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This Jewish Inspiration Podcast is dedicated to learning, understanding and enhancing our relationship with Hashem by working on improving our G-d given soul traits and aspiring to reflect His holy name each and every day. The goal is for each listener to hear something inspirational with each episode that will enhance their life.
00:01 - Introduction (Announcement)
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe, Director of TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast.
00:12 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Hi, good evening everybody. Welcome to the first of the five books in five weeks, the Bible Crash Course. And the goal, by the time we're done with this course, is to understand the framework of the Torah, to understand the big picture, to get an outline of each of the books of the Torah and each of the portions of the Torah. So today we're going to address ten questions. Number one what is the Torah? Who wrote it? Where did we receive the Torah and how Is the Torah that we have authentic? What is the purpose of the Torah? What are the names of the Torah? What are the names of the five books of the Torah? The Torah by the numbers, and we'll see soon the details of that. What are the themes throughout the Torah and why are there so many commandments? So let's begin on our journey with what is the Torah? So is the Torah a history book? Is it a story book? Is it a book of laws? Is it a list of commandments? Is it recommendations? Is it suggestions? What is the Torah?
01:28
And if you look at the Torah, the Torah begins with a whole story of the beginning of creation Birei, shid, baray, lo, kimet, hashemayim, vedat, aritz. And in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Why do we need the whole story? If it is a book of laws, just tell me the laws Rule one, rule two, rule three and finished. If it's a book of stories, why tell me the laws? If it's a book of history, it's awful because sometimes you can jump 100, 200 years. Just see, understand why it can't be a good history book. The first portion of the Torah covers over a thousand years. The second portion of the Torah covers another thousand years, a total of 2,023 years, in the first two portions of the Torah. In the next 10 portions we cover 286 years and in the next 42 portions we cover 40 years, of which many is even one last day of Moses' life, the last book of the Torah, the entire book of the Torah, is the last 36 days of Moshe's life. So you have one portion that deals with a thousand years, another portion that deals with a thousand years and then 286 years. Not a classic history book either.
02:58
So what is this book? The greatest bestseller of all time? What is the Torah? So we need to understand that there is a master plan of our world and our existence. This is the blueprint, just like someone wouldn't build a building without a blueprint with a plan of where the pipes are going to go and where the electricity is going to go and where you're going to have the beams and where you're going to have all the supports, the frame, the structure. Everything is outlined in the blueprint. The Torah is the blueprint of the world. The Torah is the blueprint of creation and everything we need to know about life is in the Torah. Torah is a prophecy. The future history is mapped out through the Torah. So if you look in the Torah or say, just tell us that in every week's Torah portion, if you study it well, you will see the revelation of what is going on in the world that week. So this week's Torah portion is B'shalach. We have the splitting of the sea, we have the Jewish people singing at the riverside. If we had a clear enough understanding of the Torah portion for this week, we would be able to see how it interacts with today, january 23, 2024, how it intersects with our world today.
04:40
It's not just the story of the past. We don't consider the Torah to be a document of the past. We consider it to be a living Torah. It's a living document. Now there are ramifications for that. If it's a living document. We can never say that, oh, it's ancient and it's not relevant. It has to be relevant if it means anything to us. I'll give you an example.
05:09
The Torah commands us to not eat pork. So was that just something of back in the day, when the Torah was given 3,300 years ago at Mount Sinai? There are some who would say, oh, back then there was something called trigonosis and the animals were deathly ill. And if you would eat it, the Torah gives you a recommendation not to. That's heresy. Nothing to do with trigonosis and nothing to do with recommendations. The Torah says eating this is forbidden. Why? We'll see soon how.
05:52
Every commandment in the Torah is an opportunity to get closer to God. Every negative commandment or prohibition in the Torah is protecting us from distancing ourselves from God. Particularly in our example of pork, god tells us that eating certain things will contaminate your soul. It has nothing to do with illness, it has nothing to do with health. It has to do with your soul, with the purity of your soul. The soul is our main connector with the Almighty and if we poison our soul, it's going to be extremely difficult for us to connect with the Almighty God, creator of Heaven and Earth. So the Torah is timeless and God continues to forever guide us through His teachings in the Torah.
07:00
So what is the Torah? The Torah is a manual for living. The Torah is a guide. The Torah is the how-to. The Torah is everything that you are looking for in your life. Anything you can possibly imagine in this world is in the Torah.
07:24
Just to give you a quick illustration, does anybody know how frequently the revolution of the moon around the earth is? With the 29.5 and the Talmud that was written over 2,000 years ago has the exact millisecond of time that that moon circles the earth. Today's scientists, with all the fancy-schmancy telescopes, are one millionth of a second off of what the Talmud said over 2,000 years ago. Now my question to you is how does the Talmud know that? So if you look at what the Talmud says when it talks about this topic, the sage who brings this opinion of the exact time of the revolution of the moon around the earth, it says kach linduni mi baes avi aba. So have I learned from the house of my father Abba? Sage just tells us that any time it says that, that is the source the house of my father Abba it's referring to. That's what I learned from my father, who learned it from his father, who learned it from his father all the way to Moses at Mount Sinai. Meaning the source is not the rabbi himself, he figured it out, he looked and he understood the source, down to the millisecond, was given to us by Moses at Mount Sinai. Now, who's Moses? Moses is the recipient of the Torah on behalf of the Jewish people, and we're going to get into that in a minute.
09:20
So, to understand the framework of the Torah, I'm going to ask you all to look here at an illustration. So if you look at the top of this triangle, you'll see here that there are two tablets and we know that on the two tablets we had the Ten Commandments. On one of those tablets we had the laws between man and God, and on the other set of tablets it said the laws between man and man, the laws between man and God. I am Hashem, your God. You shall not have another God before me. You shall not say God's name in vain.
