Rav Nota Schiller - Surrounding them/it All - Parashat Matot-Masei

a difference of opinion between the rambam and the ramban on whether or not the discussion that we find in ghazal on whether or not the surrounding of midian the yitzbuh midian the surrounded minion was it from four sides or only from three sides renascent says only from three sides and you left the fourth side as a root of escape that's one math locus that we find over there and that original much like this first mach lakers is a mach lakers on how we pass skin according to the ramban it's a mitzvah ladarius just like they allowed the fourth route as a as an avenue of escape similarly it's midalke rahmanus just like we have to be cradle of shalom we give the enemy an opportunity to comply to give in to what would be the demands of claudioso the requirements for them to have a peaceful relationship with us so the ramban says it's a mitzvah ladies that you beat them let them escape and don't worry about it obviously that if there was a some kind of suspicion that they're going to regroup and come back at you again so you you don't do that but they but if it's sufficient that they'll disperse then then it's it's a mitzvah to me does not listed as a mitzvah the rambam explains that it's good strategy it makes sense to do that because we have seen in history that when nations uh at war a smaller group is surrounded and the they give up hope they they abandon any possibility the despair of being able to get out of the situation then they will the adrenaline starts to flow another dimension they become so so dedicated committed that the the the resistance is intensified and they can win a smaller group over a larger group so the rambam is saying it's not kidai it's practical which means that if it's a pragmatic consideration that there may be an overriding unique situation where that can change it's not a mitzvah ramban says it's a mitzvah raman says under the circumstances that they're that you're able to express the mercy so that's one mahlokus on whether or not they surrounded from from four sides or not there's another like this uh and there's a mitzvah so in the reading of the the mesh presents that it comes out of the in the in the sephora dirty that if you read it the first mahlokas is the the language of the of the prosec that the that they were given over to to serve but yamasu indicates that they went with the seriousness of the tanes muhammad they they totally dedicated but nasa says nobody others had to give them over others said he's excited he can go to war he can't those were the military requirements somebody should have an availability and so the there are two mahlekas in there presents that it's alishitosam that it's tori's episode that the if you hold like the rambam if you hold like the rambam that it's not a mitzvah ludairus but it's just good strategy so then holding the position that they went with merciless nephesh for your muscle they went with mercedes never means they make calculations you didn't factor in that it may be counterproductive for you that it doesn't that they didn't care this is nefesh they're going to they're going to do this this battle lushitosa that would hold that they that they went with merciless nephesh and they since they went with mercedes nephesh they surrounded from four sides even if it might not have been productive would have been counterproductive but yeah mostly that they went with merciless nephesh they didn't make that calculation this is going with the rambam that it would have been kidai for them to leave the fourth avenue was a route of escape they would have encountered a less passionate sense of resistance that wasn't rooted in despair and having no no recourse no choice and therefore more dedicated resistance the rambam also would since it's that's the enchangement ravenosan says they did make they were give they were given over by others they were given up by the others because they were making us they were making this and therefore if they make threeness they made calculations they were trying to figure the strategy that's going to work best for them so therefore they did not surround from four sides and therefore they allowed that route of escape so it comes out both sheet is both both positions in according to the work and we can understand it as a torso that the tanakama and ramnasan holding their positions that by yamaso if it's messier snappish then they did surround from four sides and if they if they were given over by others they were marking the calculations in fact that is a that is a it's a premise it's a principle that that applies in life as well that it has been we we have noted it in the past that kirov is the root form of krav it's a battle you're doing battle you're forming an alliance with the other fellows yetzer hora to gang up excuse me the other fellows yeah it's a tov to gang up and i say it's a horror you're forming an alliance with your yetzer horror to try and focus it funnel it direct it in the conduit that it should be productive but you're forming an alliance with his unconscious yetzer tov that would allow for his yetzerhora to to be focused and to be directed as well crab so it would seem that it's all the difference in the world on how a in human relations in general not just kiru that when you surround somebody from four sides and he has no option of resistance that seems to be reasonable he'll resist with abandon in a way that can be reckless and can be unanticipated even suicidally and that kind of as the rambam says that in history we've seen that we saw the thermopylae at the different junctures in history