Always Find Something Positive - Likkutei Sichos Devarim

the yeshiva.net i want to dedicate tonight's class to a friend of mine a classmate of mine somebody i grew up with tragically we were in a van accident together in camp in the year 1986 with many of our other friends and bunkmates and my dear friend label khan was killed in that car accident that van accident in virginia on the day of days of the second day of of so today is this 34th yard site we were young boys a little older than bar mitzvah so i dedicate tonight's class to my childhood friend michal yehuda arya laib ben rabdiv bear shlita khan tahei nishma saitsurura bitsura hakhyam and may his family his mother and father and siblings and the entire beautiful family only celebrate many many years of health happiness and prosperity and may his youthful memory serve as an everlasting source of blessing and inspiration for the family for all of us and for the jewish people i want to begin tonight's sheer with a story it's a story i just read today my friend srili besser recently wrote a book called just love them wonderful wonderful book uh for for parents for for educators for teachers for for mentors for friends for rashishivas for people in the world of pedagogy and education it's a book about the biography of a legendary educator for more than 50 years who recently passed away rabbi david trank of blessed memory he was for many many years a uh extraordinary educator and teacher thank you in adelphia in the yeshiva in adelphi in new jersey and in the book he shares a story that it touched me there was a rule in adelphia yeshiva that is no smoking no smoking absolutely forbid one night rabbi tranq opens the door in the dormitory of one of the boys comes into the room and the boy is in the middle of smoking a cigarette breaking the laws violating the laws of the school robert shrank looks at him and says you know you broke the law do not let us smoke the boy is yeah i broke the law remember i tranq said but you know i also broke the law according to jewish law you're not allowed to walk into somebody's room without their consent without their permission it's a private space i also broke the law i broke the law you broke the law let's do this over again the right way i'm going out of the room i'm going to knock you open up the door this time when i come in i don't want you i don't want to catch you smoking we're doing it all over again small story but it captures the heart and the soul of an educator he shares another very cute anecdote story actually that happened he once went out to the park near the yeshiva and he sees one of the boys again smoking so he comes over to him he says why are you smoking boy says cause i'm nervous i'm always nervous she says why are you always nervous what are you so anxious about he says i'm always nervous that one day you're gonna catch me smoking so he started to laugh he laughed and the boy laughed and he allowed the boy to enjoy his humorous response and he said okay but let this be the last time the opening of parshas dvaram which is the last book of the hamish the last saver of torah it seems prosaic doesn't seem dramatic at all take a look open up your source sheets the first passage write the first source you see let's read either i'll call you suffer november lot of geography here these are the words that moisture spoke to all of israel we're on the trans jordan the eastern side of the jordan okay in the wilderness in the desert in our rava in the plain parallel to the sea of reeds suff between a place called pardon a place called teufel and a place called love it at a place called khatseris in a place called these off that's how i would read it seems like wow the titus giving really lots of zip codes lots of addresses for a very simple phrase these are the words that maisha spoke to the jewish people on the trans jordan that's at the surface the problem of course is why so many places we don't have a precedent for this not before and after it says a lot of times that moshe spoke to the jewish people sometimes it gives a location he could have said one could have said he was in the desert could have said it was in trans-jordan could have said bharava what's all these places nine locations for the introduction of a speech that moshe gives there was a bigger problem the bigger problem is the names at the end we have heard of aver hayardin we've heard of midbar we've heard of arava we've heard of the yamself we've heard of para we've heard of khatseras we never heard of a place called tyfo we never heard of a place called lavan and we certainly never heard of a place called disav these three names of places we have absolutely never heard about what and where are these places they have never been mentioned before nor are they mentioned ever again anywhere in the tanach and the names are intriguing typho means to besmirch slander lava means white d zov means enough gold quite fascinating names slander besmirching speaking bad about something white love one and these of enough gold so what do we make of this it's here that the sages quoted by rashi tell us that this passage contains much more than what meets the eye there is actually a very dramatic sub-story that is developing here what is it so rashi comes and tells us all these locations are not geographical locations sure many of them are but maisha didn't stand in all of these nine places simultaneously and give a speech they are all allegorical they are all intimations they're intimating something moishe was basically giving a speech about something and he used these nine words these nine places as metaphors as code languages to illustrate what he was trying to say let's see rashi it's fascinating few rashes in the beginning of dvarim if you have a hummus you can open your hummus if you're using our source sheets go to source number four see source number four and let's see rashi is enumerating all the places where the jewish people rebelled they provoked hashem this that's the reason why he concealed the clear explicit meaning of his words and he only intimated his message through aramis through a hinted fashion because of the respect and the glory of the jewish people so rashi says it's not that he spoke in these nine places in fact some of them we never even heard of these places rather he gave nine messages and in order to protect their honor how did he communicate these messages he communicated these messages through naming these names because each name was a place or a message that represented a certain negative act in the narrative of the last 40 years in the wilderness how do we understand this arashi continues he literally goes through all these nine names let's see take a look at the next page bamidbar actually says they weren't in the desert they left the desert they were in the plains of maya they were about to go into the land of israel they have left the wilderness they were already in place of inhabitants of a civilization they were in the plains of maya why say by midbar allah this takes us back to a story of pasha's bashal when they were in the desert shortly after the exodus of egypt they came to mursh and they complained against god they said we wish we would have died in the desert why'd you have to take us out mutant why are we going to have to die from this starvation and and thirst next bharava this is apostolic in bashar te zayan character zion possible they left ailem they came to midbar sin between alam and sinai this is the tesla of ear and they all attacked maisha and iron and the jews said why meeting museum why didn't god kill us in egypt when we were sitting on the pot of meat and we had bread to satiate us why did you