Rabbi Yitzchak Feldheim - Mysterious Mitzvot Defying Explanation

thank you for joining us here for the second part of our series on the miraculous and the mysterious in Judaism I want to again thank practice fire for hosting this it's always a privilege to be part of their holy work there's no one like project inspire and it's always a great great crowd who comes to listen to this show so let's start the last year that we did we did was on the miracles we explained miracles became basically three explanations for the role of miracles in Judaism and in this class we're going to deal with the mysterious there's a lot of ways to go about talking about the mysterious in in the Torah I'm gonna focus on the laws that are mysterious people are weird that the laws of the Torah fall into two main categories maybe possibly three categories that primarily hukum and miss Parton they're commonly translated as hukum are like the the well we spot them first miss rottenmeier the rationale was you know was like don't steal and don't lie in honesty and and you know don't murder all the laws of society of civil society laws of justice and kindness and compassion and those was a rational understandable and it's commonly understood that hooking my laws that require some measure of faith they're not understood not that not that they don't have meaning but that they're beyond our ability to grasp and it's understood some how people normally talk about at least I when I went to school and I was younger the way it was explained this is that you're demonstrating some kind of deep trust and God to follow things even you don't understand them I want to give a little more you know a little more on just shut a little more light unhooking than that that we learned to know if you learned about these things when you were younger and to look at probe a little deeper you know it did it's definitely appropriate that there would be laws in the Torah that would require some kind of suspension of self a demonstration of trust Trust is a big part of life and and the Torah should definitely want to train you in that and but you wouldn't need a whole body of laws of they're all the same you know if we don't know the reasons that we know the reason so what why do we need so many hookin why would they need to be a varied amount of laws like that all the nuance and subtlety is lost on us so and there are many reasons that go in to explain in the hook this is what I want to really get into today there are a bunch of hukum that are commonly known I don't Lee in this short class we're not gonna be able to touch on all of them I think you know the most intriguing of the Fukien probably is sharpness those know the law you know that you're not a lot of wear garments with a combination of wool and linen the fascinating idea something you know people never even think about these kind of things and I want to get into explaining the Shabbos also the Torah refers to the hulk of all hokum the greatest hook is uh is the law of the red heifer zoli's who casts a torrid this is the code of the Torah so I want to explain me the red heifer a little bit and again I'm explaining I'm not gonna you know Who am I but I'm gonna shed light on that I've learned that I know and give a little bit of insight into these laws well there are things that people know that depending on your background that definitely create a lot of curiosity like I think it'd be worth talking about what the midst of chaos are why we have this you know seen them with these side locks and that's something just a user-friendly thing to get it might not be the most important hope to probe but uh I think understand such a visual part of Judaism I know when I used to take students on Israel trips so a lot of them many of them was the first time in Israel even the ones it wasn't the first time we would take him like the places they never saw before we would go to major Shoreham you know so I'd be on the bus with the mic like sort of like a tour guide and III I of course he can you have to explain the garb and the pace and so uh III knew that people were very it was very edifying you know the people enjoy hearing getting a little bit of an insight in the clarity onto that because the things we do in Judaism aren't random insignificant we do things because they're they're important and you know it's a paradigm shift to look at the world through the eyes of of the Torah's requirements now there's a great amount most of the hooking most of us who can really deal with the loss of Cassius we know what's wrong why would only pig why nobody you don't need meat and milk was of kosher wine and blood and fats this is salt that it deserves its own class maybe maybe if we have time in the end now I'll stick in a few ideas but Prime I think I think we'll leave the the kosher cook given for another class one day we'll do a class on the mysteries of Cassius and you know this symbol is that what the Torah wants you know the signs of kosher animals of fish if it has fins fins and scales but animals kosher has little burrs and chews its cud so these aren't just things to ignore like what is the totem want what is what does it mean to chew a cut what is a split of what is fins and scales why should that affect you know we tend to look at the world exclusively through perspectives of health I'll talk about more that more later but that's a very very shallow very not sophisticated life is far and more sophisticated deep in nuance than just manners of health and who can become more clear as we expand use modern terminology as you need spanned our consciousness then all of a sudden you know different sensitivities different laws will leap into focus it'll become understanding ok understandable let's go further ok so so I just want to start off first with the word hook I think it's important to define the word and that will go a long way into giving us clarity as to what exactly hukum are are attempting to accomplish the word Houk is a word the taurah it means to chisel the Loko to the tablets were cooking they were chiseled if you visualize the act of chiseling what it is is you're creating writing or a form but not by creating the forms by removing the removing the filler right if you if you visualize the tablets the words I am the Lord your God thou shalt not all those laws they were they were chiseled through the stone a hole in the stone it was like a stencil so the words existed on okey I am I am the Lord your God but they didn't have like a physical well that's really what I wanted to point out think about this for a second if you're reading a tablet that was carved chiseled you know you're you're you're reading it so how would you describe the existence of the words that you're reading what are you reading right the stencil stencil is upright a paper with a hole and you fill in the letters a B C whatever right so when you're reading a stencil I would call that chiseled I mean it's not actually chiseled there is this hole punched but then when the stone the way you get create a stencil Adam stone is you have to chisel it so Kuki the act of Kikuko so when you chisel what is what is the act of what is the act of chisel what is what is the left what is the one of the words that results from chiseling what's their existence right I guess they don't have physical existence but the words they do exist right there is a word I am the Lord your God you can read it it's but it's may add a vacuum so there are two types of writing there's writing where you have white parchment durable paper and you write on it the words out of actual existence black ink on top of white background but there's another form of writing which is in which is the river so an inverse it's a hole through the way the the words exist see that's what hokum and mish Spartan both are real they have real ramifications and real applications understanding the difference is that hokum are lacking physical material existence the the message of the