Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Splitting of the Sea - Seeing the world through G-ds eyes

[Music] can everybody hope your hog was enjoyable inspirational all of us know the teaching of Casal that been Nissan Lou we were redeemed in the month of Nissan we've been nice honest Eden legal and therefore in the future the future redemption is also most likely to take place in the month of Nissan mushiya can come every day except on Shabbos and Yom Tov but Nissan is the highest probability so the month is running down but there there's still the chance indeed that this will be the month of Allah and we should pray for it because indeed quali Israel there is Israel the world as a whole is desperately in need of redemption when even the New York Times runs anti-semitic cartoons you have to wonder where is the world going to actually no it's not it's not so surprising anyway but ok so I want to go back a little bit and talk about something about Pesach but that's also relevant in this period of the year during Spheeris Omer and that is the interesting dichotomy in the recitation of hallo we know of course that on yom tov him there is a mitzvah to recite Hallel it is a rabbinic commandment the Torah does not require the recitation of parallel nor could the Torah require it since Hallel was composed by David analyst many years after the torrent but rabbinic Lee Anjum tovyn we recite hallo but there's a difference between the COG of Pesa and let us say the fog of Sukkot on Sukkot including Schmidty at Sarat we recite a full howl for all seven days of Sukkot and on Shmi niet Sarat and indigo la where you have nine days some critera we recited for nine days for Pesa we recite a for a whole Hallel a complete Hallel only well seder the night of the seder and the next day and some people do it in the show before the seder but certainly after the first day of pizza we only recite a half howl not a complete Hallel and that's similar to what we do on Rosh Hodesh where we don't recite a complete how though the question becomes why is Sukkos different than pay aha took us every day gets a whole lot out Pesa only day one so it's interesting that the the Gemara itself gives a reason that is less familiar the the the more familiar reason that I'm sure you've heard of I'll mention shortly but the Gemara gives a technical reason why Pesa is different than Sukkot and the technical reason the Gemara gives pertains to the carbon Musa the additional offering that was brought in the basin mikdash during the cog I'm not referring to the carbon passer that was brought before the fact but I'm referring to the Muslim offerings and pisaq every single day of Pesa the Musa offering in the basin mikdash was identical they brought two balls one ayah one ram and seven sheep that was done every single day as a result we perceive Pesa as one single hug because you do the same thing every day and as a result the full Hallel at the beginning of the COG covers the whole conch Sukkot on the other hand every single day there was a unique and a distinct Musa offering so every single day is even column o8 is deemed a distinct jumped F therefore every day has its own how though this is what the quran says this is the gemara american and it really is a technical reason why sucrose is different than pizza but there is a more well-known reason and the source is little questionable there is a safer a Rishon and medieval authority called the Shambhala in brackets again a fairly substantial Authority and the Shi brother let get brings something from the name and of a Midrash but we don't have such a mattress so we called Madrid shiny no none otherwise unknown metric that says that since the seventh day of Sukkos of Pesa which is a fact commemorates the drowning of the egyptians in the Red Sea and there is a tradition that when the Angels wanted to sing praises to God over the miracle that he did and the Egyptians being drowned the Koresh Bronco responded my sayad i tough will be young the Egyptians are also my creations I care about them as well it is a tragedy that they have to be destroyed via t'aime omran Shira and you think this is the time to rejoice to have jubilation human beings are dying and although there are evil people and although they deserve to die there is still a sadness in their death know that part of the teaching is actually in the Gemara itself the Chimera does indicate that but the mega-rich Heine know takes it one step further and says since how'll l on the seventh day of Pesach is also a commemoration of the splitting of the Red Sea so the same way that the angels were told to diminish their joy we diminish our joy by only reciting a half hour lout and now they complete out again I want people to be absolutely clear to differentiate between what the gomorrah says and what the Midrash I mean who says it's not the same thing the Gomorrah simply brings the point that the Angels wanted to praise God and God told the Angels not to do so that's the famous statement Messiah died travel by um via t'aime on Grimm Shira that is in the Gomorrah but the Gomorrah never uses that as the reason for half although I'm the seventh day of Pesach like people are so used to the connection that they figure that's what the Gemara says the Gemara does not give that as a reason the Gemara gives the reason that I mentioned a few moments ago the carbonyls are different group a second circus what does she but Lillet gets is doing based on this otherwise unknown meddra she is taking the Talmudic teaching of rebuking on