Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: If You Believe You Can Damage, Believe That You Can Repair

[Music] okay everybody Shalom thank you for coming and uh tonight's share is dedicated Ben zel uh for the liberation of AR Israel from enemies safe return of the soldiers and hostages lasting Unity of the people of Israel and for all of those whose Health has been affected by the war and also dedicated for the release of Arvin nanel Ben Sonia the young man in Iran that has been sentenced to death we hope that he will have a Yeshua Alat for kers Ben elzar and yonatan Israel Ben David Moshe the brother of Kaya fold whose yard site was June 19 and for chevak Ben shufle the late father of Sam finle again we hope that the DOR should be in Alat Nish uh there's a lot of things that can be discussed on the political front that I will not necessarily totally address um as as all of you know uh Nan announced that uh more or less the war against Hamas and Gaza is going to be shifted to a war in the North against Hezbollah uh with the intention of course to continue the attack on Kamas until all of the hostages are back and Kamas is destroyed but once again it's going to be a shift in the front I actually got certain hak questions there are people who made certain vows that they were going to continue certain in until the Gaza struggle is over so they want they want to know are they allowed to uh are they released from their vow and I basically said well you know listen it's the same enemy Iran is the source of Tuma for Hezbollah and foras so it's the same War it's not a different war and really until the hostages that are alive are are back you know one cannot say that even the Hamas stage is over uh in any way so that's like one set of news to think about erel and the other of course uh is the Supreme Court uh decision in Israel uh that there is no uh basis for the exemption of of yiva students again this does not affect American students who did not make alas so Ina like or for example this particular decision does not have a lot of repercussions because most of our student body are are not Israeli citizens but for the shos where uh the boys are Israeli citizens uh this is Major news it's not only major news in terms of the draft but in terms of all of the collateral consequences such as loss of funding and loss of support to families so catastrophically there can be a real domino effect in how many people are affected uh once again I'm not going to address the fundamental issue should biva be in the Army there may be a case that perhaps they should it's a Mitzvah after all when we are fighting our enemies but again I don't want to get into that because as I get older I'm just too lazy to respond to the hate mail that I get I mean I I've gotten hate mail just yesterday basically ACC accusing me of being a murderer uh they sent me a picture of an American Boy uh zimis who made Alan was killed in the Army and they said he was killed because some fanatical Rabbi convinced him to come to Israel he says are you familiar with any types of rabbis like that which is really another way of saying that you know somehow I'm complicit in causing death now of course uh these deaths are very very very tragic and we pray and and we hope that there should Shalom and and uh this young man is a hero who will go to habah uh but to say don't make Aliah because you might get killed I I mean that's pretty stupid frankly uh because people get killed in New York and they get killed in I mean somebody last year just happened to know because my son lives in Baltimore moved from Scranton pen Scranton Pennsylvania and got killed Friday night in uh a mugging in Baltimore so was some again a tragedy you know is some somebody going to say oh some fanatic made a move from Scranton to Baltimore and got him killed I I mean what at some point there's not even logic here and uh this is equivalent to Modern Orthodox Nur Carta I don't know what it is but there actually for forgive me for venting because it is very upsetting to me there is something out there I don't know if the Norman finlin is their Reby or something I I don't know what it is but there is something out there in which saying anything positive about ER is now considered to be brainwashing I mean people ask me is there mitz for to live in ER all I do is tell them the makus the ramban and the ramban all I do is tell them the opinions and somehow that's perceived as brainwashing impressionable Bal Chua to come to erel where they may lose their physical lives and either way they'll ruin their economic lives or or or whatever it is so I don't know what's going on I I always thought the and this is coming more from the modern Orthodox I always thought the modern Orthodox were were zionists I I don't know what is going on here AR aren't they called the Morlin well yeah so maybe as I say you know uh the the alter rebby used to say there's an old saying live with the times so he said what that means is that the par of the week is always going to reflect what's going on in society so maybe it's very uh appropriate that I I receive a number of these messages in the para of the morim which is about uh not having faith in God's promises not appreciating erel to say is it destroys anyone that comes there this is the of the morim so the of the morim is alive and well not only among let's say Jews who are not from you know so they're they're connected