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Rav Shlomo Katz explores the teachings of Rav Shlomo Carlebach zt"l on the Parsha with the sefer Even Shlomo
Boker tov everyone, shkoach for coming. The month of Teves is sponsored by Mishpachat Arlon liluy nishmas Levi Ben Yosef and by the Silver family liluy nishmas בתיה פייגא בת ישראל. The week is sponsored by Yael and Avi Miller, רפואה שלמה לכל חולי עם ישראל. Rabbi Michael and Phyllis Miller in memory of מרדכי נחמן בן חיים מאיר, חיים מאיר בן יעקב נחום.
By the Kaufmans in memory of חיה בת אריה לייב. By Jody and Zev Stender in memory of Jody's abba Mickey upon his 10th yahrtzeit יוסף חיים בן יחיאל הלוי. And by the Deutches in memory of Avram's mother שרה רייזא בת ציון בת אברם יעקב. Alright, special day today.
Today is the Chai Teves. It's the 18th of Teves. Today is Reb Shlomo's birthday. And to learn his Torah on his birthday is very special.
It's always special but especially today. So today we're going to discuss something that I think is pretty, I don't know how to describe it in the clearest manner, but I think it's things that are clear to everybody if we have enough guts to stop and think about it. I'll preface by saying like this. When we talk about being in this world, literally being in this world, being part of this world, the pnimiyus of being part of this world, so our chevra find ourselves in a very interesting situation.
On the one hand, we look at what's called Western culture and hopefully by now for the most part we've seen the danger of what happens to the world when it becomes completely enveloped by morals and ideas that are simply not rooted in Torah. On the other hand, we also see a world that claims to say, claims to say we are only fully rooted in Torah and have no kesher to the world, and we also don't find ourselves there. Is that fair to say? I'm not, I don't want to put labels on anyone, I'm just kind of getting to know each other a little bit after these years. I think it's safe to say that's kind of where we're falling in in between.
Not falling, it's a proud place to be. Shayla is what does it really mean to be part of the world and yet look at the sheker of the world and realize that it can only be through Torah that I can know how to be in the world. You understand? It can only be through Torah that I can actually be and make it in this world. I don't know what you feel about the following statement but I can't help but share my feelings is that I don't think anything changed since October 7th.
I think just tons and tons and tons of pain and heroism of our tzaddikim on the front lines is what's changed. But in term, and they should be Meilitzei Yosher and in their zchus we should wake up. Amen. We have a chiyuv, we have an obligation to wake up.
But in terms of like how we are as a people and what we think about the world and how we look at the world, I don't really get a sense, maybe it's, maybe it's after being in the Knesset for a few minutes you get this, I don't know, maybe, maybe it's that. Yachol l'hiyot, bemes, yachol l'hiyot. But we're going to see that in the learning that we have today that right before the geulah begins, there's an important, important pasuk that needs to be learned and the geulah begins this Shabbos and it begins right away more or less and it begins by screaming: ויזעקו ותעל שועתם אל האלקים וישמע אלקים את נאקתם. Hashem heard.
So we cried while we were, we cried and screamed while our boys were on the front lines. Now we've gone back to a place where none of us really understands what's going on, none of us really are sure that our assumptions are correct and we're in this place again of being like okay so let's just get ready for another round of what? I don't know. What does that mean? A round of what? I'm not sure. Lo yodea, lo yodea.
But we have to take a big look, a deep, deep dive, it's a short piece but a deep dive into something that the Torah tells us that without the Ishbitzer it'll be really hard to hear the screaming of this pasuk. It's not the screaming of Yidden screaming, it's something else that's the place. Pass these around. This is a piece that, it's in Even Shlomo Shmot.
ברוך אתה ה' אלקינו מלך העולם שהכל נהיה בדברו. In English I think it's called the death of humanity or death of civilization, I forget what it is. In Hebrew Mot Ha'Enoshut, the death of humanity, when someone's humanity is absolutely dead, when someone's own humanity is absolutely dead. Yesh maspik l'kulam? Yudi, how many did I tell you? Twenty-five? Which one was it? Okay no I think we're okay.
All right Dov has the sefer. Okay. This is like, this is crucial, crucial Torah. Crucial Torah.
Chevra, I want you to pay really close attention and I want us to be vulnerable like it's no one's business today and I'm putting myself in the same category as someone that really hasn't really woken and woken up yet. It's such an interesting thing that in the air what was the most prominent word in the last few years in Western civilization? Woke. And then the tikun, it's like such an interesting thing. The tikun I was talking once with our buddy, hopefully future mayor of New York City Michael Rapaport and he was saying he was so confused by the terminology.
He's like, "Woke? I'm..." after his whole, he talked "I'm woke! What do you mean woke? I actually am woke! All that other things is... he didn't say, maybe he even said shluf, I don't know, all the other things is the opposite of woke." What's woke? The tikun for that word is like right here in front of us. So in the parsha it says Vayamas Melech Mitzrayim, that the king of Egypt died, but and then what does it say right afterwards?
ויקם מלך חדש על מצרים אשר לא ידע את יוסף. Okay, so a lot of Torahs we've said for many years what that means and why that pasuk comes there and why does it say אשר לא ידע את יוסף? There's an interesting debate amongst the meforshim.
Did he really die? Did Pharaoh really die? Was this actually a new Pharaoh? Rashi makes it very difficult for us to mekabel that it's a new Pharaoh because he says nitchadshu gezeirotav, meaning the decrees became renewed but it was the same king based on that Rashi. We're going to see the mahalach of this shiur today. So Reb Shlomo says like this, another startling first line: אתם יודעים מה קרה לנו כשצאנו מאושוויץ. You know what happened to us when we left Auschwitz? Now I don't think here, this is my assumption, I don't think he's speaking here about survivors, you'll understand why, I think he's speaking about the Jewish world at large, definitely humanity, but specifically the Jewish world.
אתם יודעים מה קרה לנו כשצאנו מאושוויץ?
