Rabbi Mordechai Kraft - Limitless Potential

okay we'd like to welcome everybody to to our Lunch and Learn this Tuesday and we hope this is something that will become part of everyone's schedule the twelve o'clock on Tuesdays to have the opportunity to study something together to learn together a little bit and to define ways to inspire us to to keep growing and to just keep elevating ourselves in our voice of Shem and the many ways to do it to in terms of studying the parsha and studying different types of personality traits and I think the theme that we're gonna really be focusing on are really different ways to try to elevate our service to a Shem in some way and sometimes be from the parsha sometimes will be fun in Russian sometimes from other sources but the theme is really finding ways practical ways to look into ourselves and and look for ways to to really improve our relationships whether it be with a Shem with each other and of course understanding ourselves in the process so today's today Shearer we're gonna look at Moshe obey know and really ask ourselves a very important question about the life of Moshe and look at his biography a little bit and perhaps see things that will be very important for us to understand how we have to view ourselves there's a major question let's discuss in the before Shem and something I think which crosses our minds as well when we speak to think about Moshe is why did Moshe Rabbeinu have to grow up in the palace of apparel the leader of the Jewish nation the one who's gonna stand on our scene i and receive the Torah for us his background seems to be a little bit strange that here he is he grows up we're in the house of the Paro when's up being the oppressor of the Jewish nation and the question why he has to go up there is something I think which we we certainly all ask and think about at many points and I'd like to share with everyone today a beautiful piece for the ibanez erythema Nez was one of the major commentaries on the whole ish written in Spain believed in the around the the 1200s and leave it as we asked this question and and he gives three answers the question being why didn't you obey no I have to grow up in the house of pearl so he says as follows the minister says really answer that question he says like this that moksha oseh sholom KO first we have to understand that the thoughts of Hashem are so deep o meu ha la mode SoDo who really can understand the secrets of hashem and and he says that the way of introduction because we think about it the question is really overwhelming that moshe obey no of the leader of the Jewish nation is growing up where in the house of the enemy as it were so he begins his peace by saying that moksha was a sham am kumi ojala mulpus odo thoughts of a sham are so deep and who could possibly try to fathom and understand me the depth of my shams plans I with that said he says will rule Nevadan is connelly lost when a we could find some paths so all I perhaps some of the shams they egged emotionally based on vocals there is laughs shawarma draga or Jana but they're awfully mother argues the first thing he offers is is that motion needed to grow up in the house of power why in order to have Ali mode to learn something there what did he need to learn in the house of para he need to learn really his life's mission his life's mission was to be a leader of the Jewish nation and what better place to learn leadership than in the whole of the most powerful leader of the world's para so a Shem orchestrating the life of Moshe allows him to grow up where exactly where he needs to be in order to fulfill his life's mission if his life's mission is leadership his life's mission is to be the one to guide a nation develop a nation to be that leader who he was what better place than the home of the greatest leader of the generation the home Aparo so I think just as an aside I think that's less important message for us important important observation just on its own that really we have to understand that every circumstance that a chump gives us in life wherever shun places us or whatever our background might be it's exactly what we need in order to fulfill our mission and our purpose and to never look at one's life situation on one's back word and say had it been different therefore only it were different I think this is a classic example at a model where xem places us it's precisely what we need in order to fulfill with our unique mission is in life and for motional mana to be a leader what better place and to grow up in the House of Perl a place where you can learn leadership and I think if if we look at our own lives and we just look into ourselves a little bit and we think about it and we ask ourselves why did it show placing me in a certain home a certain family in a certain community a certain background we have to look I think we don't have to look too far to discover it must be because that's the way I'm going to fulfill my unique mission in this world and as part of the Jewish people so reason number one which the ebon Israel offers is this beautiful idea that he had to grow up in the house of bar why because we're better placed but to learn leadership then the house of those powerful leader of the world it gives two more reasons I'm going to jump to the third and then go back to the second and the third reason is the old ever after either high girdle bein a huff having grown up in the community of his brothers and sisters and