Nitsavim-Vayelech - Walk Through the Gate

you're listening to the weekly paral podcast with Ari goldwag recorded with A's NeverEnding assistance in R Israel 5783 2023 this week's and as we are heading in for asaz we're starting to say if you're so then you've been saying it for a few weeks already and we're getting ready for thein we're getting ready for a reevaluation of our El looking at ourselves honestly and asking ourselves are we up to par are we holding where Hashem wants us to be or are we where we want to be where we know we should be and so with self-reflection comes the question how do we get to where we want to be and so we've been reading over the last few weeks and it's not a coincidence but we've been reading MOS renu's guide for the perplexed his guide to help us to understand how do we get where we need to be and once again in our par he tells us he continuously reiterates Our obligation and our opportunity to connect Hashem through the T through our love through our fear through all of these aspects but he singles out this commandment and the ran says it's not just referring to the entire Torah but it's referring to a single commandment because when it says the entire Torah it says Mitzvah all of the mitz there is a specific Commandment that I'm commanding you today it's not too far from you it's not Beyond you it's not in the heavens such that a person would say who will go up to the heavens and bring it to us it's not the other side of the ocean who will bring it back to us from the farthest reaches it's not on the moon it's not on Mars it's not in the farthest galaxies this is very close to you this matter this thing this Mitzvah is very close to you in your mouth and in your heart so that you can do it okay so the ran has his own as to what this this is referring to I'm not going to read the ran but I will read to you the Mish and the Mish understands that this is referring to the Mitzvah of T Torah which as we'll see it's the Gateway it's the gateway to getting in to serving Hashem it's the answer to all of our questions it's the answer to how do we get to be the person we want to be the answer is through this mitvah which is already inside of our hearts it's already inside of our mouth and it's already something that it's right there waiting for us to do let's see what the M says the measure starts off by telling us something very interesting and it has to do with the concept of the blessing we make a blessing when we learn the Torah now if you walk into a university if you walk into uh a school if you walk into a place of Higher Learning no one is making any blessings before they study math or science or anthropology but the Torah is a different type of wisdom it's not it's not just an intellectual exercise it's about transformation and as such it requires a blessing a special blessing it's more than transformation obviously it's the word of God and it requires a blessing before we before we learn before we study Torah we need to say a blessing us blessed are you hashm who has given us the Torah this Torah is a transformation for USA said beautiful thing I have to share this what the T is for us what the t is he said that if we look at honey bees if we look at the bees so there's a queen bee now what distinguishes the queen bee from all of the other bees well the queen bee is the one that lays all of the eggs and she's the mother of the future the queen bee is she's it but how does she become a queen bee so the way that it works is that one all of the bees are worker bees except for her and then there's one bee that's the next generation is goes set aside to a spe a special place a location and instead of being fed what all the other bees are fed there's something called royal jelly and that royal jelly takes a regular old bee a regular female bee that would have been one of the other worker bees and she becomes the next queen bee unbelievable right interesting right the Tyra is the royal jelly that changes the regular human being the regular Jewish person without the Torah we have a lot of potential we're very intelligent we there's lots of great things about the Jewish people but without the T it's just they're just worker bees the t is the royal jelly that transforms us from a regular perhaps successful active brilliant person to a special human being a different human being a Godly human being he chose us not just to be special in other ways but specifically to be special in spiritual ways to be leaders of the world in spirituality person who comes up to the Torah and we do it even when we don't come up to the Torah even when we start learning in the morning we say we say the special blessing on learning how do we know that you need to have a blessing before and after right in in the when a person gets an Aliyah to the Torah we make a blessing when we start we read from the Torah and we make a blessing to complete it how do we know this blessed are you hasem you taught me your law so you see that there's a blessing before speaking about teaching the law so we see that there's a blessing and understand what is a blessing what is the concept of a blessing what is the Mish teaching us that again that again the LI of tah the study of Torah is not just an intellectual exercise it's not just a nice thing it's not just something that's brilliant and resonates with us and it's not even just spiritual it's something that's transformational it's something that Hashem God the creator of the universe gave to us as a as a guide book a how-to manual living in this world for dummies but we need to appreciate that we are not as brilliant as we would like to think that there's a specific way to go about this life and the terror is that which guides us and shows us what is that way what is that [Music] path you also need a blessing afterwards how do you know right in our pares that are coming up we have and then we have the is called the the t is called a song We Sing the song we speak about the Covenant of God with the Jewish people which is what the t is the promise that we have promised God that we will represent in the world which is what the tah is as we keep the t is followed by the par of the