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A refreshing and clear review of each Parsha in the Torah presented by Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe
0:03 You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of Torch in Houston, Texas. This is the Parsha Review Podcast.
0:11 Good morning, everybody. Thank you so much, Rabbi Yaakov Wolby, for giving me this great privilege of sitting in your incredible seat and learning with the incredible people, friends of Nativ. And during today, we're going to do a little bit of a Parsha discussion about, try to learn as much as we can about Abraham. Because our sages teach us,
0:42 When will my actions be like the actions of our ancestors? Our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are the examples, of course, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah are the examples of what we should aspire to be like. So when we talk about... Abraham, it's not just because we're looking in the history books or we're looking in the Torah and we want to see the greatness of Abraham.
1:13 It's for us to learn something from it. We need to position ourselves in a way that... It has an impact on us when we read the weekly Torah portion, whether it be Bereshis, and we learn from Adam and Eve, learn the things that we could learn to improve our lives, to make the world a better place. When we learned last week's Torah portion from Parshas Noach, and we learned about Noach, what it means to be in a world which is a flood.
1:42 It's a flood where you have influences coming from all sides. We're being drowned, literally, with influences. And how to save ourselves from it. How to protect ourselves.
1:53 Our family. Our number one responsibility. What did Noah do? He took his family.
1:58 Protected his family. And then we come to this week's Torah portion. And we have all of the incredible stories of Abraham. So I want to walk in with the frame of mind of we need to investigate everything that Abraham did.
2:16 to learn the lessons and to try to internalize those lessons and make it part of our lives. So there's so many things that, you know, if you just look at the story of Abraham, what is it teaching us? The first thing it teaches us is that Abraham had a direct relationship with Hashem. God, creator of heaven and earth, and Abraham had a direct relationship.
2:45 That's number one. And we see this in our prayers. We say in the beginning of the Amidah, we say, Elokei Avraham, Elokei Yitzchak, Elokei Yaakov. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
3:02 Now, we know that everything in the Torah is about being punctual and exact with every single word. So, I mean, just a simple recommendation. You should just say the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Why do you need to say the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob?
3:24 It's a little bit extra, no? Or say, just teach us. Because Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob each had their own individual relationship with God. as each and every one of us should have our own personal relationship with God.
3:43 That means that what we need to be striving for is not that we should have a relationship like someone else has, that we shouldn't be saying, oh, this is the way Cindy prays, so that's the way I'm going to pray. This is the way Harvey prays, so this is the way I'm going to pray. No, I have to pray in my own way. I have to build my own relationship.
4:06 With God, creator of heaven and earth. And that's why it's Eloke Avraham. Abraham had his very unique and special way in which he related and connected to God. And Isaac had his special unique way.
4:21 And... Jacob, the same. And obviously it continues that the prophets, that the tribes and all of the prophets that proceeded after them and Moses and Aaron and Joshua and King David and King Solomon, they all had their own unique relationship with Hashem. Not a collective relationship alone.
4:49 As an individual, we need to develop that. Okay. The second thing that we can pay attention to in this week's parasha is the kindness of Abraham. Abraham reached out to everyone, all of mankind.
5:08 In fact, the Midrash teaches us that Abraham went out and tried to convey the message of God, as we're going to see in a few minutes. He tried to convey the message of God to the world, everyone. You know, we know he had a tent that was open on all four sides. A tent that's open on all four sides.
5:33 Imagine that. So that whichever direction you were coming from, you knew you were welcome. Oh, only if you vote like I vote, then you're welcome to my party. If you don't vote like I vote, you're not welcome.
5:48 No, that wasn't Abraham. Abraham accepted everyone. No matter who you voted for, no matter who you were married to, it didn't make a difference. Everyone was welcome into Abraham's tent.
6:03 And he gave everyone to eat. People like, when they were done, they're like, okay, I got my checkbook here. How much is it? And he said, no, it's going to cost you.
6:16 Of course it's going to cost you. You're going to have to say thank you to the creator. So they said, okay, thank you. Thank you for creating the food.
6:25 He said, no, no, no, no. I'm just a pawn in God's world. God, what are you talking about? Who's God? So what do you mean?
6:32 You think the world, the beautiful, perfect world that we're living in just happened on its own? You think that the trees just grow on their own? You think the plants just grow on their own? You think everything that we have in this magnificent world just happened?
6:47 There's a creator. Creator, tell me more. And that's where the blessings after we eat came from. Abraham says, you enjoyed a good meal?
7:00 Say thank you. Not thank you to me, the cook, the chef. Thank you to the creator who gave us all of those ingredients. Who gave us everything.
7:09 That's who you need to give thanks to. He used his kindness. We know that tent, but he also cared about people. He truly, truly cared about every human being, even those who were acting in an unkind way.