to J Street and and and everything normal fing whatever it is but even among Jews who are show mitv uh we're seeing this attitude in an amazing amazing uh way you know so uh it's it's very very very disturbing I mean this war has taken a lot out of the Jewish people I mean in many many ways of course we've lost lives and that's so tragic but there's a great everyone knows that prolonged war is a great psychological toll on people it creates an exhaustion it creates a lack of Hope a lack of Courage a lack of confidence a lack of faith in both Hashem and in yourselves that you'll be able to Hashem will give you the resources to manage uh this type of situation so I think we're just seeing this tremendous tremendous exhaustion and once again I think as MIM we would understand that these are the birth Pains of mashiach this is a long labor a protracted labor and it didn't start with Kamas I I mean you go back to the Holocaust I mean it's been a long long long long long pregnancy uh with a lot of birth pains and this is not even the worst of them but for some reason we are a weaker generation so in a sense the way we respond even to lesser challenges they kind of break us in a way that earlier Generations uh just would have been would have been stronger uh so it's a very confusing time it is a very very very confusing time and and uh you just have to hold on tight Hold On Tight have amuna and Hashem that we will come out of this that uh this is a long tunnel but at the end of the tunnel there is light and even within the tunnel there is light you know the issue again I don't want to address it simply because I don't have the kishkas for hate mail on either side of the equation and hate mail is not such an exaggeration I yes I sometimes I say it humorously but I actually I'm not saying it humorously tonight uh and uh the idea that people sometimes portray the so-called Ultra Orthodox in devilish terms people who don't care people who are indifferent and then the portray the secular as am and evildoers and the name calling goes on both sides and that just makes it worse and worse and worse and worse you know I call you Amal you call me parasite you know what whatever it would be and it spirals downward and downward and downward and downward W in reality we do have a real problem and the real problem is number one Israel needs a strong Army because that is part of the comes from God no question but requires that we take the steps that we need to take uh you for example going back to the Moran ramban makes the point that the sending well let let me go back a little bit to the para itself it begins with the now there is Aus Rashi and ramban was the sending of the spies a sin this is very important now Rashi says even the sending of the spies was improper because if God promised them that they would get the land they should just they should have just assumed that when they get there everything will be taken care of so according to Rashi the sending of the spies was an AA that God allowed them to do but it was not the Raton hasem this is Rashi ran strongly argues with this ramban says there is absolutely nothing wrong with sending spies and he brings an excellent proof because later in the Torah after the of the morim and after Hashem decreed that we will wander in the desert for 40 years at some point when Moshe has a military campaign east of the Jordan yazer is one of the cities of thei andash the PK says Moshe sent morim to spy out yazer so what is going on after theim Moshe sends morim and then of course the beginning of saer yua yua Bon sends to morim to check out Yuro now who more than yahushua knows the devastating consequences of the moram yahushua was one of the moram he was the two good moram K and yosua so the ramban's argument is there is nothing wrong with sending Morlin that is a legitimate military strategy to know how to attack where to attack the AA was not the sharim the AA was the mim's report that there's no way we'll be able to be victorious had they simply limited themselves to their mission tell me the strong points the weak points the best places to attack the ramban writes that's totally legitimate that is called hisl uh for the Benet Torah in ER Israel to say we don't need an army uh because all we need to do is learn they don't believe that themselves they don't believe that themselves they know they need an army they know they need police they know they need it this is sadas simple as that so here's our problem our problem is Israel needs a strong Army number one number two there is a Manpower shortage the standard argument that was made for many many years that we have enough people is simply not as true as it was number three there is a Certain Justice and equity and fairness in the burden being distributed among all segments of the population this goes back to mosha reenu himself when the two and a half tribes said to Moshe or the two tribes actually Ruben and God came later they say now that we conquered east of the Jordan we want to stay here M said your brethren are going to war and you're going to be here and if you remember ruen and God were given and later manasha were given the land east of the Jordan only on the condition that they would go and participate in the mil west of the Jordan and the Book of Yoshua details very specifically that they kept their commitment there's a whole ceremony at the end when they're sent home when the