words is intact the ideas contained in them the vehicle of conveying it doesn't have matter for it's not a matter existence meaning if the law of wool and linen was miss Spock kind of law adjust this kind of law right then it would be that it gives you a rash you know and or wool and linen disintegrate quickly and you're gonna wait losing money by buying wool with him it would be some kind of practical tangible material law hook him though don't have material existence then laws that only that again as far as understanding and meaning and purpose and insight they're identical it just doesn't have physical meaning so we're gonna find that the hookin you can't judge them by what implication they have in life it's not gonna make you sick to eat me in the milk then it would be called the mish but it would would be the Reg like the regular kind of writing the fact that it's called chiseled means it doesn't have physical a physical matter mean doesn't that matter meaning but it has theoretical meaning and we're gonna find it these that why would there be laws without matter meaning and essentially the laws of hooking are far more essential these are the global understandings that Judy's and livers without being colored or limited vice any practical concern these are abstract understandings that are integral to life without studying the hooking we're gonna miss out on a huge amount like maybe some of the most important concepts of life because Hashem is choice to communicate these laws as hooking means he didn't want us to be distracted by their practical ideas he said these are sort of truth before hits earth truth in its global understanding before we get into the nitty-gritty of practical applications that's my introduction to what hukum are and now we can go into [Music] actual studying a few of the hokum okay so I think the best one to start the the the best hope to start with is probably the sharpness will lumen and that's the one we introduced first and it's appropriate to use that first it's a good introduction to hook him it's the prototypical non-understandable beyond us law to get into the woodland and we really have to go start off really like everything in the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve were really after they as they get thrown out Adam and Eve are thrown out of the Garden of Eden because they sin and then we get introduced to the next generation I call it take two at the world if they if though I'd like to see the Torah has like sort of this epic you know novel this this movie it's the perfection mankind search for greatness mankind's attempt to become godly so 10 take 1 was Adam that didn't end as well as a woman of light so Cain and Abel are take two and then we the Holy Spirit order all the the slow process of mankind finding his way towards toward towards the will of Hashem towards godliness perfection happiness joy they're all synonyms really you think about it but that's not for now so what we need to know the process of of sin and trying again needs that something changes every time meaning if Adam and Eve failed so then why should take to be different than take one like why should can't enable be different than Adam if they tried and they failed so what happens is that each stage in the Torah there's one change and the best metaphor is a kind of kid I want my kid to eat an apple he's a little kid Kevin can eat an apple so we cut the Apple up into little pieces and in five minutes it's gone cuz now each it's bite-size each piece the kid can deal with it's within his ability to be pieces not a whole Apple and Adam and Eve were given part in the pun the Apple teeth right they get they were given an Apple dotty but but my metaphor that was there they had the job of becoming godly perfection in one whole thing one law that embodied all of human challenges when Adam fails and I mean he fails so then God gives divides a job in half and now Cain and Abel are each of half of reality half of the universe and then we'll see afterwards you have the flood and after the flood there are three people I'm Shane come in the office they we re inhabit the earth and each one of them is 33% of life eventually you end up with twelve tribes each one twelve seventy nations 600,000 people the process of life is to keep on dividing the job into smaller and smaller slices of course the job is still godliness and perfection of happiness completion but how each individual has a specialty in initial and that's how the job essentially becomes easier right because now you have you have bite-sized pieces so we need to study now is stage one is easy to understand it's called becoming perfect once we start dividing the job but the slices it gets more complex like how do you how do you divide the job of perfection in half how do we give Cain and Abel each 50% of humanity's job this way if he does his part he does his part then basically the job is done and Adam Adams job is complete having been divided in half so how do we understand how how would you divide the job in our so the secret to understanding things matura everyone in the torah their name defines them it sort of like a caricature of the person to understand Cain and Abel kind and Hevel you have to know what their names me the names mean as far as Kyon's name means acquisition and Abel's name means like the first words of qohelet of Ecclesiastes have Valhalla mahakal have all vanity a vanity all is vanity nothingness Hevel means courier kyon is acquisition the two names of adam's children fascinating cute names no vanity and acquisition I would book they pick those out of but vanity and acquisition are those are the two kids what does that mean there are two halves of life have heavens philosophy Abel's philosophy is vanity a vanity all is vanity look at this world what are you busy with this world it's a fleeting world and let its finite at list last for about moments you're gonna die you can't take anything with you just go down the mountain and talk to become an ascetic in the Hermit and it's all vanity his entire life is the idea that this world is is just a chance it's just a temptation it's just a at best it's a distraction there's God and just deal with goddess don't be involved with the physical world do whatever you got to do minimally to make a living but the even to survive but but but to be involved to pursue things it's all vanity Kane says exactly that was exactly the opposite goes evil what are you talking about yes I agree with you that we want to only know God but we don't know anything of God the only thing we know of God is the universe that he created that's all we have pre Torah right then then we have two things to study we have the world and Torah but but at that time all they had was the universe so how do you gonna know God by escaping the world the only way you can know God is to experience every single nuance of the world you've got expand and instead of contracting and going a top of a mountain ya think stretch your arms as far as they go and embrace as much of the universe Abel Abel is the escapist I call him the idealist idealism and Cain is the realist he lives in the real world his name is acquisition his approach to God as to acquire and canes and Abel's approach to God is to escape and each one of them is 50% of the world this truth to either one each each one is missing the truth of the other and perfection would be if Cain would become the total embrasure of the beauty of God in the world and Abel the man totally escaped and was totally holy and pure and together they would be they would they would achieve totality each one now sets out their life becomes a curricular of these ideas Abel wants to escape life he doesn't want to be involved in the physical if he becomes a shepherd and the Torah the shepherd is the metaphor the symbol for the ascetic you have to do something but what does he do he's busy with first of all sheep themselves are there they're the most a fear you'll thing