Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Destructive Forces resulting in Loss of The Temple

[Music] when each element kodesh Tove even though this is the month of mourning as I'll tell us machine if nosov when the month of off comes in Martin Basilica we diminish our joy and obviously we're looking in the period of very intense morning culminating in the ninth of of which we hope even this year we will turn into a day of joy but if across for Shalom not sir we're going too fast once again and Rev Schwab used to make a point that's because I'll give us two extremities they say machine if Mossad or another comes in we increase our joy Marvin be simpler machine if nosov mimicked in be simpler so Rob says the implication is more simpler or less simcha but you still have to have simpler meaning even in the month above because I'll do not say eliminate some time because the truth of the matter is simcha sahayam a joy of life is one of the things that a Shem wants us to have Judaism you know in spite of the fact that we have many fast days and we have you know sad days and of course we have a history of many many tragedies many people who try to destroy us many Jews that have died nevertheless Judaism is fundamentally a very optimistic religion we look at life as a gift and we look at everything that a Shem gives us as something to be grateful for in fact the very translation of Jew it's very very instructive you know I remember around 20 years ago in the States there was a mini scandal because the American Heritage Dictionary in the slang section enough slang non-standard usage put down Jew as to drive a hard bargain in business and it's a southern slang words very if you're in Alabama or Georgia among rednecks or whatever if that's also slang etc so they might say to somebody who's driving a hard deal don't Jew around with me so they put you down as a slang verb for either cheating in business or at least driving a hard business deal and people were protesting what right does a dictionary have to be answer Minik the truth is dictionary was not anti-semitic it was to giving you a slang usage and I would like to know that in fact I would like to know you know what crikey accent actually means what another whatever it is even words that are offensive I think belonging the dictionary but that's a that's a smooth for another time but if Jew can be made a verb then the actual thing it would mean is to be a grateful person because you who D comes from laya naming her fourth son you who died and the reason she named her fourth Sonia who died is because she said her pom oh - M now I am grateful to God and Rashi brings a Madras why was Leia grateful only with son number four and Rashi says because Leia knew with ruach ha'qodesh that there would be twelve tribes and she knows that they will be distributed among four women Rucker Leia billah and Zilpah so the first three she felt was coming to her because 12 divided by 4 is 3 when she had number 4 and she wound up having 6 but when she had number 4 she understood not all T yes sir o Kalki I have gotten more than my allotted portion and when you get more than you think is your entitlement that gives you gratitude this fast Emma says the reason why the Jewish people as a whole are known as you who dim even though you does only a single tribe is because we too have to go through life with the feeling that a Shem has given us more than we're entitled to so if you want to give if you want to verbalize the word Jew to Jew to be a Jew it would actually mean to be a grateful person that's a very very good big Esau knock our socks off I Carissa talked to our caller sparkle occurring occurrence at oaf to our fellow human being a fellow Jew occurs at oaf to our parents we make Broncos over eating and drinking and going to the bathroom all of that is an expression of gratitude to a Shem that's kind of almost the most fundamental element of Jewish consciousness and thus as a result Judaism is an optimistic religion we believe that things do get better things will get better and even in the adversity there are positive benefits that we gain in terms of gay being stronger inside and bringing out abilities and potentialities in fact many people point out I don't want to generalize it so much but if you go back to the philosophical predicate of the Christian religion and by the Christian religion obviously Christianity includes a million things Catholicism all the different Protestants sects but the real inventor of Christianity was Paul was not Jesus this is really an old discussion that Jesus was actually operating within Judaism the Messianic Judaism or whatever it was exactly but Jesus did not intend to create a new religion the inventor of Christianity was a man who actually never met uske he had a vision of him so to speak on the road to Damascus and that was Paul so Paul was quite literally the inventor of Christianity and Paul's teaching was that because man is so perverse and man is so corrupt and man is so evil there is no way they could gain perfection by following the Torah because that's impossible we are condemned to be sinners and thus Paul essentially taught what is called by theologians justification by faith not by works you cannot achieve any type of perfection by good deeds because you're a sinner so he created the idea that the Torah gets thrown out and God substituted like His only Son as a substitute again this is not a class in Christianity and neither can either case I do not hold myself out as a crazy expert but I want you to understand that essentially Paul had a very dark pessimistic view of human potentiality he basically said by definition we are condemned to fail by definition there is no way we can achieve any type of perfection and therefore it got to be that God no longer requires even