conquest is completed there's a whole ceremony that ruin and God are now allowed they have done their Duty they kind of reports and they're allowed to cross the the Jordan so that's one side of the coin so those who argue in favor of military service have a very strong argument particularly if we're dealing with a defensive war against an enemy that wants to destroy us in which there seems to be no real exemptions on the other hand and that's the problem there is another hand that's what people don't understand on either side that this is a genuinely agonizing dilemma ER Israel and the Jewish people need people to learn Torah with great great intensity it is not just a religious need it is a security need realize that the security of am Israel depends on Torah and on mitzvas one cannot even anticipate and I have no idea of the dangers that am Israel faces if you create a system where people will be yanked out of the B madash and not learn Torah so what what do you do when you have an immovable an irresistible Force against an immovable object you know slogan nearing and name calling and demonization make no sense here because you have a genuine problem we have to strengthen the Army we need to bring as broad-based participation as possible and we need to strengthen Torah and we need to have Li Torah now these are contradictory goals in many ways so brem there are some people who are not involved in name calling and they're not involved in sloganeering and they're not involved in politics they understand that there's a problem and they're trying to work it out and there it takes it takes hard work it takes a willingness to compromise it takes a mutual respect and an understanding of the different goals and then hopefully we we'll see we'll see what happens but this is not no like zor asterism this is not light versus Darkness this is not good versus evil on either side of it this is a genuine dilemma of how to balance the two very very important needs of am Israel at the time the need of T learning the need of of of spiritual growth and the need of creating a military preparedness which is part of the that required I mean people say I mean even Moser abu's time they needed an army right even though Hashem was was obviously fighting the wars so to say that oh you don't need an army all you need is is learning I mean that just was not the case it was not the case in moshe's time it was not the case in the chim's time it was not the case in D H's time right so what type of argument are you in a higher madrea than D's you know Army where there had to be an army and and the like so as I say I'm going to probably get hate mail on something I don't know what I said that would would be hateful uh but uh it was hard for me to hold myself in because uh everybody portrays this in binary black and white functions in which the other side whoever the other side is is evil and bad and perverted when in fact this is a real problem it is a problem and we got to find a way to deal uh with this with this problem be as hasem Hashem should give us wisdom again one of the signs of VI m is not just all of the persecution but it's also the idea of diminished wisdom of being confused of not really knowing where to go or what to do kazal referred to this at the time of the destruction of the second temple if you remember R Ben zakai went to vpan who was at that that time the general Leading The Siege he became elevated to Emperor and r had to be smuggled out because the zealots the Jewish zealots did not want him to collaborate with the enemy in any way and Zaki finally came to vaspian he had to be smuggled out as a dead body right we read this gar anti and he goes to vpan and uh he asks for a few things he says spare me the city of yav where the sages can reassemble and spare the family of ran Gamel who is the n and give me medical treatment for R sad who had fasted for 40 years uh to avert theban and R sok's Health was very compromised he needed a special diet he needed a special doctor so the gamarra Ponders why didn't he ask to spare the basa Mikes vpan says to him ask whatever you want and these are the three things that ranan b Zaki comes up with he didn't ask to spare the basa Mikes so the gamarra discusses this and really it says two things which are kind of contradictory but both are existing at the same time one is that there are times in the world where God withholds wisdom even from the greatest people because it's a time of den and therefore even the greatest people can make a mistake of not asking or not doing what needs to be done but then the gamar suggests he may have been afraid to fuba if he would have asked for too much he would get nothing at all so put yourself in R Zak's position and you actually see what the problem is you know the old saying that uh hindsight is 2020 is a brilliant statement meaning yeah in hindsight we can say this was wrong and that was wrong wrong and that was wrong and that was wrong when you're living through it not so easy it's not so easy real real problems and in times of dines creates confusion because we're not Z fully there's Hester upon him there's concealment and that's what we're going through here uh that's part of I think the the frankly the Nur Carta anti- Zionism of of segments of modern Orthodoxy now which I'm experiencing a little bit and also the debate about Benet Torah Yeshiva students in the Army and how to balance all of this and