Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Rav Kooks Ascension to Heaven

[Music] here we run a good college Kurdish Tov and again as was pointed out Rev cooks yard site is the third of ello and although I was not coming and giving a whole path bid but I think a few words I really are very very worthwhile we know that we have cook even within the religious world is still somewhat of a controversial figure particularly among the in the Haredi world sometimes he is treated either by ignoring him which is the most common response and sometimes God forbid it even turns into active hostility and bizarre young and there are a number of things that one needs no butter of cook first of all rough cook was in all traditional ways an absolute gun of Torah meaning to say even under the most traditional definition of what made a person a god Alberto ransom qualified he was not some like Modern Orthodox person who wasn't interested in Gomorrah of cook was a Buckey a total expert in the bobbly the you shall me in fact rubs Evan writes that rough cook he thought was the last Godot who is a total master of both halakha and Kabbalah at the same time normally people tend to specialize and he felt that Ruth Cooke was a person who had shalita in all of these areas so it's very very important to know that to have cook was indeed a classic cuddle bitola although we did have many many insights that were unique and different and were not automatically accepted by other people it's interesting that on hizmet ceiba is a very very simple mot saber and it simply says three statements it gives the date that he came to Eretz Israel Allah laurits certain year allow the yerushalayim the next year Allah Lashon I am and those are like and I'm sure I've cook himself came up with the words because I'm sure if other people would have written is might say but his son for example they would have written much more elaborate and who probably was rough cook who was summing up his life as based on three le oats coming to Eretz Israel first TFO and then coming to you shall I am and then sham I am and he saw Eric Israel as the shara shaman as Yaakov Avena described yerushalayim we know that an one hand rough cook was a goggle in a traditional sense butter of cook was also very very unique because he lived at a time of great secularism in the Jewish world there were movements towards a Zionism much of Zionism was motivated in a secular way even an anti religious way and Ruth Cooke medaka was willing to not only work with Zionists but to validate what they were doing and to understand that the soul of the Jew is always rooted in holiness even when it expresses itself in a secular and even anti religious way and he made the points that a non religious or anti-religious Zionist might define himself as acting out of nationalist motivations or whatever it is in reality whether he acknowledges as our acknowledges that or not it is coming from holiness it is coming from kedusha and of kook therefore said we have to connect to all Jews we have to validate them we have to give them physic we have to give them strength and we have to give them gratitude for all that they are contributing and the way of could put it he said that some people come to Eretz Israel because of their connection to Hashem and others will come to Hashem through their connection to Eretz Israel now some say we have Cook was an optimist some say of cook has a kind of a Pollyannish view of the human potential that he saw everything was going to be good in the long run etc in fact he's been pointed out his famous speech in some circles infamous speech at the opening of Hebrew University in which he applied the verse t meat see own Tate say surah now I want to point out that just as President Trump in the u.s. talks about fake news we in the Jewish world also have our share of fake news as well we have cooked speech on the opening of him University community on today Sarah was taken by his opponents to basically say that he equated the secular learning of Hebrew University as a Torah that would be coming out of Zion and you shall I am and they said how dare a Robin Israel equates Hebrew University with Kimmy Cheon takes a Sura and this was a big big point of opposition and to this very day ruff cook is pilloried because of that speech if you go back to the speech itself it is absolutely totally taken out of context and ruff cook was making the opposite points he was saying as important as a university is and as needed to have cook moats and and to build up a society we cannot forget that the ultimate purpose of a Jewish society is to promulgate the values and morality of the Torah key mitzi own today Surratt so he was not using Kimmy see on takes a Sura to describe what he really versity was doing he was saying that we need a university but we also have to recognize that the values of Torah have to be prominent so it was much the opposite of what he was accused of saying and this happens over and over and over and over again and it happens to this very day you know Rev cook was the shotgun forever Yasha forever yes you've married revoir Levine's daughter Mariah VIN was very close to have cook and it was of cook that made the and although many many her Aydin would come to revel your ship and they would say negative things about of cook if they didn't know that earlier she was kilo connected drop cook revolution would banish the person from his home if anyone said anything negative about growth cooked by implication or explicit revolution would say you cannot