Parsha Review Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

00:03 - Intro (Announcement)
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of Torch in Houston, Texas. This is the Parsha Review Podcast.

00:12 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
All right, welcome back, my dear friends, welcome back to the Parsha Review Podcast. This week's Parsha is Parsha Shalach. Shalach is an amazing portion, just like every portion of the Torah, but there's a lot of incredible stories that we learn from this week's parasha. The most famous of these stories is the story of the spies, where the spies are sent to go investigate. They're like little Mossad agents, but not as good, and they go to Losur es haaretz. They go to inspect the land to see if it is, you know, a land which is worthy for the Jewish people. It's very interesting. It's very interesting because if you wonder for a second like what do you need to investigate? Well, we want to know, we all want to go to Israel. But why do we want to go to Israel? Is it really as good as we think it is? Is it really as good as we imagine it? So the Jewish people are curious people and they say you know what? Just send some representatives, let them go, and they send one from each tribe and they go and they come back with a terrible report. Ten of the twelve. The other two, yeshua and Kalev, come back with a positive report and the people are like disregarding what they say and as we know, the story does not end well the Jewish people are. Then the Almighty tells them you know what you're crying. I'm going to give you something to cry about.

01:41
That day is the day of Tisha B'Av, the day where terrible tragedies and calamities befall the Jewish people, and it really is a tragic story in the history of our people. But then we go a little further in the Parsha and we see something really incredible. We see one of the portions that we recite twice daily as a biblical commandment. We talk about the mitzvah of tzitzis, and this is the end of the Torah portion, right at Maftir. It says HaShem said to Moshe, saying as follows, as follows Da'ber el b'nei, yisov amart aleim basul ahem tzitzis. Speak to the children of Israel and say to them that they are to make for themselves tzitzis Al kan fevigdem. What is that? On the corner of their garments? Lidorosam throughout their generations, v'nosnu al tzitzis. And they are to place upon the tzitzis ha'konof psil, t'cheles of the corner, a thread of t'cheles, a blue fringe, v'hayol l'chem le'tzitzis, and it shall constitute for you tzitzis uri'isim oso u'zachartem is kol mitzvayis Hashem. And that you may see it and you will remember all the commandments of Hashem and perform them. V'asisim osam, v'lo sasura achre levavachim v'achrineichem, and do not explore after your heart and after your eyes Asher atem zonim achareyhem, those which you stray after them. Okay, don't follow your heart and your eyes. L'man tizkru, so that you remember va'asisim is kom etzvesai, and you may perform all my commandments. V'yisim k'doshim l'eloeichem, and you shall be holy to your God. Ani Hashem Elokeichem. I am Hashem, your God. Asherot seis yaschem eretz mitzrayim, who has removed you from the land of Egypt. Lehi yos lachem Elohim To be for you a God. Ani Hashem Elokeichem. I am Hashem, your God.

03:59
This is the end of the Shema that we recite daily. So there are a bunch of interesting things here. Very amazing if we take a few minutes to just break this apart. So first is we have a commandment to wear tzitzis. Tzitzis is any time a man wears a four-cornered garment, they're obligated to have fringes on it, to have tzitzis on it. Now, this is a mitzvah that women are not obligated to. Why? Because if we notice what does the verse say? It says Uri Isam, you should see them. Our sages tell us when do you see things? During the day. So it's a mitzvah that's only applicable by day. Women are not obligated to time-bound mitzvahs and therefore a woman is not obligated to wear tzitzit. I don't know that it's a sin per se. If a woman does wear a talis or does wear a tzitzit, they're just not obligated. It's not the voltage that's going to recharge their batteries, it's just not going to do really anything necessarily.

05:07
An amazing thing here we have to notice that at the beginning of the Shema we say something V'ahavtas Hashem alakecha. You should love Hashem, your God, v'chol levavcha, uv'chol nafshacha, uv'chol mevdecha, with all of your hearts, uv'chol nafshacha, with all of your hearts, with all of your soul and with all of your means. And then it says and all of these things that I command you should be on your heart. Something's not right about this terminology. Our sages ask this question. What does it mean when it says on your heart? In your heart makes more sense. What does it mean on your heart? Sages tell us. Most of us, our heart is sealed and we don't want to let things in. So you know what we do. We place the love of Hashem and all of our mitzvahs, we put it on our heart. So the moment that we have an opening of our heart, it all falls right in, it all sinks right in this is an important thing when we talk about the mitzvah of tzitzis and then the command that follows the law of tzitzis, that we say uri isem oso, you should see them. And what will that cause? When you see the tzitzis, u zakhartim b'skol, mitzvos Hashem, and you'll remember all of the mitzvos of Hashem.