take us out to this desert to kill all of us through starvation in the desert we should have died in musee no barrett's miserable surah she says this was the first issue bamidbar what happened in the midburg next bhairava what's bhai rava bishvil harov he rebuked them because of what happened in that rava they sinned by worshipping the ballpark in a place called shittim in the plains of mayev as discussed at the end of parasha's bollock this is what he chastised them about next mo suff he wasn't near the yams of them he spoke about the red sea al-mashem ruby yams when they stood at the yamsuf they came there they criticized hashem and moshe they said are not enough graves in egypt that you had to bring us here to die here for him and then after when they were supposed to leave from the yam so if to go to the next journey again there was another rebellion against hashem as she explains that they didn't even want to leave vayasam had to force the jewish people because they were busy collecting all the spoil and all the booty from the egyptians who drowned they didn't want to leave maisha literally had to force them to get out they did not want to obey and move on with the journey they wanted to they wanted to remain there or there's other explanations what their rebellion over there was as the gemara says in air conduct next benpara november lavon we already thought we already did bamidbar we already did bahrava we already did malsuf what's the next the next is being paranoid um we went through the whole tanakh we did not find a place that's called teufel and lava we went through the whole hummus no place this was a metaphor this was a an intimation a remus the jewish people slandered the mon the man was white teufel and lovan are not places of cities they sound like places of cities but they were really messages hinted messages toefl and lovin is tough they slandered they besmirched they spoke so negatively about the man which was white that's toefl unleavened and paran he says paran in the desert of paran they sinned through the spies the spies came back and they all began weeping and sobbing and saying they don't want to go into the land of israel they lost their faith in parish next khatseras the war of kairak happens after they leave hatsey rays this is the war of kyrok the mutiny of kirk against martian iron that so many jews joined with this is what marshall was talking about khatsaris or another explanation in rashi is what happened to miriam and katseris because she slandered moshe menu and yet they didn't learn from it they didn't learn from miriam and they spoke slanderously about hashem and about their tissue last one what's the last one with there's no place called dissolve my chastised them for the calf which they made because they had so much gold diesel is like daiso of enough gold they had so much gold to the point that they said we have enough gold they had too much gold because that's so much good they know what to do with it what they do they sculptured an amazing golden calf from the gold chenimar the cast of your basic lovers of us prophet isaiah hundreds and hundreds of years later speaks about this he says in the name of hashem i have given the jewish people so much silver and they took dissolve they took the gold and they used it to make an idol they used it to make a bow so mushroom with is not in a place he's chastising them about the ego that they made because they had abundant gold that's the last words with these of here when we focus and meditate on the words of rashi something extraordinary and enigmatic and very perplexing emerges mushroom is trying to chastise the jewish people as rashi says every one of these nine places is another intimation of something they did in that place or something that's associated with that name in order to explain why the toyota says he spoke in all these places not that he spoke in these places he spoke about things that are connected to these names as rashi says and rashi goes through quite a bunch of sins errors transgressions rebellions mutinies which demonstrated a lack of faith a lack of trust a lack of loyalty a lack of integrity a lack of dedication a sense of rebelliousness throughout the journey of the desert the last one though catches us off guard and in order to appreciate this i want to learn with you another rashi this rashi comes much earlier in commerce and for this i'm going to ask you to go to source number two source number two in your source sheet parashas ki sisa let's remember context the jewish mushroom goes up on the mountain he's there for 40 days and 40 nights he receives the two lucas the jewish people in the meantime take all the gold that they have and they famously sculpture the golden calf it becomes an orgy of promiscuity of adultery of of of of idolatry of murder as rashi says hashem is so upset and hurt forty days after the marriage such betrayal he tells moishirabenu let's this let's let's let's call this quit we're going to start all over again with you i'm going to wipe them out and i'll start i'll build a jewish nation through you moisher avenue pleads begs asks for forgiveness maestro avenue comes down he famously breaks the luchas he the next day he tells the jewish people you have sinned tremendously i'm going to go back to god and try to atone and aleph vayas of mashallah says please this nation has did has done a great sin an excessive sin a tremendous sin they have made for themselves a god of gold and then he continues if you will forgive them awesome and if not blot me out erase me from the book that you have written that's what moisha says see goes up to hashem listen to his words he says they have done a tremendous sin they made a god of gold if you forgive them good and if not i'm not part of this you raise me also from the safer that you wrote i'm also not part of it and of course hashem forgives the jewish people on this possible there is an extraordinary rashi and guys can take a look in this rashi again it's source number two lake zahav you see telekay's off says rashi atu wow you were the one who caused this whole problem he's telling this hashem she spot the lambs of you gave them all this gold the whole hefts everything they wanted you gave them what do you want from them what are they supposed to do and not send that not to sin they have so much gold it's impossible that they shouldn't sin marshall he gives a he gave his son to eat supplied him with drinks decorated him with all jewelry yeah places up a a wallet of all jewels and pros and money on his neck you know as a necklace and then places him at the door of a home of bay zionists of prostitution of promiscuity a house of ill repute what do you expect from this child not to sin the kid is spoiled he has everything he can do whatever he wants with the money what do you want from him and you put him in this place of course he's gonna sin where did rashi come up with this idea the truth is rashi was reading the pussac very clearly martial beno is trying to achieve the forgiveness of the jewish people yeah he comes up to hashem and he says i know that they did a gewalde kissin but i want you should forgive them and if not erase me from the book and when he says this he says and they made a god of gold why is he saying that hashem knows what they did you're trying to ask forgiveness so why are you now dramatizing how bad their act was you have to say the other way they sinned but you could forgive them moshe builds up the sin they have sinned tremendously and they made a god of gold they took lifeless metal and they turned it into god that undermines what you're trying to accomplish you want hashem to forgive them so rashid says