come to my house again and he says you don't know of whom you are speaking of you're just parroting some political line and you don't really understand what kedusha is and the like I'll just end with one very very short story that is Eliezer ben-yehuda who was his creditor that's really the founder of modern Hebrew as a spoken language and indeed he was fanatic about this you know he came from Russia and he did not all his wife didn't know any Hebrew is he did not allow his wife to speak Russian or Yiddish once they were in their associate so busy she didn't talk at all I mean their oldest son didn't learn to talk till he was four years old and part of it was she was not allowed to say anything and he wasn't home that much and he never heard any speech he really was fanatic in fact I think his son Ben see on the first rights that he started talking because one time he came home and the father came home and the mother was singing a Russian lullaby surely everybody they got so furious he took a chair and he smacked and the kid like said something in fright whatever that was those were his first words so he was a fanatic in this matter but obviously to bring Hebrew into the 20th century that in the late 19th century you know you needed ways of making up words and adapting words so well yes your venue who they used to take passages from the Talmud and from the Meldrick and try to modernize them so he would often go to the rough cook to ask him what is the meaning of a certain Hebrew or Aramaic expression in the Gomorrah and the Metis now he was interested in the overall context uh but he was interested only in the linguistic aspect and most abundant would not talk to him most Rabanne him felt he was not religious he was since some degree anti religious in terms of he wanted modern his agent so they simply refused to talk to him at all but every era of Shabbat he would go to ruff cooker and they would spend an hour and he would ask her of cook his various questions so the story goes that one Friday after he spent an hour with ruff cook of cook said to him Eliezer f Sharma's man he G Allah so Chava perhaps it's time already that you should do chuhwa and come back to Hashem and Eliezer ben-yehuda said f-sharp so deck may be the wraps right anyway that Friday night can you who de died he had a heart attack he died died in his sleep and and the the LaVon you shall I'm of course the love is gone very very quickly so it was done right after Shabbat at night no rabbi named attended the Lafayette all out of protest they didn't consider him a righteous person except of cook did attend dinner of cook said that he felt that Eliezer Ben you had died a Bolshevik because the Rambam rights even if a person sinned all of his life but right before his death he does chuhwa he says that person is a bell Juba and he felt at that statement f-sharp so Dec was in effect doing a Chava before his death and again obviously I'm not going to talk about illegitimate extensively but the truth of the matter is bringing back Hebrew as a spoken language itself is a great great spiritual supports we remember that one of the merits that the Jewish people had in mitzrayim even though there were Idol worshipers themselves was low she knew Atlas unum they continued to speak leshawna kodesh I know there's a very live debate about whether modern Eve Ritz is the same as Russian Arco that you know we can debate but no matter how you define it they are certainly very very very closely related even if they're not exactly the same language just to give you an example hush mouth the word we used for electricity this is a controversial word these urban OODA kind of invented it to be used for electricity but it's based on safer Yehezkel say free access Co has a vision of the divine throne of Hashem is called the chariot of God my son mere cover this is the deepest most profound mysteries of Kabbalah it describes the throne and the glory of God and it mentions that around the throne of Hashem the key suhaka votes there was cash mal so cash mal means a glowing radiance light it refers to the light of God so Eleazar Ben you delink with stick terms that you could apply so that's a good term for electricity now there were some rub on him who felt that is sacrilegious how can you take a term that is describing the light of the Shekinah and applying it to that so because of this you may notice if you study responsa that there are posting when they write you votes on electricity about electricity they do not use the word touch smell they'll spell it out like electri very well do I look like I in LA MIT or whatever it would be and they actually boycott the use of hush mal feeling that it's sacrilegious actually there there seems to be a pretty strong point although that's not the minute most folks can do say hush mal but one can understand the opposition to that type of word so when we look at rough corner of cook again roof cook had very very deep mystical temperament a poetic temperaments as you know for five years he was stuck in hoods loritts he left shortly before the outbreak of World War one to attend a convention of a good at Israel in Germany and because of the outbreak of hostilities he could not refuse with his wife brother John but he could not return to Eretz Israel for five years he was I believe in Switzerland for around a year and a half and then for three and a half years he was a rough in London ma CK had that show a show of European immigrants neither speaking immigrants he didn't have been Yuda to harass him about that