Parsha Review Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

00:01 - Intro (Host)
You are listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of TORCH in Houston, Texas. This is the Parsha Review Podcast.

00:09 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
All right, welcome back everybody to the weekly Parsha Review Podcast. It is so wonderful to be here at the TORCH Center with all y'all. This week's Parsha is Parsha's Be'a'aloscha. Be'a'aloscha talks about the menorah, talks about a lot of incredible things that were happening with the Jewish people when they were in the desert, when they were dealing with all of the construction of the tabernacle, bringing the offerings, getting everything set for, you know, hopefully having our temple in Jerusalem. But that was going to have to wait. The Jewish people, we know, were punished and for 40 years they were not going to enter into the land of Israel. So now they're in the desert and they're going to be dealing with a lot.

00:55
Now it's very, very interesting that we have, in the coming portions you have so much turmoil with the Jewish people. It is unbelievable. We're talking about a lot of transgressions. We see, at the end of this week's Parsha we already have the misononym the complainers. They're complaining about the man. It's so plain. Why do we just eat the man? We want to have fish, we want to have birds, we want to have you know, you name it everything that they want to eat for meat and they want to eat this and they want to eat that, and instead what are they eating in the desert? They're only eating the manna.

01:33
And then the portion ends with Miriam speaking derogatorily about Moshe, and then she's punished. And we have Parshas Shalach. We have the sin of the spies, and then Parshas Korach. We have the fiasco with Korach and his cohorts. We have in Chukas, the account of Moshe hitting the rock instead of speaking to the rock. In Parshas Balak, we have the Jewish people straying after the idols and the daughters of Midyan, and then we have it's like one after another, and if you look at all of these teachings superficially, it seems like they were not on such a high level after all. It seems like the Jewish people were really not at the state of holiness that we would imagine that the people who received the Torah would be at the highest level possible possible.

02:27
So before we start judging, we have to understand three very, very important fundamental principles about the Torah. Number one the Kuzari, the great philosopher, states that the Torah only recounts well-known events. If you look in the Torah, the Torah does not tell us about the great knowledge of Joshua or of Samuel or Samson. Rather, it recounts the miracle of the splitting of the Jordan, the sun standing still for Joshua, where Shemesh, shemesh, shemesh, b'mizrach, dom right, where he says to the son stand still. Or we see the great strength of Samson, but we don't see all the pious you know teachings about Samson, how righteous he was. We don't really see that about Samson, how righteous he was. We don't really see that.

03:27
The book of Samuel describes the fighting of King David but it doesn't say anything about his piety or his awesome Torah knowledge or his exceptional holiness. That we don't see right. It has specific stories about King Solomon, you know, about the splitting of the baby. It has very, very few details, are really sheared about the greatness of our sages. We also see the stories of King Solomon, about his lavish meals and his great wealth. The Torah relates the famous stories, while the rest of the details are meant to be filled in by our sages. If you want to know what the Midrash is there for, what the Talmud is there for, what the Kabbalah is there for, is to fill in the rest of the story that you wouldn't ordinarily know from learning it in the Torah that our sages need to fill in, which is why, without learning the oral Torah, we know absolutely nothing about the Torah, the oral Torah without the written Torah, without the oral Torah, is worthless because you can't understand a single thing.

04:37
We've brought many examples in the past. For example, the mitzvah of tefillin. The Torah says to wear tefillin every day, but the Torah doesn't say what tefillin are. The Torah doesn't even tell us. Imagine this you can go to any congregation in the world, any congregation in the world and you'll see that everyone is wearing black tefillin. What if I like the color pink? You know, real men wear pink and I have pink tefillin. Someone's going to walk over to me and say you know, your tefillin are supposed to be black. I'm like really, show me. Where does it say that in the Torah? And you won't find a single place in the Torah where it says that tefillin need to be black. But yet we know this. It's a halacha, moshe Messina. It's a halacha that was taught to Moses in Mount Sinai and later written in the Oral Torah as law that the Jewish people make their tefillin and it needs to be made out of parchment and it needs to be black. The Torah tells us to put a mezuzah on our door, but it fails to tell us what a mezuzah is. The Torah says to slaughter an animal, but it doesn't tell us how, and hundreds of other examples.

