Behar-Bechukosai - Blessings From A to Z

You're listening to the weekly partial podcast with Ari Goldwag recorded with Hasham's never running assistance in Map Israel 5785 2025. This week's para is paras Bahar and Kosai and in Bahar we have a discussion of the concept of Shmita and Kosai. We have the blessings we have the braus and the clus and we have the curses. I'd like to share with you a medish that speaks about the contrast between the blessings and the curses. But first the medish talks about the if you shall walk in my statutes brings up that says the says chapter 119 59. So the p there theim in that chapter are all talking about the greatness of Torah. how beautiful Torah is, how special it is to study the will of Hashem to try to understand what is Hashem's will for us. And that is through the Torah, through this gift. The word Torah means teaching. It's through the teachings of the Tyra. And says I thought about my paths in the I think it means based on your testimonies and understand the Torah is referred to as a testimony because it's a statement of reality. If you want to know the rules of the game, you want to know what makes a person spiritually successful and thereby successful generally in in the in the world is through the testimonies of Hashem. He testifies as to what is good for us. And says, "When I set my feet on the path of your testimonies, when I set my path to be the way I believe you want me to live based on your teachings, Hashem." So that's that's what he was after. The measure says David is saying like this master of the world every single day I would make a calculation and I would say he would say I plan to go to a certain location to a certain house and my feet would bring me it seems like Instead of going where I intellectually planned, my heart would bring me to the house of study, to the house of worship, to the place of prayer, to the to the medish. So the med understands that when it says that is saying when I planned out how I want to do my day, how the path that I want to take, my feet brought me to your testimonies, which means I was so interested, my heart was so drawn after your will, Hashem, that no matter what I planned, I ended up in the base med. listening to Torah anytime on the way to work. I'm opening a safeair during lunch. The way that we naturally get pulled into let's say looking at the news, looking at our email, King David was saying was saying, I get sucked into Tyra. The Tyra is the thing that draws me in. I I get such a a high. I get such fulfillment from your Tyra. I I can't stop going there. I just can't stop. I'm addicted to Tyra in the name of says another was saying I thought about the way that I'm going to go not not a personal way of going not the uh not like my own personal paths my own interests But I looked at what's the right way to go. I was clear. I got clear. If I do this a what's going to be the end of it? I might want to do it right now, but what's going to happen in the end? I'm going to regret it. If I do this mitzvah, it might be hard now, but what's going to be at the end? I'm going to be so proud of myself. I use my intellect to direct my feet to to get myself to take the actions that are in conssonance with the Tyra in conssonance with the testimonies that you testify. It almost sounds like I I from my own experience I was able to see that this is what happened when I made mistakes when I did da and this is what happened when I did the mitzvah and I realized you know if that's what God says to do if wants me to do a certain thing I I can see that it didn't work out well when I didn't listen and I can see how well it worked ultimately when I did. So there's two ways to get into doing what's right. One is just do it cuz God says to do it and the other way is to make the mistakes and learn from our mistakes and try to be better and get back on the path that way. Omar the son-in-law of says he says I thought about I contemplated that which it says in your right it says what's the says go in my statutes if you go in my statutes what will happen. The tells us all the blessings that come, all of the positive results when we do this individually and when we keep the Tyra collectively, when the Jewish people what we're supposed to do, we bring spirituality into our lives. We we bring Hashem into our lives. And now nothing bad can happen. There's only peace. There's peace between us, between man and his fellow. says, "I'm I'm not concerned about getting what I think I need to get. I'm concerned about get giving you what you need to get. Giving you what you need." That's what shalom looks like. I'm thinking about you instead of me thinking about me. And the Pik leader says, "If we don't listen, heaven forbid, if we defy Hashem's will, if we get involved in what our egos want, if we don't have peace between ourselves." So says, "I'm going to continue to bring pain upon you." Right? Think about it though. Really, it's there's a continuation is because we're bringing pain upon ourselves. We're busy trying to grab everything that we want out of life, which doesn't really get us what we want. Just brings us pain. So says, I made a what's the right path that the prescribes. I saw where things bring me. I see if if I walk in this way, where does it end up? Where does it lead? The Pik tells us, "Go in the ways of the Tyra. It's going to be good. There's going to be peace. There's going to be every what else do you need besides for peace, right? You have peace, you have everything." And Bubba used to say, "If you have your health, you have everything." But I think that health is also peace. It's peace with peace within my physical body. And the opposite if we don't listen then we create problems for ourselves. Okay. So that's what says I I thought about it. We got to think about it. Now here we have an important point the medish makes. I'd like to share with you