Ari Goldwag - Re'eh - Hearing and Transcending

You're listening to the weekly para podcast recorded with Hashem's never ending assistance in Israel 5776 2016. This week's par the para starts off 11:26 God says behold I am placing before you today blessing and curse. Verse 27 the blessing you shall listen to God. You should listen to the commandments of Hashem, your God that I'm commanding you today. So if a person listens to Hashem, if a person follows the commandments, learns the Torah, fulfills the will of God, he receives blessings. Verse 28. However, the curses, if you do not listen to the commandments of your God, and if a person turns away from the path that I'm commanding you today to go after those other gods, false gods that you haven't known. So the verses are speaking very clearly and saying that the human being has a choice in the world. The human being unlike all the other creations of Hashem unlike all the celestial beings, the planets, the stars, the angels, unlike all of the the animals, the the the rocks etc. All that you find in the world, everything else in the world has no has no free will. The human being has free will. Clearly if a person chooses good, if a person chooses to go in the ways of God, chooses spirituality, chooses the spiritual path, then he receives the blessings, all will be well. He has aligned himself with God. He has aligned himself with the truth of the universe. However, when a person steps away, steps out of reality, steps out and chooses a path which is not the way of God, chooses to follow after idolatry, so then a person, heaven forbid, will experience. You see, he will experience the curses. Now what's interesting here and the first point that I'd like to make and try to understand is that we see that the verse starts off with behold see look at the fact that I'm placing before you today the blessings and the curses that's the first way that the speaks then it switches from speaking about sight from speaking about looking and says you shall listen to the commandments of Hashem if you listen and you do what you're what I am commanding you then you will receive the blessings. If a person does not listen then he will receive the he will receive the curses heaven forbid. And I want to understand why the verse makes use of these two lashes. Why it switches from speaking about seeing to speaking about hearing. Now hold on to that thought that question. We're going to come back to this. I'd like to share with you now a medish beautiful medish that speaks about the idea of listening of hearing. The maj says like this and it's based on this verse that it says if you listen to the words of Hashem if you listen to the commandments then you will receive blessings says like this the holy one blessed is he says listen to me there's no such thing as somebody who listens to me and loses out you will always benefit if you listen to Hashem if you listen to God now the goes on and speaks about other places where we find listening And there were cases where a person listened and he didn't it didn't come out so good for him. There are places where a person listened and it did indeed work out well for him and the sages say we find two different instances. In one instance, a man listened to his wife and it wasn't beneficial. And in another place, he listened to his wife and it was indeed very beneficial. Let's see what is what are we speaking about here. The first man, Adam, he listened to his wife. His wife told him to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and bad and he lost out. As a result, it wasn't good for him. How do we know this is true? The verse says in Genesis Genesis 3:17, you listen to the voice of your wife. Now listen, it's important that we notice the language here because we're going to keep using the same language of the word. We need to understand this word, the idea of the concept of sound or voice. What is the power of a voice of sound? What is its purpose? What does it do? What is its function? And we see over here in regards to Adam Harish, the first man, he listened to the sound of the voice of his wife and as a result of that he fell. He lost his exalted status. He sinned tells us an analogy. What is this comparable to? To a king who said to his servant, I don't want you to taste anything until I come back from my bath. Now this servant's wife says to him, "Please taste this. I'm cooking something and I want you to taste it. I don't want anyone to ask for more salt or something. I want it to taste perfect." And it seems that he she wanted it to taste perfect for the king even. So now what is what does he do? What does the servant do? The king told him not to eat anything. But his wife said, "I want you to taste it. I want I want to make sure it tastes all right." Figures to himself, "It's okay. The king comes back from his bath and he sees that his servant has, you know, he's he's moving his lips in such a way that it's clear that he's eating something. The king says to him, I told you not to eat anything and here you are eating. So he says, he says to the king, Mari, my master, this woman who you know this is my wife, but this is your servant as well. This woman is one of your servants. You gave her to me. She told me to eat. So I I ate. And we're the king says to his servant, "You listen to my maidervant more than you listen to me." So that's the analogy. The analogy is clear. This is what Hashem says to Adam. God said to Adam, "Do not eat from the tree of good and evil. Don't eat from it." What happened was that Eve caused him to eat from it. And so he also said to Hashem, to God as it were, this is what happened. It's because you gave me this woman, you gave me this wife, and she told me to eat from it. So I listened to her and Hashem says, "But who do you listen to? You listen to a maid servant or do you listen to the king?" So it's interesting because generally speaking when a medish brings an analogy we bring another story or another idea to try to