Parsha Review Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

00:01 - Intro (Announcement)
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe, Director of TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast.

00:11 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
All right, welcome back everybody to the Jewish Inspiration Podcast, the Thinking Talmudist Podcast, to the weekly class that we have every week, and I think today we're going to have to talk a little bit about some of the current events. And I think today we're going to have to talk a little bit about some of the current events and, as has been announced, we're not having a live class here at the center, although I'm broadcasting from the center because today was announced best would be to learn to continue our learning, our daily learning, but to do it from afar and to Zoom the class instead. So I want to talk a little bit about what's going on at current events and hopefully, at the end of class we'll be able to also tie it into some Talmud. So we all got the shocking news on Saturday last week, on Shabbos, which was also in Israel, the holiday of Simchas Torah over here at Shemini Atzeres. Simchas Torah over here is the next day.

01:18
On Sunday I was walking to shul and I hear from one of my neighbors who's walking his dog. I said you know, good yontif, good shabbos, how are you? He says terrible. I said why terrible? What's going on? So he says to me you know the news what's going on? He tells me, and I was like in, in total shock. I go to shul, I tell the rabbi, I said, rabbi, maybe we should stop the regular services and start saying some psalms, some tehillim, you know, for our soldiers, for our people, for our nation. And we did so.

01:54
And the real question comes in is what's going on over here? What is really happening? So the first thing we need to understand is that the Torah tells us that if someone comes to kill you, you have to kill them first. And the mission and the objective of Hamas has been very, very clear. Their objective is to remove the Jewish people from the face of the earth and therefore our objective and our job is to do that to them first. That's what the Torah teaches us. The Torah teaches us to do that first Protect yourself. And so we're not saying that people should grab arms and start shooting people. That's not our job. Our job is to learn Torah. Our job is to connect with the Almighty, and we'll see in a minute we're going to talk a little bit about this. But where does this whole conflict come from? Where does this whole conflict come from? What's the source of this conflict? The source of this conflict is already in this week's Parsha, in this week's Parsha, in this week's Parsha, this week's Parsha, parsha's Bereshit.

03:08
The first portion in the Torah starts with Bereshit, barah, elohim, hashem and Vesaret. God created the heaven and the earth in the beginning. In the beginning, god created. And what does Rashi say right over there on the first word, bereshiz. Why does the Torah start with the beginning of creation? The Torah can just begin with the laws.

03:33
If the Torah is a manual for living, then don't give us background stories. We don't need to learn the whole history. Just tell us the laws, tell us how to live life. Why do we need to know the backstory? That god created the world from heaven and earth and all you know, and, and heaven and earth was, were created, and the god we know the ted under instances with which god created the world. Why do we need all this when we need to know the story of noah, the story of adam and eve, the story of canaan able, the story of abraham and ishmael and yitzchak and jacob? I mean, what would asaph? What do we need all these stories for? Just give us the laws. Tell us the laws, tell us how to live life, and then we're good to go. So rashi, an incredible rush. I'll read it to you inside, rashi says.

04:25
The commentary says the following Lo hayotzorach lahadchilas ha-Torah elemeh ha-chodesh ha-zalochem shuhu mitzvah rishonu shinitstavo ba-yisro. The Torah should have begun with the first mitzvah of the new month, the month of the month of Nisan being the beginning of all months, that's with the Torah. That's the first mitzvah. Why does the Torah bother to talk about the creation of the world? That Hashem wanted to tell the story of how the Jewish people receive the land of Israel. That if the nations of the world say to the Jewish people you are thieves, that you took over the land of the seven nations, because there were seven nations that were living in the land of Canaan prior to the Jewish people taking it over, the Jewish people will tell them the entire land belongs to God. Everything is God's and God gave it to whom he deemed fit. God gave it to them first. God took it from them and gave it to us, and this is the reason why the Torah begins with Bereshish. You want to know creation. Creation is there to tell us the story of our land. This war could not have begun at a better time when we have the story of the Torah telling us the narrative that the Jewish people were destined for this land. We were promised this land and gifted this land by the creator of heaven and earth. He created the world. He decided where we go. He decided Jewish people, land of Israel is yours. And with that comes a warning in Deuteronomy. What's the warning? The warning tells us that if the Jewish people don't behave appropriately in the land of Israel, they'll lose the land, just like the Canaanites lost the land.