7:26 Those who were acting in a way like Sodom and Gomorrah, right? When God tells Abraham, I'm going to turn over that city. What did Abraham do? He didn't say, you know what?
7:40 It's not my fight. It's not my people. It's not my land. Leave me alone.
7:44 I don't need it. No, that's not what he said. He said, God, if there are 50 righteous, 45 righteous, 40 righteous, 30 righteous, 20 righteous, 10 righteous, to the point where, you know, there weren't enough righteous people to save the land. So Abraham says, okay, so let me at least get Lot, my nephew, let me get him.
8:08 let me get him saved. And that's what he did.
8:14 So what happens with Abraham is that he's boundless kindness. And number three, that point that stands out, and we're going to get into these. is that he stands up for God. He stands up for God and doesn't allow the mistake of the world to just be taken for granted.
8:37 He does everything he needs to do to stand up for the word of Hashem, stand up for his relationship with Hashem. Now, I want to learn something with you this morning that's really, really incredible and fundamental. We have in the laws of Maimonides, I put it at the edge of my desk and I can't reach it.
9:00 Okay, here we go. So in the laws of Maimonides, in the Mishneh Torah, chapter number one, in the laws of idol worship, the Rambam says unbelievable things. Where does idol worship come from?
9:24 Where does it come from? You wonder. Don't you realize there's a God? There's a creator of heaven and earth?
9:31 How are you serving an idol that's a bull or a tree or a rock? There's a creator. Don't you see that? Well, let me tell you what happened.
9:47 The Rambam brings the following. It is unbelievable. In the days of Enosh, the grandson of Adam. Mankan made a grave mistake and the wise men of his generation offered senseless advice.
10:03 Enosh himself was one of those that went wrong. This was the mistake they made, says the Rambam. They reasoned. God created stars and spheres with which to control the world.
10:16 He placed them on high and granted them honor, making them servants that minister before him. Therefore, the stars deserve to be praised and glorified and to be treated with respect. The people mistakenly thought that God wanted them to exalt and honor those that he exalted and honors. Just as a king wants the servants who minister to him to be honored, in fact, by honoring his servant, one honors the king.
10:50 That's what they thought. They said, if God created the sun and the moon and the stars, and where did he place them? Not accessible. They're far up.
11:00 You know, it's an interesting perspective for a moment. Just like if you think in every town hall. If you look all the way up, you'll see that there's a clock. Why is there a clock so high?
11:16 Shouldn't there be a clock right at access level? They have to go get a crane, lift someone up on a lift, and then he changes the clock whenever they change to daylight savings. He's all the way up there. Put it eye level, eye level.
11:32 Why does it have to be so high up? Very simple. Because if you put it down here, everyone would tinker with it. Because one guy walks by and he says, it's not 1150, it's 1149.
11:45 Adjusts it. The next guy comes and says, it's not 1149, it's 1155. And he moves it. And each one moving it back and forth, you'll never have clear time.
11:54 So you got to put it all the way up. Then nobody messes with it.
12:00 The
12:00 stars and the moon,
12:01 the sun, we're placed all up high. God says, you see? The people said mistakenly, you see, God put them so high because he honors and respects them.
12:15 So we need to do the same. We need to do the same. We're going to put them on high. We're going to respect them.
12:23 We're going to glorify them. After dreaming up this idea, they began to build temples to the stars and offer sacrifices to them. They would praise and glorify them and bow down before them, wrongly assuming that thereby they were fulfilling God's will. This was the doctrine believed by those who worshipped idols.
12:46 This is all in the Rambam, right in the first chapter. Of Hilchot Avodat Kochavim. Of the laws of idol worship. They never said that there was no God except for this or that star.
13:02 They never said that. We know there's a God. But we're serving God's creations. We're serving God's creations.
13:11 And here's where the challenge comes.
13:16 Many years later, false prophets told the people that God spoke to them and commanded them to worship this particular star or all the stars, offer sacrifices and alibations to it, build a temple for it, and make an image of it so that all people, including women and children and the masses, would bow down to it. The false prophet would fashion an image telling the masses that this was a replica of a certain star as revealed to him in a prophetic vision.
13:50 Imitating him, the people began to make images of temples under trees, on mountaintops, and on hills. They gathered and bowed down to them. Since, false prophet said, this image brings good luck or harm, serve it or fear it. Their priests would add, by performing this service, you will multiply and be successful.
14:13 Do this or that. Don't do this or that. So you see, it started getting further and further. What happens later?
14:20 Other charlatans came, claimed that the star, sphere or angel itself spoke to them and commanded them, serve me in such and such a manner. He would then describe a ceremony telling them, do this and don't do this. Thus these practices spread throughout the world. People worshipped images with bizarre rites, with bizarre rituals.
