Parsha Review Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of Torch in Houston, Texas. This is the Parsha Review Podcast.

Welcome back everybody. Welcome to the Parsha Review Podcast. It is so wonderful to be here today. This week's Parsha is Toruma. Toruma we know is about the Jewish people being commanded right after receiving the Torah. In fact, this actually happened after the second tablets were brought down and that was on the day of Yom Kippur. So let's just put a calendar together. We have on the 6th of Sivan the Jewish people receive
the revelation at Mount Sinai. The Jewish people receive the revelation at Mount Sinai. Then what happens? Moses ascends the mountain as the Midrash tells us he ascends all seven firmaments and then receives the sapphire tablets. Brings them down. Comes down 40 days later and he sees the golden calf. What does he do? He shatters the tablets. 40 days later, that was the 17th of Tammuz. 40 days later, Rosh Chodesh Elul, he goes back up.
But this time they blow the shofar every day to remind everyone don't do silly things. 40 days later is Yom Kippur. And what happens? Yom Kippur is a day of atonement for eternity. God says because you asked for forgiveness it's going to be a day of forgiveness. And every time the Jewish people ask for forgiveness, no one died for your sins. You take personal responsibility and you ask God directly for forgiveness and you attain, you get forgiveness. I forgive you. Why?
Because you asked. You ask for forgiveness, you get forgiveness. The next day they say, okay, we're building a temple now for God. You know in a couple of weeks we're going to be doing our once a year, only once a year we do a fundraiser for TORCH. All right, but you know there's very rare, very rare that you have an organization that tells you maybe hopefully this year we'll have to do that. We'll say stop, stop, too much money, too much money, stop the donations, right?
It never happens, never happens except with the donations to the temple. Donations to the temple, the day after Yom Kippur, they opened up the floodgates of donations and it was non-stop, too much. We don't have what to do with so much. All the gold, all the silver, all the copper, all the everything they needed. Then they crafted all of the vessels, all of the everything that was needed for the for the tabernacle and then and that concluded on the 25th day of
Kislev, which is Hanukkah. It's not a coincidence. Already the lighting of the menorah was already put into the rhythm of the world on the 25th of Kislev because that's the day it was all concluded. Then in Nisan, your last Shabbos we celebrated Parsha Shkolem. We read the the giving of the shekel. What was the what was the idea of giving of the shekel? It was the idea was that the Shabbos before Adar because everyone needed to give during the month of Adar
they needed to give their half shekel. It's like imagine there was a national tax every year, a national tax. It was a half shekel. What's a half shekel? It's an amount that a poor person can give and a rich person can give. That was the minimum. Everyone had to give. Imagine they say everybody needs to give 25 cents. Right? Our politicians won't be happy with that because there's not enough for their slush funds, right? So they wouldn't they wouldn't be happy. But that was the
25 cent donation that every person needed to give. There was nobody who can give less. Everybody can afford that. So they gave their 25 cents. You wanted to give more? You can give more, but no less than that. And it was a very low amount. But they had to be had to be done by the end of the month of Adar. Parsha Shkolem is read about the shekel, the machtis ha-shekel, the half shekel that was given is read in our synagogues the Shabbos before
Adar to prepare people and say, hey, get psyched. You're about to be giving your donation to the temple. Okay, so that's brings us to our Torah portion. We talk about the Terumah. We talk about the gifts that people were giving, the donations that they were giving to the temple. And what why does God need a temple to begin with? Oh, you know why? To reside, to be there with the people, to be known to the people. Now, let me ask you a question.
If you want to be known, you want to be famous, do you hide in your house? No. You go out. You make speeches. You go to to make all of these big, big, make America great again, you know, rallies. You know, you do you do something big. You go out there and you become famous and ever you become well known. So what is it when God wants his name to be known? See, he says, so build a home for me. It seems like it's just the opposite.
You should go out there. Go out. God, go out there in the world and your name will be known. What are you coming into into a house? So what's the function of a house? The function of a house is where you build relationships. Where you have an intimate relationship with your family, with your spouse, with your children, with your relatives, with your friends, with your neighbors. That's where you you wine and you dine. And that's when you spend time together. That's the relationship God wants with us.