לא יצאנו לגמרי כאנשים חופשיים. We didn't leave fully as free people. Adayin chashavnu le'atzmenu, we were still thinking to ourselves: מה כל כך רע בעולם? What's so bad about the world? Batarbut hama'aravit? With the Western culture?
אל תבינו אותי לא נכון, don't get me wrong.
העולם שלנו הוא בסדר אם אתם יודעים כמה לקחת ממנה כמו תרופות.
He's saying don't get me wrong, the world is okay if you know how much to take from it, like medicine. Trufah hi tovah, medicine is good, אבל אתה צריך לדעת כמה כדורים לקחת. You have to know your dosage.
הרמב"ם היה רופא גדול.
הרבי מליובאוויטש היה מהנדס גדול. The Rambam was a great doctor, the Lubavitcher Rebbe was a tremendous engineer, אבל לא לזה אני מתכוון כשאני מדבר על התרבות המערבית. That's not what we're talking about when we say Western culture, Western civilization.
אני מדבר על מה שהעולם חושב לגבי אנושיות.
I'm talking about what the Western world feels and thinks regarding the concept of humanity. Basic humanity.
התורה אומרת וימת מלך מצרים אבל באמת פרעה עדיין היה בחיים, just like we said, even though the Torah is alluding to something important, but it's the same Pharaoh. Pharaoh is still there.
Omer ha-rebbe mi-izhbitza, so how does the Izhbitzer explain this concept vayamot melech mitzrayim, that the king of Egypt died?
פירושו שכל דבר אנושי שהיה בו מת. Everything humane about him died. Now, what's the what's the call? What's like we said in the beginning of the shiur? And this is hard for us to swallow because it's going to demand this level of mesirus nefesh and of and of vulnerability. What if I what if we said right now that our enemy has lost any sense of humanity? What does that what category does that put you in? How uncomfortable does it make you? Not you, but how uncomfortable does it make some of us feel? You said they never you're saying they never had humanity? The enemy, the enemy.
No, they didn't. It's hard it's hard for many many reasons. Yeah, no, it's it's of course it's hard why? Because what who are we? We love the world, we believe in the world, we we love humanity. We love humanity.
Our whole inyan is is to find Elokus, to find godliness and sparks everywhere and unite it all. Like that in our in our kishkas, that's really who we are. We're not happy when we when we see that humanity has been completely removed from someone. That's not something that's, oh great, now I get to kill them.
That's not that's not our default. That's not it. Although I once learned a whole sugya that that said that if you're supposed to mekayem all the mitzvos baTorah b'shleimus u'v'simcha, then you have when you have the opportunity for milchemes mitzvah, milchemes mitzvah has to be a milchama that has to be done b'simcha too. And that's been a whole a whole you know mishugas lately about defining was this last war or whatever this thing was? I don't know what it was, whatever this last thing was, does that fall under the category of milchemes mitzvah or not? I don't I don't even know where to begin how how to begin to approach a conversation like that.
If that's not milchemes mitzvah, if it wasn't the opportunity for milchemes mitzvah, then I have no idea what exactly milchemes mitzvah is. I have no idea what that is. We still have learning to do in that in that regard. We began a shtikel of months ago, but Rav Shmuel Eliyahu has a whole sefer on this that we had, I forget what it's called, Hilchos Milchama, ani lo zocher.
We have to go back inside and learn the sugya inside, not just based on emotions. But look, we Reb Shlomo is saying over here, our when the world speaks in words words of like freedom and equality, it's all rooted in sheker. There's a spark of holiness there just like the terminology of woke. There's a spark of holiness in everything.
But the root of it has nothing to do with what we're talking about. The root of it is is all sheker. So when he says when I'm speaking about humanity, when I'm speaking about Western culture, I'm speaking about Parohs of the world that lost all sense of humanity, and like he says over here based on the Izhbitzer שכל דבר אנושי שהיה בו מת. Everything humane about him died.
Was Naftali but you telling me about Segev Kalfon was saying that when he was in the shevi and he was with a sheikh or someone that just found out that 30, 40 of his relatives were just killed. Right, 30, 40 relatives were just killed, and what happened to the whole story? Including his wife and kids, he he didn't shed one tear. That like at all. Segev Kalfon was like for days afraid to say one word because he didn't want to get killed, and he was in a room just him and the sheikh whose family was wiped out.
And after like a week he finally had the courage to say like why aren't you crying? And the guy was like so happy that his family is dead that they're in k'ilu Gan Eden. Gehenom. Gehenom. That's a that's not and that's not a...
What's just we have to just call this out. That example, that mindset, that's not a Mikre Yachid, Mikre Boded. That's not like oh those are extremists. That's a whole consciousness.
That's a whole consciousness. Why does it irritate us to hear such a thing? Because we don't want to believe that because that's not it's the anti of us. Am Yisrael, Bnei Yisrael we actually love the world. We love the world, we do, we love the world, we love humanity, we love Elokut, we love godliness so when we hear that this metzius exists and we still don't know how to wrap our heads or hearts around it because it's just too painful.
The only inyan is like this: if we don't wrap our heads and hearts around this, none of us are going to be here. We are not going to be here. There'll still be Am Yisrael.
עם ישראל חי וקיים לנצח.
There'll be some shevet or something somewhere in Greenland. Yeah, yeah, like something עם ישראל חי לנצח. America, meaning Trumpland. But lema'aseh you have to like Zvi Yehezkeli always says until we start talking Arabic we have no chance of understanding how to make it through here.
It doesn't just mean the language, he means up here. That's so hard for me because it's almost a level of emuna. I know that's not what we want. What kind of state, what kind of mesirus nefesh do you need to put yourself in? What kind of breaking of yourself do you need to do to get to this sheikh state? Now I know it's warped, I know it is, but like you have to almost in a sick way respect the level of acceptance from Allah on that sentence that was on his family to get to be mekabel such a gezeira which we learn a little bit of.
I know I'm not telling you this correctly. No, I know what you're saying, I know what you're saying. My love that I'm learning, that's supposed to trump that. No, no.
