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 to the Parsha Review Podcast. It is so wonderful to be here. Before we begin, I want to dedicate today's class to the refuah, to the speedy recovery of Yehoshua Elchanan ben Liba Bela. He should have a refuah shalema, he should have a speedy recovery and Hashem should bless him with tremendous, tremendous healing and with tremendous health. B'soch, sh'archol Yisroel, among all of the ill among the Jewish people.

00:41
So, my dear friends, this week's parashas, parashas ba'midbar, parshas ba'midbar is a new book of the Torah. It's a beginning, a new beginning, and our sages tell us that you always have. Why couldn't the Torah just be one book? Just one book? No, no, no, because you know what. You can always start anew. You didn't learn the first three, you can start from the fourth. You didn't learn the first three, you can start from the fourth. You didn't learn the fourth, you can learn the fifth. You can always start fresh, new start. But in the beginning of the book of Numbers. And why is it called the book of Numbers? Because the Jewish people are counted again and again, and again, and that's the topic of today's discussion. For the love of God, why does God count us so many times? Let's look at the verse, chapter one, verse one in the book of Numbers Whoa. That's a long carry-on sentence.

01:41
Hashem spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tent of meeting on the first of of Sinai, in the Tent of Meeting on the first of the second month in the second year after their exodus from the land of Egypt, saying what Se'u es rosh kol ha'das b'nei Yisroel. Take a headcount of the entire assembly of the children of Israel, le'mish b'chosem, according to their families. So what is Hashem commanding Moshe to do here? He's saying it's time to count the Jewish people again. It's time to count them. And this is why the book of Numbers because we have counting after counting, after counting Hashem is constantly counting the Jewish people. What does Rashi, the great commentator, tell us? He says why is Hashem counting the Jewish people so frequently? Because Hashem loves us so much. He keeps counting us again and again. He keeps counting us again and again. When Hashem took us out of Egypt, he counted us. When the Jewish people sinned with the golden calf, god counted us again why. He wanted to know how many are left. When God was going to rest his presence upon the Jewish people, his shekhinah upon us, god again wanted to count us and we see that there's a constant repetition of Hashem's command to count the Jewish people. Why is Hashem so insistent on counting the Jewish people?

03:30
So imagine, you know, when someone has something really precious, someone has a new ring, so they're looking at it constantly. You know my daughter, when she got her engagement ring, so she started driving only with her left hand right Because it needs to have that sparkle and she needs to see it at every moment because it represents her whole right. How many times can you look at it? Right Now? It's endless. Because it represents my love, it represents my relationship, it represents everything. When someone has money, they're constantly checking is my money still there? Is my money still there? Is my money still there? They want to see. Oh, oh, oh, oh, baruch, hashem, I still have my money. Why? Because that counting is showing my love. It's my hard work, it's my efforts. It's something which is precious to me.

04:19
We see that Hashem, his greatest treasure, is the Jewish people. So Hashem counts us. It's very precious to Hashem. He says, oh, I'm going to count them again. Count them again. I want to know how many diamonds, how many jewels I have. Some call them Jews, but we call them jewels.

04:37
So what is about this love that Hashem has for us? And, by the way, we know that there's a commandment in the Torah that we love Hashem in return. It's not a tit for tat, but Hashem commands us to love Him. Ve'ahavta es Hashem elokecha. You should love Hashem, your God. What's this commandment to love? How do you command someone to love you? You put a gun to her head and you say love me or else. That's not the way marriage works. You have to court her, you have to date her, you have to make her happy, make her feel secure. Maybe she sees dedication, she sees commitment, maybe that'll lead to love. But to command someone to love them, how can God command us to love him? V'ahavta es Hashem alokecha.

05:42
It's the first verse we recite after saying Shema, and you should love Hashem, your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your heart. Because our heart has two urges the urges of the Yetzer Tov. We spoke about this in our Musser Mondays, in our Jewish Inspiration Podcast, and we have Yetzir Tov. We spoke about this in our Mussar Mondays, in our Jewish Inspiration podcast, and we have the Yetzir Tov.

