Parsha Review Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

00:01 - Intro (Announcement)
You are listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of Torch in Houston, Texas. This is the Parsha Review Podcast.

00:10 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
All right, welcome back everybody, welcome back to the Parsha Review Podcast. We're going to do a little catch-up and then we're going to jump into our Thinking Talmudist podcast. Okay, so this week's Parsha is Nassau. Nassau is talking about the journey of the Jewish people and we have very interesting right in the middle of the portion, chapter 6, verse number 22. Speaks to Moshe, saying Speak to Aaron, your brother Aaron, who's the high priest, and to his children, lamar, as follows.

00:53
And now the following three verses is the verses that we are blessed with by the Kohanim, by the priestsanim, by the priests, every festival. So this past week we had, this week we had the holiday of Shavuot. So in outside of Israel, in the diaspora, we only bless the Kohanim, only bless the congregation during the three festivals. Now, in the Sephardic communities it's done every single day, and in Israel it's done every single day, both in Ashkenazic and Sephardic. In Israel, every congregation, during the repetition of the Amidah, the Kohanim wash their hands and they bless the congregation With what? The following three verses Yevarechecha Adonai v'yishmerecha, may Hashem bless you and safeguard you. Yo'er Adonai panavelecha v'chuneko, may Hashem illuminate His countenance for you and be gracious to you. Yiso Adonai panavele'elecho. Ve'yaseymu chosholem, may Hashem turn His countenance to you and establish for you peace. And then the verse continues V'somu eshemi al b'nei Yisroel va'ani avarachem, let them place my name upon the children of Israel and I shall bless them. So it's very interesting that we have the Kohanim are reciting these three verses in their prayer of the Jewish people. But a reminder, a disclaimer Hashem says you place my name upon the Jewish people and I will bless them, meaning be very, very careful, be very, very careful, kohanim. All right, we have a coin here in our presence, a coin.

03:00
Although you have great power to bless, you have to remember that the blessing comes from the Almighty. The blessing comes from the Almighty. So I want to share with you a beautiful idea. You see, if you look at the blessing that the priests recite when they do the Beruch HaKahanim, it goes as follows Baruch atah Hashem, blessed are you, hashem, elokeinu melech haolam, our God, king of the Universe, asher kidishonu b'ktushosa shal ha'aron, who has sanctified us with the holiness of Aaron, the high priest V'tzivanu levarei chesamo Yisrael be'avo, and has commanded us to bless his people, israel, with love.

03:51
Now, if you look at the verses of the Torah here, nowhere does it mention anything about love. It doesn't mention anything about love. The Torah only says they should put my name on the Jewish people and I will bless them. And I will bless them here in the blessing that our sages, in their divine inspiration, have constructed the Kohanim, the priests. When they bless the congregation, they add the words with love. What's going on here? So perhaps we can think of this idea as follows we all know that everybody is afraid of a curse.

04:42
Why? Why is everyone afraid of a curse? Nobody wants to be cursed. Yeah, it was just a kid, it was just a joke, it was just. There's no such thing. A curse everyone takes seriously. Why? Because usually when someone curses, they curse out of anger, they curse with a deep hatred. They're living this curse.

05:11
Sages understood that the reverse is also true. If you want to bless someone, it also has to be with passion. When you bless someone, it has to be with passion. It has to be with passion. When you bless someone, it has to be with passion, it has to be with love, in order for it to line up, for the blessing to reach its place and to be fulfilled.

05:36
The Talmud says a magnificent thing. The Talmud says the blessing of a simpleton shouldn't be taken lightly. Don't take it lightly, like, oh, if it was a big rabbi, then it's a big blessing, but if it's just some simple guy, then you don't have to take it so seriously. No, Talmud says, take it very seriously. Why? Precisely for this ingredient. If a blessing is given with the ingredient of love, that has the power, that has the ability to succeed that blessing, to bring that blessing to fruition. But if that blessing does not have love behind it, it's just words. Our sages understood this, which is why the Kohanim, when the priests recite the blessing, v'tzivanu levarecha samo Yisrael be'ahava, god commanded that the priests bless the congregation with love, because without love there is no blessing. Without love, that's the main ingredient that is required for a blessing to come to fruition.