No, no, but you have to understand the context of what he's saying. I know what it's pushing in your brain, but say it. The thing is, it's very easy, you can make Shem Hashem or even Hashem into an avoda zara. Easily.
Rambam once talks about that. And so what these people aren't worshipping what they call Allah or what we would call Elokim. They take their hatred and their anger and their personal honor and they form an avoda zara within their hearts. They call it what they call it.
They call it Hashem, but it's not. It's not hard for me to wrap my head around because we all have ego. It makes me terribly sad. But this is what happens when you replace what should be avodas Hashem with your own personal desires and that becomes a cultural desire.
That's the avoda zara. Like when people say sometimes look they daven five times a day and we only daven three and maybe that's why. It never shtimmed with me that thingy. It never shtimmed with me because if you're worshipping avoda zara five times a day versus my three avodas Hashem, I don't know who right? Who's you know that term like we hear these...
were any of you ever turned on to malchus Hashem when you hear from the mosques Allahu Akbar? The Allahu Akbar, what a denigration of but it's not God's name so it's fine because based on what you're saying, the way you explain that doesn't make me no, it doesn't make me respect any mesirus nefesh. It's a warped, it's a complete warped and distorted distortion of all terminology. It's also if you tell yourself a lie enough times it almost you can convince yourself that it's a truth. Nachon.
All right, well we have to go, I knew what I was doing by learning this piece but it's good, it's good, it's good like let's just keep on. Katzar. It just goes to when we learned before when you were talking about how whenever there's a piguah wrap it up, wrap it up, wrap it up, let's move on. That's how we are.
We have to understand. There's reason why we have Shiva and then Shloshim and all these different things because we need to be able to internalize it and process the entire thing. It's not okay great they're in... Whatever they gehinnom, whatever it is, great, I'm happy.
That's not, that's not who we are. Okay. Now look at the third paragraph.
הצדיקים אומרים שלפני שעזבנו את מצרים, after all we went through, right, but before we left Egypt, הקדוש ברוך הוא היה צריך להראות לנו עד כמה פרעה היה רע.
This is, you know what this is referring to? Parshas Beshalach. You know when, when, when it says ויסב אלקים את העם דרך המדבר ים סוף and then it says that they went back, they when they were leaving Mitzrayim, they reached a place, then they had to, Hashem said, now go back, right? What's the lashon there in Beshalach when Hashem says to go back? It's in rishon over there in, in Beshalach. I forgot it right now. But Hashem basically says to them, go back, and everyone's what, go back? So the meforshim say we left Egypt and we already started thinking to ourselves, was it really that bad? So Hashem says, okay, you, you have to go back a little bit again, look evil in the eye one more time and then, and then vayter and then, and then you're ready to jump into the, into the ocean, then you're ready to jump into the sea, into the water.
We still thought to ourselves, adayin chashavnu, okay, ulai hu kashuach, maybe Pharaoh's tough, אבל הוא נתן לנו לשבות בשבת as we all know, Shabbos, because Moshe Rabbeinu negotiated there, at least Shabbos we had. We started having these thoughts and these feelings. This reminds me so much, I've shared this with you before, I had a someone I was very, very close to that was going through a really horrible divorce and השם ישמרנו ושיזכנו בשלום בית. And when he was going through this divorce, I saw, I know him, he's a shtickel weak character and I begged him, I said, I want you to record your voice right now, talk your agony and speak your agony into a speaker right now.
I want you to record it and I want you to write every day right now all the pain you're, like, why? It's going to make it even worse? I'm like, no, because you're going to get divorced in the next few weeks or the next few months and then a few months you're going to start wondering, I don't know, was it really, was it really that bad? And I'm telling you, I'm here with you, I see this, I understand, I'm not saying anything bad about her, this metzius of this marriage for you is, is, they tried, lo halach, lo halach. Because you have to remember that we have this tendency that once we're out of something to just be so fine with not being fully in it that it's okay if I'm a shtickel in it. So Hashem says to Am Yisrael as we're leaving Egypt, I could hear your thoughts, רבות מחשבות בלב איש, I know what you're starting to think, it wasn't that bad. It was bad, it was bad, it wasn't that bad, right? Wasn't that bad.
I don't even know what, what got me to start screaming, maybe a Yid would start thinking to himself, what got me to start screaming? Maybe I just was, I was being dramatic. Maybe I was just being dramatic. I shouldn't have screamed so much to Hashem, it wasn't that bad. So Hashem says, ah, da kacha, okay, let's, let's take you back a little bit.
Beseder hu achzari, yes he's cruel, אבל לפחות הוא נתן לנו קש כדי להכין את הלבנים but at least he provided us with straw in order to prepare the bricks.
אז פרעה גזר שלושה ימים לא תקבלו קש ללבנים וגם לא תנוחו בשבת and once we started having these thoughts right before we left, so Pharaoh, right before the, the whole geula began, what did Hashem put into this Pharaoh's heart? It's like, ah, I have to really, I'm a shliach of Hashem. He didn't think this, this was subconsciously what was going on. I'm a shliach of Hashem, I'm like what the Tanya, how the Tanya refers to the yetzer hara over there in the first, in the beginning of the Tanya, I need to show them how bad it really, I really am for them to choose to get out of here, then I fulfilled my shlichus.
So Pharaoh's this, this, this interesting character that's fulfilling a role, he's a pawn just like we all are, different levels, different jobs, different roles. So Pharaoh through Hashem knows, oh, they think it's not that bad. You know what? Those two things they thought that made me seem like a shtickel nice guy, I'm taking away from them too. Because before the geula began then he took away that Shabbos and he also took away the straw for them to prepare the bricks.
Now they becholal had nothing to base their good thoughts on, right?
במשך אותם שלושה ימים יהודי עבד עבור פרעה for those three days a Yid would work for Pharaoh ולאחר שיסיים את העבודה בשעות היום after working all day לכל מצרי הייתה הזכות לכפות עליו לעבוד כל הלילה every Egyptian had the right to then force them, force the Yid that worked all day to also work for them all night.
כמה זמן יכול מישהו לתפקד כך, how, how long can a person function like this?