trying to do it because it's in him possible job by contrast although Judaism is far more legalistic obvious duty ISM as many many more requirements but those requirements themselves are predicated on the perfect ability of a human being that's what the Torah says lo bozo Miami it's not in heaven so you could say who could go to heaven and get it and it's not on the other side of the the ocean so you would then say who could possibly travel ki Karl Rove a lot of words it is very near to you it is accessible to you but Pisa Whoville of colosso so through your mouth and in your hearts you can learn it and you can fulfill it so it's a kind of a different point that people often don't emphasize people emphasize all Judaism has so many rules so many regulations so many burdens but you have to understand that that is precisely based on an optimistic view of what a human being is able to achieve and what is able to become the Christian view of man is that man is depraved the man is essentially evil and there is no possible way that man can achieve redemption other than God simply throwing out the whole requirement of a Torah and simply give you grace or whatever whatever it would be so the point I'm making is I'm digressing a little bit but when I'm making is that even in the month of of which is the month of Corbin the month of godless the month of thinking about the destruction of the temple so imagine be simcha the simcha that we have is diminished but it never goes down to zero in fact this is an interesting anomaly that's been pointed out you know we know that one of the books of the Tanakh one that we read on Tisha buff is of course Magilla Seca and lamentations right these are the dirges and the lamentations that the Navi yirme'yahu composed when he was an eyewitness to the destruction of the temple and a claw is a horrendous story it's all read it's a story of death and destruction and and rape and children dying of famine parents even eating their dead children because of the starvation conditions and it goes on and on and on and on it's not a very large book but it's filled with grief and filled with tragedy and you can connect it to the Holocaust you connected to all the different service that happened but it is in the Tanakh now if it isn't a knife that means it was written under divine inspiration now there's a problem here because I'll actually tell us that one cannot have ruach ha'qodesh divine inspiration unless they're in a state of simcha a state of joy so how is it possible so to speak to have ruach ha'qodesh to experience and describe the events of McGillis asa this interesting question I mean you're telling me you can only have two Akaka - if it's me talk simcha an ASA is written under Ruocco - and of course many prophecies of destruction are written under Novoa which is even higher than ruach ha'qodesh and that can only apply if you're with simcha how can it be and the answer is and maybe it's not an answer we can even understand that's side by side with grief and side by side with a sense of devastation one can still have a simple that they are connected to Hashem and that Shem will give them the strength to survive this devastation and to go on and become stronger and even if I as an individual may not survive because people do not survive but I'm use real hi I'm your elbow survived and therefore side by side it's hard for us to understand this but side by side with devastation and grief can also be an inner joy it's not the joy that you're dancing on the table or like a wedding or something but there's an inner joy that I am with Hashem things are gonna be alright on some cosmic level but I maybe I don't get but they're gonna fall into place for not today then tomorrow if not in my lifetime in the lifetime of my grandchildren and therefore Judaism is optimistic even enough there is simcha you know it's interesting that we even have you know the famous Jewish sense of humor that existed you know even in the Holocaust we actually have Holocaust jokes again it would would be extremely even almost rude or inconsiderate or even cruel or mocking for a person who didn't experience to make a joke about those tragedies but I want to share with you that even the people who were going through the tragedies would often use a sense of humor and irony to get them through it I'll give you just one cute example this is actually a pre Holocaust but it was during during the beginning of the Nazi persecutions in which two Jews were on a on a bus and this was after the Nuremberg Laws that closed Jewish businesses and Jews were beginning to be rounded up to concentration camps and one Jew sees the other Jew reading their Sturmer which was the Nazi anti-semitic paper a paper that was so vile anti-semitic fact the the editor Jule strike there was actually hung as a war criminal after Nuremberg and he was considered to be such an instrument in the anti-semitic genocide of the Jewish people so one Jew says to you have the chair he says how can you read a paper like that what are you doing so he says well listen we're living in very hard times times are tough we're losing our businesses Jews are being killed or being round up families are being split our future is very very uncertain the news is all bad I pick up the Nazi paper and I see Jews on all the wealth in the world that control all the banks they control all the businesses he says I need a little good news once in a while you know he says that's what gets me over and this is actually you know this was a joke that was making the rounds right so the point is I'm not and again I'm not here to tell you jokes but the point is that a Jew has to be enough if we weren't optimistic we couldn't survive and that's part of what the Torah describes as I'm Kecia or if we are a stiff-necked stubborn people now that