06:59
The Torah tells us in Deuteronomy if you don't fulfill the Torah the way it should be, god says I'll kick you out, just like the guy before you I kicked out. Meaning the land of Israel is not just a regular. We talked about this a lot in our classes previously. The Torah teaches us that the land of Israel is not like any other ordinary land. Teaches us that the land of Israel is not like any other ordinary land. The land of Israel comes with conditions. The land of Israel comes with an entire story, and that story is you've got to fulfill the land's commands or you'll be spit out. The land will vomit you out, and this is one of our obligations.

07:54
Being in the land of Israel is to elevate our living, elevate our soil, elevate our entire existence. There we have the Shemitah. Shemitah is elevating the land that every seventh year we don't work the land, elevate our soil, elevate our entire existence. There we have the Shemitah. Shemitah is elevating the land that every seventh year we don't work the land. And what happens if we don't? Torah tells us what happens. If you do and you properly observe the seventh year to be a year of rest, you'll be blessed with unbelievable blessing, unbelievable bounty. And that's what we understand, as this world is an incredible world where we see reward and punishment. We see how Adam and Eve sinned they got punished. Adam and Eve sinned they got punished. We see how the. It's just an interesting thing.

08:50
We're already talking about Genesis. You know what happened, what happened with Adam and Eve? Adam and Eve sinned. They ate from the tree of knowledge. And then what happens? They get embarrassed that their nakedness is embarrassing to them. So what did God do? God got them clothes. It's a very interesting thing it's important to point this out that God didn't say you know what you sinned, suffer the consequences.

09:28
We learn from the Torah that God clothes those who have nakedness, meaning God covers their embarrassment. When you see someone who does something, even if they do something wrong, but they're embarrassed, they're humiliated. Now you could say, yeah, you shouldn't be driving like a maniac. Yeah, you deserve it. God doesn't do that. God dresses them with clothes to cover their embarrassment. It's something for us to learn. Yeah, we look for justice, we look for honesty, we look for truth, but we also have to look for mercy, and the Almighty teaches us that when he clothes Adam and Eve, he's teaching us that even when you do something wrong, you help cover someone else's shame. So, looking through the entire parasha, the entire portion of Bereshit, the first portion in the Torah, it's critical for us to look with an understanding that this is a prophecy for the future. When you do good, you get good. Noah was rewarded because he did good. His generation was punished because they did bad. The generation of the Tower of Babel, babel. They did bad, they got dispersed. Abraham did good, he got good. And you see, the entire story is teaching us a a theme of how God conducts his world. You know we mentioned this previously in some of our classes. It's a very, very interesting thing.

11:08
In the entire Torah, from the beginning, we talk about the land of Israel the promise for the land of Israel. The Jewish people are going to receive the land of Israel. Abraham is promised the land of Israel. Isaac is promised the land of Israel. Jacob is promised the land of Israel. The tribes are promised the land of Israel. Moses is promised the land of Israel. Isaac is promised the land of Israel. Jacob is promised the land of Israel. The tribes are promised the land of Israel. Moses is promised the land of Israel. Aaron is promised the land of Israel. The Jewish people at Mount Sinai are promised the land of Israel.

11:36
You see a theme. From the first verse in the Torah till the last verse in the Torah. You see that the Jewish people are promised the land of Israel. But not one time in the entire Torah does it talk about the Jewish people residing living prosperously in the land of Israel. Not once the whole theme of the Torah. Yeah, your children, your descendants, they'll all go to the land of Israel. They'll inherit the land. But we don't actually see a time that they were in the land. Now you look in the prophets in Joshua. You'll see it there where they conquer the land, and you'll see later on in Isaiah. You see it in all of the different prophets of our 19 books of the prophets and writings, you'll see how the Jewish people struggled attaining the land of Israel, losing the land, getting it back, etc. But not one time in the five books of the Torah do we see that the Jewish people actually resided in the land of Israel. It's an important question to ask what's going on over here? Why don't we see the Jewish people actually enjoying the land of Israel?