05:49
The Torah cannot be understood on its own. It must have the oral Torah companion to understand how the Torah is understood. See, it's like trying to write a biography about someone by only reading a few postcards that they sent, but not doing an analysis, a research, interviewing their family and their friends and their neighbors and getting a full picture their partners, their business associates, their employees, employers. That's the way you get a full picture. No, no, no, I'm just going to read two postcards and write a book about that. I mean, if you're not CNN, that's not a story, okay, so what's the second fundamental principle we need to understand when learning the Torah? And that is that all the 24 books of the Torah are the word of Hashem and they're recorded by humans who were granted prophecy, divine inspiration, to write the words of Hashem.

06:56
To gauge and measure the people of Tanakh, of our sages, by a human yardstick is impossible. I'm going to compare them to me. Right? We're talking about Hashem gives exacting definitions and standards about his people. You see, about Abraham, about Isaac, about Jacob, about Joseph, about the tribes, about Moses, about Aaron Moses. You know, it's an amazing thing.

07:28
What does it say about Moses? Moses was the most humble of all men. In fact, I think it's at the end of this week's Parsha that it says that. The most humble of all men. Let me ask you a question Is that what we perceive as being a humble person? Someone who writes that, someone who writes that about himself, is that humble? It seems counterintuitive. If Moses is the one writing the Torah, how can he write about himself that he is the most humble person of all mankind? Well, it's not him writing, it's the Almighty telling him this is what I want in my Torah. Moshe has no choice but to write exactly what Hashem says, and that's his humility, because someone who's truly humbled isn't comfortable with that. I don't want to write that about myself, but that's the will of Hashem and I submit myself to the will of Hashem and I submit myself to the will of Hashem. So the greater the person, the more demanding Hashem is in his dealing with him.

08:29
We can't understand the exactness that the Almighty is dealing with each and every one of the personalities in the Torah. You know, we think of the story of the children of Aaron, elazer and Isamah. They came in to bring an offering and they were boom dead in a second. Why? Because the Almighty didn't invite them in to the Holy of Holies to bring an offering. You don't come in without an invitation. So we think about this like in our limited minds. We think about this and we're like, oh, they're just silly people, right? What's wrong with them? Why would they do something without being like? I wouldn't walk into the Oval Office without an invitation. Lahav dil elif afad. That's not to compare between holy and unholy.

09:17
We have to understand that we're talking about giants and we only have a little glimpse the limitation of our eyes to see their greatness. Therefore, minute infractions that are indiscernible to the human eye are sometimes described in Tanakh as severe transgressions. You want to hear an example of how it's possible. We've talked about this multiple times here in the Parsha Review podcast and in the Jewish Inspiration podcast. We've talked about this. You want to hear a modern day, a modern day miracle of the splitting of the sea that follows with the transgression of the golden calf.

