Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Why God Chose Abraham and the secret of the two Heys

[Music] everybody thank you so I want to talk tonight it's a little bit so it's connecting tourists but tonight that will be mainly on the par co2 that we're looking at that is the concept of what you might call the election of Israel or particularly the choice of a ground you know when I've run me several five involved we read that all of a sudden God appears them out of nowhere and God says leave your native land leave your family and come to the land that I will show you and with you I will make a covenant that will make you a great nation I will bless you you will be a source of blessing for the rest of the world etc and Avram goes to Eretz with her that's the air it's Kanaan and the the question that the commentaries ask is why what why did God choose a problem to make a covenant with now because I'll give us a whole back story cuz I'll give us many many details but those details are actually not recorded in the Torah we're told when our room was three years old he recognized God because he said how could the world be created out of random chaos and of course when he was put in charge of his father's idle shop he broke all the idols and when Terah came back and Terah said what happened here in Avram said well the idols were fighting with each other and Terah said that's impossible so algorithm says why are you selling them as gods right just the whole Stern he was thrown into a fiery furnace and I coach Barker miraculously saved him and he demonstrated his faith in God prior to God telling him what look but the things are same thing is that all of these very familiar stories that we've heard many many times are actually not recorded in the text itself now there's if you simply read the Flemish and you ask me the question what reason does the Commish give for God choosing to make a covenant with opera-house you actually have no reason whatsoever that is stated in the clinician and people don't always realize that this is a general problem there are some each regime that are so familiar to us even from childhood in many cases that we literally think it is in the corniche itself the cover Leibovitz used to tell the story you know he used to give many many classes to high limb in the army that was her initial audience her Gil your notes were written for but cry a little to take tests and then said the min that she would grade them so she would calls that she was once giving a homage class to some senior officers in the IDF and she mentioned this point that so many meet regime are so familiar to us we think it's in the text and she mentioned Avraham being thrown into the fiery furnace so a gruff general what was very far from being religious but at learn too much as a child said what do you mean it started the Flemish I absolutely remember that it's in the flemish when I was a child we learnt it in the collage so nakama gave him a homage and said okay find it no he knew Hebrew that wasn't the problem so he's leaping through the combustion of course he cannot find that particular story so finally he says I don't want an abridged version give me the fo'c'sle mush and you know and she made the point that the Midrash in become second nature to us and we think it's in the text in fact it is not in the text it is indirectly alluded to in the text by the fact that algorithms place of origin is a place called or costume and according to one rabbinic interpretation the word or is a term for a furnace that generates a very very heavy fire but that's an indirect delusion and that does not give you the story so we're really back to the question if there were reasons for God choosing Avraham why does the Torah not record it so there's a fascinating thoughts of the morale of crack under the morale of prog answers this based on a passage in pure payer votes that says call a Vashi to William as up or any love that exists because it is dependent on some extraneous factor I love this person because they're successful because they're intelligent and the light the love is conditional on a certain situation so what blood of our when that situation goes away but lava the londoners away with it but when there's an aversion ain't no to lujah bits of our when it's a love that is unconditional then even if many external circumstances are taken away the love will still still be there now here is my morale says surely God had many many reasons to choose offer him his righteousness his faith his willingness to give up his life all of the reasons that gizelle gave us through their tradition but if the Torah would have said I am making a covenant with Abraham because of his righteousness because of his sacredness because of his goodness that would have structured the Covenant as conditional that would have made the Covenant as a Nevada through you without Morrison so what's going to be when the Jewish people sinned what's going to be when the Jewish people are not worthy what's gonna be when we are not living up to the Emunah of of Rama V know at that point the Covenant would be abrogated so although Hashem had reasons Hashem wanted to make a bris that was an unconditional covenant of love and therefore there are no reasons that are stated and that converts what would have been a Navajo Tomoya of a devar to a Nava Shana Thalia beador meaning there are reasons but a Shems bris as a result of those reasons becomes an unconditional covenant now an unconditional covenant does not mean there are no consequences for bad behavior yeah God looks we have Corbin you know we have many many