זה לא היה אנושי, chevra. What they did to us for two years was lo enoshi. When I listen to Segev Kalphon or I listen to any of the hostages describe what went on there, there is no enoshiut.
What they did to Avinatan Or who's probably six two it seems like, pretty tall guy, and they put him into such a cluv, a cage. They did this also to Omer Shem-Tov, they did this to all of them. Forget about all the sexual assaults. Not forget but put that put that aside.
Put that put that aside. If you really look into the eyes of Yosef Chaim Ochana, Bar Kuperstein, Matan, Alon Yahel, you look into these eyes of they saw Hashem and they saw the exact opposite of Hashem. The Yanuka looked into Segev Kalphon's eyes he says I'm looking at eyes that looked at Hashem. But he saw Hashem by also seeing the exact opposite, the exact opposite.
And then when these people come to the news stations and get interviewed and the interviewer is like trying to egg them on say מה אז אין בלתי מעורבים? So there's no innocent civilian? Like and they keep on saying the same thing is like chevre, I was there. I was there. I saw Paroh. I saw Paroh with my own eyes.
אבל אתה רק היית במנהרה כאילו לא היית בחוץ ברחובות. You were just in the tunnels, upstairs out of the tunnels. How do you know? How do you know? Enoshiut was removed from these people. Humanity's been removed from these people.
אז הקדוש ברוך הוא אמר. So then when this is already taking place and it's getting so bad הקדוש ברוך הוא אמר אני חייב להוציא אותם מהשיעבוד אני רוצה שהם ידעו שאין עוד דרך אחרת. I got now ויזכר אלוהים את נאקתם. I have to take them out.
This is in Parshat Shemot. They they have to get out of this. They have to get out of this. Al now he says here very very important אל תבינו אותי לא נכון.
Don't misunderstand me. And he's the last person you could claim on him that he was a racist, okay? The last.
אני אוהב את העולם. I love the world.
ואני יודע שיש הרבה אנשים טובים.
אבל הם בני אנשים טובים קדושים רק כי הקדוש ברוך הוא דיבר אלינו על הר סיני ולימד אותנו את הדרך הנכונה לחיות. The only reason goodness exists in the world, the only reason there's righteousness in the world and there is, there are, we know, my own grandmother was housed in Christian homes and we think also in some churches as she was fleeing from the Nazis. The concept exists.
We're not saying this about the whole world. But even those people, the Chasidei Umot Ha'olam, and the righteous holy brothers and sisters of the world, and we all know this, they have something beautiful but where did it come from? Even them, where did it come from? It only came because Hashem spoke on Har Sinai and gave us the Torah. Only. That's the only reason goodness exists in the world.
Chesed exists in the world and that went out to the other places. You know there's so many midrashim about those that heard the vibrations of Har Sinai while it was happening and they weren't there. It reached the whole world. It didn't penetrate through the whole world.
Hopefully it penetrated through us Yidden although we did made make an Egel Hazahav a little while later, but hopefully it's still penetrating through us. But it does exist in the world but don't get confused. If there's goodness in the world, if there are if there's decency, if there's morality. I know the world calls it, I mean it's Judeo-Christian values.
I think it's just the politically correct terminology. It's Har Sinai values. Like the whole thing of anything good and proper and holy in this world is all rooted because Hashem spoke to us at Har Sinai. And when I remember that and then I look back at who's speaking in the name of civil rights or equal rights and all things that could be very holy but when they're coming from it's yonek, it's shoresh from the klipa, look what ends up happening to it.
You know we have this shiur on Thursday mornings about women's tefillah, the pnimiyut of women's tefillah. And we've asked the question a few times over there saying tishma I always say like is is the MeToo movement, was it holy? Why not? Why not? It's not be'emet. Lo higia hazman that in the world women's rights are should be should be taken more seriously? Of course it of course it of course it could have been a gevald. Of course that's the key word, of course it could have been a gevalt.
Baal Shem Tov says before mashiach's coming, Chava will find her place again in the world. Since chet etz hadaat, she hasn't really had her place. So look at this Me Too movement, look at this look at this strength, look at this power. It's one of the most it became one of the most hafuch al hafuch.
I don't know how to say that in English. Perverse. Upside down. Upside down, right, exactly.
It became it could have been something so beautiful, a besora for many people, for many women that have felt a certain level of nechiyut. What, we're going to deny the fact that that wasn't happening in the world for so long Of course it was. And there's sparks of so much kedusha in that mahalach of machshava. But what how it manifested and what it ended up coming bringing to the world.
Olam hafuch, upside down world. Same too with all these things that are not coming from Har Sinai. Eventually humanity you lose you lose humanity you lose the basics of humanity. Vayamot melech mitzrayim.
That's what ends up happening.
כאשר אנו מסתכלים על העולם צריך להיות לנו ברור באיזה צד אנחנו נמצאים. This is the gut check reality for us. When we look at the world it's got to be clear to us on what side are we on.
So chevre, let me ask you, let me ask us, what side are we on right now? Be'emet, what side are we on? What side of the world are we on? What are the options? The let's say like this. I didn't think you were kidding. I think I thought you were serious right now. Yeah I am.
Okay. I hear it seriously. Yeah. Yeah.
The options, mamash, the options I think is that if there's anything other than kibush gerush vehityashvut, in my humble opinion, we're setting ourselves up for a horrific self-induced coma and That side? That side? What do you mean? That's the side we're on. I hope not. In other words, if let me make it clear again. There's two sides.
Okay, let me answer it without chochmas. There's either in the name of loving the world, not in the name of any hate besides hating evil, in the name of actually loving the world and for the sake of the whole world, kibush gerush vehityashvut, or going back to the first 77 years of the State of Israel. Loving the world or loving Hashem? Same thing. You're not a chasid, achi, you'll get there.
In chasidus, it's hainu hach, same exact thing. There's no difference between the two. If you don't love the world, don't think for a second you know what it means to love Hashem. Look at our look at the look at them.