in the world they're white they're fluffy they don't work the purpose of the Sheep is a gross wool it happens on its own the sort of fluffy pure whiteness of the world well it's a poetic image of purities you know the whiteness of wool and and Gila was and even the Shepherd Shepherds job is to allow the Sheep degrees and throughout the Torah shepherds are spoken about the imagery in the metaphor of a shepherd is is this is calm serene not involved in the rat race of life it's the aesthetic may be riding with little poetry and talking to Hashem and saying the hilum on the top of the mountain with with with his passive she came though is the opposite King says my escaping life so he becomes the farmer the farmer is the man who struggles with the earth pulling holiness out of the earth he's out don't escape life I could show how the most mundane physical thing is holy you don't need to go up there for holiness the idea is I can find holiness and anything Abel's greatest achievement would be total escape Kane's greatest achievement would be to find God in the lowest thing in the world so each of their lives is seen as an offering it says that Abel brings of a shape the best of the sheep and Cain brings weak the wheat vegetables the the foam from his vegetables but the poorer ones so what does that mean what it means is no it's literally an offering words it's a metaphor of their lives we're offerings or probably both they're probably true on the brac little literal and the larger you know conceptual level their life wasn't offering Tasha Abel's whole life of shepherding was was often Russian the sim his offering that he actually brings on the altar is the best of the sheep if you wanted a serve God with something ethereal something you know non worldly what would be the symbol of non worldliness the best of the sheep the best in his sense enable senses is his escape his non worldliness so it doesn't mean the best sheet what he put on his altar was wool the best of the sheep is the world it's the most it's the most passive thing in the universe it happened on its own it's white its ethereal its otherworldly came though is the opposite he wants a show I can find God it's easy to find God inertia I'm gonna find God in Vegas I'm gonna go find the most coarse mmm crass thing in the world and show how that deserves to be on the altar too so the farmer who's penetrating the earth and working on the earth and toiling on the earth what is the most grass course crop that he could put on the altar he wants a serve God not with something ethereal what's the opposite of that the most material thing in the world so anything edible already is holy it already has some kind of life to it the symbol in the Torah for the most coarse produce is linen is hemp it's it's used just for burlap sacks it's strong colorless coarse rough it's used for for rope and sacks it's not you don't eat it these are the polar understandings of the polar ends of the understandings of the world Abel serves God metaphorically and literally with the wool of his sheep and Cain serves God literally and metaphorically with thee with the with the court with the linen with the coarsest of his crops and they both offer their offerings to God two ways to serve God escaping the world in harnessing the world and together that would have been perfection the idealist and the realist unfortunately it didn't turn out like that and that's not the context of this class what happened to what went wrong but Cain kills Abel and that means in the larger sense that idealism and realism have never joined together we never succeeded at perfecting the world in that sense and that that blemish is the blemish that still exists of the sin of Adam and Eve still exists and the second blemish of mankind is the gap between idealism and realism the practical and the theoretical the argument of Cain and Abel remains unresolved and we believe that every single division in the world every fight that has ever existed in the universe since then has its roots in the unresolved argument okay Mabel if you're ever been in the fight with somebody person was more theoretical and one was being more practical one was a philosopher and one was a realist idealism realism every argument is the argument came enable the symbol of the flaw in the world is the separation of the world little in the idea of a strand of wool and linen that is the Jewish image of perfection where idealism and realism meet and they become whole that is holiness holiness is woolen linen but what we don't deserve it it wasn't achieved we live in a world of strife and division and fear is the people who live in that world people live in the real world and and these are missing the animation and the joy and the spark of Merari that comes from understanding and those guys are missing the practical acts the grasp on what is that comes with being practical a world needs to be like in Jacobs dream of su la moots of Arts a ladder planted firmly on the earth where I show you McGee ashram i'ma but its end reaching the heavens you have to have your heavenly heavens and the heaven your feet on the ground that is what God wanted and it's Yakko who was the first one to toil with it with the image of that dream and the bridging you have to be really really told to have your head in heaven tall to have your head into heavens and your feet on the ground and therefore we don't wear wool linen this is the blemish on mankind we're not entitled to what would in the days of mushiya will be willin Leonard the Kohen Gadol the high place only in the temple were one and only the special garments of the clan coddle and in the world to come it's a world of woman where the color is saying is that idealism wheels and that's perfection it's a very very real these are cooking these are laws without reason these are the laws that lie the underpinnings of the entire university the universes is is nonsensical and empty without the hooking they just don't have it doesn't it doesn't have material meaning it's chiseled into reality they're listening you may this idea may give you a little insight to other on the ways to understand the idea of chiseled sort of like permanent in the bedrock of the insides of what defines reality as opposed to the external manifestations of reality okay but under also and when you chisel you're chiseling but you're forming the world and and somehow this these these flaws of the the floors the damage okay Mabel has sort of shaped the world in the same sense that chiseling creates letters and texts so a lot of ways to understand that just just stop just like anything at all er the goal is it's just to start you off and then that's what we do call you may try all the days of our lives tutorial and hollering to probe deeper and see greater and more beautiful and deeper things okay let's do the next book the next hook we'll do um I think the para doom or the red heifer that's considered the classic a classic huh you know what let me let me add in one thing people ask this question all the time and I think we might have time so I don't think we'll be derailed or it'll be the class will be negatively affected to discuss this is if this is true that Abel brought his so offering was he was trying to use the world escaping life and Cain brought his lowly vegetables because that was the point to serve God with course you know not holy things to show I can find God anywhere that that was a holy achievement so why did God accept Cain's Abel's offering in our kings right we know the fire came from sham ayam the kid fire came onto the altar and ate that's the pasta verse says and ate ate up Abel's offering and that's why Cain was jealous kaien was jealous because he didn't get the response that Abel got but if we're describing both of them here is noble on the floor was only their ability to get together which I'll say this too is that you see when in stage one when it was only Adam all Adam had to do is perfect the job