even the military strategy of Kamas versus Hezbollah destroying Kamas versus saving hostages once again we're living with contradictory goals every time you try to achieve one thing you're kind of hurting the ability to achieve the other thing right so this is our situation so uh we need as the mission insight says we got to do the best that we can do but ultimately we can only rely on our we're really very very very helpless very very very vulnerable and the people that say well the personal solution is don't don't just just don't come to Israel and then you're out of you know all of the problems well that doesn't work it just doesn't work I mean put forget about mitzvah for forget about all the rookus it just doesn't work it's not the case right it's just not the case uh America's falling apart too yeah I'll get hate mail on that that part also uh but I think it's it's undeniable so there's kind of No Escape so there's an interesting story with the brisker and I think I've said it before forgive me for repeating uh the brisar ROV uh was trapped in the war Soto eventually he got L out and he came to erisel the last R of brisk uh but he was in the warto now the brisar RV was known to have a little bit of a nervous temperament uh he was always redoing mitzvot because he was not sure if he did it right he was very uh God forbid I'm not going to call it OCD it came from yay that he was very worried about the details of Mitzvah but in the war Soto which if you know anything about the history of the time people were dying like f ni either Germans would arbitrarily just decide to shoot somebody walking in the street pull out his gun and shoot somebody or there were deportations or there was disease or there was starvation by the way suicide was very very rare very rare uh but there was deaths and starvation in all sorts of different ways so the brisar seemed to be very calm he went around his schedule he gave his Shor uh he taught Torah he answered shilas he seemed almost relaxed so somebody had the to ask him it's a little bit of a question maybe it was one of his sons he says rabie or daddy Tata he says you know you're always so worried about things in regular in regular times why are you so calm now now is the time to really be afraid so the brisker rub said I worry about things that are my responsibility when I got to do something and I'm in charge I'm always worried now doing Mitzvah is my job because everything is in the hands of Heaven except the fear of God so when it's up to me yeah I'm worried I messed up but what happens when you're in a situation where there's absolutely nothing you can do really you're kind of stuck so some people would go crazy some people might commit suicide in they totally he says that's when I feel calm because then I know that God is in charge because there's nothing I can do here now the brisar was not being panish the brisar was not saying oh everything's going to have a happy ending the brisar himself lost his wife and lost children in the holocost he understood that there's mid he understood that there's punishment he understood that there's tragedy he was not being naive in the idea that everything has you know a happy ending in the sense that we want it to be a certain way but he also understood that when God is in charge ultimately there's nothing to be afraid of things will be Lov one way or the other even though you may go through we may go through very difficult processes so he said it's bka when there's nothing he can really do in which he feels that Hashem is in control and that calms him down and that's what the bris said about the wara about the wor again in some ways although there is a lot that we need to do spiritually and militarily and economically but Lisa we re we recognize and I think we've come to recognize that with all of the stuff that we're doing we really cannot solve these problems these problems are not soluble and in a sense we can follow the brisker R's lead and to understand that it's up to God God has to carry us through this and bezra he will he will carry us through this and uh you know the goulish should should come so uh it's so relevant again the the the par of the maragam is is really so relevant here because that's what it's about again ramban's thesis is there is no in sh the K was the way the maragam didn't have faith they didn't have auna uh and unfortunately it wasn't just they didn't have auna they died right away but that they took away the amuna of others of the Jewish people that's much worse much much much worse you know one is called a a person sins m is when they cause other people to lose their faith and that's the the worst thing of all and that caused us to wander for 40 years in the desert to die out only the new generation was able was able to to enter of course remember uh that the women did not sin with the and they remained they had their faith and as a result there were older women who did enter erit Israel also there's a Rashi it's not clear from the Pim there is a Rashi that says the tribe of Ley didn't die we not Nik in the gazer of the midbar so as a result other than you know mosha Aon mosha and Aon uh Miriam but in fact there were levim who were able to enter ER Israel even though they were older we don't know exactly um in fact an interesting question is were there were there natural deaths in the desert other than those that are recorded meaning to say you're telling