Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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!
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of TORCH in Houston, Texas. This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast.
And now my dear friends, we continue with day 126 in the middle of page 716 in the Treasure for Life edition of the Orchot Siddiquim and the Ways of the Righteous. And we're continuing here in the Gate of Truth. Atah and now, She'e'ericho ha'golos ba'avonesein ha'arabim yoseh midai. Now that the exile that we are currently experiencing is great and prolonged. Why is it? Because of the sins of the Jewish people.
Yesh li yisrael ha'avdil mey'hav le'olam. The Jewish people need to separate themselves from the vanities of this world. B'le'echoz b'chosmo shel ha'kodesh bor'chush hu'emes. And instead, we need to hold on to the seal of Hashem, which is truth. We should sanctify ourselves by abstaining even from what is permissible. B'le'chodesh ha'tzmom af v'mutol ha'hem. B'lo l'shaker an'atolai, even a little bit. Because 97% truth is 100% false. B'lo l'shaker an'atolai. B'lo l'shaker an'atolai. Not to a Jew, not to a Gentile.
B'lo l'shaker an'atolai. And not to trick them and not to and not to mislead someone. B'shu minyun. In any matter. Sh'nemesh e'yus yisro lo yas o'av lo v'lo yida b'ruchozo v'lo yimotzeh b'fihem lo sh'n'tarmis. The remnant of Israel will not do wrong and they will not speak falsely and the language of deceit will not be found in their mouths. This is from Tzfanya 3 verse 13. Ve'od, and it says even further in Hosea, K'siv v'zratiha li ba'aretz. It says, and I will sow her, Israel,
for me in my land. And does a man not sow a s'ah only to gather in several kur? K'lod adam zoreh s'ah, ele lehach nes kama kurem? Kach lo hig la'kadesh boruchu, es yisro lebein ha'umos, ele k'dei shi yitosfu aleyim geyrim. He says, so too, Hashem exiled the Jewish people among the nations only so that converts should be added to their numbers. Meaning, God is planting his his wisdom, his truth into the world by having us dispersed around and among the nations so that
people come to convert to Judaism. We know, this is very important for us to remember, we don't go out and we don't go out to convert, we don't proselytize, we don't missionize, we don't do any of that. Why don't we do that? Because we're not looking for numbers. We're looking for someone who's someone who's truly interested in joining the Jewish people, the chosen nation, and facing the anti-semitism that's going on in the world and facing the hatred on university campuses that are going on towards Jewish students.
Someone who wants to join because they see that this is the will of Hashem and Hashem is the God of truth, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So then they should join and we welcome them, but we need to be an inspiration to the to the world. I'll tell you this very quickly. I was in a in Costco. This is several years ago and a man came over to me, elderly man, and he asks me, are those tzitzis?
So I said, yes. He says, can I can I can I touch them? I said, sure. Those are the fringes on the corner of every Jewish man who wears a four-cornered garment should have these fringes. So he saw mine and he wanted to touch them. I said, sure. So he holds my tzitzis and while he's holding them, he looks at me and he says, do you realize that you are the chosen people?
Do you realize that we the nations of the world look up to you? You need to be a good example for us. Who knows if God forbid the nations of the world are despised by Jews? Perhaps it's our fault. We're not being a good enough example. So this is a big a big responsibility for us. And if the Jews deal with the nations of the world without deceit, the nations of the world will cleave to the Jewish people. They will come close to the Jewish people.
We see that Hashem looked with disfavor upon the stealing of the wicked. As it is written, We see this by Genesis. It wasn't Jews. They were stealing from one another. God didn't like it. He says this world has to be turned over and the earth was filled with theft, the Torah says. It is told as well in the Midrash What did Rabbi Shimon ben Shattach do when he said that he was going to go to Ishmael? Rabbi Shimon ben Shattach
the student, sorry, the student of Rabbi Shimon ben Shattach found purchased a purchased a donkey from an Ishmaelite. And after they purchased the donkey, they found a very precious stone hanging from the neck of the donkey. And they brought the stone to Rabbi Shimon ben Shattach and they asked him, Rabbi, the blessing of Hashem makes one rich, i.e. this is a gift to you from God, to which he replied, I bought a donkey. I did not buy a precious stone.
