Torah: The Wisdom of G-d - Rabbi Akiva Fox

[Music] so until now we've discussed going out into the world studying nature looking at the beauty of nature looking at the inherent wisdom that God created all the systems and realizing that there's no way that this could be random or coincidence that seeing God in nature seeing God as the constant guide and the constant conductor of all the nature as all miracles this is part of amuna this is something that a aino that Abraham did and this is something that we are encouraged to do which is to go out into the world and realize how much Brilliance there is how much wisdom there is and how many different parts of nature work perfectly in tandem with each other to make the world the place it is is you know there's so many things there's so many aspects science in a certain sense science is constantly uncovering and discovering how much Nature has to offer but the one thing they haven't discovered yet unfortunately is where all that came from they've discovered the power of plants and the power of you know certain elements and how atoms work and they can unfort use their knowledge to destroy the world too but ultimately the answer to all their questions of why does this happen why does this happen when this element touches this element why does it have this re the answer to everything there's only one answer God God is the answer to everything if you want to know why God made it like that perhaps you can have a clearer understand understanding or you can help you internalize why when you see how certain things work perfectly with each other but that's not necessarily the reason that God made it like that God made it we can never understand we don't have the capacity to really understand why God does certain things some things we can see clear we can understand more but ultimately God is infinite but the point is that there is so much that studying and learning and just looking at the world helps you internalize and helps you uncover Faith there's another key there's another way to discover or to realize God's presence in the world this is something that my manes discusses and other other books write this which is the Torah God's given book now the word book is not a uh not an acceptable term for what the Torah is the Torah the Bible is not a story book it's not a history book it's not fables the Torah is God's guide for the world not just to the world it's not just Mankind's way to learn to adapt to the world the gamar says and cabala says that God looked looked in the Torah as the blueprints for the world itself he looked into the Torah and from the Torah he was able to decide or to realize how to BU build the world now we don't know what that means there's obviously profound depth to that but the point is that the Torah is so much more than a book the Torah is not wor words the Torah is alive the Torah is a Life Source when the one of the first things that we teach children in a Jewish Home is that if a Torah falls on the floor you pick it up and you kiss it you don't kiss things that are dead maybe little children kiss dolls but older people don't you kiss something that's alive the Torah is called Torah it's the Torah the guide of life this is God's source for everything in the world comes from the Torah itself it's all there some can see it and some can't God's wisdom is the Torah and the Torah is God's wisdom the actual world word Torah Means guide or to show or to uh direct God's direction for the world God's direction for mankind kind is the Torah itself now when you open a book or when you open a Bible and you start reading you may not see the profound wisdom you may read a story of Adam of Eve of the snake of the Apple but it's important to realize that there's so much more imagine you have one profoundly deep filled with God's wisdom guide book to life to the world to everything in nature to the entire universe in this volume here are you going to sit on a beach in the Bahamas with a lemonade and read it like this and after you know after reading it you're like I don't know I don't see anything you gotta work on it you got to delve into it you got to put your life your heart and soul into it because that's it it's all there the whole world is in it you can't just sit back on your rear end on a lawn chair and try to read it once or twice or even a bunch of times and then you say I don't know just it's not for me doesn't talk to me imagine you have a a a map that you discover from a pirate from the 1700s and you go to an island somewhere on the Caribbeans and you're the only one who has this map in the world and it says the big X where the treasure is and you go and you take a shovel or a spoon and you start digging and after five minutes you're like all right let's go it's over there's nothing here guys I'm out of here you know what you are you're a fool excuse me I'm sorry that's not appropriate you're a fool you're a loser there's other words but I wouldn't say them but come on you know it's there if you know it's there you're going to to spend your life digging you're going to sit there you're going to bring in a tractor you're going to blow up the place with dynamite cuz you know it's there the same thing is with the Torah the Torah is God's word the Torah is God's guide book the Torah is life itself the Torah is exactly what God wants from the world from you how he created it how he created you it's all there you cannot look at it just as a book you got to dig you got to work you got to toy even the gamar says you got to be willing to die for it I once heard somebody say if you have nothing to die for you have nothing to live for you know what you want to die for you want to die for God and you know what you want to die for you want to die to go get closer to God get closer to the Torah because you know that this is the treasure this is the greatest treasure map in the world it will help you discover everything about existence about your existence about your purpose in the world about what we are here for as Humanity as a nation as a people and what I as an individual I'm here for the Torah is everything the Torah is life and the source so a person when he wants to come closer to God when he wants to come closer to faith in God another address that you want to connect to right away is to the Torah because you want to delve into that Torah because this is God he's there says the Torah and God are one this is the very God himself in a certain sense study this because this is life this is you this is the world don't be pacified don't be satisfied by saying oh yeah I read it once or twice I went through it a few times I went to some classes even this class even with me I know it's hard to believe but it's not enough there's so much more you need to go work toil sweat cry beg and understand how profound how deep how much this Torah is the key to life that's another key to faith and belief in Hashem and coming closer to him