where a small army can win over a large army because they have they're throwing themselves in with a with a sense of despair and nothing to lose in human relationships it's similar you surround somebody from four sides you don't leave him a fourth route of escape that's all the difference in the world as the saba kabbalah says on the mitzvah of is to convince to convince is to present the case that says would mean to be confrontational s means together with him put the information on the table make the presentation and then from that point analyze it together what do you think about this what do you think about this it's learning up the subject of the issues that you're now working on as something to be understood from within not superimposed from without understood from within means that let's see if we can work this suggest together s together with and means to persuade to persuade means to convince but conviction has to come from within conviction somebody can be coerced into a particular position but that's not conviction conviction is when it comes from within yes we have a principle that behaving in a certain manner creates a certain relationship to that behavioral norm and being in a certain environment has an impact on us that that will always be true but we are not forfeiting and it's our and responsibility to situate ourselves in a place in a time amongst those that are likely to be more sympathetic to helping us develop those norms that are more probable and it's a probability it's not behaviorist it's not a foregone conclusion that you're merely the sum total of your previous actions but it's it's a probability but i have the free will to make choices at each juncture to to adjust and to re-evaluate that's in fact part of what's alluded to in the following pausa that the rambam in the morning asks why do i need such a detailed description of the different places where they stopped in the midwest where they were coming from where they were going in the in their stops in the in the desert it would seem to be that much of that is is not it's not really needed no such thing in the territory is something that's not needed it's not instructive for generations everything that's there is bearing some level of a message says that the reading about these events and an entire nation taken in to a desert to individuals in the desert would find it hard to survive let alone an entire nation with men women children to be able to survive for a block of time 40 years in the desert since the rambam there's somebody could come along and say well probably they're like those bedouin arabs that it was close to the habitation and they could feed off the the area the vegetation do business with them uh or there was near an oasis so it had to be detailed the catalog with the testimony that comes with it and we'll come back to that in a moment that that this was in the middle of desert it was far from the habitation it was not in a place where there was an oasis where there was such a an extraordinary visitation in a in a in such a place it's catalogued but the entire time no and it was miraculously sustained their existence by the man the bearer of miriam and the analya covered the protecting them and how do i know that that's true that's a testimony how do you know the testimony is true like the success helen tell us that that haniya god was no people somebody went on record is already recording it that no one ever starting a religion the havdel alfie of dollars or for lipo will ever make such a claim it's not just that we make that claim it's that somebody made the claim part of our claim is nobody else will make such a claim how can somebody take such a risk have such exposure that that no no such claim will ever be made the terror is teaching us that the it's a claim that can't get started cannot get started unless it has a truth to it and that truth is such because anybody beginning a religion would want to make such a claim rather than if he's going to go out and market his wares and the in the the marketplace of ideas and theologies so surely you would prefer to make such a claim rather than saying x number of people saying everybody because once you see everybody it cannot get started those of you who have not yet seen rabbi gottlie's book reason to believe it's an analytical survey of this claim and its implications and its uniqueness but the claim is and part of that claim is already being presented and anticipated that there'll be a yamaya and a yamaya will come along and take a tin senate a jar of the man and he'll display it this is the one how will i know that there were a way to verify and validate that it was the month so the rambam is saying that the that the jew in history is going to be able to some time at some place whether it's through the rational presentation of the alternatives and what is the most reasonable way to understand what has in fact transpired as anticipated by the torah and or perhaps there'll be eventually some archaeological support that'll be more than just theorizing and guesstimations that will be more substantiated that here's where claudiosol was here's where they where they stopped and we'll be able to validate it but maram shikh and others also point out that the when the posix says it begins with massey banaya so that the mashable talks about the travels in the desert he tells moza am where they exited the massam to their to their travels the island and the passage switches that was alpia shem this is the travels from where they exited it has been pointed out as i say by iran shikh and others that each one of us in our lives when we look