14:46 One more weird than the next, says the Rambam, offering sacrifices to them and bowing down to them. As the years passed, all mankind forgot God's glorious and awesome name to the point where people did not even recognize it. As a result, the common folk and the women and children knew only the image of wooden stone and the temples of stone they had been trained to bow down to, worship, and swear by since childhood.
15:16 So you imagine, if this is what you grew up with, so now this just becomes the norm. It just becomes the norm. This is what I always knew. Nobody told me there's a God.
15:26 Everyone only told me since I was a child. Bow down to the stars, bow down to the wood, bow down to this, bow down to that. So they didn't know any different. The wise men among them thought there was no God other than the stars and spheres that were symbolized by the images they had made.
15:45 No one knew God, the eternal rock, except for a few individuals, such as Hanoch, Mishushelach, Noach, Shays, and Aver. The world continued to plod along aimlessly like this until the pillar of the world, the patriarch Abraham, was born. And the Rambam now talks about the rise of Abraham. This is unbelievable.
16:15 These are the words of the Holy Rambam. Okay. He says, after Abraham was weaned, he began to contemplate man and the world. Although still a child, he pondered day and night wondering, how can it be that the sphere continually revolves without anyone propelling it? We're living here on this earth, planet earth, and it's revolving endlessly.
16:38 Who's spinning this basketball that we call earth? Who's spinning it? Who is making it go round? It is certainly not rotating by itself.
16:51 Living in Ur-Kasdim, among foolish idol worshipers, he had no teacher or mentor. His parents, like all the others, were idolaters. And Abraham used to worship with them, but his mind searched and reflected. Finally, he discovered, says the Rambam, the truth of the existence of God and figured out by himself the path of righteousness.
17:16 He realized that there was one God who guides the universe, who created everything, and that no other God exists. He concluded that the entire world was in error and that by worshiping the stars and images, they had lost sight of the truth. Abraham was 40 years old when he became aware of his creator. Once he recognized and knew him, he began to counter the arguments of the people of Orkazdam.
17:48 He debated the issues with them, telling them that their ideology was false. He broke their idols and began teaching people to worship the true God of the world. They should bow down, sacrifice and offer libations to him alone. so that all future generations would recognize him.
18:08 He explained to them that they should obliterate all images so that people would not again make the mistake of thinking that these images are the real God. After Abraham convinced people through his arguments, the king tried to kill him. We know the story of Nimrod. He tried to throw him into a burning furnace.
18:29 He was saved through a miracle and went to Haran. There he proclaimed that there is only one God in the entire world and to him alone should one worship. He spread the word in city after city and country after country until he came to the land of Canaan, heralding the message of God's existence, as it says in the Torah. There he proclaimed the name of Hashem, the everlasting God.
18:59 The people flocked around him, asking him questions. He then explained his message to each person according to his level of understanding until he won them over to the truth. Ultimately, tens of thousands of people came to hear him. These are the men of Abraham's household.
19:20 We know that we know in this week's Torah portion, right at the beginning of this week, Who are all these people that they're bringing with them when they traveled? These are the people who converted. These are the people who converted to the ideology that Abraham was training the world. There is a God.
19:42 He's the creator of heaven and earth, and he's the one and only God. He instilled in their hearts this fundamental doctrine, wrote books about it, and taught it to his son Isaac, who continued in his ways teaching and instructing. Isaac in turn taught it to Jacob and appointed him as a teacher. He in turn taught others and bolstered the faith of his followers.
20:10 Yaakov, Jacob, our father, taught all of his children, selecting Levi, the tribe of Levi, as their leader, appointing him as Rosh Hashiva, the leader of the school, teaching to teach the way of God and observe the mitzvahs of Abraham. Yaakov commanded his sons to always appoint a descendant of Levi, of the tribe of the Levites. as their leader so that the teachings would not be forgotten.
20:40 The belief in one God took hold and flourished among the descendants of Jacob and those who had joined them until a nation that knew God came into being. So we know they were the Hebrews until they became the Jewish people when they received the Torah at Mount Sinai. Seven generations later from after, seven generations after Abraham was when Moses stood at the foot of Mount Sinai with the Jewish people, ascended the mountain and brought down the Torah.
21:12 After a prolonged stay in Egypt, the Jews assimilated and adopted Egyptian idol worship.
21:22 Levi, who remained true to the mitzvos of their forefathers. The tribe of Levi never served false gods. It was not long before the doctrine that Abraham had instilled in his offerings was, in his offsprings, was uprooted. The descendants of Jacob were on the brink of lapsing into the errors of the world and their corrupt ways.