Two options. So now go back to... Okay, so Rav Shlomo says we when we look at the world it's got to be clear what side are we on now. I'm just putting that in here because of the zman that we're in right now.
I'll say it even more simple. Do I love the world or don't I or do I not love the world? If I really love the world, that means I really love, respect, and value humanity. And when the it says in Tehillim אוהבי ה' שנאו רע, lovers of Hashem have to hate evil, that falls under the category of loving the world. If I'm still stuck in concepts that are not rooted in Har Sinai that dictate to me diplomacy, that dictate to me so much of this of what we've seen, of what we've experienced, yesh po baya, there's a problem here.
There's a problem here. We have to wake up and say what side of the world are we on? Pashut meod. What side are we on? We think we made the decision already. We think.
We didn't. We didn't. If we actually made this collective decision as an am, you think we'd be anywhere close to what we what the way we're still thinking and the rounds we're still and what's happening? So yeah, okay, so go back to Yossi. You think I want to remove emuna from this picture? Chas veshalom.
But I don't believe that like I don't believe the way we're describing the side that we have to say we're choosing removes emuna from the thing. Do you You think like you feel it's a shtikl removing emuna from the thing. What you're talking about, a kibbush and like that type of fighting heart, hardened spirit, will take a lot more of us leaving our comfort zones. And that sheikh has seemingly left his comfort zone for something so greater good.
And it's become very warped. It has. I'm of course it has. But but he like he's done that and he's done that to get to this really hardened position.
Called a stature. You have to you're it's still not shtimming yet that that it's avoda zara. Right. Yeah, he he's he has dedicated you gotta respect the guy that he's dedicated his his whole metzius for bowing down to a statue.
No, I don't respect him. I have zero kavod for that. I believe him. I don't I respect the I mean I respect him because I believe that he's willing to give I almost feel like I need some of that to get to what you're talking about.
I need some of that hardening. I'm sorry, like if you need it with like that's what to that's what you're talking about, it's easy for us to say go ahead and crush the enemy. No, it's very hard. No, it's very hard to say it.
Took us years and years and years and pain to say it. It's not easy to say it. Thousands of korbanos of Jewish it took us thousands and thousands of levayas to hopefully start to talk like this. It's not easy.
It's one of the hardest things in the world that we we paid with such a price. It's not easy. And even as we say it now, as if it's easy, no. And it's not terrifying? It's terrifying.
But if I when I choose to wake up, it's much more terrifying to me if that's not what I'm thinking about. Infinitely more terrifying. When I said before about emuna is that I was I'm trying to wonder if you feel that well if you have emuna you wouldn't be so terrified about what's going to be next even if we don't get to this stage yet of consciousness. So if we go to Har Herzl for the morning, I think we'll come back and and think a little bit differently.
A little bit differently. Or go to Kfar Etzion or you know but these but these things like this is a very important yesod. We see this level of of that they are willing to give their lives for something. In us we want to be able to also feel that state of what was the word you used? Of dedication mesiras nefesh.
Yeah. But it's from the klipa. I don't want it from the klipa. It's from the klipa legamrei.
It's from the klipa. It's from the anti-humanity. You could go into a building surrounded with children and kids and the last thing you do before you blow yourself up with other people is say the name of God? No. Vayamos melech, vayamos melech Mitzrayim.
A person like that there's nothing there. There's nothing in him. There's nothing left. Yeah.
It wasn't hard for Shimon and Levi or Pinchas or any of the the models of Am Yisrael throughout history who who did this. Why do you say that? They didn't have a shailoh or how do you know? Because it seems so the way the Torah portrays it like it's so they were so aligned with ratzon Hashem that it wasn't even Pinchas wasn't sure. Why did he ask if it was okay if it wasn't something he was struggling with? He knew what was right. No, he only wanted to know check the halacha with Moshe if to do it.
But if he knew for sure, he wouldn't have asked. No, he you there's there was some inner struggle there. Listen, I I can understand Eli based on pshat that it looks to us like Shimon and Levi and Pinchas had no problems and just going I don't know, I I find it I find it actually even holier that that to think about Shimon and Levi before they went into Shechem and did what you know the whole thing in Shechem and Chamor. I I find it not not questioning, but that Yiddishe neshama that's like, wow, okay, I'm discovering this side of me that's not my nature al pi pshat, but it's a struggle but I know I have to.
Like for me, I could relate to that more than just thinking I have to become a level of tzidkus where there's absolutely no shailos, I don't struggle with it at all and I'm ready to go. I personally like I can't connect and I don't think it's mafchid either. Look at the gibbor. It's just example after example.
Dovid HaMelech and then his army just wiping out towns. And and and read Tehillim. Dovid HaMelech didn't struggle? But I don't know if he struggled with that nekuda. It was it was more the the the evil that that was taking over them.
That was Unclarity at 100%. No, no, the clarity that these tzadikim have we're never ever going to touch on that. You could be very clear on listen, I'm so certain that if I get angry at one of my kids today it is absolutely wrong and may create future mental damage for them. I could be certain.
The distance between knowing something certainly and being able to do it is shamayim va'aretz. But they did it so they were holding it they were holding it. They ended up doing it and we will end up doing it as well, but the distance between struggling with something and ending up doing it it takes a long time. So it could be, I don't know, what I'm trying to say is I'm not nervous to say that maybe there was an internal struggle they were going through until they did it.
Maybe. It doesn't scare me to think like that. I don't think it's like biblical critique at all. In fact, I feel like it enables when I learn when I look at Dovid ha-Melech when I read Reb Noson.
When I read Reb Noson saying you're writing Toras from the tzadik hador from the tzadik yesod olam where emuna is just basically clear to every the way he brings it down why are you kvetching all the time Reb Noson? Did you miss the memo? Did you did you forget the transcripts? Why is it so hard for you all the time? Don't you know that it's all good and that מצוה גדולה להיות בשמחה תמיד. You read Reb Noson's letters, is that what emanates from Alim Litrufa, from Healing Leaves from Reb Noson?