12:50
So I think that we need to understand that this is a parable for life. Our life is one big mission. We need to always be on a mission, heading in a certain direction, going towards our destination. What's our destination? Our closeness with Hashem. Will we actually ever make it? Maybe, maybe not, but we're never stopping that journey. Will our child ever be the best baseball player when they're playing in Little League? We don't know. Maybe, maybe not, but what do we tell our child? Never stop striving for that perfection, never stop striving, never stop putting your dreams and hopes in front of you that you'll accomplish great things. And this, I think, is one of the important lessons of the Torah in general that we need to have a vision, we need to have a goal and not be dissuaded by our failures. Failures will happen. It says in Proverbs.

14:01
In Proverbs, sheva Yipol Tzaddik, vekam, a righteous person, will fall seven times and get back up. Vekam, he gets back up. You're going to fall, you're going to get back up. You're going to fall down, you're going to get back up. So why does it say seven times? So you know, seven is the number of nature, world creation. Seven days, by the way, the bride circles the groom seven times because now the two halves of a soul are coming to their original natural state. They celebrate for seven days.

14:39
There's many, many things you look in the Torah that relate to the number seven, all having to do with things in their state of nature. When we talk here about the number seven, it's an original state. The original state of someone who's a growing righteous person is that they're going to fall constantly. You're going to try to accomplish. I'll give you an example. Someone says you know what I'm going to take upon myself to start keeping Shabbos. And they fail. They by mistake turn on a light switch. That's natural. That's normal. We're all going to try, but never stop giving up on our goals. We're going to try, we're going to fail. That doesn't mean we stop, we're going to continue.

15:38
I want to share with you something that really inspired me. I've been talking to many of our students over the week, even though our classes weren't on regular schedule, but I had the opportunity to speak to many of you and one of the questions that are being circulated is how can this happen? How can it be? Where is God? What's going on here? Look at this war, look at these atrocities, look at this barbaric behavior. So I want you to know something. So I want you to know something Every single one of these 1,300 martyrs of the Jewish people are holy, are pure in the greatest level possible.

16:37
Let's look at a verse in the Torah. The verse says right after we say the Shema, what do we see? We say Ve'ahavta et Hashem Elokecho. You should love Hashem your God. You should love Hashem your God. How Bechol avavcha with all of your hearts, your hearts, our sages tell us, is your Yetzir Tov, your good inclination, and your Yitzirah, your negative inclination. We have a desire to do good things and, countering it, we have a desire to not do good things. Who's going to win? Well, you have to bring them both to God. Bring your Yetzir Tov, your good inclination, make it serve God, your negative inclination. Make it also serve God. Uvachom Nafshacha, to give your soul for Hashem and, lastly, uvachom ha'odecha, with all of your resources. That means our financial resources, that means our physical resources, that means our materialistic resources, every resource we have to dedicate to the Almighty.

17:43
I want to ask you a question Is there any one of you, my Jewish brothers and sisters, who, if a Muslim, walked into the door, the front door of your house, and said I want you, right now, to accept upon yourself a deity, a different God? If there's any one of us that would say, yes, bow down to my idol or I'll kill you. Is there any single one of us who would say yes, I don't see a single one. I don't see a single person saying, yes, me, oh for sure, I'll do that to save my life. No, torah says give up your life for it. Every single one of these 1,300 holy, righteous and pure neshamas gave up their soul for Hashem, for their commitment for God, and would never even consider betraying the Almighty. Now let me ask you a question Did they fulfill this mitzvah in its most pristine and perfect way?

19:01
I think so, and I started thinking about this a lot. What mitzvah have I performed with such perfection. What mitzvah in my entire life have I performed with the same kind of devotion and dedication and commitment as these 1,300 holy, righteous, pure souls performed? I can't think of a single one. I cannot think of a single mitzvah, and I think that this is our mission. This is what God is telling us. God is telling us take a mitzvah, and I think that this is our mission. This is what God is telling us. God is telling us take a mitzvah and fulfill it with perfection. Take any mitzvah. I was learning with one of my study partners a few nights ago. I said take any mitzvah. It could be the mitzvah of tzitzis wearing tzitzis fringes on a four-cornered garment, the mitzvah of tefillin, the mitzvah of kosher, the mitzvah of shabbos, the mitzvah of tzedakah. Don't just give money. Learn the laws of charity and do the mitzvah with perfection. One mitzvah with perfection.