fellow fellow Jews iake rule made the roof even recognize them from his past from his youth below hiya raining men oh and they wouldn't have such often kevvuu kekaa mammy would have thought you're one of us interesting Moshe obey knows position and his importance and his role the Jewish community really required that people look at him and have an also degree of respect for him and really understood that he's somebody to to to to emulate and to respect and had he grown up amongst them he might lost that respect on some level because they were too said he grew up with us we know him we remember him from his past and I think we all know this when people achieve a certain degree of of greatness or they grow in terror they become different types of people and now there's a tendency to look back at that person and say I remember him when he was a kid I remember when he was in high school I remember what he used to do when he was young and maybe we tend to do that because we don't want to create such greatness to the person or or may we do that because sometimes just difficult to see that a person is really grown and really achieved in order for most for banal to fulfill his unique role people have to look at him and see him with with the tremendous degree of respect and awe and for that reason he had to grow up in a way which is really separate from the community you know I think just by way of an aside on on that point I think it's such an important idea that the Terr is trying to communicate to us something that when people grow and when they change and when they move on perhaps they they become about truth about surely they become a different person in their own eyes and they're really striving to move to a new level of greatness how important it is number one that we obviously don't remind the person of the past that can be something which really borders on levels of loshon Hara or thus devouring oppression with words as brought them and in she knows a lot of time but I think it just on a personal level you know without saying something I think it's so important our own mind to look at the person for whom they are now and say I see you for what you've become and I respect what you become and somehow in our minds were not looking towards the past and trying to to remember who that person was or are denying the person's become something because we see the past in him if someone's really changed you really look at that person who really value the new person before us and and it might even be changing our our level of behavior to some extent then said why you really come somebody worthy of a new level of respect them I really have to give back to you but see somebody from what they've come really respect the movement in a person's life as opposed to being locked in to the way we might have perceived that person in the past and that's a little bit of a side message the The ministers trying to communicate to us and tourists trying to communicate to us the third reason that the enhancer expresses and I'd like just to to really focus on this one primarily is the evidence which says and this is recent number two but relieved we're saying it right now the reason number three the other says the reason why Moshe had to grow up separate from the Jewish nation why he had to grow up away from his brothers and sisters he had to go up to the palace of apparel is a very interesting interesting reason he says it follows he says Volodya sailor regalia out the base of London he shouldn't have the lowliness that a customs are companies someone who grows up as a slave what does that mean loutish fairly luckily out the base elefanten he shouldn't have to beat the feeling of of in any way a shiftless we say a a sense of inferiority that comes from being a slave hello Tina what do we see the first thing we learn about motion banners life is we don't see that many stories of his early life whether we see a few episodes that were reintroduced on when he's when he's over 80 then what do we see in those early episodes we see two things hello tears show haruka mystery before she also Hamas we know that he killed an Egyptian because Egyptian was oppressing and beating a Jew well her sheer Binoche ninja I'm a hero and we see when he flees and he goes up to a place called Midian and he sees the daughter via saw and the by the wall and the shepherds they were oppressing them what happens it's a no she abandon Aegean they are going he saves them he's not afraid to act before Osen promise they were they were oppressing these shepherdesses that she cooked sown and their mind should Aldo preventing the forget of the water that they were trying to erase from the world so interesting what the image was telling us is the reason why most European had to grow up outside of the house of peril excuse me outside of the slavery but in the home of peril is that he shouldn't feel in any way the lowliness or the limitation that slavery produces and the proof that it works is he walks out and he sees his nation being oppressed he sees an Egyptian beating a Jew first thing he does is he acts no one else was able to do that he had different sense of self he different sense of confidence a feeling that he's not afraid there's no fear he goes up to Midian and what happens he sees the the daughters of utrom being prevented by the shepherds to get water he acts he takes initiative he's not afraid to say I have to when I see injustice in the world I have to