gets us into trouble with Hashem sometimes you know we do what we want to do and even with our son punishes us we sometimes don't do Chuba so that's a very negative attribute but you know the negatives never come without the positives the capacity of being stiffness means we don't bend to pressure we keep on going we survive and not only survive we don't just survive by going into a cave we survive by creating by being contributing to the world and society as a whole and we go on and if you ask many Gentiles or even many Jews what percentage of the world's population is Jewish they will often tell you oh it must be 30% it must be 40% because Jews are everywhere doing everything you know it's less than 1 it's less than 1% and that less than 1% which is a very insignificant percentage has such an impact on the world and that's really almost it's almost supernatural and maybe it is supernatural I mean many many actually look at this as one of the proofs that there's a God who has given the Torah time Israel and that is the miracle of Jewish survival itself so as we enter the very sad month above let's remember of Schwab's message that even though it's me Martin B simcha even though our simply is diminished simcha we still have to have we still have to have simcha even in the most difficult of of times now there is a passage in the Jerusalem Talmud that's very very significant the Jerusalem Talmud says and I think I may have mentioned that in Prior classes any generation in which the temple is not rebuilt is as guilty as the generation in which the temple was destroyed meaning if the temple was destroyed because of certain of a rose we shouldn't think oh we don't have those are various we just don't have a special merit to get the temple back no we must be guilty of the very same of a rose that caused the destruction of the temple because if we would not if we were not guilty of those of a rose the temple would be here to put it another way the temple is getting read astride every single day that it's not rebuilt it's not that it was destroyed and hasn't been rebuilt rather every day a Shem is making a decision should it remain in a state of Corbin and if because I'll say the basis of meekness was destroyed for various reasons then every day that it is read astride it is because those reasons are still in place so everyone knows the Gomorrah and Misaka Summa that differentiates between the first temple and the second temple the first place in mikdash was destroyed by the Babylonians because of the worst of arrows that people could do the are various of idolatry of Aguila ryos sexual immorality and she has done and murder and this is what the prophets talked about remember the prophets are during the first place of meekness they talk about our voters are and they talk about gilja rious and I said about Shri host umin and these are various are so calmer that these are the only three of eras that a Jew must give up his life you know because it because nephesh to save a life we desecrate Javas at the atomic desecration we violate Yom Kippur Prior Lake Tasha stand against not even a violation it's a mitzvah when it comes to avoid Azara bow down to this idol or I'll kill you we must allow ourselves to die Gimli arias mrs. Dunham I can't I can murder the guy threatening me because he's called the road ace a pursuer I cannot kill an innocent man an innocent person to save my life because who says my life is any better than his life and even if I'm pretty sure it is my judgment is not good enough Hashem has a different standard for assessing the value of lives so these are called the gimel cameras the three of areas that are so severe that in CA her egg the olive or you must allow yourself to be killed before you transgress them and these were the of arrows that cost the Corbin of the first Mesa McNish and that's the biblical period remember the the period of the Tanakh ends at the very very beginning of the second base of mikdash that's the end of it so the vast majority of the 420 years of the second baseman mikdash are post-biblical and they include of course the period of the omission as well as the Apocrypha the Hanukkah story why was the second temple destroyed 490 years later 270 years of Exile and 420 so because I'll say the Jews were largely observant but the second temple was destroyed because of hatred polarization see not 16 um that existed between Jews and that's why it cannot be rebuilt until we have a love that exists between juice I'm actually not going to talk about Sinatra Phenom tonight I'm gonna say but for next week we ever should share next week so because that's actually the most important relevant things I want to say with before teaching above I'm going to talk about another point but I just want to mention one thing about Sinatra nom two things about Sinatra phenom that Josephus describes now Josephus whose hebrew name was yo safe been Matisyahu r : Josephus is a Latin name Josephus wrote his books in Greek but receivers is a Latin for yo safe Josephus is a very very fascinating on some level he's kind of our Benedict Arnold Josephus was a Cohen but for one for one reason or the other he was actually a general in charge of military regiments and in the course of a battle against Rome he surrendered to the Romans and went over to the other side and he was taken under the personal protection of Titus who initially was the general who led the siege against Jerusalem and destroyed the temple and Titus eventually became emperor and Josephus was under the Emperor's personal patronage but Josephus wrote a number of histories of the Jewish people his book antiquities of the Jews cut Moneo tyre him is actually a history all the way from braces you know that includes the biblical period to the present and then he wrote a separate book called the