He wants to build that intimate relationship with us. What was the Kodesh HaKodeshim? The holy of holies. The holy of holies. That's where you had two angels facing each other. One representing God, one representing the Jewish people. When the Jewish people did the will of Hashem. And when the Jewish people didn't, they turned away from each other. Because the whole idea of God's house is for it to be a place where the relationship could be nurtured. This tells us a little bit about the
importance of a home for our children and our grandchildren. What's the the function of a home? It's for it to be a place of security. For it to be a place where you're able to delight in each other's company. Where you're able to complement each other. Where you're able to grow with one another. Where you're able to shower each other with love. God wants his home. For what purpose? So that we can build that intimate relationship with him. It says, And you should make for me a
tabernacle. And I will reside in them. What's in them? Because God doesn't need the house. God doesn't need the house. The house is just an edifice that's there so that you can focus on your relationship. Where you need private time. Where you need time to just talk the two of you with four eyes. That's the beauty of a home. Is where you have time to build and nurture from within. What does God say? I'm not going to be
you know in the temple. I'm going to be in you. In the Jewish people. I'll be within you. Build that tabernacle. So what do we do today? Today we don't have a temple in Jerusalem. Yeah, we go to the western wall to the wailing wall and we pray and we cry and we kiss the wall and we feel so connected. Which is by the way a marvelous thing. I've gone on. I don't know. I was born in Jerusalem, but I was in Israel many many many times
with people who for it was their first time going to Israel. And you know what was really incredible? Every single time without fail. Every single time without fail. When we go the hills of Jerusalem, we're getting towards Jerusalem. Everybody starts getting emotional. And you start seeing tears dripping. What what's going on? You ever see someone going to the red rock in Colorado and they start getting emotional. They go to the geysers in in Yellowstone to Grand Teton National Park.
They go to Yosemite and they start getting emotional. It's not it's not it's not common. Why do people get emotional? Because what is the temple? What was the temple? It says that that is the connector between heaven and earth. You want to know where we pray towards? We pray right that direction. Eastward. Why? Because we're praying towards Jerusalem. Why? Because that's the gateway to heaven. Your prayers travel that direction and then up to heaven. What's the actual point of connection between heaven and earth? Jerusalem.
Jerusalem. Which part of Jerusalem? The point of where the temple is. What does Jacob say when he when he wakes up in the morning after he had that dream with the 12 stones that became one stone around his head? He says I didn't realize. I didn't realize how awesome this place is. He took off his shoes. Abraham. That's where he there was the binding of Isaac. It was that in that same place. This is the point that there's more there's more
controversy over this piece of land than any other place on in the entire earth combined. We have 3,300 years since the Jewish people received the Torah at Mount Sinai, but even before that it was promised to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob as we mentioned in our prayer podcast this week. It wasn't a promise that was just given to Abraham because Abraham had two children. So which one? God continued that promise to Isaac. Isaac had two children.
Well, God continued that promise to Jacob. Isaac had 12 children. He continued that promise down to the children of Jacob. Particularly the temple is built in the tribe of Benjamin. Why? Because Benjamin wasn't involved in a fight. The brothers were. Benjamin wasn't. What is the temple called? Binyan Shalem, the house of peace. It can't be in the territory of someone who was involved in controversy.
So it's not in the portion of Reuven or Shimon or Levi, Yehuda, any of the tribes except for Benjamin who was not involved in controversy. That's the perfection of the place. But today we don't have a temple. So what do we do? We have synagogues. It's called the Mikdash Meat. We have study halls like this room we're in right now. It's a study hall. We have thousands and thousands of hours of Torah study in this room. This is a place where God resides right here with us.
A synagogue is a place, you know, you could pray at home. You can learn at home. But do you want to be in a place where God resides with us? That's the power of building a temple. Not only in Jerusalem where we pray for that more than three times a day. We pray that the temple in Jerusalem be rebuilt. But within ourselves we have to build that tabernacle. Within ourselves we have to allow God in.
We have to allow God and we try to do this every day with our blessings. We try to do that with our prayers. We try to do that with our Middot, with our character traits. You know, I love everything I say. I try to source it. I don't say things without a source. So I want to ask you a question. I'm surprised that no one's ever asked this before. Okay, you can ask it on Sunday at the Ask Away series in the Everyday Judaism podcast.