21:47 But God, because he loves us, upheld the oath he gave to our father Abraham. He brought forth Moshe our teacher, the master of all prophets, and sent him to redeem the Jewish children of Israel. After Moshe prophesied and God chose Israel as his inheritance, he crowned them with mitzvot and let them know the way to serve him, teaching them the judgment imposed on idol worship and all those who stray after it. what the Rambam writes on this that I wanted to share.
22:25 What do we see from this here? What can we learn from this? This is so amazing. A number of things.
22:33 The first is that people didn't worship idols because they wanted to worship idols. What people were saying, you know, to serve God, to serve God, God is just like so far from us. It's like, We can't relate. We need something relatable.
22:53 You know what's relatable? Here, a stone. A stone is relatable because it's right here. I'm holding it.
22:59 Or a tree or a mountain. I can climb the mountain. I'm right there. I'm connected.
23:04 God, God is just, I need something more accessible. The sun and the moon, I can see. The stars, I can see. God, I can't see.
23:16 God, I can't touch.
23:21 They wanted something tangible.
23:24 So they said, all in the name of, well, these are creations of God. God glorifies them, so now I'm going to glorify them. And what happens, one generation, two generations, three generations, and before you know it, nobody even remembers that there's a God. This is the tragedy of idolatry.
23:46 We're living in a world today where there's so much idolatry. So much idolatry. I'll tell you some idolatries. I've mentioned this before in my other classes.
23:59 You know, one of my favorite ideas of idolatry is Harley Davidson. Nobody in the world just owns a Harley Davidson. Harley Davidson owns them. They make sure they have the Harley Davidson jacket.
24:22 They have the Harley Davidson stickers. They have the Harley Davidson tattoos. They got the whole Harley. It's like it's what they live, breathe and think about all day.
24:32 It's a religion. It's an idolatry. There are people who it's fashion. Fashion is their idolatry.
24:42 Out with the old fashion from last season, in with the new fashion, everything has to be exactly meticulously according to schedule. What they decide in France is the going fashion, the going colors, that's what it is. There are people that their homes, their materialism is their idolatry. Their home, they're constantly building and adjusting and this and that.
25:08 It's like... I just mentioned this in a different class. My dad was here last week and he said, you know, I haven't been in the torch center in a while. You know, maybe I'll go, we'll come by.
25:23 I want to see what's going on at the torch center. I said, yeah, no problem. Come by. But I said, it's not as impressive as the old torch center.
25:31 I said, this is a very temporary space. We're looking to buy a place. So my father stops me and he says, we're all temporary. Okay, we're all temporary.
25:43 We have to remember that. We're all temporary. Sometimes the idolatry can be our own health. God gives us a body.
25:53 We have to take care of that body. But do we idolize that body that we have to be careful about? The body is there just to serve us. And we need to make sure that we maintain a healthy body.
26:05 But once it becomes and ends onto its own, that's when it falls into the idolatry category. There were many countries, nations, cultures that idolized the body. The body was the essence of everything. As children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, our focus needs to be, how am I serving Hashem, the one and only creator of heaven and earth?
26:35 Serving him with no barriers, with no interruptions, without having anything. as a conduit or an in-between or a blockage between me and Hashem. So it becomes the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, and the God of me directly, just like they had a direct, uninterrupted relationship with God.
27:03 Me too. I strive each and every day to have a direct relationship with God that is uninterrupted. That is no barriers. That is nothing in between me and God.
27:17 We don't, you know, it's like I once, we hosted a lecture here many years ago by Rabbi Yosef Mizrahi. And he spoke about why, you
27:36 know, why, he spoke about why Jews don't believe in JC. And it was a great lecture. And we got great reviews. People loved it.
27:48 People wanted more. And I got a letter. I got a letter from a senior rabbi in our community. And the
28:00 rabbi writes me. I have a copy of the letter. It's like a two-page letter praising the lecture, praising the words of Rabbi Mizrahi. The message was so powerful.
28:12 It was great. I loved it. However, he writes in his letter, What type of disrespect?
28:21 Why would he never say the name of JC? He just says the abbreviation JC. He said, what's going on? He said, imagine if someone said about Moshe Rabbeinu, Moshe, our teacher, MR. That would be total disrespect.
28:38 How can he say that? It's unacceptable. So I reached out to the rabbi. And I said, I would like to come meet with you in your office.
28:50 You're a senior rabbi in the community. I'm not going to write you an email. I'm going to come meet with you in person. So he says, come, no problem.
29:01 We had a meeting. We scheduled the meeting. And we're schmoozing, catching up.
29:09 And then I said, OK. And by the way, about
29:11 your letter,
29:12 it's a prohibition in the Torah. And that's why the rabbi didn't say it. He said, excuse me? I said, yes.
29:20 It's a prohibition in the Torah. The Torah, in chapter 22 in Exodus, the chapter says, the verse says in the Torah, and the name of other gods shall not be on your lips.