07:08
So I want to share with you something, and we've spoken about this in the past. It says that a Kohen who is not in peace with his fellow man cannot serve in the temple. You can't serve in the temple. You can't serve in the temple. And now it makes all the sense in the world, because what is the service in the temple? The service in the temple. When the high priest was going into the temple and bringing offerings, who is he doing that on behalf of. He wasn't doing it independently. He was doing it as a representative of the Jewish people.

07:47
If you have a quarrel, you have a feud, you have a fight, an argument with the people you're representing. You can't do that. You can't. You can't represent someone half-hearted. It needs to be wholehearted. It needs to be with love, because if it's not with love, you're not properly representing the congregation.

08:18
I think this is such a fundamental principle in our lives. You know, children we said this previously. Children fight on the playground. A minute later they're playing nicely together. Adults get into a fight. Ten years later they're not talking to each other. What's the difference? Children are invested in being happy. Adults are invested in being happy. Adults are invested in being right. If we only change that, we say you know what I want to just be happy. So you know what? I'm going to have to let go of my ego a little bit. I'll have to forego, I'll have to forgive, I'll have to move on for the sake of peace, for the sake of love, for the sake of friendship. I'm ready to do that because I'm invested in the greatest thing in the world, which is happiness. You know, the whole world is invested in one thing Everybody wants happiness, even a sadist.

09:26
That brings them happiness. Okay, it's a little crazy, but that's what brings them happiness. Even a sadist, that brings them happiness. Okay, it's a little crazy, but that's what brings them happiness. Like, what's wrong with you, right? No, that's what brings that. Everyone is looking for happiness. Why people look a certain way? Okay, everyone. That's why we have the doctor here to help us out. But everyone is searching for fulfillment. Everyone is looking for happiness. Yet are we ready to let go in order to attain that happiness?

10:02
The Kohen needs to do that every time he has to bless the nation. Are you going to put yourself above the people or put the people above yourself? Because there's a declaration there that the Kohen who, by the way, the Kohanim, obviously not our in-house Kohen the nicest, calmest, gentlest person, but the Kohen typically have a temper. They have a little bit of a fire in them. If you ever meet a Kohen again, not our in-house Kohen he's gentle, sweet, nice, perfect person. As long as you don't push him, he says so right.

10:42
But it's a very important thing for us to realize that, notwithstanding the nature that God put in a Kohen, god says if you want to have the proper ingredient of the power to bless the nation. You need to have that virtue of peace, that virtue of love, and only through love you're able to accomplish the blessing that you're trying to bestow upon the people. Let's take this one more step here. Is it possible to accomplish anything in this world without love? It's impossible to. It's an amazing thing.

11:29
Look in our prayer book, the last, the final blessing of the Amidah Sim Shalom. We ask Hashem, hashem, please bestow upon us peace, because you know what comes right after shalom Tova uvracha, you know what Establish peace. We ask Hashem, hashem, please bring me to a place of peace, because you know what comes when you have peace. You have goodness, you have blessing, you have graciousness, you have kindness, you have compassion. All of that comes as a result of having peace. That's what we ask for. Who doesn't want compassion? Who doesn't want kindness, graciousness, blessing and goodness? We want that all day. We ask for that. How do we get it? The bottom line is peace. We ask Hashem, bless us, our Father, all of us as one, with the light of your countenance. This is the same countenance we said in the blessing of the Kohen of the priests, that same blessing. Hashem should place his countenance upon us. We want light in our life. We want peace. We want blessing.

12:53
The Talmud says in the last, the end of tractate, the last tractate of the entire Talmud, the last page, the last piece of the Talmud. It says this is the bottom line. They always say look at the end, you'll figure out everything. It says God doesn't have a vessel to hold blessing, but peace. You want to know how we have blessings in our lives.

13:30
When we're committed and we're devoted to peace, we're able to accomplish anything in the world. When we're devoted to peace and we let go of our ego, we let go of I have to be right. We let go of I did the right thing. They cheated, they cut the line. You know what is it worth it to let go of peace for that to be right? It's an amazing thing.

