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The Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe Podcast Collection is the one-stop shop for the Torah inspiration shared by Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe in one simple feed. The Jewish Inspiration Podcast, Parsha Review Podcast, Thinking Talmudist Podcast, Living Jewishly Podcast and Unboxing Judaism Podcast all in one convenient place. Enjoy!
Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (00:03.756)
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of Torch in Houston, Texas. This is the Parsha Review Podcast.
Good morning, everybody. It's so wonderful to be here. Crisp morning here in Houston, Texas. This week's Parsha is Parsha's Vayishlach. Vayishlach means and he sent. Vayishlach Yaakov Malochim. And Jacob sent messengers, Lifanov before him, Eliezer Vakhev. He sent messengers to his brother.
Asaf. Artzah seir steh adam. Now Jacob was coming back to the land of Israel. Vayitzav osom lemur. And he says to these messengers as follows. Ko somer laadon leasaf. So shall you tell to my master Asaf, to my lord Asaf. Ko omar avdokha yakov. So said your servant Jacob. Im la vongarty. I lived with Laban. Okay, I lived in his home.
And I have lingered until now. Okay, so we know the Torah doesn't just tell us stories. The Torah doesn't just tell us tales of what happened. What is the Torah saying here and why is it important for us to know, number one, that he sent angels. What is he dealing with angels? Why is Jacob dealing with angels? I'm sending you guys, but I'm sending you guys with angels. Angels are gonna protect you.
because they were afraid of Asaph. Asaph was a mighty guy and they were like, I don't think it's a good idea for us to go to Asaph. He said, it's okay, I'm sending angels with you. Let's know what Rashi says. Malochimamish, he actually sent angels. He actual, actual angels. Now, if you look in the Medrash, the Medrash says that we see that our patriarchs dealt with angels a lot. We know that Abraham had three angels that came
Right after he circumcised himself, he was sitting in the tent and three angels came around. And while wandering in the wilderness, we know that Abraham's maid, Hagar, was addressed by an angel. And then we see Eliezer, the servant of Abraham, who traveled to Levant. He was accompanied by angels. Yaakov himself was involved with angels. He was protected by angels.
Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (02:30.09)
And when Joseph went by his father, was sent by his father to go find his brothers, he met up with angels. So we see that our sages were dealing with angels, our patriarchs, our matriarchs. Angels was a common thing. But then Yaakov says something very, very amazing. Yaakov says, lovungarti, he's telling, he's giving guidance.
to these messengers. And he's telling them, guys, first respect, okay? Call him my master. Don't call him by his name. My master, you know, the master of Jacob, give him respect. And what he's trying to say here is that I got a blessing from our dad. That's what Jacob is conveying. I got a blessing and...
The blessing didn't really work out, didn't really pan out, because look, I've been a servant by Laban for so many years. All of that blessing that I was going to have the heavens and I was going to have the earth, what do I have? have a few animals. It's not heaven, not earth. It's nothing. So just let bygones be bygones. Let's just move on. And well, let's just have peace between us. But Yaakov drops over here a hint that Rashi picks up on. In love on Garty, I sojourned with
Laban. What is Garti? Garti is the same numerical value as Taryag. Taryag mitzvos. Toph resh yud gimel. And this is gimel resh toph yud. What does Rashi say? Lo naasei sisar vechoshuv elo ger. I didn't become someone who is honorable, someone who is a minister. I was a ger.
I was like a convert. I was a guest there. I never became permanent there. Don't hate me for the blessings of our father. He said I'm going to be a master over my brothers. And you see I wasn't. You see, I was a servant. I was a servant.
Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (04:52.608)
I didn't get a chance to make great success, so just let it go. And then he says, d'var-aachar. Now, Rashi says an amazing thing. Garty b'gemarchi o tar jag.
Garty, Imlovin Garty, I lived with Lovin. He's saying, tariyah, kolomar Imlovin horosha garty v'etaryug mitzvah shamarty, velolamalti mimas of horoyim. I lived with Laban. Laban was a wicked guy. And you know what happened? I wasn't influenced by him. You know why? Because I kept the Torah and the mitzvos. I kept the 630 commandments of the Torah, and in so doing,
I protected myself from his influence. So Rashi here says, I did not learn from his wicked ways. I did not learn from his wicked ways. The Torah here is teaching us a key.
in order to preserve our holiness, in order to preserve our level of greatness, we must keep the Torah.
