our chicklets, we all have our barriers. Where this is Bible, this I cannot give up on, and we, we create for ourselves that barrier. It's not a coincidence that these portions are right before Rosh Hashan and Yom Kippur, because we all need to get rid of our own little chicklets. Everyone's got their things. For some it's the Alabama game and for some it's the foods they eat, some it's the friends they go hang out with, for some it's the restaurants they eat in a A Transformation that each and every individual needs to calculate for themselves.

14:26
All right, the next very, very critical piece of information we need to share here today is that the Torah is not archaic, it's not stale or outdated. The Torah warns us don't change the Torah's eternal truths, don't change it. You see, we are all Bias. We're biased to the things that we like, to the things that are comfortable for us. We have certain things that we're not willing to Like. We said our chicklets. We have certain things, but where do they come from? Certain Family traditions, where do those family traditions come from? Let's Get into where the source of them are. What's the source of those customs? We need to understand something.

15:21
The Torah is as relevant today as it was three thousand three hundred and thirty six years ago when it was received at Mount Sinai. Today, twenty twenty three, the Torah is as relevant today as it was thirty three hundred years ago. But the Torah doesn't talk about cars. Yes, it does. The Torah doesn't talk about elevators. Yes, it does. The Torah doesn't talk about Clean pigs that don't have trigonosis yes, it does.

15:54
You see, when we start putting reasoning to the mitzvahs which we don't know, the reasons, by the way, for the mitzvahs the Torah says don't eat a piggy. You know why? Because it's not holy for your soul. Because it's not holy for your soul Doesn't say because it's unclean. Yeah, if you read in a dictionary translation, a google translation, of what the words say, it seems that it says just don't eat it because it's unclean. Oh, trigonosis, today we don't have that. So you can eat it. Don't start giving reasonings to the Torah. That's not the correct reasoning.

16:32
It's like one of the movements that allow driving on Shabbos 60 years ago that later retracted. That the conservative movement retracted five years later saying we made a mistake, you should not be driving to shul al-Jabbi's. But why did they do that to begin with? Who changed such a thing? Why would they change such a thing? Because we all have biases and we all have motives. When they see that, hey, people are starting to move out to Katie and people are moving out to the woodlands and to sugar land and people are moving all out, we're going to lose our members. So instead of saying, listen, we have to stay true to the Torah and we can't allow for chiseling away of our Shabbos and you cannot drive what kept the Jewish people together?

17:31
By the way, ahadah was right. He said more than the Jewish people keep the Shabbos, the Shabbos keeps the Jewish people who are your neighbors out in Katie, not Maishala and Yankola, not a Jewish community. But when you live in walking distance to a synagogue, everybody lives in walking distance to the synagogue. I had a guest over this Shabbos the first time. He was in my neighborhood. He lives in Houston and he came to my neighborhood for the first time. He's like he says, I wish it wasn't Shabbos. I can take a picture of how many strollers there are by the synagogue. It's the most incredible thing. Hundreds of children going around the streets and running and playing. Well, if they lived out in Katie and in sugar land and the woodlands and in league city and peer land and wherever else, you won't have that community. That's how you build a community. Shabbos builds a community.

18:35
Now we understand one of the prohibitions of Shabbos that you can't walk outside a city more than 2000 feet where there's no inhabitants. If there aren't people living there, you can't go there. You have to stay with your people. You're going to have to interact with people. You'll meet people Shabbos afternoon. Hey, what do you say about the beautiful weather, how you doing and you schmooze with your friends and your neighbors and the kids. You create a community. That's what Shabbos does.

19:10
What you get when you say that the Torah is archaic, when it's not relevant, when you say that you lose community, you lose connection, you lose the essence of what it means to be Jewish, and then we're pulling at straws trying to connect, bring people back into the synagogue and then, indeed, you don't have people under the age of 70 showing up to shul. So we can't break away from those rules. We have to understand that the Torah is as relevant today as it was then and the Torah is very practical and pragmatic. It's our Torah. Let's not throw it out Now.