20:26
And we see, many of our sages had mitzvahs that were more beloved to them, not that they didn't perform the others, not exclusive of others, but that they felt a closeness to that mitzvah. I'll give you an example. If I mention a name of a specific righteous sage, everyone will know exactly what mitzvah I'm referring to. Okay, you ready for this? The Chafetz Chaim Everybody knows. You hear the name Chafetz Chaim. Everybody knows pure speech. Everybody knows the Chafetz Chaim. Everybody knows pure speech. Everybody knows. Well, the Chavetz Chaim didn't write 24 other books other than the book of clean speech. He wrote the Mishne Barura. He wrote many, many, many books, many publications on other things. But we all know about the Chafetz Chaim, about his great, meticulous performance of the mitzvah, of not speaking negatively about another person.

21:30
It's an unbelievable thing to take a single mitzvah and bring that mitzvah to perfection in honor and in the merit of these 1300 holy souls that returned to their creator. I think each and every one of us should find a single mitzvah, even if it's one blessing, think of one blessing and perform that mitzvah perfectly to learn about it. There's so many resources and I'll be happy. I'll volunteer my time to anybody who wants. Those of you online on YouTube, on Facebook, on Twitter, on Twitch, on Rumble, on LinkedIn, any one of these, on Zoom, here on the podcast, email me please. I will spend time with each and every one of you researching the mitzvah that's important to you, learning about it, understanding that mitzvah in its absolute perfection and then performing it Doesn't have to be everything. It shouldn't be everything. One mitzvah, and you know that I was heart warmed when I saw Hundreds and hundreds of people in synagogues around Israel preparing tzitzis for the soldiers going into Gaza. You had children, you had women, you had men, scholars, sitting and winding the tzitzis the way the halacha teaches us preparing them, so that the soldiers can have tzitzis. The way the halacha teaches us preparing them so that the soldiers can have tzitzis. You go into the battlefield with a mitzvah that you're wearing. The Arizal says that the tzitzis are a bulletproof vest protecting us from physical danger and spiritual danger.

23:37
I have no doubt in my mind that the love, the friendship, the brotherhood that has come as a result of this devastating tragedy is exactly what Hashem wants. It's exactly what Hashem loves, and we can't stop it. We can't stop it now and say you know, it's very nice, we all get along, but we have difference of opinion. We have you're this political party, you're that political party, you're more religious, I'm less religious, you're reform, I'm orthodox, you're conservative, I'm reconstruction conservative, I'm a reconstructionist. It's nonsense, guys. This is all nonsense, all nonsense. We're all brothers and sisters. We all have the same Father in heaven who wants a relationship with each and every one of us and that's, I believe, the lesson of this war. Look at the outpouring of love. We have soldiers.

24:41
I had a soldier in my house on Yom Tov when this war broke out. He got a phone call from his commander in Israel. He's an Israeli soldier. He was staying. He returned to be with his family in Houston. He was praying in our synagogue, came to my house. He was on the phone on Shabbos, on Yom Tov, speaking to my house. He was on the phone on Shabbos, on Yom Tov, speaking to his commander finding out how he gets back to Israel. When there's a challenge, we run towards the challenge. We don't run away from it.

25:13
Today he's back in Israel in his army uniform, fighting for us. What merits is he? Going to war with the merits of the mitzvahs that we perform. That's the merits we need. You know there's an amazing video that's been circulating.

25:34
A soldier, regular, plain guy. He says my dear brothers and sisters, he says, every single week I go to synagogue and I pray Kabbalah Shabbat and I sing L'chad Odi. He says, but you know, right now I'm on the battlefield. I can't do that. He says, I'm begging you, my brothers and sisters, you go to synagogue and you sing like you never sang before and you dance like you never danced before.