which is just an observation about the angels and applying it to us that on the seventh day of Pesach our joy is diminished and that is why we only say a half ll rather than a whole Hollow now the Taj the Therese are one of the great commentaries on the show Canara asks the obvious question the logic that mice a yokai since the Egyptians are drowning we shouldn't say she ran that is only a logic for the seventh day of Pesach if that's the case we ought to say how they'll force full how though for six days and yet we stopped after the first thing so the TAS gives an answer a little bit of an indirect answer that we never want to make whole amo eight more prestigious than a hug the seventh day of Pesa is a hug if you were to say a full howl for all of Pesa until the seventh day you would be saying a whole Hollow on column o eight and then you would be demoted to a half hour out on a cart so the Todd says you have to work backwards if you're not gonna say a whole column on day seven then you're not going to say a whole ha well under column oh eight days either and therefore you will only say it on day one or in the goal ah you will say it day one and two because they're treated as variants of the first of the first day okay so this is the she balling records in the name of the Midrash honey note that the half high level of she shall press X after on shall pass ask is because of my say your guy Tabou by young yes yeah that yes not that of course it's an excellent question but if you think about it and there are many many many mitzvahs that are abundant that all have the formula Cherokee - a new boom its loss of vit Savano reading Magilla lighting Chanukah candles etc lighting Shabbos candles and the Rambam explains based on the Gemara and Shabbos that sense in parsha shoved him and safer devar him Hashem commanded us to obey all of the instructions of the sages opiate Akasha Arouca the Allah Mitch Bhattacharya River Casa Lotus or do not turn away we call a Shariah ji Dullahan that they tell you your men to the right or the left therefore the Rambam says every time I obey the rabbinic laws I am fulfilling the Torah Commandments of Lotus or and vice versa if I violate a rabbinic law I am violating a Torah Commandments yeah well that's true so it's really it's ignoring Chaves hey concieve are no where did God command us he did not command us to light Hanukkah candles but he commanded us indirectly Lotus or because I fee argued Aloha yum in your smoke which is why according to the Rambam every rabbinic law becomes a derisive law by virtue of low-low tosser so the question I want to explore is simply this the attitude of my cigar tough will be um we might terminate we might describe as kind of a universalistic attitude in which we care not only about the Jews but we care about the suffering of all people and indeed even those who are unworthy we feel as it were a pain in their suffering you might remember the famous or perhaps infamous remark of Golda Meir and again many many people deeply resents part of this Martha's I do as well but soffit has a core of truth in which she said the first part as I say people are especially upset about we can forgive the Arabs for killing our children that's the part that enrages people correctly so but then she says we can't forgive them for letting us kill their children now in the second part forget about the first part which indeed is a totally different thing there is something to be said in the fact that although the Jewish people are not pacifists and we are not supposed to be pacifists we do not turn the other cheek it is very very clear how logically religiously and morally a balla Hargett huh someone that is trying to kill you hache game fahara glow we kill them first if we can we are obligated to protect our lives and the lives of our people and our land and we don't simply let enemies run over us in the sessions will that we destroy those who are trying to destroy us and indeed even in the answer even though I am told the angels my creatures are drowning don't say Shira but who was drowning them it was God that was drowning them so we live in a sense with almost a cognitive dissonance in which we do what we have to do and we do it in British M our country does it well but we do it with sadness we don't do it with joy we don't rejoice in the destruction of people because all human beings are made in the image of God and all human beings have the potential or had the potential to be righteous and holy and good and if a human being instead weds themselves to the cause of evil and violence and destruction that is not just a tragedy for the victims it is a tragedy for the perpetrators themselves because they have besmirched and they have violated potential you know if you think about this is a very uncomfortable thought experiment but you know in the state United States you'll you have with unfortunately some frequency these mass murderers that go into schools and killed kill people so you know many of them are literally mentally ill some some are just morally ill and often they're young people we just had in the Habad place in know what wasn't in California what's what's name of them po-wei Oh way yeah again just amazing a nineteen year old died just comes in and unfortunately a very very fine woman a really a righteous woman lost her life the rabbi lost some fingers and then he gave her drug after before he went to the hospital he actually went up to give a drug to give these are just remarkable the courage and the presence of minds that people