back at the different stops and stations that we had along the way in our biography where did it come from where would we exit where did we exit and where each juncture in retrospect becomes a new dimension of perspective of what we're doing here in this place now mozam where am i coming from where did how did i get to where i am and that should then be instructive for me in moving forward and the there's a built-in kind of of denial that that people have a preference to to to reject the java salvolva says that it's frequent that in life that people don't have the kind of gratitude that they should expect the parents should expect that the children should have to the parents why because it happens with regularity something what happens with regularity i assume that that is the case and it's going to be that way going forward cry yourself in the desert began to assume that the miracles were built into the system it's going to continue they became it's it became so habitual and routine for them that there was a kind of a trauma a shock in seeing it cease the same person says that that has one act of hesit to relate to of kindness from a stranger who praised the stranger do all kinds of expressions in his experientially and verbally to to recognize the hazard but his parents he assumes that it's true crisis on the desert had that kind of a of a an asylum they had been tutored in nissan the modem in the in the miracles that took place in the desert and therefore it was kind of an expectation that it's going to continue so then at the moment when this is not happening anymore it's incumbent upon you to look back saying but look how did you get to where you are it it happened because of yathias mitsaryam because of the nissan that were there they they weren't necessarily going to happen some safer says that claudio was was emphasizing that the that our travels in history when we went off the road a bit is more sam because rabbanisham you took us out to a situation which was extraordinary which was not the norm and therefore with less there's less of a liability events in history are [Music] invariably perceived through humanized interpreted and it's the environment in which we find ourselves that shapes our perception and our understanding with prop probably again not a foregone conclusion when the united states forces came into the came into auschwitz broken world and they found the carnage and the murder and the horrific conditions commander-in-chief of the american army eisenhower said photograph photograph record everything that we find here because it won't be long before there will be mom zero and he didn't say mom zero there'll be mom zero that will deny this happened and that's just how long ago and amongst those who deny that it happened of course there's a leftist jewish renegade rogue leadership that lead the pack shocking anticipated it was that's the way it was in in history there was a dosama virum there were the renegades rogues whose personal needs now we don't deny that your starting point of encounter of interaction with the world is through my sense of myself by the michigan the pasik is invoked when he knows should be pleasant for us our actions our action our our creativity our activity should be should be blessed with success so that's all subjective that's the way i meet the world through my sense of myself my subjective that's the yetzahola that i have to find a kind of level of pleasure sympathy with my potential and the actualization of it an experience the application of it only then step three is the beneficial that that which we subjectively aesthetically take pleasure from should be objectively true and should be confirmed as what we were supposed to do in history different junctures in history have different different designers if you're connected to the past you have a sense of mozzarella where you began the miracles in which you as an individual are part of a nation that experience this so this nation by simchris vasa shueva we had those who said that ashley this kingdom that said that the youth doesn't have to apologize and atone for their their elderly years don't have to apologize and atom for their youth the balichuva say ashrae please rabinisham praised me that that you've built in the apparatus there is such a phenomenon as chuva it would seem that clavicle again find this in the mephosium if they're linking to history they are connected to the past like we say in the golden that of develop are you that clad yourself were over there we have to atone because it's one nation if you're taking the upside of clarisol in history where they're coming from the collective national experience and uniqueness from a brahmavino up through the encounter at sinai and to where we are today then you're also part of the process of a corrective that the chuva for the national experience of claudia so and there is a tsar there's idea that the the individual malchus in a certain sense can can appreciate and declare both he is yes he's saying that it can atone for our earlier years but he's going to be positioned the revenge on will give him the kayak if he doing it as terra gives him the guidance the direction the appreciation of how to go about it halachically so then he'll produce a generation that will be able to say ashrae sigma senator does not have to atone for our earlier years so this balchuva is really straddling both especially in our generation and perhaps that is why he's so uniquely placed to bridge the past with the future in this paradoxical challenge of equiset michigan of the messianic era shemitahn that we should be safer to foreign [Music] you