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)
Good morning everybody. Welcome back to the Parsha Review Podcast. It is such an honor and a privilege to be here and to talk about this amazing Parsha of Teruma. So last week was Mishpatim. We started talking about laws and ordinances, of how to conduct life, and if you look at the laws of all the countries around the world, most of them, if not all of them, are based on our laws from the Torah. The rules, the basic principles are all founded in our Torah. Something to be proud of, something for us to realize.

00:44
We are extremely obligated to the Torah, more than anyone else on earth. We can't walk around with our chests pumped out, our heads held high, saying, ah, we're the chosen people. No, no, no, no, no. It's just the opposite. Like the Talmud, we learned in the Thinking Talmudist Podcast that it only obligates us more. We have to be more humble and be more focused, because we are not obligated to only seven Nahuat loss. We're obligated to 613 loss. We're obligated to be on such a high level. It's important for us to realize that it's more serious, more severe. We are going to be held accountable for our doings and misdoings.

01:31
Partia this week, teruma, is focused on the guidance and direction of the design of the Tabernacle. If you remember, the Jewish people sinned with the sin of the Golden Calf, which is going to come up in two weeks' Torah portion in Partias Kisi'sa. But then they actually build the Tabernacle. But now we're going to talk about the donations, the donations that the Jewish people contributed towards the necessary vessels, the necessary purchases that are going to be required for the temple. We know that the temple is going to be made out of gold, wood, copper, silver. But if you look at the verse, the second verse in this week's Partia, the first verse is Vayedabir Hashem al-Moshe, where God is talking to Moshe as follows Dabir el-Bene, yisrael, speak to the children of Israel, v'yikru li-Trumah, and let them take for me a raised up portion, a donation. May Yisko'l-Ish from every man, a'shiyyid Veno'Libo, that motivates him, does his heart. Tikru es-Trumah, si you shall take my raised up portion.

02:47
If you look at these words, it doesn't make sense how this is being read. It doesn't really make sense If I were to say if you'd like to give a donation to your favorite organization on earth, torch, obviously right. So then it makes sense. But if I were to say why don't you take a donation for Torch? I'm like what. That doesn't make any sense. You give, you don't take.

03:14
So there are a number of very important things that the commentaries talk about here. Firstly is that when you give a donation, the donor receives more than the recipient. The donor is the one who receives satisfaction. The donor is the one who receives a sense of appreciation for what he's doing here, not from the recipient, from himself, like wow, this is amazing, god has gifted me and I'm able to give. It's a great feeling. But there's something far greater than that, and that is we see later on in the portion we have the word vinatnu and they gave Vinatnu is vav, nun, taf, nun vav, which is a palindrom. What you give actually comes back. It rebounds right back to you. Okay, very interesting. We know it's important to donate. We know it's important to give. We know it's important, okay.

04:19
But let me ask you a question. There's something that's written here that completely doesn't make any sense, which is a sherryad venolibo whose heart desires. What does your heart have to do with it? I want the cold cash. Give me the money to the temple so that we can purchase the gold, so we can purchase the silver, we can purchase the copper, the wood, everything that's necessary. What are you getting the heart involved here, say? Just tell us that that is the only thing that God wants. God doesn't want your money, god wants your heart More than is important to the Almighty the amount of money you have. It's the amount of heart you have. Meaning, it doesn't make a difference if you're the wealthiest person in the community or the poorest person in the community. Your giving is equal because it has nothing to do with quantity or volume. It has only to do with the heart. I show you, venolibo, where's your heart.

05:35
We know the famous teaching in the Torah that the Nisim, the leaders of each tribe we're 12 tribes and each one of the tribes gave the gemstones that were in the breastplate of the Kohen Gadol, the high priest. It's very interesting. They gave because they were the wealthiest of each tribe. They gave, but you know what? God writes their name in the Torah where they gave those gemstones. God takes out a letter from their name. It's their name written without the letter Yud Say.

06:19
Just say what's going on? Why is it missing a letter? We learn that because they weren't excited to give it fast. Their heart was lacking a little bit. Yeah, they gave a nice, very expensive donation. They probably got their name on the wall. But you know what's more than that.

06:41
They waited and they said the way they justified it. You know what? We have more money than everybody else. Everyone's probably going to give the cheap, easy stuff. It's like when they do these building campaigns, capital campaigns for a new building so the first thing that gets sold is not the name on the building, that's the $3 million donation. Nah, I don't think so. That may not happen right away. It's the $180 Mizzuzza. It's the small things. So they said let's wait, let's give everyone an opportunity and when they're done, whatever's left, the more expensive things that will donate.