me let's say a Ley or a woman was not within the decree of the midbar but what if the Ley was 50 years old when they left MIM or 60 years old so by the time we enter the land you know he's going to be hundred years old I mean were there such a thing as dying of old age dying of natural causes in the desert so many renim actually say no uh the only people who died in the desert were those upon whom there was a specific Divine decree whether it's the morim or korak or all the different plagues that were there but other than that you could be 150 years old and you would enter ER toel there were no deaths LEF Thea in the midbar it was all I mean obviously there were hundreds of thousands of deaths I mean the Alor died but but other than theer so anyone that was not nikal in the Gaza women or Le and some people say anybody over 60 was not nikal in the Gaz uh and was not Nik in the other punishments in the desert which of which there were again quite a few uh actually entered arus real in such a such a circumstance so there could so in truth there may have been I have no idea about the numbers there may have been a sizable geriatric population that entered uh the land of uh land of Israel laav that was actually a problem actually in 1948 um Weissman was worried about it a little bit okay I don't want to get into that uh but he was worried that a lot of the haloca survivors were somewhat elderly and uh even those who were younger not all were capable of working you know their health was was destroyed so although obviously they were welcome they were they were certainly welcomed but there was a little bit of a concern about the economy because basically uh you had such a large percentage of refugees in the early years of the state who were not capable of of working and there was a little bit of a problem of how to balance that that that Weis was concerned with but okay uh work worked it out for us so again I apologize I don't like to uh come in and uh personally vent but but but I I hope that it's not just venting I hope there's a bit of token a bit of content uh in my in my remarks uh as as as well uh but as I say it really ties into the idea of the Morlin to see the good of er Israel and to see the potential and to see what can be accomplished and to appreciate you know I had another letter today me um a woman was uh was wasn't written to be a rabbi forwarded the letter it was something about um a woman says now why does God keep on throwing things at me um I'm struggling with secondary infertility I have a 5-year-old daughter and I haven't been able to get pregnant you know why is God doing this to me why is he throwing things at me all the time so I wrote this Rabbi I said this is not to be sent to her but I said you know at a time when people are dying of cancer and a time when so many women don't get married at all and so many women who are married don't have children and people who have children the children die or are sick frankly secondary infertility is not something that's going to make me cry that much and if we start playing God which I have no right to do maybe God doesn't give you another child because you're not grateful for the child that God did give you because if you're describing having a child that why is God throwing these things in my face and that's how you understand the Braha of having a child then you know God might as well say hey you don't appreciate the blessings I gave you why should I give you more of them again not not to be sent to the person to be sure or at least in that particular way but this is the idea if you're not grateful for what Hashem gives you then you can lose it maybe what's going on in AR Israel is part of that you know we lose you know we you know we lose this territory and that territory because if we look at the land of Israel on all of these negative ways hasem says huh you don't really appreciate it I me that's also part of the that which you don't appreciate you lose right what's the saying for exercise use it or lose it so we say appreciate it or lose it so that's an issue to keep in mind keep in mind as well when you're mock your toe for what Hashem gives you then Hashem gives you more bras you're not Mo your to for what hasem gives you then maybe you're not going to hold on to that BR but again again you know I I'll admit that you know we have none of us have any right to gauge the pain that other people are going through I mean secondary infertility can be very painful for people even though when you put it in overall perspective as I say it may not be the highest level of of tragedy that exists in the world but you know uh if I could quote Mel Brooks this may be the first and only time I've quoted Mel Brooks Mel Brooks once said what is the difference between comedy and tragedy so he says uh if I stub my toe that's tragic when you break your leg that's comic meaning he he still bu a banana peel so he was making the point that when it's somebody else's suffering that's funny when it's my suffering even if it's small it becomes a very big deal so in many many ways you know when people go through their own struggles they become monumentally big even though they're actually objectively much smaller than the struggles that other people everybody like views the world and I include myself all of us we view the world through the prism of the particular particular struggles that we have okay so actually I wanted to uh my