מצוה גדולה להיות בשמחה תמיד? As opposed to עת צרה היא ליעקב וממנה יושע, right? I don't know, for when I learn Reb Noson in Likutey Tefilos, Alim Litrufa, I don't hear מצוה גדולה להיות בשמחה תמיד. I hear I know all those things to be truths and I need to I need to conquer that place in my heart that will take me towards the finish line and it's so hard. So hard.
Open up any letter of Reb Noson, you feel like singing mishenichnas adar? I don't. Not at all. Maybe the crack, the beginning of the crack, maybe more and hopefully by the end of the letter there's the fast part. But it's a struggle.
We've been through this already for so long. Yeah. I'm just trying to bring this down practical, I'm telling you from personal experience. It's like what I'd be afraid of is almost losing our own humanity.
I know this is going to take and I'm telling you this is really personal. Are you scared to become like them? I can't become like them. Hold on. I'm going to tell you a personal story.
Okay first of all, just on a scale. Okay, my son is in has been in Gaza the last year and Lebanon before that and so was our older son who's here and folks this is the future. All right. So all those beautiful little boys that we have, they're all coming up and this is where they're going to be and you don't know the impact that it has on your wives, you don't know the impact that it has on shalom bayis.
This is just what it takes to say what you're speaking about, okay, comes with real practical implications that aren't so pretty and could just be what our future is. Personally, the boys, Dovid's friends come over on a Friday night. This is what I heard. One of his childhood friends, okay, said oh my gosh, I had to hold the line in Gaza this week and we said it clear: you can't cross this line, this is a no-go zone.
Okay, Hamas often will send kids and others to try to cross it. No go is no go. Okay, kid goes ahead, crosses the line, somehow, fire in the air, he didn't get the message, boom, they shoot him dead. The father comes, sees this, okay, and comes running over and crosses the line and goes oh my gosh my kid, don't cross the line, boom, he's gone too.
Okay? And the mother finally picked up on the message and is bawling and okay. I heard the story, he wasn't even telling it to me. I was just sitting at my Shabbos table and hearing this in the back. Holy, this is what these kids are that's the metzius of what it looks like to do that and it seems as if there's some loss of humanity almost in I or or you need serious almost counseling to be able like you don't think this kid is a little bit shtickel messed up? You don't think he needs to be able to talk about that? You don't think he might not have the kind of conviction that's required to be able to carry this out? And I don't know...
Of course, of course. 100%. Do you think the kid's going to turn to the Shik? Is that what you're saying? I don't think so. They have trauma to work through.
I'm just telling you this is so little Nachi's, okay, could be in a situation... like that. And and you might say, "Hey, like like hopefully he'll have that conviction enough to understand that this is what it takes for the sake of peace and for the sake of humanity. But it's a very it's it's it's a stretch based on our own upbringing.
It it's confusing. And it comes with a cost." It's a massive stretch and it's been coming with a massive cost. No one's denying no one is denying that Lehefich. However, it is impossible for us to become like them.
And the question that comes from the media or from Western culture that has that question that that vibe of like you're you could become like them is Mamish the other side. It's the other side. It's coming from the other side. In the name of not becoming like them, I'm asked to dig my own grave.
That's what it is.
זה מאוד מאוד קשה. It's a stretch? You think it's it's not that it's easy for me to say any of these things or to learn any of these things and to speak about it in front of heroes that have been on the front lines is very, very humbling. I'm a Rav, I'm a teacher in Am Yisrael and I don't want I don't want Chas V'shalom for a second to fall into the Avoda Zara of being politically correct.
I have an Achrayus. What am I going to tell you guys? I have a responsibility. I have a responsibility as a Yachid, I have a responsibility for the Rabim too. And all of us do.
Some to greater extent, some to less. Do I envy what this kid, what this Tzadik has to do? Yeah, Tzadik. The one that the one that had that was forced to take down this kid and his father. Do I think he's a Tzadik? Yes.
Does that mean I'm bloodthirsty? I'm life-thirsty. I am love-thirsty. We cannot afford to forget that. That's who we are.
That's our DNA. It's Avraham Avinu, this is our story. But the world is trying to push us to convince us that any type all we are saying worked really good for you, Johnny, huh? What's the Moreshet of the Beatles? What's the what's the Moreshet? What's the Moreshet of what's the legacy of anyone that of the 60s folk songs? What's the what's the B'emes? What's the Moreshet of it? What is it? Like what what came out of it all? Catchy tunes? Yeah. A day in a life.
Yeah. It just doesn't I mean look it it just seems that we just have not really woken up yet. It it seems like we haven't really woken up yet. The Chayalim woke up.
The every Chayal woke up. Because he had to. He had no choice. And we owe our lives to them.
You guys know I don't have to start Ke'ilu to preaching about the Kedusha of Chayalim. But if the orders and the chain of command was functioning from a place up on the top of Har Sinai and not of Washington or England or Paris or any of these other places that so to speak represent Ke'ilu the HaOlam HaNaor. Chain of command from the top we wouldn't have to sit and speak we wouldn't have to say anything. Ah Ela Mai Hashem made it that this is our Avoda now.
Spreading this consciousness. Because it doesn't seem like it's like it's it's clear yet. It doesn't seem like it's clear yet.
אז זה קשה מאוד.
And just because we're not on the front lines it doesn't mean that we don't have an Achrayus to go so deep with what we know to be the Emes of all Emes so that the ones that are on the front lines don't have to suffer so much. And that yeah maybe I'm being selfish that I still have like thirteen years, fourteen years before my son has to serve, right? Alivay that's what I have to pay for in you know in the next world. You And you are too. And you still have boys that aren't there yet.
This is what you want for them? No. This is what you want for them? Mah pitom? Half your daughter's friends were burned alive on October 7th. This is what we want for the next level? Burned alive, chevre. Burned alive.
And now they're planning this right in our backyard. That same thing. In our backyard. How could you say these things? You love niggunim and the Baal Shem Tov and you love Rebbe Nachman, you know.