Rabbi Shimon ben Shattach returned the stone to the Ishmaelite. Rabbi Shimon ben Shattach, that Arab, that Ishmaelite proclaimed Blessed is Hashem, the God of Shimon ben Shattach. And so too, there's a story in the Yerushalmi, a story in the Yerushalmi that says, which is the Talmud, the Jerusalem Talmud, the wise elderly sages bought wheat from the Gentiles and found in the bundle of wheat, they found money. And they returned it. The Gentiles exclaimed, Blessed is the God of the Jews.
There are many similar accounts where there were items returned. Why? For the sake of the sanctification of God's name. We see it's, yeah, everybody knows that's the right thing. But when it really comes to it, there's a story that happened not long ago where a guy bought, there's a rabbi in Connecticut, who bought a desk on Craigslist. And he goes to the woman's home, he brings the desk back home. He moves the desk, it was a big heavy desk, moves the desk into his house.
And in his movements of the desk, an envelope or a bag falls out of the desk. It had $90,000 in it. So he went back to the lady to return it. And everyone was like, wow, unbelievable. I don't know if someone had $90,000, that's a lot of money. Mark, you know what $90,000 can do for you? Right? That's a lot of money. He went, returned it immediately. That's a special thing, that's what we're supposed to do. It shouldn't be like, wow, so special.
It should be ordinary, but it's not. Sadly, it's not ordinary. You know, there's a story, there's a video that's been going around, you know, just all over the internet recently of this individual at the tennis, you saw the tennis thing? That he gave the kid the cap and another person grabbed it. We think, would such a person return the money? I don't know. But it's like so simple to do the right thing. And yet it's so difficult. It's so difficult.
We have to know, it's not so simple. It's very easy to say, oh, I would for sure do that. I don't know that I would for sure do that. I hope so. But that's what the Torah wants of us. In the Talmud over there, in Yerushalmi, in Bab Nezia, over there, there are many stories of people who did this. Why? To glorify the name of Hashem. To glorify, to sanctify the name of Hashem. And when there is truth in the earth below,
Hashem will look with righteousness upon the earth. And when there is truth in the earth below, Hashem will look with righteousness upon the earth. And when there is truth in the earth below, Hashem will look with righteousness upon the earth. As it is written, truth will sprout from the earth and righteousness will look down from heaven. You know, there's a story that I heard about Rebel Yashiv and his wife. Rebel Yashiv, of blessed memory, his wife and him made a pact.
And they said, whoever dies first should come to the other in a dream and explain to them why Mashiach hasn't come yet. And when there was a soldier who was kidnapped back in the early and mid-90s, I think his name was Elhanan Waxman, and it was an amazing time of unity among the Jewish people. I mean, it was the right-left center, religious, non-religious, secular Israeli, religious Israeli, you name it, everybody, it was such an incredible union. Nachshon, Nachshon Waxman.
And everyone was praying, and there was a deadline. They gave an ultimatum, the Palestinian terrorists gave a deadline that if by 9pm they don't release all of these Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli prisons, then they're going to kill him. The unity among the Jewish people was just unbelievable. I've never seen anything like it. I was in Israel at the time. I remember the tehillim, the psalms that were being said, you can hear them across the entire Jerusalem
because every synagogue, Friday night was the deadline. I remember we stopped our Friday night meal in yeshiva to recite tehillim, to recite psalms, so that Nachshon Waxman, one Israeli soldier, will be saved. Sadly, his life was taken, another soldier also died, and they killed all the terrorists. It was a tragic end to that story. So, the next night, Rebel Yashiv, whose wife had passed not long before that, came to him in a dream, and she said that Mashiach
was about to come, right then, because of the unity of the Jewish people. And that was, there wasn't enough honesty in business. There wasn't enough honesty. And that's what limited. We see here from this verse, where the verse in Psalms says, truth will sprout from the earth, and righteousness will look down from heaven. Therefore, take hold of the truth, regardless of the state of your affairs, good or bad. Just because you have money, doesn't mean you shouldn't be honest.