Jewish war which was the historical chronicle of the struggle of the Jewish people against the Romans which of course as we know eventually led to a defeat the destruction of the temple and the exile of most of the Jews from yerushalayim the Bar Kokhba revoked his after Josephus Josephus does not cover the Bar Kokhba revolt so Josephus is an extremely important chronicle of what was going on in the war against Rome and exactly about the base and make that's being destroyed Josephus claims that he wrote his books because he loved the Jewish people and he wanted to portray them in a positive light and thus Josephus's take on the war against Rome was there were a bunch of fanatics elet's who made war against Rome and this was against the advice of the sages and the Jewish people didn't support it and unfortunately it was the zealots the violence of the zealots that resulted in the Jewish people you might say Josephus was trying to whitewash what was going on but in point of fact Josephus this statement is exactly the Thomas position is well the Talmud emphasizes over and over again that the great rabbi rabbi yohanan ben zakai was absolutely against making a war with Rome and he wanted to negotiate a peace and he told them that if we negotiate a peace we might be able to keep the temple and and and the like so Josephus is general understanding is actually not at all inconsistent fact it's fully consistent with that of the women but there are some other things Josephus says that you may have to take with a grain of salt although I suspect there's some truth in them he actually recounts a conversation he had with Titus when Titus was contemplating should he destroy the temple and Titus made a statement so says Josephus that said you know maybe I don't have to destroy the temple if I just leave the Jews alone for long enough they will destroy the temple themselves because of their infighting and their polarization did Titus say it you know who knows - Titus again Josephus actually claims Titus wanted to keep the temple intact and it was his soldiers that started looting and burning you know who now assume there's obviously Josephus has to make Titus look good as well Josephus was living in one of Titus's houses so we had to you know be relatively oil but the other thing your Cephas describes is he does describe going back to Sanaa Steinem he describes that in the base on Mukesh itself in the actual temple there were various groups of Jews that were fighting against each other they were shooting bows and arrows using arrows one side to the other and the Kohanim had to duck the arrows to be able to bring corbino's in the waning weeks of the base of mikdash that's how bad things were so cigarettes cleanup didn't just mean oh I didn't want I didn't want to talk to you it literally meant Jews were fighting against Jews but I'm going to talk to me - Shem about Sinatra nom which is the big big cancer of our times tragically I'll talk about it next week right before tisha buff but I want to talk about a part of the story that we often do not talk about and let's talk about the first temple for a moment the first base on mikdash was destroyed because of a lady Zara gilja Reyes Shameka stomach now a person might say well that's not relevant to me okay Sonata scene um maybe I don't love enough maybe I don't care enough okay everybody has a certain callousness but idolatry sexual immorality and murder that I don't you meaning is there any relevance to thinking about the first-base I make does does that apply to us in any particular way right it's very easy to look at the second base of Mukesh and compare it to our predicament because sin that's Phenom which includes Lashon Hara which is a manifestation of sin Athena is very prevalent okay that I got but I voters are gilja rice vehicle stop him I mean we're not that bad so what I want to talk about tonight is the continuing sad unfortunate relevance not only of the sins of the second based on McNish but even of the first base of McNish avodah Zarah dla arrivée system so first of all i'm gonna give back three understandings of how this applies to our contemporary situation understanding number one is that resolve themselves identify many imperfections of character and they correlate them to avodah Zarah gilja Raya shreya stomach example there is a gomorian adore him that says colic OS if a person has anger it is as if they are worshiping idols anger is equivalent to idolatry I'll explain why in a minute there's another Hazael that says if you you Millie ate somebody in a public way tantamount to murder indeed this is why tomorrow when Tamar was about to be burnt at the stake because yahudah thought she had committed adultery when in fact she got impregnated from him she was not going to reveal his identity she simply said the man that gave me this staff is the man I was with and then it was up to him to reveal it and cuz I'll say if he wouldn't have revealed that you would have gone to her death it is better to go to a fiery furnace because I'll say it is better to die before you humiliate somebody publicly now whether that's actual halacha or not is actually my focus on some post can say because I'll are speaking in a bit of a hyperbolic way to emphasize how important it is they're not actually saying you should die before you do it others learn quite literally it is a form of murder and you must die before you commit murder and you Millie a ssin equals murder with Lea Reyes because I'll say sexual fantasies thoughts and obsessions can be just as bad if not worse than actual sexual acts so the point I'm making is this maybe I'm not guilty of adultery of idolatry but I might be guilty of anger which is equivalent to idolatry maybe I'm not guilty of sexual impropriety but what about thoughts and fantasies that people might