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. Good morning, welcome to the Parsha Review Podcast.

00:15
This week's Parsha is Parsha's Tazria and, as we've discussed in previous weeks, the book of Leviticus is teaching us all about the spirituality of the Jewish people. Now, one of the important focuses that we see in this week's parasha is the physical holiness, the physical purity of the Jewish people. We see it in several different areas, but if we look at the beginning of this week's parasha, chapter 12, verse 1, 2, 3, and Hashem spoke to Moses saying Speak to the Jewish, the children of Israel, saying when a woman conceives and she gives birth to a male, she shall be contaminated for a seven-day period, as during the days of her separation infirmity shall she be contaminated? Okay. Now it says uvi yomash bini yimo b'saroloso, and on the eighth day, this young boy should be circumcised. We shall circumcise the flesh of his foreskin. So we see that immediately after discussing the birth of this child and the spiritual cleanliness, or let's call it the spiritual purification of the mother, it goes right into and the birth shall be on the eighth day. Okay. So our sages point out. A very important thing here that I think we need to focus on is that why is it so critical for us to mention here the spiritual state of the mother and go right into the bris?

02:10
Our sages tell us that if we want to grow spiritually, we have to act physically expeditiously. You have to move fast to get things done and grow in your holiness. We know there's a mitzvah to circumcise a baby on the eighth day, a baby boy on the eighth day. Who's this mitzvah? Obligated on the father. The father is obligated to circumcise his son on the eighth day.

02:42
And here's this young little child who just came to this world, just started breathing the air of this world. And what's the first mitzvah we do with this child? Give him a bris. Why Say, just tell us the commander, you can wait, wait a year, wait two years, wait three years. No, no, no, no. Right away, as he gets started with life.

03:08
The first thing we do is we do a physical action to lock in their holiness. You need to act immediately. Our sages tell us that, just like physically, we need to do this in order to instill holiness into a person spiritually as well. What does that mean? The same orla, the same foreskin that we have on our physical body. Our sages tell us we have the same type of concept on our hearts. On our hearts, we have this natural rebellion, this natural ability to forsake the Almighty.

03:53
Hashem performed a great miracle, but you know what I'm saying? It's the doctors. We have ways of allowing miracles to become mundane and ordinary. We have some ability to take away the holiness and spirituality that God is imbuing within us and just making it ordinary. That's a very big problem. Our sages tell us and this is a commandment in the Torah to remove the foreskin of the heart, not physically, spiritually, the idea that we always have to remove the layers of the onion, remove the layers that are surrounding the heart, and not letting us connect on a higher level.

04:52
We all know stories, amazing incidents that happen and we're like wow. But then you have someone who walks in and says what are you so excited about? What's such a great? What's this whole big ordeal that you're talking about? This great miracle that happened? I know this personally. My fifth child was a miracle baby, but all children are miracle babies, but this one was a special, unique story because we were able to see the hand of Hashem through the entire process.

05:26
Those of you who remember way back in 2010,. Our baby was born premature, a little, teeny little three pounds baby, and it was an unbelievable miracle. At least to my perspective, it was clear as day that it was a miracle, but I asked many people what they thought, people who were following the story through the entire process. You know baby was my wife was in the hospital for many weeks and then the baby was born, and born with many difficulties, and then in the NICU for several months. It was complicated. So we went around the room and we asked in the class who thought that this was a miracle and who thought this was just a medical mistake. A doctor makes a mistake and sometimes doctors make mistakes, and this is the equivalent of how the Jewish people.

06:23
You ever wonder how can anybody think that the exodus from Egypt wasn't a great miracle? And yet the Torah goes on to tell us that every single year, at our Pesach Seder in a couple of weeks, we should be sitting there with our children and our grandchildren and talking about the miracle, the exodus from Egypt you ever think of. Like what's the big deal? Of course there was a miracle. Like what's there to deny that we need to always reinstill within ourselves the great miracle that Hashem performed. Reinstill within ourselves the great miracle that Hashem performed, because there's something called the foreskin of the heart where we just don't want to feel indebted, we don't want to feel obligated, we don't want to feel like we owe something to Hashem. So we keep on denying it and keep on denying it. One time after another time, after another time, hashem says be very careful.

07:21
You know what we do at the Pesach Seder. We physically instill that emunah into our bones how we eat matzah. It's a physical activity. Why do we eat the matzah? This is our physical entrance of emunah into our lives. We drink the four glasses of wine. To instill that emunah into our lives, you have to put it into action. It can't only be words. You have to instill it into your consciousness, into your body, the emunah that you have.