sorrows throughout Jewish history but it does mean that even when there is suffering and even when there is destruction it is ultimately coming from a sense of God's connection to us it is not a rejection of Bobby's realm and that that's a very important idea again the Commish itself alludes to it many many times that a Shems relationship to i'm israel is that of a parent to a child and they parents may discipline the child a parent may be very harsh to a child but ultimately it comes out of a relationship of love in this connection I want to allude to a for a few moments to another half Torah which is not the after of this parsha at all but it's the interesting story of Hosea the Prophet Hosea that's the first of the twelve minor prophets they're not minor for the smaller prophets their books are smaller and Hosea is one of the most interesting prophets simply because of the action that he was asked to take Hosea was a prophet before the destruction of the temple in fact he was a prophet for the Northern Kingdom of the ten tribes of Israel and he was commanded to marry a prostitute a very well known prostitute and being an obedient prophet he marries the prostitute her name was go marry and go mare continued to practice her trade even after they were married and normally if a woman commits intentional adultery during a marriage of her luckily requires that the woman be divorced and yet Hosea could not do so now there is a very big McLucas among the commentators was this an actual historical event or was this a prophetic dream that God gave him did he dream of that he married this woman who may not have been real if it was a dream or did he actually marry this so my focus among them for ship some fortune finds it inconceivable that a profit would be told to marry a a prostitutes and therefore they look at it as a prophetic dream others say it was a historical reality but be visit many whether it's dream or reality what's the point what's the message what is the purpose of such a vision or such an experience so the Gemara gives us a very useful backstory that fills in a lot of detail in which Hosea being commanded to marry a prostitute is a response to certain claims that O'Shea was making to God that is when God tells so sheäôs speak to the Jewish people tell them to dig Shuba tell them to repent tell them to be better Hosea is said to have responded to God why are you bothering with these people they have demonstrating again and again and again that they are disloyal and what they do to because they want to avoid some calamity as soon as the calamity passes they go back to their old ways Khalifa Bo monetary exchange them for another nation now this is exactly the opposite of course of Moshe Rubino's response in the aftermath of the golden calf when a college barker wanted to destroy the Jewish people and make a covenant with none other than Moshe himself most you obey news said - I thought a spark oh if you're not taking them and don't take me I don't want the private deal I am with them if you drop them drop me if you want me you got to take them Oh Shia is kind of making the offensive statement or che SI for he didn't directly say make a cabinet with me but he said get rid of them assign somebody else so what a chef wants to do it's a very subtle thing I show so Shia to understand the predicament so to speak of unconditional love Hashem is saying it's not so easy for me to drop them I'm connected to them I love them and if you think that if you truly love somebody you just get rid of them when they're not living up to your expectations I want you to experience them marry this woman and she will continue of course to be unfaithful and then when I tell you to divorce her you will not be able to because basically you fell in love with her and you're stuck and therefore a chef is telling Oh Shia you now understand how I feel I'm kind of stuck with this unfaithful wife of course the Jewish people are always compared to a wife who keeps on screen but I can't tell people meaning this is the uncondition allottee of God's relationship with the Jewish people and the novella culminates with beautiful verses that to this very day the men say every morning when they put on their filling they rusted the the olam they rest asleep it's a deck of a mish butter professor over alpha men they rustically be a muna via - desertion be rustically Leola i will be trata shem is speaking about the jewish people i will betroth you to me forever i will betroth you to me but said it with righteousness and with justice and with loving-kindness and with I will be traffic you to me with faithfulness meaning I will be faithful to you even when you're not faithful to me for your dot and you will have intimate knowledge this is a euphemism Emily for for marital relations in the case of what that means with God that means a very emotionally deep relationship and you won't be connected to God so that is the notion of uncondition allottee and going back to the morale that is why the morale says Hashem gives no reasons for the covenants there certainly are reasons that sham didn't pick Opera randomly from the pool of the population but the Torah describes it as if it is a random election to indicate that is therefore unconditional it is a non-contingent it does not depend on it can its continued existence does not depend on a specific reason now this is when I run is 75 years old yeah the purple well that's so this is what the ROM bond says the purpose of testing is not that Hashem would drop him if he didn't pass the test but rather when you love someone you want them to become the greatest person