14:04
I was just in Israel. It's such an amazing culture because when you have ballistic missiles aimed right at your doorstep, you'd probably also go a little Meshuggah right. That's the way it is. You wonder why people are so aggressive in Israel. The way you drive a car in Israel, it's almost like they don't have a hand on the steering wheel, they have a hand on the horn. They're always honking. They're so aggressive, but when you're able to. That's why they call Israelis Sabras, because on the outside they're prickly but the inside they're so sweet. They're sugar, they're delicious. They're prickly on the outside Okay, a little prickly on the outside. You get a little bit past the surface, a little bit past the surface and it's so sweet. See, the love, the kindness that you have in Israel is no nation on earth like Israel.

14:58
Who's the first nation to volunteer when there's an earthquake in Iran? No, israel. Do you know that Israel has a unit that sits in Ben-Gurion Airport ready to go at all times for disaster relief, for search and rescue. There's a unit ready at Ben-Gurion Airport for any place in the world, anything, haiti. Remember that Israel was the first to have a field hospital. They were the first ones there. Everyone talked about giving money, everybody talked about it. The first ones to set up shop was Israel.

15:39
But we wonder, we wonder but don't they hate you, iran? Don't they hate you? Doesn't Syria, all these other countries? Israel's the first to offer and they're doing it genuinely, because you know what? Yeah, for the sake of peace, we're ready to overlook the differences. We're ready to overlook our differences.

16:01
You ever wonder how two nations you're looking? We're looking at a world right now that's in total chaos, total chaos. I'm not talking about Twitter. I'm talking about Ukraine and Russia. You have other challenges in other places. You had just a few weeks ago, you had India and its neighboring country, you have Gaza, you have Israel. I mean, there are different places in the world that are dealing with a tremendous amount of turmoil, and you know what.

16:35
You wonder how can they ever make peace? If your desire for peace is greater for your desire to be right, then you'll make peace. You know what Golda Meir said the only time you'll have peace with the Arabs is when they love their children more than they hate us. When your love is greater, that's when you'll accomplish. That's when you'll accomplish peace, and that's our goal. That's our blessing. Our blessing to ourselves, to each and every one of us here, is that we should have a desire for peace that grows the love in our heart, not one that creates barriers, because I'm right, you know what You're right, you know what You're wrong. It doesn't make a difference. For the sake of peace, I'm ready to let go of the whole thing, and Hashem should bless us all that we should fulfill difference For the sake of peace. I'm ready to let go of the whole thing, and Hashem should bless us all that we should fulfill this right over here that we have in our Torah, in this week's Torah portion Kosev Aruchas B'nai Yisrael Amor Lehem. Tell them, go, tell them.

17:47
Yivarech Acha Hashem Yishmerecha Yo'er Hashem Pan'lecha v'yichonecha yisah Hashem panu ve'lecha v'yisimacha shalom v'samu shmi. Hashem says put my name on the Jewish people. What's Hashem's name? One of Hashem's name is shalom. That's why you're not allowed to say shalom in the restroom. You say hey, shalom. You're not allowed to say that in the restroom. Why it's the name of Hashem? Because Hashem says I want my name to be peace. Because when we bring peace into our life, we're bringing Hashem into our life, we're bringing blessings into our life. That's our goal. That's why we say Oseh shalom bimromav God. What does he do? He makes peace up above, in his heights, in the heights Huya asesh shalom oleinu. We want to please make peace upon us as well, ve'al kol Yisrael, and upon all of Israel. And now we respond Amen. My dear friends, have a magnificent Shabbos. Thank you so much. How do we move past the challenges, that bitterness? Yes, it's a very real question we have to ask. I want to answer your question with a story. I said this story just recently.

19:19
There's one of the largest pharmaceutical manufacturers in Canada. His name is Leslie Dan. He's a businessman and a pharmacist. He has a pharmaceutical company called Novo Pharm. A successful generic pharmaceutical company called Novo Pharm, A successful generic pharmaceutical company which he subsequently sold to Teva Pharmaceuticals. A noted philanthropist he donated $15 million to the University of Toronto. He donates to Yad Vashem. He has many, many, many honors. They have the Leslie L Dan Pharmacy building in University of Toronto. He has given a considerable amount of money to Eshet Torah. They have the Dan family building.