can have in moments like this but then you think imagine a lot of these people still have parents and if God forbid somebody had a child that was a murderer do the parents still feel love for the child it's tricky you know we don't like to talk about it so much but there is part of the parent that says he was a good person he was a good baby I don't know what happened there is something that took over him so a normal parent I'm not talking about the Palestinian parents who glorify what their kid does but a normal parent hates and despises what their child in but on some level there's still a love and a tremendous sadness for what that child could have become under the right circumstances so in many ways this is what a shem tov yahoo goes through as well in which a kurdish boy who loves even those who go off the wrong path because they too had a divine soul so the question I want to raise is this so on the seventh day we have all of these feelings but on the first day plenty of Egyptians died as well the first day of Pesach was MacOS the Horus the plague in the first point and maybe more tight the Torah says aim bias there was not a single home aimed by Inchon mace that there wasn't somebody then so the attitude of the first day of Pesach apparently is as long as it's good for the Jews I really don't care about the collateral damage of other people who as I said we were redeemed and yet on the seventh of Pesach all of a sudden we become Universalists why is there a change if you're simply going to tell me and the seventh day it pays out we are citizens of the world and on the first day of Pesach we only care about is it good for the Jews right that was Netanyahu is old you know I don't even know if he used it this time but he used to say you tenyo told why you who dim which was always a veiled hint of where he was where he was going now you know he has one he has one central electoral strategy and that's time kind of to scare you to death before every election that if you don't really Tim you know we will be covered covered with with aggression of Arabs that want to want to destroy us and you know apparently it works that strategy does work over and over and over again but okay so the point basically is what has happened between the first day of Pesach where we frankly don't really care about what happens to the Egyptians and indeed we even glorify it a little bit and the seventh day a patient where all of a sudden we have this might say our BB m Viet mmm Shira so let me explain this by reference to a verse that is we say in diverting every day and it's also in the Haggadah and that is but by korea's yumps if it is written very Ariella I share assertion permits Ryan bnei yisrael saw the great hands that God did against the Egyptians my hero an assertion of a gyro they feared Hashem the Omni no Russian and they believed in a Shem / Moshe of dough and in Moshe his servants that Puttock is in that God and by the way that is the only mention of Moshe a famous name in that God has only mentioned once in that person so it's a little early for next year but if you want to keep your kids awake you can kind of in addition to the afikomen prize you can offer them a prize if anyone points out where Moshe obeying whose name is mentioned in the in the Haggadah now the process to say that korea-asean chef gave us a certain aspect of year out Hashem that we didn't have before Korea seemed safe now what is that we had gone through the MCOs we had seen the power of our Kurdish Burkle to change nature what was so unique about Korea's I'm already experienced in the Makos so there's an observation of the morale who says the following idea if you look at all of the mock-ups and you see the miracles that God did you will note that all of the miracles were in the direction of punishment and retribution of the Egyptians the water turned to blood the frogs the lice the wild animals meaning B'nai Israel did not have a miracle performed for them rather they were left to the pre-existing natural order their water did not turn to blood you see in other words the miracle of the MCOs was all in the direction of retribution and punishments the benefits have been a Israel was in the nature of tefa leaving them to the pre-existing normal functioning of things himself you see exactly the opposite pattern the miracle of Kriya science off' was the splitting of the water the saving of Amba knee of Ami's realm the death of the egyptians was actually not miraculous the Egyptians did not die in a miraculous way at least in pure shall make realm they died by God stopping the miracle of the water separating and under normal natural law if you find yourself in the middle of an ocean you will tend to drown if you're under the water so you see the difference here in the case of the matos the miracle was the onus and the benefit from Israel was the Taba bicurious yontiff the miracle was the Hatzolah of Ami's realm and the own ash was that ever why is that important because sorry you have a post pesach cold or something the explanation is this when the Jewish people walked away from its ryeom they were overwhelmed with the power of God to change nature in order to punish evildoers and therefore they walked away from the MCOs they certainly had fear and reverence for the awesome power of the Almighty but they did not yet experience a full measure of God's love for them because God did not change the natural order of the universe to save them God changed the natural order of the universe to punish the bad people so the Makos