06:35
There there is a special power that when a person looks at their tzitzis, it reminds them of all of the commandments. Very interestingly, the numerical value of the word tzitzis is tzitzis is tzaddik yud, which is 100, tzaddik is 90, yud is 10. Another tzaddik yud, which is another 100, and tzaff is 400. A total of 600. Okay, we're not yet at 613, the number of our commandments. We have 8 strings and we have 5 knots and together our sages tell us that by performing the mitzvah of tzitzis, we are in essence fulfilling the entire Torah, and when we look at our tzitzis, we're reminded by the entire Torah, and when we look at our tzitzits, we're reminded by the entire Torah. Tzitzits have a great power.

07:31
I remember once a student. He was on a path of growth and he was in a law firm, a very prominent law firm here in Houston, and he called me up one day. He says Rabbi, I'm an undercover Jew. I said what do you mean? He says I'm wearing tzitzit for the first time and nobody knows. Nobody knows I'm wearing tzitzit. He says I'm undercover, right, because it's under you, nobody needs to see.

07:57
Now there are some people you know you'll see in the. If you go to to the Hasidic communities in New York, you'll see that many of them wear their tzitzit outside Because they say I want to be reminded all the time, not only when I see it, but it should always be visible. That's a very great thing and praised are those who do that. But what are we talking about here when we say and when you see, you will be reminded U'zachartem es kol mitzvos, hashem Ve'asis samosam, and that will lead you to later perform the mitzvos. But then it says something very, very different Right after that Ve'lo sasura achrei levavchem, but do not, do not go after your eyes and after your heart, which you stray after them.

08:54
The meaning use your eyes. It says for what, to see your tzitzis, but don't use your eyes to stray after them. Don't use your eyes to stray after your desires and temptations. That means the verse. It's one singular verse here. The verse is telling us that we have in our eyes the ability to see holiness or heaven forbid to go astray.

09:23
With what power Our eyes and our hearts? Why hearts? We have one heart, well, our heart. I think it's very apropos that, with the heart that we design and children learn at a young age, is the heart that looks like this, is that there are two parts to the heart, right, and it's an amazing thing because that's the way the Torah refers to it. If you actually look at a human heart, it doesn't look like this. Okay, it doesn't look like this. So what is it really? It's telling you that you have two hearts, meaning you have the heart that the Yetzir Tov, your good inclination, is telling you do good, do good, do good. And then you have the heart that the Yetzir Tov, your good inclination, is telling you do good, do good, do good. And then you have the other heart, which is the Yetzir Hara, our negative inclination, which is saying eh, eh, binge another show, watch another movie, go astray.

10:22
You ever wonder that our world that we're living in we mentioned this just previously in some of our classes that we have so much sophistication in our lives. Now, most of it is a blessing. It's a great thing, but how much of it adds stress, adds anxiety, adds complication to our lives. You know, let's just think simply okay, and what? Let's not be the spoiled generation that we're gonna refer to in a second, but you know what used to be with people? They were very, very excited when they were by an automobile. A car would be very excited. Why? Because it helps me get from place to place.

11:06
But then we started looking astray and we see that there's something called air conditioning. Oh, I got to get air conditioning, so we get air conditioning. Then what? We have these automatic buttons that put the window up and put the window down, and then we have so many other things that come up as new pieces of technology that are going to help us. But we don't realize how this adds a little bit of stress in our lives. Why? Because what happens when the windshield wipers don't work and when there isn't enough washer fluid and when the brakes start squeaking and when we have to always fill up gas or recharge our cars? Flat tires, and we have issues with the transmission and we have issues with the engine and we have issues with the light bulb being out and we have issues with so many of these buttons and things that are there to help us.

