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.

00:11 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Welcome back everybody to the Parsha Review Podcast. I need to let you in on a little secret. Actually, when I recorded this class this morning to our live audience, I forgot to move my microphone in front of me and the recording for the first few minutes of the class was extremely poor, with the microphone picking up the voice from afar. So I decided I need to redo it. Sorry for the little blunder, but hopefully soon I'll merge you right back into the regular podcast. But thank you so much for your patience. And here we go. So Parshas Mishpatim ...

00:48
This week's Parsha is the first portion after the Revelation at Mount Sinai, just at the end of last week, of Parsha's Yisro. We talked about the Ten Commandments and I urge you to listen to the Parsha Review Podcast to see the breakdown of the entire portion. It's really incredible how we see all the do's and don'ts of what Hashem wants us to do in our lives and that we see in the Ten Commandments. But this week's Parsha begins with Ve'eleh Hamishbottom and these are the ordinances. We know that the word Vav in Hebrew is Os. Ha'ibur is the letter of connecting, meaning it's continuing a previous statement. It's like and in English you don't start a sentence with. And you continue a sentence with and If you look at Rashi, rashi says why does it say Ve'eleh and not just Eleh? Most sifale rishonim, that Hashem was adding to the laws that he already gave at Mount Sinai. He added a few more, and that's this week's Torah portion. Just as the Ten Commandments were given to us at Mount Sinai, so, too, everything that is written in the portion of Mishbottom, and essentially the rest of the Torah, was also given to us at Mount Sinai. So now you can continue with the rest of the podcast, my dear friends, thank you and enjoy the rest.

02:19
Gochabos, so we need to understand something. If you look at the end of this week's parasha, you'll see something incredible. We go, we jump over how many Psochim? We jump over to chapter 24, verse 1. And what do we have? The El Moshe, omar, ale, el Hashem. And God says to Moses come, ascend up to me, go up to Hashem. This is referring to Mount Sinai, meaning that everything that we see in this week's Torah portion was also given to us at Mount Sinai.

03:03
You know, when it comes to the Ten Commandments, we're all interested in every word that God says. God says not to have idolatry, no idolatry. Keep the Shabbos. Keep the Shabbos One of your father and mother. We do the best we can. Thou shall not murder, thou shall not steal, thou shall not be envious of your fellow, no adultery. Okay, these are things that we like. Okay, we're going to. We're not only we're going to abide by these, but we're going to add restrictions to it. We're going to be super duper careful to make sure that our Shabbos is at the holiest level. Why Ten Commandments? This is the big ten, this is the big deal of. Everything in God's Torah is the Ten Commandments. But the laws about money and business, like we see in this week's Torah portion of Mishbatim, ah, that we don't have to be so careful about, that we don't have to be so worried about.

04:08
You know, they say a story about Ramosha Feinstein. I've said many, many stories about Ramosha Feinstein. Ramosha Feinstein used to say that. Ah, just to step back a little bit to give a little bit of history of about Rabbi Feinstein. Ramosha Feinstein passed away in 1986. He was by far the greatest Torah authority in the United States of America and across the globe. Everyone recognized Rabbi Feinstein's ah encyclopedic knowledge of the Torah. His fervor in study of Torah was unparalleled. My grandfather gave a eulogy for Rebbe Feinstein. He said our concepts of greatness are midgets compared to Rebbe Feinstein. We don't have the concept, the ideas of his awesome greatness. We can't fathom it.

05:05
You talk about someone who learned the tractate of Shabbat, every Shabbat, the entire tractate. It's not a small one You're talking about in his response. It brings you sources from every place in the Torah and every place in the Talmud and every place in the Midrash and every place you could possibly imagine You're talking about on his fingertips. But he said that everybody comes to him to ask him about laws of day-to-day living, about how to pray better, the laws of prayer, the laws of medicine, the laws of the. He says, but for some reason nobody asks me questions about business. Nobody asks me questions about is this ethical, is this permitted? Which, by the way, of the four sections of the Shulchaneruch, of our code of Jewish law, the largest by far is the laws of money. In fact, if you take the laws of Hoshan Mishpat, it's larger than Oreichheim and Yoridea together.

06:12
He says for some reason nobody asks me questions about money. What's the right thing to do? Everybody knows that already by heart. Now everybody is sarcastically that everybody has no questions about. You know they said about one of the great sages that he said to his students if you invite me to your house to eat, I'll trust that the food is kosher without even checking. But if you were to give me money I wouldn't touch it because I don't know if that money is kosher. The food I know is kosher. The money I don't think is kosher. I'm not so sure. I'm not convinced. You know what it takes for money to be kosher. It's the laws in Mishpatem.