07:14
But Hashem knows what goes on in a person's heart and Hashem knew that the Naseem really weren't as excited to give. So they camouflaged that lack of desire in that we'll give everybody else a chance. You can't trick God. God knew that. They didn't give it with a full heart. God takes his name out of their name. The Yud, which represents God. God takes that out of their name. They didn't give it with a full heart. There's something very, very special of Nidvas' lave giving something with your full heart. It's worth much more than a larger gift with no heart.

08:03
You know, two days ago on Sunday had a guy came to my house to collect for a charity in Ashkelon in Israel. He runs a big program there and it was the middle of Sunday afternoon. I'm with my children and you know I take the time and I sit him down and I offer him to drink. He wants to drink and I give him a hot cold, whatever he wants. You know everything. And he says to me I want you to know something, I want you to know why I made an emphasis on coming to you. He says I know you can't give me a big donation. He says but I love coming to you because I know that you give me your full heart. You'll sit and you'll talk to me and you'll hear my plight, you'll hear my story. You'll ask me about what's going on. He says I feel loved here and that's why I come. He says the donation is not doesn't mean anything to me. I want the heart which is this week's Parshah. I was very honored by that.

09:04
I want to share with you an amazing story that back in the times of the Arizal I believe it was the Arizal one of the rabbis in the synagogue, in local synagogue, probably in the Zfat area where the Arizal lived, gave a very serious sermon to his congregants, talking about the lechem hapanim, the showbread, that since the destruction of the second temple we don't have the 12 showbreads anymore and it causes God tremendous pain, tremendous, tremendous pain that the showbread is no longer there. The 12 showbread each represented the tribes, one of the 12 tribes. He was a sign of unity that they were all together. He was a sign of love and dedication and commitment, and now it's no longer because we don't have a temple. So one of the very, very simple people in the congregation heard this and he was very touched by it. He goes back to his little village and he goes to his wife. He says can you imagine the pain that God is experiencing? He took it so much to heart. He says maybe we should bake halas for God. We should bake halas for God. His wife hears the whole thing and she's like, wow, you know, this would be really special if we can alleviate some of God's pain that God doesn't have the showbread anymore. They decided they're not going to do 12. They're just going to do two halas. 12 was too many, it was too much. They're just going to do two halas and she baked the halas, fresh halas.

10:48
Friday morning he comes with the two fresh halas to that synagogue and he opens up the ark and right next to the Torah scrolls he puts the two fresh halas, closes the ark and leaves. Later on the Gaba'i of the Shul comes in. He opens up the ark to set up, like the Gaba'i does the one in charge. He opens up the ark to set up the Torah for the reading of that week's Torah portion and he sees these two fresh, warm Chalas. He says you know, I'm very poor, I don't have food for my children for Shabbos. I guess this is just a gift from God. And he takes these Chalas and he brings them home to his family. The next week the same thing happens. And the next week the same thing happens, and week after week after week.

11:37
One week this villager comes with his Chalas on Friday morning, like he does every single week, and to him it's an unbelievable thing. It's like God accepts and loves my Chalas, that God takes my Chalas every week. It's the most incredible thing. Like they keep on coming to Shul. They open up the ark and the Chalas are not there. It must be that God is receiving and accepting and loving these Chalas.

12:03
So one week, when the villager comes with his two fresh Chalas, the rabbi is there. The rabbi says what are you doing? He says what do you mean? I've been coming here every week bringing two fresh Chalas and a miracle happens the Chalas are accepted by God. He says what are you talking about? So the rabbi immediately calls in the Ghabbi and he says to the Ghabbi what's going on here? Where did these two Chalas go? He says well, I'll be honest with you, I'm a very poor man. Many people don't know that, but I'm a poor man and I am the one who takes those Chalas. So the rabbi is like enough of this nonsense. You stop bringing your Chalas and just like, stop this whole nonsense. And that's it. The person was very sad. He goes home and obviously is brokenhearted. He's brokenhearted Not only that. He realizes that maybe God didn't accept my two loaves of Chalas, my two loaves of bread, maybe it wasn't God that really loved it and he's really broken.

13:12
Minutes passed by after these people disperse and the rabbi is still in the synagogue. The arizal shows up and the arizal tells him I want you to know something. Since the destruction of the temple, there is nothing that has been done to alleviate God's pain, like the two Chalas that were baked with all their heart of these villagers, the husband and their wife, the husband and his wife who baked the Chalas with such love, with such devotion, with such compassion. And you took that away. That arizal tells the rabbi. It's been decreed that you're going to die tomorrow For causing such pain to heaven immediately. I'm telling you there's nothing you can do to change this. Write your will immediately. And so it happened.