29:39 He says, I don't believe there's such a verse. I don't remember seeing such a verse. I pulled it up for him. And I'm going to try to find it here while I am with you here.
29:55 Where is it?
30:03 You should not say their name. So he looks at the verse and he says to me,
30:13 you're correct. I've never seen that verse. And I apologize. You're right.
30:18 And that was it. That was the end of that conversation. But I thought it was very important. It was very important that it be clear and that people not think that this is being used as a disrespectful thing.
30:36 It's a prohibition of the Torah to not call any gods, any deity, any idolatry by its name. So that was a side thing. But the idea that we have a direct relationship with God that's unique, that's special, that's personal, is the exact
31:04 way in which we're supposed to develop our relationship with God. It's supposed to be personal. But there's something else that we learn about Abraham.
31:16 I just want to bring something else. I printed out an exhaustive list.
31:25 of 208 sources in the Torah and the prophets and the writings, which talk about knowledge of Hashem. Now we know we have a mitzvah to believe in Hashem, but what's the difference between belief or having faith versus having knowledge? You see, out there in the world, people will take a leap of faith. Now, I'll ask a question here.
31:52 I'm in a closed room here, okay? If I were to ask, I have a fine young lady here, okay? If I were to ask you, is it light outside? Is it light outside?
32:01 Well, I haven't been outside in five minutes. I don't know if it's light. I believe it's light outside. But what's if I say, go outside right now and check if it's light?
32:13 You know what she's going to come back and say? I know it's light. One is a belief. Yeah, general belief.
32:19 I have a belief that it's light outside because I was there five minutes ago, 10 minutes ago, and there was light. So I believe that there's still light outside, but I don't know that there's light. When you go outside and you see that it's daylight, that's when you have knowledge.
32:36 Which one is more powerful? Knowledge. Knowledge is much more powerful because knowledge is very important. Knowledge is concrete.
32:46 Knowledge is undeniable. You look in the Torah. The Torah in Exodus, you have maybe 20 times that it says in Exodus. Talking about the relationship with God, of our emunah, of our relationship with God as a relationship of knowledge, not a relationship of just a leap of faith.
33:15 It's got to be knowledge. God says, You know why I'm going to do these miracles? So that you know. That there's nothing like me in the whole land.
33:28 You will know that I am Hashem your God. That you should know.
33:40 God says, I'm going to hit the Egyptians in a way that they will know that I am God. They're going to know that this was me, God, creator of heaven and earth.
34:02 I mean, we say in the beginning of Simchat Torah, the first declaration that said, you commanded us to know, that Hashem is. God, creator of heaven and earth, and there's no one else. It's an exhaustive. 208 times I have it printed right here in front of me.
34:29 It's three double-sided pages. Unbelievable. Because what's the difference between having faith and having knowledge? So faith needs to be a level above knowledge.
34:49 We're going to redefine this for a second. You know, does anybody know the speed limit? Yeah, we know the speed limit. But does that mean that we drive the speed limit?
35:04 Just because you know something doesn't mean that you actualize it. I know there's a certain rule that does not mean that I live by that rule. Emunah is when you take your knowledge and put it into action. When you elevate your knowledge, I know that there is a God.
35:30 I know that there is a God. Why? Because I've seen him in my own life. I've investigated. I've looked.
35:37 You know, if you ever take a leaf, go take a leaf, any leaf. It's now fall. The leaves are falling. We don't have that many, you know, we don't have such a foliage here in Texas.
35:47 But take a leaf and just hold it up to the sunlight and look at the brilliance of a leaf.
35:58 You see like it's like a whole human body in there. You have all the arteries, everything. It's distributing all of that in these little, little, little veins. It's like it's amazing.
36:10 It's a leaf. It's one leaf that falls off the tree.
36:16 There you go. The foliage right behind you there. It's unbelievable the brilliance of this world. You know that there hasn't been a single invention in the history of the world since the creation.
36:35 The seven days of creation, there hasn't been a single invention. I know you're going to be all wondering, like Elon Musk just displayed a flying car, okay? That's quite an invention. No, it's a discovery.
36:49 It's a discovery of what is already in this world. Everything that God created on those six days of creation and he rested on the seventh, nothing has changed since. It's all built in. We all have cell phones, right?
37:05 How does that work? That when I'm standing here and I dial and it calls somebody, that I can talk to them. Oh, there's sound waves. Waves. Where does the waves come from?
37:19 Who invented it? Nobody invented it. Someone discovered it. It's a discovery.
37:26 It's always been there. And in fact, the Chavetz Chaim says, The Chavetz Chaim, who lived 100 years ago. He was asked by his granddaughter why there was so much technology being developed then. Imagine what technology did they even have.