that they're capable of becoming and the ROM bond makes the point over and over again that nice I young is not to inform Hashem of some information that he otherwise wouldn't possess because in either event a Shem knows what the future would be but misión is to bring out the latent qualities of potentiality so that they become actualized in the character of the person so really an example would be your own child as a child is the perfect example you know one could say a parents has an unconditional love for my child I love my child no matter what but precisely because I love him no matter what I want him to be the best person he can be and therefore I will give him challenges and opportunities and jamayne see people make a big mistake when they think unconditional love means you don't expect anything of somebody you don't know a challenge them to to live up to certain expectations it's really the other way around if one does not demand anything of the people that they love that is indifference that is not unconditional love unconditional love can be tough love it can be demanding love it can be disciplined love but it's love because I care about this person no matter what he is at this given moment so the Rambam does right that's an important point that that you're bringing up that Mesa Yan is for us for the internal development of character by actual icing latent qualities that otherwise would not be would not be developed now we know that's the initial covenant was when Avram was 75 but the concretization of the traveler in the flesh did not occur until circumcision which was 99 years old Avram was living in Aris canal for almost a quarter century before there was the Brits belong now it's interesting that the commentaries asked a asked a question it's a technical question because I'll have a tradition and this is the mission in massacres condition that the avos the patriarchs and particularly Avraham Avinu kept the whole Torah even before it was given even before Mount Sinai Avram somehow intuited what the processes were not sure all of the commandments anavrin kept all of the toga and shallow Nina this is the Michigan condition now they're going to be many many questions about this if the augo skip the whole Torah how could you marry two sisters with others that's a very very big literature on what exactly did the elbows keep but based on this mission in condition the marsha asks this question if indeed the avos kept the whole Torah before it was given why didn't the from avinu circumcised until he was commanded surely he knew there's a mission mitzva called brits Mila he should have done it on his own right why did he wait away that ceiling so one famous answer was given by the great commentator on Rashi robiola young miss Rossi he was a Turkish guard Oh Turkish wrath of the 15th century he was you know there are hundreds of commentaries in Russia people don't realize how many more Shimon Rossi there are but the greatest and the most complete commentary is called the Mizrahi not to be confused with either rabbi yosef Iraqi or the old was rocky political party but rebel yell Mizrahi and he answers the question with an interesting tomorrow the gemara says god oh i'm it's so heavy osa Nimisha ain't no massacre by OSA what does that mean a person who does a mitzvah they are commanded to do gets more rewards than a person who does a mitzvah on an optional basis let's take the example of women women are exempt from many myths votes that are timed on so a woman does not have to sit Masuka a woman does not have to take a loo livin in a stroke any woman does not even have to hear show friend rosh hashanah although it's very customary that they do let's say a woman wants to take the lulav a woman wants to sit in the Supra a woman wants to hear shofar so we prosecute not only can she do it but she gets reward Hashem considers it to be a meritorious act if you're Ashkenazi you can even make a bra on the Mitzvah a shared key - underbrim it's ourselves if you're sorry you don't make a buck on the Mitzvah but you still get rewards but the reward of doing a mitzvah that you're commanded is greater than the reward of doing a mitzvah that you're not human now toss those in massacres avodah Zarah asks the question shouldn't the logic be the opposite if I do what I'm supposed to do what I have to do isn't that deserving of less credit than the person who goes beyond the luck and does more I just as we have time and a half for overtime if you work your regular rate hours you get a salary you work extra we give you more money so why should it be that if I go out of my way to do an extra Mitzvah it is not as significant so ptosis gives an interesting psychological answer he says that as soon as you have to do something there's a strong internal Yates ur Hara not to do it we love to be stubborn right the husband that is about to take out the garbage for his wife and as he's going to the kitchen take out the garbage his wife says to him can you take out the garbage when you leave there will be at least for a moment in his mind a certain reluctance I don't like tore nothing I'm not being autobiographically I but I don't like to be told what to do even though you were gonna do it anyway so ptosis actually says it is harder to do a mitzvah when you have to do it then when you don't I've noticed that in the reform movement there is a great increase in wearing to fill in more and more Reform Jews are putting on tefillin which is a good thing but the overwhelming majority are women very few men are putting on tefillin the entry so it's filling where is among women now there is a