he was one person the job will be perfect once the job is divided now gets more complex because when the job is divided then there's an extra job not only does Cain have to do his job and Abel have to do his job I mean a realist an idealist they have nothing in common there is no Union there is no overlap of their characters they're literally a slice a clean cut the what Cain neighbor was supposed to do is Cain and Abel were supposed to live long enough independently until the third son of Adam would have been born chase and Seth chase would have been the unifier third one his job would have been to unify Kyle and Ethel into one he would have been the Union synthesizer but unfortunately when chase was born Abel was already dead and King was already banished and it was over it was too late so this is the nature of the world now is that everyone since in the world of specialty and division each one of us has to work on our niche job and then there needs to be I think I mentioned in the last class the job of or a different class but the job of the conductor somebody who then can take all the diverse parts of this one of the roles of life is the role of conduct conductor like everyone has an instrument conductor has a job is not to play an instrument cut up doesn't play the conductor doesn't play an instrument he unifies the other instruments so that's what after have McCain able Nats was supposed to happen would shame humming office after the flood and that didn't happen either shame perfected his role right the shame is the intellect if you divide the world with the theory it's a whole different trip dividing the world three would be shame is the intellect the definer of things the namer shame comest passions Heath and yeah fesses beauty is the physical dividing the world the three 33.3% third three different jobs is different than idealism realism there it's emotion intellect n' and an action and they were supposed to coexist until the fourth son of noah would have been born but that never happened because of whatever happened when Noah got drunk and Shum did something that's the real story there was the preventing the fourth son the same problem happens if there is no unity between the three of them and that's why we're still here the job hasn't been done yet alright so what I wanted to add it's a walk - why didn't ya i'm just keep on going into places but why did cheney and why didn't why it was why just cannot get the fire so i think it's deep it's it's that came didn't get the fire it's not a punishment is that the nature of the two jobs the person who lives is escaping the world in dealing with god the meditative person the person in the world of Oh God so he lives like with his life is permeated by godliness he feels it in the always organ music in the background of his life and like fluttery sounds like a cane as the farmer his job is to find God in the darkness so his job is to persevere in the darkness it's not that God rejected his sacrifice is that his sacrifice doesn't get instant feedback that's a different path to God it's the trip to God to toil the darkness and to find God create your own life in your own purpose and to keep your eye on the ball you don't live in that you know soft magical tiptoeing fluttery world of Ethel of Abel and so and then the jealousy of kyon is is a little bit understood like like we're both half of the world but he gets to live in that beautiful you know world and I'm here dealing with thorns and sweat and and you know and all the problems that farmers that you know the toil and it's you know I understand the peel appeal of Abel of Cain's world but on the other hand and this week's Torah portion we understand the jealousy the other way you write in this week's portion we know that Jews live in the desert and they lived on this spiritual food from heaven the muck the mud the manor that fell from heaven and all they want is meat you know and they're complaining to God we don't want this let him howl cloacal this white bread of nothingness they don't want that world of spiritual they want to be the masters of their own world they want to be the creators they remember the food they ate in Egypt with toil they were slaves in Egypt how can you be worth nostalgic and sentimental without the food of Egypt as opposed to the gift of Mun so in a way he came could be jealous of Abel Abel's Joseph came that's the story of history also both suicides takes two to tango it's never won one who's guilty in one okay let's do the red heifer so the Torah tells us at the beginning of partial school God's all your school cows I tell you and this is Lee coke me chiseling of old cheese links then what is the law you have to take fields self a red heifer you bring this is all this is in the context of impurity that comes from death if you come in contact with death or loss of life so the way you use a certain impurity that comes however you understand that we'll talk about it a little bit maybe um but when you come in contact with the death or loss of life then you you need something this is you become Tommy and think that restores your Toma your impurity is is the ashes of the red heifer let's let's discover what these ashes are whenever are in with you find amongst your right we can weigh like a para do me you'll find you have this red hair for grown to you're grown in new flux it's a pure perfect unblemished red trial baby cow I sure aim bomb um there's not a flaw on it australia LOL LOL it never wore a yoke it never worked a day in life and never carried anything that Tomlin is very elaborate nothing couldn't have anything on its back never it could have never borne a burden when the shot them all saudi well okay you know what i'll tell you the story basically you take this red heifer this this perfect pristine red heifer and you burn it it's all your own that's basura i'll curse you you you you you burn the entire thing most sacrifices and offerings and temple were primarily eaten by the cohen know there were different ones with different parts but really a typical offering would have been eaten some of the some of it if certain stats one on the older and but the cohen got got certain part of the gain and the owners got to eat a lot of the food they had a holy meal a meal of a cow that went on the altar it was called slump it's complete was everybody benefited this is the other extreme nothing was used the entire thing is burnt our parish all year so if the entire thing burned in front of the are is right a novice fire of this Basara its skin its flesh its blood everything is put on the author what story so I think this is the image what is the imagery what is the torah' trying to convey but letting us know this baby cow this baby cow this is pristine and perfect never wore a power this power so this is the image of unbridled youth it's you know I say this a little time like in anyhow you know the first people up in the morning of the little kids they're bouncing off the walls they're fully a law even there they're on fire we call it wide-eyed you know they live wide I'm excited you know curious that's the way life is supposed to be that's the healthiest thing that's completion and what happens is that life comes and we start to get knocked around and there were negative experiences and we our coach yells at us and literally someone doesn't want to sit with sit with us and in the in the dining room in school whatever all we know all the stereotypical stories and we start to get chipped away at and we lose as part of our dreams and and we start to you know everybody starts off every girl wants to be a princess and every boy wants to be the hero the knight in shining armor that slays the dragon and deserves the princess well maybe there are more modern princess hero and heroine ideas but we all start off wanting to be significant right we want to be great and then life comes and knocks us around that's called the chiseling we are made by haqiqa we're chiseled