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A refreshing and clear review of each Parsha in the Torah presented by Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe
00:01 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
You are listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of TORCH in Houston, texas. This is the Parsha Review Podcast.
00:10 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
All right, welcome back everybody. Good morning, welcome back to the Tuesday morning extravaganza.
00:17
This week's Parsha is Parshas Noach. It is the second portion of the book of the Torah and it's an amazing Parsha to look or say. Just tell us, by the way, as a side note, that every single Torah portion relates to the current events, so you can be in the middle of the book of Leviticus and if you look carefully at what's going on in the world and you look carefully into the Torah portion, it will talk about it. You'll see a lot. This week is an easy one because last week's Torah portion, the beginning of Book of Genesis, the portion of Beraeus, ends the following way by Yara Shem Kiraba Raas Ha'aret Ha'adam Ba'aret. By Yara Hashem Kiraba Raas Ha'adam Ba'aret. V'chol Yeitza Makhshavas Liborak Rakhaliyom Hashem saw that great was the wickedness of man upon the earth and that every product of his thoughts, of his heart, was totally evil all day long.
01:21
Sound, sound, something that's going on today. You see people who have evil on their minds all day. How can we cause pain to people? How can we cause strife in this world? How can we cause terrorism in this world? All day long their goal? I heard the voice of an evil terrorist say. He says Israel loves life, we love death. Just so that you understand.
01:55
V'yinochem Ha'ashem kiosso esa-odom ba'aretz, v'is a'atze'e valibom. And Hashem regretted that he made man on earth and he was saddened in his heart. Now obviously we need to understand what that means. God doesn't have a heart per se like we do, and God doesn't have regret like we do. So what is this? V'yomra Ha'ashem emche, esa-odom ki ba'Rossi me'alpne ha'adom ame-odom, ad-beheemah ad-remes, ve'ad-ofeshamaim ki ni'hamtiki yasisi. And Hashem said I will obliterate man whom I created from upon the face of the earth, from man to the animal, to the creeping things and to the birds of the sky, for I regret that I made them. Ve'noach matzachhein, be'ene'y Hashem. But noach found favor in the eyes of Hashem.
02:49
And this concludes last week's Torah portion, the portion of Biraecius. And then we begin the portion of Noach, our portion this week. Ve'ila toldos noach, and these are the descendants of Noach Noach, ish tsadik, tamim ha'yabed-arossav. Noach was a righteous man, perfect, because he, in his generation, esho'elokim hishalek, noach with God, did noach walk. So let's understand something.
03:19
Something bothers me about this, and what bothers me about this is who did evil? Mankind did evil, so why are you killing the birds? Why are you killing the creepy creatures? Why are you killing the animals? What did they do wrong? It's mankind who did the evil. The answer is and I think this is something which is so incredibly important Okay, let's, just before we give the answer, look what the third verse in this week's parasha says va'ti shach esha'aretz lefne e'eluim.
03:51
Now the earth had become corrupt before God. Va'ti m'olei ha'aretz ha'mas. And the earth had become filled with robbery, theft, not only theft of possessions, theft of life, theft of innocence, theft of morality. Va'yar e'eluim esha'aretz ve'hini nishchosakihishchis kalbasar az darqala'aretz. And God saw the earth and indeed it was corrupted, for corrupted had all flesh its way upon the earth. So there's a lot more to evil than just the people doing the evil. It's those who are impacted by that evil. It's those who learn and are educated by that evil. It's those who are influenced from their womb to be terrorists and to be martyrs quote unquote for the devil, for evil, for wickedness.
05:00
This is unbelievable how this week's Torah portion talks about what's going on right now in the Muslim world. I'm not here to pontificate political strategy or agenda. But the Torah is very, very clear that when you have evil, there is no moral high ground, there's no moral equivalency, there is no. Let's have a response that is proportionate. You know what the problem with this proportionality is? You won't be able to find one Jew who's willing to rape a Muslim woman. You won't find one Jew who's willing to decapitate a Muslim person. You won't find one Jew who's willing to murder a Muslim baby. So there is no proportionate response. But the Torah tells us that when you have evil, you must obliterate the evil young, old animal, even the roaches, because that evil is an infectious disease that will continue to metastasize when you leave something living. But you had noach, and noach was a light to the world. Noach who kept himself apart, who distinguished himself from the ways of the world in his generation. Noach was able to maintain his purity, his holiness, and he was able to remain alive.
06:55
So where is that one Muslim cleric? One, not ten. This one Muslim cleric who says what's happening in Gaza is unconscionable, that murdering innocent civilians is unacceptable? One, am I asking for ten? Am I asking for a hundred? One, one noach. And there isn't even one.
07:26
You can't find, of a billion Arabs. One person who will say this is evil and I'm not including myself as part of this. You either have people who are saying, yeah, they have to, they're fighting for their existence, which is total nonsense. It's a total lie. You have over two million Arabs living in the land of Israel and not one Jew living in Lebanon or in Syria, or in Iraq, or in Jordan, or in Egypt or in any, or in Yemen or in any of those other countries, because they'd be murdered immediately. But you have two million Arabs living, by the way, on the very good conditions from Israel. They give them food, they give them security, they give them education, which they don't get in those other countries.