whole debate collectively are women allowed to wear to let's put that aside let's put that aside even if women are allowed to wear them there may be a basis for it it's a double pocket that women are exempt from wearing to fill them simply because it's a time bound commandment that we don't do at night and we don't do on Shabbos so why would women be more inspired to wear it's filling than men and part of it is well you don't have to do it you know you feel better about doing it than when you have to do it when you have to do it we are naturally storing right that is disturbance okay now be it as it may go going back to rhythms Rocky he says the following by most mitts votes I can do a mitzvah before I'm commands it and when God commands me I can do it but I'm commanded later but bring me LA you can only do once once you do a Brit you so if a Brahma Vina would have done the Mitzvah when he was not commanded he would never again have the opportunity to do the Mitzvah to be commanded and therefore he deliberately waited and deferred the fulfillment of Brittany lap until such time that he could do it as maneuver by OSA wait wait wait you made this decision no no well no I've run made Avraham made the decision not to circumcise until Hashem gave him a commandment oh that's because he knew the whole Torah because he knew the highway good god that's right that's right that's the point yes so this is the other terrorist this is what the bris Quran says the question how can you enter a covenant a brisk without being invited so that's really another answer in there that is a good answer as well it's a very very fundamental answer and that is covenantal relationships by definition need mutuality there are two sides coming together to establish a relationship it's conceptually incoherent to say I will enter a bris it's one thing to say I will keep Shabbos I will do something I will do a ritual but to say I will enter a Brit a covenant when the other side is not yet invited me to enter into the Covenant even though I know eventually he will that is not a Brit now there is that's just cutting and cutting a foreskin right the mitzvah of bread is not the mechanical action of cutting a foreskin the Mitzvah bris is the concept of entering into a covenant so consequently the bris Grove actually says the exactly what you're saying that the concept of brits cannot exist without mutuality which would require them to wait I can't enter into I even a contract with you until you're ready to enter into a contract with me you know story the customer forgets has changed and the cashier runs after him to return the Train yeah we consider that meritorious mhm what but in the case where he doesn't run after that customer and the bottom by it comes at the end of the day and finds that the kid that there's too much money in the register and asks where does this money come from and here's the story and then orders the cashier to go and return the money which cashier is more meritorious well I assume the one that ran after the customer rather than because the first case is well yeah yeah but but I think I think the difference is you know in human I think there's distinction in human relationships where my employer will fire me unless I do this action so it's less meritorious because I'm effectively acting under duress but but the nature of God's law is that God normally does not give you this immediate striking by lightning so consequently we do factor in our stubbornness and our resistance and the stubbornness is greater in fact even in even in the the case of the cashier probably there might be some stubbornness that I'm kind of embarrassed that I was caught in the act but but nevertheless I'm not really acting out of free will in that case because the consequences can be very severe but the case that he brought up the first case anyway even before the employer tells to return me he's obligated by God is yeah in case of God yeah yeah but he's fat I think he's factoring out he's factoring out God he's so just raisins yeah now let me give you the marshawn's answer though the marsh ah gives an interesting answer the marsh short answer is the whole question doesn't begin because the statements that Avram kept the whole Torah before and he was given was only after he had bris me it was the bris that brought him to a new level of perception prior to the bris he didn't keep the tower he was not aware of it so to ask the question why didn't he circumcised before the commandment based on his knowledge of the Torah doesn't start because his knowledge of the Torah was a consequence of the Brit Milah so what I want to explore is what is there about prince mila that would give around that type of extra perception what did the bris effect within his personality and another question that's connected to this is the she knew a Shem the change of name we know that Avraham's name was originally of rum and before at the time of the commandments of the princely lab Hashem said your name shall no longer be of rum it shall be of Rahab because you are of Timon you will be the spiritual father of a multitude of Nations and similarly suraíh shall no longer be sore right she shall be known as iraqis there was the way the Metis explains it it's a bit mechanical the iord was taken from Sarai's name and split into two hey so I've got one a and Sura kept the other hey but once again the same type of question what is the cycle T what is the connection between change of name name change so there is a tomorrow in the second Spanish you know there's a puck that we say every day keep Akash M Sorel of employers your day with