what I wanted to talk about tonight which I wound up talking about other things but okay uh is I wanted to talk about a very very fascinating General teaching about the book of bidor as a whole I could have said this a few weeks ago I didn't so I'll say it now there's a verse in m that says the wisdom of women build a home and she uh does this by Excavating Seven Pillars she builds a home the wisdom of a woman builds a home on Seven Pillars so what is the meaning of the Seven Pillars cabalistic it actually refers to the idea that of the seven lower spos G um Mal God reveals himself into the world through the SP but the garab says the following the woman in that P is a reference to the Torah that is prec personified as a woman a the woman of Valor allegorically is the Torah so the Torah builds its home on Seven Pillars and the Seven Pillars are the seven books of the Torah so the gamorra asks seven books of the Torah there are not seven books of the Torah there are five books of the Torah where do you get seven answer the book of bidor is actually divided into three books so therefore basus is one shamos is two fikra is three B midbar is three giving you six dorim is uh one is number seven what are the three books of bidor so from the beginning of bidor till the middle of last week's partial B is book one book two are only two verses that we actually recite whenever we take out the Torah when the Aron traveled Moshe said let your enemies scatter it's only two verses that's book two book three is the rest of the book of bidor from that point on the middle of balos till the end of Bidar so what type of book would only be two verses why would a book of the Torah be two verses when the Aron traveled Moshe Moshe said arise let your enemies scatter and then it says we say this when we put back the Torah and when the ark came to rest Moshe said return your divine presence to the myriads of that's a whole that is book two of midbar now so number one question number one is what is the significance of dividing by midor into three books and why would the middle book just be two verses that's one question question number two is a question as to how it's written if you look in a say for Torah the and the second hasem Riv is are set off by two nuns that are upside down and inverted meaning they're both upside down and they're turned in the opposite direction these NS appear in a saer Torah but they are not pronounced announced they are not read in any way but the Torah has to have them this was part of God's instructions that the saf Torah has to have the two Nunes that are upside down and turned inverted so the question is what is the significance of the two nuns so our two questions are what is the meaning of a book two that only has two verses and what is the meaning of the two NES so I want to share with you a thought of ROK of Lublin the greatb r sok in which before we look at book two let's first look at book one and book three which are long books says the difference between book one and book three is book one tries to recreate the ideal Jewish society and book three is the sorted realization of all of the imper ctions let's think about book one meaning the part of the book of B midor until the Jews left Mount Si they were at harini for almost a year book one creates an ideal this beautiful ideal of the mishkan in the middle the sanctuary of God surrounded by the Levites on all sides and the different camps of am Israel marching in formation east west north south meaning to say a society whose focal point is Holiness whose connection is the in which the Lev and in fact even the three groups of the Lev sok writes represents right we have three levite families we have Geon kah marari and they had different jobs kah carried the aresh on their shoulders as well as M they Kesh kashim the holiest of holies gearon used the wagons for the tapestries and the roofing material and morari uh used the wagons for the actual beams and Boards rbuk wants to say that symbolically The Three levite Families represent the three sodot of creation that the world stands on three pillars Torah aod divine service loving kindness who carries the Aon represents the K of Torah learning Geon who carries the roof this is a little more subtle represents aod because we find that prayer is associated with a B we talk about the bikash being a base to a house of prayer what makes a house a house the roof so therefore for G is the marari who had the most physically demanding job of those heavy beams that's G because what is the difference between G and charity the gar says s is with your money is with your physical strength so the three families of the Ley surrounding the Mish is Torah so you have this core of the Mishka and the God's presence surrounded by Torah and then surrounded by every different tribe with a different flag and a different Nazi and that's very important because it reminds us that avodas hasem is not homogeneous we're not supposed to be cookie cutter everybody the same but every tribe had its uniqueness and those that are impure like Saras lashen or the zav the zav is gar which is TAA and the T M that is connected to the sin of theas are expelled from the camp that's expelling the impurities so part one of bidor is the ideal Society the way God envisions it part three starting from when we left Mount Si is the disintegration of that ideal through the destructive negative forces remember if