06:57
What the Torah is telling us is just like. We're so careful, we're so cautious about the laws of interpersonal relationships. We're about the laws of Shabbos, about the laws of kosher. Oh, the caution that people have with the laws of kosher. Was it done properly? Was it done with the right? This, with the right that, and every detail and everything we look at, every single item we purchase in the store. We're like, oh, it has kosher symbol. Oh, okay, making sure that the milk and the meat is separate.

07:29
We're so cautious and there are people who are even extra stringent about certain laws. The shochet, the slaughter, needs to be of the highest standard. That. The mashgiach, the one who's supervising, needs to be of the highest standard. But money. We don't need anybody telling us about money. The money, that is all. Money is good money.

07:58
Torah tells us no, the eileh, these laws about money that we talk about in this week's Torah portion. It has the same exact responsibility. We should have the same exact caution as we have with the Ten Commandments. Don't think for a second that, oh, the Ten Commandments, those are the ones I need to be serious about. But the other laws, the laws about how to treat your servant and I highly recommend go and listen to the Partia Review Podcast where we talk about the summary of this whole week's Torah portion the laws, the details. It's not so simple and the proof that all of this was given at Sinai is that right before this week's Parishah, we talk about the Ten Commandments being given at Mount Sinai and at the end of this week's Parishah we see that Moshe is still talking to God on the mountain where God says come up, you're on the mountain, come all the way up, and the Jewish people in this week's Parishah say naa sevinishmaa, we will do and we will listen. It's not a last week's Torah portion. Last week was the revelation, this week is the acceptance.

09:22
Money is not such a simple thing and we need to be extra cautious. Just like we wouldn't offend someone and hurt them and embarrass them publicly, it would be we're so careful. Look at our world today. We're so careful not to improperly what do they call that? The names that people say his, her, his, his, him, right the pronouns not to offend someone, god forbid. But are we that careful with money? Are we that careful with ensuring that everything that we have is 100% Glot kosher? Am I talking about the food, about the money? That's why in this week's Parishah, there's such a strong emphasis To make sure that every business deal, to make sure that every interaction. You know, I'll give you an example of how I think we need to be so careful.

10:23
First is I want to just give praise to my father. May he live and be well. My father was working for a company for many years and on his last day on the job before he, you know, he let them know, he gave them notice that he was leaving. He was going starting his own business. So in the last day of his job he came to speak to his boss and he says to him I need to ask you forgiveness. He says ah, tell me how much you stole. He says no, he says I could have been sitting in the office and talking on a private call by mistake. My wife called me, perhaps, and I spent some of the time that you're paying me to work on a private call. Or I may have used a pen or a pencil may have gone into my briefcase and I didn't return it to the office after my assignment, or whatever that you know. This is how we need to be careful and cautious, but every penny.

11:24
It's not a simple thing to make sure. I once heard someone who has a clothing store was talking about how certain companies give you certain discounts if you promote their product. If you have, for a certain amount of time, that you put this product as the feature product in your store, then we'll give you an extra 10% off, so you make an extra 10% profit on that item, on the stuff that you're selling. Food stores do this as well. If you give us the end cap, you'll get a special discount. So there's a trust where they trust the store owners to place it prominently as they disclose, they have to show a picture of it, of the display, etc. But what's if you're going on vacation and the store is going to be closed. And that's when you put it prominently and you take the picture before you go on vacation. Huh, is that honest? But who knows, what does that hurt them? What does it make a difference? What did the?

12:29
Everyone starts justifying things. That book of the Shochnarch, we don't need to learn so carefully. It's money. Well, I know how to deal with money. I don't need anybody telling me how to deal with money. The weights and measures, that we need to be careful. The Torah tells us how careful we need to be in weights and measures so that when you weigh a half a pound of potatoes, it's a half a pound of potatoes, not six pounds of potatoes and not a quarter pound of potatoes. We need to make sure that those machines work properly and that's the obligation of the store owner and the purchaser to be so careful.

13:16
We do something that harms another person financially with the pay damages, or at least I dent talk to them. You open up your car door and you hit your neighbor's car. Look at it, it's not a big deal. Let me just move on. Nobody will know. Put a note in there on their window Honesty, truth, not cheating. I'll share with you that we don't go very frequently at the restaurants, but many times when you do go to a restaurant with your children, they think sometimes that the candies and the toothpicks is to restock. I'll have one candy for each of my classmates or the people who like the toothpicks, especially the minty ones. I can restock my purse and now I'll have whenever I need, whenever a need arises. I told my children, I said is that honest that you do that? They give you, so you have one. If everyone restocks their bags, they're not going to have any. Now again, it may be that they'll say fine, did you ask On what assumption? And you can get to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of questions. I'll give you an example.