have in our sexually obsessed world maybe I'm not guilty of sticking a knife in a person's heart but perhaps I've humiliated or embarrassed people that are guilty of murder and with Delia Reyes as well one might say that even if I haven't committed sexual sins maybe I have been emotionally right Jimmy Carter who is I am no fan of Jimmy Carter in any way but Jimmy Carter made the statement the people to make fun of this goes all the way back to the 70s and he used to today that I have committed adultery in my heart and people make fun of that statement but that statement is a spiritually meaningful statement because it suggests that any type of disloyalty to espouse and a spiritual level as a form of adultery emotional coldness distancing so be kid sir my answer number one is this what is the relevance of the category of avodah Zarah Delia Reyes vitas Dunham to me I'm not guilty of those sins the answer is even if I'm not guilty of those actual things I'm guilty of what's kazow correlated to those sins I made I may have a problem with anger I may have emotional coldness or frigidity towards my spouse I may have humiliated people we just tantamount to murder so even if I'm not guilty of the actual of Eros I'm guilty of those that are correlated to them by the way there's a beautiful beautiful interpretation from the ballet Tonya the alter rebbe and why is it than anyone that's angry is as if you're worshiping idols I know that anger is bad but why is it idolatry so the ballot Anya says because the essence of idolatry is your affirmation that God is not in charge of the world there are other powers there are other ruling forces in the world now when it comes to anger if you truly believe that everything that happens to your life comes from a Shem that even the person that insults me or hurts me it was his choice but God decreed that I go through that experience than who am i angry at if I'm angry that means I don't truly believe that a Shem is running the world and if I believe there's any other force besides the Almighty then that is a form of a desert that's what the ballot Anya says that's answer number one right again what's my question the question is what is the relevance of my voters or Aguila arrival some in and the answer is it correlates to those other sins that are spiritually connected answer number two I'm going to base this on a very interesting diary of Rev Joseph Cairo reveal safe Cairo we know of course it was the author of the show Honora he lived in the 14 late 1400 early 1500s he was also a very great mystic we don't realize this he was the rev up spot and he was much older than the eye result but he was in fact he survived the eye result came to swat at the age of 36 and died at the age of 38 reverse if Carlo was there before the arena versa Kyra survived theory dr. Joseph Kyra eulogized theory so when the a result died tragically very very very young and you have yes if Kara was a great mystic by the way the grace if Kyra was also a young child he was four years old when the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492 grace if Kara was with his mother left Spain went to Turkey from Turkey went to Eretz Israel and spent the rest of his life in Eretz Israel so all of us know reviews of Cairo obviously has the great post sake the great legalist the one who literally wrote the book he wrote the code of Jewish law augmented by the Ashkenazi commentary of Reb Moshe is jealous in Krakow right so together the Shahana roof is regressive claro and remotion is jealous to Rama but it's a little less known letter of Yosef Cairo himself was a very very great mokuba he was a very great mystic and he had an angel that he used to learn with that he called his maggot his preacher and he actually wrote a diary not intended for publication of his conversations with the angel over a number of years and you can get the book that the book the safer is available it's even available for free on Hebrew ebooks.com I don't think it's never been translated it is called the Maggie maisha Rim the preacher of righteousness and in the diary Riviera of Cairo tells a story I'm not sure if I remember all the details directly but this is I'm going to give you at least an approximate version of what the story was invasive Cairo was learning a very very difficult soo-ji in the Gemara and he just couldn't figure out the plot and he worked on it and worked on it and worked on it for a very long time and finally his mind was illuminated and he understood the depth and the beauty of the intricacy of the Soviet percussion so he's walking in spots and if you've been to swat you know old swat the narrow alleyways and he overhears a shoemaker learning the same Gemara with his seven-year-old son and the shoemaker was not known as a victim at home and the seven-year-old son asks his father the same question that was bothering reveal safe Cairo for weeks and weeks and weeks well rabbi Kyra didn't want to East drop but kind of God is curiosity so you went to the air what happens and the shoemaker was actually somewhat annoyed at his son and said I knew this Gomorrah was too hard for you because you're asking very silly question and the shoemaker just proceeded in a very matter-of-fact way to simply give the explanation that it took her of Yosef Cairo weeks and weeks to understand and the shoemaker considered it to be so simple that he was disappointed that his seven-year-old son didn't get it sir of Yosef Kyra was heartbroken because if this was something that was so obvious so simple that even a seven-year-old should get rid of Godman why did God not consider him worthy of understanding something that in retrospect is so simple so unlike us he had someone to ask he actually asked his angel LaRussa what is my sin that I was not worthy to understand the simplest part of