08:24
What is going on in our world? What is going on? And if any one of us don't, at least to ourselves, with our families, voice our disgust for these acts of brutality, voice our disgust for how they are influencing their children to become terrorists, their baby terrorists, indoctrinating them at a young age, and if we don't talk about the negative influence that this has on us, that we even have to. You know, a question was asked recently to my rabbi should we even be looking at these videos, these atrocities? Many of these Hamas terrorists. These murderers were going with GoPro cameras on their helmets so they can video everything that they were doing. So it's not like we need to have some surveillance from you know, some rocket out in outer space doing some surveillance. No, no, no, no, you have it from the terrorists themselves. You can see what they were doing. The question was asked from the rabbi should we even look at those videos? And he said it's best not to. Not because we shouldn't know about the evil, because there's a value to humanity that we will lose. Human life has precious value and when seeing images, gory, disgusting images of brutality, it desensitizes us and it limits our ability to grow spiritually.
10:13
I'd like to share with you an amazing story that happened over a hundred years ago. One of the great, great scholars of the previous generation was the Brisk Arrav, the rev from Brisk, and he had a topic that he was trying to study in Talmud and he couldn't understand it clearly and he was trying to figure it out. He was learning it again and again, trying to understand it, and he prayed and prayed and prayed to understand it. Someone asked him what's going on. What's going on? He said I'll tell you why I can't understand this piece of Talmud.
10:50
He says when I was a little boy back in Europe with my father, we were walking. There was a whole entourage His father was a big rabbi as well and they were walking. An entire entourage was walking the rabbi home. He was right next to his father and there were a group of non-Jewish people on the street corner who were having a fight. Like one of those brawls came out of the bar all drunk and they were having a fight. So the father says where's my son? Where's my son? He didn't want him to see this brawl that was going on this fight. The son says to his father. He says I saw it already.
11:37
He says I, how much is that going to influence your ability to understand Torah when we see things that are not good for the soul? That's why, when you see these pictures, you cringe. Why do you cringe? Because your Nishama doesn't want to see this. It's not good for us. We lose a little bit of our purity, we lose a little bit of our holiness we have to be very careful about it and also we lose a little bit of our value for humanity. It's a real crazy thing.
12:16
We say many, many times we bring from the Malshemtav that everything you see is a message for you. Everything you see is a mirror Looking back at you, telling you a message you never wonder. Sometimes you can open up the morning news and you hear about this robbery that happened, and that robbery that happened, and this murder that happened, and this shootout that happened, and this car theft and this home break, home invasion and all of these things. Why do we need to hear it? If everything is a message for us, what's the message in that? Because we could have just as well not heard that news. We could have decided that morning not to turn on the television. So why did I need to see it? Perhaps it's because God is telling us we need to have more sensitivity to other people, to other people's possessions, to other people's lives. Maybe we need to have more sensitivity to values and to be more in tune with what's right and what's wrong. Maybe it's become so normal and so regular we're so desensitized from it. And it's not. It's crazy.
13:45
You can see people today getting into road rage. They get into these mass fights, even killing people. For what? Because they cut you off on the road, so let them go. What's the big deal? You're a two-year-old child. What's wrong with people? But we've become so desensitized, we've become so arrogant as a humanity. What is wrong with us?
14:12
We go back to Noach Noach. I'll tell you an amazing story from Abed Gifter. Abed Gifter was the leading Torah scholar in Cleveland in America. For many years he was a really special. His grandson had a bar mitzvah. Of course, they asked the grandfather to say a speech at the bar mitzvah. He gave the shortest, most powerful speech I've ever heard. He says A'la told us Noach, who's this week's parish of the bar mitzvah? These are the descendants of Noach Noach.
14:48
Ish, noach was a mensch. He turns to the bar mitzvah boy. He's a mensch and he sits down. It's not such a simple thing to be a mensch. We can talk about it a lot, but to be a mensch, to be cautious about other people's feelings, to be cautious about other people's values, to be cautious about the Torah's values, where we see that the Torah doesn't compromise on values, when the Torah sees, when God sees that the generation has become corrupt, what does God say? I'm done with them, I'm done with the generation. Imagine how many people, how many animals, how many creatures that God created. How painful that must be for the Almighty to destroy what he created. Now, god doesn't tolerate when our morals are in the drain, when our morals are corrupt, when our values are corrupt. God has no tolerance for that. Everything must go. If we don't stand up for what true morals are and sometimes we're going to be a noach in a taeva in an ark all alone, we're not going to be popular. Our friends are going to say oh, you think you're better than us. We're going to have to sometimes be a noach.
16:32
Noach has mocked for 120 years. While he was building that ark, everybody passed by him and said what are you doing? He says I'm building an ark. He says why are you building an ark? Because he says God doesn't like the ways of our people. God's going to bring a flood on the world Like, yeah, what else is noach? Yeah, everyone mocked him. Everyone mocked noach. And you know what? We can walk with our yamaka and everyone will mock us. But we are that noach Because there will be a time where God will eradicate the evil from this world and if we don't stand up like a noach, it could be devastating for us as well. We need to stand up and be a noach. And you know what Noach was an Abraham, he was in a big rabbi, he was in a big scholar and a big lecturer.