12:08
The air conditioning doesn't work. I can't drive my car. Really, your grandparents would be very, very happy to drive a car that didn't have air conditioning that can get them from place to place so quickly and they can load up all of their groceries in it. But we get to a frame. Now, today, what most people do is like it's OK, I'll just take out a lease, then in three years I'm done with the old, in with the new, and I have a new set of wheels and I don't have to deal with problems, I don't have to deal with the headache. But you see how just our eyes has taken something which is a great gift and made it into a tremendous burden where, oh, now I have to go bring it for servicing and I have to fix this, and I have to fix that and this is making noise and that's making noise. It became something which is a tremendous burden, while we can look at the same thing as a tremendous blessing and in our lives we have constantly things, one after another, after another that, if we're able to bring it down to simplicity and, by the way, think of your out your home right, your home. You can have a water leak and can have a problem with your washing machine, with your dryer, and you can have problems with the leaky sink and you can have problems with you know with the foundation. If you're in houston and then you know what I'm going to build a pool, then you know with the foundation. If you're in Houston and then you know what I'm going to build a pool, then you have a problem with the pool and you have issues.

13:28
The Mishnah says Mar B'Nechasim, mar B'Deh Aga, the more possessions you have, the more worries you have. So why do we have more possessions? Because our eyes show us things that are attractive and we say, ah, I want that, I want that, I want that. Even. Maybe, perhaps, hopefully, not in a sense of jealousy you go window shopping, you go to the mall. I'm not buying anything, I'm not buying. I'm just going window shopping. But next week you'll come back to get all those things that you desired.

14:06
You look through the windows and you saw this and you saw that and the things that you said. This is a crazy fashion. No one's ever going to wear things like that. And then, two weeks later, we see ourselves wearing that. It is uri isimoso. It is when you look at things.

14:25
You can look at things and be tempted, or you can look at it and be reminded. And here we have the terrible challenge of our eyes and our hearts. You know, it says that a blind person is like a dead person. Why? Because they don't see their food. They don't see their food, they can't enjoy their food. They can't enjoy something you don't see Because the seeing of it builds the appetite. That's why you go to a restaurant and they have it displayed so beautifully, so that it it motivates, it builds your appetite. There's nothing wrong with eating with appetite. It's a great thing.

15:20
But you know what the problem, the problem with it is, is that that same set of eyes is the intake of our information. It's the intake of our desires. It's the intake of our temptations. You know our world that we live in today. You can see it on children. Intake of our temptations. You know our world that we live in today. You can see it on children.

15:53
Most children have no problem playing with the same doll their entire childhood. How many dolls did you have growing up? A lot, but you know, today children can have 30, 40, 50 dolls, dolls, right, why? Why? Why do they need so many? Because they see more, and the more they see, the more they desire. If they only saw one, they'd be fine with it. But then they go to a friend's house and they see, oh, that kind of doll. So they go back mommy, I want this doll, it's almost my birthday. Or people go and they see cars, and people go see houses, and people go and see fashion, people go and read newspapers and get all these crazy ideas.

16:38
Uri Isamoso, your eyes are so powerful that your eyes are able to infuse new ideas into your heart that now desires. And what's if those things that we see are not good? We're not saying that houses and cars and fashion, all those things are not good. They're not good if they're in control of us. If it takes control of me, then I'm powerless. And the verse here tells us be very careful not to go astray, meaning don't give up on your values, don't give up on your morals for the things that you're tempted. But what leads to the temptation to begin with, your eyes, wandering eyes and this our sages tell us, is the danger of our lifetime, and not only now. By the way, this was going on in the time of Moses, in the desert 3,300 years ago and wherever the Jewish people were throughout the history of mankind.

17:50
Eyes are the source of our temptation, because the eye sees and the heart desires. What happened with Eve? What happened with Eve? She succumbed to her eyes. She saw the fruit of the tree and then her heart desired it. This is our challenge, and our sages talk so much about the holiness that we need to create within ourselves. It's a very interesting thing. You know. We mentioned the hearts, right?