do something about it apparently had he grown up in the slavery of Egypt and would it would not have been possible you know the slavery of Egypt was a very different type of slavery the question is how did the Egyptians succeed in really enslaving so many members of the Jewish nation in fact if we said that one-fifth of the Jewish people came out we can't action the Russians said one-fifth and we know that is approximately five million those five million we know stood at her see nine receive the turret but it means that forfeits died in Egypt some saying the plague of the whole shock like the darkness they weren't worthy to come out but a five million came out and four-fifths didn't come out it means that there were twenty million Jews twenty million descendants of Yaakov who died in Egypt that means at one point in mitzrayim we numbered close to 25 million that's a nation that that's an army how it was how did the Egyptians succeed in slaving the type of large number of people like that and the Jewish nation we know that we're I'm Sheriff we're stubborn people with stiff neck people we have a side to us which is so holy and so can even be strong and fierce so we know that once we had an army what we're capable of doing how did he succeed in enslaving us so the answer is something very fascinating they used something which we call psychological warfare psychological warfare means they didn't need barbed wire they're gonna need fences they didn't need dogs they didn't need guard towers all the of the trappings in which we envisioned concentration camps and Europe within the Shoah what they did was something even more successful to some extent they made us think that we can't be anything but slaves they took away our ability to look at ourselves and say there could be greatness within us that's called psychological slavery and that type of oppression is even more difficult to combat and even more difficult to escape from than barbed wire and watchtowers and machine guns and dogs because they basically told us and simulated to us we are what we are we are only slaves were limited don't think you can be more than exactly who you are and that's a psychological warfare and it must have been enormously successful because to take 25 million descendants of Yaakov Jews and and keep them confined in that limit limited setting in fact you the word lets Ryan we know the word mitzraim is from the word Saur Saur and hebrew means narrow it was a place of narrowness it was a place of restriction there's a place of limitation and really at its core into essence of limitation which they expressed is all you can be is who you are you can't be anything greater than what you are when that message is given over that's a very damaging message and that's a message that could cause a human being to say yes I'm only a slave I can't even strive or desire to achieve something more than that it was a place of sorrow place of darkness he said that power succeeded in that goal by the way the desire says that even they power speaks to that idea the name power was from the word Lafleur mrs. Sharon brings us down the name of the Tsar that the floor apparently floor was the word to bother her to annoy they kept us so busy they bothered us they made them women to the men's worth the men to the women's workers we weren't suited for which which which broke us because we didn't seek success or accomplishment and as a result it provoked and enhanced the sense of absolute limitation I cannot be more than what I am today Vanessa points out to us it was so important for moshe rabbeinu to grow up in an environment where he felt no limitation because the vision and the mission of a jewish leader is to inspire the people to say that you can rise above yourself then for most romania had to grow up and be raised in a place where he felt that everything is possible what better places to grow up in the home the ward stepson stepgrandson as it were of the most powerful man in egypt and maybe the most powerful man in the world of that time he had to grow up in a place where he felt absolutely no limitations where anything is possible and of course as we mentioned he expressed that as soon as he saw an Egyptian oppressing and Jew he why not he acted he wasn't afraid he understood I don't have to be I'm not victimization is not part of my vocabulary I have to do he sees the daughters of yes row I have to do I have to rescue them I have to save them if their Shepherds were oppressing them I have to scatter them that was a function of growing up in a place where he did not see restriction of limitation and to be a Jewish leader that's the most important message a Jewish leader needs to give over so that people know that you can attain greatness you're not trapped in who you are you can be much greater than you can imagine that's the job of a teacher that's the job a rabbi as a job of a parent this job of a good friend to inspire somebody to say you can be greater than what you are in fact the metric says it so beautifully the measure says that there's no blade of grass that grows without an angel that hits it and says grow Cadell what does that mean it probably doesn't mean that there is a angel little angel standing on top of it and what it does mean that even a blade of grass in order to achieve something greater needs to be shown a vision of what it could be it needs something and the other angel on top of it saying hitting it saying you can be greater