the name of car Jordana hey God created worlds worlds so the gomorian Monaco's explains the following the worlds are all the mossad this world and all in the bottom and the other in the hey means a Shem used the spiritual energy of the letter yud to create the world to come and the Shem used the spiritual energy of the letter hay to create this world and therefore keep a car with the hoods and the hay soar olamim God created worlds although my BA with you'd owe them I said with hey now we don't fully understand the concept of how the letters of the olive base are the spiritual foundations they are as it were the DNA of the universe but this is a certainly a well-known idea the whole famous savory in Syria the earliest Kabbalist work that we have which some attribute to Algrim and some attributed other Mary Jean basically talks about the combination of letters I think I mentioned forgive me for repeating a joke that Mark Twain made kind of a sarcastic joke but the joke happens to be 100% true although I'm not quite in the way that he said it Mark Twain was at least towards the end of his life an atheist he had suffered many tragedies and this caused him to not believe in a benevolent God so in one of his writings he has an imaginary conversation between Adam and Eve in which Adam has just completed naming all the animals so Eve says to him why did you call that animal a lion because they're speaking English so Adam is impatient Adam says well it looks just like a lion why what else should I call it and again you know it doesn't make sense but if we translate that into Hebrew it actually makes perfect sense kaga ask son why did you call that creature in Rea and if I were to answer well it looks like an ia what else do you want me to call it that would have been the Kabbalistic incorrect answer because say free and sira teaches that all forms of creation came into being by God combining the spiritual energies of different letters in certain sequences and through the combination of the sequences certain things emerged and through different combinations of sequences other things there's a type of algorithm that's correct therefore under my Rishon did what would be called today reverse engineering so to speak he was able to see the spiritual structure that underlay all of these creations and he said this particular animal is a combination of our fresh goods hey that's the algorithm that is the the combination out of which this emerges so mark twain was my haben to say for you'd see him but so so why is Olam haba goods and all of us a so here's what the morale of praxis it's a hypothesis a suggestion he says I'm a bar of course is the world of pure spirituality there is no hungry out there is no gosh minute there is no materialism or physicality in Olam haba again this is - it's a very well-known idea although when cuz I'll describe Olam haba they use metaphors of party parties and eating and drinking and wine and the Leviathan and the wild ox etc but Maimonides the Rambam already writes this is pretty well accepted that these are metaphorical examples of spiritual experiences that we really can't fully comprehend so we use various pleasures that are within our realm but all of my bars the world of the spirits that was the Rambam was so emphatic on this that the Rambam was accused of denying physical resurrection of the dead he was accused even though he formulates physical resurrection as an eventual event as the thirteenth principle of faith he was accused of not believing one of his own fundamental principles because the Rob not very much de-emphasized anything physical in terms of ultimate reward and Punishment he did not feel the body was a worthy receptacle so to speak of that type of eternity in fact even resurrection of dead the ROM Bob says it's not eternal meaning the only thing that's eternal is so the body will be resurrected then it'll die again and that's it the only thing that is eternal is the soul itself so over ma ba is the world of Radiesse the world of spirituality the world of pure holiness it is therefore represented by you it because you it is the least material of a letter it has the smallest amount of physical space and therefore it represents the world of rodney's what is hey so here's the morale says a fascinating thing Hey is a composite of two letters it is a Dalit and the left leg of the hey the morale describes as a unit I would have thoughts about because today a young Dalit and you'd Dalit represents pure materialism because matter exists in basically four dimensions at least that's conventionally the way we understand it I understand that superstring physics says all sorts of other dimensions but our basic four dimensions you know length width height and time because time is a dimension of matter their time space idea was not invented by Einstein nor was it invented by the morality was essentially already in Greek philosophy that time is an attribute of matter and that is why at the very beginning of the Torah when the Torah describes in the beginning God created great Baruch in one of the translations actually is God not in the beginning but rather God created beginnings meaning to say time itself is a creation that came into existence with the physicality of the world time and space are linked in that particularly way so therefore if a hey is a composite of pure materialism which is dominant and pure spirituality that's a good so it turns out if you'd represent pure rightness hey represents the ability of integrating spirituality into the physicality of time-space now in many ways that may be a lowering of the intensity of