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)
Welcome everybody. Good morning. It's so wonderful to see all y'all, my dear beautiful friends. It is so incredible.

00:17
This week's Parsha, parsha's, b'shalach, b'shalach, b'shalach is when the Jews were sent out of Egypt. Now, we were sent out of Egypt. We were sent out of Egypt by the hand of Hashem, but Hashem gives credit to Pharaoh. He says like Pharaoh did something good. Here we know that he was reluctant to do that ten times. And here we have an incredible thing.

00:45
And Israel saw the great hand that Hashem had performed in Egypt. And they feared Hashem. They saw the hand of Hashem, they feared Hashem and they had tremendous knowledge, clarity, faith in Hashem and in His servant, moshe. Sages tell us what is it they saw. They saw Sages tell us that when they saw the miracles, they came to a point of clarity of Hashem's hand that was so apparent, it was so open. They saw the miracle of Hashem and therefore that brought them to a situation of they saw the clarity, they solidified it by seeing it.

01:46
We spoke last week about the importance of verbalizing that everything is from the hand of Hashem. It shouldn't just be that it is an experience that happens, but rather we make it real, we internalize the message, we make it part of our lives. Now we see another virtue, another quality of how to bring Emunah into our day-to-day lives. Listen to this secret. You see. What does the Yetzirah want to do? The Yetzirah wants us to think nah, that's just nature. Nature just happened to be that when the Jews happened to reach the lips of the sea, it split. It happened to be. You'll ask scientists and the scientists will tell you yeah, you can have winds that blow and it makes the water split. It's the same science that people believe in that says that when Iran shot the ballistic missiles towards Israel, that, oh, israel has a great Iron Dome, israel has a great David's Sling and that's why they were protected. Technology science Israel has the brightest minds. Oh, the hand of Hashem that flicked them out of the sky. We have that same challenge today, whether or not we are going to see the hand of Hashem, or whether we are going to see the hand of Hashem or whether we're going to follow the advice of the Yetzirah that says no, it just happened to be, they were lucky. How many times do you have to be in a miracle for you to realize that it's not just luck? 180 ballistic missiles and it's just luck that none of them hit 180 ballistic missiles. You know what a ballistic missile is? It's the size of this building filled with explosives, and it happened to be that nothing landed in Israel. It's the open hand of Hashem that we can see in modern day today.

04:15
But what's our problem? Our problem today is this device, this device I'll tell you why this is the problem the telephone, the cell, the mobile, the smartphone makes us so dumb in our emunah. I'll tell you why. You know, my grandfather was just talking to one of my children about this yesterday. We were driving home from a dentist appointment and as we were driving down the 610 towards our community, towards the Meyerland area, we looked over to the right side and we started seeing the beautiful, magnificent sunset. And my son says to me my 11-year-old son says, abba, we should take a picture, we should take a picture of that sunset. And I said to him you know, my grandfather used to say and this is when I heard this, he passed away over 20 years ago. So he said this well before there was the iPhone, before there were all the smartphones that were taking pictures, well before that, when people had just plain good old cameras, you could take a photograph of a sunset, my grandfather would say people see a beautiful sunset and instead of taking the emunah in and internalizing that emunah, that magnificent painting that Hashem prepares for us, our Yetzahara says no, no, no, just grab it on a picture and let's continue on our trip. The Yetzahara is doing terrible damage to our Amunah. He doesn't want us to internalize that relationship with God. So just grab it on a picture and then just continue on your way. If we really stopped for a moment, pull over on the side of the road, if it's safe, of course, and just take it all in. Look at the beautiful magnificence of Hashem the colors, the flow of how. It's just. You think of a sunset, think of a sunrise the orange, the pink, the blue skies, it's just absolute perfection. Hashem does that because he loves us and he's talking to us and he's saying here's a beautiful postcard I'm giving you today Telling you I love you. That's why you need to see it. You Don't rush, don't like, let's go get back in the car. We're going to go now. We took a picture. We'll have it for later. No, we'll save it as a screensaver. No, take it in now.

07:14
You know, we say that, the emunah, that we have. The knowledge of Hashem shouldn't be a concept. It should be l'chai olamim. It should be living within us, not somewhere stored in our memory that we have. Yeah, I know, I believe in Hashem. It should be living. It should be living. It should be chai. How do you make it chai? Not by saving it as a screensaver on our phone.

