5 Minute Chizzuk: The Real Thing: Vayeira

What is Torah Today with Rabbi K?

Rabbi Naftali Moshe Kassorla learned in the Mir Yeshiva in Yerushalayim, and after marriage continued his studies in Brisk under the tutelage of Rav Meir Soloveitchik zt”l.

He serves as a mentor, Maggid Shiur, and Shoel U’Meishiv, giving shiurim in Halacha, Mussar, and Hashkafa for yeshivos, seminaries, and kollelim. He has authored widely-read series on the Parsha, Pirkei Avos, and Orchos Tzaddikim, and is known for his clarity in making classical Torah sources deeply relevant to today’s challenges.

Rabbi Kassorla previously served as CEO of Lamdeini, a respected Israeli non-profit and registered 501(c)(3) that advanced Jewish education and provided crucial support for children’s learning success.

Currently, Rabbi Kassorla is the Menahel of the Orlando Community Kollel, where he is leading the development of a vibrant Makom Torah for the community and for the many Jewish professionals and families who pass through Orlando.

We spoke yesterday, and we got really into the depth of games, virtual reality games also. The idea that you can live in a different reality. The irony of someone who's building a Sim, or running the Sims, whatever it is, and he says, "I've got to get up, I've got to get a job, I've got to make money, I've got to pay my rent" - and the guy is literally living in his mom's basement until he's 35, doesn't have a job, and doesn't take care of himself. Why? Because people desire to live in a false reality. And the neshamah very deeply wants a real relationship with reality, not a fake relationship with reality.

Things that are created for real. None of the garbage that the world says, that the world has been around for millions and trillions of years. Go ask the classic question: how did the Big Bang even start? What was before? You could say that at some point all mass was crunched into one tiny point, and from that point everything blew out - and that's the expanding universe, which by the way we're not even so sure about scientifically, but we're not going to get into that. The point is that if there was a moment of creation, it didn't come out of nowhere. It came from something real. Why? Because built into the ground and the creation of the world, God created reality, realness, from beginning to end. Something is real. Something is concrete.

We don't want to live in digital worlds. It's very scary. They're implanting chips in brains now, where you can live in your own existence. One of my talmidim showed me a television show about a dystopian future. It was called something Mirror - Black Mirror, maybe? I don't know... that's kind of racist. I'm joking. Okay, so let's assume it's called Black Mirror. In that show, people were living in the cloud. You know how people say, "Your head's in the clouds"? Literally, their heads were in the clouds. They were 85- and 90-year-old people dying in old age homes, but with the chips implanted they were able to live these different lives, so subsumed into this world that they lost themselves entirely.

We don't want to lose ourselves. We want to be real, we want to be authentic. I know these ideas aren't as popular today, because life is hard, life is painful, life is difficult, and in the digital world you don't feel any pain. How many lives do you have in GTA, like we mentioned before? Five stars, six stars - you get shot, you're dead, and you come back again. What's the word I'm looking for? Respawn. That's the word I was waiting for. You respawn! But in the real world you don't respawn. You respawn in a different world. You respawn in Olam Haba, and you're stuck wherever you are, with whatever points you got, whatever money you made. You're all set.

Okay, I'll quit with the meshalim and the games, because it's cringey. But I want to take an idea from the parashah about realness. What do I mean? As we know, Lot separated from Avraham Avinu. Which city did he decide to live in? Sedom. He decided to live in Sedom because it was very upwardly mobile and very beautiful. The Torah describes it almost like Gan Eden. It was gorgeous. And he moved to the city. Were they nice people there? No.

Archaeologically, they say this was one of the first urban cities, kind of like New York, or Los Angeles, I should say, with upwardly mobile, rich people. In those days, think of skyscrapers and billionaires' row across from Central Park - really uber-fancy. But sometimes when you get to a big city, you lose touch with your fellow neighbor.

You speak to some Jews who live in big cities, and they don't know their next-door neighbors. Can you imagine that? Do you know your next-door neighbors? A little bit. Okay, I know my next-door neighbors. But I also know my other neighbors - I don't know what their names are, but I'm friends with them. Well, not really. I just moved a week ago, I'm joking. But there's something built into the fabric of a small town, or a small city, that puts you more in touch with humanity than when you're living in the big cities.

And they say Sedom historically was one of the first big cities built as an urban city, and you see how they treated each other. They didn't know each other, they didn't like each other. If anything, it was a capital offense to give another person salt. Can you imagine that?