holiness which is why hay is only half over you but it is actually a higher and greater achievement that's exactly right that's the next thing there's a very famous kumara that I'm sure you have heard it either your Shepard Broncos or some other shipper Broncos one of the most famous Sheva Broncos commence that ish and he shot share two common letters elephant shin and the man has a yard in the middle and a woman as a Hey and you did hey spell God's name one of God's names so the Talmud says when God is in their marriage men are men and women and women and everybody is doing what they're supposed to be doing but ain't gosh em out of their marriage take away the other to take away that you have h they become a fire that will destroy each other with jealousy and animosity and anger famous come on therefore keep hashem in your marriage but the Kumari does not answer the question okay name of God but why does the man get the hood and the woman get the head so the morale says the following he says men are are often adversely affected by their confrontation with the world just as a person with emphysema might need pure oxygen right the normal oxygen is a little bit polluting etc so to with the man a man needs to withdraw from the world to a greater degree than the woman because involvement in the world can often bring out competitive impulses testosterone rivalry competitiveness negative things so a man needs to kind of withdraw from the gush meais of all of Massa through bates kanessa through synagogue through the sheba from colorado et cetera that's kind of the pure oxygen for the handicapped sick person who cannot take in regular air a woman's capacity and these are general Oh's agents but these are tendencies a woman's capacity is to be able to integrate within the physical and material world kedusha and not be as adversely effective as the man so the man needs the youth as a bit of a crutch the woman has the superior quality of the hey in fact you know there's a statement in the Gemara about women that many would interpret as pejorative but it actually reflects something that's very deeply complimentary there's a gumar that says nauseam Datsun Kalos now literally that means women are light headed there flame they can't concentrate they can't focus they're easily swayed that don't tell us but in fact some of them are for some say that Don Carlos is a strength amout of weakness it means that they can swiftly engage and disengage to a multitude of multitasking here let me illustrate what I mean there was a famous social psychologist professor at Harvard University who died a few years ago Carol Gilligan no not Jewish and she wrote a very path-breaking book in the 1970s called a different voice and this was the height of the feminist movement in which many feminists were making the arguments that there is no difference inherently between men and women everything his environment everything is social and we need to obliterate the distinctions she was convinced as a professional woman that that was not correct and innately there were different ways of perceiving reality and the way she established was she administered tests to very young children now of course you to make the argument well they've already been socialized okay but she took like five year-old children and she gave them a test now I'll give you one item from her test and what and this is what she asked hundreds of kids let's say you had a child who needed medicine and if the child didn't get this medicine the child would die and there's only one drugstore in town that has this medicine but the drug store is closed what do you do so every single boy answered well you take a rock and you smash the glass and you take the medicine now that's not a bad answer at all I mean that you know you do it for because nefesh the girls that were asked the question they also said well if you have two will break the window but they added but be sure to leave a note and to tell the owner that you broke the window and you're going to pay for it now the significance that dr. Gilligan drew from that study was that men have a tendency towards intensity meaning to say they will identify the critical question and they will hone in on that critical question but in the intensity of their prioritizing the most important thing they will literally not think of anything else now that's why you know you don't interrupt a man when he's focusing on something whether it's a football game or a piece of Gomorrah you know a people are intense we focus laser like we can't be disturbed no matter what it is the money even if it's a trivial inconsequential thing we don't like to be disturbed a woman doc don't I love going back to that means the idea that even when you identify the important issue you still perceive life as having interlocking relationships that cannot be ignored that's the data and that's the doctrine colossal and this really cuts through a lot of things so there's a Kumari that says the coast is a plus that's a pleasurable to see that's a plus that she's able to engage and disengage with a multiplicity of things as opposed to a man that will be focused on one thing so when you ask much more which is better the point is not oh they know men are better than women or women are better than men that's that's very sterile because if people will give you a bunch of texts showing that men are superior and you countered with a bunch of text showing that women are superior so that's a zero-sum game you know if the men feel bad if the women are superior and the women feel bad if the men are superior so what are you gaining with that it's