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. It is so wonderful to see everyone. It really is special. This week's Parsha is Parshas Vayakeil. Vajakil refers to the assembling of the Jewish people, bringing them together. And, as we mentioned, the first two portions after Mishpathim were Teruma Titzava. That was talking about the design of the tabernacle in all of its parts, the design of the garments of the Kohane. Then we had the sin of the golden calf last week, and now the next two portions is going to be the actual construction of the tabernacle and the construction and assembly of the garments of the priest, of the high priest and the regular priest. So we know the Torah doesn't just randomly say things and the Torah doesn't randomly repeat things, and the Torah doesn't randomly place things exactly where they are. Hashem in this divine document, every single thing that is written in the Torah is placed exactly where God wanted it to be. So now we're going to. We just finished talking about.

01:31
Moshe came back and the Jewish people received forgiveness. This is Yom Kippur, which was designated from that point on because it became a day of forgiveness from Hashem that forever. This is a day of atonement and the Jewish people now have their day where all of their sins. If they ask for forgiveness, they will receive it. That's Yom Kippur, the day after Yom Kippur. What happens is the day that we're talking about in this week's parasha, where Moshe says okay, we talked about giving gifts, now is the time to actually do it. So God is commanding every person to give the gifts towards what is going to be a two-day fundraiser. That Moshe has to say stop, stop, stop, no more donations. You'll all have an opportunity. Next week we have our annual torch fundraiser and I look forward to making the sending out that email. Please stop, we have too much donations. We have too much donations. I look forward to an organization. Hopefully torch will be the first. People say the fundraiser is closed. Please don't send any more money, because we have enough for the next year. That would be special, right? I think people would say you know what. I'm going to give more money now because you did that, right. But maybe it's a good tactic, but either way.

02:57
So we begin this parasha with chapter 35 in the book of Exodus. It says as follows Vayakil, moshe has called out that's Benes' role, and Moshe assembled the entire assembly of the children of Israel by Yom Raleh, and Moshe says to them Elahadvorimashchetsivahashemlasososom. These are the things that Hashem commanded to do them. Now, what are we going to be talking about? What did we say About the actual construction of the tabernacle? Wrong Sheeshis, yamim ta'asekal malacha. For six days, do all of your work. Woyom hashvi Yelochem. On the seventh day Shalbi for you, kodesh Shalbi. Holy Shabbos, shabboson lahashem, a complete rest to Hashem. Kola'osabom alacha yumas and anyone who does any work, any creative labor, on that day, shall be put to death. Lo suvaru'esh yushonat kindl afire bechomosh vasechim. In any of your dwellings, beyom hashabos. On the day of Shabbos. Now Moshe says oh, by the way, about the gifts and about putting together all of the necessary works that was required for the assembly and construction of the tabernacle, and that's the rest of the parasha talks about that. So Hashem, in his infinite wisdom, decides that, right before we're going to actually be talking about the tabernacle, let's just slip in a little line over there about Shabbos, about the importance of the observance of Shabbos.

04:52
I want to just share with you. There's a magnificent book I want to introduce everyone to here. This is an amazing book. It looks like a children's book, but it's not a children's book. This is a book that talks about Shabbos and it's the most magnificent book because it really gives the full background, the full story of Shabbos. So let me just show you here the 39 Avot.

05:20
Malachot of Shabbos is the 39, let's call it the parent principles of Shabbos. It means you have the children and you have the parent. The parent is the main structures, the main systems, and then you have the things that are derived from it. So, six days of creation. We have light in the dark, the splitting of the waters, the heaven and the earth. Right, you have the land masses and the vegetation. You have the constellations day four, day five, all the birds, all of the sea creatures, and then you have the six day, which is the creation of Adam and Eve and all of the animals. And then you have Shabbos. Shabbos is the day of rest. That's the sixth day. So what is Shabbos? What are the principles of Shabbos? So here you have the tabernacle.