the positive forces of kadosa are Torah aod the negative forces are jealousy Kina TAA lust cavod seeking honor and Kina Ty of aite is the rat is the cancer that under realiz so many of the stories in the second half of Bidar whether it's the Tia the lust for the quail that we read last week whether it's some say the nissum didn't want to go to erel because they didn't want to lose their jobs they thought they would be replaced that was kav korak was consumed by jealousy K over and over and over again so what you see is book one of bidor is the Divine ideal book three of bidor is the sorted reality of things falling apart ending in the tragedy of a whole generation being wiped out in the desert the small book too is explaining how you got from the high level to the nater to the lowest level in other words it is the transition between the ideal of book one and the sorted reality of book two and here is the problem those two verses and so right are describing the journey away from SAR that remember there's a cloud in the sky a big Anan in the in the sky and as long as that Anan stays put we stay put we don't leave until the Anan leaves so the Kish tells us we had arrived at hares of the first year just three months after we left from trium we didn't leave the cloud didn't move until 23rd of ee the next year we finally get the green light to move so the gamar says when it says they left tarini they left like a tenik like a child who runs away from school right uh I'm sure you might remember or you saw it see it do it yourself uh what it's like uh you know last day of school first day of summer vacation you run out of that building with know with the great great amounts of speed and enthusiasm and the like they left tari with the attitude of tinik because what were they afraid of they were afraid of the idea hey we've been at Sinai for a year we got all of these Mitzvah every day we stay God's going to give us more so we get out of here no more Mitzvah of course that was a mistake because Hashem gave them mitzvos throughout the desert they didn't even gain that but nevertheless they thought once we leave siai no more Mitzvah no more additional Mitzvah and the like so their attitude was so if you want to know how you go from a to z how do you go from the highest most spiritual level to the lowest most destructive level it depends on the attitude that you have towards Torah and a hasem if you look at the Torah as a burden even if you're keeping the Torah even if you're observant I look at it as a burden I look at it as something that restricts me that limits me I don't have joy I don't have enthusiasm I don't have passion or I'm complacent or I'm bored or I look at it as bir burdensome then all of the good things that Torah is supposed to do to you all of the elevation all of the spirituality all of theem it's not going to take the negativity of an attitude is going to destroy the K of Torah so B midb book two which is describing the journey from SI safer is explaining how do you move from book one to book three attitude and rodok says that this explains why these two verses that describe the journey from Sinai why they are bracketed by nuns nun is a symbolic letter you might remember the well-known gamorra in m where ran describes Ash Ash is to H him actually it's actually misnamed the verse as is not in this but the begins ashre is actually taken from another Psalm but so Ash doesn't have Ash in it but to he a it is an alphabetical acrostic in which each letter of the AL begins a p but you will remember that in Ash there is no Pas that begins with the letter we say in the your kingdom is forever and your rulership is to every generation that's me and then the next one is hasem supports those who fall there is no n there why is there not a that begins with n so explains in that nun represents falling defeat failure as it says in describing the Jewish people in Exile she has fallen she won't be able to get up did not want to begin a P with a letter that canotes now the truth is the gar is very very difficult because there are many that do begin with the N so I mean so to say that David is not going to begin a PK with nun is simply not true but okay but at least in as David did not want to begin a P with and he mentions Naf only in the next p Hashem supports those who fall so ruk says if we understand that nun is symbolic of NE then maybe the T brackets the journey from SI with the nuns to suggest that it's the negative attitude that causes Neila that causes you to fall in your level ah but why are the nuns upside down and inverted because that teaches you a lesson that Nea is reversible you can change attitudes you can change philosophies you can change perspectives you can turn it around one should never feel that their estrangement from Hashem is somehow permanent or irrevocable uh in fact uh in myev we say in remove the Satan from in front of me and from in back of me the evil force so the would ask I understand the saton in front of me I want to do a Mitzvah I want to go to sh I want to go to the B I want to do and the Satan so to speak puts all sorts of excuses in my mind I shouldn't do it don't have to do it Etc so that's the Satan in front of me that's trying to block me from doing something but what is the Satan in back of me I'm already passed him so the's own answer was that well sometimes the suan is pushing you to do a Mitzvah again I mentioned before that was