10:05
Remember the Shabbos, observe the Shabbos and the fifth one honor your father and mother. The obvious question everyone asks how does that relate to mitsvahs between man and God? The simple answer we're not going to spend time on this is that there are three partners to man, to the creation of man. There's the father and the mother, who provide the bones, the skin, the tissue, all of the physical components of the baby, but then you have the soul, which is like the battery that operates it, and that is Godly, that is given by God. So by disrespecting our parents, in essence, what we're doing is disrespecting the entire partnership, if I may say, the Trinity the father, the mother and the creator, god of heaven and earth, who brought this child to earth. So if the child doesn't respect one of those three, it's a reflection of a disrespect to the entire entity On the side of between man and man, laws between man and man do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not be a false witness and do not covet.
11:27
These ten commandments are brought up in the Torah, in Parshash Yisro, which is the 17th portion of the Torah. We're going to read it next week and then we have, if you look back at this illustration, we have the green section on top and this is representing the 24 books of Tanakh, the written law. Tanakh is the Torah, neviim and Ketuvim. The Torah is the Bible, the Neviim is the prophets and Ketuvim are scriptures or writings. There are five books in the Torah. There are eight books of the prophets and eleven books of the writings, and that is what we know as the written law. We'll explain each of these shortly. Then we have the oral law.
12:21
Now, where does the oral law come from? Is this just a bunch of rabbis who made up a bunch of rules? No, rambam tells us that every single person learning with Moses, including Moses, had a little notebook. They had a little notebook where they wrote down everything. Because let me ask you a question we know that in the Torah we have many, many laws, many rules.
12:53
But if you also notice in the Torah, it only tells you what to do. It doesn't tell you how to do. The Torah, for example, tells you that before eating from a kosher animal, you need to slaughter it. But one little important fact was left out how do you slaughter it? It doesn't say.
13:15
The Torah tells us that on every doorpost we should have a mezuzah, but the Torah left out something critically important what is a mezuzah? The Torah says that every morning we should put on tophilin, every day, and we should recite the Shema, but the Torah does not tell us what is tophilin. What are they? So we have a big problem here with the Torah gives us instructions. The Torah tells us many, many things, but the Torah does not clarify by telling us how. It only tells us what to do, but not how to do. That is a big problem. So how do we resolve this? What are we to do with a Torah that gives us commandments but doesn't tell us how to perform those commandments?
14:09
I can give you another hundred examples. We have 613 commandments, 613 examples where the Torah tells us and commands us to do something, but doesn't tell us how to do it. So how do we understand this? The Torah tells us the laws. The Torah tells us to keep the Shabbos. It doesn't tell us how to keep the Shabbos. We have some clues. It says don't light a fire on Shabbos, but the details of it? We don't have it. So how do we know what is the right thing to do? So Moshe, when he received the Torah at Mount Sinai, he was there for 40 days and 40 nights and he learned the entire Torah with the Almighty, and every single thing he learned, he taught, and everyone he taught wrote down those notes, copious notes of every single detail. And then what happened? Those notes were passed down from generation to generation and that's what we call the oral law, because it's not written in the Torah. If it's not written in the Torah, it was orally transmitted and therefore we call it the oral law.
15:24
Torah Shabalpeh Now, what is included in the Torah Shabalpeh, that is the Midrash, that is the Kabbalah, just by the way is an important side note. Midrash is not fairy tales. Midrash is not stories. Midrash is the other side of the story that the Torah doesn't show you. Sometimes you see a story in the Torah, but what really happened beyond that, what was really going on beyond that, I don't know. Well, the Midrash knows and the Midrash tells us the details of what transpired. So the Midrash is not just stories, it's giving you the depth behind the stories. Then we have the Mishnah.
16:15
The Mishnah was written by Rabi'uudah Nasi between the years 170 and 200 CE, and in the Mishnah there are 63 tractates, 6 orders, shisha, sidra, mishnah, the 6 orders of the Mishnah. And what he did was he's collected of all those notes, of all of those pages that were transmitted generation after generation. Rabi'uudah Nasi felt that it was important to organize all of those teachings and he organized them into 6 orders. Anybody know the 6 orders? The 6 orders are as follows the seeds, which is Zra'im there are 11 tractates in Zra'im. Mo'id holidays there are 12 tractates there. Nasim, women's issues there are 7 tractates there. Nizikin damages 10 tractates. Qadshim, holiness, laws of holiness there are 11 tractates there. And finally, in the 6th order, taharoth purity there are 12 tractates there.
17:24
Now, what is Zra'im about? All agricultural rules and laws for foods and blessings, mo'id holidays, shabbat and Jewish holidays. So, whether it be Rosh Hashanah, yom Kippur, sukkot, purim, pesach, all of them, each one has a tractate. Eruvyn, the laws of the Eruv that encircles a community, is included in Mo'id. Nasim, women and all relationship matters. So a katuba, a marriage document, a get, a divorce document, all of those have their own tractate dedicated to them. Nizikin, civil and criminal laws, qadshim, offerings and dietary laws, and Taharoth temple, spiritual and family laws. That's all in the Mishnah, but the Mishnah is written in code.
18:21
The Mishnah is written in a format that you cannot rule halachic rulings from the Mishnah. The Mishnah I'll give you an example, it's my favorite example the first Mishnah, the first Mishnah in the Torah, tells us the following the first Mishnah in the Mishnah tells us the following. It says from when do we recite the Shema in the evenings? Now, I don't know about you, but if I were to come over to you and say, hey, so when are we going skiing? You'd be like what? I didn't know we were going skiing. You're making assumptions here. From when do we recite the Shema?
19:03
Is inferring that we recite the Shema. And when we say from when do we recite the Shema in the evening, you're inferring that we recite the Shema in the evening. And the Talmud will attack that Mishnah and say whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What's your source for that? How do you know that you recite the Shema in the evening? What is your source for it? Oh, the Talmud says I got to give you the source.