20:03
Really an incredible, one of his incredible ventures. He's worth 1.4 billion dollars. Okay, so that's just to give you some of the background. So he created a drug and one of his developers, one of his scientists that he had in his plant, stole his patent and a week before he was going to launch his product, this rogue scientist was going to launch his and undercut him by significant measure and Mr Dan called him up. He stole his patent. It wasn't like you know, it was like straight out Called him up and he said to him I want to make you an offer and his advisors were telling him you've got to be nuts. What do you mean? You make him an offer? What do you mean? You make him an offer. What do you mean? Make him an offer? He just stole your patent. He said I'm not in the business of being right, I'm in the business of making money, and if he goes live with his product, I will lose money. I'm willing to pay him so that I can make more money. You understand, that way of thinking is a very, very important thought.

21:20
When we approach peace. I'm willing to forego my honor for the sake of peace, because there's nothing more blissful in life than peace. There's nothing greater in our lives than having peace. We know this in our personal relationships, in our marriages, respectively. We know that the greatest experience in our life is peace. We have peace at home. What do we say every Shabbos? Shabbat, shalom, shalom, peace. To be a Shabbos of peace. We say Shalom Aleichem. We bring in, we welcome in the angels into our home. With what? With peace, the essence. What do we call peace at home? Shalom Bayit, the home is peace. Everything that we want in life depends on us having peace, and if we're able to break through. We're able to break through, to cut through the barriers of peace.

22:29
You know what they were. They were, they were wrong and I'm willing to let go of it. They were wrong, they wronged me, they stole my product, they stole my parking spot, whatever it is. They embarrassed me, they ashamed me. You know, the Talmud says something very interesting. Again, a lot of this we've spoken about in different situations, different conversations.

22:57
The Talmud says that if a person is embarrassed publicly, humiliated publicly and does not respond, all of his sins are forgiven. What does that mean? Someone goes over to you, ron, and embarrasses you in public. What are you going to do? Are you going to respond and answer back at them? Talmud says if you keep your mouth shut, which? What is it? That's peace.

23:25
For the sake of peace, you're forgiven all of your sins. That would also include, by the way, forgiving and foregoing forgiveness, what I think is right. You wronged me, I'm ready to overlook it. That in itself brings us to a point where all of our sins are forgiven. It's a great exchange. They wronged me and I'm willing to forgive it. And what are we doing by that? The Talmud tells us you're being God-like, just as God is forgiving, you be forgiving. Just as God forgets, you forget. Just as God makes amends, you make amends. Just as God makes amends, you make amends.

24:25
Mahu rachum, afato rachum. Mahu chanun, afato chanun. This is what the Talmud says. This is our task in life is to be God-like, and if we're able to do that, then we elevate ourselves on a level that brings unbelievable blessing. Unbelievable blessing. It's not exclusive to the Kohanim, that's correct. It's not exclusive Anyone can. I bless my children every single week with that precise blessing, those words, that's the blessing. All we need is love. In our repetition of the Amidah it is recited by the Chazan and we all say so may be of the will of Hashem. So that's from an ordinary non-Kohen. We still recite the priestly blessing. It's called the priestly blessing, but it's not exclusively by the priests, it can also be done by any one of us. We can recite this blessing Again, again.

25:24
There's a tradition for parents to recite these blessings upon their children, to bestow them upon their children, with the introductory words of Yisimcha Elohim Ki Efraim Echem Menashe. May God bless you like Efraim Echem Menasheh. May God bless you like Ephraim and Menasheh, the sons of Joseph. Where it says in the end of the book of Genesis where God says Becho Yivorach Yisro, the Jewish people will be blessed by you, meaning that when they bless their children they will say if you look in the prayer book, you look at Friday night, it's right after you have the evening service. It has the Shalom Aleichem, but it also has there's a widespread custom for parents to bless their children, young and old, upon returning from the synagogue on the eve of Sabbath.