understand better what we have here the concept over here. So often times or almost every time it's coming to add something to our understanding. It's not so clear what exactly is being added here. Perhaps we'll see soon. But it's important to note because we're going to have an another analogy shortly and we need to understand what the analogy is bringing or what it's adding to our understanding of the story. But now let's hear the the continuation said that there was something different that was going on here. How was it or why was it that Kaba was able to convince her husband to eat from this tree even though Hashem had specifically commanded not to eat from it? So Rabvin says that she was just yelling and screaming. She wasn't saying anything logical. She was just screaming and yelling. This is what the verse says to the voice of your wife. You listen to the voice of your wife. It doesn't say the words of your wife. It wasn't that she said something logical that made sense and convinced him to eat from it. But rather speaks about the fact that he listened to her voice, the sound of her voice, because she was yelling and screaming. She wasn't saying anything logical. She was just being overly expressive. And in order to get her to be quiet, it seems marishon listened to her and ate from the tree. Even though Hashem had said not to eat from the tree, God says to Adam, "Is it true that you ate from the tree that I told you not to?" Says back to God, "Mari, my master, your maidervant gave it to me." And how we know that this is the understanding because Adam said he speaks about the fact that this is the woman that you gave to me. So so is saying it's your fault God as it were. You gave this woman to me. Why are you listening to her more than me? I'm the king. I'm the master. You shouldn't listen to the maider. You should listen you listen to the king. Like we saw in the masha like we saw in the analogy. Repeatedly he was sent out says was sent away. He was exiled and he stayed in a place which was beyond he. He wasn't allowed to enter into it again. So this is the first part of the medish. We see that Harishon listened to his wife. He did an act of listening and he was adversely affected. He lost out. Now I want to point out it's important to understand that there's two different here in what's going on. Why did listen to his wife the first understanding is that she said something which made sense and that's what we see in the mushel. In the mushel in the analogy the the maid servant says to her husband I want you to taste it so that when the king comes it tastes proper. Now the king had said don't eat from it. But the the servant thinks to himself I'm going to do whatever she says because it makes sense what she's saying. So in the first understanding said something Eve said something that made sense and listened to it because it was logical. In Rabbi Aan's version he says no what was he listening to? He was listening to the he was listening to the voice, the sound of her voice that the fact that she was complaining and upset not so much based on the logic of her words or not at all based on the logic of her words but rather based on the sound of her voice based on her upset nature or upset the upset way that she said it. That's why Marishan listened. Now either way, no matter why he listened, the the bottom line was he did something wrong. And as a result of that, as a result of listening to the voice, the sound of the voice of his wife. So he ended up losing out. Now the second half of the medish is going to give us a circumstance where someone listened to his wife and it was indeed beneficial. There was somebody who listened to his wife and he was rewarded. This is Abraham. And how do we know this is true? The verse tells us says to God has prevented me from having children. I want you to have relations. Marry my maid servants which was perhaps I will be able to be built from [Music] her. And Abraham listens to the voice of Sara. So it's very interesting that Majesh brings this part because we're going to see in the heck in the continuation that there was another statement that Abram had to listen to of Sarah which was much more difficult. He does end up listening to it and he does indeed end up being rewarded for it. But here the mages is bringing the first part which is kind of a prelude to the next part and that is that Sah tells Aram, I want you to marry my maidservant and they have a child and that child's name is Yeshel. Very interesting. Now listen to the Hamsh. Listen to the continuation of tells us in another analogy. What is this comparable to someone who had a son? There was an astrologer, someone who was able to see in the stars. He was able to see the future. He said, "This child that you've had, this baby that you have, is going to be an arch villain. is going to be the ultimate thief. The father of this child needs to get rid of him. Needs to throw him away. The father hears this. He hears the astrologer talking this way. You think I'm going to throw away my son? I'm going to get rid of my son. The father of the astrologer heard. Whatever my son says, you should listen to him. The father of the astrologer vouched for the accuracy of the vision of his son. His son was able to see things for real in the future. So the father of this child had no choice. The mag doesn't say this, but the father obviously had to send away his child. Su had she had divine inspiration. She saw that was going to be someone who was going to be an arch villain. Therefore, she said to Abraham, "Get rid of this maidervant and her child." This was something that Abraham when he heard about it, he was it was very negative to him. He couldn't believe that that's what he was supposed to do. God revealed himself. It shouldn't be negative in your eyes in regards to this child and your maidervant. Sarah shaba whatever your wife Sarah says to you listen to her voice. So Abraham listens to the voice of his wife listens to the sound of