14:10
But what we need to learn from this more than anything is the power of doing something with all of our heart. When we do something, you don't need to be near Gaza to care for our brothers and sisters who are in the IDF, who are displaced, who are kidnapped, to our hostages who lost members of their family. We don't have to be there. We can be right here in our homes, in our class, and cry for them and feel their pain and love them and share our feeling of Ta'ashem. Hashem, please help. These are my brothers and sisters, because what does Hashem want more than anything? Hashem wants our heart. Hashem loves our heart. That's it. Rahman al-Libah boyi. Rahman al-Libah boyi. The most important thing is to be in the heart, rahman al-Libah boyi, the merciful one, referring to the Almighty Lee Baba. He wants our heart. That's it Hashem wants.

15:23
The same thing applies for prayer. We think, oh, what am I? Why am I going to synagogue? I don't even know what I'm saying or I can't even pronounce these words. I'm reading it only in English God wants our heart More than he wants our words.

15:38
He wants our heart. And if we know all the words and we say all the words but we don't have a heart, hashem wants the heart more. So when you say a blessing with all of your heart, thanking Hashem on your coffee, and you don't know what to say, rahman al-Libaba, the Almighty, wants our heart. We'll see in our brand new prayer podcast. We're going to see why our sages constructed and formulated the words of our prayer book. But that doesn't take away the heart that's required and the heart that's most precious in our prayer. The most precious thing that Hashem wants more than anything is our heart. If we are able to close our eyes, open our hearts and just talk to Hashem, there's nothing that Hashem wants more than that. We see also that God wants the temple to be made with the purest of gold and the purest of silver, the absolute purest. That same purity of the physical and material. Hashem wants the purity of the heart, no different. Just like we don't mix other things into the gold, you want it to be pure, so, too, you don't mix anything else into the heart. When we do actions, when we do actions of kindness, you're helping someone. It's critically important that we focus our heart to be in the right place.

17:24
I'm doing this not so that someone finds out that I did this, so they'll say, wow, you're really special, and they'll give us big adulation and we'll receive all of this honor. And the one day they'll be able to say at our funerals after 120, oh, I'll tell you a story that nobody knows. Like no, that's not why we're doing it. We're doing it, Hashem. We're doing it because we're your servant. We're doing this in your honor, because we want to be God, like purity. I hope nobody sees it. I'm doing it just for you, hashem. This is what the Torah commands us in this second verse in this week's parasha. You know what happens. Dabarel B'nay, israel. Speak to the Jewish people Vehikhuli. They shall take for me, because when it comes from the purity of heart, you become the beneficiary. It's not, you didn't give anything. It's amazing.

18:25
I think we mentioned this in our review of the summary of the entire parasha. We mentioned this, but I think it's worthwhile repeating it and that is who wants to give a donation to support the soaps in the bathroom, that's. I want it to be for the lights, for the Torah scroll. I want it to be for something which is important. You know that stuff like I don't want my money going there, so everybody wanted their money in the temple to go for the menorah, for the altar, for something special. I want you know there's like a little name over there donated by the Wolby family, houston, texas.

19:09
You know, just put it something small. So where did the money go? I want my money to go to a specific no people couldn't do that. People couldn't say, well, I'll give you this amount if you give it for that, and you couldn't designate your money. So how do we know where the money went? How do we know where each person's donation went? Or say, just tell us, it depended on their heart.

19:34
Hashem, who knew how much heart you put into it, how much heart you gave? Hashem knew that money goes for the menorah, that money goes for the altar. Oh, you gave a lot of money, but you gave it with no heart. That'll go for the flooring. Maybe you know they'll go for something which is less important, less prestigious, less holy, less special. It went by the heart. Let me ask you a question.

20:01
So you have the opportunity to meet with Bill Gates. You go to Bill Gates and you say listen, I have a fantastic organization here I want you to support. And he says another organization, can you guys please stop bothering me. Just go to my secretary. Whatever she gives you is fine, just get out of here. You go there and they give you $1,000. Someone else comes to you and says you know, I see what you do, your organization, my children. We save up all of our savings, we save up everything we have. They run lemonade stands. They do everything because they really want to support what you do.

20:45
Sorry, it's not a lot of money, but this is with all our heart. It's $1,000. So what do we say? $1,000, $1,000. You got $1,000 here, $1,000 there, but we all know it's not the same $1,000. One comes with all its heart and one comes with no heart at all. It's money. What are you turning away money? You're not turning away money. There's a difference in the heart and in this week's partial we see that God wants the heart. Everything is about the heart and if we don't have a heart, that we put into our mitzvahs, that we put into our good deeds.

21:23
By the way, shabbos, shabbos, shabbos could be expensive. I go to the store and I see non-coach meat versus kosher meat. I mean it's a difference. Like me, why should I do that? Well, you're gonna have a heart to connect to Hashem.