06:20
This is what the tabernacle looked like, and you have each one of these is telling us all the different labors that were necessary for the construction and deconstruction of the tabernacle. Every time they traveled, it needed to be deconstructed. Every time they camped, they reconstructed it. It was a system that was down. They knew exactly what needed to be done. Everyone had a task, everyone had a job total organization. So let me give you an example. Okay, so we know that they had these beautiful drapes. What were these drapes made out of? Leather, leather drapes. How do you make leather? Leather comes from hide. So in the process of catching that animal, slaughtering that animal, taking off its hide is trapping, slaughtering, skinning, tanning, smoothing, marking, cutting all of those are forbidden on Shabbos Because that was a task that was necessary for the tabernacle. Give me another example Building and demolishing was necessary for the construction of the tabernacle.

07:35
To build and take apart the Mishkan, the tabernacle, when they were traveling, building and demolishing prohibited on Shabbos. To rebuild the Mishkan properly, letters were written on the pillars to identify their position, because every pillar was in the exact spot every single time. You couldn't have oh, this is right six. I'm going to put on left six. No, no, no, right six was on right six. How did they do it? They wrote two letters. They wrote olive and olive, so you know that these two were together. Then they had on the next side of it, they had bet and bet, and those two were next to each other, gimmel, gimmel. So they knew the olive and olive were always together, the bet bet, and that's the way it was constructed. So letters were often erased and rewritten. Right, they would erase it once it was put together, they'd make it all nice, and then, when they take it apart before they took it apart they would write the letters again. So writing and erasing are both prohibited on Shabbos Writing and or erasing. I'll give you one more example Now.

08:41
Another thing is to grow and process. Plants were needed to make dyes, to color the wool and skins and to prepare the loaves of bread for the showbread. So therefore, plowing and planting and harvesting, gathering, threshing, winnowing, selecting, grinding, sifting, kneading, baking all prohibited on Shabbos To prepare the wools and weave it into curtains there were some curtains that were leather, some that were wool it required shearing and bleaching and combing and dyeing and spinning, threading, loom threading, harness weaving, separating thread, tying, untieing, sewing and tearing All of that prohibited on Chabis. So you're gonna be asking yourself I don't do that really ever. Well, let me share with you just a quick example.

09:32
Anybody ever take out the garbage. Take out the garbage, right. What do you do with the garbage bag? You tie it, make a knot. Prohibit it on Chabis, you can't make a knot, you can make a bow, because a bow with one pull it unties that. You can do so on Chabis. And I practiced doing it during the week as well, because I one time realized on Chabis it was just like autopilot, I take out the garbage and I made a knot, I'm like mistake. So I started practicing even during the week to make a bow. So that way on Chabis I shouldn't make that mistake and make a knot Again.

10:10
That is a biblical prohibition. Now if someone does it by mistake or out of ignorance they don't know, it's not going to be as punishable as if someone does it intentionally. The goal obviously is for each and every one of us to learn and to grow in our Judaism every day and take something, add something to our Chabis, and we'll see in a minute why, and that's the topic of today's Partia Review in focus. But before we go ahead, I want to just share with you in this book that it has every one of the 39 laws and it goes, for example, choresh, which is plowing, and it says exactly what he was preparing the earth for planting, and it gives all of the examples of what would and would not qualify as a subsidiary of that law. It actually means not to take a shovel and dig up earth. That's what's prohibited. But there are many derivatives of that and that's what we learned. This book goes through all of those things. It is amazing if you have children, if you have grandchildren. So I highly recommend that everyone get a copy of this book. I have multiple copies of this in my house, not only for my kids, for myself. I learn a tremendous amount from this book and I urge you all, go out there, make it the most popular book on Amazon. It's by Rabbi Baruch Chait and illustrated beautifully by Yoni Gerstein, and it is. It's magnificent, really, really, really tremendous.