explain to you like this you know people ask the question it's a deep question it deserves time to explain I'm gonna say it in short if you don't get it it's not if not if I don't convey it well enough just ignore it it's not that important the answers what's important we say our chemin safeguard is one our chemin selfhood and we're all created in God's image so if we're all created in God's image and God is once and then why aren't we all the same you know how many images does God have you know and one means doesn't have part so you can't say it's all parts of God I'm this part is that God is unity he's oneness itself so these not complex so then how we all different that's an interesting question so the answer is the one that one of the ways to understand it is when you come throughout Mount Rushmore so you see all the presidents in Mount Rushmore which President was in Mount Rushmore before it was chiseled before the haqiqa before the chiseling who was in there the answer is every president before they made it it could have been anyone the artist had to choose what he was going to remove to create the the presidents he did Jefferson Washington Lincoln Beck this is what he had to do what he had to do was a choice of what to remove so this is how we understand uniqueness of human beings you know I'm gonna explain a little more because I'm gonna leave you with a little bit something sad if I don't go the distance the the idea is is that we all start off as a block of granite that's what goal the image of God God is perfection we all start off as that the reason why we're all unique is not because there are different aspects to God or God is multiple things it's because what makes me unique is what was chiseled off of me how we were chisel exactly like Mount Rushmore I'm not different because my essence is different we all started off as a block of granite I'm different because I had unique trauma and you had different trauma life came and chiseled this chunk of you in this chunk of me I'm formed by my trauma and that's our uniqueness our uniqueness is how we were beaten and how all of our pains and our sufferings and how we recoiled from our dreams and their thoughts we are products of being chiseled and that's how we're made there's something that's beautiful about this in the sense that that one of our pain was significant in that it wasn't ruining us as that's what made us were being formed by the chisels were being carved and were the artwork but there is something sad about it and what's sad is is that you know the block of granite weighs less now a lot of meat was left on the shop floor what I could have been why did I have to lose all those parts of me so this metaphor is not really the metaphor we use for understanding how people are made it's a step along the way because it's not true God God is a far greater artist he doesn't need but if nothing's lost what is the metaphor in the Torah we use for the formation of a child for the educational process of a child that's from the menorah we call it a new cast a menorah the education you know the forming of the menorah it's it's dedication is is the same word as education we learn raising children from the menorah forming people educating them training them how was the menorah made the menorah is something called miksa it's a solid block of gold they had to be beaten into shape you knocked it and it was beaten and constantly beating and beating until it starts to take the shape of the complex shape with with cups and AB react and the copter Anna Farah flowers both cups and and then branches very complex beautiful the menorah was complex and beautiful but it was made starting from a block of stone knocking it in this gold there's a softness to it and you're able to beat it into shape so when you something is miksa and it's made by beating it so what's going on if you think about it it's also being shaped by trauma it has the same beauty of concept that you have in the Rushmore in a block of stone being chiseled chiseling out is the final product the shape by trauma and the menorah and banging it is also shepherds but the difference is in the menorah and nothing is lost there is nothing chisel Dorf every time I knock it here that gold pops out over here I'm not denting this I'm creating a flower I'm creating a cup and a bolt the menorah is so deep it's shaped by pane and shaped by life but nothing's lost it weighs the exact same amount when it's done then when it's then when then when it started that's how enough needs to be and that's a tall order and that's what it means interment says that nobody knew how to build they couldn't do emotion even but Salo couldn't build couldn't make them Nora it had to be made magically by God putting it into a fire and it popped out complete the the science of the ability to shape somebody without leaving anything on the ground without any loss of personality a character the true henna is that this is the Jewish aspiration but it's it's our struggle to get there that's a work had to do it okay so let's get back to the peridot ma so the it was worth whatever I think it's a beautiful idea to think about the part the para ado ma the red heifer is the symbol of the most vibrant fully alive it's red red is wild and untamed in a good way that's what a child you don't want to see a kid walking you know all meek and broken it's good when the kid doesn't want to come in from recess so far and the teacher has to blow the whistle a few times one more shot one these vibrant he's alive he's that's a good sign we don't want to break them so you the tourists like look what it's doing it's painting a picture of total aspiration lie read never worry oak on plan there's not a scratch not a scar never worked you walk you're picturing this thing with wide eyes innocent alive and what are you doing as soon as you get that picture and you're sort of looking at with hope this picture of youth and freshness and ambition and you settle in on this poetic image notre says you take that and you burn it it's for your own this this aura you would do sit - nothing - ashes you take totality this is the saddest image in the entire Torah it is an image of thoth totality completion reduced to zero 100 to zero those who curse at Olin this is the chiseling of the Torah nothing in the world was chiseled like this is chiseled it went from everything to nothing in in moments the ashes of the Pereira Duma are the saddest thing in the universe the saddest thing in the universe and when people are broken or anyone who said and experienced loss and death you take it and you sprinkle the of the Piranha duma on them the whole new water the why would that work what is the idea of the sprinkling of dashes so before we figured out let's make sure we have is good the para doom is meant to be an image it's the Hulk it's the chiseling of all chiseling what is what how is this inspiring to any what is the inspiration how does this help us how is this supposed to inspire or rekindle something in the in the person who's experienced loss and is broken so there there are a number of ways to understand it I'll I'm not gonna force it into what any one of those angles I'll give you the basic way to understand it and you can find your own niche of all different ways that this manifests itself as a cure for for the sense of loss the disillusionment through the loss of depth of feeling of loss so weighs you down it's a chunk of you was removed and it's lonely it's the whole you feel something taken out of you and the para Duma becomes like the overlay the totality of all loss and the tour is saying to come with your package of suffering and pain and put it against the backdrop of the red heifer look at it in the context of all of pain it's a song your pain is a subset of the totality of pain there is a totality of loss and each one of us beers appears a piece of that so it's inspiring it helps in a number of ways it's it's it's feeling never this has been