gave us the recession fear of God but crea Siam's off' we experienced God's love for us on a much deeper level because God changed the order of the universe not to punish but to redeem not to destroy but to save so as a result we can conclude that Korea cm surf was an experience in which we felt God's love much more deeply then even you see at Smith's ryeom itself because Korea TM surf is a miracle of love and not a miracle of retribution and punishment now there is a famous and beautiful pisaq initially in Proverbs and I mentioned this but sick all the time because it really is such a beautiful and important per second Kamiya upon him upon him cane lay for Adam Lee odham what is that plastic mean as water reflects the face that you show it so to the heart of the human being reflects back to you would you show that person the Vilna Gaon explains if I look down into a reflecting pool of water if I smile at that water I will see a smiling face if I frown at that water I will see a frowning face the water reflects back whatever I show the water social on one lxs the heart of a human being reflects back what that human being is shown I show a human being love care concern compassion respect they will feel that way about me I show them denigration I show them that they don't matter then they will feel that way about me as well again I'm not talking about extreme cases I'm not suggesting you walk into the Palestinian Authority and be nice and assume something good will happen there are going to be many many exceptions but at least we can talk about our pain of B'nai Israel that there is chameleon upon him upon him lay for other than the other now this is really part of the reason why religious secular debates in Israel never ever ever get resolved in a truly satisfactory way because each side is doing the opposite of what Mela tells us to do each side looks at the other as either evil stupid malevolent if I look at some ESMA level they will look at me as malevolent and as a result we have an unending spiral of recriminations and counter-accusations as opposed to the idea of trying to see the legitimacy of the other side's point that will open them up to see whatever point you're trying to make again I'm not being very specific here but all I'm saying is that it would appear that if we have very very different positions about things if each person tries or even if one person tries to find the common ground in a commonality that will open the other person up to make that same movement if on the other hand the approach is you're totally wrong and I'm totally right then it's the opposite each one will look at that way it's the other right I think about this as an example and I know maybe I'm getting into something that is a little bit of a minefield I just want to mention it when the issue about drafting yeshiva students was first pushed a few years ago so there was a big big rally thing thing they say 800,000 people I'm not sure if it was that big I was not there yeah and it was a rally a protest rally and as protest rallies went it was pretty good no violence no you know we just prayers Fela etc so people were saying was a great kid is a shame because there was no integration and the like okay and as again as rallies go there there have been worse letters me but I think to myself okay there is a philosophy that you know you don't draft your super students there is such of course there are counter arguments to that again I'm not I'm not going to address it but there is a philosophy that we have def full-time Torah learning we can't take me bloody be Shiva this is our defense but that's and again and those who have that schita are certainly entitled to espouse it and talk about it and and you know try to seek accommodation but what would have been if at the end of the rally after they talked about the importance of Torah and the fact that you cannot take a person out of the beit sahm idris they then would have said eight Fela for the benefit of the hilum for the Sahel in other words what if there would have been an acknowledgment yes it is our view that those who are learning Torah are engaged in something that is so important that they cannot be taken away but at the same time we recognize how important the Army is and how appreciative we have to be for the sacrifices that people make well I'm not a prophet but if you had eight hundred thousand people who you might call Torah only people who at the same time acknowledged he saw how the IDF I honestly think mushiya would have come because that would have been a situation in which each side would then recognize the importance of what each side is doing that we are at the same team that we are a family that we work together that the Jewish people needs all of these components as opposed to the idea that when a religious high al goes to sholud meant meant for somewhere a religious bio they could be spat upon or Everstone thrown against them again it's just it's just hard hard to even imagine how such a thing had happened the point I'm making is that if you just as a matter of tactics low Manos is giving you tactical advice you want somebody to see your position then you have to be willing to see their position come I am upon them upon him Kain lay for them we are them and if your position is I'm right and you're wrong then your position is going to be your right not wrong and that's where things stand here in which nothing ever happens except to increase the negativity more and more and more and more and that of course prolongs the godless