Rabbi Akiva Rutenberg - Tisha Bav - Why is there Baseless Hatred

[Music] so what I wanted to speak about today is relates to Trisha valve and it relates to some messages that we can take personally from the fast day for more goddess into galoot who got us into exile and what the SATA Shen can get us out I had the opportunity a few weeks ago to be in a city in Europe and I'm not gonna name the city because I don't want for lusha Nara I don't want to say the name of the city but this city in Europe had a Jewish community for centuries is one of the unique rare Jewish communities places that have had a consistent Jewish community for centuries and I was in this city with a group of Emmett students and a person was taking us on a tour of the city and in the middle of the tour they were showing us a beautiful synagogue and then they showed us another synagogue and they told us that after the Spanish Inquisition in 1492 Jews from Spain came to the city and unfortunately there were many Jews of high political levels in the city who are not comfortable with these other Jews coming to them and they went to the government of the city of this country and they said how much do we need to pay you to not accept these Jews and thank God the government of this country turned to these Jews and said you want to pay that your brothers shouldn't be able to come here you will pay and they will come and they paid and they still came and I was sitting in a Sephardic school that dates back almost of the time of the Inquisition about over four years ago we know that one of the main reasons we are in Google today is because of sin Athena because of baseless hatred Jews not caring about each other but where does this come from what I'm going to share with you in the next few minutes is based on a beautiful safer name this fast MS and with its particular explanation of this that I learned from My Father so I just want to share with you and some ideas that I think will make the search bar more meaningful there's a mission and pakeha vote that says in a nanny Li Miele in Manila asks me money if I am NOT for myself who is for me but if all I am is for myself what am I and then the mister ends off in law akshatha a messiah if not now then when now this mister is one of my favorite mr. elton the entire in the entire Miss Dyas and I believe this mission is teaching us something extremely powerful an idea that this mission is teaching us is a person must take care of themselves in a nanny Li merely a person has to have a healthy sense of self one of the most important things that I teach and Emmet from my Social Work background than my rabbinic background is the importance of taking care of yourself and having a healthy sense of self but in Aniela adds me money if all I am is for myself if all I am is self-centered and just caring about myself what am i I'm just an empty shell and we know that so much of Torah is about balance it's about finding a balance and ultimately this to me is one of the greatest balancing acts that we as a human being has to do find the balance between the self and the other we need to have a healthy sense of self to take care of the other but if all I am is myself then there is nothing there's nothing there the greatest sense of self is when I take care of somebody else and then the mission ends off in law a chef a messiah and until a few months ago I did not understand why Hill Oh sticks that last line in if not now then when just seems like some good advice what's the connection and I think the explanation is is because like you're not gonna Brussels said the world is a narrow bridge but ultimately you have to make the next step like we know if somebody's walking on a tightrope how do you make it across a tightrope you go like this right you one hand this way one on this way you find balance but you also have to move forward if you don't keep moving forward you're gonna fall so to me this is a very very powerful idea the self and the other but where is this all about where does this all come from we know that in a car we read that you shall I am is a city ear Shalhoub rola hasta a city of connectivity a city of connection those who you have the opportunity to go to the Kotel you stand at the Kotel and you feel a connection we talked about the beta Mick - what was so special about the beta big - they're doing a ritual sacrifices what's the what's so important what's the king what's so important about the beta me - so the way I rabbi's teach us is that when we had the beta make - we were connected we were like like a plug that's plugged into a wall we were connected to the source we were connected to Hashem and when we have that connection it's an entirely different story people asked today why are we why are we mourning the loss of the beta mag - the loss of land of is of land of Israel Theon we have we have Israel we have the country of Israel we even have the Coto but yet we're lacking a tremendous amount of connectivity of actually my father shares a beautiful story that he heard from rip slo-mo fry fo sho mo five-fold was his Rebbe my my second son was named after him he's the one who founded yeshiva sha your servant for Rockaway and he used to give us shear once a month on the spot set us on this book and he was given to recently married men and I remember growing up my father sharing the story with me so many times because they had a very big impact on him because he learned to Nagashima right after he got married and the following story whereby fry felt shared that a young man who just recently got married came to him and was listening to the shear and the spa sama is talking about all these spiritual concepts and the guy goes home Friday night and his wife tells him as they're sitting down to eat she says I was tired today I did not make chicken soup and chicken soup was something he looked forward to the whole week for chicken soup and that was like Shabbat was chicken soup and at that moment at that moment he went into himself and he realized how much his wife was doing and he appreciated her in a different level and he said chicken soup is chicken soup but there's something much deeper here and he not only did he now let it bother him but that anger that started building up inside of him turned into love and he came to her by Fri fall the next week and he said that at that moment he felt