So let me ask you a question. Here's the question. You ready? So we talked in our Mussar podcast, in our Jewish Inspiration podcast, we talked about Middot, character traits. What's the question? Where in the Torah does it say that you shouldn't be angry? We know jealousy. That's the Big Ten, Los Achmond. You shouldn't be jealous. Where in the Torah does it say that you shouldn't be angry? Yeah, it doesn't really say it. It's like, okay, you can learn something from it.
Where does it say that you shouldn't be arrogant? Where does it say that you should be kind? You don't see in the Torah, you don't see a mitzvah to have good traits. You don't see any mitzvah. So why is it such an important thing in Judaism? Why is it such an important thing in Judaism that we should be refined in our character? It's a good question, right? The answer is, our sages teach us. I could show it to you in Rabbi Chaim Avital in the Shahar Kedusha.
He says it's the introduction to Torah. You can't learn Torah if you don't have good Middot. If you don't have good character traits, you have nothing to learn Torah for. Because what's the whole objective of the Torah? Is to be close to God. The whole objective of every mitzvah, we talked about this so many times. What is a mitzvah? A mitzvah is something that brings you closer to God. What is a sin? Something that distances you from God.
What's the greatest way to be close to God? To be God-like. Copy God. Just like God is merciful, just like God is patient, just like God is kind. You also be kind. You also be patient. You also be merciful. Just like God. That's our objective. Now we have mitzvahs, which is expanding that. But at the very first, we have to be aligned with our values with God. And this, I think, is the most important part, is within ourselves.
Let's not make it complicated. We talk about this in our Lunch and Learn on Mondays. We talk about this so much, about keeping our relationship with God simple. Keeping our Judaism simple. Don't overcomplicate things. God doesn't want us to overcomplicate things. He wants us to keep it simple. How do we do that? We do that with small increments, small steps of meaningful connection points with Hashem. We're reciting a blessing. What am I doing? I'm not just saying words.
God, you gave me a gift of delicious coffee. Thank you. Thank you, Gary. Of delicious coffee. I want to thank you for that. I don't want to take it for granted. I don't want to enjoy one thing from this world without giving thanks. Because that is the exact way in which the world suffers from anxiety. And the world suffers from depression. Doctor, you're gonna go out of business after this class. You know why? Because at the end of the day, the real truth is
Hashem li loira, that if someone knows that Hashem takes care of every single thing for you, I have nothing to fear. I have nothing to worry. Why should I worry if I know that Hashem is taking care of it for me? It's like there was once tremendous turbulence on a plane and everyone's freaking out and they're buckling their seats. Everyone, please find your seatbelts quickly. And there's one child who's sitting there relaxed, calm, smiling, happy.
Everyone's nervous. Everyone's turning pale. Everyone's worried that the plane's gonna crash. Why are you not worried? He says, because my father's the pilot. My father's the pilot. I know he's gonna take care of it. You know why we shouldn't be worried about our jobs and why our career and our money and our this and our that? You know why we don't have to worry about it? Because we know our father's the pilot. He's taking care of us.
He will always take care of us. So do we have a reason to stress? No reason to stress. I know that he's gonna take... Now, we're normal human beings and that's why Hashem put us in this world, to overcome those challenges. So you should just know that if you're experiencing that challenge of anxiety or depression or whatever it is, yeah, talk to a doctor. Dr. Rosenstock is available after class. But also a person needs to make sure, a person must make sure that they are doing everything they can to
grow their relationship with G-d, bring G-d in. G-d wants to be residing within us. V'shachanti betocham. G-d wants a dwelling place within us and G-d willing, the more we bring G-d into our lives, G-d will hopefully, not only be, if G-d is ready, He's always ready, willing and able. It's one of the proofs I have for this is the halacha says in the laws of prayer that one should always pray in the same place. So if you go to synagogue,
each one in their own synagogue respectively, have a set seat that you sit in. You should have your own seat. And even the halacha says if you pray at home, you should pray in the same place or at least within eight feet of the same place. Why? Because G-d waits for you. G-d loves our prayer. He wants our prayers where He waits for us to come. Gary's coming to talk to me. I'm waiting. I want to hear. I want to hear his beautiful words.