19:33
There's a verse in the Torah, the verse in the Torah that says you should read it in the evening. It's referring to the Shema. It also says you should read it in the morning. That's referring to the Shema being recited every morning. And what you need to understand is that the Talmud can't make up rules. The Mishnah cannot make up rules.
19:51
Anything that we derive as law from the Mishnah or the Talmud needs to be sourced in the Torah. The Torah is the only creator of laws. If it's not sourced in the Torah, there are only seven exceptions, seven laws that were introduced by the rabbis. But even though seven laws were already hinted to in the Torah for example, washing our hands before we eat, that's already you see it in the Torah, but it's not a commandment in the Torah to wash our hands. The rabbis instituted it as a law. Lighting the candles, shabbat candles, the rabbinic commandment. But we see that Sarah used to light Shabbat candles that would stay lit from Friday to Friday. So we learn okay, this is an institution instituted by the rabbis that we light Shabbat candles every Friday night. It's not unfounded, it's sourced in the Torah.
21:03
So there's no such thing as rabbis making up rules. That's not how the Torah works. The Torah. You're not allowed to make up rules. It's a commandment in Deuteronomy. In the commandment in Deuteronomy, you're not allowed to make up laws. Only what God gave us as laws are the laws that we have. If God didn't give us those laws, we don't have them. God didn't feel that it was important. If God did give us the laws, then that's what we're supposed to be doing.
21:34
Okay, so now let's assume that we take all of the conclusions of the Mishnah, the discussions and the arguments in the Talmud, and the proofs that we bring from the Torah, from the verses. Now, what Now we come with? What's the conclusion of those discussions is what we know as halacha. Halacha is Jewish law. Jewish law is only able to be determined after one has learned the Torah, learned the Mishnah, learned the Talmud and now understands the conclusion of the Talmud's discussion. Now we can say, okay, in this case, this is the law. But one can't arrive at a law without understanding and knowing all of that source. So the Ramam did that, rabbi Mosheb and Maimon Maimonides. He went through the entire Torah, the entire Mishnah, the entire Talmud, and organized the 14 books of Jewish law, the Code of Jewish Law, where he structured these 14 books to be organized with every law in Judaism based on the Talmud, sourced in the Torah and that's what we have here is the purple section is halacha.
23:11
Halacha is Jewish law, and this is the first to write. Halacha was the Ramam, just a piece of history. Not everyone liked the Ramam because, till now, till the Ramam wrote this in an organized fashion, how would you know what to do? There were no ignorant Jews at the time. You know why? Because you had to learn everything to know what to do. The Ramam wrote the halacha, and many were concerned that now we're going to enter an era of ignorant Jews. All they need to know is what to do and that's it, and they're not going to know the source for things. They're just going to do puppetry and they're going to just observe the laws.
23:55
But the Ramam understood something else. The Ramam understood that if you can't simplify the laws in bite-sized pieces that people can absorb easily, people are going to fall away from it, and the Ramam is one of the greatest works in Jewish literature, organized in these 14 categories. It's called the Yad HaChazakah or the Mishnator. Mishnator means the review of the entire Torah. The Ramam wrote about his own authorship of the Mishnator that if you just learn the books of the Ramam, you don't need to learn the Torah. You don't need to learn the Mishnator or the Talmud, because he has everything in it, and indeed he does. Interestingly, though, there is no book in the entire Jewish literature, in the entire Jewish library, that has more disputes and more arguments about what Ramam meant than the Ramam.
24:58
300 years later, there was another book called the Shochhanaruch. The Shochhanaruch means literally the set table. We're a Biosyfkaro, authored an even simplified, more practical set of laws based on the Ramam and the Talmud and the Mishnah and the Torah, set up for the Sephardic community. Here's Penpal the Ramam. He was also working on the book for Ashkenaz Jews. And what happened? He gets a letter, says I get a mazel tov because I just finished authoring the Ishchuchon Orch. He wrote back instead of saying you know, I wrote one for Ashkenaz, you wrote one for Saphad, we'll just have two of them. He said no, send me yours and I'll add on the customs for the Ashkenaz Jews so that the Jewish people always have one book of Jewish law. So we have the Shchuchon Orch and, if you look, there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of books of Jewish law, making it easier and easier and more simple for us to understand the basic way to live life as a Jew.
26:13
All of this are in the verses of the Torah, and that's our goal in the study of Torah is to understand the will of Hashem. What does Hashem want from me? What does Hashem want from us, each and every one of us? So there are three parts of the Torah, as we mentioned. There is the Torah, the prophets and the writings. There's the Mishnah, there's the Talmud and there's Jewish law. Now, the Torah is only an outline we mentioned. Torah tells you what to do, not how to do. The oral law tells you how to do.
26:53
I want to just take a little break here to encourage each and every one of you who are here tonight in person, those of you who are online on Zoom, those of you who are watching on Facebook, youtube, twitter, twitch or the other online social media platforms, and those of you who are listening on this podcast. I urge you to buy a volume of the Torah, buy a here. I have right in front of me the Schattenstein Interlinear Chumesh produced by Artscroll, the Stonadischen Chumesh, because you don't only get the words of the Torah with the translation, you also get commentaries on the bottom for every question you might have. You're learning through the verse of the Torah and you're like why would God do that? Why would this be written? Why would it be written like that? In the commentaries you will find the answers. It is incredible to see the depth of the commentaries here and the beauty of our Torah.
28:00
So I urge you, take time out of your day, every day. Take time out of your week, every single week, dedicate time to go through the Torah portion, to go through the teachings that the Almighty writes for us. God wants us to live our lives through these books. Okay, what we need to also understand is that God placed secret gems in every letter and verse of the Torah so we can learn, we can connect, we can continuously grow like an orchard, continuously growing after depth, after depth. Anybody here remember from grade school what we learned about creation? Of course, first day of creation, the second day of creation, the third day, each of the days of creation. But now, when we're 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years old and we study that same teaching of the Torah of each day of creation, does it read the same way? No, there's a whole new depth, there's a whole new understanding. There's a whole new world that we can learn from. This is the gift of the Torah that the more we learn the Torah, the more we see its greatness, the more we see its depth and the more we're able to grow with the Torah.