19:51
Torah is the natural sustenance of the Jewish soul. It says that the child, before the child, comes to this world in the womb, it is taught by the angels, by the heavenly angels. It's taught the entire Torah. The Midrash says that it gets tapped on the lip and it forgets the entire Torah. Why do we have to learn the Torah to then forget the Torah? Why teach me the Torah and the womb and then make me forget it when I come to this world? Our sages tell us because when we learn the Torah we have a renewed freshness and excitement for the learning that we have, because we recall what happened. We connect with the original source that we learned it. The Torah that we're learning here today is not the first time you've learned this, because we all learned this Torah when we were in our mother's womb and an angel sat and patiently taught us Torah. So we're learning it now for the second time and that's the excitement that people get when they learn Torah is that they feel like they're connecting with their source again. Ah, it's like a godly revelation here. That's the holiness of learning Torah.

21:12
Okay, and now in this week's part, it's very interesting. It says kia mitzvah, azos. Moshe says this mitzvah that I command you today. What is this mitzvah? You look around and it doesn't say any mitzvah. So what's the mitzvah referring to? Say, just tell us. The Ramban tells us.

21:30
This mitzvah is referring to the mitzvah of Tashuva Repentance, because it says that the Jewish people are going to come back. You're going to distance yourself, you're going to come back. That mitzvah of Tashuva is attainable by every person. There's no person who can ever say I've had people say this Rabbi, look at me. There's no way God ever wants me back. Look at my tattoos, look at my background, look at my history, look at the things I've done. God doesn't want me back. That's not true. God wants every single person back and that's why it says be fichaubilvavchala asoso. It's in your mouth and in your heart to attain and perform it.

22:14
Referring to Tashuva, speak Tashem, use your words, feel it in your heart, connect to God, that's it. You need no magic, no abracadabra. You don't need anybody else to atone for your sins. You talk directly to God. You don't have to go to a confessional. I've had multiple times here in our classes where people said, rabbi, I need to confess, I'm like wrong religion, not in our religion. You don't repent, you don't uh in front of a rabbi and you don't need to confess in front of a rabbi and you don't ask a rabbi to atone for your sins. So how do I do it? Talk directly with the master of the universe, who waits to hear your words. He waits to hear your every request, hashem. Hashem wants to hear from us. That's it it takes. Open your mouth, open your heart and talk to Hashem. That's this mitzvah, say. Just tell us A chasitic idea, because this mitzvah, this mitzvah, what is this? It's the numerical value 408. Hazot, this mitzvah, zayin al-Ftaf is the numerical value of 408.

23:42
If you take in our liturgy, in our prayers on Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah the highlight of the prayer we say that there are three things that remove the evil decree from this world. We say tshuvah, repentance, tafila prayer and sadhaka and charity. They remove the evil decree. If you look on top of those words, there's three little words written in the mahsar, in the sidder. It's ko voice, mamon, money and som fasting. Voice, fasting and money. The numerical value of those three words is 408. You want to know how to get this mitzvah, this zos? Raise up your voice to the Almighty Fast. Do repentance, stop doing what is fasting. We stop eating, but it's symbolic of stopping to do what we did wrong and, lastly, give charity, give of yourself. These three things are the virtue of repentance.

24:55
Okay, we are all important in the eyes of Hashem and every single one of us play a vital role. We have to know that Hashem talks to us. In the Torah, hashem says each and every one of you, like whatever, as long as everybody together, no, no, no, no. You, you are important. We mentioned in the Talmud class on Friday. You remember this, mark. You're the only you that will ever be here. There will never be another one like you, ever. Hashem put you here and the reason you're here today on planet Earth is because Hashem wants you to fulfill your mission, and your mission is unique. Your mission can never be duplicated by anyone else. We have to know that. We have to be empowered by that.

25:43
Okay, it says that there's a time we mentioned this in our parasha when the Jews will come back and they'll repent and will be given the land of Israel. Many say that this is referring today, already 1948, where the declaration of Israel's independence and Israel became a state again, and many refer to this as the time of the beginning of the final redemption. Now we know that it's not, because when you're in true freedom and true redemption, you don't have soldiers being stabbed in the old city like there was yesterday, you don't have rockets being shot at you from Gaza, you don't have terrorism. You don't have this stuff when you're in your free, redeemed state. But we're in the process of it.