and the court based on McNish okay that was a little bit of an editorial commercial but to go back to this idea the ballot Anya writes that if it's true that's if a human being shows another human being love and respect that will be mirrored back then calvo comer when the human being feels the love that a Shem has for them they will feel love for a sham effect about Latanya rights one of the ways a very powerful way that a person comes to love I shall we say in Shima vo hasta a session maluca huh you shall love God with all of your heart how do you come to love God so one of the ways you love God is by contemplating the depth of the love that God has for you in giving you life and giving you opportunity in sustaining the world the universe's now it turns out therefore if it's true that creates yam soup was a great demonstration of divine love because God changed the physical laws of the universe not to punish the bad guys but you redeemed the Jewish people then it turns out that if we felt the love of God in creation self that would cause us to love that therefore we would say the following the takeaway from the MCOs was your attention but to take away from Korea Thompson was a petition because by feeling God's love for us which was enhanced by Korea's himself we develop a powerful love for God so this is what Korea's Yamcha gave us a VAR session but you'll ask the obvious kasha but that's not what the plastic says the passage says the urethra l sa yo doc Delma I share assertion with Ryan in limits Ryan they saw the great hand that God did to the Egyptians by arrow they feared so it doesn't say Korea COF gave us a visage M it said it gave us your assertion and how does that fit so for that we have to analyze the terms avatar chemin you rat - M a little bit more closely you're right - I'm already from the time of of Sargon is divided into two components there is what you might call a lower era and there is what you might call a higher era the lower year ear routes are Onis fear fear of punishment I better behave because I don't behave properly there are going to be consequences after 120 years now we like to poopoo that year by calling the very low superficial level but as Rambam points out if we truly internalized Iran session on that level we would never said because whatever benefit the sin gives us rest assured that the negative consequences we're going to be far greater but that's called Urata onus fear of punishment but then there's another aspect of year rap in which the translation would not be fear but it would be a reverence to the word fear even in English can have those two connotations I'm fearful of something happening to me or I have fear in the sense of reverence and awe and that's called that's a higher level of year-round that is called yacht our own words or of God's infinite greatness now that type of all we have even for human beings in one level or another if a president maybe not the American President or even the Israeli president rose for two difference in Israel the president is less formal and in America we have other other issues although somebody did write rabbi presence gives a very eminent Rev in the United States where the whole Diana poem based on all the things that President Trump has done for the State of Israel if he would have done this yeah you know and he did it's a 50th of 15 different things so so on one level there may be issues of me doubts and refinement on the other hand he certainly has been good to cloud Israel and indeed as he himself points out he is the only person in all the presidential politics all of whose grandchildren are Jewish and some and some even from which is very very interesting a thing but in terms of if Queen Elizabeth would walk in now in this day and age if you don't curtsy or whatever it is she's not gonna have you executed you're not afraid she's gonna do something to you nice woman she won't do anything to you but there's a certain awe of certain reverence for the office you want to be on your best behavior etc well when it comes to our cottage borough how much more simple so that's so the lower thing is called Urata onus the next level is called here at Cairo moment then you go to avatar ship where it's no longer a question of fear or reverence it's I love God but then my rights there is a year a third level of era that is even above average so there's so in the latter there's you're out to own ash you rot sorrow moment avatar sham and then there is something called year out faith fear of sin year at faith means your love is so intense that you are afraid to do anything that will bring pain to the one that you love let's consider a marriage let's imagine a person cares about their spouse very deeply and their spouse is sleeping and there's a light sleeper so you tiptoe you walk on eggshells you tiptoe around the house because you are afraid you're going to wake them up now what are you afraid of are you afraid that if you wake them up they will hit you with a frying pan are you afraid of a punishment usually not are you afraid because you're in are and reverence of somehow disturbing the sleep of the king of the Queen no but because you love and you care about them and you know they need the rest you're afraid to do anything that may hurt them or give them discomfort in any way so that is a gyro that is a gyro coming from the intensification of ABBA you know in were so - benching this week is Shabbos by working for Eeyore so we're going to ask us them in the prayer before Rosh Chodesh a blessing give us a