29:44
So there is a concept I mentioned. It was like an orchard. An orchard is called pardes. Pardes is four letters in Hebrew pey, reish, dalid and samach. Each one of those describe one of the layers of Torah. The pey is for pshat, the reish is for remes, the dalid is for drush and the samach is for sod. Let me explain each of these. So orchard is a metaphorical term used to refer to the four main levels of Torah understanding. Pshat is the simplest literal meaning. Based on the text and context you read it, you translate it. The basic meaning, that is pshat. But then you have another, deeper layer and that's remes. That is, the hints and illusions that are contained within the Torah. One of the methodologies are gamatria, gamatria's numerology, the numerical value of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
30:58
The third layer, deeper level, is drush is the moral and philosophical derivations and the sod is the hidden meanings and mystical secrets. So there are many different. You can look at the Zohar. The Zohar has a commentary on the entire Torah. It's all the secrets, that's all what's hidden completely from our vision. There are a few examples that we can share. Hopefully, when we do part two of this Bible crash course, we'll have an example of something which is totally hidden from the Torah. But if you read the words very, very carefully, you'll see it. It just hints to it. But then you get the rest of the story. You're like wow, wow, that's what it means, the gamatria, the numerology, the way in which every letter of the Torah is formed. You know it's interesting.
32:09
The Torah begins with the letter bet, the second letter of the alphabet. That's a little odd. Shouldn't the Torah begin with the first letter of the alphabet? Don't you think Right? Why does it start? It skips the first one. What's going on? Why is the Torah skipping the first letter of the alphabet? So the answer is pretty simple Is that alif?
32:37
That alif is the first letter of the Ten Commandments. Anu-uhi-ashem-ul-lok'echa, ayyem-ashem-yur-god. That alif was taken and hidden and placed later on in the Torah, because most people can't understand and fathom the concepts of godliness God needed to hide himself in creation. You don't see God just on the surface. You don't open up a book of the Torah and start reading and say, oh, there's God. You have to look deeply into it, you have to investigate, you have to analyze to learn and find the secrets of godliness. In the Torah, god takes the alif. The alif means aloof, which means master. The same letter, the way in which you pronounce the letter. By the way, if you take the alif and you break it apart, it's three different letters. It's a vav, a yud and a yud. The numerical value of those three letters is 26. 26 is the number, numerical value of God's name. So when you talk about alif, it's not only the first letter of the alif, but it's also referring to the master of the universe. Say, just tell us that anyone who has the letter alif in their name is more spiritually inclined, because alif refers to godliness. If you look at the yud of the alif, because that has two yuds the one on top has, like it looks like a finger pointing up to the heavens. It's amazing. It's all in one letter. And if you look at each of the letters, there are books and books and books and books. All the secrets of this world are hidden in the letters of the alif. But that's in the hidden part. You have illusions, you have metaphors and you have hints that you can derive from the Torah. It's all there and it's there for us to cherish. It's there for us to enjoy and to benefit from. It's our manual for living.
35:11
Now there's another thing that we need to know about the Torah that will help us in our connection with the Torah. We said that the Torah that we have is the Torah that was given to us at Mount Sinai. How do we know that? How do we know that the Torah that we are currently studying is the same Torah that was given to us at Mount Sinai? So I'm going to turn over this sheet here and share with you something. Over here is a direct transmission of the Torah from God giving the Torah to Moses at Mount Sinai, all the way to you and I sitting here in this room. Teacher to disciple, teacher to disciple 130 links leading from us here learning to Moses sitting at Mount Sinai, learning from the Creator of Heaven and Earth, a top Mount Sinai. There is a direct link. You want to know who my Rabbi is? It's right over here, it's written right here. You want to know who his Rabbi is, all the way going up to Moses at Mount Sinai. So what we need to understand is that we have a direct link connecting us with the Torah that was given to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai. There is no gap in that transmission. The Torah was given from generation to generation and, if I may, I'm going to share with you why I cried this evening.
37:03
I was invited a few weeks ago to an event. It's called the Hascholash HaGamorah event the beginning of study of Talmud event for my son, who's in fifth grade, who's now beginning to learn Talmud. And tonight was the event, at 530 and I arrive at the Yeshiva, my son's school, and they introduced everyone, thanked everyone for coming. You know all of the traditional, you know nice cities and then they said each one of these children spent the past few weeks preparing a class for their parents. So my fifth grade son, who's now 10 years old, gave my wife and I a class explaining the structure of Talmud and then, after each child taught their parents what they had prepared with their rabbi, they each received their first Talmud. It's such an incredible sight to see little children embracing their Torah, embracing their Talmud, that they are going to spend the rest of their life learning.
38:39
And then the dancing what are we dancing for? What are we dancing about? So it's a book. So there's Harry Potter and now you have Talmud. Great, everyone chooses their thing. It's not a book, it's a manual for living. And that's what we're celebrating. We're celebrating that generation number 131 is on their journey today. The next generation is building their link in that chain, starting today. That's a great celebration that hopefully they will be teaching Torah to their students in future years and to learn the words of our sages linking back to the Torah.
39:36
This is a momentous occasion, something that needs to be celebrated, because there's something called Mishora. Mishora means a direct link to you from Moses and Mount Sinai. So what are the names of the Torah? Let's just stop for a second. Who wrote the Torah? So Moshe wrote the Torah. That's the quick answer to the.
40:05
I'll tell you just a quick story. It's a true story. A friend of mine, a well-known attorney in Houston, told me that he was asked by University of Houston to give a course on law. He's a lawyer. So he was going to teach a class on American law, contrasting it to Jewish law. I said, wow, that's fabulous. It's incredible. I'd love to be in that class as well. But if you need any help, I'm here, I'm offering my assistance. So he said I appreciate it. I said 24-7. You can call me anytime, not on Shabbos, but you can call me anytime of the week and I will be there to assist you.