06:07
We have the evil inclination and the positive inclination. Each one is struggling. That's the Chol, avav Chol. With all of your hearts, you should use your good desire, your positive inclination, to do the will of Hashem and you should bend your positive inclination to do the will of Hashem and you should bend your evil inclination and beat him to do the will of Hashem as well. So if someone has a negative trait of anger, that doesn't mean you're a flawed person. That means that you have the opportunity to turn that anger into something good. Use that anger against the Yetzahara, use it against doing bad things. You can take every trait, every gift that God has bestowed upon you and use it for the good. And we gave many examples of this in our class.

07:04
That's b'chol. In our class, that's b'chol avavcha. What's b'chol nafshacha? B'chol nafshacha means with your entire soul, where, if someone comes to you and says, betray your God and bow down to this idol, any idol, you say I'm willing to take a bullet to the head and not forsake my God. I'm willing to give up my life to show my commitment and dedication to Hashem, which, by the way, every single Jew who has ever ever been taken because of anti-Semitism, whether it be the holy souls of Simchas Torah, october 7th, or those who were murdered in the Holocaust or any other pogrom or any other expulsion you name it that the Jewish people experienced. Those are Jews who died because of this mitzvah. I'm willing to give up my life and not give up my God. I'm willing to give up my life with a smile and fulfill this mitzvah and not give up my God. And then we have Avuchal Ma'odecha. This is an easier one, it's the easiest, and that is with all of my God. And then we have Avuchal Ma'odecha. This is an easier one, it's the easiest, and that is with all of my means. That means my money, my mind, my time to express my love for Hashem with all of my means, any means that God has given me.

08:42
You know what you have a beautiful voice. Use it for the service of Hashem. You have the ability to cook beautifully. Use it for the service of Hashem. Prepare delicious foods for Shabbos. Use your talents to sanctify the name of Hashem. Use your talents to reflect your love and commitment to Hashem. That is the commandment to love Hashem. But again, it's a commandment to love Hashem. How do you do that? How do you command someone to love? So we know prophets.

09:17
In Malachi it says Ahavti eschem omar Hashem. I love you, said Hashem, referring to the Jewish people. Hashem loves us. You know, it's very, very easy to love someone who already loves you. All you need to do is to open your eyes and ears to look and see and listen to the love they have for you. And then our sages tell us. King Solomon tells us just like the reflection of water is like a mirror, it's a mirror image. So too, love. When someone loves you, it bounces right back. It's easy to love back in return you. It bounces right back. It's easy to love back in return. Ahavti eschem amar Hashem. Hashem says already. I already did the first step. I love you, and we'll see more about this today in our we'll see more about this today in our prayer podcast.

10:16
This is a gift from Hashem. Hashem's love and Hashem's love and Hashem's commitment and Hashem's dedication to us makes it easy for us to respond in return with our love to Hashem, with our affection to the Almighty. So how do we go about? In doing this, we've learned many times about the gifts that Hashem has bestowed upon us. We've learned many times of the gifts of our body functioning body. The gift of a functioning body, an eye that works properly. Y'all can't relate to this.

10:57
But I'm already an old guy, you know, and my eyes, my eyes are, I know. So my eyes, I've been wearing glasses for 35 years and a friend of mine recommended maybe I should go get LASIK, you know, laser eye repair, laser eye repair. And so I went and I spoke to the doctor and the doctor's like, okay, you know, we're going to do this and we're going to do that and we're going to repair your eyes. It's going to be like new. So I went and I did the surgery. It took about seven seconds per eye and suddenly I can see, I wake up and I can see the clock and I, and suddenly I can see, I wake up and I can see the clock and I can see everything. It's unbelievable.