no masha is actually diminishing the sin when maisha says they made a god of gold you know what he's really telling the reborn of shalom he's basically saying the jewish people did a great sin but i want you to know the sin was great but the cause of the sin is not really the cause of the themselves is yukart you know why it's a god of gold who gave them all this gold who told them back in egypt that before they leave egypt they have to empty out mitzrayim of the vessels of silver and gold and who made sure vashem nasa nombe nimitzram pak parsha's boy hashem gave grace to the jews in the eyes of the egyptians that they should lend everything silver and gold and garments this was god's commandment he wanted the jewish people should go out for a church god with excessive gold and at the sea who split the sea and made sure all the egyptians drowned and all the gold that they had there was left for the jewish people to take and hashem wanted they should take bizarre as rashford said earlier to spoil at the sea you did it you give them so much you know what it does to people it makes people crazy it makes people crazy it triggers tremendous temptation there's absolutely no humility very little discipline and you put them in a home of promiscuity very difficult situations what do you want forgive them they sin badly but the cause of the sin wow rashi got this from barack islamic the gomorrah says there that flung words to heaven which means he was very sharp with hashem and this is one of the examples the gemara there has an extraordinary expression a lion does not roar after eating a box of straw a lion roars after eating a a box of flesh a box of meat rashi says what's new him sameach after a lion eats straw he's not very happy but after a lion eats meat whoo a lot of meat cooper school bastard there is a euphoria in the lion's life sameach celebrity he goes crazy amazic that's what happens here you gave the lion not straw you gave them abundant abundant gold and you know what they misused it they went crazy this is a reason to forgive the jewish people the gemara says there that the jews got so much gold you know what they said they said two words dies off it's enough enough we had enough gold we had enough gold that's what they said too much so moisture uses that as an excuse as a as a reason to explain hashem why he has to forgive them you're the one who's ultimately responsible they attack us in they did a great sin but the cause of it was you in the words of rasheed you're the one who is responsible for all of this what a gemara watarashi now i want you to see one something very interesting this rashi is repeated again in parishes dvaram right let's go back to the rating parties divide and take a look your first source vidizof moisture chastised them for the calf that they created because of the abundant of gold that he gave them dies off they had too much gold there was enough gold and hashem gave them extra gold and therefore they made the egg and that's what he chastised them about and here he brings apostate for my sheila a casper basically love is of us allah which in particular sees he doesn't bring this and it's very strange why does he not bring the pasig there if rashi feels that you have to bring a proof from aposic that it's the gold that caused the jewish people to sin like he springs here reserve us all about cass everybody says why doesn't he bring it over there and if he doesn't feel you have to bring it there the first time around why is he bringing it the second time around the truth is because the context of these two parties are diametrically opposed and parsons he sees so he's chastising god in parties voting he's chastising the jewish people in particular trying to get hashem to forgive them so he's trying to minimize this sin so he tells hashem you did it alakazav it's your gold he doesn't want to bring the pasek visa of us which basically means they took a gift of god and they used it to betray hashem i give you a million dollars and instead of being grateful to me you use those very million dollars in order to destroy me if you wouldn't have had the million dollars you couldn't have done anything because i gave you a gift to use that gift against me that dramatizes the sin and pastors kissing so much is trying to minimize this sin so misha just says that all happened because of the gold that you have given them but in particular's devotion he's actually not chastising god he's chastising the jewish people so he challenges the jewish people he tells them if he deserved this is because of the gold that you got hashem gave you gold he gave you so much gold and now you took this gold and you use it against him this is part of the turkish that's why he brings here the possibility it doesn't bring the parchment season because it would be inconsistent with the theme according to rashi the straightforward learning of humans would be inconsistent with the theme over there if that's the case all night wolf seems so nice but now we have the real problem according to this this rashi becomes so perplexing moisture is trying to chastise the jewish people here in dvaram but really he's chastising hashem because who gave them all this gold it's true he's telling them you know you made the calf and you made the gaff with the gold that hashem gave you but look at rashi's words he chastised them because of the calf that they made only for one reason because of the abundant of gold that they had who gave them this abundance of gold the creator of the world again he is the one who compelled them in egypt to make sure that they leave with a lot of gold and he's the one who made sure that at the sea they amassed enormous quantities of gold so essentially when moisha is chastising the jewish people he's blaming somebody else he's blaming the reborn the same rashi that's brought over there to blame is telling hashem you're guilty he brings here in the words that are supposed to be chastising the other eight verses other eight places makes a lot of sense they complained we want to die in the desert that was not nice by rava they were promised promiscuous with the daughters of maya of not nice paran is despised tied for love and they slandered the man i get that molsoo they rebelled by the yamsev khatsiris kyrok's rebellion de zahav suddenly what's this of these love is too much gold hashem gave them too much gold and that's why they did the calf in other words you're minimizing the sin and actually could have even said she could have said he chastised them for the calf that they made with the gold that they had with the abundance gold and the is hashem gives you a gift and you use it against him he could have said that but she actually emphasizes the word besville they did it because almost like it's because they had so much gold and that's what a lot of gold does to people rashi is moisha chastising them or is moshe actually telling hashem that you're guilty it's in this last rashi on this that the pattern emerges [Applause] the ninth of nineteen seventy one shabbos dwarim laboratory rebbe then conducted his shabbos fabregan and as usual every shabbos he would discuss give a long share in arashi and the parsha and other suggests in shaas and paiskim and hashgaffe cabal exidus contemporary events hashgraphic questions et cetera but that shabbos which was also tisha b of tishbo nitka he spoke about this rashi about the tuition and i'm going to convey one point of a very elaborate talk but i'm trying to convey one one major theme that the lebanese developed then and try to explain it the way i understood it in my own words let's understand a more basic question let's let's get into a more basic question