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)
Welcome back, my dear friends, to the Parsha Review Podcast. We are in Parshas Re'eh and the Parsha begins chapter 11, verse 26. Sreei ani nosen lefneichem hayom bracha klola. See, I present before you today a blessing and a curse. S the blessing. Who doesn't want blessings? We all want blessings, right? When will that come to us?

00:35
Asher tishmu, el mitzvos Hashem elokeichem, when you listen to the commandments of Hashem, your God, asher onochi mitzavesham ayom that I command you today. Listen to the commandments of Hashem, your God, that I command you today. Listen to the commandments. By the way, the commandments, they're not a limitation. They're not a limitation. The commandments are blessing. Do you want curse? Nobody wants curse, but you know how you get the curse If you will not listen. El HaMitzvah Hashem, hashem Elokeichem. You know how you get the curse If you will not listen, that you don't listen to the commandments of Hashem, your God. What's going to be as a result? If you don't listen, you will stray from the path that I command you today to go after. Don't go after other gods. You're going to go after other gods that you do not know. You know something you couldn't have been more explicit in the Torah about the keys to happiness, the keys to success versus the keys of misery.

01:51
I want to take you on a journey to Hollywood. Hollywood is a world of fake. What are they called? Who lives in Hollywood? Actors, they act. They're all fake. They're not me, they're not you, they're whoever. Me, they're not you, they're whoever they decide they're going to act like. So, if they want to speak like a German and act like a German, they hang around Germans, they learn their accent, they learn their personality and then they can act like that. And they want to act like this. They act like this. They want to act like that. They act like this. Everything is not, it's not me, it's something else. It's something else. Hashem says if you want to build a relationship with me, listen to what I'm telling you. There's no acting. Listen to what I'm telling you. I'm giving you, I'm prescribing your medication. You know someone was sharing with me. You, I'm prescribing your medication. You know someone was sharing with me recently.

02:53
How is it that you have people who know what the Torah says and yet they don't perform it? They don't perform, they don't follow the ordinances of the Torah, the commands of the Torah, the laws of the Torah, the beauty of the Torah. They know it. They don't disagree.

03:12
If you go to an ordinary person, you say do you believe in the Torah? Yes, of course I believe in the Torah. You believe it was given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai? Yes, I believe it. Do you believe that it's binding? Yes, I believe it. Do you believe that it's binding? Yes, I believe it's binding. So why don't you observe it? I'll tell you why Such a great analogy.

03:34
Do we know that eating healthy is a good thing? Everybody knows doing exercise, eating healthy, a healthy diet, a balanced diet. We all know that that's the right thing to do, it's a good thing, but yet we suffer in the United States from obesity. Why? Because just because you know something doesn't mean you live by something. We all know there's a speed limit. It doesn't mean we drive it. Just because we know something doesn't mean we live by it. And that's the tragedy. And this is what the Torah is warning us here in this parasha. You see with your own eyes. I'm giving you the options Be healthy or not, in spiritual, it's blessing or curse. It's your choice.

04:33
Now a person can say I'm not there. Yet A person can say I'm taking steps in my life. I'm not able to observe a full Shabbos. Yet I didn't grow up with Shabbos. I'm intimidated by Shabbos. That makes sense. That's fear. That's a fear argument so that we pray for and we say Hashem. Please help me overcome my fear. Hashem, kosher, kosher is a very daunting task for someone who grew up without kosher. Changing small habits, small steps we talk about that all the time. Small steps, taking small steps is the key to success in our growth. That's it. It takes Small, small steps.

05:17
Our sages teach us from this verse what it means to listen to God's words, listen to his messages I want to share with you. There was once a man who got ill and they told him that they're not sure that he'll ever get cured from this. He may die from this sickness, very serious. His rabbi came to visit him and his rabbi told him you know you have to have your trust in Hashem. Hashem can heal anyone and you can be cured from your sickness In no time. But you also have to prepare for the alternative. The alternative is that your body and your soul May need to separate, meaning you may die, and you have to prepare yourself for that. You have to prepare for that possibility. It may happen that God decides that this illness takes your life, the rabbi leaves.

06:20
And the student, the ill man, said to those standing around him he says this is the first time I actually heard my rabbi speak. You see, my whole life I've been hearing the rabbi speak. He's my rabbi. I go to his lectures, I go to his sermons. I hear him. I hear him in one ear, out the other. But now I've finally taken it in. I've got the message. I got the message.

06:52
This is what the Torah is telling us here Ashertishmi'u. Listen to the message. It's got to hit home. What happens if you don't listen? We're in risk, we're in danger.

07:07
So how do we listen to God's messages? This is a prayer that we have every single day. Every morning, we recite this in our prayers right before we recite the Shema which, by the way, what is the Shema? Shema, listen, hear, oh Israel, listen, take it in such an important thing to listen to our messages. What do we say? Right before? We have a beautiful blessing of Ahava Rabba, aftanu Hashem loves us with an abundance of love, and in there we say Avinu Av Harachmon Hashem, our Father, our merciful Father, rachem Olenu, have mercy on us. V'seyim b'libayinu, b'inu l'havinu l'hazgil. Put in our hearts the ability to understand and l'shmoa to listen, to hear your messages. Lilmod u'lilamei, l'shmoa u'v'lasos, not only to hear the message, but to learn, to learn from the things that go on around us and to be able to teach the lessons that are appropriate, to observe properly and to do everything appropriately according to your command. You know how you get to the point where we become someone who is able to hear the messages.