26:09
For all of us soldiers who cannot do that, this is our calling, my friends. This is our calling to get out of our comfort zone and to do something to push our connection with God one single, tiny, little step closer. Don't try to do everything, but never stop giving up on pushing ourselves one small step closer. This is our mission, this is our goal, this is our objective, and I believe that we're going to be victorious in this battle and in all of our other battles, because of our unity, because of our inspiration that we're all being inspired by our soldiers uplifting the entire nation, carrying us on their backs into war with them, because we are the militants who are not on the battlefield. We're the militants fighting the war of the Torah. You can read a book of Torah. You can read a psalm. You don't have to be religious for that, you don't have to be observant for that, you don't have to know anything for that. Read the words of King David imploring on God's mercy, asking Hashem for assistance.

27:45
We can all do that and you know what.

27:49
You don't even need to have a book of Psalms. Go online, say book of Psalms or just Psalms. It'll open up Safari and you can just read from page number one, chapter number one, verse number one. Start from the beginning. Pray for our nation, pray for our people, pray for our soldiers. I'll tell you something really remarkable.

28:18
The Yeshiva students have a break. They have a break that starts from Yom Kippur all the way till Rosh Chodesh. Rosh Chodesh is going to be Sunday and Monday this coming week. That's their break. That's it For the next six months. They're going to be in yeshiva, no breaks. They're going to be in yeshiva learning Torah, day and night till the holiday of Passover. Then they have another break. But do you know that this break they didn't get?

28:47
As soon as the war broke out, the rabbis said yeshivas need to begin immediately. And the morning after the holiday all the yeshivas returned to study Because the nation needs our merits. You're fighting in the battlefield, we're fighting in home front, learning the Torah, and I've heard, I've seen videos of the soldiers saying they said what do we have? We have guns, we have bullets. That's it we have. Where are the merits? Saying they said what do we have? We have guns, we have bullets. That's it we have. Where are the merits so that we can win this war? And they turn to the camera and they say you, yeshiva students, go to yeshiva and study Torah, learn the Talmud, learn the Mishnah, learn the Halacha, learn the Chumash, learn the Torah portion. That is our spiritual power, that we need to succeed in a war, because bullets alone don't make victory.

29:48
My dear friends, we are far from Israel. We're 8,000 miles away. What can we do? Yeah, we're going to give money. We'll give money for this and for our vests and for all that Great. What are we do? Yeah, we're going to give money. We'll give money for this and for vests and for all that Great. What are we doing from ourselves to assist in this war? We can all do something.

30:10
Do a mitzvah, visit someone who's sick, learn a mitzvah. Say a verse of Psalms, learn the Torah portion. You have no idea the power that this gives to our nation. And no, it doesn't have to be a lifelong commitment. For one day, today, say you know what? I'm going to close my television. I'm going to close my computer, turn off my phone and celebrate Shabbos and make Kiddush, light Shabbos candles. You know what a mitzvah that does for the Jewish people, what a merit that brings to our soldiers.

30:56
This is our calling today and as long as this war continues, and hopefully for all of life we should never stop pursuing our closeness and our relationship with God. This is what we need to be doing today. You want to go to demonstrations? What's that going to help, you think, if you have one more person, one less person, it that going to help? You think if you have one more person, one less person, it's going to make a difference. I guarantee you sitting and learning like we are doing right now each one of you. I appreciate that you're here. I thank you for coming and being online, because I know that you have many other things that you can be doing now, and instead you're taking an hour out of your day to learn Torah.

31:42
This Torah that we're learning right now is bringing merits like you cannot imagine giving our nation a power. Just last week, we read in Ecclesiastes et lakol. There's a time for everything. There's a time for peace and, sadly, there's a time for war. And when there's a time for war, that doesn't mean that we just cower and worry. What am I going to do? What am I going to do? We cling to Hashem, hashem, yilachem, lachem. God is the one who fights the wars for us. But God wants us to wake up and there's no such thing that someone can ever say ever.