than this Grove don't be confined to what you think you are there's more to you grow if a blade of grass needs that needs that angel inspiring it how much more so does every human being eat that and that's the job of a teacher and that's a job a rabbi that's job of a parent has job of a friend and that's the job of ourselves to tell us and give ourselves that message if we can be more than we can possibly imagine and for this reason moshe rabbeinu had to grow up in a place where he understood that there is no limitation he couldn't be affected or infected by the slavery he had to grow up outside of it and that's what the M&S was teaching us so three reasons we have right now for why Moshe obey no had to grow up in the palace number one he had to learn leadership what better place in the home of the most powerful leader of the generation he had to grow up in a place where people saw him as being something special not amongst them they had to look at him and see such awe in him and number three he had to grow up in a place where he himself did not feel limited where he wasn't a victim of the psychological slavery try to confine that Sarathy mitzraim which tried to say dude all you are is what you are there's nothing born to inspire the nation he had to go up somewhere else so that's one lesson that we'd learn from the life of Moshe which i think is a very practical lesson and it's a very important idea this idea in order to grow and to become who we're supposed to be we have to understand there's a greatness inside of ourselves we can't sell yourself short we have to see that what we can be is much beyond what we can imagine and have to find ways to bring that out of ourselves into to find teachers though inspired friends they'll inspire it and of course to be able to try to encourage ourselves inspire ourselves with that message of how great we can be to other things we learn about emotional pain oh my look at his life we understand that Moshe seems to have a speech impediment he couldn't speak well and that seems to be a very important idea in who he is we look at mid Russian early on and we see that there's some ideas and the stories that seem to attribute it to at one point Jarro questions his loyalty and he put before him coal and diamonds and if he was going to take the diamonds it would show that perhaps he's not loyal to Parliament wants to to take over at one point or it takes the hot coal it means he is loyal to power so the bedroom says he's reaching for the the diamond is an angel hits his hand takes pushes it towards the hot coal he puts it in his mouth any princes talking and there's something a med wish that we give over to our children and there might be some truth in it obviously however the deeper sources go for something else and the mohali prog rabbit who the lowly the great rabbi of Prague throughout the 17th century throughout the 1600s her mom in frog in the Gavroche in the 18th chapter she offers a deeper insight into what it means that moshe rabbeinu had a speech impediment the way he explains it is in a very interesting way he says that if you think about speech a little bit speech is something which takes an idea that in order to bring it out into the world you have to limit the idea in other words you can have a very deep thought in your mind in your heart but once you put words around it then once taken that idea and in some ways it can find it let's put a border around it just put a boundary around it of course that's necessary we need to communicate ideas we we need to shape our thoughts and many times when we shape our thoughts that's the way we give them meeting and we understand and get more clarity but if we think at it think about it on a very deep level when you take an idea and you put words around it in some way there's a limitation there you know I'll just give you just a few examples you know sometimes you might have an artist I had a friend who's who was an artist and he's somebody who does what we called modern art and and very successful does modern art for photography and different types of paintings that some of his work has even appeared in the Guggenheim the Museum of Modern Art of Manhattan and we're very close and he'd always try to tell me what he does and I never really understood it fully how he does it what he does and then how he creates on canvas all I knew was that these paintings appeared in probably the most illustrious prestigious art museum for Modern Art for maybe in the world the Guggenheim so I remember one time I was reading an article about him in a magazine called photography today and I was reading the magazine and the magazine start describing what he does and he said that that oh the work of Marty Bernstein is is he takes light and color and he combines it and he shapes it and I would using all these deep terminology and how he he delves into the essence behind the matter and and using words that they were trying to give meaning to to what what his art was trying to produce and I really I would be intrigued by to see that description and I thought was a very eloquent description and I remember I went to him and I said to him I said Marty you know I read that article about you in photography today and I finally understand what you do and he looks at me he goes you understood what that said Joseph I couldn't make heads or tails of it Ike understand a word first I know I deal with the guys right so I remember thinking about that