26:25
And for the boys you say Yisim Cholokim Kefraim Chim Manashe. May God make you like Efraim and Manashe. And for the girls you say Yisim Cholokim Kisor, riff Garchav Leah. May God make you like Sarah, rebecca, rachel and Leah. Now it happens to be that I don't say it this way for my daughters because what did we just say that b'cho yivorach yisroel, you should be blessed by Ephraim and Menashe. So why don't we do that for our daughters as well? So I asked my rabbi if I should say for my daughters yisimei helokim, god should make you like Ephraim and Menashe and Sarah Rivka, rocha Oleah, and like our matriarchs Sarah, rebecca, rachel and Leah. And my rabbi said that that would probably be the correct thing to do. So that's what I do. And so for my daughters. They don't get excluded from the blessing of Ephraim and Menashe. Now, why specifically Ephraim and Manasseh? Just an interesting thing Our commentaries teach us, like why did they merit that this should be the blessing?

27:29
Who were Ephraim and Manasseh? Ephraim and Manasseh were born in Egypt. They grew up. They didn't have a cheder, they didn't have a day school, they didn't have a Jewish community, they didn't have a torch center. They didn't have. Where did they learn? Where did they learn? They learned at home, from their parents, that's it, from Joseph and their mother, and they grew. They were very righteous people, ephraim and Manasseh. In fact, they both merited to a portion of the land of Israel.

27:59
And in fact, very interestingly, I was just uh last week, prior to uh, prior to returning home, I went to go visit my favorite winery, the shiloh winery, in in shiloh, shiloh and uh, and I actually was wondering why they have in their logo they have the ox as their logo. So they said because they're in the land of Joseph, which is they're actually in Ephraim, which is Joseph's son. The symbol of Joseph was the ox, so that in their logo they have. If you look at every time, you'll see the red label of the Shiloh Winery. You'll see the ox. You'll remember it's in the land of Joseph. We did visit that. We did visit that. That's correct and a very, very special place. By the way, you should go to see the ancient temple of Shiloh which is being now they're doing a lot of archaeological work there. It stood for 400 years as the temple the temporary temple till King David designed and King Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem. So it was a temporary place where, over 400 years, that temple stood, where they brought offerings there, they had the Holy of Holies there, and then it was eventually transported to its I don't want to say final, but God willing, it'll be restored and we'll have our temple rebuilt.

29:40
All right, any other questions? Next holiday is Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah, actually, actually. So let me tell you. So we have a lot of special days between now and Rosh Hashanah. Very good question.

29:54
So the first is we know that Moshe went up the mountain on Shavuot, so that was this past Monday. I count 40 days will be the 17th of Tammuz. What happened on that day? He comes back and there's the Egel, the golden calf, the sin of the golden calf. Moshe Rabbeinu sees that there's a big problem he has to clean up excuse me, he has to clean up the act of the Jewish people. He sticks around for another 40 days, till the beginning of Rosh Chodesh Elul, the beginning of the month of Elul. He goes back up for 40 days and descends with a second set of luchos, a second set of tablets, on Yom Kippur. The first time Moshe descends with the tablets, the God-given tablets, was on the 17th of Tammuz, which is only 34 days from now. And then, 40 days later, he ascends the mountain again for 40 days and then descends with the man-made tablets, the Moses-made tablets, on Yom Kippur. And what did he come back with? As well, with those tablets, with forgiveness by Yomer Hashem Salachti Kedvarecho, where God says I forgive you because you asked. And it's a very important thing for us to know that when you ask, you get an answer, and if you don't ask, you may not get an answer. Well, tisha B'Av is in the middle.

31:32
When the Jewish people cried in vain because of the false spies, the spies' false testimony about the land of Israel, on the 9th of Av, they cried in vain. God says you don't cry in vain. What you do is a prophecy, and if you cry, I'm going to give you something to cry about, and that's the two temples were destroyed on that day. Many, many devastating, horrific tragedies befell the Jewish people on that same day as well. Tragic tragedies befell the Jewish people on that same day as well. So we sort of cried ourselves into a prophecy of terrible things on that day.