not a question of better or worse it's a question of the world needs both both are necessary skills and a college Brahman created a diversity of skills and talents because the world needs both intensity and focus and the ability to take everything into account both qualities are needed so as a result therefore the man is the hood kind of there when he focuses on roughly is has got to be exclusive the woman has to superior quality of integration but the morale says that ultimately since karma is charged to be an Acer connect though it helped me to Adam ultimately the woman is designed to train the man to become a hey as well to integrate material world with spirituality and delight so now with this we can understand why a firm's name change occurred but Africa with Brits Mila sorry I never both had a hey because here's the thing the say Frappuccino writes that why did I shall make the Covenant of circumcision on the organ of man the sexual organ of man because the separate even says because the sexual organ of man in some ways represents the most animalistic part of the person the part that maybe is least susceptible to voluntary control it represents something that we have in common with the animals even more so than eating because although eating is also an animalistic function but eating has a certain volition that sexual arousal may not always have and by putting the covenants on that part of the human anatomy God is making the statements that even the most materialistic part of yourself can be subjugated and directed and consecrated towards the service of God you're using the most materialistic well well the one that's least susceptible to the immoral and spiritual as than one that's yet sexual arousal can happen to a person without necessarily any volition on their on their parts through whatever different experiences so it turns out therefore that grit mitla itself represents the triumph of the spirits over even the material and animalistic functions of man and that is why Avram gets the letter hey but not forget that point because hay represents the idea of integration remember that this is a fundamental difference in some ways between at least Christianity and theory and and Judaism Christianity in theory again obviously there are many different Christians in many different groups but but philosophically Christianity views the world tainted by original sin as largely evil and holiness comprises the ability to disengage from the physical that is why I believe it's once either Paul or Peter I think was Paul something but Paul remarks that it is better to marry than to burn meaning to say marriage was tolerated as a concession to sexual desire and therefore it was given a a means of legitimation but optimally if you're truly holy you're a priest truly holy you disengage from that because holiness is disengagement from the physical world to whatever degree possible that is why there is chastity that is why there is poverty that is why their celebrity celibacy and and the like because the paradigm of holiness is disengagement now we do know that that has not been that successful as we see from the difference scandals but at least in theory holiness equals disengagement by contrast in Judaism we know that the very first mitzvah of the Torah is to be fruitful and and multiply and indeed the random writes that the myths marriage is not only for procreation even if someone is infertile even if someone is postmenopausal woman is postmenopausal there was inherently a myths where they get married a college boy who wants us to express intimacy and like eating and drinking are of course Mitzvah and Judaism at various points so a very fundamental difference is that the idea of holiness in Christianity is primarily one of separation from the world and although in Judaism I cannot deny there are some references to that as well but the predominant idea of holiness and Judaism is the ability to sanctify elevate and consecrates even the material world and that is bridge Mila and that is the letter hei which represents the integration of the u.s. into the Dalit the Dalit remember is materialism the the other side of the hay is the UN which is spirituality it is that great integration in factor of southwark of lublin says there's even a visual reference to this by ma tante hour before the Ten Commandments were given it is described that the Jewish people perceived bolts of lightning in the sky and after the Ten Commandments they saw ma P dim they saw torches first they saw Barack in Barack then they saw up it kind of sounds like Israeli politics yeah Barangay many of your elbow pit first there was the Barack and then there was the LA Pete what is the difference or a sort of sense that this visualization represents a different level of holiness pre Torah and post or pre Torah holiness would involve disengagement from the material disengagement from the material by definition can only be temporary because eventually you have to eat eventually you have to sleep eventually you have to come down from the mountain so that represents lightning because what is lightning total be a brilliant light but then you get plumb into darkness but the Torah taught us that there's a sustainability of holiness even upon confrontation with the material world that is a torch now a torch flickers and it's not as bright as the lightning it's not as ecstatic as the lightning when I have to deal with regular life but it does give me a certain permanence it does that you know as I don't go from total light to total darkness I have something that sustains me and that is the notion of sanctifying the