and understanding something that the artist sometimes has a vision of what he wants to do but he can't put words around it he can't limit that vision with a description the art critic is trying to give meaning and give a shape to it and trying to help it along but the artist had at his core just knows what he does intuitively and and in words take away from his vision and therefore my friend just really like didn't even get those words describing is all working no idea what they were saying then I kind of relate to it like what's the trend of Saturn though he's trying to say I do it but I don't know sure what I do or how I do it just comes through Mosher big nose mission it was to connect to God fully that had that complete connection with Hashem the closer you are to the source the more difficult it is to shape and give words to what you're experiencing it's the Royal States and express it from deeper sources that Moshe be no speech impediment was really a function of his greatness his greatness was that he was able to connect to him so deeply but therefore to take that connection and confine it in space through words was something which is enormously challenging for him and as a result he needs it in our own he needed an art critic as it were he needed someone to to take him and to bring him down another step so that people could and it and connect to it but his speech impediment interestingly really wasn't the function of a deficiency his speech impediment really was a function of his greatness his greatness was that he had such a deep connection with the Sham a connection really which could not be limited by speech and as a result he really couldn't bring it down to the first own speech I needed a secondary source Aaron to bring it down but again I think the idea speaks and is consistent to whom oh sure beta was his message and his mission to the Jewish nation was to let them know there is no limitations you have to understand you have a greatness which doesn't can't be confined and his whole being expressed that his limitation and words was a function of the fact that there was there was no limitation and who he was he was able to connect to a Sherman such a deep source in such a deep way that's a shape and limited through a word was something that he went was not really able to do you know I heard once that there was a great rabbi the simplest Feig writer who's the outer Kelm great issue of account in the early part of the 20th century and he once they say had a thought and he had a thought that he didn't express for over 20 years because he was concerned once he places words around that thought there's gonna be a limitation in that thought I didn't want to limit it so it took him 20 years to come up with the proper way feeling syntax terminology words load of expression in order to bring that idea out because he knew that a word with limited I think it's true in general in life I think we see that that sometimes we understand that less words really communicate ideas more than many words you know sometimes we in the relationships which are this the deepest and and the most meaningful to us in life and sometime this really comes down to the most simple words of I love you and and and words of poetry or words which try to be more elaborate than that take away from really the core in the heart and the emotion of what's going on not to say this the thought we don't have to speak it out we do but I think I'm some love we have to understand like Mosher obey know that words can limit and therefore his inability to speak was a function of his greatness and was a function of the message that he needed to convey to the Jewish nation which was there's no confinement the limitation how great you can be and that had to be given order the Jewish people that is the message of emotion of a know that's the message of a rabbi that's the message of a teacher that's the message of a parent that's the message of a friend you have to let someone know you have been beast there's no end to what you can achieve so what do we see the motion vaiman we know the way he spoke the talmud says something so interesting to us it also told us what he wore we have to do what most Ravana wore his clothing why is knowing as clothing something which is is significant to us so let me tell you what the governor says the talmud says what did what emotional been aware it says in the Gemara in tie neat die for you now the fun base 11 I'm a base it's Adam a sheemish motion where dews motions to where when he used to to do a service it says bucolic LaVon shingle in row he used to wear a white cloak sure Anglo in Roth a white cloak it says that didn't have a hem what's a hand man we know is the part of a garment that closes it at the end whether it be our pants or a skirt or a jacket a white cloak that didn't have I am so get the gnarly Prague ask the question what do we need these details emotions life why do we have to know what in war there's a white cloak it didn't have a hand like what what significance what's the deeper meaning in that statement why do we have to know exactly what he's doing what's it all about so he says so beautifully he says number one what's the idea of wearing a white cloak you know white for us especially when one is doing this service of the chamois Oh white isn't a natural color in many ways you know think about the Pesach Seder everywhere our Kittles which are white and at the same time we're eating wine