37:47 They had a locomotive. They had a few cars. The beginning of the whole world of technology was just beginning.
38:06 And she asked the Chavetz Chaim why there was so much technology being developed. The Chavetz Chaim said, because there's going to come a generation that's going to need Emunah. They're going to need ways to see how God is so powerful. He says, when they see that there is a piece of plastic that can take a picture here and show you something that's going on across the world.
38:36 a person will suddenly be brought to the idea, is it possible that Hashem can't see? Is it possible? This plastic thing, I can put my thumb on it and it knows that it's me. Oh, but Hashem doesn't know who I am.
38:56 This can record every word we say, and it does, by the way.
39:03 You think that Google and Apple are not listening to every single word you say? You think your advertisements are just randomly being shown to you? Because random they figured, you know, oh, I was talking about buying a new kitchen table. Suddenly all the advertisements about kitchen table.
39:23 It hears what you're saying. It hears what you're talking about. But Hashem doesn't hear what we're talking about. This plastic does, but Hashem doesn't.
39:34 Obviously, we'll understand. Hashem records everything. Hashem sees everything. Hashem hears everything.
39:43 And Hashem understands everything.
39:48 Hashem knows what we're thinking. He knows our feelings, our challenges. If we realize that this machine has the ability to identify us, don't you think that God can identify us? Jonathan, don't you think that God knows exactly who you are and the challenges that you're facing right now and your hopes and your dreams?
40:17 That's why we pray. We pray to build that communication. So it's not just that God knows up there or something. Yeah, God, just like, let's keep a relationship.
40:27 You stay up there. I stay down here. Let's just like, let's call it even. No, we want to connect between us and God.
40:37 We want to communicate with God. We want to talk every day. You know, there's three prayers that we recite every day. Morning, afternoon, and evening.
40:48 The morning was founded by Abraham because the Torah teaches us that Abraham went early in the morning to speak Lasuach Basada. Basada was Jacob, sorry. It was Abraham. He went and he spoke to God in the morning.
41:02 Isaac was in the afternoon. He spoke to God in the fields in the afternoon. And Jacob was at night when he prayed to God. From here we have, it was instituted that we pray morning, afternoon, and evening to commemorate the prayers of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
41:22 It's not random that we have morning, afternoon, and evening prayers. It's a special gift that we have, prayers, that we can talk to God morning, afternoon, and evening. So what many people do, go to synagogue, you've got to pray with a quorum of 10 adults.
41:43 So what they do is, you know, instead of schlepping people out three times, just schlep them out twice in the morning. You know, I was in synagogue this morning at 7.15 this morning, and you have a quorum, and you have prayers, and then there's the 8 o'clock, and then there's the 9 o'clock. It's great.
42:02 Afternoon, you're going to schlep people out again, again, two more times. So what people do is that you get the end of the afternoon and the beginning of the evening and you do a BOGO. Buy one, get one. You come to synagogue one time and you get two.
42:23 Prayers at one sitting, so to speak. You come, you get the mincha right before the end of day, and you get the mariv right at the beginning of evening, and perfect. My grandfather never liked to pray in the late afternoon. He says from 7.15 in the morning, I'm going to wait to 6.45 at night.
42:46 It's too much time. My relationship with God, I can't wait so long to talk to God. So he would pray Mincha at the earliest possible time in the afternoon. He would already be in synagogue waiting because with such anticipation, I can't wait.
43:03 I'm not going to wait all the way another six hours so I can talk to God again and just get the buy one, get one free special. He wanted the earliest possible time. They don't want to wait longer. I think we should think about that.
43:18 If our relationship is real with God, my grandfather would say that if you learn prayer properly, You realize that each of your prayers are connected one to the other. So you continue in the afternoon where you left off in your prayer in the morning. You continue in the evening where you left off in your afternoon prayer. It's not, I got to punch a ticket.
43:40 I prayed the morning, prayed the afternoon, get your ticket punched.
43:44 It's anticipation and excitement.
43:47 God, I'm talking to the creator of heaven and earth.
43:53 He's listening to me. He hears my call. He knows my thoughts. But we're using prayer as a way of communicating, of building the relationship.
44:07 You know, this guy comes, he's called in to the therapist. The therapist says, you know, your wife was just sitting here a few minutes ago. And she says, you don't love her. I said, what?
44:20 Why would she say that? She says, the last 15 years, you haven't said I love you even one time. He said, what do you mean? When we got married, I told her, I love you.
44:30 And if anything changes, I'll let you know. We all know that that's not the way a relationship grows. A relationship grows when you communicate. And we need constant communication.
44:45 Every day to build on that relationship and build more and build more in that relationship. So we have knowledge of Hashem.