17:30
Hashem is telling us you know, each and every one of us can be a noach. You don't have to be so righteous and so holy to be a noach. You need to distinguish yourself from the evil, take a stand for what's right. You don't have to publish it on on Twitter or on X or on Facebook or on on any of those other platforms, and you don't have to start, you know, tagging all of the Muslim terrorists and talking negatively about all of these. You can just be righteous in your own arc, like Naachwas. Outside was a flood of wickedness, but Naach himself protected himself and his own family. He says we need to do the right thing and we need to stand up for what's right, the ways of Hashem, and call out the negative ways within ourselves.
18:33
I'll tell you another story about the brisker of. So we know that many people in Jerusalem get very fired up when they see the desecration of Shabbos. In fact, there's an entire square in Jerusalem called Shabbos Square, kikar Shabbos why? Because that was the main thoroughfare in Jerusalem Going through the religious community, and they didn't like that. Cars were driving on Shabbos through their community. So they implored in the government to please close down that road, make an alternate route so that cars don't have to desecrate. We don't have to see the desecration of Shabbos by other Jews in middle of our community on Shabbos. So they made demonstrations day after day after day and finally the government gave in and they said fine, we're gonna close this street on Shabbos, it's gonna be closed for traffic and that got the name Shabbos Square. It's smack in the middle of Jerusalem.
19:31
Well, what do people do? When they see a car on Shabbos, they'll shout Shabbos, shabbos, shabbos. So the brisker of was once walking and there were people shouting on top of their lungs Shabbos. They saw a car driving on Shabbos, shabbos. But the brisker of didn't shout. He said in a whisper to himself he said Shabbos, shabbos, shabbos. So they asked him why he's saying it. The car, the driver of the car, can't even hear you. He says I'm not saying it for them, I'm saying it for me, so that my Shabbos doesn't get weakened.
20:09
And that's what we need to do. We're not here to lecture others. We're not here to tell others what they're doing wrong. We're here to strengthen ourselves, to look inside and say Shabbos and say morality, human life, human dignity for ourselves, that we shouldn't lose our value for humanity. We shouldn't lose our own moral compass. They lose theirs, that's them. But we have to maintain our own, strengthen ourselves and recognize.
20:49
Yes, these are terrible, terrible, terrible tragedies, every single one. Even if it was only one One murder, one hostage, one injury, that would be enough for us to be in such pain. But it's over 13, maybe 1400 people murdered, brutally murdered. We need to feel something about this. This is Hamas. This is robbery of all values. This is a vacancy of morals, of ethics, of character, of humanity. That's what we need to fight and that's something that, when all of those values are gone, there's nothing left. There's nothing left and no one should be speared in this struggle.
21:50
Now, nobody's asking me for my opinion, but we see it here in this week's parasha. If I was asked by the Israeli government what they should do, I'd say look, in this week's parasha, god left nobody. Nobody, not even the animals, because the animals are influenced as well. The walls of the buildings are influenced. Everything in that region is influenced by this wickedness. It all needs to go Again.
22:21
I'm not here to endorse military things. I'm not here to talk politics. This is not my goal. Let's understand what the Torah says. Let's understand what the Almighty is telling us in our Torah.
22:36
This is not no prophet, this is Hashem in his Torah that when you have wickedness, you need to obliterate it, everything. So what does Hashem do? Hashem tells Noach by Yomer, elohim l'Noach. And Hashem says to Noach Cates, call Bossa or Bala fana'i. The end of all flesh has come before me. Kimala oritzchammes. Fulfilled is the earth with robbery, mepne'hem through them, through humanity, ve'heneni, ma'ashchisam, es'oritz, and indeed I am set to destroy them from the earth.
23:19
There's no political correctness here. When you see evil, you must obliterate it. My dear friends, we've seen evil, but we can't only look out, we have to look in. When we have something that we are doing that's incorrect, inappropriate in our own lives, it's also evil. If we have anger in our own lives, that's evil, we have to obliterate it. If we have jealousy in our own lives, that's evil and we need to obliterate it. If we have dishonesty, it's evil and we need to obliterate it. We have to look into ourselves as well, not only look out and point fingers. Them, them, them inside. We're a my lacking. We're a my limitations, we're our my flaws and eradicate them, obliterate the negativity in our lives.
24:26
Hashem should bless us all that we should have peace in this world. Hashem should bless us that we should have a moral compass that is fine-tuned to fulfill the ways of Hashem in everything that we do. Hashem should protect us all and Hashem should hopefully bring us really, really, really soon Back to our land of Israel with our rebuild temple. I'll tell you something special. We just started yesterday. It was Rosh Chodesh. It was the first day of the month of Cheshvon. Cheshvon is the only month that does not have a holiday, does not have a special occasion. On this day, on this month, I say just say, because it is waiting for the establishment of the third temple to be inaugurated on this month. It's waiting, my friends. We're in the time of Mashiach now. Let's hope and pray that we merit to see the revelation of Mashiach speedily in our days.