addressed it's understood this isn't a mistake I'm part of a larger plan the para Duma is like it's not like when you have a stamp album with all the stamps or whatever country it is that you collecting and one by one you collect them and use you put those stamps into the book the book is the backdrop of totality and this is you are here it puts you in perspective on the other hand it tails your pain your pain becomes bearable and acceptable in the copy against the backdrop of the para Duma it's a feeling of being understood it's a feeling of your pain being conceptualized in the larger picture and it's the picture of understanding in the larger picture this that it's significant your pain but in the against the backdrop of the total pain of the para Duma pales in comparison it's it allows you to see vast stretches of life that are yours and they're available to you that the para Duma didn't have it is it rekindles the hope in showing how your pain which occupies such a large place in your mind but the part to me is is reframing it a larger worldview where your pain is tiny not minimized but put honestly in the picture of all loss everyone's pain against the backdrop of the para Duma everyone's pain is a small subset no matter what you've been through you didn't start at a hundred and you weren't reduced to zero so whatever Moss of yours whether you went from 78 to 73 from more likely from seventy eight point one one one to seventy eight point one one nine right that loss forget the the enormity of the para Duma is its create that it creates hope it creates a picture of what you do have and what you can have one you can focus on what you lost but but against the backdrop of what remains and what is it inspires you to regain life and not to give up and not to lie on the floor wallowing in pity and self-pity and suffering but to realize that there's that the vast stretches of the universe are still open to me but what happens is this is the great irony the para Duma when you sprinkle the ashes of the para do it rekindles it brings the person who had lost back to the vibrancy but the hollow is the person who does the sprinkling he becomes impure it's like a trade well this will the sprinkler could sprinkle a lot of people so he recovers all that and only he remains impure but it's Matara Mikami to name Matara to hire in Mikami to name it purifies the impure and it makes the pure impure it makes the impure pure and the pure impure because the people who are innocent and live looking at their that sense of loss of the para Duma has to be the most depressing thing in the world if you're starting at a hundred ton to count the idea of loss is devastating but if you're coming from a state of loss then all you're seeing is what is it has this effect on both and that's one of the great secrets of the para Duma notorious understanding of how with the tourists program is again the tourist program is only that we should be dancing in our shams garden God doesn't need us to bow before him we need to accept him and to believe me and to preserve him so that we will feel safe enough and confident noting the value of the world when you believe in God then you know it's a garden and then you can dance in the Garmon you can be all in and you can pursue truth and love and knowledge and wealth and success and beauty and because you know it's beautiful that's the struggle most people are hiding in the garden the entirety of the Torah is is how do I get man out of the bushes back dancing in the gun in the garden and the para Duma is one get you understand now why we see these laws are so central they don't have matter meaning but but what they do for our mindset both is a good is a good contrast because the first law was an intellectual insight and the second that we see the para Duma more is an emotional dealing with emotional things one one is idealism realisms of philosophical you know it's a breakthrough philosophically to the law of willingness providing us well the law of the red heifer is is providing us a great insight emotionally that's ok I think we'll do one more let's do the sidewalks ok ok the law of pace so here we have a little supplemental information that you probably heard you didn't hear I'll let you know this is to actually two different laws in the Torah called pea the translation of the word pea in Hebrew means corner and the law of growing pea says you're not allowed to low sakala you cannot obliterate the site but the payoffs of year of your face the corners of your face the corners are whatever we don't think into there are different corners so you can't use a razor on them there's actually no biblical requirement to grow long dangly side locks but this is what you know we do as religious Jews we we see couple definitely go see them they seek to the Torah gives a certain measure of guidance let's go to town on it you know you know how many things did God say or any whatever you told this is a good thing to do let's do it in spades so the Torah tells you you know how to shave off with a razor the corner you can't obliterate the the corners of your your here so we leave it you know quintella it has to be different amounts but but at least enough to grab it that's the smallest step in you know that's not called obliterate if you can grab hold of it that would be the minimum but there are other opinions and but there's no there's no limit going on the top side you know you can the Torah says the side locks are good that's more good more the more good the better another the other law is the corner of your field we just had if you studied the the scroll of Ruth shavoo that's where you read on shrew it takes place in the wheat harvest and they were poured they came and they went to the field of boas and there were different things that the poor people are entitled to take in the field one is any sheaves that are dropped if it's not a threshold of a certain amount or something that the sickle missed let get and Shikhar and pay are three things if the guy drops that the harvesters drop you know a few stray pieces you have to leave them you can't gather every piece you have to leave it for four people the popular entitled to follow after the harvesters the Reapers and take would fill also if your sickle missed some stuff you can't go back and get every last thing of the list miss one or two stalks that you know poor people can go go take that too and finally in the corner you have to leave a corner of your field which is interesting because it's the exact same laws the corner of your hair because it doesn't give a top side it just says you can't harvest the whole corner but technically you can leave the stalk in the corner I didn't harvest the corner or I can really call up to 50% right the diagonal of your field up to that could be called corner a field can be essentially just corners you know and you can really corner is the point how often you could leave as much of your corner you know I'll just say this would be a nice thought if people would leave as much to charity you know it's a lot easier to grow alongside Locke stand than to exaggerate my charitable gift and give that much corner we should be consistent I'm not saying if you know you know what if you can do any law do any law but it would be really cool if you know if we could we could we could exaggerate the corner of our fields to such a large degree too and take care of people okay now to make a pattern you need a third you need three three three establishes and Julius I'm called a Kazakh you have a real thing going when we there is a third law in the Torah of corners and that is the corners of your garments should have titties right there the fringes that we wear in the corners of our garments the torso now what I want to work on is the idea that there are three the Torah has some interesting few requirements when it comes to corners the corner of your face you're not let a harvest the corner of your field you're not allowed a totally