the Torah unless I worked weeks and weeks when even a seven-year-old could have grasped it right away and the angel told him you're making a mistake your understanding was very deep and very profound and the world did not deserve to have it but through your work and through your effort and through your prayers and through your righteousness again he's writing just the words of the Moloch Hashem allowed this kedusha to come into the world and once it came into the world it became accessible to everybody even a seven-year-old kid but without your effort in bringing it into the world nobody would have gotten it this is what the maggot mesh RM says now on a rational level that makes no sense at all what does it mean he brought it into the world he didn't teach anybody he didn't write it down he didn't give the explanation to a student all he did was he's sitting in his basement or sitting in his home and he's thinking thinking thinking praying praying praying and finally God gives them an understanding so somehow that makes it available to the seven-year-old kid in what way is that even true so you see something about spirituality that is really metaphysical it's not a logical process and that is when we do mitzvahs when we learn Torah we bring holiness into the world even if we're by ourselves even if it's not anything that's interactive and when that holiness comes into the world the world itself gets elevated the world itself gets uplifted people are capable of things that they otherwise wouldn't have been capable of right when people say Oh what do those people who learn Torah do for you for the first society they do plenty we can't quantify it necessarily but the world is different because of the sadiq that is sitting in his room alone learning Torah and bringing to Ducie the cover time used to say that the intensity of the learning in Rawdon riding with a little village in poland but that's where the puppet time lived and that was where his yeshiva was the intensity of the learning in raden will affect the length of the dresses in Paris but that we mean we look at kedusha almost like an atom bomb it has waves of radiation you have ground zero ground zero is where it's the most powerful that's where the shiva is that's where the learning is that's where the righteousness is there's like whatever it is megatons of kedusha but then as you get a hundred miles away 200 miles away 300 miles away the waves of radiation are progressively weaker but they're still strong so a thousand miles away from Ground Zero they'll still be radiation so by the time the radiation of Ratan gets to Paris maybe you're not going to have that many people learning Torah but at least that's nice the dresses will be a little more modest than the otherwise would be this is the color of roughness this is the color of terror which means the other way around if you live in a world where there's a lot of evil and a lot of immorality you know the anti-semites are right right the anti-semites blamed the Jews for everything well we also we also blamed the Jews for everything meaning to say all of the a various in the world IRA function that we did not create enough Katusha if we would have created enough Katusha in the world would be a better place and if the world is not a better place or if it's not as good as it could have been let's assume it is a better place because after all Kali Israel does generate a lot of holiness so the world is better than it would be but if it's not as good as it could be it's because we didn't generate enough condition and we generated enough to Ducie the world itself would be different we would have more of an impact so let's go back to our voters or maybe it's true I don't worship idols I don't commit sexual immorality offenses I don't murder but I live in a world of avodah Zarah Delia Raya she has done me a world of murder and violence that's pretty obvious we live in a violent world where human life is constantly devalued and even in the most civilized places in the world like the United States one sees what's going on Julia Reyes well the world is obsessed with pornography with rape with child molestation even if I'm not guilty of any of them if it's going on in the world it's partially my responsibility I voted sorry well putting aside Buddhism or whatever actual height ology or whatever it would be certainly people worship money people worship kavod right money the only gun says is the new idolatry materialism so my second answer is that even if I'm not guilty in my own person of avodah Zarah regular a cheerful stomach if I live in a world of avodah Zarah gilja ratio stomach that is partially my responsibility because the kedusha that I could have generated could have made the world a better place could have made the world a different place and if it didn't affect those changes then there is something in my avodah session that is defective all right so that's answer number two now answer number three comes from Earth Southwark and with Southwark says I voters are and these answers do overlap but but they are they are also distinct avodah Zarah Delia Reyes Vikas Thummim our sins to be sure but they are also symptoms of underlying spiritual flaws so even if I'm asymptomatic I may still have the disease that Aveda Zara gilja Reyes and Shri host umin represents I don't have the symptoms but I have the disease what's the disease so we mentioned this last week Pirkei avos says rabbi Elazar Kapoor at a type of our covet jealousy lust for hedonistic pleasures and covet a desire for glory and ego self advertisement mode seein as Sodom in olam they take a person out of the world if you remember I think last week I had mentioned the thoughts that the reason why we have three weeks where we commemorate the destruction of the temple is precisely because before