this whole thing seems strange mushroom is trying to respect the jewish people and therefore he's not mentioning clearly what they did he's mentioning nine places that intimate sins why can't he just be open with them in hebrew there's an expression you know speak to the point tell me what you want to say it's not like maestro never rebuked the jewish people he looked through why she rebuked the jewish people he knew how to be tough with his people it wasn't an easy 40-year journey through the wilderness it was quite complex and quite challenging but suddenly here ashley tells us it's all beremus everything is why don't what's the idea here in fact if i were to ask you i could communicate to somebody and i want to talk about some serious mistakes they made you think i should be open about it or i should cover it up today's generation needs a mitzvah to be open that's what the therapist will tell you no but everything is hidden here we need rashi to uncode it to unravel the codes what's the meaning of this speak to them openly the truth is that this actually conveys a life-changing message in life it's the story that happens then happened then and it's a story that still happens and it's a story that each of us have to meditate upon and apply to our lives one of the hardest things in life is to hear rebuke to hear real rebuke i don't mean rebuke you know uh some small mistake i made i'm talking about real rebuke maybe about some serious decisions in my life serious errors transgressions mistakes i've made people i've hurt it's one of the most difficult things those of you who are in the position of communication education therapy work and all every defense mechanism i will bring up in order to protect myself not even consciously consciously i may say i want to hear it but subconsciously i will sabotage every form of your brute that somebody communicates to me you know sometimes people come for a conversation and i'll ask somebody do you want to hear the truth or do you want me to tell you what you would like to hear and of course everybody says oh of course i want to hear the truth but then when you tell them the truth they may not be able to uh hear it a therapist their therapist here in muncie is very very successful extremely successful and i asked him once what's the source of what's your mechanism what's your trick and he told me a few things but one of them left a very deep impression on me he says a guy comes in here a woman comes in here he says often they come in the first time and they tell me the issue and i hear it and in my mind it's delusional it's absurd it's foolish sometimes it's coming from such narcissism or trauma or dreams that are completely not rooted in reality and a skewed distorted sense of reality and i want to scream at them you're dreaming you're not living in this world you have concocted an alternative fictional story that not never existed and never will exist but if i say it to them they'll never come back again she says for nine months i listen i empathize i identify i hear them i ask questions and i'm genuinely interested in understanding their perspective and then after nine months i could start sharing with them the truth there's not a therapist who wants the people to stay there to get their money he likes to send people out after a session he likes to send them out but it was a very profound understanding of human nature one of the hardest things in the world is to be able to hear and internalize rebuke and not hear it in order to be able to counter attack or hear it in order to be able to prove the person wrong or hear it in order that you should say that i'm a gentleman and i know how to listen to critique and i'm fine i don't want my wife to tell me that i'm an egotistical maniac or an insecure petty loser so therefore i have to listen i'm talking about really listening listening to the point that it can penetrate and help me redefine the trajectory of my life that's not easy and i want to tell you something sometimes it's not that i don't want to i may want to i can't this is where trauma comes in people who have been traumatized and trauma does not mean that something dramatic happened in your life that of course you know you were molested you were abused you grew up in the most dysfunctional family with beatings physically or emotionally you were shamed you were humiliated sometimes if you're a sensitive soul trauma can be very very subtle it's not about what happened to you it's what happens inside of you trauma is basically my sense of self becomes distorted and i cannot make choices from my authentic expansive true infinite self all my choices are coming from a very restricted narrow abducted and exiled sense of self it's pathetic and more importantly it's tragic because the person who's traumatized doesn't know that he or she is completely not in touch with their authentic self and all my decisions including what i'm hearing from you has nothing to do with what you're saying or what i'm capable of hearing it it's being processed and filtered exclusively through the lenses of my trauma and therefore what i'm hearing is basically you hate me you think i'm a loser here i have another enemy in my life my own spouse or my own father my own mother my own brother my own sister my rabbi my therapist my best friend is another enemy there's nobody i can trust it's the confirmation bias my trauma just reaffirms what i always knew i knew that i'm lonely in this world everyone is out to kill me and get me if not today tomorrow and those who are smiling are even worst enemies because they make believe they're my friends and i can't even hear anything else you start rebuking me my sense of self is so shattered it's so traumatized it's so broken it's so fragmented by the time your words get into me i'm already in china in wuhan or somewhere else i'm already out i have already checked out emotionally now i'm a smart guy i'm civil i'm respectful i'll sit there i'll smile i'll listen maybe i'll even take notes but inside i have immediately dismissed you you know why i can't hear you because there's no eye my eye has been so broken where do we begin to heal this is not an easy issue those of you who have some experience with this know what i'm talking about if you don't know what i'm talking about it's only when i could be absolutely convinced that you don't hate me that you really really love me that you cherish me and then step two is i can look at my trauma and observe it from a distance and realize i am not my trauma and i could oh i can watch what your words are doing to my trauma it's almost like i watch my brain responding to your message from a place of trauma and then i can choose to respond from a different place i can tell the trauma i get you you're trying to protect me but there's really a more expansive way of seeing this but the first thing i have to know is that you are not my enemy you actually like me you are here for me ah this is the prerequisite for taifa if i am to rebuke any money or anything whether the person has drama or even not a few prerequisites that are necessary the first thing is you have to feel that i love you i cherish you i respect you i believe in you the reason i'm chastising you the reason i'm giving you is because i want to be close to you because i believe in your potential because i yearn for you because i see the opportunities that are embedded in your amazing brilliant powerful soul when i'm chastising you i don't think you're evil i don't think you're the ultimate loser schmatta victim sinner transgressor on the contrary i see your glory i see your greatness and that's why i'm perturbed by the lost opportunities when i