40:49
Sure enough, one night at 11.30 at night, I get a phone call and on the other end is my dear friend, the attorney, and he's panting and you could see he's stressed out. He says to me where are you right now? I said I'm home. How can I help? He says I need you to come to my house immediately. I said, sure, I come over. And I see him under a pile of binders and books and I said is everything okay? He says well, you remember when I told you that I was going to be doing this course? I said yes, of course I remember. He said, and you offered to help. I said I'm here. He says well, I'm all confused. He says I decided I wasn't going to go ask you anything.
41:37
I was going to ask my rabbis and my congregation and I went with a list of questions to each of the rabbis in my congregation and I asked them the same questions and I didn't link between what one side of the other side, I just wrote it down as information. So, but now I'm looking at all these papers and I'm realizing that I asked the simple question of who wrote the Torah and I got four different answers. Can you tell me who wrote the Torah? To that we say a big OVE. It's tragic. I said, my dear friend, I'm not going to tell you who wrote the Torah, you're going to tell me who wrote the Torah. I said, now close your eyes and imagine you're in synagogue and they lift up the Torah.
42:32
And everybody knows there's a special song that we sing when we lift up that Torah Vizot HaTorah Shesam Moshelev Nebn Israel. Alpiyadunaybiad Moshe. And this is the Torah that Moshe placed before the Jewish people by the Word of God, through the hand of Moses. Who wrote it? The hand of Moses, the Word of God through the hand of Moses. By the way, this is in every prayer book. It's not only in every prayer book, it's in the Torah. We say it right here verse in Deuteronomy, chapter 4, verse 44. And then Alpiyadunaybiad, moshe Numbers, chapter 9, verse 23. It's not a riddle, and this is the Torah that Moshe placed before the children of Israel upon the command of Hashem, through Moses' hand. So who wrote the Torah? Moses wrote the Torah. We declare this every single time we read from the Torah, reminding ourselves it's not just a song, it's a declaration that we're part of a Mosorah, we're part of a link in the chain.
44:05
So question one was what is the Torah? The Torah is a manual for living. We're going to talk more about that in a few minutes. Who wrote the Torah? Moses wrote the Torah. Where did we receive the Torah and how we received the Torah? We're going to see next week's Torah portion in Parshah Yisro. We received the Torah standing at the foot of Mount Sinai. How the Almighty gave it to us.
44:32
Again, there's something very interesting. So what's holding you back from saying, well, that's your interpretation of this. Who said that actually happened? It's very interesting that Judaism is the only religion that publishes a public revelation of an incident, the only religion that publishes a public revelation of an incident. So what happened to Moses? How did he become the prophet?
45:13
Anybody know he didn't study Koran, but if you do study Koran, you'll know that Muhammad had a dream, one second. Who was there at that dream? Nobody, only Muhammad. And if you don't believe him, he'll kill you. He'll wage jihad against you. He'll consider you an infidel for not believing his prophecy.
45:34
Well, let me ask you a question. And, by the way, what was that prophecy? That the Jewish people are the chosen people, the chosen nation, but they lost their rights. So now I am the prophet. How convenient. Let me ask you a question. If I was having an argument with my sibling about our inheritance, I go over to my sibling and I say hey, god came to me last night in a dream and told me I get all the money. Right, that's the equivalent of and, by the way, if you don't believe me, I'll kill you. Okay, that's pretty convenient for me to say that you know what father should have done? Father should have come to you in the dream and tell you that I get all the money. That would be a better dream. But no, muhammad had a dream and, by the way, he wrote the Koran.
46:28
Really, do you know how many versions of the Koran were around by the time Muhammad died? Over 400 different versions of the Koran, my dear friends, the Torah was given to us over 333 years ago. 3333 years ago. I'll correct that the Torah was given to us over 3330 years ago. Do you know how many versions of the Torah? There are? Only one. There's only one version of the Torah.
47:03
By the way, it's also the only religion that every other religion agrees to the revelation that we had at Mount Sinai Islam, christianity, buddha. Everybody agrees. The Jewish people had a revelation at Mount Sinai and everybody agrees that the Torah is MS, that the Torah is true. But they all say well, they lost their right, they left the Torah, they left God, they left this. So now it's us. All the other religions are based on an individual's experience that happened and was witnessed only by that individual. Judaism, on the other hand, the book of truth, is a public revelation that over 3 million people experienced.
48:00
Now let me ask you a question, to all of us who are here in the room, so you can see that I'm holding something in my hand. So you know what this is here. This is a torch. This is a torch that was run all the way from Madrid to here and you're all witnesses, right? So I'm going to write this Torah now. I'm going to write a book of laws and I'm going to say, because you saw the miracle of me holding this torch all the way from Madrid to this torch center, therefore, believe in me that I am your God and believe I'm going to give you now a whole list of commandments. Now I'm going to give you each a copy here's your copy of the Bible and you better follow these laws and instructions that I write in this book. You're going to leave, you're going to look for the closest recycling bin and you're going to throw it out. Why you weren't holding a torch? We all saw you weren't holding a torch.
48:56
You can't declare a public revelation on a document that every single person who receives that document agrees with. You understand the problem. You can't write in the Torah, in Parshash Yisro, next week's Torah portion, we talk about every single detail of what happened at Mount Sinai the revelation, what was going on at the mountain, the sounds, the lightning show, everything that was going on, the smoke, the pillars of smoke. Right, I'm going to tell you all the details. Now imagine I'm there 3,330 years ago and I say that's nonsense. That never happened, right? I assume that I wouldn't be the only one who denies this revelation. How many deniers are there of the truth of the Torah, of the veracity of the Torah? None. In the entire Torah you don't see one individual, not one instance in all of history of anyone who says this is false. Not one. That's the benefit of having a public revelation and that's how the Torah was given to the Jewish people. So the Torah wasn't only given by God to Moses, it was a public revelation where everybody experienced this revelation. Everybody saw it. Everybody experienced it. So is the Torah that we have authentic? How do we know that this Torah is the same Torah? I don't want to get too much into this, but I can just tell you that there have been unbelievable studies that have been done on the Torah, that the Torah we mentioned has many different layers of depths of understanding.