life I am G H bar m here at Sean I am the year at rate give us a life where there is fear of heaven and fear of sin fear of heaven includes the two levels of yira that we spoke about you have to ownage but actually more primarily yachts are element yachts 8 is actually picking up avatar m-may I love for God be so deep that we are literally afraid to do anything wrong not because we're afraid of the consequences to us but we don't want to bring sorrow to the object of our love so as a result therefore when it says Korea thumbs off' gave us hero it doesn't mean year after ownage that we got in with rahim it doesn't even mean you're about their element but by feeling a Shems love for us it made us feel I love Russia and that led to the mod Raygun of year at fate so with this akadama let's go back to the original question you'll remember that is on the seventh day of passes the Shabalala key tells us in the name of the Meldrick which we don't have that we only recite a half how well because our joy is diminished because of the destruction of the Egyptians and it's just like the Angels we're told my cellulite over by our bite mmm she run but I'm the first day of passing we seemingly don't care about that if it's good for the Jews that's all we care about whole Hallel celebrate and the light perhaps the difference is this and the first day of passing through the MCOs and the like we absorb the message of year after Chien fear of God because we saw what God does to evildoers who don't obey Him when you live in the world of yireh your life is a sin and your decisions are essentially egotistical I make decisions based on the consequences to me I better be good or else now how I define the for me of course can matter for me can mean me it can mean my family it can mean my community it can mean my city it could mean my nation before me can be narrowly defined or hopefully as a person spiritually grows it gets defined in a much broader way rough cook writes about there's a lot that a person has to redefine who is the me in my life a superficial person says me is only me but as we grow in spiritual sensitivity I understand that you is also part of me and Kali Sue Ellen delight but no matter how broadly you define it it's still an egotistical calculation in the sense that I am making decisions based on the consequences to me and those that I hold dear in that world you really much don't care that much as to what happens to other people they are the collateral damage of the benefits to you and we use the phrase collateral damage you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs whatever the expression you want to use is it had to be done for a high so as a result and the first day of pass on where our my relationship to God is based on the era which is a parochial idea of what's good for me what's bad for me we are particular as we are not Universalist I the Egyptians suffered so what but this was a good deal for us but on the seventh day a pays off we graduate to love now everyone knows who anyone that's in a relationship knows that part of the idea of a loving relationship is you try to see the world through the eyes of the other person right men and women are very very different like the famous book men are from Mars Women are from Venus the Gemara itself says men in women are deemed to be two different nations nothing Mars says two different nations they see the world by and large very very differently and but what is the idea of a union I try of course it's going to be imperfect I try to see the world through the eyes of my spouse my spouse tries to see the world through my eyes and in that way we somehow get a perception that is deeper and truer than any one perception would be so if loving another human being means you try to see the world through their eyes then loving God means you try to see the world the way God sees the world no obviously that's more or less impossible but there are some dimensions of commonality we look at a world of good and evil and we look at the evil doers as people that are trying to destroy us and brush them they're gone good riddance now God looks at it that way too but God has another cushman God also sees as I said before the potential of goodness that could have been there the tragedy of losing God as it were is the parent of the mass murderer and the same ambivalence that the parent of the mass murderer might have exists on some level in the rabona sheilo them as well how did it happen what a tragedy that had happened so as a result the ability to commiserate with God in the destruction of even the evildoer can come only when your relationship with God is based on love and not when it's based on fear because when it's based on fear your only concern is what is good for me when it's based on love you see the world the way God sees the world do you remember the book of Yona Yona we read it on Yom Kippur Jana was given the mission of going to the Assyrian city of Nineveh and giving him a message you better do chuhwa or God will destroy you and Yoda didn't want to go actually why didn't he want to go through an interesting because the Meldrick says that the omo to olam we're more likely to do toover than the jewish people because they get emotionally attached to different things Jewish people are stubborn or we're stubborn in good ways and were stubborn in bad ways so it's hard for us to do children Lumos all um you know one day they'll do two more the next day they'll go back again you know they they just responds to the feelings of the moment so Jana