And just because you don't have money, doesn't mean you shouldn't be honest. Therefore, take hold of the truth, regardless of the state of your affairs, good or bad, and trust in God the Lord. And do not forsake the truth. Do not forsake the truth, and rely on G-d, as it is written, G-d is your God. G-d is your God. And you shall know that G-d is your God. And you shall know that G-d is your God, the faithful G-d,
who keeps the covenant and the kindness to those who love Him, and to those who observe His mitzvot, as it is said just a few weeks ago in the Torah portion in Deuteronomy chapter 7 verse 9. So what is G-d's faithfulness? Hashem keeps His covenant. That if the righteous man commits a minor transgression, Hashem punishes him in this world. And this is clear. transgression, Hashem punishes him in this world. And this is clear. He says, listen to this.
It is, what is Hashem, Hashem punishes in this world to the righteous, as it is clear, it is much better for the righteous man to be judged, even with afflictions like Job. All the days of his life, in his body, a lowly thing, in this world in which he has such a short time to live, so that his soul, which is honorable, lofty, may receive good reward in the world to come and attain the highest level of the eternal celestial worlds. Imagine that.
Would a person prefer to pay a little price in this world and get a big reward in the world to come, or heaven forbid, vice versa, because the world to come is eternal. So to get good in the world to come is to have eternal good. So you know what, if I have a little, a little pain to suffer in this world, it's worth it because it's temporary versus the reward in the world to come, which is eternal.
He says, and it's better for the righteous to get their payment of punishment in this world than to get it in the world of the heavens, where it's really, really bad affliction in that world. So people always look and they say, it's not fair. Look at the wicked. They have such good lives. You know, is it worth it to be righteous and to be suffering in this world? Well, it's an exchange. There's always an exchange. You think about people, right, Mark?
People who put away, put away money when they're taking away from their paycheck every month. Put it away for when? For their 401k, for their retirement. Why? Why are you doing that? So that later it should be good. I'm ready to suffer a little now to have it good then. The same is true with the reward in this world versus the reward in the world to come. We're willing to suffer a little here to have it good there in the world, which is eternal.
We don't want to have punishment in a world of eternal, of the eternal. And to that great punishment, there is no, it's unparalleled. And there is a full verse that says this. The verse states in Deuteronomy, and he pays his enemies in his lifetime to destroy him. He pays his enemies in his lifetime to destroy him when? In the eternal world, the world to come. What does that mean? Hashem rewards the wicked in this, for his merits in this world in order to destroy him
for the world to come. May the merciful one lead us in his truth and bring us to his chamber where we may attain the celestial radiance where the storage of his strength and the beauty of his glory reside. So this is how he ends the chapter. The beauty of his glory resides. We want to be within a closeness with Hashem. We want to be close to Hashem. We want to reside near Hashem where it's all truth, where there's no confusion, where it's solid.
How do we get there? We said it's the study of Torah. The Torah brings us to truth. The observance of mitzvahs bring us to truth. When we ask the questions and we read the answers and we learn through it, it brings us to truth. And this is what we hope for. This is what we pray for. Hashem should bless us all that we should merit to live the life of truth. We should merit to have that clarity of truth.
And then, God willing, next week we will talk about one of the forms of the lack of truth, which is flattery. Flattery is a very one of the worst traits that a person can possess. And God willing, we will continue with that next week. My dear friends, have a marvelous evening. Thank you so much.
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.