I want to hear his beautiful sensitivity that he has for all of creation and his love and his appreciation. This is the goal of all of the portion of truma. We're giving, we're not just giving money. I had a friend of mine told me recently that someone called him up and said I have money for you. I want to send you money. And he said to him, if you don't learn Torah with me, I don't want your money. Right? Come learn Torah.
Because I don't want it to be like, sometimes a donation could be a conscience. Like I have a bad conscience here because I haven't come to learn. So take the money and now don't bother me with learning. Learning is more important than money. Right? I actually told somebody last week. He says, I know why you're calling me. You're calling me for money. I said no. Something far greater. I want your soul. I want your soul. I get your soul. I'll get your money too. It's fine.
I'm not worried about it. But the goal, what is greater? I'm asking you an honest question here. Okay, an honest question. What's worth more? A single mitzvah or a billion dollars? The mitzvah is worth... Exactly. The money has a time limit. Right? We reach a hundred and twenty, we go inside that grave, it's over. It has an expiration date. A mitzvah is eternity. And the reward is a reward that... You cannot imagine the reward for a single mitzvah. Which is why
our sages teach us that the wicked get their reward in this world. Because God doesn't want them having the eternal reward in the world to come. While the righteous sometimes don't get the reward here because God wants to give it all in the world to come. My dear friends, Hashem loves us. Hashem wants a closeness with us. He wants a relationship with us. All we have to do is open our hearts and allow God in. My dear friends, have an amazing Shabbos.
We're going to chapter 2, verse number 7. God created man from the earth, from the dirt of the earth, from the soil of the earth. And God blew into his nostrils a soul of life. And man became a living being. And then what happens? And then the Torah talks to us and tells us that Adam gave names to all the animals. But what's his own name? Oh, you're Adam. You're man. Why? Because you're taken from the earth.
Adam, Adama, earth, man. The names rhyme. Adam, Adama, beautiful. Our sages tell us as follows. The only thing which is perfect in this world is God. The only thing that is perfect, God is perfect in all of his attributes, in all of his traits. Which is why you ever wonder why when you hear a fascinating miracle story, like you're like, wow, like you feel like the sense of like godliness was inspired in this. Because we all have this desire to connect with God. Because it's within us already.
So what happens here? God blows into the nostrils of man a living soul. He was formed and God now blew a living soul into him. Ah, battery pack is in. Now I can walk around. Now I can do things. Now I can. Yeah, look, it's in the next verse. Va'yitzer Hashem elokim et ha'adam. I'm gonna read it to you inside. And Hashem formed the man of the dust of the ground. And he blew into his nostrils a soul of life. And man became a living being.
Boom, like that. That's what the Torah says. I'm not gonna argue with God. We get our soul when we're born. It's actually a big question in the Talmud whether you get the soul when you're conceived or when the baby is born. The conclusion in the Talmud is that you get the soul when you're born. Because what comes with the soul? Yetzirah, Yetzir Tov. Do you know what would happen to a child, a
fetus in the womb if he had a Yetzirah? The Yetzirah, what does he want us to do? Freedom, freedom. I want to be free. I'm locked in this womb. My goodness. I got to get out of here. And they would tear themselves out of the womb. Okay, that's the challenge of Yetzirah in the womb. Adam gives names. Why is it significant for Adam to give the names? Why is it significant? Who cares? You call it a zebra or call it a giraffe? Who cares?
Because our sages tell us, and this is in the commentaries, you will see this. Adam learned the nature of every animal and then gave it a name that reflects its nature. I can give you a dozen examples, but the easiest one is the dog. Why do people love dogs? And this is, by the way, a tragic thing for us. Okay, the fact that they call a dog man's best friend is an awful thing. Awful thing. I'll tell you why. A young man gets married and he,
his wife, the first day after they come back from the honeymoon, he goes back to his job. He works at at ConocoPhillips. Okay, wherever he works at, you know, at HEB, wherever he works. Okay, he comes back home, had a rough day. She's all excited, her new husband. She gets all dressed up, makeup, everything. She's all all dressed up and he comes home and he's not happy and he says to her, she's like, hey, honey, how are you?