08:05
So it's not enough for someone to say, oh, look, in this week's parasha, a miracle, a baby is born, wow, incredible. That's not enough. We have to do an action of giving this baby a bris, put it into action. And this is what carries us throughout our lifetime. It carries us that we know that our physical bodies are representatives of our emunah, of our relationship with Hashem, that it's not a concept, it's not a theory, it's an action. We do this immediately. And this is what Pesach is. This is what Shabbos is. Shabbos we don't just say, oh, it's a day off, let me just sit on my beach chair and do nothing. No, no, no, no, no, no. You have to eat delicious delicacies, you have to be with your family and you have to sing songs. Why it should be an action that instills this emunah into our physical beings? So, yeah, on a spiritual level, yeah, we have the concept, we understand, but that's very easy for that to disappear.

09:19
It's very easy for someone to say well, you know that if a wind blows in a certain direction, then you can split any waters, which, by the way, if you look at the verses of the Torah. The Torah says Ruach Azim is a very powerful wind that came and blew. People can think if they weren't believers of Hashem, people can think, oh, it was just a wind. It happened to be a great, fortuitous moment that worked well for the Jewish people. At the moment they reached the sea. That's when it split from the wind. Well, if you look carefully and we note this many times, it doesn't say that they just passed through the sea, they passed through on dry land.

10:15
Oh, now we see that there's another part of this miracle that's beyond just the observer's. Oh, the observer's perspective is as follows no, no, no, it's way beyond that. You see that, the miracle, the more we talk about it, our sages tell us, the more we talk about it, our sages tell us, the more we talk about the exodus from Egypt, the more benefit it will bring to our lives. You're more praiseworthy. Our sages say no, no, no, that's not praiseworthy. We don't need to be praiseworthy. We grow, we connect on a higher level through that. Because what happens when we praise Hashem, when we realize that everything in our lives is a gift from Hashem Wow, hashem, thank you. We feel much closer, we feel much more connected.

11:14
The more we talk about the greatness of another person, the more we love them. You focus on your child, you focus on your grandchild, you focus on your spouse and you start saying all of the incredible things about them. You start feeling love. Why, the more you talk about it, the more you experience it, the more it becomes real. Mishubach means more refined. It becomes greater, more qualitative, the love that we have for Hashem.

11:46
The more we talk about the exodus from Egypt, the more the quality of our relationship expands. That's what we're looking for in our everyday lives. We're looking not just to experience mitzvahs, not just to experience mitzvahs, to live them. It should enrich our lives and this is, by the way, an interesting thing that the custom for the Ashkenazi Jews is you make the bris as early in the morning as possible, you don't wait.

12:20
You don't do it at noontime, when it's convenient. You don't do it at evening time, when it's convenient, it has to be during daytime. But you don't do it like later in the day. The Sephardic do it later in the day because there's a disagreement in halacha whether or not the sooner the better in the day, which when you do it earlier you're declaring your excitement for the mitzvah. I can't wait to do it 12 o'clock in the afternoon. So you do the mitzvah. According to Ashkenaz, you do it the earlier the better. But according to the Sephardic, their opinion is b'rov am ha-dresmelch the greater volume of people, the more the glorification is for Hashem's name. So the Sephardic do it when it's most convenient, meaning when most people will come. They're both correct ways. They're both correct.

13:10
But the idea here that as soon as you possibly can on the eighth day is teaching us something. It's teaching us that we don't want to wait to do the mitzvah. We're excited about it. We want to make it part of our lives now. So, when we're able to experience a mitzvah, when we're able to experience a mitzvah, when we're able to experience a mitzvah and participate at a bris of another baby, what we're trying to do is not only share in someone else's exciting moment in their life. What we're trying to do is we're trying to enrich ourselves in our commitment, in our bris, in our covenant with the Almighty. What we're doing is we're saying, we're declaring oh, I'm also in this, I'm also in this commitment with Hashem.

14:04
I think it's an important lesson for us to realize that every day of our lives is an opportunity for growth. It's an opportunity for us to connect, that every day of our lives is an opportunity for growth. It's an opportunity for us to connect with Hashem on a higher level, and Hashem should bless us all that we shouldn't only be close to Him, but we should feel that closeness every single day in a real way, not in concept alone, but to feel that closeness, to be able to commit physically to the relationship with Hashem. My dear friends have a great Shabbos. Oh, I knew that question was coming. That's such an excellent question. So this is an excellent question that you raise.