blessings that M gave the Jewish people as he was about to pass on from the world so so you see that once you have learned the taught them the so now it's time to give a blessing now it's time for blessings interesting I could say conceptually what is the m coming to teach us conceptually it's coming to teach us that as you go into T as you are about to study the Torah you need to understand as we said that it's an exalted type of learning it's not just an intellectual learning but more than that you're about to go where the blessings are you start off with a blessing which represents that that I recognize before I start learning that if I want blessings in my life which comes from a connection to a comes from being somebody who represents Hashem in this world who acts in the way that God wants me to in this world I'm headed into blessings and after I finish learning and sometimes the learning can be I don't want to use the word really mundane but it can be very esoteric perhaps we could say is the word talking about an ox Goring another ax causing damages it's law it's it's very it can be very dry so we need to remind ourselves as we finish learning that this learning that I'm doing is Godly and the result of me learning it is that I get a connection to Godliness and that in turn means that there are blessings on their way says the another aspect of this hasem says if you are somebody who makes sure to say the blessing which means that you recognize the value of the tah you understand the spiritual value of Torah I too shall bless you says wherever you mention my name if you mention my name as a blessing and you study my Torah which we you know the Torah is composed of names of God that place that person recognizes so it's important it's important to recognize the person who recognizes the blessings that the Torah represents and brings that's the one who will receive the blessings we could study the Torah our entire lives and be missing having forbid our connection to a or connection to God it's important to understand the m is telling us we have to recognize the power of the Torah the importance of the Torah in order to receive its blessings another thing another aspect where the sages say you know there's a way of looking at a blessing what's a blessing it's I'm blessing you let's say I bless you I ask you to bless me you bless me I bless you it means I wish something good for you right it means that I wish something good for for you I'm I'm putting out to I'm putting out a feeling of I wish that something good would happen to you that's what a blessing is right so you think when you give a blessing you're wishing something good upon somebody else and if I'm blessing the Torah I'm wishing good perhaps upon God that God should be manifest in the world perhaps the Torah itself should be able to that expression of God should become more uh raised up in the world more honored in the world but says the mag you should know that when you bless the Torah you're blessing yourself the says in m in Proverbs 9:1 through me meaning through the Torah your days will be lengthened you will have many years of life the Torah extends our life the Torah gives us obviously life in the world to come but the Torah gives us a deeper a Deeper Life a deeper sense of meaning it's not just about a sense of meaning but it's about a sense our physicality even is affected we live a long [Music] life maybe you'll think that look I'm not doing any favors by giving you the Torah I'm trying to make your life tough maybe you'll think that Hashem wants to make our lives difficult but giving us the Tor he wants to give us challenges that we're not up for says the I gave it to you for your good hasem says the the the angels of heaven who serve hasem up there in the in his Heavenly Throne as it were the Spiritual Beings they understand things that we don't necessarily get down here because we're blinded by the physical reality but they get it they wanted the Tyra but they lost it says in 28: 21 it is hidden from the eyes of all living word means living say the is referring to the it's the the angels of heaven are referred to as the living ones they're hidden from the birds of the heaven refers to the birds but it's flying beings and Angels fly they have wings so tell us they have wings so the t is something which was hidden from the they wished that they could have it and we have it Shem says now listen to this because this is really the the end of the first M that I want to read but it's the it's the foundation of what the m is trying to teach us my dear children hasm says to us theim they wish they could have the but they can't access it it's not for them it's too hard for them to access but it's not too hard for you to access it's not too far from you I'm not such a lucky guy I you know I there are certain people everything goes right for them I'm I'm not that guy I'm not that person things don't go my way whenever I want them to maybe once in a while no says the Mish things are going to go your way all you need to do is learn the Tyra the blessings come it's not too far from you it's not too it's not Beyond you it's beyond the the Angels but it's not Beyond you it's something that's already inside of you you just need to resonate with it it's something that you already have inside it's something that you can access it's something that you can find inside of yourself the blessings you think you're not lucky got to start learning Torah start learning Torah start doing the mitzvas start investing your heart into the Torah and you're going to find out that you could be really lucky it's your lucky day my friend it's the beginning of a new year is coming it's the beginning of your opportunity to realize that you're not unlucky you're very lucky all you need to do is say the blessings on the Torah to recognize the the importance of the T to go into the T with that understanding and to come out of the T with that understanding of the blessings and how do I know that this is the the Mish because I think that the next Mish is coming to explain this this very Med says the this is what thek means in M chapter 24:7 it says listen here to the mistake that we make