identify the potentials the glorious potentials that exist in you i actually respect you and that's why i want you to live up to your greatest potentials ich ferginder i'm not jealous of you i love you i want your success your success is my success and therefore i will fight for you i will take risks for you and i will defend you because for me my rebuke to you is actually a symptom it's a product it's a it's a derivative of my love that's why moshe when he chastises the jewish people rashi says he does it with intimations for the respect what's disrespect about because your respect your glory your honor is more important the words of the rebuke the rebuke must come from your honor from your glory the baseline has to be that there is covet for you i actually respect you and before i chastise you i have to ask myself those tough questions and that's why even when you did something bad i'm going to try and find the good and the positive it's not like oh here he goes again this evil bad monster no way i'm actually going to see and identify the goodness even within the mistakes i'm going to try to find what we call the limits who's the positive side my brother shared with me something you heard from the former british chief rabbi by jonathan sax he said what's the difference between a rabbi and a rabbi so the rabbi gets up gives a 20-minute sermon pre-corona starts off with a joke tells three or four stories makes the people laugh cries his voice fluctuates goes up and goes down he takes off his glasses five ten times walks around waves his hand sometimes he gives a scream looks at every single person and finally at the end he reaches the punchline he starts giving mustard he starts rebuking the audience and everybody as he begins as muslim turns to his friend and says who does he think he is he's blaming us he should blame himself and he says what's a rabbit he said he gives a talk it may be monotone doesn't take off his glasses even once doesn't tell one story doesn't tell one joke not 300 people sitting but maybe 6 000 people sitting and then at some point he starts speaking from his heart words of moosa and every one of the 5 000 people sitting there says he's talking about me how do i repair my life that makes all the difference one of the best stories i have heard in my life i heard at a wedding wedding of my cousin my first cousin he's the khabad ambassador to emory university rabbi schneider zalman and miriam lipsker me greenberg got married at the yeshiva of morristown rabbinical college of america and i went to the wedding at the kabbalah spun them at the reception i was sitting near the masada kadusan the one who would officiate at the wedding his name was rabbi shalom bear gordon's the rabbi for many many years in newark new jersey he was actually ill i saw at the time that he was ill he had cancer and i think he passed away around a year later at the reception we're talking i asked him how long have you been in the rabinet in new jersey he told me i think since 1949 so it was then 50 years 50 years in the rabbinate i said wow teach me something tell me what you learned and he said there was one message i learned early on and it was the most important life-changing message that i had to hear it sustained me every day since i was very eager and this is what shalom bear gordon's i was a young man and i was hired to be a rabbi in new jersey it was an orthodox troll but this is orthodoxy from the 1940s judaism was very very weak in the united states i get up the first shabbos second shabbos third shabbos and i'm telling the balabatam that they have to change their ways you shouldn't be driving on shoppers you have to keep shoppers you have to put on filling every day you have to dive in three times a day you have to eat caution not only in your house also when you leave the house you have to send your kids to jewish schools the real issues that were confronting american jews then and still confronting american jews now and he said the president came over to me and said this is not going to work if you continue this way you're going to be sent out very fast you have to compliment the people and tell them that they're good jews you don't give them muslim come on he says i drive on shabbos this one drives on choppers this one doesn't need kosher this come on you don't do this on bear said i was completely confused i thought the job of a rabbi is to inspire people to become better so he went to his rebbe the previous laboratory passed away in 1950 uchvat of chinut he was already then the rabbit was very very ill extremely ill physically and rabbi gordon told me he says i went into the deb and i'd conveyed my dilemma what do i do oily me if i say the truth they throw me out if i don't say the truth if i flatter them then i'm betraying god i'm betraying my role my mission my position was and he said the rabbit looked at me there ever had piercing the rabbit the previously about the sixth lava chair ever had incredibly piercing guys you can see in the pictures he looks at me and he says have you ever been to a sauna he says this shocked me that is not going to ask me about ashvitz in america then a sauna schwitz for jews was was very holy everybody went to the schwitz you would sit there you would discuss harry truman roosevelt eisenhower this was the the culture then jews went to the schwitz they played bingo and they went to the shrits and they ate knots over there some people still do it so he tells to that but yeah i went to the sun i went to the streets he says describe to me what happens see describes to the devil what happens in the schmitz people go in it's boiling hot there's coal on fire the fire rises this benches people sit on one bench and they love it and then they go higher and higher and higher and on the top they mummy shark welling from the enjoyment of the shvitz is what happens afterwards with a broom he says yeah what happens says what used to happen in the schwitz is then it actually still happens here in muncie and some other places you asked the guy in charge to give you malchus to give you lashes with the special schvitz broom and it's very very smack on your red body that is now on fire from the schmitz he smacks your back with the bosom and that ever says and what do people say they say man man man they say give me more give me more so that ebba says i'm gonna ask a question if this guy comes over to the middle of the street with a broom and starts knocking you over your head or over your back what do you do he says either you run away or you beat him up or you call the police so he said so why in the schwitz do you ask him to do it more so rabbi gordon told me at this point i understood i would be wise if i would be silent and then ebby said because if you come over to somebody with a middle of the street and you start whacking him he's going to run away from you he will not want to be with you or he'll counter attack in a schwitz you don't just attack him with a broom i have to say this in yiddish says the airstazakes [Music] the first thing is you warm him up the second thing is you elevate him because they go from bench to bench to bench because the heat rises afterwards when you take out the broom and you start smiting him he says more more more i'm loving it more and more that ebb said if you get up and shrug you start chastising people they'll throw you out middah you have to you have to transform your shul into ashvitz into a spiritual godly sauna you have to warm people up and you have to lift them up turn your shoe into a place of fire of passion a place where there's godly fire that is ablaze you warm them up and you lift them up and then when you take out the broom