11:47
So now let's go back to our question. Why does God slip in? When we're about to talk about the tabernacle? He says oh, by the way, keep my Shabbos, protect my Shabbos. So, my dear friends, we need to know something fundamental, and that is our sages teach us that the source of all blessing is Shabbos. The source for all blessing is Shabbos. You want to know the blessing that's going to be required in your own lives. In your own lives, every single aspect of your life is blessed through Shabbos. You know the blessing for your children and you know the blessing for your livelihood and you know the blessing for you and your family. It's Shabbos. That's why it's a prerequisite. You want to start building the tabernacle. There's one prerequisite and that's Shabbos, because Shabbos is the blessing that everything, everything derives from the blessing of Shabbos. This is why it's the the tonight. It's the condition with which you want to go forward in building the tabernacle. You're going to need to have Shabbos. Shabbos is the basic condition.

13:16
According to our sages, the reason why Shabbos is the last day of creation is the day of rest. God could have just created the world in six days and leave it six days. No, no, no, no. It's a very strong emphasis on the seventh day. What's the seventh day? No creation. For what? Because that's the battery. It's like before you. You know you put together the entire car. It's a beautiful car, everything is ready to go, but now you got to put in gas. It's the gasoline. Without gasoline, you can have the most beautiful car in the world, it's not going to go anywhere. Even if you have a Tesla, if you don't charge that battery, it's not going to work. That is Shabbos. Shabbos is the charger, shabbos is the gasoline.

14:03
Shabbos is what gets everything going so the vessel could be there. That's the six days of creation. But if you want to give it the spiritual life, you want to give it the energy that it can shoot up to the heavens. That's Shabbos, and we see that all of the blessing of the week is dependent on Shabbos. According to some of our sages, shabbos is really not the last day of the week, but rather the first day of the week. It's the first day of the week where our sages tell us the blessing that comes the following week is based on the previous Shabbos. So Shabbos, according to our sages, is an interesting thing. We've done this many, many times. We have Tuesday night classes and what I always try to say after every one of our Tuesday night classes is wish you a good Shabbos One second.

15:04
It's Tuesday night. What's going on? Because our sages tell us that the first three days of the week still have strong influence of the previous Shabbos. So that's Sunday, monday, tuesday. Tuesday night is already Wednesday in the Jewish calendar. The night is the beginning of the day. So therefore, wednesday, thursday, friday, it has already the blessing of the coming Shabbos. So you can already the Allah says, you can already greet someone with a good Shabbos from Tuesday night, because already the influence, the blessing is already coming in to our lives already from Tuesday night. But we see and that's according to a different opinion that Shabbos is the middle of the week, that the week really begins Wednesday, thursday, friday Shabbos being in the middle, and then Sunday, monday, tuesday. So Shabbos has the influence on both sides and this is why it's a precondition to the building of the temple.

16:07
You build the temple, you want blessing in that because that's going to be the residence, so to speak, of God. You want God in your midst, you want God to be there with you. Do you know how you bring God into your midst every single day of your life, even when there's no tabernacle? Shabbos, because, although we don't have a tabernacle today here, in 2024, march 5th, we don't have a tabernacle right now.

16:40
But you know what the Torah says ועשו לי מגדש. You should create for me a tabernacle. ושחנתי בתוכם, and I will reside within them. That doesn't make much sense. You should build a tabernacle and I should reside within it. So why within them? I say, just tell us, because every person needs to make themselves into a tabernacle. We need to make ourselves a vessel that is capable of having godliness within our lives, and that is Shabbos. Shabbos makes us into a worthy beneficiary of godliness in our lives every single day. Because, by the way, we say, you know what I'm letting go. I'm letting go of my need, my feeling of I need to control everything. I'm going to get rid of that feeling.

17:43
Shabbos is a day where I'm not doing any of those works. I'm not going to pick up my cleaners, I'm not going to run those errands, I'm not going to do this. No appointments, nothing. When am I going to get everything done? Shabbos will give you the blessing. Shabbos is the source for all blessing and that's the amazing part of the entire week that we have. During those days of the week, do all of your work, ta'asek hal melochah, all of your work. It says in this week's parashit six days to work, v'yomashvih. But on the seventh day, that's a day of letting all of that hard work shine. That's a day of letting go say I'm not running anywhere, I'm not doing anything, I'm just going to bask in my connection with Hashem's glory. I'm going to allow myself to now take it in.