We must keep the Torah. This reminds me of an amazing story. Story of my grandfather. My grandfather, as many of you know, was born in Germany, in Berlin. He lived in Berlin. And before the war broke out, the Second World War, my grandfather had already been learning in the Yeshiva of Mir in Poland.
Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (06:35.566)
And because my grandfather was a citizen of Germany, he was not welcome in Poland when the war broke out. And they informed him that he had to leave. And where is he going to go now? So he went to Sweden. Sweden was a neutral country. And he arrived in Sweden. And he arrives in Sweden alone. He didn't have a rabbi there.
He didn't have a teacher there. He didn't have a study hall to learn in the Basmati. He didn't have a synagogue to go to. Alone.
Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (07:13.238)
And what was the first thing he did when he arrived there? He put on the door of his apartment a nameplate. And the nameplate said, base haMosur, the house of Mosur. And he learned every single day. He learned Torah, and he learned, and he prayed, and he learned Mosur.
and he said that for the eight years that he lived there, his spiritual state was elevated.
While there were many, many great rabbis who came to Sweden,
And unfortunately, many of them lost all connection to faith. Their spirituality deteriorated, their Torah deteriorated, their spiritual status completely deteriorated. And many of them unfortunately went on to the worst of intermarriage and the likes. You wonder, how is it possible?
How is it possible that someone who was once a prominent rabbi, here you have one who would fall and disappear, assimilate into other cultures, and over here you have one who only was elevated and became so great.
Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (08:39.796)
Im lov on Garti. Even though I was among the nations of the world, even though I had negative influences around me, Garti, I kept the Torah, I kept the mitzvos, I kept on learning, I kept on what we call in Yiddish, steiging, I kept on growing and growing and growing every single day. And as long as a person maintains the Torah, maintains the mitzvos,
in their life, there's nothing in the world that can take you down. There's nothing in the world that can ruin your greatness. So if someone is traveling, someone is going, don't know where someone's going to go, you don't know where anyone can be taken to in life, we have sometimes our job takes us here and our job takes us there, and what's going to be if and what's going to be when, we don't know.
But if a person is firm in his Torah study, if a person is committed and dedicated every single day not to miss a day of Torah study, it preserves us. The Torah protects us. The Torah preserves us.
We know, we've mentioned this idea before, it says about the Torah that it's, the Torah is sweet like honey and it's comb.
What does that mean that the Torah is sweet like honey? What ingredients, what, what is in honey? What properties are in honey?
Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (10:27.426)
that compares it to the Torah. So our sages explain from a halacha. The halacha says that if one puts something which is in a veil or something which is not kosher into honey for an extended period of time, you can later take it out. I'm talking an extended period of about six months or so, even more.
Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (10:54.402)
You can take it out and you can eat it. Huh? How is it possible something which is not kosher? Because after an extended period of time, the honey just, the properties of the honey completely consume everything that's in it and it becomes honey.
Our sages tell us that's the power of Torah. The contrast between Torah and other trades. Someone goes to law school, but they have a really bad temper. You know what happens? They leave law school as a bad tempered lawyer. Someone who goes to medical school, who's very jealous. When he leaves medical school, he's a jealous doctor.
Nothing changes. Your traits stay the same. You may have more knowledge, but it doesn't transform who you are.
But when someone comes to learn Torah, they become a new person. All of their blemishes are repaired. We see this with Akiva, the great Rabbi Akiva. So there's a big problem in the Talmud. Because Akiva's father-in-law, Rachel's father, when she told him, I'm going to marry Akiva,
He says, don't marry that guy, that lowlife, that shepherd. You're gonna marry him? He doesn't add a reed. You're marrying him. He says to her, Rachel, if you marry this Akiva, I'm making an oath, I'm making a promise that you will never, ever benefit from my wealth. He was a very, very wealthy man. You will not benefit from my wealth. You will not enjoy from my possessions.
Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (12:44.184)
You're not going to get any of it. And what happens 24 years later? The great Rabbi Ya'Keeva appears and the father makes a big feast. Rachel's father makes a big feast. How is it possible? The Talmud asks. How is it possible that he is able to enjoy from his father-in-law's feast when he made an oath without removing that oath? The Talmud in Gittin tells us.
an amazing thing.
The way it works when you go to learn Torah, you become a great person. You become a different person. You become a transformed person. So it is impossible for someone to study Torah and to just stay at a neutral state.
Life is an escalator that's going down.