The bed: if a person was too long for the bed, what would they do? They would chop their feet off to fit the bed. If the person was too short, they would stretch him out. We're talking about real masochism. Really unhealthy people.

Now it's very interesting. Lot, the nephew of Avraham Avinu, grew up in the home of Avraham Avinu and saw all the chesed that Avraham did. He was famous for having his tent open in four directions. And nonetheless, he moves to a city surrounded by resha'im. Fine. Maybe that's not that big of a deal. To move to a city where not everybody is perfect, that's understandable. But what does he do there? When the malachim come to tell him about the impending destruction - why? Because, says the Gemara, and says Rashi as well, God was going to destroy the city of Sedom, but only in the merit of Avraham Avinu did He save Lot. Since he was the nephew of Avraham, he was saved from destruction.

So what was the zechirah of Avraham? Rashi says: what was that remembrance? God remembered Avraham Avinu, and because He remembered Avraham, He saved Lot. What was that remembrance? What would you assume? You could say, very simply, the fact that he did hachnasat orchim, that he was willing to take in these guests. And as you know the whole story, they found out there were guests and came knocking down the door, begging to - no pun intended - sodomize them. That's where the word sodomize comes from, to take advantage of them. They were in the city of Sedom, and they wanted to rip these people apart. Horrible, terrible people. But nonetheless, what did Lot do? He took these people in.

So you would think that when Hashem remembers Lot to save him from destruction, it's because he has this chesed, this middah, under his belt, that he does hachnasat orchim. That's what you would think. But that's not what the Midrash says.

The Midrash says something like this: what was the remembrance of Avraham? "Lot remembered" - that Lot knew that Sarah was the wife of Avraham. When do we know that? When Avraham went down to Egypt, he was concerned that they would kill him to take Sarah, so he told Sarah, "Say that you are really my sister, not my wife." Lot was along with them. So Lot knew this whole thing was a sham. Of course it was a lie, but it was just to save Avraham's life. And Lot heard Avraham say in Mitzrayim, "Sarah is my sister," and "he did not reveal it, because he had pity on him." Lot didn't rat out Avraham. The reason Lot was saved was not because he had the middah of chesed, hachnasat orchim, but because he didn't rat out Avraham.

Now I'll ask a very simple question. This is the lowest bar you could possibly imagine. We're talking about a nephew and his uncle. He's not going to get him murdered and killed. Because he cared about him: "Listen, I'm not going to let my uncle get killed, so I won't say a word." What's the implication - that he would otherwise, if it wasn't his uncle? It's a very low bar. As opposed to what you'd think: the fact that he took the angels into his home - that would be the reason Lot was considered worthy enough at least not to be killed. Avraham davened for the city of Sedom, if there should be one tzaddik. The world was saved because of Noach, because of one person in the entire world. So the question is: why is it pointed out that Lot is saved because he wasn't a snitch, and not because of the middah of chesed? And you know the saying: snitches get stitches, right? I change it a little, but we can talk about it a different time. The point is, this is not a very hard bar. So what do you guys think? Do you hear the question?

I'll tell you the answer. It goes back to what we said before about authenticity, about being real. The fact that Lot took in people - he was just copying what he saw in the house of Avraham. He was carbon copying, copy and paste, doing exactly that. But this, that he didn't tell - you're right, it's a very low bar, but it was real for him. Meaning, that was a middah he actually owned. It became a part of himself. He was authentic about it.

That he took in the angels - it wasn't real. If anything, it was very fake, if you think about it. What did he do when everyone was banging on the door and saying, "Give us your guests"? He said, "No, no, God forbid. I'll give you my daughters instead." What? How did that go? They say that escalated quickly, right? From zero to sixty, you're giving your daughters away, but you're not willing to give up your guests. It's a little off-kilter. The priorities are very wrong. Clearly he didn't have that middah properly balanced, to understand, "I've got to take care of both my daughters and my guests." Can you imagine a world where you don't give up anybody? That he couldn't fathom.

But this, that he didn't reveal, because he cared about them - that was real for him. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu appreciated it. Yes, it's a very low bar. It's basically the bottom of the barrel. But it was real. And if it's real, we care about it. If it's real and authentic, that's what we want. So let's live real lives, lives of realness. Okay? Yirtzeh Hashem. Gut Shabbos, Gut Shabbos, Gut Shabbos.