a thought from the garra as well from the mar inra. You know there's a difficulty in our para when we look at the para so the blessings we see the braas if we keep the tra we get lots of blessings things are great but the blessings are kind of short there's only I think a few sukim of blessings I think eight sukim of blessings ape sukim that speak about the brahas uh no I'm sorry there are nine that talk about the bra and there are 27 that speak about the the curses but you see as is the way that we're supposed to be shows us how to look at this in a positive way while it's true that the brais are few it seems that they're few there's only nine nine verses but if you look at the first letter of the bra and we'll see other ways is to understand this as well. If you look at the first letter of the braus, it's alf the first letter of the alphabet. And if you look at the last letter of the braus, the last letter is the letter t, which is the last letter of the alphabet. So the when the Tyra gives us this type of introduction and and and outro of an alf and a tough even though it's short it's compact it's saying that you're going to get everything that you need. Do I need to say any? If I want to give you the best brah someone asks me for a bra. If I want to give that best, it's may Hashem give you everything you want. Hashem should fulfill all of your heart's desires for good. From olive to tough, from A to Z, everything that you should give you, everything that you need. You don't need to say much more than that. It's not necessary. I just got everything going. So the first letter of the and the last letter is alphant. V. Here's something very interesting. It's a it's a little bit of a mystery. Got to understand this. The curses, the first letter of the curses is the letter VV. The last letter of the curses is the letter hey. So what? So what? So there are two letters that are close to each other. There's not so much room between them because there's no room between them. There are two letters that are adjacent. So, so the are you get everything the curses are it's just it's constriction. It's constriction. I'm trying to get everything I want. I get nothing. I get nothing. There's nothing between v and says another mysterious kind of statement. Not only that, but they're they're opposite. They're backwards, right? Which sounds like it means olive is the first letter of the alphabet. Tough is the last letter. That's the blessings. V and VV is after the letter H. It's backwards. It should be H and VV. It's backwards. So somehow the VV being first and the H being second. Even though sequentially hey is first indicates that there's some kind of reversal going on. A reversal. What does it mean? Unfort struggle to explain this. We'll see some different explanations about it, but it sounds like it's saying that it's just it doesn't take very much. Just like the distance between love and a is so small. If a person is experiencing curses, it doesn't take much. You just got to turn back to Hashem. It's just turn back. Just turn. I'm going the wrong way. Turn around. If I keep going down the way that I'm headed, I'm going to end up where I'm headed. And it ain't good, right? So I just got to turn around the v and the hey it's turn around. All of the cl this is one explanation of it. There are so many curses. It sounds terrible but all of those clos when I turn around they turn around. All of the curses turn around if I turn back to Hashem. And I can't help but think, you know, v are two of the letters of Hashem. Hashem's name. Yud K vke. The last letters are vavv and hey. And interestingly the letters v and hey indicate the v is the male aspect which is hashem himself is referred to the vv represents and the hey is the female aspect is the Jewish people. We're supposed to be receiving from the v and the hey are supposed to be connected but they're not. They're distanced from each other. The V is at the beginning of the clawless and the H is at the end of the clus. And we could say that is there within the curses as well waiting for us to return to him and bring back those two letters close to each other. Maybe we could say a shot like that. Let's read the end of the If you merit, I will flip around. I'll reverse the curses to be blessings. When is it? when you keep my Tyra. That's what it means to say if you shall keep the Torah, if you shall go in the paths of the Tyra, you can turn it all around. You can flip around the curses, you can take on October 7th, which had such a deep painful impact on Amnisur. We can take it and turn it around and remember and remind ourselves that why did that happen? And we don't know why it happened but we can certainly say that Amisra was missing at that moment a tremendous amount of obvious we were missing in our relationship with each other. There was so much strife at that time. Look back at that summer two years ago. There was so much negativity. There was so much strife, protests, anger, lack of love. And everything turned around after that. We we realized we got to stick together otherwise we're going to break. we're going to fall. We got to stick together. We got to love each other. So there's a turn around when the v and are are distant. When the male and female aspect, when the love is not between us, there's a turnaround that brings us back together. And then we get the blessings from Alfat. All of the 27 pukim of of curses are turned around and they become blessings. Amazing teaching, amazing idea. I'd like to share with you another explanation. The Gomorrah in Baba Basra brings this concept as well page 88b and there the garra tells us points out that there's there's two different sections of the one is here in which the gammor refers to as being written by Hashem as it were because it was dictated ated by Hashem to Moshe and he wrote it down. So this is Hashem's as it were blessings and curses