You have to turn around and go against that going down escalator and slowly start climbing. That's life. A person who doesn't maintain their Torah study is on that escalator and it's going to decline before you know it there at the bottom. But what do we need to do? We have to work against it. How do we work against it? That's the study of Torah. The study of Torah doesn't only preserve
Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (14:20.824)
Who we are, it makes us great. It changes, it transforms who we are. This is the essence of Torah. The gift of Torah is not to just be. The gift of Torah is to transform, to elevate.
and to protect. When someone is busy learning Torah, they cannot fall.
Yeah, you're going to have like the Torah teaches us, a righteous will fall seven times. The righteous will fall. But that means that you're going to try to overcome, for example, we're talking about traits. You're going to try to overcome anger. So you know what? You'll fall once or twice or three or four or seven times, 10 times. The natural state of someone who's growing is you're going to fall. You're not going to prevail 100 % of the time.
But if you keep on getting up, ve kam, you're going to get up again, then you'll become a great and righteous person. Because we don't give up. We're going to keep on trying, we're going to keep on trying, we're going to keep on trying. But when we have the Torah at our tailwind, the Torah is going to help us. The Torah is going to protect us and defend us. And it's going to preserve our greatness and add to it.
And this is what Yaakov was hinting here to us. Yaakov was hinting to us. Yes, he was in the house of Laban. He's saying to us, my dear children, remember, you're going to be in a place as far as Houston. You're going to be in a place that may not have the Torah like you have in Jerusalem, where at every street corner you have a synagogue, where at every street corner you have a study hall, where every place you go you can see a rabbi, you can get a blessing.
Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (16:15.758)
You're going to be far away, you're going to be 8,000 miles away. You may not be able to feel that same uplifted spiritual closeness to Hashem like you do in other places.
But you know what you have? You have the ability to study Torah. And when you study Torah, what happens? You become greater. You become elevated. And not only that, we see from Abraham that when someone is elevated, everything around them becomes elevated. The whole land that Abraham acquired became elevated. He bought it from a low life who changed his mind multiple times.
No, take it as a gift. No, give me $400,000. No, like kept on changing. Abraham acquires it at an exorbitant price. And what does it say? The field was elevated. Why was it elevated? Because it now was purchased by someone who was at an elevated state. Say, just teach us that Abraham, although he did not yet, the Jewish people had not yet received the Torah.
So how did Abraham observe the Torah? Because he connected with God. What is the Torah? What is the essence of Torah? The essence of Torah is connecting to Hashem. Hashem talks to us in His Torah. We're learning God language. We're learning God speak. We're learning how Hashem wants us to think, how Hashem wants us to act. Abraham understood that with his connection to Hashem. He says,
I know exactly what Hashem wants us to be doing here. Hashem wants us to take every seventh day and rest on it. That's the Shabbos. Hashem wants us to not mix wool and linen. Hashem wants us to wear tzitz on our four cornered garments. Abraham, his investment in his relationship with God, was able to derive all of the teachings of the Torah and observe it. We see that even before the Torah was given,
Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (18:25.218)
This back in the second Torah portion of Noah. Noah took of the kosher animals, he took seven piers. Of the non-kosher animal, he just took one pier. How did he know? The Torah wasn't given yet. We don't have Leviticus yet where it gives us the exact description of a kosher and a non-kosher animal. How did Noah know? Because Torah precedes the world. The Torah is the blueprint of the world. So now we understand clearly
that if one preserves that blueprint, no matter where they are, they can build a temple for God. But if someone pushes it aside, says, you know what, I'm going to chart my own course. I'm going to do my own thing. What happens, what's left? What's left is nothing. We fall into the abyss and we don't, we aren't able to maintain our status.
This is the lesson we learned from Yaakov. Yaakov was the pillar of Torah. He studied Torah. He learned in Shemveva for 24 years. He learned and learned and learned. And he maintained his greatness. In the House of Lavan, he even became greater. And this is what he's teaching us in the hint of this portion. In Lavan Garty, don't be saddened.
You're living out in Vegas, you're living out in Memphis, Tennessee, you're living out in middle of no place. Don't be disheartened. Don't give up. Because our patriarch Jacob had the same experience. He was also in a place that didn't have good influences. And we'll see later in a few weeks Torah portion that we see the blessing that forever is the blessing for the Jewish people. Becho y'varach yisrael. You know how you bless your children?
Yisimcha Allah kimke afrayim inch manasha God should make you like a friman manasha. Why like a friman manasha? What is so unique about a friman manasha that we say, your children should be like a friman manasha? I just tell us. Because a friman manasha, where did they grow up? They're the children of Joseph. Where did they grow up? They were raised in Egypt. Were there study halls in Egypt? No. Was there a yeshiva? Was there a torch center? There wasn't anything there.
Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (20:55.254)
and yet they became righteous Torah scholars. They were God-fearing Jews. What, in a desert? In a place that was steeped in materialism? The number one economy in the world was Egypt. The number one wealth was in Egypt. The materialism, the levels of indulging
in materialistic pursuits in the entire world. The number one was Egypt.
And yet with all of that, with all of those challenges, with all of those temptations,
Freiman Menashe prevailed. They won the battle. They maintained their status as Jews, not withstanding their entire surrounding, the entire country.
Our sages teach us that the reason we bless our children with the introduction of Yisim Cholaylokim Ke'efrayim Echemenashe God should make you and bless you just like he did to Ephraim and Menashe because we have no idea where our children will end up. They can be out in middle of Colorado. They can be in New Mexico. They can be wherever. They can be in Texas, in Houston, Texas. And what are they going to have? They may not have a school for their children.
Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (22:26.466)
They may not have a day school where your children can learn Jewish values. They may not have a study hall where they can come learn Torah. They may not have a magnificent library like we have here in the Torch Center. But you know what you do have? We have ancestors, Ephraim and Menasha, that they prevailed notwithstanding that they were in a secular environment. They were in a place that served idolatry.
that wasn't connected to God. And they preserved their Torah connection with God through the study of Torah.
And this is why we bless our children like that. We bless our children that they should also prevail wherever they are with the study of Torah. Maintain the study of Torah. When someone comes to learn Torah, this is what the Talmud, we mentioned previously with Rabbi Akiva. You are transformed. You become a different person. And therefore,
When Rachel's father made an oath that he should not enjoy from her, from his possessions, he wasn't referring on Rabbi Akiva, the great Akiva, who was now a new person. It was on the little boy Akiva. He was the guy who didn't know anything. Now he became a great different person, totally transformed. This is the power of Torah.
This is what we learned from Yaakov. We learned from Yaakov never to give up on our Torah. Never to give in to the Yetzherah and never to take a day off. Learn something every single day. Take a book. Learn something small to preserve ourselves and our relationship with God, our relationship with the Torah. We need to be in Lavan. If you're with Lavan, wherever you are in the world, Garti.
Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (24:23.202)
Don't forget Taryag Mitzvos. Preserve the Mitzvos. Preserve the Torah. And in this way, there will never be a challenge that we cannot overcome. And we will learn how to survive any spiritual challenge. This is our goal. This is our mission. Shem Shev, bless us all. And we should have an amazing Shabbos. Thank you so much.
Sandy, you're asking an outstanding question. Is angels only something that were controlled by our ancestors, you know, or is it something that we can have access to as well? So I wanna share with you an amazing thing.
An amazing thing, the Midrash tells us something really phenomenal. The Midrash tells us that Sunday was married to Monday, Tuesday was married to Wednesday, Thursday was married to Friday. And Shabbos came to God and said, it's not fair. Everyone has a mate, except for me. I'm alone. I'm single. God says, don't worry. Your mate is going to be the Jewish people.
Your mate is going to be the Jewish people. Who is the partner for Shabbos? The Jewish people. And not only that, the Jewish people will date you. Once a week they'll go on a date night with you. And once a week they're going to get dressed up and they're going to bring out the finest wine and the finest food and they're going to just spend time focused just on you.
That's the Jewish people in Shabbos. You know what happens in synagogue every Friday night? Every Friday night, we stand up and we turn our faces, our whole body, we turn to the door of the synagogue. It's the weirdest custom. We say, Boi v'sho'a mater esbala, we welcome in the Shabbos Queen. And we say, Shabbos Queen, come, come.
Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (26:29.87)
Listen, what do we do when the bride walks down the chuppah, when she walks down the aisle? What do we do? Everyone stands up and everyone faces the bride. You know who our bride is? The Shabbos queen. And that's what we do. As soon as the Shabbos comes in, we all stand up, we all face the door, and we welcome the Shabbos queen in. Now who does the Shabbos queen come in with? With angels.
The Shabbos queen comes in with angels. That's the bridesmaids.
They're the angels. We're welcoming in the queen, the Shabbos queen, with the angels. What happens then? The halacha says something really phenomenal. The halacha says that as soon as one comes home, we start singing Shalom Aleichem. What is the song of Shalom Aleichem? It's an amazing thing.