08:37
We ask Hashem, we talk to Hashem. We say Hashem, please guide me, hashem, please open my ears so I can hear your messages. Hashem is talking to us all the time. Hashem is opening doors. Hashem is closing doors. Sometimes Hashem says you know what? You're not going to get this on your own. I'm going to have to send someone to tell you the message. Sometimes it may be unpleasant for us to hear Sometimes your landlord is going to kick you out, only for it to be unpleasant for us to hear sometimes your landlord is going to kick you out, only for it to be better for you. Sometimes it may be mold infestation that kicks you out, only for the better option to be open down the block that you would never ever have looked for on your own.

09:22
Hashem guides us, but we have to be willing to listen to the messages. What is the message that Hashem is sending us? And over here, hashem is us, but we have to be willing to listen to the messages. What is the message that Hashem is sending us? And over here, hashem is giving us very clear. Right at the beginning of the portion of Re'eh, hashem is giving us a very clear message Re'eh anochi nosin lefneichim hayom brachokola, look for yourself, look at the world, look around you. And we have so much blessing and yet so much misfortune, so much curse around the world. Which one do you want? It's our choice. Hashem is giving us that choice. Baruch HaKlala, it's your choice, your free will.

10:06
The Torah is going to say even more in a couple of portions. Torah is going to say exactly what that good is, what that bad is, what's that blessing, what's that curse? But you know what you need for it Listen, listen to Hashem. Hashem talks to us. You think the messages that we derive from learning Torah, going to classes and we hear different messages constantly from multiple different rabbis, everyone giving their different perspective. You think I know what I'm teaching. I know Hashem puts things into my mind. I share it. I don't know how it affects each person.

10:47
I just met someone yesterday. He told me there was a lecture that you gave five years ago that changed my life. You know what I told somebody after I gave that lecture? I remember it distinctly. I said this is the worst lecture I've ever given. I prepared so much for it. I had my notes, I had everything. I was just nervous. I wasn't. It was like nothing came out right. This guy told me that lecture changed my life forever. You never know. He needed to hear something that he heard exactly at the right moment.

11:23
Hashem is talking to us all the time. Hashem is giving to us all the time. Hashem is giving us the prescription we need to make our life magnificent. Hey, look look at the world, look at the blessing, look at the curse. You can live a great life, you can live an absolutely magnificent life or, god forbid, we can live a terrible, catastrophic life. It's our choice. It's our choice Not by the materialistic things that we get. That doesn't define what good and bad is. That doesn't define what blessing and curse is. It's your closeness to Hashem, the confidence like we mentioned previously in the Parsha Review podcast the relationship with which you have with the Almighty gives you, protects you from all anxiety, from all fear, from all worry. Oh, what a life, what confidence.

12:21
You know, I was once in Jerusalem and I met a very, very, very old man, long white beard. My father-in-law had sent me to give him an envelope with money because he was so poor. I knocked on the door. The door almost fell off the hinges. It was so rickety and broken. I walked into his house. The house was exactly one room. It was a kitchen, it was a little kitchenette, a kitchen table and a bedroom all in one in Jerusalem, and it looked like it would rain right into the house. It was a little.

13:10
You'd think someone who lived in such confines would be sad, would be grumpy, would be the greatest smile I've ever seen from any human being on planet Earth. He invited me in. When you're inviting me in, you don't even have two feet for yourself. The love, the joy, the excitement, like. How is such a person happy? You know why. He has everything in the world he can possibly want, doesn't have materialism at all, but he has a closeness with Hashem. That closeness with Hashem reflects in his relationship with his wife. His relationship with Hashem reflects in the way he lives his life. The relationship he has with Hashem reflects on every area of his life. He doesn't need the fancy, he doesn't need the materialism, he doesn't need the fancy clothes and he doesn't need all of the things. All he needs is his closeness with Hashem. That gives him everything he needs. By the way, the relationship we have with our spouse is a reflection of the relationship we have with God.

14:28
My dear friends, let's open up our eyes and look at the blessing and the curse, identify it. And let's make up our eyes and look at the blessing and the curse, identify it and let's make a choice. And then we want to apply it to our lives. The blessing open up your ears. The Torah says listen. You want to curse? God forbid. I don't think anybody wants curse in their life. God says you know what it is. Lo tishmul, don't listen. Anybody wants curse in their life. God says you know what it is. Lo tishmu, don't listen. You know what's going to happen.

14:56
V'sartam enaderach, you're going to stray from the path and you know where you're going to go. Oleches acharei, elokim acharim, asher, lo yodatim, you're going to go down a path you don't even know. You're going to follow gods. What that mean gods? It's not idolatry per se, in the form of bowing down to idols, but it's going to be other gods. You're going to believe in your politicians. You're going to believe in your money. You're going to believe in your country. You're going to believe in all of these false gods. You may believe in your car. You're going to believe in an Elon Musk car. You're going to believe in an Elon Musk and you're going to believe in a Tesla. And you're going to believe in your BMW. You're going to believe all of the things we become or your Harley Davidson is a religion unto its own.

15:48
Your career. There are thousands of religions out there. Career, there are thousands of religions out there. It's such a dangerous path. Do we want to go on the confidence of knowing that the creator of heaven and earth is bringing us close, the one who created everything is our best friend, or go to gods we don't even know who they are? It's our choice, and this is what the Parsha is telling us. It's your choice. Choose wisely. My dear friends, have an amazing Shabbos.

16:26 - Intro (Announcement)
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