18:38
It's like the insanity of people who work and work, and work, and work, and work, and work and work and say, when are you going to take a break? When are you going to enjoy life? Oh, when I retire, really, when you retire. That's not a good strategy. We have this opportunity every seven days to be on our cruise where everything is set. The moment you light those shabbos candles, ah, the bliss, the joy, the serenity, the enlightenment, everything shines forth. That's what shabbos is. Shabbos gives us an opportunity to just love life, to love our family, to love our spouse, to love our children.

19:33
Our community, as Echad Ha'am said, more than the Jews watched over Shabbos, shabbos watched over the Jews. We think, oh, we're observing the Shabbos. No, the Shabbos that we observe is going to protect us and preserve us as a people. To me, it's the most shocking thing that we don't have community anymore. There used to be a concept of a Jewish community. The Jewish community lived here, and then they lived here, and then they lived here, they moved around. Even in Houston, in our not very long history of Jewish people in Houston, they used to be communities when the Jewish community lived, not no more, because many have decided that it's okay if people move out to the rural areas and people move out to the woodlands and to Conroe and to ah King Wood and Humble and Clear Lake and you name the play Pure Land and it's okay as long as they can get to synagogue.

20:42
It's a terrible mistake. Not only is there a prohibition of driving on Shabbos, there's a different issue Is that we lost the fabric of community and what we used to have is that people would only move to a place where there was an Eir of, An Eir of means, a boundary around the community so that you can carry on Shabbos. That means that I need to be close enough to my neighbors, I need to be close enough to my friends, I need to be within walking distance to a synagogue. The synagogue is the central place of a community and that fabric has been broken and someone's going to have to pay the price for that, because it's devastating what that has done to the Jewish community. The only communities today that have that still are the Shomer Shabbos communities, those that observe Shabbos and thank God. That community is exploding, not only in Houston but around the world where you have they're also the ones having children. So there is a big, big challenge that we're facing and Shabbos is the solution. Shabbos is not the problem. Shabbos is the solution to all of our problems when we realize the observance of Shabbos being the light, the beacon of light that shines to our entire life and we make it the central part and the focus of our entire week where we prepare.

22:21
The Gomorrah says that one of the great Taneik sages would go to the marketplace every Sunday and he'd find a beautiful cut of meat. He's like, oh, this meat for Shabbos. And then he'd go back to the marketplace on Monday and he'd see a better cut of meat. He's like, oh, this one for Shabbos. And then Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday, the same thing happened, each one superseding the previous one. Then he says the Gomorrah says the Tane would say the entire week became Shabbos because his whole focus was Shabbos.

22:54
We can do that. Let's do something special for Shabbos. It's the source for all our blessing. The source for all our blessing. Everything that we want to accomplish, we can. When Shabbos is at the center of everything. Hashem should bless us all that we should maximize this special gift.

23:17
By the way, in the Medrish in this week's parasha, god says to Moshe by the way, go tell the Jewish people that I have a very, very, very special gift in my treasure house. It's the most special thing I have. You know the name of that special gift Shabbos Lech v'hodeim. Let them know. Let them know how special it is. What does that mean? It's a very odd. Just give it to them. What do you mean? You say, take it, take the Shabbos, and give it to them. No, no, no, no, lech v'hodeim, go and form them, because they may not realize. They may not realize how much of a blessing it is until they start observing it and they see that it becomes the light that everything shines from.

24:07
Hashem should bless us all. That we shouldn't only merit the Shabbos. We should merit that our entire week should be infused with the blessing of Shabbos. We should feel that closeness to Hashem that we're able to attain on Shabbos, not only on Shabbos, but throughout the entire week, because this is the source of all blessing. My dear friends, it's not yet Tuesday night, but have a great Shabbos.

24:30 - Intro (Announcement)
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