18:30
The verse states in Exodus. It says and you shall create for me a sanctuary and I will reside in them. And our sages ask what's going on here? Make a sanctuary and I will reside in it. What's in them? It just doesn't sound right. Make for me a sanctuary and I will reside in it. That's not what the Torah says. The me a sanctuary and I will reside in it. That's not what the Torah says. The Torah says and I will reside in them. Our sages tell us God is talking to each and every one of us that if we create a sanctuary, we create a place of holiness. God will reside in us. That means that we have the ability to bring instead of bringing desire and temptation with our eyes, that now the heart desires we can create a sanctuary, that now God comes in us instead, ve'shachanti betocham, I'm going to reside in the Jewish people, I'm going to reside within them, so that now we become godly, we become holy. This is so, so, incredibly powerful, and I'll tell you.

19:53
We know summertime is a difficult time for people. People like going to the beach. It's not always appropriate to go to the beach. It's not always appropriate what we see, we say, like me, come on, what's going to happen, look at the world that we live in today. Look at the world. The places that are most immodest have the most trouble going on. It's not random. This is the torah. Tells us, to us, what's going to happen. You're going to see things, you're going to see things, you're going to desire and you're going to go astray. It's one plus one equals two. It's okay, I'm a big boy, really. So you don't have temptations, so you don't have desire. And what's about today? People don't need to go to the beach to see things that are inappropriate.

20:44
People have a little device, a little phone Right, and that phone and all types of technology have the ability, because of our eyes to lead us astray, and this is the challenge of our generation. These verses are talking to us. They're talking to them back then, 3,300 years ago, but talking to us no less, where we have the ability to go astray as well by following our eyes with whatever nonsense. And today you have, you know, you have all these social media platforms, without mentioning them by name, so many that are training. Not, I'll tell you.

21:33
I have a friend that just moved to Houston a year or two ago. He used to work for one of the big social media companies and you know what his job was. You know what his division, his division, was responsible for making their platform addictive. That was his job To make it so that suddenly you don't realize that it's an hour later and you're still scrolling through videos, that you're still scrolling through chats, that you're still scrolling through messages, to make it addictive, that you don't want to stop it. So it is working because people are spending an increasing amount of time.

22:14
Now, thank God, hashem has given us here at Torch the technology and the ability to utilize these platforms to share words of Torah, to share words of wisdom, and, who knows, maybe this message will get online. Who knows? But I've seen just on one of these. I just started it in the beginning of March, started to post these short clips on various different platforms and I'm very happy. The numbers are insane. The numbers are just astronomical numbers of people watching. Now it's a good thing and a bad thing. It's a good thing because, hopefully, people are getting inspired, but it's a bad thing if people are spending so much time that they get to watch. They're just flipping through one clip after another, clip after another clip. Okay, so thank God there's something holy there, hopefully, but it's so damaging If someone is lost in that world and doesn't have control.

23:19
I have on my phone, on all of my apps, every five minutes it gives me a reminder of how much time I've been on that app. You know, five minutes used, ten minutes used, because the most precious thing we have is time and I don't want my time to be given away for free to some app, to some social media platform, to some desire or temptation. So the more we're able to re-instill within ourselves these words of the Torah do not go astray after your heart and after your eyes. Technology is a very, incredibly powerful and beautiful gift, but equally dangerous. Equally dangerous is a very, very, incredibly powerful and beautiful gift, but equally dangerous. Equally dangerous. It has the ability to do so many great things for us and, sadly, so many terrible things to us as well.

24:26
You know, there's so much to talk about this because there are people who are very, very careful about this, because there are people who are very, very careful about this and people who make strict measures for themselves to ensure that they don't fall into a trap, and these are people who are spiritually, spiritually cautious. They're putting in an effort. How can I protect myself so that I don't, god forbid, go astray? And it's like you'll have people and we had our friend, alex, online who sent me this email and says what do you mean? Why would you create a protective measure? Let your children learn. Let them learn they'll fall and they'll get back up and they'll learn. Why create a protective measure? Let your children learn. Let them learn they'll fall, they'll get back up and they'll learn why, why? Why create a protective measure? Would you let your child have access to cocaine and just say let them learn? Nobody would, no responsible human being would say sure, let them have cocaine. Well, our technology is more addictive than cocaine. Our technology is more addictive than cocaine and some would say even more damaging. We all know cocaine is terrible, but technology it's okay. You know people give an okay because perhaps they themselves enjoy the freedom. It's a crazy thing.