32:07
Thank God it's only one day, but it's one really horrible day, which is a day that we mourn, a day that we cry, a day that we lament, we have the lamentations, a day that we have really a day of fasting, a day of sorrow and hopefully, a day that will be restored to great, great joy. It says that the day of Tisha B'Av will become a day of great joy for the Jewish people. It says an amazing thing about Tisha B'Av, even though it's not the next holiday that we're going to be dealing with, but it is actually the next holiday because it says about Tisha B'Av a day of sadness, a day of sorrow. It's a day we don't say Tachanun, supplications. We don't say supplications, why not? It's called a Moed, it's called a holiday, a festival. What do you mean a festival? It's a day of horrible tragedies. What is that festival or say? Just tell us, because there's holidays that bring you closer through love, and there are holidays that bring you closer through sadness, and this is, you know, every relationship goes through highs and lows. The lows can sometimes make you so much closer. Right, the challenge in a relationship can sometimes bring you so much closer, and that's our holiday of distance from the Almighty. It's called a moed of rikhuk, of distance. We became distanced from God. So you know what we do now we get even closer. I can't believe I let you fall between the cracks. I can't believe I neglected our relationship. And that's our journey forward. Why did Hashem create the nations of the world? Why did Hashem give us the nations of the world? We mentioned this previously.

34:00
The Talmud we studied this in the Talmud. You hear this, mark, I don't think you were in this class. This is a long time ago. No, no, no. Listen to this Mark, listen to this.

34:10
The Talmud says why was the Torah given to us at Mount Sinai, anybody know? Because, yes, it was the humblest of all the mountains. It wasn't Mount Everest. Because in order to receive the Torah, in order to receive the Torah, you need to be humble. But there's another reason, many other reasons, but let me tell you one of them. You know that Mount Sinai had many different names Mount Horeb, for example, mount Horeb. Why is it called Mount Sinai, our sages tell us, because it rhymes with the word Sina, sinai, sina. What is Sina? Hate Our sages. The Talmud says that when the Torah descended at Sinai, hate descended at Sinai as well. What hatred. We talked about this last week.

35:09
The hatred of the nations of the world. That when we get closer to God and, by the way, you look at the book of Isaiah, for example, you know what the book of Isaiah is. I'll tell you the theme in 10 seconds or less. The Jewish people did good, they got good. The Jewish people did bad, they got bad. Period, end of story. Look at the whole book of Isaiah, chapter after chapter after chapter after chapter. It tells you the Jewish people did good, they got good Meaning they chapter. It tells you the Jewish people did good, they got good Meaning they connected with God. The nations of the world didn't bother them. They went against God. The nations of the world started hating them. They went back to Hashem. They got good. The nations stopped bothering them. They went against Hashem. The nations of the world were at their throats again. We see this time and again you look at.

35:55
That's why it's so important for us to look at the prophets and to learn the prophets. Maybe we should start a class on the prophets. Want to do that? We should do that. So maybe next year, starting 5, 7, 8, 6, we'll start a journey of going through. Each week we'll do a different book of the prophets. It's going to take a lot of work to prepare it, but I'm going to. I'm up for a challenge. You know that. I love that.

36:26
By the way, the Talmud says here you go. Mark another thing of Talmud. The Talmud says that really there were millions of prophets, millions of prophets. So why don't we have millions of books of prophets? There were millions of books of prophets, but only 24 that were counted as part of the books of the Tanakh Sages. Tell us only the lessons that will be for eternity for the Jewish people are the ones that were maintained as part of the 24 books of Tanakh. We have the 5 books of Moses and then 19 books of prophets and writings.

36:55
So in Parsha Shalach, which is in another couple of portions, moshe sends spies into the land of Israel and the spies conspire to dissuade the Jewish people. Yeah, the monsters, there are giants, there's this, there's that they come with those. What A land that kills its people, which, by the way, is not false. That part is not false. Israel is a land that's not like any other land in the world. The land itself has the power over the people. When the people did the will of Hashem, the land took them in and made it fruitful. The Jewish people we see today in the land of Israel. They make a desert. A desert because the report that the spies brought the spies brought it says Texas doesn't spit you out. Well, maybe it should, maybe it shouldn't, but it doesn't spit you out.