harvest and you have to have stuff growing you have to have things on the corner of your field girl you can razor it on your face cat razor it's something got to be something growing and the corner of your garments you have to attach you have to attach strings on the corner of your garments you have to it seems like the Torah has a preference a requirement that there has to be stuff dangling off the corners of your garments or off all corners whether it's your field your face or your clothing all the arenas of life all the case of your life they're all cold gates in fact some people would ask that doesn't sound as saying those are growing you're touching knots on you you're catching the strings it's not organic it's not coming from the clothing welco food doesn't grow but ironically just in case anybody had that thought that's that's not a legitimate connection the word the totally uses for both here and citrus is get dealin growing good God the God L is to grow with they've become bigger but the girl it's dealing tohsaka you should attach growths growing thing strings on your garments are called get Dylan and by the nausea who's here has to grow God L para cenar a sham is here the Gro issues caused to growth this huge continue to grow also called whatever it's to here the gates or all of will see it's gonna be significant we're here gates why it's the same word in Hebrew Shire I saw her the ideas I saw oh well I know if I want to go that fast the punchline you know and uh create a little bit of a drumroll so we have three we have a pattern and yet a little more information is that all these things these things have come to be signs of Judaism they didn't grow to pay is because it's sort of like a sign is how jus Lux is a sign of a Jew and the Torah actually says it's straight out by Texas the purpose of the mitzvah census is or EE samosa we say in the Shema you should see them and remember the entire Torah somehow ditches are supposed to be a reminder of all of Judaism that's what we women we really strings you look at a guy and you see his pay us ah he's a Jew and the Jew looks at a Sicily girls are polar and a whole Judaism how does it remind the corner of a field this is a Jewish field how are they why are these the signs of Judaism so to understand this we have to really understand what is a corner what is what is the imagery what is it wash em conveying or she was talking about corners so I'm gonna give you two explanations till now I gave you Hooten intellectual ones the sharpness and an emotional one emotional insight in the in the in the red heifer but I want to show you that I'm just scratching the surface there are the Torah tells there are 70 faces to the Torah so just to show that up here I'll give you both I'll show you in this case because it's shorter I'll show you an emotional and intellectual understanding of this so first we'll do the intellectual one first that well get over the corner is not so simple corner is two different things if we see the world as we see it the Russian miss Earhart God is one and then the world is the fragment the hiddenness of God's unity fragments like I've said in previous classes life you whether you were here or not is that we like to think of Hashem in the world as like the cover of the puzzle box in the puzzle Hashem echoed God is oneness he got is the cover of the puzzle box and then he hid his unity that's the universe the universe is not the state the universe is God with a unity hit me so if God's a cover the box the universe is the puzzle hundreds millions of people yinz of pieces of cardboard colorful cardboard and it's our job to realize that this isn't random cardboard this is a picture and can we assemble it and recreate the cover of the box which would bring us to the third stage Stage one is the cover of the box Stage two is the random pieces Stage three is where we make the puzzle we create the unity and we experience God but through our own hands that's the beauty of stage three see no one in the world ever hung the cover of the puzzle box on their roll you know Tom Needham Milton Bradley made that you know Parker Brothers I'm dating myself I don't know what the companies are today so for long times I'm not a puzzle but night but you have you you have a cover and then you have pieces and then you have the assembled pieces the stage the third stage the stage in the first stage are identical just the difference is me the first stage is the manufacturer the photographer the third stages us we get to experience the perfection godliness but not as beggars not as a handout as the creators of that of that one is we are the reassembled that's called beam Amla Hashem making making God King restoring we say no in all a new by your ma who yeah Shambala douche Massimo push my work hard right God will be one and his name will be one Hashem is one God is one as the cover of the box his name is one is that how will be perceived is that here will make the puzzle to match him it'll be the same up up here and down here the same he were male we're mirroring the you were assembling the pieces to mirror the unity of God as he really is in our own universe and that'll be the pick the joy of our lives is the symphony in the final it's different metaphor in puzzle but the symphony of all the parts and all the pieces combine that said so all of Judaism can be summed up as the pursuit of one is the assembly of the pieces we put the world together that's what Judaism is who make it we're making possible the puzzle makers that's the Jewish people the conductor of the universe they're all the pieces but where they can work with a puzzle maker that said so where does that struggle of life take place so that's what the corner is there are two ways to see a corner when when you see a corner a corner can be either the boundary the limits the edges the perimeter that some people think of corners if I will take the fine corners it's where you end it's the extreme borders of your existence the perimeter boundaries that's what a corner would be that's a very very non Jewish understanding of corner if you would have said that you don't know I didn't say it out loud see you got away with it but that's not Jewish you have work to do what a Jew would say you know what a corner is is another way to see a corner if we believe that everything in the world is one then a corner is not a boundary of perimeter a corners a junction a corner is weird things connect a is the forefront of unity all the if all the pieces are really one then the corner is not where I end the corner is where we meet the most extreme understandings of the exact same word and the exact same thing what is a corner is a corner your end your boundary your perimeter or is a corner your junction your meeting place you know your your look your place of Union that is the greatest difference in the world it is forbidden to have flush corners a flush corners precise corners says Islands a world of trillions random world of violence colorful pieces of cardboard the sign of a Jew how do we proclaim the same way we became shamaya Sol Hashem is one where we proclaim that with our entire existence we are every one of your ends has to project beyond your end you need to have cities projections growth you we expand beyond our it's couplings that's what that's what it is sits his payer of the field in the face the sign of the jewel is that you don't end flush a flush slowing says that were Islands extensions on your corners means we reach out to each other from the corners I was I went on a trip with college students the outreach trip I was giving classes we went to South Africa and we did we did the safari in Kruger and I had the privilege to see a chain of elephants and the way they walk is is trunk to tail every tail is grabbing the trunk behind it and it's this magnificent chain parents and children all like holding uncoupled their trunks holding and I had this image at that moment of that's truly our