the voice of his wife. He listened to her and he was rewarded that his children who are considered the children of Abraham specifically the children of Isaac the Jewish people as a verse says embrace this in in in Genesis 21:12 that in Isaac shall you be called your seed Isaac is the one who will be considered your progeny your spiritual and physical progeny at this point in the I want to just point out a question and you know there's a simple which is of course you know is someone who ends up going off to he ends up not staying on the path of god but he ends up coming back to the path of god he does chu in the end of his life as kazal or sages tell us and so it's obvious that if we want to have somebody who who is to consider the spiritual heir of Abraham so we would prefer that it be Isaac who he and his children his great-grandchildren etc become great you know they become the nation of the people of Israel but also O want to understand on a deeper level perhaps what is the difference between Ara what's the great it's talking about a great reward since Abraham listened to his wife to his wife Sarah to Sarah so as a result of that so he ended up that his child Yitzk was the one who would be he would be called after his children his progyny would be called based on what is the significance of that on a deeper level now just to finish off the last two lines of the mention God says We find that the holy one, blessed is he, that if he did such a thing, he listened to his wife, he had this great reward, bringing it back to our para, somebody who listens to me certainly will have a great reward. And King Solomon said explicitly, this is a verse in Proverbs 1:33, someone who listens to me to God, he will dwell with assurance, he has nothing to fear from any evil, he can be in a state of tranquility. So we find bottom line is when a person listens to God, when a person listens to the right wife, so things turn out well. And I want to understand what is the idea of listening in this context. What is the idea the significance the verse says over and over the measure repeats the fact that Abraino didn't just listen to Sar to her words listen to her cult her voice. What is the power of the voice? There's the power of the sound of the voice. Araino listens to the voice of his wife and he's successful. He's rewarded. There are positive results. Adamarish listens to the voice to the sound of the voice of his wife Kava of Eve negative results. What is the power of the voice? What is the power of this sound of the voice? And also how does it relate to our original question which was what is the idea here? It's speaking about seeing see I am placing before you the choices between good and evil and the idea of listening of hearing the concept of hearing the word of God listening to the commandments. So in order to understand what's going on here to understand the concept of sound as it relates to spiritual matters as as it's brought across in the Torah as it's being brought across in this medish we need to look forward four weeks from now here we are we're about to celebrate the beginning of the month of elish is this shabas and Sunday the beginning of the month of el the four-week countdown to rashash shana to the beginning of the new year and on rashashana we all know that there's a very special commandment the Torah gives which is to blow the chauffeur the chauffeur not just to hear the blasts to hear the sound of the chauffeur it's the obligation is to hear the sound of the chauffeur what is the power of the chauffeur so the garra tells us to garash that the power of the chauffeur is the chauffeur brings up our prayers it transports our prayers up in front of the kisak up in front of the throne of god's glory and what that really means if you think about it. What it really means is that God sits on a throne. It means he lowers himself as it were. Just like when a person sits down on a seat, he lowers himself. But God lowers himself in order to relate to us. Because a king on his throne is sitting on his throne in order to relate to his kingdom, to relate to his people, to relate to the Jewish people. Hashem sits on his throne. And so when our prayer is brought up, God is coming down to us as it were. But we are also transcending. We are bringing our prayers up to God through the chauffeur, through the blowing of the chauffeur. The power of the chauffeur is that it it raises up our prayers. It transports us and our prayers in front of God so that God should judge us favorably so that God can see our commitment to him. We're fulfilling his will. We're doing his commandments. We're committed to that. Listening to the voice, listening to the sounds of the mitzvah, listening to the commandments in this context is a statement that I want to be transcendent. I want to be in a higher realm. I want to relate to you God. And when we speak about the concept of hearing, so the concept of hearing in relation to seeing the difference, what's the difference between hearing and seeing? So when it comes to hearing, so I hear many words, I hear many sounds one after the other. I hear letters, I hear words. And at the end, my brain puts all of the pieces together and I have a picture, I have a sentence, I have a concept which has been communicated. But it takes time. It's not immediate. It's one after another after another and at the end it all comes together. That's the idea of sound. The idea of seeing, the idea of vision is something that you see all at once. It's more of a transcendent ability to be able to see. If I can see the big picture, right? Like we say, a picture is worth a thousand words. I'm able to see with a picture something that would need many, many words to be described. So the power of cull, the power of voice, the power of sound is that you take the pieces and you'll notice that that is the very idea of the chauffeur. The blasts of the chauffeur are broken down. You have a long blast, you have three shorter blasts, you have nine