14:47
What's about women? You're talking about the foreskin of the man. What's about a woman's connection with Hashem? The answer is and this is the emes, this is the truth.

14:58
The truth is is that if you look around the world, tell me who's more spiritual, men or women? Women are much more connected to godliness, to purpose, to meaning, than any man will almost ever be. And that's with the men having all the commandments and what's with the men having all of the bris and with the men being obligated of. You go to synagogue three times a day and you pray from and you do this and you do that. All the mitzvahs on the men. Oh, that's not fear. You do this and you do that. All the mitzvahs on the men. Oh, that's not fear. But look who's on a more spiritual level. Women still beat the men with all of that. Why? Because women are naturally on a higher level period. That's a fact. There's a reason why the man is not the one who carries the baby and brings the baby into this world. Women are so much on a higher level. Men are on a much lower level and men need all of these mitzvahs to tie them up and get them into shape, whip them into shape. They need not only God and his mitzvahs, they need their wife to whip them into shape, to get them on the right course. The boy is an entire lifetime of correction Okay. A man is an entire lifetime of correction yeah, he's got to get into action. He's got to go, okay. A woman is not A woman. This is. She's already. You know what's the most amazing thing? Okay.

16:30
So I was just in the hospital. As you may know, my daughter was released yesterday, baruch Hashem, in good health. She should always be healthy, always be strong and always be a committed, dedicated servant of Hashem. So I was in the hospital yesterday with her. I spent three days with her, and so my wife can get some stuff done for the wedding. So don't forget, we're less than a month to the wedding.

16:55
But it's just a little side note, okay, a little side note. So what happened? Like this. So I took her to the. They have a beautiful place. It's such a beautiful hospital. It really is. It's like exceptional Texas Children's Hospital is really magnificent. We should never, ever need the hospital for any reason, but if you do, it's a great place to be, okay. So they have not a wildlife room, they have a child life room and they have a. It's just a playroom for kids and the kids, you know, my daughter is, like, you know, hard for her to walk and you know baruch hashem, she's doing great today but, um, you know, after surgery it's so they have over there. It's just like I I said it's like adhd heaven.

17:42
Okay, you can go from one thing to the other and not be not stop for like a day straight. You go from this toy to that toy, to this color, to that color, to the everything. It's distracting you all all sides. All that. It's amazing. So she gravitated to these little dolls, little babies, and she was holding these babies, feeding the babies, taking care of these babies and what.

18:10
She's 20 months old and I'm like what in the world has gotten into this girl that at 20 months old she wants to be a mother, that at 20 months old she's nurturing? At 20 months old she already understands exactly what it entails to be a mother. How's that possible? Take a boy well, take a ball and throw it at the wall. He's like totally not in his game, it's not in his zone. But you know what? It's not a 20-month-old. It's from when she's born. She's born on a different level period. I saw it. I was like this is the most astonishing thing. She's born on a different level. It's a different playing field.

18:58
So it's not like oh well, the Torah is chauvinist. The Torah is not chauvinist. The Torah is everything about understanding that women are on a pedestal, that women are on a pedestal. That's the reality of life. Now, if a woman says, whoa, we want equality, why would you pull a woman down? I don't understand that. It's like. To me that doesn't make any sense.

19:19
It's almost the comparison of an apple and an orange. When will an apple and an orange be the same? Never. They will never be the same same. Never. They will never be the same. Their nutrients are different, their composite is different, their flavor is different, their shape is different, their design is different. One has a shell like this and one has a shell like that, and one has a flavor like this and a flavor like that.

19:47
An orange you can take apart to little pieces. You can't do that with an apple, you can cut it to different pieces. You can't just take it apart neatly, can't do that. And each one is in its own casing. And then you open that casing. Each other piece is in its own casing. It's unique, it's different. It's different.

20:05
Why I want them to all be equal Equal is that they're humanity. That's the equal of men and women. That's it. That's as equal as they get. This whole women's lib movement has been a destruction for women and their greatness. It's broken apart. The entire fabric of what specialty is what uniqueness is. And then we had a question about our generation. They asked us, when we came to what was the designated gender of our child when they were born? Are you kidding me? Are you crazy? We're like she was a female. She is a female and she'll always be a female of our child when they were born. Are you kidding me? Are you crazy? We're like she was a female. She is a female and she'll always be a female. It's the craziest thing. What has our world come to? It's all in this name. It's a backward way of thinking and it's doing more damage than good. It's terrible. It's killing our children. So, without getting too much into the politics of it. My dear friends have a great Shabbos. Thank you for tuning in to the Parsha Review Podcast.