She comes to the front door and she's so excited. Her husband is there. He says to her, you know, I'm really sorry. I need a few minutes. I want to watch my sports, watch my Astros and leave me alone when I'm when I'm calm, you know. What's gonna happen the next day? Do you think she's gonna greet him at the front door again? 100% not. Why? She got hurt. She got hurt. What, what is, what happens with a dog?
A dog, you come home and the dog is jumping all over you, all excited. You say, stop it, bad dog. I had a tough day. Right, what happens a minute later? Comes back wagging its tail. What happened? I just rejected you. But he's all heart. What is a dog called in Hebrew? Helev, which is kol lev, all heart. He's all heart. He's all emotion, which is the problem now. You understand the problem is that because we can be abusive to our dog,
not in a violent way, but abusive in that we say that bad doggy, he just keeps coming back. We shouldn't need that. But I thought the wife is emotional, right? But she's not controlled by her emotions. She's controlled by her intellect. Sometimes the emotion overcomes the intellect. A friend of mine called me once. He says, I don't know what to do. He says, my wife called me. She said she, you know, we're going to a wedding and she found this, this
dress that she really wanted to get and I said to her, you know, it's, it's amazing like, but I don't think we can afford it. She's like, what are you talking about? It's 90% off. He says, I don't care if it's 98% off. We still can't afford that price tag. And the problem is that sometimes that emotion is like sales were created for women. Okay. I was like, if I know that it's 70% off,
it doesn't make a difference that it's beyond what I can afford. It's 70% off. You got to get it, right? Because it's on sale. Exactly. So, although they, he told me that his wife ended it. So he told her, you know, like we can't afford it. I understand it's $200 and it's 90% off, but it's still $200 and it's more than we can afford. So she bought it anyway, right? But so, right, like she knew intellectually, but she was controlled by her emotion.
But she still has intellect that's very, very far superior than that of a dog because the dog is only controlled by his emotion, kol lev, all heart, all emotion. Okay. So this is, this is the, the dog. I can tell you other animals, a gamal. What's a gamal? A camel. You look at a camel. What's the feature of a camel? He has two humps, right? Or one hump. What, what is it? Why does it have a hump? It's a feature. What's the feature of it?
Water, water. So that he, why? What is the word gamal? You know what the word gemilut chasadim, it's the same root. Gemilut chasadim, acts of loving kindness. What does a camel have to do with loving kindness? Same word. Because what does the gamal want to do? A gamal wants to be independent. See, he doesn't want to come back to you as its owner while he's going through the desert every five minutes. I need some more water. I need some more water. I need some more water.
So what does he do? He drinks a lot, fills up his hump, and then what? He goes through the entire desert, doesn't bother you. When we do acts of loving kindness, how are we supposed to do it? We're supposed to do it in a way that they don't need to come back to us every five minutes. I need money for dinner. Oh, I need money for dinner again. No, no, give them a job. Wean them. The word biyom higamel et Yitzchak, the day that Abraham weaned Isaac.
What is that? The same word. He was independent. He was on his own. The day that he took self, he took responsibility for himself. When we learn about animals, we learn a lot about the nature of how Hashem created this world. I'll tell you one more. One more is a chatul. A chatul is a cat. There's some people who love cats, some people don't love cats, but you know, what are the features of a cat? Modesty. They don't, they don't defecate in public.
A dog just finds a fire hydrant. He's good to go. It doesn't make a difference who's there. The president can be walking by. He needs to do what he's got to do. What does a cat do? A cat goes into the bushes. It goes into a forest. It digs a little hole. It does what it needs to do, covers it up. It's the most incredible thing. It's modest. What is the word chitul? It means a diaper. Same word, chatul chitul.
Because what does a diaper do? It keeps the child, the baby, modest. Okay, what do you, the Gemara talks about, if we didn't have a Torah to teach us good characteristics, you would learn it from animals. You would learn modesty from a cat. You would learn honesty from an ant. Do you know that an ant has a special scent? And everything it touches gets that scent. So what happens is, is that if you look at ants, they walk,
you know, you see this whole convoy. They're going this way. They're going that way. These guys are carrying this way. These guys are carrying that way. There's a certain scent, and if there's a scent on the food, on the speck of crumb, nobody touches it. They walk right around it. It doesn't belong to me. You'd learn honesty, hard work. Each one of the traits that a man needs, you learn it from the animals. And that's all in the names that Adam gave to these animals.