when we think that I'm unlucky I'm not smart enough I'm not good enough tell it's too hard for me to study I can't never be a spiritual person mistake it's not true it's not true says the ma listen up the says that the fool his when it comes to wisdom he is aloof the fool and this is all of us CU we all have this little fool in our heads that want us to think this way when the fool enters into the the B the the synagogue Tom he sees them involved in learning in studying in trying to know what's going on in the world sorry my phone is ringing trying to know what's going on in the world trying to know what's going on in the gamarra trying to know what's going on in the deeper spiritual Realms what is this life about who doesn't know what they're saying who is he's embarrassed he walks in he says you know I should know everything already the tepish the fool says I should already know everything he's embarrassed he doesn't know what they're talking about he walks in the door he walks in the gate he doesn't open his mouth Char son hedin we find that the word Shah which means a gate is a reference to the son hin which is the place of the greatest Scholars of the Jewish people also so this guy walks in and he's like hey I I'm brilliant I'm already brilliant but he walks in he doesn't know what they're talking about he walks out embarrassed that's the end of him he didn't come in thinking that maybe he could learn something another aspect of this the fool and this is me I walk in to the and I think this say me my my evil inclination says to me everyone's learning I'm new at this how do how do I do it how do I start learning well here's how it goes first you start you learn the then you learn the then you learn then you learn once you've learned all of T you learn the mishna you learn the G you learn who that's that's impossible that's too many steps I walked into this room I should be brilliant the moment I walk in he says to himself when am I going to learn all this is it's massive the Torah is it's wider than see he leaves the gate he leaves at the gate he walks in the gate and he walks out that's what it means the PK says at the gate he doesn't open his mouth what's this mistake what's the secret here because this is the secret we're starting we're walking in the gate of T walking into a new year we want to be a little different we want to be a little better we want to be a little more connected maybe a lot more connected how do we do it how do we walk in the gate this is like a a uh a loaf of bread that's hanging in this in the in the air a loaf of bread is hanging in the air okay it's Out Of Reach I can't reach it the fool says how am I supposed to get it it's hang in there it's all the way up there on the roof right the wise person says somebody put it there it didn't get there by itself maybe so he brings a ladder and he and he gets it down right he realizes that there's a you have to go up the ladder you have to walk step by step in order to get to your goal Tyra wisdom spirituality connection to hm it's something that we maybe we didn't start until now because we were too afraid or because we walked in the door and just looks so overwhelming the person who is UN ever learn everything just too much a person who's wise doesn't mean that he's smart it doesn't mean that he knows everything already he starts to make progress he learns a a chapter he starts to day and then the next day and then the next day he just plows his way through he's not brilliant at least not at the beginning he's not brilliant he's not spiritual at least not at the beginning he's not but it starts to add up another page of gamarra another mishna another p start with the start with olive B says says it's not too far if it's too far it's it's you it's your attitude it's your mistake because you didn't sit down and try that's what it means this mitzvah MIT you want to know how to get in the gate just walk through the gate and sit down in the B start started off in five minutes finish ding don't don't just leave sit down for five minutes open a safer and learn and then add a little more and a little more and a little more and before you know it going to start to know stuff I've been doing this part podcast many of you may know for 16 years 16 years every single week and it started one one week and then another week and another week and I kept doing it and here we are been doing it for 16 years and what a difference what a difference it makes for me what a difference maybe it makes for you but anybody can do it anybody can sit down anybody can learn there's so many SP in English there's so many there's so many different types of learning you'll find something that will that you will connect to it doesn't have to be the thing that that I get uh you know I get into it could be whatever it is that you get into probably if you're listening 24 minutes and 50 seconds into this sheer this is probably the type of Torah that does inspire you but the point is two points that we see from these two Mim that are really one and that is the blessings the blessings are accessible to anybody you can you can be blessed in your life you can have a relationship with Hashem you can change all you got to do is understand the importance and the power of it bless the T before you start learning it and second of all keep learning it don't feel overwhelmed by it don't walk in and say oh wow everyone else is so brilliant oh this guy's been doing it for 16 years I'm I've never done anything no you can start today in 16 years from now you'll be saying the same thing as me start today T new year is coming I want to bless you and I ask you to bless me that we should be able to get through the door and not feel intimidated by by the king who is standing inside of the gate which is Hashem and to tell you that he wants so so much that we should that we should connect to we should feel and recognize that it's so close to us it's here it's it's here we've got this thank you so much for listening have a wonderful shabas this podcast was made possible through the gracious donations of listeners like you for more podcasts like this please visit www.wag.com or search on iTunes Ari goldwag