so in London he spoke he spoke Yiddish and he was there mama Sh so a total of five years away from from Eretz Israel but it is said that although he did enjoy the British Museum and the enjoyed Rembrandt he enjoyed art we've all as you have cooking art he refused to take any touring around the natural beauties of the countryside he says he's interested in no forests or mountains or valleys or waterfalls or rivers other than those in Eretz Israel so he literally would not even look at whatever natural beauties would exist because he said he only wanted to be connected to Eretz Israel for all of those all of those years and it's recorded that in Eretz Israel he would often when he was by himself he would often kiss the ground he would literally fall on the dirt and he would kiss it and therefore we learned from F cook anything we learn of course the tremendous idea of loving every Jew but not just loving every Jew it's not just a question of loving it's also a question of respecting of acknowledging the goodness it's not like I love you even though you're worthless that was not kiss our cookie so scupper was mad you're a nobody but I love you anyway that's one type of love that's the love you have could you feel sorry for somebody this was a different type of love this was a love that was based on seeing the inner goodness in every Jew so we have that obvious route and we of course have the Alva forever juicer oh those two loves got joint and ultimately both were connected to an avatar M and in that way he's a voice that we very much need in our generation and it's a voice that's not always heard that much but certainly at least I'm his yard said we can think about what he represented his actual writings are very very beautiful but they're very very difficult although now there's a lot of secondary books in English and Hebrew that try to explain Rav kook but the originals are indeed very very difficult he was poetic and he wrote in a stream of consciousness he did not write in what you might say a Masood IRA manner because that was not his purpose a lot of them were Diaries a lot of them were private meditations I understand that in America Sarov the Shiva that he found it behind locked doors there are still numerous manuscripts that we never published and that whoever is in charge of it is not allowing to be published because there are controversies a while ago around 20 years ago somebody stole this interesting shall somebody stole a bunch of stuff and did print it and it was very very controversial and since then they beefed up the security so it's going to be more difficult to do that to do that again some of you may ask me what are the controversial parts so I mentioned two points that are especially controversial in rough cook one point is a very personal point and that is rev cook wrote extensively about the possibility of divine prophecy being restored in this day and age and there were some intimations that perhaps he perceived to himself as perhaps being endowed with an element of prophecy what exactly that means we don't really know but but that is a little bit of a controversy in which we have cook felt there was a certain ruler Hakodesh that was morphing into huama mush that would announce the coming of messiah that that's one issue the second issue is a more is a more general theme that's both roofs attic and roof cook share this theme and that is and it's based on Kabbalah it actually is it's basically whether it's a very very dangerous theme in which of cook held that there are many ideas of holiness that can enter the world only in a guise of sin and impurity because there are powers of impurity that block kedusha so in order for kaduche odd to come in under the radar it has to come in an external guise of something negative and destructive the same way we have Nick we have an expression in English a wolf in sheep's clothing there is a phenomenon in spirituality that you might call a sheep in wolf's clothing that the Sheep gets in only if it appears to be a bad thing so of cook said therefore there are many types of movements that hit the world that on some level are negative and anti Torah but in their pin me me oats there is actually something good and it's only through the external khalipa the husk of evil that the good comes into the world but if cooked pointed out in his time feminism was a certain example of that there's much in feminism it's a very broad term I understand now that's negatory well you know we'll have women rabbis can't women minion whatever it would be okay I don't mean to take a position on women rabbis area but I just gave an example but it represents a certain guy in that men and women should have equal dignity equal respect there has to be you know respect for what people do so it enters the world in a guy that has implications that are negative but but instead of dismissing it the job is to extract the gyri enough truth and light that is within secular Zionism he saw it that way as well on one hand you did have Zionists founders who were either ignorant of Torah or even hostile to Torah to some degree but that was how the idea of Yishuv Eretz Israel came into the world it came into the world with a khalipa of negativity but it represented a way of getting the Jewish people back to where it just rap now if I could put myself out on a limb here you may remember last year two years ago there was a rabbi in London a rabbi Dweck Freitag rabbi who got into a big big trouble because he made a speech about gay and lesbian relationships in which he