then when you start communicating authentic words to challenge people's lives you know what they're going to tell you more more more words of arabic to a young american hosted and rabbi he looked at me i'll never forget this and he said to be a savitzrach you think anybody needs any other advice in their life as a rabbi after they get this advice he said i didn't need any other advice afterwards if you don't create a schvitz you can't give turkey people want to change who doesn't want to be better who doesn't want to live a full life who doesn't want to maximize their potential but i'm afraid i'm afraid of my own shadow and most importantly i'm too broken to have make to feel that i have another person who hates me another person who doesn't believe in me and i just shut down but if you bring me into your schmitts if i could feel your authenticity and your love and your respect i can go out of my trauma and see it as trauma and stop blaming you and start going internal inside and really lift myself up i mentioned before by david shrank so he tells him the books really best it tells the book of story that he was in camp and he was learning muslim with his students they were learning i think it's the area the zip code how ukraine and how you acquire animals like elephant how do you acquire these animals speaks there about the method called lifting up lifting up the animal or meshika is lifting up the item or lifting up the animal and that's an acquisition it becomes yours so he turns to his students and he says listen to what the gemara is teaching us you want somebody to become yours you want a living being to become yours you have to lift them up the moment you lift somebody up koine they are yours for life when i am in the presence of somebody who lifted me up who changed my life who made me believe in myself even when i didn't when made me believe in me even when i couldn't see it who allowed me to redefine my destiny and my trajectory i want to belong to this person and i am happy to hear the rebuke of this person i'm going to say that's what rashi is telling us here moishe couldn't just get up and said you guys made a golden calf if it did if it dies off in the words of taiticha much is not only hiding the rebuke and making sure it's eclipsed by the sense of glory and covet but even the words of thailand say you know what he's doing he's saying and i know that there are others to blame and i know that you were not the ones who decided that you should have so much gold i know that this was a great test and challenge the reborn shalom gave you i understand where you guys are coming from i empathize with you when people hear this you like me you love me you honor me you understand me you empathize with me you're not here to blame me and put me down and denigrate me everything changes the madrid shrabba says in the beginning of saif advariam hashem told moisha to say these words of rebuke he said you know why if bilaam would have done it they would have said oh he hates us of course he's going to rebuke us so he says better moshe loves them let him rebuke them and bilamo hates them let him bless them they gotta reverse the roles you would think moisture should bless them and bilum should rebuke them no if billon rebukes them they won't be able to hear it they'll say billam hates me you hate me hate me hate me of course you think i'm bad i can't hear what you're saying moisha loves me i can hear what he's saying let bilam bless them and let moishe chastise them and rebuke them this is a vital lesson in life if you seek to change someone make sure you are willing to help them when they need your help you are willing to defend them when they need your defense make sure you see the good in them not just the bad unbelievable story i want to share with you remotely that many of the twerskies come from him was the son of the holy of nakham of chernobyl arjanabel was a great student of the balsham and the maggot passed away i think when you're out of here probably which would be 1796 somewhere in that uh that area if i'm not mistaken the holiday passed away from time to time he would appear in a vision to his great son the chernobyl magit and this was very comforting for his son once there was a long time that matala did not see his father ebner and he was so upset he was so hurt some time later he fell ill and he was in a comatose state they didn't think he would wake up he would survive he survived and he made a suda say he made a feast to celebrate his his healing and they say am i said that during that feast he shared a story and he said during my illness i wasn't conscious and my soul went up and i met my father abner and i said where were you father where were you and ibnakam said i don't know but my soul could not meet up with yours he says why not he says probably you did something pretty bad recently and just my nashamah couldn't get close it was like it was too much toxicity you know souls don't go everywhere they need to have they need to they they go to places of purity he says father what have i done he says ask yourself recently has there come a jew to you for help and maybe you rejected him you threw him out you insulted him he says solemn father me i would never do that he says think think tell me was there a jew who came to you recently for help and you did not help him he said well recently there was a jew came for help he was having a lot of challenges in his life he said what did you tell him he said i tried to comfort him he said how did you try to come for him he said i told him the possibility proverbs chapter 3 god chastises he who he loves hashem rebukes the one he loves the one he loves he rebukes he cares about the person he challenges the person he stimulates the person i told them you're having all these challenges all this pain and agony in life it must be hashem loves you says that was it let me tell you how they teach the possible let me tell you how they teach the position when you really love another jew you rebuke hashem when you really love another jew you give music to the reborn why are you doing this to this jew hashem that's how we touch your hearing grenade when moishe gives taika to the jewish people he's talking about their sins and he's he's talking about serious stuff and then he comes to the crescendo the worst thing what does he say he starts blaming god it's like i chastise you by the way it's not your fault wanted to rebuke the moisture wanted they shouldn't repeat the mistake but his point was not to rebuke his his people his point was to glorify his people to elevate his people to bring his people into our schevitz to transform them to make sure this doesn't happen again in their life and therefore the most important first prerequisite is empathy empathy empathy i know what happened i know the reasons i know the causes and from there i also know your mistakes when i can hear that i made terrible mistakes but i can put it in context in the right context i'm not this evil malicious loser i'm not this horrific horrible monstrous person hopefully not when i can make you feel like i understand where you're coming from i don't think you're just i don't think you're a bad people my sis i know that hashem tested you he gave you all this crazy amount of gold and the lion roars from a box of meat not from a box of straw you did not get straw you got meat you're the child who was decorated and given all this jewelry and foods and drinks and place but pesticides i understand but i want you to know that you still have choices and you made the wrong choice and you could make different choices you're powerful enough to make different choices that's the title that lasts