drinking wine and any Mattson so everything that we can do to to get a white Kittel very very messy yet we were white why because we want to show the face like seder that the whole coming out of the egypt was above nature and we're gonna be above nature we're gonna wear white even though right now is not the right time to wear white we should wearing dark or there's colors that you didn't get all the all disfigure and discolored and dirty you know I was once told by a very teacher of mine very great rabbi he said to me that whenever you do a wedding make sure you always use white wine to the hope of not red wine and we thought unless we very deep significance is enough very practical reason because if it spills it shouldn't get the bacala's gallon dirty all she needs his red stains on her on her dress for the pictures he's white wine this is good the moisture albedo is when white the idea of white is was the idea that he's doing something which is a little bit above this world white gets dirty if you're engaged in this world don't wear white and again the mission of motion of a know is to say you have to have a vision that goes beyond this world above nature strive for something above yourself and finally it says that this garment didn't have an emerald didn't have a hem what's that old doc in in were first for the word for hem in Hebrew is spelled Aleph mem raysh Aleph in real or umrah it sounds exactly like another word we know in the language a mark which means speech or to say he wore a garment that didn't have an emirate didn't have a hem well what does a hem due to a garments I have limits it a run takes a flowing garment that wants to keep going on and on says of limitation it has to stop right there that we didn't have a hem on our pants or pants to drag down it doesn't mud but Louis your bin was gone there's no hem there's no limitation because even people looked at him they had to see this idea that you don't have to stop there's no outer limit there's a greatness that they keep going and going and going I know interesting it is by the way the word in rahem is the same root as Unruh which you mean speech because just as a hammond limits the garment as we were mentioning before speech limits the concept of the idea the notion of a nose garment could not have it in law can out of ahem just like his speech couldn't have a limitation there had to be difficulty in his bringing the idea out because he was so close to the source but I think the message that is being conveyed is that motion of a nose job visa V the Jewish nation was to teach this most foundational and fundamental cancer that in order to achieve greatness you have to know that there's no limit to what you can become there's no limit in who you are you can't be confined by yourself you have to see yourself as somebody who could be much much more than you ever imagined and that's the message the most banal had to teach the Jewish nation and that's probably most important message that we all need to hear is probably the message of our generation for sure we live in a world today which so much I think takes away from if we call in Hebrew the god Luda dom the greatness of what we can be you know to end on a thought i heard once that teacher in his line slum a volvo once said he said you know you think about the 20th century there are three philosophies in the 19th century that really influenced it there was marks there was darwin there was void so he analyzed those philosophies a little bit you think about a little bit you say well what did Carl Marx say he said well the essence of man is is what he could produce a turn of the capital production and communism was the direct result you think about Freud Freud came up with all sorts of ideas about the subconscious affecting the human being actually ideas which were influenced to some extent by his connection with the the free to go about whatever and Darwin came up with the idea or as a tribute to Darwin's thinking process that we evolved from the animal so the volvo once said that he think about 20th century man we walked in from the nineteen hundreds making the twenty cent through the following self-perception what am i well karl marx's other machine Sigmund Freud says I'm like one big heed these dark forces that influence me and Charles Darwin says I'm an ape I'm a machine I'm an it and I'm an ape we're in that description do we see essence what the human being is is of a creator in the divine image maybe it's no wonder that the 20th century sold more mass murderers from grover won a World War two than any other time in human history but we lose sight of who you are are and the greatness that we can be it's impossible to fill the divine mission Moshe obey no as our teacher that was his message to us you have to know you can be great you have to know there's no limitations that's all he was in his speech that's he was in his dress that's the reason why she um had that caused him to grow up an ounce of power in order to learn to communicate this message to the Jewish nation no limitations greatness is all yours for the taking I'm gonna stop here right now I asked everybody to invite everybody to to continue to join us on Tuesdays for our lunch and learns and if you have any questions we'll open up for questions right now or if you want to comment on the whatsapp chat more than welcome to do that or to text me privately I'll be happy to answer if you'd like to share with the group as well