Again, לכן כאשר אנו מסתכלים על העולם צריך להיות ברור באיזה צד אנחנו נמצאים. It's gotta be clear what side you're on. When you say I'm on the side of Israel, you have to actually understand what that means. Unfortunately, there are people out there that are speaking in the name of Israel, and it's Israel, it's not Eretz Yisrael.
It's Israel. It's it's Israel of November 27th, 1947, November 29th, it's not Eretz Yisrael. It's Israel. I always tell people, never say I came to Israel.
You come to Eretz Yisrael. There's no such thing as Israel. Eretz Yisrael. This is a complete game-changer.
מה הייתה תחילתה של היהדות? What was the beginning of Yiddishkeit? Avraham Avinu.
איזה בן אדם הוא היה?
איזה אישיות?
לאברהם אבינו היה לב לכל אחד אפילו עבור עובדי האלילים השפלים ביותר בעולם. Avraham Avinu had a heart for everyone, even for the most lowest idol worshippers. Oh wait a second, we called them before idol worshippers.
You think Avraham Avinu didn't have a heart for an idol worshipper? He did. So what would Avraham Avinu do to this Sheikh? Avraham Avinu went out to war. You think how many people do you think Avraham Avinu killed? Half the world. But Avraham Avinu had a heart for anyone that didn't try to come and kill him.
Yes. Yes. So we can't become them because we are people of the heart. It's impossible.
It's impossible. We're not them. We're hopefully we're not yet us either, but hopefully we'll be us. So Avraham Avinu has a heart even for the lowest avodah zarah as long as he's not trying to come and kill him.
אבל לאלה בצד השני לא אכפת אם מיליוני אנשים גוססים. People on the other side that say questions like you're becoming murderers, where have you checked the news in Sudan the last 20, 30 years? Have you checked the news anywhere else in the world where there's mass mass murders, mass killings of Christians? No protests. No Jews, no news.
ולא רק תושבי עמים אחרים לא אכפת להם אפילו מהעם שלהם.
But it's not just that they don't care about other the other people, they don't care about their own people. And that's mamash, look at it, mamash they don't care about their own people.
לא אכפת להם משום דבר ומאף אחד, כלום. They don't care about anything.
They don't have care.
כולם צריכים לעמוד למען הטוב. You have to stand up for the good.
עלינו להודות לריבונו של עולם שבחר בנו מכל העמים ונתן לנו את תורתו.
We have to thank God that chose us from all nations and He gave us His Torah.
ואנו צריכים לקוות ולהתפלל שיום אחד יום אחד בקרוב כל אומות העולם יצטרפו אלינו. Not just Somaliland or whatever this place is called, but that all the nations of the world join us. We want them to join us.
We don't want them to be on the side of darkness. We want the teshuvah of Germany to be real. We want the teshuvah of Italy to be real. We want the whole world to join us.
כל אומות העולם יצטרפו אלינו כדי שיחד עם כל האנשים הטובים בעולם. So that together with all the good people of the world, and there are, נוכל ליצור עולם שממש אכפת לו. We could create a world that mamash cares.
אני רוצה לברך אותכם ואותי שהקדוש ברוך הוא יוציא אותנו מהתהום.
I want to bless you and me that God should take us out of the abyss. Which abyss? Hatehom. lacking humanity. Of lacking humanity.
How did we get to all of this? Because the Geula... the Geula came when we saw that the enemy lacked humanity. When Paroh went the whole way. Until he went the whole way, we still weren't sure if it's this bad or not.
But then he went the whole way, and then we started screaming because we saw even basic lacks of humanity weren't there. What else has to happen in this region for us to realize that we've been here for a long time already? If I would have described October 7th to you on October 6th, what do you think you would have said in terms of the response and the shift of consciousness and the choices we'd make here? What would have been clear to everyone? Big changes. Get rid of them all. We're all in.
We're all in. We said that October 8th. We said it for a few minutes.
לא יכנס גרגיר של זה, no.
For a few minutes, Pesach. Shlomo once said that, you know, our problem isn't compassion. Jews by nature are very compassionate people, but where's our real problem? We don't always put it into the right places. That is the ultimate situation we're in today.
Of course, it's not to kill, we don't want to do this, but as soon as נכנס לראש כל הג'וקים האלה, all of the concepts of, oh, who's going to dictate to us how to be compassionate? What, as soon as, or as long as we're still getting it from everybody else and not getting it from Har Sinai, so that's why there's the question. Yeah, yeah, Eli. So, it's a little longer, but I want to share with you a conversation... but aval mamash bekitzur, I had when I was about fifteen years old with Rav Soloveitchik.
I spoke with him and I asked him... it bothered me the Gemara in Shabbos... how you don't, how you walk by oved avodah zarah in a pit and you don't pull him out of the pit. And, excuse me, Rav Soloveitchik said, first of all, you're not the first one that had this question.
Adam HaRishon had this question. He says, but I want you to think about this this way. Imagine that Goebbels or Himmler had just destroyed your entire family and you walked by them in a pit on Shabbos, wouldn't you want any excuse not to have to pull them out of that pit? Shook me. But it was an interesting thing because it didn't sound like a typical Orthodox response to such a question.
He says, now I'll tell you what I tell people nowadays. Because what's going through my mind is, you know, like, how does this all work? He says, if you come to a collapse building and there are people on the street and it's men, women, children, Jewish, non-Jewish, Kohanim, not, who do you take care of first? And I said, I'm thinking to myself, I'm going through the Rambam in my head with hierarchies of... he says, I'll tell you who you take care of first: whoever you come to first. And it doesn't matter if it's Jewish, non-Jewish, a Kohen, not, none of that.
And so now I'm completely flummoxed. I don't know what to do. I said, how, is it because of Shalom... is it because of darkhei shalom? He says, no.
He says, the entire root of the Torah is life and this is life. And he slams his hand on the Gemara. And that was the end of that part of the conversation. On the one hand, I was gratified because my instinct was good, like how do you do this? And on the other hand, I understood that it's a very complicated process.
Heaven forbid that we should not understand this as complicated. And boy, on the granular level, as opposed to on the national level, have to go through what your son's friends went through, what my boy went through. And it's tough. It is really, really tough.