even shorter blasts. You have the pieces being broken down, but then the pieces all come together. Finally, at the end, there's a long blast. One long blast which represents that all the pieces have come together because the the sound is what helps us. We put the pieces together. We can't see God. It's not obvious to us that God is here. We don't have that vision. But we can put the pieces together. We can add 1 plus 1 plus one. We we can see if we read between the lines, if we add up all of the factors, all the things that we see in our lives, we can begin to see God. But we see God with our ears. We see God by listening, by putting the pieces together. And that's the power of voice, the power of sound, the power of call. The power is to transcend, to move out of the place where we are to move into a different realm. And by the way, that's why you have an analogy. What's the idea of an analogy? An analogy is a story. A story is something that interests us. It takes us out of our resistance. Sometimes we have a resistance to hearing spiritual teachings. It's too explicit. It's too in our face. It feels like we're being forced to take on these things. But when we hear a story, we hear an analogy, it it drops our guard. It lets us be able to listen to the pieces. And at the end, it comes together. And then we see what it's coming to teach us. We see how it connects back to the thing that we were resistant to. And since our guard was let down, we can incorporate the message that we otherwise would not have been able to. And that's why specifically in this mantish which is speaking about voice, it's speaking about sound. It's speaking about getting to the place of sight through sound. We need to hear that. We need to hear that analogy which helps us somehow get a better understanding or a different angle of the same thing from a story from something that can interest us. But bringing it back now it's possible for sound listening to the sound listening to the voice. It's possible like listening to music moves us emotionally. It can bring us to a higher place. It can bring us to a transcendent place, to an emotional place, to a spiritual place. But by the same token, sound can also bring us to a negative place. The same music with the wrong words, with negative words, with destructive words with with words that are not spiritual can bring us to a negative place. And that's what happened with Harishon. He listened to the voice of his wife. Whether the voice was just raw emotion, upset, look what I've done. You must eat with me or whether it was even somewhat logical. It's it's the right thing to do to eat with me to eat from this tree. Either way, it was something which he listened to the voice to the sound and it brought him to a different place. In his case, it brought him to a negative place in Arau's case. in Abraham's case. So, he listened to the voice of his wife and it brought him to a positive place by listening to his wife's command, which at first didn't sit well with him. He needed Hashem's reassurance that by doing what Sarah said, by listening to her voice, she was able to see indeed from a higher plane. She was able to see, she had that, she had that sight, that that spiritual sight to see that this young man can't stay in her home. and she was able to see that and communicate that and by him listening to the words that she said he found himself in a different place. Now what's the difference between Yeshitkak which is the child who would be the progeny who would be the forebear of the Jewish people his his concept is listening but listening in a negative way moving into a lower space his aspect is the aspect of laughter when do we laugh we laugh when we see the whole picture we laugh when we see that there are these two old people 90 years old 100 years old they can't have children. It's impossible. And yet they do have children. Now that we see the whole picture, there's laughter. So relates to the aspect of seeing that sight that one gets at the end of the joke after the joke is completed. That that standing up that that rising above that transcendent place that is reached through a positive listening. Whereas who's also about listening is the one who ends up in a negative place as a result of listening. So there's re there's seeing there's that transcendent place that can be reached where we can see that yes we have a choice there's that overarching ability to see and it comes about through listening to Hashem listening to the commandments hearing the voice of Hashem and Hashem guarantees and promises and that's the statement of the medish that just like when Abra when Abraham listened to the voice the proper voice of Seno of Sarah he was able to get to a higher place a greater place, a transcendent place. Hashem guarantees us that if we listen to the commandments, we listen to the mitzvah, we are also transported. Heaven forbid if we listen to the Sahara, if we don't listen to God, we listen to the Elohim, the other gods, the false gods, we are transported to a place of a curse. But if we listen to the voice of Hashem, Hashem promises us that we will be transported to a beautiful place, to a place of blessings, to a place of prosperity, to a place of goodness, of spirituality, of closeness to God. I want to bless you and please bless me back. Hashem should help us to be able to discern the voice of a Sarah, to be able to discern, to hear the voices, the sounds that bring us closer to Hashem, to hear the chauffeur calling us to to do chuva, to return, to come back into that place of blessings, to come back into that place of mitzvah, of serving Hashem, of being that true servant of God, putting together all of the pieces until we hear and we see the blessings in our lives. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful Shabas. This podcast was made possible through the gracious donations of listeners like you. For more podcasts like this, please visit www.rigoldwag.com or search on iTunes Arig Goldwag.