32:38
I'm not a rabbi, what do I know? I'm not a scholar, I'm not religious, I'm not observant. I didn't grow up knowing. Sadly, there are no more excuses. I say that one of the biggest problems we have today is ArtsGrowl. Artsgrowl is such a magnificent publishing company have today is ArtsGrowl. Artsgrowl is such a magnificent publishing company. They publish the most magnificent works. I mean, you have over here the interlinear Chumash, you have the Rashi Chumash, you have an elucidated Talmud 73 volumes. There's no more excuse not to learn. There's no more excuse not to know. There's no more excuse that a person can say, well, it's not accessible for me.

33:29
We can all do unbelievable things and every single one of you listening, watching here today, I want you to please, I beg you, take a single mitzvah, any single mitzvah, even if it's your favorite mitzvah, and you're like oh, I love it anyway. Great, and do it even more special. You're going to buy some food for Shabbos. Buy something even more special for Shabbos. You're going to light candles. Light candles a minute or two earlier. Bring on the Shabbos earlier. Make it more enriched. You can have someone over invite someone over invite them. Get someone else to celebrate with you.

34:23
The war that we are having is not a war with Hamas. The war that we're having is the war with Hayet Sahara. Hayet Sahara is telling us to go back onto Twitter and to Facebook and to see those terrible videos and the terrible images and get the updates and be busy with all the distractions. But the real battle is the battle of focusing on our relationship with God, where, if we're not careful, we can lose this entire opportunity and not even wake up and not even change our ways. And this would be so terrible opportunity where we see just unbelievable things, unbelievable stories that we're hearing. We, each and every one of us, can make a difference, a huge difference. Don't think well, let other people do it. Other people can do it. No, you, each and every one of us, we can make this world even more special with our relationship with God growing one more piece, one more rung, one more step in our closeness with everything.

35:57
In this week's Parsha, we see how God blew into the nostrils of man a living soul. Vayipach be'apav nishmas chayim, god created man. Verse number 7, chapter 2. And Hashem, god, formed the man of dust from the ground and he blew into his nostrils the soul of life, and man became a being that is alive. Every single breath that we take began with the breath that God blew into our nostrils. The breath of life, but the breath of godliness. Our sages tell us our job is to never let go of that godliness. Our job, that's why we're called Adam. We're called Adam to be Adame, which means to emulate God, be godly, be holy, be sanctified, be special, be merciful, be kind, be giving, be forgiving. This is Be kind, be giving, be forgiving. This is the time to do it.

37:22
It's in this week's Torah portion that we learn this Be godly. Let's take that soul that was imbued within us by the Almighty. God doesn't have pieces, god isn't a a thing. But imagine if God were to be a physical object and he puts a little spark within us, a little something of his in us. That's the breath that Hashem puts into every living being and we're called Adam. Why breath that Hashem puts into every living being and we're called Adam? Why Adam? Not only because we were taken from the earth, which is Adama, but because it's Adame. Emulate God, be God-like, be uplifted. Uplift others, be forgiving, be forgiving, be kind. These are all mitzvahs To be the greatest person we can possibly become. That's our goal, that's our mission, that's our obligation.

38:36
My dear friends, let's make this the greatest Shabbos we've ever experienced. Take a minute and make it special. Take an hour of Shabbos and make it special. Take the whole 25 hours. Say you know what I'm not going to be on my phone this Shabbos. I'm not going to watch television this Shabbos. I'm not going to on my phone this Shabbos. I'm not going to watch television this Shabbos I'm not going to.

39:01
Whatever it is that you decide, take one thing, one thing and elevate it to a whole new level. My dear friends, we should only have good news to share and, god willing, we'll be victorious, not only in this war with Hamas, these evil, wicked people, barbarians I'm kidding, can't call them people, they're animals but we should also win the war against our yetzahara, our evil inclination, our desire to just be materialistic and be comfortable. We should beat that war as well and overcome all of our adversaries. All of the thoughts of negativity should be overcome with the mitzvahs that we do. My dear friends, have an amazing Shabbos and I look forward to hearing from each and every one of you. What is that one mitzvah that you want to learn about, that you want to improve and perfect? I will be with you on that mission and learn it with you and research it with you and hopefully, in the process, I will benefit from learning and growing and perfecting those mitzvahs as well. Have an amazing Shabbos.