said there's something we can learn about this I'll discuss in a moment what he said and he got into tremendous tremendous trouble he is very very lucky that he kept his job there was a tremendous movement and the london-based answer just to remove him etc and I believe that would he agreed to although I may be they it's not they're not carrying out that every single drug he would give in the future he had to submit for advance approval I asked honestly do not think I would even keep a job with that with that condition but that was the initial condition that was imposed upon him and I was curious I actually heard I listened to part of the talk that's the whole thing was a two-hour talk and when I heard it I don't know it didn't shock me at all I just said hey that's rough cooking that's rough shucks that's all what was rubs wax point next point is listen obviously the Torah prohibits homosexual relations the Torah calls it an abomination the Torah says you're not allowed to have it so when people talk about gay marriage or gay sexual relations at least if it's male almost shuh ality it's another day where there's no way we can say it's good we can no way it's permitted that's why it was absolutely shocking I don't know if you saw this picture there was a so-called Orthodox rabbi who married under the chuppah under a chuppah two men both of whom were wearing Kittles one of whom was a gay person who was just ordained as an Orthodox rabbi again obviously this is wrong but what's point was that within this externality of things that are sinful there are certain lessons that men should be also be capable of having friendship men should be capable of expressing emotions right as it's a well-known idea that men again I'm generalizing have you there are many exceptions men tend not to have deep emotional relationships with people other than their wives hopefully as opposed to women that have much richer emotional lives so maybe something like you know gay movement is telling men to open up and to learn to love and to learn to care yes it's carried out into a totally improper Channel but there's a God in so when I heard this that yeah this is rough cook this is what ref cooked this is the idea that sometimes holiness enters the world in the guise of impurity but the response that you take is not to reject but to try to extract the holiness from the impurity now you can understand that this type of idea was a very explosive idea a very controversial idea and a very dangerous idea because it suggests that within sin and within tumor there are sparks of light now again even though Rev kook articulates this and rhapsodic as well it is based on passages in the ZOA where it's based on Kabbalistic ideas that even in darkness there are sparks of light have to be found so these were some of the very very controversial ideas of rough cook that to this day are explosive and they can be used and misused and abused like all deep and controversial ideas but still this was rough cooks struggling with modernism and the idea that there were all sorts of challenge that even made the point that even the movements that reject Judaism whether it's the Rio reject a logic Judaism like reform is really a wake up call that we have to stop simply being creatures of habits and we have to infuse our Judaism with vitality with renewal with enthusiasm that maybe those negative voices even if even if they're anti how logic are calling to us not to simply be creatures of blind habit you see his point his point is yeah all of those critiques are wrong from their perspective meaning we can't accept their perspective but that doesn't mean they don't have a message that we can't listen to right take the message in there's something there that you can learn from because ultimately nothing happens in the world that's not directed by God so again this gets them to another complicated idea of divine providence connecting to human free will but that's part of the mystery as well but ultimately God calls the shots and if certain things happens there are reasons why those things happen so again I don't want to get into thin ice and and say any more controversial things than that I wanted to say tonight but in terms of what we learned from of cook is we can learn from have cooked these basic ideas of love and respect extracting the goods even from negative situations and understanding that it's only through of us you swirl that we bring the goal is because I'll say the base of macness was destroyed because of sin Athena and Ruth cook famously said therefore we needed lamal amico gavel in order to bring the basin Victor so yeah he is it robot rook made his memory a blessing and may we continue to learn and to grow from his teachings and from his life and from all that he did and he brought two I'm Israel and to and to Eretz Israel one other point about complicated thinkers he was a complicated thinker in fact this was interesting you know there was there was a reformed rabbi I think he may still be alive although he's very old a herbert weiner and herbert weiner wrote a book many years ago a very interesting book it's called nine and a half mystics he's - half mystic and in the 1940s and 50s he went all over the world meeting different great rabbis and leaders who were mystics asita Jabez and the like and he wrote about his interactions with them for example he met the lubavitcher rebbe right after the Rebbe became a a Rabi like 1953 or whatever it was and was so fascinating I didn't steins else it was only 25 years old at the time