14:45
We once made a return for something. It was within the seven days, the whatever days that they allow you to make the return and we realized when we got home that they gave us too much money back. They didn't give us the sale price, they gave us the full price of the item. It's a mistake, but it's still. You have to go back. And so we went back to the store and we showed them. We said look, here's the purchase. We bought it for $9.99 and here's the return. You gave us $24.99 back. You can see the eyes of the teller. The cashier is rolling back.

15:29
They have no idea what we're talking about. They're like what's the problem? You gave us back too much money. Money doesn't belong to us. We need to give it back to the store. But you can't do that. They have to inventory it, and then this and then that it became a big scene. They had to call the manager and then they had to call the regional manager. We don't understand how this happens. Until the manager just said just go, do us a favor, just go.

16:00
So I called my rabbi and I said to my rabbi I said what do I do? He said a very interesting thing. He said you did the right thing and you could just go and you can keep that money. Why? He said because every store owner and that was this was my question that manager who manages that store doesn't own the store. Mr, whoever the owner is, they own the store. What right does the manager have to give away their owner's money? He said that every company gives a little leniency to the managers to curry favor with their clientele. I'll give you an extra 10% discount. They allow them to do a certain amount of adjustment, to buy their clientele and to build relationships with the shoppers. He said and this can fall into that category. Now what's if you know somebody who works in a store and as an employee of that store, they get a discount. They get an employee employee discount, but you don't work there. You're a friend of the person who works there. They're like just tell me what you need, I'll get my employee discount. Is that theft or is it not theft? These are very serious questions. I want to share with you another story.

17:38
I got a phone call from a woman. She told me she purchased something from Macy's to be picked up. She went. So what they do is they give you a window of pickup, meaning they tell you okay, your order went through, you can pick it up by Thursday. You know, thursday of this week you can pick it up, but by 12 o'clock on Thursday we're restocking the shelf with your product and your order is cancelled. So the lady's like okay, today's Monday or Tuesday, whatever day of the week it was, I have till Thursday, I'll do. It Comes Thursday, she's like oh, I forgot to pick it up, I'm gonna miss the. You know, is it gonna be restocked? And everything is like I'm just running.

18:19
She runs to the store, to the Macy's here in Houston. About a half hour before that time, as she's pulling in to the parking lot, she gets a notification on her phone due to no pickup, we credited your account and we're restocking the item. Okay, she says you know what? I'm here already. I'm here already at the store, let me see. Maybe the item is there, maybe I'll still be able to pick it up. So she goes, she asks, she gives her name Friedman, whatever the name is and they're like oh, they look, oh, here's your stuff. They give it to her and that's it. She goes, she picked up her items. On her drive back home she gets an email from Macy saying we credited your account. So now she got her item that was credited to her.

19:23
And what does she do? So I think it's a very good question I have to ask. So I called my rabbi and I asked him. I gave him the whole story and he said look on the letter of the law. She can keep it by the letter of the law, but then there's the spirit of the law. By the spirit of the law, you have to know. This is what my rabbi said by the spirit of the law.

19:52
You have to know that you will never benefit from something that came to you unjustly the gimmicks, the games, the we made it work, we funneagled it you will never benefit from it. You got the extra $50 here. You'll have a water leak of $50. You're like why? Why you're gonna have that, that, that hole in your tire, that you are unexpected a $50 charge to repair it. You're never going to benefit from it. That's a side note. That's not the halacha. The halacha doesn't say that you have to return it, but just know that there's not going to be any blessing from it.

20:39
What we're learning here in this week's Torah portion is the laws of finance, the laws of proper conduct and business, the laws of partnerships, the laws of. There is so much depth. It's not a simple thing for us to just think and convince ourselves. We got this figured out. I'm not a cheat, I'm not a thief. I know what I'm doing. It's just money. Partnerships not such a simple thing. Contracts not such a simple thing.

21:15
But that's how this week's Torah portion begins. Just as you consider the 10 commandments so important, these laws should be no less important and we need to take our time to invest in our knowledge of the laws, of what the Torah, of how the Torah wants us to conduct ourselves, to do things that are appropriate, to do things that are proper. Hashem should bless us all, that we should merit that the entire Torah be a blessing for us, and that we never, ever, come into doubts about our complete fulfillment of Hashem's Torah and his mitzvahs, because everyone that we perform helps bond our relationship with Hashem greater and greater. Hashem should bless us all with the proper understanding of his Torah and the proper value for each mitzvah that we are privileged to perform. Amein, have a great Shabbos!

22:20 - Intro (Announcement)
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