we can build the base of McNish in our art we have to get rid of the garbage on the building site and the garbage that prevents God's presence in our heart is jealousy lust and covet and therefore the three weeks are connected Tina Divac about cleaning up the site so we can build the temple of Hashem in our heart but the additional point I'm making tonight is also from rhapsodic in which he correlates Tina Divac of out to avodah Zarah Delia Reyes chavita stomach which are the extreme symptoms of those underlying character flaws how is that so so he makes the point that's a lot of murder and this is actually statistically true comes from anger that is generated from jealousy in fact and the truth of matter is if you factor out terrorism an acts of war you will actually find that most murders tend to be between people that know each other and it'll often be over jealousy like the famine the famous or the infamous OJ Simpson although he was acquitted but you know he almost well he was acquitted and a crit very interesting OJ Simpson was acquitted of a murder charge in a criminal proceeding but he was found guilty in a civil lawsuits which obligated him to pay millions and millions of dollars which he you know he managed to get away with and then he went to jail again okay the time in the story his particular story is not important but the story of I did it if he did it is it was jealousy at seeing his wife with another guy and that's very very common jealousy means I'd be grudge what you took or what a gem gave you and that could be an extreme I even be gradual your life I don't want you to live so yeah so Severus Dunham is the extremity of jealousy in which you begrudge the legitimacy of the other person breathing your air are taking up your space well yeah but keep in mind okay yeah that's that's very true but but keep in mind number one that except in the rare situation of pin cuts which is very extraordinary that's when people are actually cohabitating only a court only a son Hedren only a basedon can punish I am not allowed if I know that a person knows that his spouse is committing adultery under no circumstances you see allowed to kill he cannot take the halacha into his own hands number one we don't do it at all today that's correct but even when capital punishment existed in the hwacha system it has to be done by a baseman could not be done by a person so there's no way I'm not justifying adultery and whatever it was but there's no way one would be permitted a god forbid to take a life because of that sin of adultery so it's considered to be murder now gilja Reyes is obviously the outcome of Tiger Tiger means lust and hedonism and the extremity of that is actual sexual immorality there could be things less than that there can be fantasies there can be pornography those are sinful but they are less than the actual actions but gilja rice is the extremity now the third Association is a little less obvious and that is avodah Zarah and car-boat right we connected jealousy and murder we connected Paiva and arias those are pretty clear now we want to connect carve-outs with idolatry but once again carve out is about ego ego means I put myself as the most important principle in my life I make myself the equivalent of God because what is about Azara literally strange worship anything in your life that replaces the centrality of Hashem is avodah Zarah money as I said before can be avodah Zarah political power can be avoided or control over people can be able to serve it self gratification can be at lady sorry I could be externally from I could be keeping mitzvahs I could be an Orthodox Jew but if the most important value of my life is not the surface of God if I put anything in my life ahead of my obligations to Hashem I am engaged in avodah Zarah and therefore covered where you focus on your honor your glory your status your position that is a Buddhist R so now with this third answer the question we started off with is not a question in other words what is the relevance of our photos ara Delia Raya she hosts album to me I'm not that bad well maybe I have not engaged in the extremity of those behaviors but the roots of those behaviors are the attitudes of Tina Tyva covet those are the blockages those are the garbage those are the filth that blocks my heart much more than cholesterol it blopps my hearts from receiving a Shems presence and constructing a base on mikdash within so the point I want to make is that when we contemplate how we build a base on McNish of the hearts we're not just thinking about sinus Kingdom which is extremely important than the mid-session I will talk about that next week but we're also talking about those older variants that we think we gotten we've gotten over about Azara gilja Raya should be the stomach because in their root causes of Tina type of occurrence they are very very much present in our hearts and in our soul and we need to work on it we need to think about it we need to figure out how we become better people and this is something you know even a religious Jew maybe needs to think about this oh that's I shouldn't say maybe because for many of us you know many of us have undergone transitions in life you know we've gone from maybe being non-religious or less religious to becoming a shomer mitzvahs and that's a wonderful wonderful transition Hashem loves the ball chuva even more than the Tzadik who never sinned because the belt ruler struggled and came to God but there's a certain problem whether you're an FSB which is an abbreviation firm from birth or whether you're about Shiva we all tend to plateau at some point meaning you know we've made our movements and we are what we are and life is about doing the same thing over and over again and to some degree that's what life is you know you got a dive in every day three