so he met all of these people and we had extensive conversations with them it's for you who the cook he had a long conversation with so he mentions at one point when he met the LaBarbera Rebbe for a fetus and the Rebbe gave him like three hours in those days the baby's schedule was not as busy as it later became about it was much smaller in those days so weiner mentions at some point as the Rebbe was talking he says oh this sounds just like what if cooker of cook says a B and C and he noticed that the Rebbe did not did not respond so even he didn't say negative or positive so he asked the Rebbe he says the Rebbe against rough cook teaching so the Rebbe said rough cook was two contradictory to complicated people need most people need a simple unitary clear path we have cook sauce so many different pathways that it's difficult so he felt although I've cooked himself was connected to Chabad early huh but I would've cooked some other was from us about family north cook was very mature in fact a lot of rook such cava is actually based on the alter rebbe on Habad and the light but the barbecue revving felt that rough cook was too complicated for people to follow him because he went in so many directions and this is true for us I love a chick as well so well cook is very contradictory because roof cook is used in different ways for example the goose ammonia might the people who were very very insistent that you can make no territorial concessions in Eretz Israel pointer of cook covers I see you who to cook was of that she typical cook talks about the sanctity of the lands and the connection of the Jewish people to the lands and now there can't be a Jewish people without their Israel and yet Rafa meet all the founding Russia Sheva of her Etzion who actually was somewhat in favor of various peace negotiations pointed out that rough cook wrote much more in his writings about the rights of minorities in Eretz Israel including non-jewish minorities then he wrote about the holiness of the land if you just compare it in terms of pages there are more pages about the rights of Arabs then there are about the holiness of the land so in other it's rough cook is balancing all of these things so there are people that look at rough cook and say you see you have cook is Universalist he wants all human beings to have equal rights and then you point to other parts of rep cook they talk about Eric's relish the unique Nacala around Israel now operationally these turn out to be contradictory ideas in practice so Robbie Tyler was in favor of lands for peace as it used to be called versus raphy who the cook and the GU Shamu named were absolutely against it they both based it on the same source on different themes in ref cooks writings so the barbecue Rebbe has a point people who are deep complicated thinkers their followers can only grab on to a part of the legacy and they don't see the whole picture in fact it's it's reminiscent of the famous children's story of the seven blind men and the elephant the story that seven blind people touched an elephant and they were asked to describe what do you think an elephant looks like you don't see but what would you think it looks like so one who felt the trunk said oh the elephant is a long ill and some who felt the ear say oh the elephant is a gigantic butterfly and those who felt around the stomach said oh the elephant is like a hippopotamus now who is right there all right right the ears are like a butterfly gigantic butterfly the trunk is like an heal the stomach is I gave her vitamins they're all rights but they're all wrong because each of them only saw a partial picture and therefore the truth that they had was only a partial truth and this is the unfortunate legacy of very great thinkers ruff so basic is the same went through it is going through the same the same thing ruff so they trick was both a great great Thomas Holcomb and a great philosopher but he has two different types of disciples he has Tom Edom who are philosophers and not told me there's a harm him and he has told me the more tell me they are coming or not philosophers and each of them denies the other aspect of Rev salivation so if you hear from a personal chapter was really considered to be maybe rough solid matrix leading student as a Thomas Kaka he says that you didn't really care about philosophy you know his main thing was was Gomorrah philosophy was a little bit of a game within me he did not take it seriously and then you have other people on the other side that emphasize the sensuality of philosophy each one only sees part of the picture so maybe it'll barbecue every has a point that sometimes people need a single consistent approach without getting too complicated on the other end life is complicated reality is complicated and as a result you need to try to incorporate all of these different perspectives so that's a little bit of a chill okyun young but a little bit of a eulogy about about drove cook it's interesting that of cooks great ideological opponents was reveal safe Hyams onion filter because of high Amazon I felt was the first Rev of the AIDS of her Edith which is still in existence today and this is Reagan's is all before stated I mean you have cook died before the state that means is all in under the British Mandate and your reasons on it felt considered rough cooks philosophy to be very very improper but was interesting on a personal level they were very very close friends they loved each other even though their followers fought and Revson felt always referred to ref cook as