was afraid if they're gonna do Java it'll make the Jewish people look bad so you ona tried to run away and they know everyone knows the story he got in the fish whatever happened there and it's a very end of the story lo and behold then Gredos chuva and notice not so happy you know these bad people they should have been destroyed why is God giving them these chances they don't deserve it they're not worthwhile and if you remember at the end of the book there's a little story that there's a hot day and God causes a plant to grow and give him shelter and shade and then the plant dies and Yona is so bitter because the heat of the Sun is overwhelming and God says to him you have so much care and concern for this little plant that's only one day old it was here one day go on the other day and you think I don't care about the thousands and thousands of people in in vain you think they don't matter huh let the other ant and even their animals even their animals the Talmud Jewish ami says a fascinating point it's not relevant to our subject but the Talmud your somebody says that sometimes God gives a person life not because they deserve it but because their animal needs somebody to take care of them so you a person might have a dog and God inch Imam says this person deserves to die but who's going to take care of the dog so God gives us life sometimes because the animal needs us so that's an argument to have a pet right just it's kind of an extra insurance policy that you know God will give you life because the pet needs you and and the life so God is telling Yana everything matters to me everybody makes a difference everybody is needed and when because of their evil they have to be destroyed and again let me emphasize God is not a pacifist God will destroy the evildoers but it is done with sadness it is done with regret and we follow that way as well we don't dance I remember years ago maybe more than 10 years ago a picture of a terrorist who dipped his hands in the blood of his Jewish victims and the blood was dripping from his fingers as he was dancing around the body in a frenzy it would be inconceivable it would be inconceivable unless a Jewish person was literally mentally ill that a Jewish high other Jewish person would ever do such a thing and again I don't know why I'm hitting these politically divisive topics but even someone like Barbara cozening who did what he did and again he did what he did in is something that most of us would denounce but it was well known that in point of fact as a physician he acted with much much compassion and respect for the Arabs that he treated and if he snapped because he saw the potential of violence that was coming down the pike he certainly I mean you know he certainly would not be a person that would rejoice and what he did if he did what he did he felt he had to do it but it was not something you have a simcha about because God does not have a simply about it but you see you reach that level only when you have a love relationship with God because when you have a fear relationship with God everything gets judged by what's good for you so if it's good for me I don't really care what happens to them when you love done you try to see the world through God's relationship so it's a very interesting thing therefore that the dynamic that's articulated here is that love of God leads you to love other human beings because you see the world through God's perspective to take this on a slightly deeper point the Vilna Gaon actually says all human love that is not simply lust is really love of God because when you love another human being what you love about them is you love their divine qualities you may love their kindness their compassion their intellect these are the divine qualities of the soul and since every soul is from God when a soul recognizes the godly qualities of the other it loves them it wants to be connected to them so all human love is really a manifestation of divine love and that's actually a fairly deep thought now there is of course something called the lust or passion which is just sexual excitement that that can that could have a different dynamic but if something is truly loving it's the qualities of a person that caused you to love them and each person is attuned to see different aspects of godliness because godliness isn't it is an infinite matrix but one can identify different qualities because of his courage the exactly the exception of that you know kindness yeah that's an interesting question courage yeah the courage as we would understand it seems to presuppose some elements of putting yourself at risk or danger and then being willing for a higher cause to put yourself at risk so we admire that as courage so you're raising the very fascinating question can God have courage and if courage is not possible on a divine level because God cannot be threatened by anybody then why do I admire courage meaning meaning if you go to beyond the gown that everything that I admire is essentially a mirror of a divine quality then how would you explain our admiration for courage very very very excellent excellent point but I think perhaps I have to think about it some more that courage represents the magnitude of a commitment to that which is right so in the case of a human being it takes the form of odd today talk that I risk something in the case of God it would just be the abstract commitment to do that which is just and that which is right meaning it's it's the furthest degree that God is committed to that which is good we would call