51:03
One of the most fascinating things is Bible codes. As soon as the computer came out, what people did is they put all of the text of the Torah into a computer and they ran all of these different algorithms. For example, they wrote Ram Bam and whenever Ram Bam showed up in the Torah in different sequences, different words having to do with the, ram Bam also showed up in the same area of letters. So you had Ram Bam, you had Mishneh Torah, you had Halacha, you had all of the Yadah Chazaka. All of them showed up in the Torah. The likelihood of that happening on any document. That is not a. This is a godly document, but just a random document. If you take a Harry Potter book and try to get such a computerized synchronicity, it's one in a billion or more likelihood that you'll be able to come up with this thing, with this match With the Torah.
52:09
You have it on every portion and they type it into the computer and boom, there are many books written about it the Torah codes, bible codes. It's unbelievable how it's all of the future of the Jewish people, all of those prophecies are all in there. We don't know how to dissect them, but after the events we put them in and we're like, wow, how did we not see this? The portion that talks about the Jewish people sinning God forbid if we were to sin and go against God. And God says there's going to be terrible things that happen to you and you're going to ask where is Hashem? Coincides with all of the different words having to do with the Holocaust. Really fascinating things. The Torah the only way we can verify the authenticity of the Torah is when we have a transmission that is unbroken from Moses at Mount Sinai to us here today. The purpose of the Torah, what is the purpose of the Torah? So let me ask you a question Anybody here ever drive a brand new car out of the dealership?
53:30
You drive that brand new car Now. Usually we try to upgrade our cars. So you're, in college you had a little Toyota Corolla, honda Civic and then you finally got your first job. You're doing well. You went to go buy your BMW the ultimate driving experience, the ultimate driving machine, and it's really incredible. You're driving it outside of the driving out the lot of the dealership and you're like feeling like a million bucks, this is unbelievable. The ultimate driving machine, it's amazing. You're very excited to show it off to your friends like wow, luxury car, unbelievable, you must be doing really well.
54:11
Okay, when is the first time you open up that manual that's inside the glove compartment? The first time you open up that book will be the first time you go to the gas station, because you're going to look at the gas and you're going to say, one second, you see, in my old little car, my Civic, I just put it in the cheapest gas. But this is a luxury car. I want a premium experience, but I don't want to spend what it's a dollar more per gallon. See, you open up the book and Mr BMW tells you that to have the ultimate driving experience, we highly recommend you put in only premium, unleaded, and you look again at the price and you're like a dollar more per gallon. Who does Mr BMW think he is to tell me to spend more money on my car that I worked hard to purchase? So what's, mr BMW? You can answer you Go right ahead, put in water, I don't care. But as the creator of this car, as the manufacturer who built this engine, who built this car, if you want to have the ultimate experience, follow these rules, follow these instructions. Will it work if you put the cheapest? It will, but it won't be the same experience.
55:33
The Torah is that manual. We look around life. How do we educate our children? How do we overcome certain challenges? How do we have a successful marriage? You look in that Torah, one second, that same Torah that tells me to spend more money on kosher meat. I could buy non-kosher meat, it'll be cheaper, I'll save money. Well, you're not going to have the ultimate life experience. You want to live close and connected to the Almighty. God says you need premium kosher that's slaughtered properly and, by the way, there's a huge Yetzahara.
56:21
Yetzahara is the evil inclination that gets involved in our lives, where the Yetzahara says to us, oh, don't buy that kosher, it's more expensive. But then some doctor tells you, oh, you know, you should buy only organic. Organic is healthier. Oh, no problem, we're going to rush to Whole Foods and we'll spend $24 for a box of cereal because the doctor said you'll live a longer life. But when God says that you'll live a longer life, that you'll live a better life, that you will live with a closeness to God, what does God understand? The doctor knows God. What does God know? By the way, new York Times study, they did hundreds of studies on organic food. They couldn't find one proven benefit. Not one. Not one benefit Could they prove. It seems to be better and more wholesome. They couldn't find a single proof that it was better. But God, creator of Heaven and Earth, tells us to eat certain foods. Oh, it's more expensive. Nah, that's to counter the Yetzahara who tells you don't spend more food. But when it's a doctor who says it, we're willing to do it. That's how he challenges us.
57:51
So what are the names of the Torah? Number one is Torah. Torah means to teach, teacher, instructor, scribe or law is all Torah. The word Torah, moreh Chumish is Chameish, which means five, the five books. And then Pentateuch, which is from the Greek word five scrolls. Now I want you to also know that the names of these five books is not only Genesis, exodus, leviticus, numbers and Deuteronomy, it's Beraeus, shamos, vayikra, bamedbar and Devarim. We're going to go through them as we proceed through the coming classes. We're going to talk about each one of those books, but by the numbers we should know. There are five books of the Torah. There are a total of 54 portions in the Torah. It's divided up into 54 portions, if you remember this quickly 12, 11, 10, 10, 11. There are 12 portions in the book of Genesis, 11 books, 11 portions in the book of Exodus, 10 and 10 in Leviticus and Numbers, and 11 in Deuteronomy. A total of 54 portions in the Torah.
59:19
Okay, so what are some of the themes that we see in the Torah? Number one free will. Adam and Eve could choose. Do you want to eat from this tree or not? It's your choice. You have free will, the greatest gift that God embedded in this world is free will. You can choose to run the marathon or to sit back on your couch and eat that bag of potato chips. It's your free will. You can choose. We have free will every day of our lives. Now that free will changes. If I decided today to start being a professional Olympic swimmer like Michael Phelps, I'm a little bit too late. You can't start when you're 45. You got to start when you're five. So, yeah, I don't have that free will anymore. That free will has passed, and every segment in a person's life, the free will, adjusts Certain things you can't do at a certain time or based on your composition of who you are. But overall, we do have free will.