I don't know if we could never become inhuman. I'm not sure. But if we stay focused and we understand that it is a struggle, but that at the end of this struggle, we have a vision and we have... we know what we're trying to fight for, it becomes easier to fight for that.
There is something amazing about people that are willing to give up their children and so on and so forth, but it comes from a warped place at the same time. Right? Again, Avraham Avinu had to be sacrifice Yitzchak. Right? Think about what this means. We're willing to walk through fire for our kids.
It's not such a big deal to sacrifice myself. Sacrifice your son? That's a different thing. And he had to force himself, and it was a it's not a simple thing, and it's a that's a complicated story. We shave off all the tough the rough edges and so on and so forth.
This is a complicated story. And at the end of the day God wants that juice but he doesn't want us to kill our kids, right? That's clear. But there is something about that juice and I think that that's what you were getting at, right? It is complicated. But if it comes from a wrong place, right? But it takes an Avraham Avinu to figure this out, okay? If Avraham Avinu though isn't a human being and he's only up here, there's nothing I can learn from him.
That's also a mistake, right? The Avos are Avos because we learn from them. So I'm just gonna leave that. That last thing was was ties to what Eli said before I think because Avraham Avinu did not really know what to do. We know this.
He he heard conflict- it's a bit- goes into this in depth but he kept on davening every second and crying to Hashem while he was fulfilling one command but we know that he really wasn't sure. He he had to send his hand to do an action: וישלח אברהם את ידו ויקח את המאכלת לשחוט את בנו. It's exactly for I think because of how you're describing because it's it's very very complex. It's not complex for these ovdei avoda zara to do these things and that proves the loss of humanity because if it's not complex for you, if you're able to not shed a tear after your wife and children are killed, don't tell me this has anything to do with mesiras nefesh or anything like that.
I think the problem is most people don't understand what avoda zara really is. It's hard. They think okay it's Christian, it's this, it's that, but real avoda zara that's another level and this sheikh, these people like that, it's complex human sacrifice, human sacrifice. Well no we actually it's actually I don't fully agree with you because we have a very very clear level of avoda zara in the Torah which is called Molech.
That's not complicated. No that's not complicated. But wait wait wait wait wait and that's the parsha of today. It's not complicated.
And you know who told me this? I came here to learn in yeshiva by Rabbi Riskin, okay? And all my you know right-wing chevra when I first came to the yeshiva they were like keilu right, what, you know, Rabbi Riskin? The first week we're in yeshiva Rabbi Riskin's giving over to us why he felt that you can't walk into mosques anymore. Wait what happened over here? Like did I come to the right place? Because he was calling out the era of what we were entering into. This was 2002. And every meeting after that with Rabbi Riskin was trying to get me to be involved with the Christian community and I asked him once why are you so mitakesh on this? And he said because he he feels that this era that we've entered into is mamash a bechira between the avoda zara, the clear avoda zara we see in front of us right now.
Molech is not a complicated sugya. And that's what's happening and that that kid that got killed... tell me something, that wasn't an avoda zara act what happened over there? You know how many times fathers send their sons to go to the front lines for the cameras and then to keep jump on that? And it's still a stretch for us, it's like amazing. For me the important avoda zara ahead is taivos, mamon and niuf and who, tahapuchot, I see P Diddy, like this guy who he took it off to another level.
But then it's avoda zara. That that to me is avoda zara. At least have a good time so to speak. No no no no no.
I'm talking about you're saying this is avoda zara amiti, this is the true avoda zara? I'm like you're nuts! Like you're not even having you're not even making there's no painful- at least have a good- if you have no God you're going out have a good- again P Diddy- it's not right. But but at least have a good time. But that to me is- you're calling that true avoda zara? Like that that is like the part- I'm like no, it's all about you know money, food and and and relations like so like that that is to see it as Molech you're right the Torah speaks about it, you're right it's biblical and it's obviously amiti. That that shift was was...
that was all of it. I never thought like that until Rabbi Riskin met with us that first week and... That was the first shiur. I couldn't believe it.
That was the first conversation we had then. Now, what do you mean that Rabbi Riskin should have a רפואה שלמה בעזרת השם? Obviously, when it came to things in the past, we all know the struggles people have with different opinions and everything, but when a Yid gets woken up and lives with the times, sometimes the pshat of the Torah, not the drash, the pshat of the Torah suddenly is like, okay, let's lift this pasuk out of shi'abud, out of being mamash like imprisoned. Let's take a pshat of a pasuk, lift it up. Hey, does this look like this is what's going on? Well, when parents send their children out to be suicide bombers and then open up a khafla at the shiva, and when one calls their mother and father from Kibbutz Be'eri in Kfar Aza to give nachas...
I don't have to, excuse me for saying this, that's the moment where it's not a... it's still a struggle, meaning... it's not a struggle. It's not a mental struggle at that point.
It's not like, oh, I got... I gotta stretch my mind and wrap my head around this. It just, yes, it is what it is. It's not what it's not.
It's right in front of us. I just give us a bracha b'ezrat Hashem to do something before we get to the conclusions of what to do.
ויזעקו ותעל שועתם אל האלהים. It began by screaming to Hashem, by crying to Hashem.
קול דמי אחינו צועקים אלינו מן האדמה. The voices of all our beloved tzaddikim that have lost their lives so that we could be here is screaming to us, and they're not... I don't think they're screaming to say, just find a way to live in peace with them. We had to do what we had to do, but you guys don't have to...
They're in Olam HaEmet. They're in the world of truth. They're in the world of truth. This is Olam HaSheker.
They're in the world of truth. And their blood is screaming, screaming, and our blood should boil with screaming to Hashem and get this geulah train to finally leave. Like people... okay, maybe it didn't leave the...
I don't want to get into that at all. Just let it just get to the destination. Amen. Amen.
Let it just get to the destination b'simcha and may all the righteous and holy people in the world, which of course there are, may we all join together b'ezrat Hashem and bring Kavod Shamayim to the whole world.