10:05
We wonder how is it possible that the Jewish people experience the greatest revelation ever in history and yet they continue living their lives like nothing ever happened? They bow down to a golden idol. Don't you remember what happened just 40 days ago? 40 days ago, you were standing at the foot of Mount Sinai receiving the greatest revelation ever in history, that ever was or will be, and now you're sinning to a golden calf. What's wrong with you? And we think, with our limited eyes we're, like they must have been, just you know, carried away with materialism. Versus what materialism did they have? They're living in a desert, like what we try to understand it with our own eyes, with our own perspective. But look at what happened to the Jewish people just a month or two ago, two months ago, two months ago, exactly two months ago, the Jewish people experienced a different kind of splitting of the Red Sea 350 rockets came flying from Iran. 350 rockets came flying from Iran and only one landed, causing cosmetic damage to an open field. I ask you, is that not a splitting of a sea? You're talking about ballistic missiles. You're talking about each missile is basically a pipe with explosives that is larger than this entire building, that can take a city out, and not a single missile hits. Not a single rocket hits. Is that not a miracle? Not because, yeah, we could say, oh, it's the, the IDF, it's the Israeli Air Force, it's the Israeli. You know Iron Dome? No, no, no, no, it's the hand of Hashem. For it to be this accurate, even the creator of this Iron Dome said that there's a 90% success rate. Okay, 90% means that 35 rockets fall in Israel no one, that's less than 1%. Do you understand what's going on here and what happens? We're not sitting there saying immediately after this story like whoa, oh my goodness, this was a miracle. Oh my goodness, let me grab my tefillin and thank Hashem, let me keep a Shabbos. And, sadly, jewish people just continue. Well, it's an interesting story. Next story in the New York Times, next story to change us, to make us into new people, because we've experienced such a miracle, gives us a little bit of a glimpse as to how the Jewish people were perhaps experiencing what was going on in the desert. Yeah, they're living by the miracles. They're living by the miracles where, every morning, they opened up their door and there was the manna. Wow, unbelievable. I'd never get fed up with that, right? We say that all the time. How many times was your new car your new car? For how many days? Okay, for first week, it's like wow. Every time you sit in the car, you're like wow, this is amazing. I love this. So beautiful, so fresh. That new car smell, yeah, but that wears off. Give it a week or two, or three or four, and then it's like you're looking, did they come out with a new model yet? Is the new one? Was that a new one? Is that you know? Maybe I should have bought a different car. We get, we're creatures of habit, we fall into a rote, we fall into a habit and we're uninspired and we need to constantly re-inspire ourselves. So what's the third point that needs to be understood when we learn about the Torah? And that is that we are spiritual light years, light years distant from the people discussed in Tanakh. You know, the Talmud says that, discussing the difference of the Tanayic sages and the Amorayic sages. They're just a generation apart. The Tanayim wrote the Talmud. The Amorayim were discussing what was written in the braces of the Tanayim wrote the Talmud. The Amorayim were discussing what was written in the Brysas of the Tanayim. It says the following the hearts of the earlier generations were open like the entrance to the Ulam, the great big hall which was 20 cubits wide, while the hearts of the later generations are open like the eye of a needle. You understand, that's one generation, the authors of the Talmud. You're talking about the greatest sages. We can't even imagine, we can't fathom the brilliance of their Torah wisdom, their Torah knowledge. We discussed this in our Thinking Talmudist podcast that they knew exactly how many verses there were in the Torah, how many words there were in the Torah, how many letters there were in the Torah. I mean, that's the kind of knowledge they had. We know there are five books that we're good at. We know there are five books. Do we know how many verses? Do we have any portions there are? I mean, you're talking about every single detail. If someone knows every letter, they kind of know everything in the Torah. That's 2,000 years ago, the Amorite sages, who were considered infinitesimally smaller than one generation before them, the Tanayic sages. So our sages declare as well if an earlier generation were like angels, then we are like humans. If they were like humans, then we are like donkeys. The difference between a few generations is compared to the difference between entirely different species. We see that Abba and Rava merited the visit from Elijah the prophet. These are the Tanakhic sages. They merited a visit from Elijah the prophet. These are the Tanayic sages. They merited a visit from Elijah the prophet on a weekly and yearly basis. Imagine how great they were. These are you're talking about sages from the Talmud that they merited to have a clear vision of Elijah the prophet. Oh, we're having issues here with the sound again. All right. So in conclusion, we need to be very careful not to jump to conclusion regarding the misdeeds discussed in the Torah. One of the great Hasidic masters used to say he says I wish that my mitzvahs were as great as their sins. I wish my mitzvahs were as great as their sins. I wish that we were at the level where we understood the greatness of our ancestors. Think of the challenges that our grandparents experienced going through the Holocaust and what they did to commit their lives to Judaism. They were ready to give up everything to maintain their Judaism. My dear friends, let's take a lesson from this week's Parsha, the lighting of the menorah To light the fire within our own souls, in the soul of our people, in the soul of our family, and understand the greatness of our nation, of our Torah, of our ancestors, because we are the link in the chain. The Almighty has given us the ability to take what we've received from our ancestors and give it to our children. That's our responsibility. Hashem should bless us all that we should merit to give off the proper message of Torah, of values, of wisdom, to our children. Amen.

18:54 - Intro (Host)
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