11:46
But there's one little problem I can't read. I can't see very close, I can't read. It's very hard for me to read. Okay, so I have these beautiful reading glasses. I met the doctor this week week and I said to him you know, I love it, I absolutely love the. You know this LASIK, I think it's. I would recommend it to everyone. But I can't read and it's kind of frustrating. See, he said I want you to come back and then we're going to do mono, which is we're going to change one of the eyes to see close up so that you can be able to read properly, so you can read properly.

12:32
Okay, so what goes on here? What happens, is that we are trying to mimic the perfection of Hashem. You see, hashem gives us eyes that can see close up, they can see far, they can see, and over time it ages. But what we're trying, we're trying to play God, so to speak. We're trying to get to a point where we can understand Hashem's wisdom, hashem's greatness, and we only have a little drop of wisdom, a little teeny drop of wisdom into Hashem's brilliance, hashem's infinite wisdom. It's really truly incredible, but that's just the eye. Think of the ear. Hashem's infinite wisdom. It's really truly incredible, but that's just the eye. Think of the ear, think of your lungs, think of your heart and, by the way, there are schools of specialists for each one of our organs, for each right. And then you need new specialists to deal with how does the heart and lung correspond? And then you need new specialists to deal with how does the heart and lung correspond? And then you need different specialists, how the kidneys and each one of the different parts of our body to work in absolute perfection.

13:53
How much does it cost you to have a working body? It costs you nothing. Hashem puts you into this world for free. We have a little bit over here. We have to do a little bit of hard work Over there. We have to do a little hard, no, no, it's not so bad, but Hashem gives it to us graciously and kindly.

14:16
Bechein, bechesed, uvarachamim, with beauty, with splendor, with mercy, with kindness. We can wake up and we can kvetch all day, or we can wake up and be thankful. Hashem, thank you for giving me a body that works, thank you for giving me a body that functions, a day that we don't feel pain. Ah, thank you, hashem, not only to oh the day. Oh, I got out of bed, I must have twisted my back, I'm in pain.

14:51
It's very easy to catch, it's very easy to complain, but to stop every day and to say thank you to Hashem. It's impossible for us, if we open our eyes, to not see the love of Hashem, the incredible, limitless love. There's no boundaries, the love that Hashem bestows upon us To the point where our sages tell us that the only objective of prayer is to give thanks. That's it the only goal. You know you stand and you pray, say thank you and thank you and thank you and thank you and thank you. Thank you for everything. Thank you for making me the way I am, thank you for the ability for me to have vision, pokach ivrim, for not making me blind, thank you for giving me the ability and, by the way, very interesting thing, the Chavetz Chaim.

15:47
The Chavetz Chaim was asked by his granddaughter. And the Chavetz Chaim passed away in 1934. So if you think about the level of technology in his generation, it was nothing compared to what we have today, but it was well advanced for their time. And they said and the granddaughter of the Chafetz Chaim said why is it that in our generation we have such incredible revelations of technology? You have the locomotive, they have the trains Unbelievable. You can go from one place to another. You don't have to walk or take a horse and buggy. It goes by with an engine. They already had some cars Unbelievable Technology. It's unreal. So she asked the Chavetz Chaim what's in our generation? Why in our generation was this revealed to the world? It's always been around. The technology has always been there. We haven't discovered it yet. Listen to what he answered. He said because there's going to be a generation already in his generation he was saying this about.

16:56
But imagine us 100 years later. There's going to be a generation that's going to want to see the greatness of Hashem. They're going to be further and further in their emunah away from Hashem. They're going to need the idea that Hashem actually sees everything. So there's going to be a camera. If the camera can see, can Hashem not see? If the recording device can listen, can Hashem not see? If the recording device can listen, can Hashem not listen?