times a day women have a different I mean hug him Shabbos keep kosher the same holidays it's the same routine but there's a certain hazard in that because life is not supposed to be just doing the same thing over and over again the routines of life even the mitzvahs are the basic structure that gives you the pattern in which you live and you navigate but life is about challenge and life is about growth and sometimes I have to say you know I'm jealous sometimes when I look at a person who is in the process of becoming a religious Jew because every day there's like a new thing to conquer a new aspect a new challenge there's movements but what happens to us where are we moving and again I'm speaking to myself I'm not god forbid criticizing anybody where are we moving where are we going are we changing are we evolving are we growing and we sometimes think well once we're from you know you know we're here already I mean we're at the destination I got nowhere else to go but you know the old saying on the t-shirts life is not a life is a journey and not a destination quite true quite true life has to be a journey and in some ways it's much harder for an already religious person to recognize that when you're the in the process you know so you see that you're traveling you see that you're moving so oh the three weeks and of course ll that comes afterwards the via the days of audio memory is really a very opportune time to kind of focus and how can I grow because remember what I'm trying to do here is I'm trying to build a base on mikdash in my heart for us because that's the only way we're gonna get the external base I make - is when the sheen is in our heart and our soul the question is how do I do that I look at myself and I say what do I need to work on so firstly should have a project a person should have an agenda a person should have something in their spiritual life that they're working on that they want to improve whether it's not speaking loshon Hara whether it's being a kinder person a more welcoming person a more considerate spouse whether it's getting over anger these are not just things for psychologists and therapists this is part of our voters ahem now maybe I need a psychologist or therapist to help me but that's perfectly fine but it's not just a social issue it is a spiritual Aveda that a person has to identify and that is where the king of the type of in the covet becomes such an important thing I like to think about by the way about so doc this really deserves a host year of its own he actually connects the King a type of a covet to the three impure people that are expelled from different levels of the Jewish camp the Taira says you expelled the leper the Matsuura you expel the zov the one that has got a real emission and you expelled the one that is in contact with a dead body and if you remember they are expelled until they undergo purification rituals so if subject wants to say metaphorically this refers to the Jewish camp expelling these negative forces the Messiah is the leper why do you get leprosy because of Lashon Hara why do you speak loshon Hara primarily because of jealousy so expelling the Messiah is expelling jealousy dissolve is someone that is suffering from a sexually transmitted disease so by definition it's connected to Tyva he gets expelled and the tummy Mase I think I mentioned a few weeks ago that death came into the world because other men Java has the arrogance of thinking that they could be like God and God gave them death and therefore every time we're in connection with death we remember the arrogance of thinking that we can replace God and mortality came in as that results so banishing the thumb a mess is banishing Cabo to the 3/2 may M represent the idea of kena Tyva covet I chose the three weeks the three timaya and they are also connected to a bodhisattva gilja Rios and schrieffer stomach so next week you mr. Chen we will talk about the second based on Mick dodge the the sinus keenham that still so pervasive in quality throughout in some ways you know it's almost a per flow is to talk about it because it is such an obvious phenomenon it's so painful because there are so many people in the world that hates Jewish people they hate Jewish people they want to destroy us and we're so small and we have to fight among ourselves even though the whole world wants to destroy us you know we say in the Haggadah the famous passage and set to music fahisha i'm they'll never say no valano that which has stood for us and our forefathers shallow a cloud bill vada monolingual challah say no it is not only one that is tried to destroy us Shabak all zorbidor in every generation a model angel halothane you there are enemies who arise to destroy us while kurdish Bakumatsu lay new me Adam and Hashem saves us from their hands so let's focus on these words Shalom ahead bill vive is which is normally translated it is not only one that is tried to destroy us this farce ms offers an alternative translation which really does not fit the rest of the poem instead of translating shallow a cargo van it is not only he translates it this way it is only the fact that we are not one that that which destroys us is shallow I could the only thing that destroys us is we are shallow hut that if there would be unity God would protect us in a much much greater way and I think it was Thomas Paine one of the founding fathers of the United States or it might be Benjamin Franklin I should check this quote really one of them one of the two said when the Revolutionary War was declared and the war against Britain we must surely hang together for if not we shall hang separately and that's a true statement that applies to the Jewish people as well I wish you're ganna Kodesh tove and may we be sofa to the Binion based on mikdash behavior of you may know [Music]