26:40
Our sages all agreed that the establishment of the state of Israel is the beginning of the process, not the end of the process. We got a lot of work to do. Still, we have to recognize that we're all each and every one of us are part of this journey. We're part of bringing this redemption to the world. It's here now. It's coming. The days are near when we see the complete immorality that's going on in the world, when we see all values being turned upside down. This is part of the end of days I'm going to have total chaos in the world. This is what it's about. We're witnessing it in front of our eyes.

27:20
So this is probably one of my most favorite verses in the Torah. See, I've placed before you life and goodness, death and evil. Manufacturers' recommendation choose life, but we need to understand that we have absolute total free will. If any person decides you know what. I don't want to follow the words of the Torah. I want to live my life. Be shri, rusli, be alech. I will live my life the way I want to live my life. Do the things I want to do. Eat what I want to eat. Live with whoever I want to be with. You're free to do so. Door is open. You can go. Not only that All opportunities are in front of you. Shem recommends choose life. Not only that.

28:21
When it says, choose life, what does it say? So that you will live, you and your offspring? Many people who are choosing their form of life are choosing it only for themselves. They're doing things that are going to be destructive for their future. They're doing things selfishly. I want to enjoy my life and this is the way I'm going to live. They forget about having children. They forget about having a future. They forget about the investment of their continuation. You're a link in a chain. Don't break that link. That's life, and that's the life that Hashem is telling us you want it to be, not only for you but for your offspring. One thing is reward and punishment.

29:13
Rashi brings the Talmud. That says. It's a reality built into nature. From this point on, From the time these words were spoken by Moshe, this became the reality of existence. You choose good, you get good. You choose bad, you get bad. That's it. It's embedded into nature and we need to know this that we are held accountable for our choices the good, the bad and the ugly. We are held accountable and a person who chooses good will get that good.

29:48
It may not look that way to the understeer, but it is, and we see that in next week's partial when we talk about Moshe, who passes away, who's about to pass away. He's only passing away from this world, but there's another world, there's a world to come. He's departing this temporary life. We're all temporary here. There's no permanent residence, but we want to make sure that we have good, not only for this world but for the world to come. And finally, there's no excuses. Make a commitment and take responsibility. That's what the Torah requires us to do. We need to take responsibility for our own decisions. You know it's an amazing thing.

30:32
This yesterday in this room, was a celebration of my niece and her bat mitzvah. It was a very small event for her friends, but as an uncle and an aunt, my wife and I and our children, we came as well For a few minutes we were here with them. And what is the celebration of a bar in bat mitzvah? A girl when she turns 12, a boy when he turns 13, because girls are more mature. They undertake the burden of responsibility, accountability. We celebrate that in Judaism. We celebrate the undertaking of responsibility. That's a celebration. What they have today, the bar being more than the mitzvah, is not exactly what God has in mind Is the mitzvah should be more than the bar. We have to continue to push ourselves forward to take that responsibility and make good decisions.

31:35
And last piece here is that Moshe reassures that the Torah is accessible to all those who truly desire. You know they once used to be an excuse. You could say Rabbi me, learn all of Talmud. Are you crazy? It's an Aramaic. Rabbi me, understand the entire Torah? I can never do that. It's an ancient Hebrew Rabbi me learn the Midrash Impossible, so complicated.

32:09
We are gifted in this generation that we have publishers like Artscroll that produce the most magnificent publications, translated in the most beautiful way. Not only that, you can buy the books and have a physical copy. You can have it on your iPad, you can have it on your iPhone, on your Android phone, you can have it right there on the palm of your hand the entire Talmud. So what's the excuse now? Well, it's not that we don't have a translation, it's that we don't want to. We don't want to. Someone really desires to learn all of the Torah? We have the stone edition, chumesh, beautiful translation with commentaries. So if you have a question, boom, it will talk about it.

33:02
It's amazing the access that we have today. In a way, it's a bigger problem because we have literally no more excuses. Oh, one second. You don't understand that either. You have a partial podcast. You can listen to that one. There are hundreds of partial podcasts and Talmudist podcasts and Torah podcasts and Musar podcasts and inspirational podcasts, and you can watch videos on YouTube. It is like any medium you have. The excuses are gone. Hashem should bless us that. We should all grow. We should take this opportunity to take this desire and make a commitment, and the excuses won't even apply to us anymore, because we're going to internalize it and we're going to make it part of who we are. Have an amazing Shabbos.