Shalom aleichem, I'm gonna read it to you so you don't think I'm making this up Sandy. Okay. Shalom aleichem alachai ashoris Peace upon you. ministering angels Malachai Elyon angels of the exalted one me melech malchim alachim ha kadesh boruchu from the king who reigns over kings the holy one blessed is he You understand that every single Friday night we encounter the angels
and we ask them we first as we say peace be upon you and then we say may you come
Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (28:06.242)
Be for peace. Boach ham l'sholam. May your coming be for peace. And then we say, Baruchun y l'sholam. Bless me for peace. And then we say tsescham l'sholam. And now you can depart in peace. This we say every single Friday night. And we say three times each of these stanzas. Why? Because we're greeting the angels that are escorting the Shabbos.
So we too have an encounter with angels every single week. And then what happens? Why do we say to the angels, tseis ramoshom? And now you can depart because now you've done your job escorting the Shabbos queen. And the Talmud says that when the angels come into the home, the Shabbos table should be all set already because the angels say, Shabbos table set.
Shabbos is in good hands. And they give a blessing that if this Shabbos is so prepared and beautiful, next Shabbos should also be prepared and beautiful. And if heaven forbid it's not, the angels have something to say about that. But we encounter these angels every single week.
We say every single evening when we go to sleep we say, ha'malach ha'goelosim mikol ra. We have these angels that surround us. mi'minimichol, mismoli gavriel, have Michael on our right, we have Gavriel on our left. We have angels in front of us, behind us. We ask every evening, Hashem protect us, that these... we should be protected from all negative influences. We have angels that are there to guard us.
We have angels all around us. So how do we connect with those angels?
Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (30:06.464)
It says that for every blade of grass, there is an angel there that commands it, grow. Grow. We're surrounded all around us by angels. This is why in our prayer, what's called Tfilu D'miyushav, in the blessings of the Ish, of the Shema, we have a whole prayer there talking about the angels.
It's not a simple thing. There are angels all around us. And you know what? The people in your lives, they're also angels. They're messengers of God telling them to say something nice to you, to say something which is maybe a little bit off to you.
Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (30:55.118)
because Hashem is using them as a vehicle to enlighten us and to uplift us and to inspire us or to help us change.
This is unbelievable powers that we have. My dear friends, that's an excellent question, Sandy. I hope I answered you. So how do we get to the point of Abraham where what we see is not the physical, but what we see is the spiritual, right? Because the angels were spiritual beings. The angels don't become physical beings. They remain spiritual. When we elevate ourselves through the Torah,
and we go beyond the level of physical materialistic world and we go to a world where we're able to now start connecting to God in a spiritual plane. We're able to see things beyond the physical. That's what it is. You know, we see in the Mesiles Yasharim by the Ramchal, he talks about how we take everything physical and elevate it. Or heaven forbid the opposite. Okay, so
We can take this coffee and it's a very physical thing. But when we recite a blessing, it becomes spiritual. We elevate it. Now, the more a person is able to do this in a deeper level with more focus and more concentration and more connection with the Almighty, the more the entire world around them is no longer a physical world, it becomes a spiritual world. Because we always talk about how there's a parallel world between the physical and the spiritual world. So the physical things that we're doing have
spiritual counterparts above us. It depends on us how much we're able to elevate ourselves. Now, I don't know that a person needs to be in that realm of seeing the angels. I don't know that we want to. The Talmud talks about if you want to see demons, if you want to see the yetzahara, there are certain things a person can do. But the Talmud gives a warning. You can never undo it.
Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (33:03.63)
It's a big challenge. Do you wanna live knowing that right over here on your shoulder is a demon or a negative angel telling you do this or do that? A person can go crazy from that. A person has to be very careful. So we have to be careful what we wish for, but definitely we have power to do it, but we have to do it in a natural, organic way. And that is growing one step.
to the next step, to the next step through Torah. You know, Judaism believes, not believes, built into our world is astrology, right? But there's good astrology and there's bad astrology. There's kosher animals and there are non-kosher animals. Yet can someone get involved in a realm that is far beyond the physical that we feel and see and experience? Yes, we have to be guided to do it in a proper way.
I hope I answered that as well. yes, we do have the ability to connect on much higher levels and we need to utilize everything that we have to grow and connect at the highest level that we can. Okay.
You've been listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe on a podcast produced by Torch, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. Please help sponsor an episode so we can continue to produce more quality Jewish content for our listeners around the globe. Please visit TorchWeb.org to donate and partner with us on this incredible endeavor.