So what did Adam give himself? Oh, God already gave him the name. What is that? What is that name? Adam. Why? Because of Adamah. Sages tell us no. He's named Adam because of Adamah. What is Adamah? I will emulate God. Our job as mankind is to emulate God. You're never gonna be God. I hate to break it to you, right? You'll never be God, but you can be as close as you can to being like God, to being God-like.
Now, some people have taken that and gone way off the rails. They feel that the only way for them to be God-like is to be separate from humanity, so they don't get married. The Catholic Church, right? What do they have? They have the priest doesn't get married. He's a celibate, allegedly, and there's actually one of these places in Israel where they don't talk. For a non-Jewish religion, where they're there and they don't talk. Why? Because talking would be connecting with humanity and
we're trying to be God-like. So the only way to be God-like is to be separate from man, separate from people, separate from everything. Just be... That's not what God wants us to be. He wants us to be Adam, be down-to-earth, like Adamah, be down-to-earth, but also be godly. Yes. So there is a priority. The first priority is your family. That's your number one priority, is your family. Second priority, your community. And in those two as well as those who study Torah,
because that's a priority for the Jewish people. And then the Rambam lists seven different categories of priorities. But one of them, yes, is for the sake of peace, so that the nations of the world don't hate us, we give to non-Jewish causes as well. But it's not a priority number one. It's priority number seven. Now, some Jews are very, very... They make that number one. If you go to all the museums, all the hospitals, and all of the zoos, you'll see that the majority of names are Jewish.
Either way, the Jewish people, that's one thing that no one can ever say about the Jews, that they keep the money to themselves. If you look, we just spoke recently in our Orchas Tzadikim, we talked about flattery. So we know flattery is not a good thing. And we went through, we spent many weeks talking about it. But flattery, it doesn't really say a story about flattery in the Torah, or maybe it does.
But that's the idea, is that you need to look in the Torah, and in every single... I'm not saying that there isn't. I know there is. I know there is. But the idea that it's not a commandment, directly saying, have good middos, is because it's a prerequisite to the Torah. Yeah, so all of these are within the charge to be godlike. We need to be godlike. And that's in every... to the point where we're supposed to be an example for the nations, where they look at us and they say,
Ah, this is God's people. Look how they act. Look how they don't cut the line. Look how they get onto those El Al planes in such orderly fashion. We need to really work on ensuring that we emulate God appropriately. Everything that Hashem has created in this world, He created it so that we can reflect back to Him. Everything. That's every relationship. That's every flower. That's every leaf on a tree. It's every dog. It's every kitten. Every experience you have is meant to bring you back to the Almighty.
That's why God created them. They're all here. I have a theory, okay? I'm sure it's in Hazal someplace, okay? I have a theory that animals are, in fact, I know it's in Hazal. Animals are far more spiritual in nature than human beings. They sense holiness. It's not that they're holier. It's not that they're more spiritual. It's just that they're less corrupt in their spirituality than we are. I'll give you an example. When I grew up in Brooklyn,
we had a neighbor that had a dog that was always roaming around chasing the kids. It was a terror, okay? When my grandfather came to visit from Israel, and we walked together to shul, the dog that would typically run and chase me saw my grandfather, turned around, and walked away. It sensed holiness. It's like, I'm out of here. That's a sense that an animal can have. An animal, it says, that no mosquito can touch you unless God says it can.
Unless an angel says that it can. You can't be harmed by anything unless God allowed it to happen. Why? Because everything in this world is meant to be a vehicle for us to connect with God. Everything. So every word that someone says to you is a message that's being conveyed through them to you from Hashem. By the way, in every relationship, that's the case as well. I feel that a hundred percent. Where sometimes the wife would talk to her husband and she's
conveying exactly the flaw that he has in his relationship with God. Yes, it's manifested through the spouse. But it's really reflecting the relationship with God. If someone is truly spiritually sensitive, they're able to pick up on it. And that's a special thing for us to be able to be, you know, to have our senses open for us to be able to feel it appropriately. All right. My dear friends, this concludes our Parsha podcast.

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