forever you know how i know because we're still learning it and we're still loving it and we're still cherishing it and we're still analyzing it thirty three hundred years later this is the typhica that lasts forever if this is the case comes the laboratory and says read the story again and now go backwards when you see what rashi didn't diesel as he's chastising the jews he's also empathizing with them because he knows that's the way you reach and change people's lives now retroactively go back and you'll see that in the other eight places he did exactly the same thing as he is rebuking as he is speaking harsh words about harsh realities about harsh mistakes in each one he is also finding something positive he is finding a point of light he is demonstrating and displaying profound empathy attentiveness sensitivity understanding to circumstances not because he doesn't want to chastise them because he wants to chastise them because he wants the message to go into the depth of their hearts because he wants they should know how much he understands them and loves them and will fight for them and take risks for them and stand up to them even to the creator of the world go back and you'll see the same pattern in each one and here i'm going to do it very briefly with you each one we're going to go through all of them until the dies off and we'll now be able to see the same pattern in the there is also profound empathy not rationalizations and justifications [Music] is not a moral relativist is calling the spade a spade but it's very different when i understand the trauma that you have been through when i appreciate the challenges that you're facing and when i truly love you cherish you respect you and then i chastise you it's because i understand your power not your weakness so i help you understand your power and make different decisions in your life this is a life-changing lesson in my eyes let's go through them start of bamidbar i'm not going to read this whole piece of decision inside but if you want to look in the inside this is going to be page four and on page four and on take the first one we're gonna go through all of them so take a look at the please take a look again at source four source number four okay because that's where it actually goes through all of the all of the nine places and let's see okay the first thing is bamidbar what does rashi say about bamidbar lloyd midway albarvasm yeah that's a very obvious question i don't understand the jews were in the mid birth for 40 years almost 40 years why use the word bamidbar why don't you use why don't you use the name of the place where it happened which was midbar sin between alim and sinai but bidbar is just this generic name for the whole desert thank you you're not really telling me what it is you did it in the mid bar they did a lot of things in the desert give this specific it looks like you did katseros just like you did parum looks like you did yam so give me the specific name midbury is everywhere give me the name midbar sin why the word by midway rashid tells us to sin but why the word by midbar the answer is my is not just telling them this sin moisture is empathizing with the sin he's not justifying he's empathizing maesha is almost intimidating to them again together with the sin he's saying i know where you were you were in a desert you were in the wilderness a place that the toyota describes a place filled with snakes and scorpions and dangerous animals and no water that's a big test to be in and you have a wife and you have children and you have babies and you have infants and you say meeting museum here we have nothing to eat at least in egypt we were slaves but we had bread we had something to eat here we have nothing to eat they are in a wilderness that stretches miles and miles and miles with little babies screaming and crying maestro nabeno says it's wrong what you did but i understand it was a midbar it was a mid bar and that's what happens in a mid bar bar rover what's bharava rashid he says bharava is airvoicemail what happened in iowa is they engaged with the daughters of midian and mayor of in promiscuous relationships and the women took out the idolatry of baal paul and they made the jews worship the idolatry one second irvis maya was a big place terrorist says iris was from basayashimas why don't you just say beshettim it happened in a place called iris mother the plains of life is very big rashi himself says moshe is empathizing ba rava means in the plains what are the plains so rasheed says my of the famous plains of maya which were called arvis maiev it's like the the famous plains like baha'i rava in the famous arova which is which one the maya of plains was called the har rava because actually it says it was iris maiev why was maya called mayoff why did mayev get the name mayev you remember parsley's what did rashid say lloyd's daughters got him drunk and each one had intimacy with him and each one became pregnant one of them called her son amon the other one called maya what's mayev he's from my father so rashfie says there she was in modest she publicized in the name that he came from her father that his grandfather was also his father the younger sister called him amen which was a more refined name so rashford says in parish's vader she received skyrim in the days of moshe hashem tells moshe and parishes devouring him by our mind don't provoke them by maya of don't fight them but you're allowed to provoke them one second you're punishing children hundreds of years later because their mother was immodest come on we have a rule in a series of debris we never punish children for their father's sins unless as rashi says there when they continue and perpetuate the sins maya's mommy sinned and publicized it okay she thought she was doing the right thing there's nobody living and then she publicizes it in the name may of so that's why hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years later you could provoke the moabites from here we understand from these two rashis that what that even in the days of moshe the people of mayav were completely promiscuous much worse than amide there was an absolute breakdown of the boundaries of morality ah so when maeshrabenu says ba i rava meaning by iris maya he's empathizing with them there is a limous crusader he's saying you were in an environment that was filled with toxicity and promiscuity and a breakdown of all moral boundaries again i know you did a sin but i know how tough the challenge was my dear children suff what's more suff rashi says two things they rebelled before the splitting of the sea and they rebelled after the splitting of the sea you understand the empathy here you're stuck between a rock and aardvl there is absolutely no way to run the egyptians are behind them the sea is in front of them naturally there's no way to be saved does it not make sense that people lose it that people rebel that people become disheartened that people say why'd you take us out of egypt let us die there was it a lack of faith yes was it a sin yes they should have known better they should have done better but maestro beno says i understand i understand human frailty and i want you to know that you could still make choices the same is true at the other side hashem told them i want you to collect the booty of egypt and there's an abundance of gold of course they're going to get stuck then they don't want to leave bainparon [Music] what they did during the sin of the miragum with the cinema what they did through the miraglum you could have just said which also would have been shorter than al-jadei rashi is again saying something you guys would have never done it the miragulum