very protective about the health of his students and he used to come into the Bas of medish after midnight and close the lights so that students shouldn't learn they should go to sleep and he said sometimes it's theara that's pushing you into the basa medish because he knows that in the long run you'll hurt your health and you'll be compromised and the like so the Satan in front of me is the suan that blocks me from doing a Mitzvah the Satan in back of me is the that's pushing me to do a Mitzvah knowing in the long run I'm going to lose out that's the's answer but I believe it's gives another answer that's very very beautiful he says the Satan in front of you like like said is the Satan that's preventing you from doing a Mitzvah but the suan in back of you is after you've done the mitzvah or after you've done the AA even he's whispering to you you have no way back don't bother to go back to God meaning he's blocking me from chuba because he says you're too far gone for God to care the Satan in back of me is the Satan that's saying don't bother you've blown it and that rman says is even a bigger Yater Hara than the Yater Hara that caused you to sin I have a Yahara it causes me to sin I'm not always strong but there's another Yahara that says it's hopeless you have no way of changing you have no way of getting better why even bother to do it that Yara in back of me when I'm trying to go back to God says that's even a worse and says it's maras in the N being turned around that n is but no matter how low you've gone you can turn it around and that's that's the very very important message in life don't be defeated by our mistakes we all make a lot of mistakes and these are serious sometimes they're serious mistakes but we have to know this is what they say um tayor here you know it's interesting that um because a lot of people don't have money so tailor here will fix things that in America they'll just they throw out or whatever it would be so I remember um what was it uh my my son had a um had a puppy and I had put my when I was in Baltimore I had put my jacket on a chair and the puppy chewed it chewed through it or something you know puppies true that's what that's what they do uh so the whole thing got really ripped and torn and everything else so I brought it to uh someone in America what are you fixing it you know can't so I brought somebody in Mayar and you know they fixed it I guys didn't didn't look Mish knew but uh it looked decent it was fixable so I said it's amazing that you guys you know you can fix like anything so he said he says if Char if you can ruin it you can fix it we have a power to ruin things and we have a power to fix things too and that's really you know you learn things from taxi drivers from tailor all sort in fact we launer one of the things that inspired him was he heard something from the shoem maker that in Vila This is before there was electricity this is when they were working by candlelight in the middle of the 1800s in Lithuania so he saw a shoe maker who was like sewing Leather by the it was already dark by the light of a candle or a gas lamp or something was just very very hard and he asked the person how can you work under these conditions so the person said in Yiddish he says as long as the candle is burning there is work you can do and said a human is called a candle so that's kind of the message as long as the candle is burning there's work to be done right so often we find G Israel were very inspired by these remarks that were made not in a religious context so I have to say I was also inspired and uh that's why the nun is BFA reversed to teach me that the nefil of a destructive attitude can be turned around now there's an old saying in Yiddish it is hard to be a Jew it's a common common saying rosha Feinstein said maybe it's some hyperbole that that ruined an entire generation of Americans who grew up in the 1920s post World War I and in fact as you know if you know the history of immigration Many religious Jews did come to the United States in the beginning of the 20th century and their children Almost 100% stopped being observant almost 100% very very very T there were no yeshivas there was no Jewish Education then and rosha said maybe it's an exaggeration that part of it was that these were kids who saw how hard it was to be a Jew you know parents were living in poverty uh there was no protection for Sher shabas so if you didn't go to work on Saturday you'd have to find a new job on Monday and they saw so much oppression and so much anti-Semitism and so much poverty and now they're in a country where they're free and they can do anything so of mosha said as well-meaning as the parents were if they conveyed the idea of Judaism as a burden then the kids are going to say who needs it you know why why should I live a life of Burden but if you convey Judaism as joyous happy wonderful exciting passionate then the kids are going to get you know want to be attracted to that as well so we have to know that all of the destructive attitudes that we have in life we can turn it around right and that is why the nun is an inverted nun so wish you all good jobs again I apologize if I was a little uh too venting today but once again I I think the I I I think these are thoughts that needed to be expressed and especially in the par of the maragam perhaps they have an special relevance so wish all wonderful shabas and C [Music] there some here