gosh mr. physicality and that started with Britta Mila so with this we can understand going back to the marsh ah remember that my shoulder Marcia was the one that said I from avinu did not understand the Mitzvahs before there until the bridge Mila the understanding is very clear unlike something like Torah learning which is an activity of the mind MIT's vote are taking the raw materials of physicality and transforming them into holiness right you take care of the leather of an animal and you make to fill in you spin the wool of a sheep and you make scissors you take different fruits and plants and you make a little living area you take animal horns and you make them a show for mitzvah is about looking at the world and not saying I must reject the world but it involves looking at the world and saying I must transform the world but I've done that so i brahma ability to intuit the idea that I can transformed physical reality and they can make it a medium of holiness that came as a result of bridge Milla which represented that very idea until then he could not into it how the physical could be channeled and transformed into the spiritual so this is really a very important lesson for us in life generally and that is every encounter that we have I mean the wrap of themself writes the Rambam rights that we sometimes make a big mistake when we think of Rosetta Shem is only when we're actually doing technical mitzvahs we're learning or we're Domenic throughout them says even if a person takes a vacation you have a modern example a person plays basketball her person jogs if the person's intention when they do all of these activities is I want to put myself in a better frame of mind and a healthier body so I will serve Hashem with greater energy and greater commitments the Rambam writes the basketball and the jogging and the relaxation and the vacation all become like missiles which are part of your abode attetion and he says this is the meaning of the statements and Pirkei avos which apparently moved the Rambam personally because the Rambam calls this mom are honey flood the wondrous saying of the sages that says call moussaka nila shape shamayim all of your deeds shall be for the sake of heaven the Rambam says this is not only your spiritual deeds but even your everyday needs a little thought the little reflection can convert everything into a mitzvah there's a famous story they tell this is one of those generic stories that when you say it they make it a Jewish story when going into study anyway in fact I think probably originated as a non Jewish story and then you know Jews just Judah sized it's a Julian States and the like but it involves basically three people who worked at Stonecutters and all they did from morning tonight was cut stones and carried them away and then at night they would just drop into bed sleep and then do the next thing the next day so each of them was asked how would you describe your life what is your life so again whether it's building the Taj Mahal building a cathedral building a show you know the it comes in three flavors all the eyes inspect it was not a Jewish origin story but let's use it as a Jewish story but it makes no difference so stone coated number ones said literally what he does my life is unending drudgery all I do is I cut stones I carry stones and then what I'm so tired that I'm literally gonna just drop I just fall into bed after eating a piece of bread and the next morning I do the same thing over and over and over again that is my life unending boredom is the story of Sisyphus essentially you push up the rock the rock and it just comes down again and push it up again second-person did the exact same thing the second person said every stone that I cut I'm earning some - I'm earning some income for my family for my children for my wife that I love and care about and hopefully with the extra money that I have I'm creating a life where my children will be able to have a better life than the life that I had so you already see a movement away from the notion of this unending drudgery - turning the drudgery into an act of nobility and purpose and the third person said even more the third person said because apparently these were stones being cut for a shawl a temple Taj Mahal a Cathedral whatever a religion is selling story says every cut of my hammer I am glorifying my god by contributing to the glory of Hashem in the universe so the point of this story is you can have three people who externally are doing the same thing but the meaning of their life our minds can reframe and redefine what it is that we're doing we can look at something as drudgery as boredom as having no spiritual value or significance and then that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy if indeed you take your action as to be devoid of significance it becomes devoid of significance and by the way there's no such thing as devoid of significance because as the Vilna Gaon says if we don't invest our deeds with concept if 'ti they actually become negative forces that drag us down so that it's not just a neutral it becomes a destructive force in our lives but through an act of will and an act of thinking you can convert that that very drudgery into an act of godliness in the world and it all depends on how you do it so two people can doing the exact same thing and it is not the exact same thing it is absolutely very very different and this is what bridge Milla represents this is what the hay represents and this is why I from Aveeno could see the potentiality of Miss votes out of the physicality of the world only after he had a bridge Milla [Music]