universe and and that's what that's our image of like Titus said to say grab hold here grab hold here we're one big chain I'm not an island I'm a coupling I'm a middle car in the Train this catches the car in front of me and this is the car behind me and big circle and that's what's it says proclaim and that's the corners of your field proclaim and it's not just a proclamation like that not just the theoretical symbolic thing but but definitely in the case of the field it's exactly what it's doing it's a place where the poor can connect to you we you're not there are no walls there are no perimeters no borders that's the philosophical approach and we'll end this with the with the last ideas the the emotional approach and then we'll continue a part three later so what's the other approach to citizen pious this approach this other approach the emotional approach deals with the exact same phenomena we have three different laws in the Torah that seemed to have address corners there laws of corners you can't keep the corner flush yeah yeah you can whether it's on your face or your field or your or your garments and I think what the message is is that [Music] you know again we start with vibrant and alive and then stuff happens and we get we think our lives are limited I think I'm capped I think I'm never going to be able to achieve what I want I fall in I've crashed I've we reach our boundaries or our perimeters we can come to our borders and in that the experience of that as something called ich ich is what the struggle of life is really a struggle I call this between dreams and years longing yearning the way that we want to live we want to be vibrant and the idea of I want to curl up a little and give up just want to be normal I want to stop the dreams are painful I've reached the end it's never going to happen for me Who am I fooling and then my dreams become my enemies because they cause me pain thinking about what I once believed and then we have to start lying to ourselves not only do we stop you know longing for the things we long for but even that longing itself now causing the pains laugh and start to change my whole ideology I have to stop caring about what I care about convinced myself that a whole new type of thing is what I crave and what I want and and there are living things that aren't true and then I can really can't know what happens like life just no balls because first I stopped living my dreams and then and then I have to change my dreams because you can stop doing something that you long for if if it's never gonna happen that's painful so now I change my gouge begin it but you know you can't be lining yourself you know when you're around other people and they all laugh with you so then you can feel like it but when you go home and they're gone and you know your truth so just then that thing takes you for terrible places then you have to drown out your thoughts and you have to live an entire life this is what happens is how life gets derailed and Judaism this is why people are again I'm a metaphor curled up in the bushes in the Garden of Eden when we should be dancing in the garden this is God's beautiful world life is full of blessing and fully it's designed for success the problem is is that we're approaching what we're not eating not approve we stopped approaching life or we approach it so tentatively and so reluctantly that failure is a short you're not guaranteed to succeed you're guaranteed to sit you or get successes and character you are guaranteed to succeed but you have to be you if you're not bringing you to the party then you know you're gonna be a fraction of you and the fraction of you is not guaranteed success you are an instrument in the symphony not one little fragment of you you the blessing has come to you when you live the life that you were meant to live but instead we're all curled up in a fetal position with noise-canceling headphones on so this is the most important thing the world the world is broken and hiding and the Jewish people's message to the world is we're carrying God's message the message is to dance at hashem is garden so how do you want that what is the sign how does it look to be the messenger to dance in Hashem garden the voice and the messages don't give up no not me and you're just getting started like this hope try again keep on going don't it's the message of the Jewish people and no one's live been beaten more than a soror experience but we're still going what does the visual of that the visual of that what screams out all of Judaism is is that there's no such thing as a corner whenever you reach a corner wherever you reach a perimeter that's where we start a flushed corner is giving up corners are not ends corners are launching pads that's a sign of citizen tastes pay is scream out hope pray is scream out is you're about to give up no there's no corner this is where you start everything the corner is just where the roots are look what's throwing off the corners you're just getting started go live the optimism and the vibrancy look at your clothing the corners the sign of the Jew is projection beyond your corners there are no corners you're not boxed in you haven't reached the end of your line if your line begins where you thought you end that's with Ian and that is Judaism our pace is a sign of a Jew our citizen a sign of a Jew and next time you go outside you see pages that says this let it Kindle and you a little fire then what I thought was my end what I thought was the time to start writing things off is it's just the fertile ground for me planting my next stage it's it's the future was created on projections that sits us this is the holiest missus their their foundation is built on the ashes of the past say sameness our ear Althea you know the city will be built on the ruins of the previous city and it'll be higher and taller and we've seen it time and again we just the only thing the only thing that can stop us is to give up and that would be the saddest thing so this is the introduction to the world of hooking so sad for people to think that I share with the benevolent gracious giving God the most giving the source of a little kindness and love and give that would give us laws that we could just suppress your thought and suppress you might just swallow it and just do it now the hukum are are the most integral understandings of things in the entire Torah and in a way it's a little bit of a benefit that their their message is not it's not clouded or distracted from by practical laws or things we have behaviors and time schedules and things that we have to do they're they're they're they're chiseled into reality without the physical reality so that we could just focus on the ideas and not be bogged down by the constraining limitations of practicality although you know we do have little practicality which gets to the heart of the argument like we said of Cain and Abel practicality is real but it's good to sometimes read some writing that was chiseled into the world and has truth not limited or defined by physical existence all right I just feel like this should end with a brothel everybody should find this second wind and grab hold in their own pace and their own senses and project beyond their corners you know this this entire time that we're sitting here for many people it's a corner trapped in the corner in quarantine quarantine is probably a good definition of staying within your corners but but I think what people have discovered is zoom you know we found found things outside of our corners that we never would have had if you wouldn't have been in our corners sometimes the corner is what gives birth that it's it's us in the pace you grab on to all these growths that you found in the course of of this time living in the corner huddled in the corner huddled in the corner we found the infinite all right if you want I can pick you up a period citizen mail it to you anywhere not local all right we'll see you next time