the Rav of Yafo the Rebbe of Yavin I remember when if cook came to yafo there was no Tel Aviv right now today baby look at Tel Aviv is the big city a yahoo is that quaint fishing village but Yaffa was very old Jaffa was very ancient Jaffa was a port in biblical times remember Yana Navi went from Jaffa tel aviv is a new city tel aviv's only from the 1920s or so so rough cook was came to Eric Israel from Lithuania Seraph Cook was the Rev of Yaffa and later he became the robbed of usual I am and then the British Mandate that was robbed by Russia for the kilo to the richest well now the ADA hiatus did not accept him as a referee they didn't accept the raffle receipt all they still don't accept any type of robbery sheet of the medina but drove Zhanna felled used to continue to refer to of cook as the robbed of Yaffa and he gave a very interesting explanation he says wealth cooks approach of tolerance of acceptance of not judging people of not criticizing people of always looking at the positive revs NFL said it's a perp is a perfect modus operandi in a small community where you're working with individuals in Yaffa that was exactly the right approach but once you're dealing with national affairs and you become a public figure he said you have to have a certain level of ideological purity and you can't really compromise as much so it's interesting that he acknowledged her of cooks tariff as being the correct direction in how you are Mattia cos to individuals he just disagreed with taking it on a national institutional level interesting distinction that they had but in the early 1900's he and Rosenfeld another rub on him they went on what's called they was called the chupa campaign they went to all the moshav votes all the early kyboots him and these were really this was the day of the of the totally anti religious kyboots that would sometimes eat on Yom Kippur and and raise Pig and each has ur these were like you don't even have kyboots in like that today anymore and they went to all these motion of out and these kyboot same and they went together and they brought the light of Shabbat and and and they brought a religious inspiration to a lot of these keepers him and they came they went together and this was something that created a very very deep friendship between them there is on YouTube a fascinating video Winston Churchill before had many presents before he was Prime Minister he had many positions in the British government and one of his positions was he was in charge of colonial England's colonial possessions is that called home sir I mean is that called Home Secretary I remember that that's the name of it so in that connection he had to visit he visited Palestine so there was a reception that he was holding for the leaders of Palestine and rough cook and rubs on and felt were both there and they were walking by a receiving line and lady Churchill put out her hand to shake so so on the YouTube it says as we have cooked in droves on and felt are approaching revs on FL seas ahead of time what's going down he swerves around he was on the inside closer to lady Churchill he swerves around doesn't tell her of cook so he's on the outside and if Cook is walking and lady Churchill sticks out her hands and rough cook does not take it but he was shocked he was you know he was very very shocked he was taken without notice and in the picture you see Revson and fell grinning after of cooks kind of being put in that embarrassing position it's an old YouTube video from the nineteen some video so that's someone air from the 1920 so it's very very interesting ok so that was a little bit so I guess mighty aggression took up most of the share but let me just share a little thought that's totally unrelated but it goes back a few weeks ago you know it's interesting that a few weeks ago we actually read about the only bracha that is explicitly required in the Torah you know the Brucker before you eat food is not required by the Torah dole Raisa I am allowed to eat food without making a bracha the requirement of a bracha rizona is only a rebuttal requirement and the other end when you eat bread at least if you eat bread and other food to a point of fullness of say safety the Torah says there's a mitzvah the Araiza of Bahamas on the altar the Sebata have to be full dough Reza you've a rata hashem elokenu so when it comes to food broccoli Shona Dara Bonin raka a corona Birkat Hamazon dough Raisa now there's another Braga the ROM bond rights and this is a Mac locus among be shown him but at least the ROM bond rights that's the blocker we recite over the Torah before we learn Torah is a mitzvah the eraser the eraser you are bequeath to recite a blessing every day before you learn Torah where does the Torah say that right let me point to the PASOK that says you have to make a bracha before you learn Torah so the ROM bond says in partial so genomes are turning to the ROM bond this is the 613 for commandment the very last one moshe rabbeinu says key shame hashem Achra this is also a verse that we say before the Amidah of minify and moseph key shame hashem Achra when I call out the name of God's Havel you the Jewish people Hubble you shall give gödel you shall ascribe greatness they'll okay no - uh Shem so the ROM ban says this is not an intuitive translation of the puzzle that since the whole Torah is the Divine Name of God the whole Torah is one Divine Name of God Moshe is saying when I teach you Torah you shall give greatness to Hashem by reciting the blessings over the Torah and therefore the recitation of a