37:57
You look in the verses of Shalach and Lassu of Saaret. They went here we go. Vayis ablu, ha'am, ma'od and Moshe spoke the words to all the children of Israel and the people mourned exceedingly. You mourned exceedingly, oh. Hashem says. You mourned in vain. You didn't realize the blessing of the land Got a big problem here, and that's why Hashem says you're not going to mourn for no reason. I'm going to give you something to cry. It's like you know, your child cries for no reason. I'm going to give you something to cry about, right, all right.

38:36
So on your question of anti-Semitism, the first question was whether it's not because of the Jewish people who are distancing themselves from the mission. The answer is yes, emphatically yes. Hashem says so in his Torah. He says the nations of the world will be my eyes and ears on the ground, and if you go against, we have a tremendous hatred for people like Hitler. We have a tremendous hatred for people like Stalin, people who really murdered millions of Jews, but then we also need to remember that they can't do anything without the will of Hashem. Okay, so then we have a question why would Hashem let such a thing happen? That's another question which we can get to. We've addressed this many, many times in the past. But the idea here is that the ICC, the International Criminal Court or Court of Justice, whatever they call it Injustice has no ability to do anything in the world if we don't open up that door for them. But they won't.

39:42
But there's another thing here that we have to remember, and that is the Torah tells us in Parshas Lech Lecha, way back in the beginning of the Torah, where the Torah says that it's a choice of every single nation as well, whether or not they're going to be the ones who love the Jewish people or who hate the Jewish people. Mevorachecho, yevorach. Those who bless you will be blessed. Those who curse you will be cursed, and that's their choice as well. That means that you know, the Kanye West has the choice whether or not he's going to be the lover of the Jewish people or the hater of the Jewish people. No-transcript, that's their choice. Meaning, let's say, the Jewish people are deserving of a punishment. Heaven forbid, we should never, ever be deserving of such things.

40:36
So Hashem puts it out there who wants to hurt the Jewish people? I got a card, you can take it. And the Hitlers of the world say me, me, me, me, please, I want to be the one. And then you have the Churchills who say no, no, no, I want to protect them, I want to defend them. So that's their choice. He could have been the one to take the say and say I'll do it for you, you see, but that's the choice of the nations of the world, and those who bless the Jewish people are going to be blessed, those and there are. I've met people like Pastor Hagee. I personally met him and I thanked him. He is a man who stands up with courage and says I want to be among those who are blessed and therefore I give all my blessings to the Jewish people and he gives millions and millions of dollars to Jewish institutions in Israel to help support them, to help poor people, to help underprivileged people, people who need orphans and widows, and food pantries, to assist the Jewish people. He says I want that blessing.

41:47 - Intro (Announcement)
You understand.

41:48 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
He understands that responsibility. He says I believe in the Bible. That's what it says in my Bible too, and therefore and I was in his place, the Cornerstone Church, and I was there where he declared this he says who in this church wants to be part of those who are blessed, come join me. That's a leader who says it's black on white here. This is not oh, it's subject to interpretation. This is very, very clear.

42:19
The Torah says it and I want to be part of that as individuals, our own connection to Hashem as a community. Bring people with you on that journey. If we're able to bring people with us, I'm not only talking selfishly because more people should come learn Torah and come to classes. That's not only talking selfishly, because more people should come learn Torah and come to classes. That's not the only point. The idea here is, if I can reach out to one person and get them to come join me for Shabbos, if I can get one person to come join me in a mission of eating kosher, I can get someone to join me to study Torah as my study partner. Every step that I make as an individual and each one of us respectively, what we're doing is we're bringing Hashem's children closer to Him. Hashem says oh, look at my children, look, they're closer, they're coming closer. That's our job Today. It's very easy. By the way, you don't even have to do that. Today you can share a video online. You see something inspirational go share it with a friend.

43:23 - Intro (Announcement)
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