21:41
Hashem says what is kosher food? Kosher food is the spiritual connector between us and the Almighty. It's not. We think food is physical. No, it's. The channels get clogged up with non-kosher food, the channels of our connection. When we eat kosher food, our sages tell us we're clearing those channels, that now we have the ability to connect with the Almighty. You can do it with a heart, you can do it. Ah, it's the joy of Shabbos. The Almighty says le vu'a laiva n'y'porea, you can borrow on me and I will pay it back.

22:21
About Shabbos, someone has a difficult time, but do we do it with a heart, do it with our heart. It's pure, it's guaranteed. That's why Hashem wants from us Hashem should bless us all that we should be meritorious to have the yekulitruma. We should be the recipients of the donations that we give, that we give it with such a pure heart that it's not a giving, it's a receiving. We should be the recipients of that kindness from the Almighty because of our giving with all our hearts. Amen, have a great Shabbos.

23:02
Bobby, I'm inspired by your story. I want to share with you another story that I heard just yesterday that really gave me the chills. It is so unique and so special what you're saying, that you're baking khala. You don't even know what and how you're doing it, but you feel such a closeness and such a connection. We know that yesterday we got the incredible news that two of the hostages were released miraculously from Rafiach or Rafa and the following story I heard from the person who witnessed this they were in Israel four weeks ago and they went into hospitals and met with the families and the injured and they went into the hotels where the families are staying and they just gave them hugs and they spoke to one and they were there for Shabbos with the families.

23:59
And one of the women whose husband is one of these hostages was there and she was inspired that she you know it's over 60 years. She's over 60 years old. She never lit Shabbos candles, never in her life she never lit Shabbos candles. And for the first time she said for the merit of my husband hopefully being released. She herself was a hostage and was released. She said, in the merit of him, hopefully being released, I'm gonna light Shabbos candles this one time for Shabbos. So she lit Shabbos candles. She said she doesn't know what happened, but as she lit the Shabbos candles she felt a hug from God. She just felt this hug and embrace from heaven. She's never felt this before. So she committed that every single Shabbos till her husband gets released, she is going to light Shabbos candles. And sure enough, three weeks later her husband is released. But one second.

25:08
I wanna share with you another amazing story that I heard just this morning. There is a group of over 5,000 children that get together every single day to recite Psalms. They all get online the army of Tehillim. I think it's called Unbelievable. I heard this, saw this video from one of the directors where she shares that at 642, I think it was 642, 648, maybe in the evening when they were saying the Tehillim the boy who was reading the Tehillim because they take turns, different children read the Psalms and the child is reading El Vareche and El Vassusim, these by chariots and these by horses, and we but us, we pronounce Hashem's name and call out to Hashem, and for some reason the child yelled it out on top of his lungs. She couldn't believe it, but at exactly that moment, 148 in the evening, which is Israel time, exactly at that moment is when these two hostages were released.

26:25
Do you understand what's going on here? It's that when we do something right here in Houston, texas, but we do it with our heart, I don't know why I'm doing it. I don't know how this challah has any transformation in my life, but I just know I'm doing this for Hashem. I'm doing it because you commanded me to take challah. Like you said, taking challah, you know what that demonstrates, taking challah. When you take a piece of that dough and you put it aside, you throw it out, you're saying that livelihood doesn't come from me. My bread doesn't come from me, hashem, it comes from you. That's what you're demonstrating. You're demonstrating it's not me.

27:10
It's very easy for us to say, hey, everything is for me, I do everything, I have all the power, I have all the strength, I have all the ability. Kochive, otsim yadi, it's my strength, it's my IDF, it's my Air Force, it's my talented soldiers. Or we can be living in an existence where we recognize take out that piece, it's all from Hashem, this is Hashem, hashem, I recognize this is for you and if there was a temple, we would take that piece and bring it to the Kohen in the temple. Today we don't have it, so that's why we dispose of it. We're dedicating our commitment to Hashem and that's the most important thing In all of God's world is our heart. So thank you for that story and thank you for giving me the opportunity.

27:58
This is the call of our generation. Hashem is trying to wake us all up and we here in America, we feel it's 8,000 miles away. No, no, no, no. This is our battle, this is our war. This is our struggle. As a people, we need to do everything we can to pick up on the hint. It's all over the place. You're not going to find inspiration in the media. That I can guarantee you there is. Their true colors are showing and we just dedicated three weeks of our thinking Talmudist podcast dedicated to the judgment that's going to befall the nations of the world because of their behavior. The Talmud talks about it very clearly. If you think the Hague was a judgment on Israel, look at this Talmud, listen to this podcast episode. It's not a judgment on Israel. It's the judgment that they are judging on themselves that if the nations of the world don't treat the Jewish people properly, they're calling their own judge. They're demonstrating, because that question is going to be asked. Thank you.