01:00:35
There's the concept of reward and punishment, which we see a common thread all through the stories of the Torah. We're going to detail them in the coming weeks the thread of reward and punishment. There's another very important thing that we see in the Torah. That is common sense. The Torah doesn't tell us any law that has common sense. Common sense we all know.
01:01:05
The Torah begins after common sense Like do not murder. It doesn't say in the Torah do not murder, oh Rabbi, you just said before. In the Ten Commandments it says do not murder. Look at the commentaries. What do the commentaries say about that? Do not murder means don't embarrass your friend in public. It's a different kind of murder. They're spilling their blood, they're shaming them in public. That's a different kind of murder. Not to stab somebody and murder them. That's common sense. The Torah doesn't need to tell you that, which is sadly something that this world, this generation, is Severely lacking basic common sense.
01:01:50
But it's a given punishment without warning. You know we this is a basic principle of life. You can't punish someone if you don't warn them. If there isn't a speed limit, you can't pull someone over for speeding. There has to be a speed limit sign Warning you, telling you it's 35 speed limit. If you go 55, they're gonna stop you and give you ticket. But if there's no speed limit sign, they can't stop you. Every time you merge on to a highway, there's a speed limit sign telling you on this highway, 65, 55 if you're in New York, or 45 if you're in New York or in Texas, you have all the way up to 85 speed limits. God bless Texas. But we all know that you can't punish someone without warning.
01:02:47
Let me ask you a question when was the Torah given? The Torah was given in the 17th portion of the Torah. What happened to Adam and Eve? What happened to Noah and the flood? What happened to the generation of the? The dispersing dispersement when the, the Tower of Babel? What happened to a soft? What happened to Yishma El? There were no commandments, the Torah wasn't given yet. How can they get punished? How can they get punished for doing their wrong doings when there wasn't even a warning about it or say just teach us, because the Torah doesn't need to warn you about common sense Common sense you ought to know on your own. And they were punished not for doing terrible sins, they were punished for not using common sense. That you know need a Torah for that. You don't need commandments, for the Torah is about life lessons, not stories. The lessons of complete devotion and dedication of our ancestors, the patriarchs and the matriarchs are what we learn in the Torah.
01:03:53
It's a unique book that, on every level of understanding, there's something new, there's something deeper. It's a manual for living the purpose of life and the relationship between us and the Almighty. It's not just a book that God says here. I'm just gonna give you some reading material so you can keep yourselves busy through the 120 years of your miserable lives. Now Hashem says I want your life to be enriched. Here is a book that every time you open it, you will see new light. You will discover new ideas. You will see what I mean. God will give you a book. God wants a relationship with us and that's the real essence of the entire Torah. Hashem wants to build a relationship with us.
01:04:44
We are in the Portion of Genesis, the first portion. In Genesis. We're told that when Adam was created he wasn't born. He was created by God, male in female. God created them. God blew into his nostrils a living soul. That soul has many, many different traits, godly traits. But you know what else it has? It has a imperfect, imperfect soul which, through all of the challenges that we face in our lifetimes, we are tasked With the the difficult journey Of perfecting that soul. We are all a gem.
01:05:44
You know, my father worked in diamonds for 38 years and, like any diamond dealer, they could tell you that there's no perfect diamond To the eye. Perhaps you think that it looks perfect and every Bride Starts driving with their left hand because they're, they're bling and their diamond is, you know so sparkling, sparkling, so beautiful, it's so perfect. It represents a whole relationship. But if you look carefully, there are blemishes in the stone. It's what we call cloudy. It's a little it's, it's from the earth, it's a stone, it's beautiful and it sparkles, but there's imperfections in it. Sage, just tell us. It's a metaphor for our lives, for our soul. Every soul sparkles, every soul is beautiful, but every soul has a little blemish. How do we fix that blemish? So if you ask those same diamond dealers, they'll tell you there's a process called enhancement. And what they do with that enhancement is they infuse certain chemicals into the diamond and it removes those blemishes. It's really fascinating.
01:07:05
That is our work, that we need to do in our lifetime. We need to infuse that gem, that soul that we have, with that chemical. What's that chemical? That's good working on our traits overcoming anger, being kind, being merciful, being friendly, being generous, being forgiving. God is perfect in all his traits. We are not. And when we work on our traits, that's when we attain perfection. And when we depart from this world, god says I want my gem back, that gem that you worked so hard in perfecting, in beautifying and making it sparkle More beautiful than ever. Now I want to take that gem and put it in my crown. Each one of us are that gem. We have our own gem. That's our soul. The Torah is the manual on how to perfect that soul, how to clean up that gem to bring it to its greatest sparkle, to its greatest ability. That's what we're trying to do, that's what we're trying to accomplish and that's what the Torah is there for.
01:08:20
The accuracy of the details of the Torah Every letter. There's nothing extra. There are 3,405, 304,805 letters in the Torah. Not one is extra. Every single letter in the Torah is meant to be exactly where it is. You know, what's amazing Is that if you take a Torah here in Houston, texas, you take a Torah out in South America, you take a Torah in Europe, you take a Torah in the former Soviet Union, in South Africa, in Australia, every single Torah is exactly the same and if it has one missing letter it's invalid, and if it has one extra letter it's invalid. It has to have 304,805 letters, not one more and not one less.
01:09:15
All Torah scrolls must be written one from the other, so you can't just write from your mind. From my memory, you gotta have a scroll here and you write with a scroll, copying scroll to scroll. There's a clear transmission. The Word of God, through the hand of Moses, is dictated by God and Moses writes it. That's the way we write a Torah.