blessing over the Torah not the no sir the text was formulated later but the idea that you must bless hm before you learn Torah is a ricer requirement so the question is this and of course there is no Brucker after the Torah other than anivia but that's clearly rabbinic so the question is why are the breakfast of food treated differently than the breakfast overlearning when it comes to food the eager broccoli is what you say afterwards and there is no requirement to say it before when it comes to Torah we work exactly the opposite way the Mitzvah is to say the brachot before and there is no Mitzvah the same afterwards why is Torah and food reversed in terms of which bracha is most significant so there's a very interesting answer that is given by the Mesha hokhmah that's the or Sameach again with just a little bit a graffiti so you'll know all of you have heard i hope of the place where i have my day job be Shibata or Sameach which is a famous Seva from bali chuhwa etc although we have many people who are not public over there their religious from from birth and or somatic was it was a person the person was rough mayor simcha huh Cohen who was the Rebbe of the Latvian city of Dvinsk and he died in the 1920s and he wrote two books that we have one book is or szymek Mayer simcha or Sameach which is his commentary on the Rambam and the other is a commentary on the homage that is called meshach karma so meta hokhmah and nor Sameach are the same this is your mayor simcha Cohen it's interesting that the Vince is an interesting City Dvinsk did not have a yeshiva but Dvinsk had two rabbis a rabbi of the mist noggin and a rabbi of the Hasidim and the two rabbis were both gadot Loyola mamas the rabbi of the mist nog dim was your mayor simcha calling the or Sameach the rabbi of the Hasidim was reveals a frozen who was known as the rugged chevre cone because he came from a town rugged chef and their personalities were totally older they were getting very very good friends their personalities were totally different but a mayor simcha was quiet gentle very very extremely kind on a personal level never raised his voice the record trevor was stormy tempestuous the rugged sovereign America you say about the rugged trail where people think the rugged trevor has a great memory says he doesn't have such a great memory he just finishes the bobbly and you saw me every month so anything you ask him he's seen within a month not a memory memory is you haven't seen it for many years the rugged trevor was a super genius mom is a super genius but you couldn't really talk to him he was kind of beyond he was in the stratosphere Chabad has a tradition that the lubavitcher rebbe got his Smita from the rugged Shover I'm not sure if that's true but that's the traditional because the rugged trevor was actually asked about crossing but he really was in a world of his own the mayor simpler was very very career simpler was very soft-spoken very kind very gentle very different personalities but once again they were great great friends so going back to the Metrodome the Metro hokhmah asks this question why is beer columns every phrase when I when I think of a nice story I want to share with you just to give you an example of the rugged Trevor's personality Reverend Cutler the great receive of Lakewood who was known in Europe as a Eloy as a genius even as a very young man whenever Eric Cutler was 20 years old he wanted to meet the rugged Shover and talk in learning with the rugged River and the violent Cutler was already a Russia Shiva 20 but he was afraid to introduce himself as a Russia either because the rugged trevor would rip him up the rugged trevor would expect him to be on some level so of ayran represented himself as a businessman who works most of the day but he has a little bit of time for learning and reviving himself was a genius said over some complicated piece of torah so he got from the wreckage over the supreme compliments the compliment was for a working man you're not too bad was the great compliment to Reverend pepper so the wreckage are you really couldn't get me you know you couldn't exactly what do they say they say story they another arrived once came to the rugged chopper and the wreckage every treated him very very nicely so the Rev said to the wreckage ever I don't know what people say people say that the Rev is very very harsh on told me they Cohanim so there are get you ever said yeah that's correct I [Laughter] okay whatever is there are different different personalities okay anyway though let's go back to the message economist the metric aquas answer again the question is again forgive the digressions but as I said I like to share a good story when it comes to me what is the knot kameena what is the difference between the blessing over the Torah and the blessing over the fruit so here's what the mr. Hoffman says what is the purpose of a bracha generally it is to sensitize us to the gifts that are colors for who has given us it is to heighten our awareness of pocket oaf of gratitude that when there's water when there's an apple when there's anything even going to the bathroom people make a joke about kids to make a joke about it we give thanks to Hashem for all of these things because are as difficult as life sometimes is for most people most of the time it is filled with kindness of God and a Brucker requires us to focus and think and be grateful he teaches us how caca itself so here's what the metric achma says when a person is hungry or needy I come in out of the hot summer day into a house