07:54
A beautiful sunset, to live it now, because the Yetzirah always tempts us to push things off to later. The good things push off to later, the bad things. Do now Ever realize that the good things? Oh, should I give charity? The etzahara says you know what? Give it later. Give it later, push it off Always the later. But when it's doing a sin, it says come on Now, now is the time, now is the time, let's go, let's go, hurry up now, now, now. That's the trade-off the etzahara always makes. You can notice that when you're trying to push something off, it's something good. When you're trying to do something now, it's usually something not good. That's the tactic of the etzahara.

08:44
You see, when you look at that picture on your beautiful, magnificent screen, you have a massive picture of that sunset. You can't live it now, but when you stand there and you look at a sunset, how can you not shed a tear of joy, of love? That's Hashem talking to me now. Hashem is telling me right now I love you. Hashem is talking to us and communicating through his world, Saying I'm right here. Look, instead, take a picture, let's go. My grandfather said don't take the picture, live it now. An amazing thing. My grandfather said the same thing when we were talking about when we were in Yeshiva.

09:38
They had the development of MP3 recorders. It was like in the early 2000s Little devices you'd record. It was great because you can just put it into a computer. The problem is what happens? What happens is is that then the recorder is listening and I'm not listening because I'm relying on the recorder and psychologically, we're not listening because, like in a backup, I know that it's listening for me.

10:07
You know, I once walked into my grandfather's house and my grandfather was in ecstatic joy. I think he even had a shot of L'chaim on the table. I said, saba, what's going on? What is the celebration? And what's going on? He says to me I just understood something my Rebbe taught me 50 years ago. I just understood, I just got to what he meant 50 years ago. I just understood. I just got to what he meant. 50 years ago he said this we don't even remember what we had for lunch yesterday. How does he remember something? A lecture that he heard from his rabbi 50 years earlier and to contemplate it, to think about it for 50 years to finally come to what this rabbi meant? You know why? Because they weren't dependent on I have a device that's going to capture it for me.

11:08
I have a camera that's going to capture it for me. I have a recording, a video that's going to record it for me. You look today. It's the most incredible thing. Just two weeks ago, hard to imagine, it was just two weeks ago, but there was inauguration of a new president of the United States and you know, one of the most shocking things to me of the people who were sitting in the room, in the rotunda in the Capitol, is that when you looked at the television and you saw the footage, you saw hundreds of cameras. Everyone's holding their phone and everyone is recording. You have the privilege to be right there, within 50 feet of a president being sworn in.

12:02
Take in the moment. No, get the camera. Take it in, feel connected to the moment. No, everybody's got to get it on camera and I think, like we mentioned in the beginning, the camera, this device is our Yetzirah. Not that it's an evil device We'll talk about that in the prayer podcast momentarily but it's a device that's disconnecting us from now.

12:38
It's disconnecting us from living the moment, enjoying the moment. You see something delicious your children are doing. They're sitting, so sweet, so cute. This and that. Oh, where's my phone? Where's my phone? Take it in, record it right here. Record it, take a snapshot with your brain, create a memory.

12:59
No, everything is reliant on our devices. We have to train ourselves to capture a moment and internalize it. This is what the verse tells us, chapter 14, verse 31. By Yair Yisrael, they saw the great hand of Hashem and then they feared Hashem. And then that brought them to a knowledge of Hashem. Understand, they saw it, they internalized it, they made it part of Hashem. Understand, they saw it, they internalized it, they made it part of their consciousness. That's transformational. It's transformational that we're able to change the reality of it, not just being something external. Bring it, make it. Make it something which is a living emunim, make it something which is a living imunah, make it something which is internalized. So there's not enough time to talk about this. This is such a fundamental principle To take everything that we see around us, internalize it. It's a message from Hashem. Hashem is talking to us.

14:23
One of the big challenges that people have today in marriages is phones. My spouse isn't focused when I talk. They're busy looking at their phone Because people aren't living in the now. Live in the now and definitely our emunah, our relationship with God, shouldn't be something of a concept. It should be a now. We should live it, we should feel it. My dear friends, hashem should bless us all. That we should merit, we should merit to live in the now. That our Amunah should be real, that the things we see around us. Don't grab a photo of it, don't take the picture. Take it with your eyes, internalize, make it a memory, make it part of your daily experience. I'm not talking to you, I'm talking to me. We have to make it, internalize it, make it part of our lives. My dear friends, have a magnificent Shabbos.

15:30 - Intro (Announcement)
You've been listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe on a podcast produced by TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. Please help sponsor an episode so we can continue to produce more quality Jewish content for our listeners around the globe. Please visit torchweb.org to donate and partner with us on this incredible endeavor.