01:09:44
Now what's if there's a mistake in the Torah? If you find a mistake, you have a portion of the Torah you're reading and there's a mistake. So if it sometimes it could be two letters that are attached, so now it becomes one letter, it's a problem. So you ask a child If they can determine the difference. The child can determine the difference, then it's fine. But if the child cannot and they mistake it, you gotta wrap it up, put it away, get it fixed. Can't use it. If a yud looks like a vav, if a nun looks like a gimmel, if a dalid looks like a reish, it's invalid. Every letter needs to be perfect. It cannot be used till it's fixed.
01:10:32
The Torah begins from creation. Why? Why does the Torah begin with creation? Who needs to know about the story of creation? You look at Rashi, the first commentary on the Torah. The Rashi writes the reason the Torah was given With the beginning of creation in it, to tell the nations of the world that God, who created heaven and earth, decided that the land of Israel Go to the Jewish people. Amazing. From the first letter of the Torah, it's already.
01:11:13
With this one idea in mind, let me ask you a question. If you go anywhere in the world today, today, a year ago, a hundred years ago, a thousand years ago and you look at their newspapers, what would it say? The Jewish people and the struggle for their homeland, the Jewish people? It's always about the Jewish people. I've been around the world many times. Never once seen a story about India. You know how many people live in India? A billion people, a billion billion with a B. How many Jews are there? 15 million. And yet we occupy every single newspaper and magazine of the world. Why? Because we're the chosen people.
01:12:03
No matter where we're hiding, the nations of the world are always going to remind us Of our responsibility, our responsibility to be a light unto the nations. Yeah, you can be proud of that title we're the chosen people, but it's more of a responsibility than anything else. It's not bragging rights alone. It's responsibility, rights when we are obligated to show the nations of the world what it means to be God's people. The Torah teaches us how to conduct ourselves as God's people and it's obligating. We need to be an example so that when people look at us they say, ah, this is what God's people looks like. They don't cheat, they don't lie, they don't cut lines, they don't play games at other people's expense, they don't mock other people, they don't embarrass other people. That's the values that the Torah teaches us.
01:13:13
But very interesting we talk about the land of Israel. You know something? Abraham, isaac, jacob, joseph, moses Everybody has promised the land of Israel. Until we get to the end of the Torah, we still don't see the Jewish people in the land of Israel. Not one minute in the land of Israel. What's going on here? The first verse in the Torah is already there to tell you the Jewish people are gonna get the land, but till the end of the Torah you still don't see that. They arrived in the land and they lived happily. Ever after, said no one ever. What's going on over here? Let me see in Joshua, joshua conquered the land, but that's not in the five books of the Torah, why? I'd like to suggest an idea.
01:14:15
The greatest value in God's world is effort, not accomplishment. God wants us to never stop trying, try and try and try and try and do everything you can to accomplish perfection. Will you ever attain that perfection? Perhaps, maybe, maybe not, but never stop trying. And that's the lesson From the Torah's first word, telling us that the Jewish people are destined for the land of Israel, till the last word of the Torah, where we see that the Jewish people didn't yet attain it. They never stopped pursuing it. That's another very important lesson of the Torah we don't stop pursuing perfection. So what is mankind's biggest challenge? Staying focused on our mission. The Torah is a constant reminder of that mission.
01:15:18
What we're here for, and finally, the last part of this introduction is the commandments. What is the purpose of the commandments? So we mentioned earlier that the commandments are a tool to build our relationship with God. When someone performs a performative commandment a mitzvat assay, a mitzvat assay, a mitzva, a positive mitzva to do, what we're doing is building our relationship with God. God tells us to put a mezuz on our door. When we have a mezuz on our door, we're instilling godliness into our lives, into our doorways, into our homes, into our bedrooms, into our kitchen, into our, into everything. We're infusing that godliness into every part of our lives. When God commands us to wear tzitzit or tfilin, antifilin, when God commands us to observe the Shabbos. What God is telling us is sanctify time, sanctify your body, bring yourself closer to God. When God says do not, when there's a prohibition, and God tells us don't do something, it's to protect us from distancing ourselves from God, the mitzvahs. We have 613 commandments. There are 248 positive commandments, 365 negative or prohibited actions. The human body correspondingly has 248 limbs, corresponding to the positive commandments, and 365 veins, arteries and sinews corresponding to the prohibitions of the Torah.
01:17:14
So the Talmud tells us an incredible story where a convert was trying to convert and he went to Shammai and he said teach me Torah while I am standing on one foot. And he pushed him away. And then he went to Hillel and he said Hillel, teach me Torah while I am standing on one foot. And he told him one principle al-da'aloch sani, al-tasalakha v'och what you dislike, don't do unto your fellow. The Torah says, via Haftalariach HaKamochha you should love your fellow as yourself. And later on this individual convert asked well, what does that mean? How do I know what not to do? One day he taught him.
01:18:07
So the Talmud says that one day Hillel taught him alif is alif and bet is bet. And one day he told him bet was alif and alif was bet. This is one second. You told me the opposite yesterday. He says that's exactly the point.
01:18:26
If you just take my word for it, you won't know. You have to look at the source. You always have to go back to the source and you cannot learn the Torah standing on one foot. You can learn some principles, some concepts, but you have to be able to immerse yourself in the Torah.
01:18:53
Again, my public service announcement my dear friends, take the time, read through the entire Torah, one page at a time. It doesn't have to be all in one night, all in one week, all in one month, all in one year, but read through it, take notes, ask questions, inquire, be inquisitive, because this is the book of life, this is the language of the Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth. So my blessing to each and every one of you, myself included, is that we all gain a mastery of the Torah, not only in its wisdom and knowledge, but in actualizing it in our day-to-day lives, because there's nothing that God wants more from us than to be connected with Him. Asheb should bless us to have that connection, to feel that closeness and to feel the rich, rich relationship that we can develop with God every single day. Amen