and I finally have a glass of water or juice the gratitude is almost instinctual of personally he says I'm as a pure Hashem there's water here so consequently at least as far as the Torah was concerned there was less of a need to concretize or Flamel eyes a ritual of expressing gratitude because the gratitude is natural instinctual and automatic but the problem is after I eat and I feel satisfied although you might think well I ought to be more grateful together it's often not the case I often think I don't need a Shem anymore I'm fine the Torah itself warns us about this the Torah itself says when you get to Eretz Israel and you will be successful mirela Rebecca your heart will be high and mighty mr. Haack does a shovel Ocala and you will forget God and what will you say Kofi vo t'same Rd it is my strength in my ability us-ally it's called a Hiawatha accomplished all of this success or later on the Torah says by yeash Manya shuuran we become fat and complacent for you but we kick out it God so consequently the Tyra says when you finish eating and you no longer have that passionate yearning gratitude before you leave be sure to say thank you so consequently there was less of a need for a brother before food where the gratitude is instinctual then there is afterwards now what eventually happened was these cotton wad of oats we became spiritually so inferior that we don't even have the gratitude before we eat so much so it had to be concretize din abraca but the original idea was the gratitude is there you don't need to say abroad with Torah says Domitius achma the opposite is true before we sit down and learn we're not so grateful that we have a Torah we think to ourselves you know I'd rather sleep a little more I'd rather listen to the radio read the newspaper do something else no having to learn Torah is a burden a little bit so what does the Torah say make a brach recognize how sweet it is recognize how good it is you need to feel gratitude but says the measure karma there's no reason to make a Brucker after you learn Torah because after you learn Torah you feel its sweetness you feel its depth you feel its goodness the gratitude after you learn is natural instinctive and automatic so if in the case of food I feel gratitude when I'm in a state of need with Torah you feel the gratitude after you learn because then you see how good it is now people ask the question well what if you know I don't enjoy I mean god forbid there there can't be such a thing a person learns even and doesn't particularly enjoy it he doesn't feel such gratitude so how does that fit but the short answer is that Halak ik structures are not always merry mirroring the individual reality of people it's really conveying a message of what an ideal reality is the ideal reality is that learning should so excite me that my gratitude is automatic in my heart if I'm not there yet that's something to work on that's something to be conscious of so it's not that even with teachers the same thing if I could digress to give you an analogy sometimes people say that all of these gentlemen say another controversial thing all of these restrictions that Judaism has in terms of boundaries between men and women presuppose in fact people say mashita is insulting to women etc no mateesah is profoundly insulting to men because all of these rules basically say all men are sexual predators a man governs next to a woman you know or the woman man sees a woman who's not dressed samia's who knows what will happen hey I'm very insulted you know I can control myself I hope you know so so really if anyone should be upset by all of these separations whether it's secret can't be alone because I'll do so it's I'll do something right Nakia I can't hold a woman's hand because I'll do something right Pizza all of these things but in many many ways even if it doesn't reflect the actual reality there's a certain aroma stir again this is kind of using rabbi duex technique a little bit and that is people are supposed to be passionate they are supposed to be aroused stimuli are supposed to affect them that is the passion that can exist in married life and therefore when a person becomes a person who is not affected by these things there is a diminishment in the completeness of a human personality and therefore in many many ways these laws about restrictions are reminding a person of how passionate a human being is supposed to be in terms of having the full complexion so to speak of human diverse so therefore a halakha is describing kind of an ideal reality and playing off that instead of looking at the individual experiences that people have now when it comes to Torah the mesh economy is making the point that Torah should be something that is so vibrant so exciting that after we learned we don't need to say thank you to God Hashem knows right sometimes your mother will say you know mother makes a real wonderful meal for a family and the kids don't say thank you and they say I've heard mothers say this sometimes I can see by the way they ate it they appreciated the food now that's not an excuse not to say thank you but Hashem says the same thing in a sense I see by the way they learned that they appreciate if they don't have to make a a brother and that is the naff demeanor that is the difference between Bierhoff cetera and the brother over the food where where it comes for the food you make the barakah after Dell Raisa when it comes to the Torah you make the brother before okay you all have a good week at the traditional Messiah okay thank you [Music]