25:58
I remember, right at the beginning, at the beginning, beginning, beginning of when the people in Gaza were starting to attack Israel through tunnels, starting to attack Israel through tunnels, and they had all these tunnel shafts that were popping up in the middle of villages, in the middle of Israeli villages. They would go under the wall and they would spend a fortune of money and time building these terror tunnels. And I remember there was a lecture that I was listening to where the rabbi said you know what our tunnels are? Our tunnels are when we are on our phones, in private, where nobody can see us. That's our tunnel. Maybe Hashem is doing a tunnel for tunnel. Maybe Hashem is awakening us, telling us you're terrorizing your own soul by allowing yourself to use something which is the parallel or the equal to a tunnel. I'm in private, my own phone, nobody sees, nobody monitors.

27:14
Very big danger, and the Torah warns us about this. The Torah warns us of the dangers of our eyes, because the minute your eye sees something, your heart desires something and it works like that all the time, all the time where our heart desires what our eyes see. So if we're able to protect what our eyes see, we're protecting our soul, we're protecting our physical bodies from danger. My grandfather would say that there are packages of Torah sitting on the streets and what he would say is that sometimes people think I'm walking in the street and we're talking about particularly in the marketplace.

28:14
You go in Jerusalem. I was just in Israel and it's amazing. It's amazing to see how Israel is alive and the heart of Israel is just pumping. You go to the Shuk Machan Yehuda. You go to the marketplace. It is amazing. It is amazing to see the heartbeat of Israel.

28:36
But there's a challenge there too, a very big challenge. I told my son I went with my son there and I apologized to him after. I said I'm sorry that I brought you here. It's a great place, it really is, but there's so much lack of modesty and it can be detrimental to one's spiritual growth. I told him I don't want to go back there now. I was there, I saw it. It's amazing. I don't want to go back to the marketplace. Why? Because I feel like it's detrimental to one's spiritual life and I don't want to be in a place which compromises my neshama, my soul.

29:20
So in those same situations, there is the ability to grow, and that's when one protects their eyes. Now, what does that mean? Do I go with blindfolds? No, my grandfather would say before you leave the house, take a verse from the portion, take a Mishnah, take a line from Talmud and start thinking about it and start contemplating deeper ideas. Keep your mind busy. Have you ever been in a situation where someone's talking to you and you just don't hear them because your mind is busy with something else? My grandfather said you got to make your mind busy so that you don't get distracted, your eyes don't get carried away by all of the different things that are going on. To close your eyes is not going to help. You got to keep yourself busy with good things.

30:10
A person who's busy stays away from sin. A person who's bored, halacha says. Halacha says boredom is the gravest danger to one's spirituality. Because we're bored, we don't have something to run to. We don't have something to go to, so we get carried away with nonsense. Sin comes from boredom. If a child is busy, they won't do bad things. It's when they have too much time on their hands, they get together with friends and they try stupid things and usually get stupid prizes.

30:52
This is a real life danger where Hashem gives us the ability to use our mind to be busy. You know that the big tech CEOs the big tech CEOs were all interviewed and they were asked about their use of social media, their use of their phones. You know what they said. They all said the same thing. We all set a certain time and until that time of the morning of the day, we don't look at our phone. You have to be productive. How are you going to be productive if you're busy looking at your phone? So what do they do? They start their day, they have their workout, what they eat and what they do. They don't touch their phone Because the phone stops the productivity. We're just taking in information and hopefully it's decent and good information, not ones that lead us astray. This is a real life danger and our hope and our prayer we're reminded by this, by the way, every day, twice that we recite this Every morning and every evening we recite the Shema.

32:08
We should remember we have a real, clear and present danger of our eyes leading us astray. Who controls our eyes. We control our eyes. Our eyes don't just wander. We let them wander. If we guide ourselves and focus so that we don't allow ourselves to do things that we don't allow ourselves to do, things that we shouldn't do, to see things we shouldn't see, hashem will hopefully protect us and defend us and build within us a sanctuary where God can reside in it, in us. Hashem should bless us all with an amazing Shabbos. Hashem should bless us all with an amazing Shabbos. Hashem should bless us all that we have the tools to protect ourselves, to ensure that we're always in a good place, having good influences and always seeing good things and desiring good things, and not heaven forbid the opposite, because the source of our intake of information and desire is our eyes. Hashem should guide us all. Hashem should protect us all to always see good things. Amen.

33:23 - Intro (Announcement)
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