44:59 And then we have emunah. Now, I will tell you. If I sat with my grandmother of blessed memory, she's a survivor, she was in the covenant ghetto, and I said to her, can you prove to me that there is a God?
45:17 She would laugh at me. She would laugh at me. You know why? Because she had the highest level of emunah, which is called emunah pshuta, which is a simple, basic, faith, knowledge of Hashem.
45:36 She would laugh. And you know why she would laugh? Because she would say, God is everywhere. What's not to see in God?
45:43 God is everywhere. I don't need proofs. Everywhere you go, every breath you take. Which is what King David said.
45:50 King David said the same thing. King David said, Hallelujah.
45:59 Every breath. Praise Hashem. Hallelujah. I'll call neshima o neshima.
46:09 Every single breath is God there giving you the ability to live. But we take it for granted. We take it for granted. I'll tell you an amazing story.
46:20 My son, who's now 15, almost 16 years old, October 28th will be his birthday. He's going to be 16 years old. He's our miracle baby. Well, every baby is a miracle baby.
46:33 But he was already... When my wife was getting checked out during her pregnancy, they said that she had that the baby, they saw imaging the baby had a very severe condition called gastroschisis. You can Google it later. Gastroschisis, which is basically that part of the intestines of the child is growing outside of the body.
47:01 And it would be a very long process. If the baby even makes it, it would be a very long process of nine months of operation after operation. As the body grows, they would get more of the innards back inside. And it would be a long, long process.
47:19 So after the doctor left the room, after the doctor told it to us in the hospital room, I said to him, doctor, we're Jewish and we believe in prayer. Is this something that could be repaired in utero? He says, listen, you can do whatever you want. You can pray whatever you want.
47:44 But you see these images? These images don't lie. Okay?
47:52 A few weeks later, my wife was in the hospital still for bed rest, and they're trying to, you know, have the baby. This is 28 weeks of gestation. It's supposed to be 40 weeks. They kept the baby in for a few more weeks, and then they said, you know, we feel like the baby's in distress.
48:07 We need to deliver this baby. So we are in the room, in the labor and delivery room, but the labor and delivery room is right by the operating room because They said if there's even one thing we're rushing her in, she's going to have a C-section. And either way, the baby is going to need to have a surgery immediately upon birth because they're going to have to start the whole process of getting the gastroschisis, getting it back in. Okay.
48:44 The doctor is there. We have about 50 people in the room, maybe 70 people in the room. It's a packed room. You have the labor and delivery team, the regular one.
48:52 Then you have the emergency C-section team there. Then you have the baby surgery team. You have all the anesthesia. You have all the nurses.
49:00 Everybody's there. And the doctor is there and he says, gentlemen, team one, team two, team three, gives all the instructions. And then he turns to me and he says, and you don't move from here. You stay right next to your wife, you don't move.
49:16 And baby's born. And as the doctor instructed to everyone, they're gonna wrap the baby in the towel and team one and team two goes out with the baby. And that's exactly what happens. They cut the cord, boom, they're out.
49:36 The surgeon, a few minutes later, opens the door and she's white like this piece of paper. And she comes, calls me out. And she says,
49:50 you can take your baby. I'm like, what are you talking about? You guys have surgery. You guys have things you need to do.
49:56 She's like, please come with me. She brings me to the operating room. And on the table there is my baby. And she says, please find it.
50:08 Please tell me where it is. Show me. Looks like an ordinary baby to me. She says, please.
50:16 Where do you see the gastroschisis? Where do you see this? She says, wraps up the baby, puts the baby in my arms. She says, you can take him back.
50:25 He's yours. I come back into the labor and delivery room and the doctor's like, what's going on over here? I said, well, they said that everything is fine. He says, what do you mean everything's fine?
50:38 The images don't lie. And it was an amazing thing. And he says, I'm going to find it in a minute. I'm just going to, you know, waiting for the placenta.
50:46 Okay. And sure enough, the baby was, thank God, a great, great gift. The baby was still in the ICU and the NICU for about another month. And why was the baby in the NICU for so long?
51:02 And then when the baby came home, the baby was on a monitor for another two, three months. Why? Why was the baby on a monitor? And this is the point of the story.
51:12 Of course, it's very inspiring and I get emotional every time repeating the story, thanking Hashem. By the way, we named him, what did we name him? Yehuda. Yehuda is giving thanks to Hashem.
51:26 Thank you, Hashem. But I'll tell you why the baby was on a monitor for so long. Because the baby didn't remember to breathe. You know, you don't need to think about that.
51:40 Most of us don't need to think about breathing. Because it's an autopilot. The brain needs to remind the heart to pump. And the lungs to breathe.
51:57 That's the way it works. It becomes an autopilot at some point where the brain doesn't need to send a clear message every time. It knows it. It's on its own.