that extreme commitments courage but it's making at different forms of divine courage with equal so to speak divine commitment but again it needs a little a little more elaboration on that on that point so basically therefore this is a very important message during spirits are Omer I'll just end here because spirits are on there is the linkage between two holidays PASOK is a monthly retainer the season of freedom liberation Shavuot is mine my Tonto retainer when God gave us a Torah and Omer is the period that links the two Tikku felt as if to say they are fundamentally one long holiday dr. Ron bond has solution that's fear and sorrow man could be looked at as a whole hum oh wait not really but but in some ways it's like a close-up so if you tell your boss you don't work holy moley you could not show up from Pesach to show us and you would be within your rights but as I say it's very unlikely the position will be held open for you during that time now the linkage connotes the idea that freedom without commitment to a Shem is destructive erich fromm Freud's disciple happened to be Jewish but not not religious made the point that freedom cannot be freedom from something it has to be freedom toward something and that's exactly maybe he got it from the old man I don't know that's exactly what the counting of the Omer is our freedom is towards a higher purpose that's one aspect of Spira but the other aspect of Spira is we know that during this period of time we observe various morning restrictions we don't get married we don't listen to music again the details you would check with the earth post sake haircuts there's a certain sadness now that's not inherent to this time inherently this ought to be a joyous time we're looking forward to Mactan Torah so why the sadness this states from a much later to Kufa when the great Rabi Akiva had 24,000 students who died during this time and we mourn their deaths and the reason why they died is they did not show proper respect and honor to each other so we mourn not so much to mourn because after all we've had worse tragedies but we mourn to become sensitive to the fact that we need to see each other with dignity with honor with respect refresh points out a very interesting etymological observation kavod which we defined as honor is the same so rich as covet which is heaviness so here's the thing showing somebody honor is not a matter of etiquette or politeness it's a certain attitude where you see somebody as weighty and significant you say I could be polite to somebody but in my heart of hearts I treat them as a lightweight as somebody insignificant as somebody who doesn't have anything to really end kavod is not just external it is internal I see the significance of the other person exactly even in the Mitzvah of Keyboard of the aim honoring your parents primal Levites used to say that the full fulfillment of the mitzvot is not simply treating your parents with respect but it's identifying something in your parents that is worthy of honor admiration and emulation now for most of us that might be relatively easy other times might be a little hard but a person is obligated to look at some aspect of their parents and say that is something admirable that is something good so it turns out that spirits of america has two different things that we're doing one is we're intensifying our commitment to the torah and the other is we're looking to see the goodness and the dignity in other people now i just want to leave you of this idea that in the world that we live in these two goals often seem to contradict each other you often find the tendency that as people grow in their religious passion it tends to be at the expense of how they view other people who are not moving in exactly that same direction they tend to denigrate they tend to exclude they tend to look doubt about fact I know personally rabbis in the states who made people violate Yuva made them from but the people they made from don't in fact is even the joking or in certain rabbinic circles that how do I know I have been successful in my tier of efforts when the person does not talk to me anymore because I'm not religious enough for them I don't know if you've ever been familiar with that with that phenomenon right that's the ultimate success where my Talmud does not talk to me anymore it's always said with kind of a bittersweet attitude so we find that as I get more and more passionate about my Yiddish guide I see less and less covered in others and the other way around you sometimes have big tickets big tent rather big tent Judaism I'm okay you're okay I embrace everything you know gay rights and abortion all you know all the causes are good but that that means that's at the expense of commitment to halakha so what's real I saw Homer basically says is this is not and cannot be than either-or situation you embrace the fullness of Aloha with passion with fire with commitment with discipline and at the same time you view others not only with kindness but with respect and see the significance in their personalities and the way you break the inconsistency is by recognizing that avec Israel and kavod Abril are also part of the Torah so if you're embracing the mitzvahs of the Torah with passion you got to include that part of the tongue retail right it's not just the cartridge the Shabbos and the learning it's also the whole realm of being are done with a veil so these are things we think about during this period of severe went to Omer again I wish you all a coda stove and good a good year [Music]