and then in Devarim which is called Mishna which is Mosher Rabenu's speech as he's about to pass away the end of the 40 years in the wilderness. So in that speech it's a different style of the blessings and the curses. So I'd like to read to you from the who explains this. He brings some he brings that says that if we merit so is going to flip around the blessings to curses. He asked a few questions. First of all, so it's it's in reverse order. So therefore, what how does that teach us that the blessings I'm sorry, the curses will be flipped around and reversed to become blessings. How do we see that? He also says, why should it be that? Why is it these two letters v and hey? Somebody gave an explanation but Marshall wants to understand why v and hey pick any two letters that next to you pick and lid and do start with end with two two letters that are close to each other and they're in reverse order. Why is it specifically the he brings to explain this? This is very interesting and I think it relates to what we spoke about when it comes to situations where we end up in trouble because of people who are doing stuff that they shouldn't be doing. The times it was the end of the of the second mdash the end of the second temple. It was the destruction of the temple. He was living inside of Jerusalem. And there were those who were politically involved there, causing trouble, trying to win against the Romans, but they were under siege. And they burned these baronim. They were called the barionim. They burned all of the storehouses of grain that were in the old city of they had some kind of political reason for doing it. when heard that this happened, he said the word vi, woe is me. What a terrible thing that this happened. O, he said and who whoever had been there somehow got this information over to the head of the baronim, this political group and told him said what a terrible thing had been done. They brought him to the political party and they wanted to killan because he spoke negatively of them. And apologized that he had said va. In other words, he said I didn't say he didn't say I didn't say but you miss he misheard me. He said he he's might have reported to you that I said vi which means oh no but actually I said va which means like wow wow what a what an amazing thing. So the the the messenger says by changing what he said telling them that he had said wow instead of wo he he was able to save himself. So what is this med teaching us? says the marshall. When you say wow, it's a language of of joy. You say, "Whoa, woe is me." That's a sad language. So now the marshall wants to say like this. Notice that the word va of va means wow. Wow. It's the letters van. It's the letters vene. Wow. And it's in it's a reversal of vi was caught saying vi wo is me and we and he saved himself by saying no I said va wow says the marsh that's what's going on in our magish too. The magic is saying that the claw, even though they're so terrible, they're the vi. They're the woe is me, but it starts. They start with a and they end with a he which means wow. This is to teach us that Hashem reverses the the curses that they can become blessings when we take to heart the the difficulties that we've gone through or that we're going through and we recognize that there's something missing in our relationship with Hashem that's causing these problems. When we say vi, when we say woe is me, Hashem changes all of the curses to blessings and we say, "Wow, wow." Afterwards, we see all the troubles, all the difficulties that occurred. We don't understand it, but somehow there's a reversal and the curses become blessings and they become joyful. Right. Right. A lot of times it says in the it will be on that [Music] day on the great there'll be a reversal. The first two letters of is it will be a wow. It'll be an unbelievable moment. Everything will switch from darkness to light, from tragedy to to joy. There's a transformation from darkness to light. We wish it would be like that for us, too. We can't wait to see the salvation. We can't wait to see the war turn into peace. The difficulties and the challenges turn into salvation. The word is a language of joy because the letters v are the beginning of of that word. So it's an incredible lesson. It's incredible teaching here. The teaching is that we can look at the curses and they seem so great and they seem so awesome and they seem so terrible and they seem endless. 27 letters, 27, sorry, 27 times. And yet, and yet all of that can turn around in a moment. All we need to do is take the v and the remember. Hey, who's who's the vi? Wow. Turn back to reverse it all. Take the vi take the take the woe is me. Take the pity party, the the I'm a victim. Turn it around. Turn back to bring it all back to. Hey, how can I bring myself back? How can I turn myself back? How can I instead of heading down the path of the curses and saying, "I'm going to keep if if a person turns away from me, he's going to I'm going to I'm going to turn away from him." We don't have to do that. You just got to turn back. Just got to turn back to I want to bless you. I ask you to bless me should help us to recognize that the the blessings are are compacted power from the first letter to the last letter. It's everything is included there. And our should help us recognize that the curses themselves that seem so overwhelming that are so hard that are so great should help us realize that it takes a small amount just a distance between van to turn it around to direct ourselves back to doing the will of May Hashem help us to do that so that all of the curses heaven forbid that have gone on that are heaven forbid going on that They should all be flipped around. We should all merit to seek revealing himself mikdash times of Messiah. 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.argoldwag.com argoldwag.com or search on iTunes Ari Goldwag. [Music]