52:08 It's on autopilot. But when a baby is born before a certain age, it doesn't know that yet. It didn't learn that yet, which is about 35, 36 weeks of gestation. He was born before that.
52:23 So it didn't remember that. And they needed to get it to a point where it would remember on its own to breathe.
52:32 Even our breath. Every single breath is praise to Hashem. Every single breath that we breathe needs to be a thank you to Hashem.
52:50 Hashem, thank you. I'm living in a total miracle. And to never take it for granted. Abraham was doing this every single day.
53:03 All around the world, every city he traveled to, every country he traveled to, wherever he went, he was going to glorify the name of Hashem. Everybody needs to know that there's a God, there's a creator. Don't give in to the simple, cheap gods out there. Yeah, the motorcycle, that's the God.
53:24 The houses, that's the God. The fashion, that's the God. The politics, that's the God. We are living in a generation today, in 2026, where we see open miracles.
53:39 Just two weeks ago, there was a plane flying at 33,000 feet and descends to 14,000 feet. And a plumber saves the... I mean, give me a break. If you needed a better story to see the hand of God in
53:54 front of the entire world, we
53:58 have it right there in front of us. But you
54:01 know what we need to
54:01 do?
54:06 There's a verse in Psalms. That says, When you see the, what's Boker? Boker means morning, but Boker means Levaker, means to, when we do Bikur Cholim, you know what we do when we visit the sick? We're investigating their situation.
54:28 What do they need? They need this, they need that, whatever it is, you're there to help them. Boker means you have daylight. You can investigate, you can see what's going on around.
54:44 When you have clarity, sing the praises of God. You know why? Because there's going to come a time where it's going to be dark. And you're not going to have clarity.
54:56 In our lives, we all have times we're on top of the world. And there are times we're on the bottom of the world. But if you make great memories when you're at the top of the world, it'll be easier to get through it when you're on the bottom.
55:10 We all have days that everything is shining, everything is sparkling, and everything is
55:14 great. Livelyhood is great. Job is great. Relationships are great.
55:19 Everything is all bells and whistles. Everything is going great. And we all have because we're healthy people. We have times where we're at the bottom of the world.
55:29 We're just, it's doom and gloom. How are we going to ever get out of this? This is terrible. If you sing the praises of Hashem and you store away, you say, thank you Hashem, thank you Hashem.
55:43 Thank you for this and thank you for that and thank you for every single breath. And thank you for giving me the opportunity to see beautiful pictures. I woke up this morning and I saw a beautiful sunrise. Thank you Hashem.
55:56 What a beautiful gift. You see a beautiful sunset. Thank you Hashem.
56:03 Don't stop saying thank you. Because there's going to come a day where you're not going to want to wake up. You're going to be tired. You're going to be a little down.
56:14 You're not going to be feeling well. It's doom and gloom. I can't believe it. I just watched the political results.
56:26 Elections. I can't believe it. Terrible. My team lost. My team won.
56:32 Who cares? Doom and gloom.
56:38 You should have a reserve of all of the goodness that Hashem has bestowed upon you. That you keep on praising Him for. And you pull it out. You're like, you know something?
56:50 I'm doing well. Even though today is not a great day. It's going to be great. Because it's just a cycle of life.
56:59 We all have ups and downs. Healthy living beings have ups and downs. You look at your EKG, it goes up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down. You know, it would be nice to just not have ups and downs.
57:15 Just like a straight line would be great, right? Just like steady. No, then you're dead. Living people have ups and downs.
57:27 Abraham showed us what it means to have ups and downs. And that's why he was tested. Ten major tests. Testing his ups and downs.
57:41 We are all going to be tested just like Abraham. In different ways. In our own personal ways. Don't run away from your tests.
57:52 Embrace them. Succeed in them. Because we all have a mission. And that mission is to share the message of God.
58:04 Wherever you go. We don't need to stand at street corners. And we don't need to picket. You know, the end of days is near.
58:13 And we don't need to say, believe in. We need to, the people we talk to should see that the way we act is in a godly fashion.
58:23 That when we don't cut the line and we speak politely and we don't
58:27 burst in anger, we're acting in godly ways. We speak with respect. We carry ourselves with dignity. This is what Hashem demands of us.
58:40 To be like Abraham. My dear friends, Thank you so much for this opportunity to learn this with you, of being the children of Abraham, acting like Abraham, having faith like Abraham, passing our tests like Abraham. And God willing, God willingly, we will be able to grow in our relationship with Hashem like Abraham did. Amen.
59:14 You've been listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe on a podcast produced by Torch, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. Please help sponsor an episode so we can continue to produce more quality Jewish content for our listeners around the globe. Please visit torchweb.org to donate and partner with us on this incredible endeavor.