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.

00:09 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Welcome back everybody to the weekly Parsha Review. It's almost Shabbos, so I just wanted to get something in before Shabbos so that we can hopefully have an enlightened understanding of this week's parasha. The parasha begins, parasha is, and Moshe implored before Hashem at that time saying and Moshe continues to go on and ask Hashem for the privilege of going into the land of Israel. Now, we know, going to the land of Israel, we know, we remember a few parishes ago we already discussed that Moshe was punished because he hit the rock, hit the stone, instead of speaking to it, and our sages here elaborate on this term that's used in this week's parasha of va'es hanan, and he implored upon Hashem. So we know that, firstly, there are ten different terms of prayer, ten different ways in which we can pray. Va'es hanan, chinun. Imploring upon Hashem is one of them. But we have another idea, which is that the numerical value of Ezekiel is 515, that Moshe repeated his request 515 times. And it's, I think, a fascinating thing. You know, sometimes we ask for something and the answer we get is no, and we say, okay, fine, no, you got to go back and ask again and ask again, and ask again and ask again. Now Moshe asked 550 times and finally got his no, where Hashem says stop, don't ask anymore, Don't ask anymore, okay.

01:59
But Rashi says something very interesting. Rashi says that chinun, this type of prayer, this one of ten types of prayers, this imploring of Hashem is matnas. Chinam Comes from the term, from he's asking for something which he doesn't necessarily deserve. Let's stop for a second and understand what's going on. Moshe is asking for something that he doesn't necessarily deserve. So we need to understand the way the righteous work. How do the righteous work? The righteous? You know, we have two worlds. We have this world and we have the next world, and everything that we do in this world builds us merit for the world to come. But what do real righteous people want? Real righteous people don't want to eat up the reward for the world to come. So what do they say? I have nothing. Really, I have not many. Whatever I've done in my life is very limited and therefore I don't want to use up the rewards that I could get in the world to come for something that I'm requesting here. So what is Moshe asking? Moshe is asking Hashem, give me, not because I have merits, I don't really have much merits but I don't either want to use up whatever I do have from the world to come for this privilege that I will have in this world, and therefore I'm asking for something sort of for free. I want to get this for free.

03:23
We know the Mishnah tells us Al tiyu ka'avodim ha'mesham shem esarav, al manas lakab elpras, don't be like those who serve their master to receive the reward. But what do we say? We say there's something different between a reward than getting actual pay you do actual, you do a labor, you want to get paid for it okay. Than getting actual pay you do actual, you do labor, you want to get paid for it. Okay, but it's not the reward that we're looking for of the special prize, okay. What we see here is something very, very incredible is that our merits have limits, but Hashem's kindness has no limits. Hashem's kindness has absolutely no limits. It's a very incredible thing. We know we're just about to celebrate the 15th of Av. We just finished the nine days of Av of leading up to the 9th of Av. Terrible devastation, terrible calamities befell the Jewish people during this time period and now we go to a happier time.

04:23
The 15th of Av was considered one of the happier days in the Jewish calendar and it says that the single girls would go out into the marketplace, they'd go out into the fields and they would dance and they would hopefully attract the mate and they would get married. And there were thousands of weddings going on on that day. It was really incredible. But what did each one request? Each one requested their own virtue, right, in order to attract their mate.

04:56
So the Talmud says that those who were beautiful, they would say look at my beauty, marry me for my beauty. And those who had lineage that came from a very prestigious family look at my heritage, look at my prestige, look where I come from, marry me for that reason. And those who were wealthy, they said look at how much money I'm bringing to the table here, marry me for that. But then there were the girls who didn't have any of those virtues. They weren't so beautiful, they weren't necessarily from a very prestigious family, they weren't wealthy. What are they coming to the table with? And they, you know, their looks were kind of compromised.

05:35
So, and their looks were kind of compromised so it says that those girls would say look at us for the virtues that Hashem has given us. What is that? What is that supposed to mean? It's like sort of like a cop-out. We don't really have anything we're bringing to the table. Our sages tell us what those girls were really saying was we don't really have any virtues, perhaps, but we rely on Hashem. That is the greatest virtue is that we rely on Hashem, that Hashem is going to bring us our mate. Hashem will bring us the goodness and the kindness that we need, not in our own merits, because we rely on you. It's because we rely on you that we will bring this. It means that they were relying only on Hashem.

06:21
It's interesting that we see this by Abraham, our patriarch. It says he didn't request anything because, oh, look at me, look what I've done. I'm Abraham. I'm Abraham, I'm the founder of the monotheistic faiths of the world. No, no, no, no, no. I'm coming to you, hashem, because I have knowledge in your existence. I know that you're there and now only because I'm relying in you. Give me what I need. But it wasn't because he knew that he was deserving it and using his merits from the world to come, or from this world.

07:01
By the way, it's a very interesting thing that many people ask what is? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do good things happen to bad people, and the truth is that it's not really a question, because if we look at the big picture, sometimes we think we're only living here in this world. But the truth is we're not living only in this world. We have a world to come as well. If we see the big picture, we zoom all the way out.

07:26
It's much easier to understand why good things happen to bad people. Because they're eating up all of their merits. They may have done some kindness. They're eating up all of their merits. They may have done some kindness. They're eating it all up. They're not getting any of the reward in the world to come, but rather they're getting all the reward here in this world. They're eating it all up. But what are the righteous ones?

07:42
The righteous say I don't want any reward in this world. I want everything in the world to come, because that's the Olam Shekulotov, that's the world of all reward. We see this also in our prayers on Shabbos. We say we're giving thanks to Hashem that till now, your mercy hasn't left us and your kindness hasn't been taken away from us. We're understanding that everything that we have is coming from Hashem as a gift. Is what we're asking, not because we deserve it, not because we have merits. Oh, I did this good deed, so now I should get this good reward. No, we don't want to eat up our rewards. We want it, mat naschinim, like all of our sages, all of our righteous. They don't want to eat up our rewards. We want it, mat naschinam, like all of our sages, all of our righteous. They don't want to eat up their credits. Hashem, give it to me just as a freebie. Give it to me for free, right, give it to me for free. We don't want to eat up our merits.

08:48
We also say it's very important to just connect this idea of we say in the Havdol it's a verse in Psalms God is my Savior. I will have trust and faith in Hashem, trust in Hashem. I'll have no fear, because if I put all my trust in Hashem, hashem will take care of me. So I don't need to eat up any of my merits, not in this world, not in the world to come. Hashem will give me everything I need For, the love of God, I have nothing to fear. This is the attitude that if we're able to take a lesson from Moshe, from how Moshe lived his life, how Moshe requested 515 times to enter into the land of Israel, not because he was such a great leader for the Jewish people.

09:32
I don I'm asking for a freebie. I'm asking for a freebie when our trust is in the limitless kindness of Hashem. We have no fears and we have no worries. This is what Moshe requested To enter the land of Israel, to enter Eretz Yisrael, only for one reason Via the kindness of Hashem, and not through the merits which we have, which are very limited. Whatever merits we may have, that we ask Hashem, give it to me. Because give it to me because that's limited, but Hashem's kindness is unlimited. Hashem should bless us all. That we should always merit to benefit from the unlimited kindness of Hashem, that we should never eat up the merits that we've earned for the world to come, and Hashem should bless us with all goodness, all kindness and an amazing Shabbos. My dear friends, thank you so much for listening.

10:30 - Intro (Announcement)
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