17:27
And this is the verse that we say in our prayers. In the morning we have a special prayer that we say a special psalm, that we say singing the praise at the end of our prayers Understand, you boors among the people and you fools. When will you gain wisdom? He who implants the ear shall he not hear? He who fashions the eye shall he not see? He who teaches man knowledge Hashem knows the thoughts of man, that they are futile. Praiseworthy is the man whom God disciplines and whom you teach from your Torah.

18:31
What does the Torah teach us? The Torah teaches us that Hashem sees everything. We have technology, we can see satellite. Wow, you know, we have something which is called infrared. We have something which is called thermal vision. We can see inside of buildings. We can see inside of cars. We can see if there's a body in the trunk. You can see because of the temperature. Oh, but God doesn't know what goes on in his world. He just gave us the technology, but he didn't leave anything for himself. King David says you have to be a fool, a bore, not to understand that Hashem has the vision to see everything, not only what we can only see. If there's a camera placed right in that direction, we can see it. But what's if the camera is not facing that direction? Well, sorry, you should have gotten a camera that was facing the other direction. Now you missed the action. Hashem sees everything. Hashem sees everything.

19:41
What we are trying to learn in this week's parasha is the love that Hashem has for us. Hashem is obsessed with us and indeed, for the love of God, that's exactly it. Some people use it as a statement. We use it as an understanding that Hashem loves us so much. Hashem is obsessed with us. We need to reciprocate that. How do we do that? What are we going to give God? Are we going to give Him chocolates? No, god doesn't need our chocolates. Are we going to give Him money? God, god doesn't need our chocolates. Are we going to give him money? God doesn't need our money. Everything is Hashem's. So what do we need to do? Open up your eyes and ears. Look at the gifts that Hashem gave you. Look at the love that Hashem has for you, for each and every one of us. We see, wow, hashem gives me the ability to walk and to talk and to eat and to enjoy and to listen to music. These gifts to have children, to raise children, to marry off children. That blessing is the blessing that should guide us to our love of Hashem.

20:56
I want to just end off with one incredible story. There are two very special men who were walking at the Western Wall, at the Kotel, late at night. One was a very well-known multi-billionaire and one was a very well-known multi-billionaire and one was a great rabbi. Together they were walking and they were talking together. As they approach the Western Wall, they look and they see this elderly man who's wailing, crying at the wall. They look at each other and they say listen, I have money. If what he needs is money, I'll take care of it. You're a rabbi. You have unbelievable connections.

21:53
If what he needs is healing, we'll set him up with a doctor. If what he needs is spiritual guidance, you'll assist him, and that was the deal they made. They're going to approach him and ask him why is he crying uncontrollably? Are you talking about two in the morning? Him, and ask him why is he crying uncontrollably? Talking about two in the morning? He's crying at the western wall uncontrollably. Let's figure out why he's crying. So they approach him and they ask him why are you crying?

22:25
Tell us, is it money that you need? Is it health? Tell us what you need. We're both. Tell us. Is it money that you need? Is it health? Tell us what you need. We're both here to help you. Whatever it is that you need, we want to assist. We hear your cries. We want to assist.

22:38
So he says no, thank you, I don't need your help. He says I'll tell you why I'm here. He says I got married many years ago and my wife and I were blessed with many, many children. And tonight tonight I just married off my youngest child and I came to say thank you. That's it. Thank you, hashem. The most powerful prayer in the world is right in our lips. Thank you, hashem. If we realize the blessings that we have every day, we'll be crying no differently. Every gift, say thank you and never stop saying thank you to Hashem. Hashem is obsessed with us. He loves us, he's crazy about us. It's time for us to reciprocate. When, today, you have something you feel good about, you enjoy your coffee in the morning, you don't have to cry by the western wall, but say thank you For every gift, for every joy, for every nachas. Say thank you. The most incredible ability for each and every one of us is for us to talk to Hashem and just say thank you. Have a great Shabbos everyone.

24:25 - Intro (Announcement)
You've been listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe on a podcast produced by TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. Have a great Shabbos. Everyone to donate and partner with us on this incredible endeavor.