had the gift of gab and they enticed all of you they dissuaded you they inculcated fear and dread into your heart they basically demoralized you i get it you were wrong your parents were wrong for doing this this was a bad bad mistake they should have known better than these spies but that's what people of influence can do they can turn people around and they can turn them into uh into people who are not doing the right thing ali day hamiraglam you did it through the miragum again maisha rabbenu is saying this is not who you are you're people of purity you're people of faith in him but the barack obama did this being toefl the love on what's typhoon the love on what doesn't ashley say al haman they slandered the mano which was white why is that so relevant that the mana was white why does he use this term he uses this term to explain why the man had no color it was bland it looked bland the gamora says in human that people revec the famous bays so the murray gives two opinions one of them is you can't compare somebody who sees the food somebody doesn't see the food the man could convert into every taste but whether it looked like it looked like something colorless like the color of water love them that simplicity so it didn't have that dazzling attraction you know with food it's all about the presentation when i see what i'm eating and it's colorful and it's geshmaq you can ask the chefs and the restaurants pre-corona that's what entices the people that's what gives you part of the geshemak but the man the gemara says it's like a blind person eating because what you see is not what you get what you see is not what you taste there was this blandness in the man again this is no justification of a sin but it's the empathy of why the jewish people could easily complain about the man what does rashford say what should have he said but in the likes of kyrah in the fight of kyrik and his people what's mahalika who rashi is saying i know this much like this came from kyrah this is mahleikas of kirik not of the jews the jews would have not done this kaira went around and he incited everybody that's what moshe told hashem one man sins and yet you want to destroy the whole nation saying i know that you guys would have never done this on your own and then the last one dies off you did it it was wrong but the cause of this was not you the cause of this was a great challenge that hashem gave you with all this excessive gold great story about the badichiva here leviticus you know the story he once saw a jew on shabbos comes over to him he says you forgot it's shabbos today he says no he says he forgot you're not going to smoke on traumas he says no he says there's something going on that you just found the way that you're out of smoke on shabbos he says no turns his eyes to heaven he says master of the universe father in heaven i gave this jew three times a chance to get out of it but he will never ever say a lie why did my dicheva do this you think he was naive he wasn't what did she was a very savvy person because he understood that the deepest rebuke is when you could allow people to see their own goodness and their own potential this way that we don't realize you want to rebuke me show me my potential it's going to be the greatest rebuke because all the rebuke in the world what is the review going to tell me you did this you did this you did this you did this okay of course i did this this is what i do this is my enjoyment show me that i am not this show me who i really am show me my goodness show me the positivity show me my power show me my potential that's the greatest rebuke then i'm gonna look at what i did and i'm gonna like we come to samir i'm not part of this equation i'm bigger i'm better i'm greater i'm deeper and i can observe it from a distance and say this is not the person i want to be that's and of course this parsha has always read the shabbas before tisha buff always why the three weeks are the time of taka the nine days the time itself rebukes the jewish people like the gemara says in thailand the time itself so to speak rebukes the jewish people challenges the jewish people the time itself because of the catastrophic horrific events that occurred throughout our history as a result of so many mistakes so when we read parishes dwarf the shabbos before tishbo it starts off with this message of allah that even when god rebukes the jewish people and history rebukes the jewish people it's with the sensitivity and the awareness of israel the glory and honor of the jewish people must always be maintained because if the torture says not a derivative from quite and shall israel you miss the mark the reason i'm rebuking you is because i see who you are and i want you to see who you are that's what the turkish is about and you see it in the first words of magilla's echo that terrifying scroll that yermia navi wrote alas how jerusalem sits in solitariness this city that was filled with people is now like a widow the word joshua vadat always challenges us how she sits bothered she sits in solitariness but look at the words that yermia chose to use in this in this rebuke he's also saying something very powerful reminiscent of the words of bilaam hainam this is a nation that dwells alone and is not counted among the nations as dirac and other commentators explained in parishes bullock that bilaam was glorifying the jewish people that after thousands of years of diaspora expulsions exile persecutions autodo phase pogroms massacres holocaust all types of savage suffering turmoil agony relocations to the point that the infrastructure of the jewish world has gone through such turmoil and agony you would expect that at this point at some point they should assimilate and they should forfeit their identity also telling you that story of hain amla vada disco a nation that dwells alone as the medras says beautifully yermia compares the jews to oil oil doesn't mix with any other beverage you pour oil into orange juice grape juice water and the oil always rises to the top the jews have been mixed up everywhere and yet the oil retains its distinction it's buddhad even as he speaks about the solitariness and loneliness of yerushalayim he emphasizes in it there's a different type of loneliness there's a very very deep strength among the jewish people because there are two forms of loneliness there's a loneliness in which i can't trust anybody nobody trusts me i hate the world the world hates me and then there's a loneliness you know who you are and you realize that you have a contribution to make that nobody else can make as an individual and as part of a people there's a loneliness that comes from empowerment not from insecurity yerma navi puts in puts the into gullus he tells the jewish people i know you're alone but i know that in this aloneness there's also a different type of aloneness it's not just a weakness it's also a strength there is a strength in you there's something so special in you there's something extraordinary about you look at your light look at your gift and you always remember this you never allowed your true identity to be lost this is the queen shall you saw that you must always cultivate cherish accentuate find believe in those kids so that they could believe in themselves until that moment when the ultimate kavoidam shall israel emerges with the binyan the building of the third base amiktus speedily in our days by galadidan mama speedily in our days even before this tish above amen via men amen kenya outside thank you very very much and have a good night this class is brought to you by the yeshiva.net please help us continue the classes make even a small contribution at www.theyeshiva.net donate