like he connected to something that was much deeper than himself we know that the sins of sin Arcanum really has its roots in the sin of you're safe and his brothers when yo say was sold by his brothers so we need to talk a little bit about what took place at that time when yo se was sold by his brothers the specimens goes and explains it from a very deep level an understanding of Avraham Yitzhak Yaakov and each one their individual roles we know that I've Rahm was the character trait of a set of kindness of just giving we know that Yitzhak was the character train of guevara of order and rules and Yaakov was the harmony between these two in many ways the beginning of yakko's life the first half of his life he was doing Kirov he was living in he was living in the house of LaVon he was a harmony between all these different things together yo safe and his brothers had a must look it had a difference of agreement Yosef was still sort of living in the time of the 'vote his person perspective his prophecies and the rest of the Shaw team believes that that time for prophecies is over and this is a do time now and then a disagreement but ultimately that disagreement led to Joseph's brothers trying to kill him how do brothers kill a brother how does that possible and what I would like to suggest based on this idea is that that's only possible when we don't feel connected when we don't realize that we are all connected and then we are connected to a source we're connected to Hashem when we lacking that connectivity when we're lacking that connection then what happens we focus on the differences and we become very restricted like a sub we become very very restrictive when a person lives with this kind of restriction anyone who's not like me anyone who's different from me I look at as something else and I cannot feel connected I cannot feel one with each other but my rifle pointed out that if we wanna end Sinatra nom how do we end sin Athena was the tycoon for sin Athena what's the fix for Sirisena so we know the answer is a Latino but in essence what's the greatest hibachi nom when I am willing to give up myself for you when I am willing to literally put myself on the line and give up myself because that's how much I value you now ironically like I said before that's only possible when it starts off with you have a healthy sense of self and then you can let go of yourself but ultimately when your person is able to be most NFS and give themself up for another person that's the ultimate econ force in Athena and we know what happened you who de came what was what did y'all tell you before your save revealed his identity you who that came and said I'm willing to give up myself for my brother Ferb in Yemen oh I'll die for him and that was the beginning of the T : for the myth here at yo se for the selling of yourself because if I am willing to give up myself for you then I am tapped into and connected to what makes us all connected and makes us all one when class or realizes coal you saw our readings ellezi were all responsible one for another the word I rave what is the word I rave mean in Hebrew if you need a cosigner on a loan you ask for a rave we are all co-signers we're all co-signers to each for each other we're all connected and responsible one for another unfortunately we live in a world where we focus very very much on the differences and the way I would like to explain this is that the reason why they think about sin Athena is he not phenom the cause or the effect of of the galoot in essence if you think about it cynically Nam is the effect because of the fact that we felt so disconnected we looked at each other as separate beings as separate people we look critically and negatively at each other this was in essence a symptom of the problem that caused the galoot how can we in our life fix this problem it seems like such a big problem how do we fix this problem and the reality is we know how that teaches our rabbis teach us and this goes back to the Gemara 400 years after the korban the Gemara asked the famous question amar says why are we engulfed longer for the sin of sin a phenom which doesn't seem to be as big as the same of adultery idol worship murder of the first may something das and 400 years after the destruction of the second beta meat - the Gemara answers you're right it's not as bad but they knew they were doing something wrong we don't know what we're doing anything wrong and unfortunately we could still say this today and the question of the Gemara almost two thousand years later is even a stronger question how are we still in exile today and I think the understanding is is because at some level we're still not feeling that sense of connection we're still not feeling that sense of a iot of responsibility one for another we're still living with this restricted miss it has to be my way and I can't respect other people who have different approaches and different perspectives anti-semitism Asaph the Nazis we're about extreme restrictive 'no snow soul it's just order it's just rules i was reading an article recently and i hope i hope it doesn't bother you if you drive off a ford car but henry ford the founder of the Ford company was actually personally very responsible for the Holocaust do you know that Henry Ford in the early 1920s became a pretty rabid anti-semite and he became very paranoid and he built up all these ideas in his head that the Jews the International Jew was responsible for all the problems in the world and he had a lot of money and he had his own magazine in Detroit I believe it was called the Detroit independent that was his magazine not so independent and he fed stories to this magazine and somebody brought him a copy of a book called the elders of zion and this was a book that was actually written by people from the Czar's government in Russia in the early 1900's a propaganda book the protocols of the Elders of Zion how there's the secret group of Jews that plan all these things against the world and try to overtake the world with total propaganda but this man who was supposed to be an intelligent man the head of the foreign company who created the first the first you know real real production plant somebody brings him this book and because of his anti-semitism he didn't even question if this is a true book or not a true book if there's any truth to this at all he bought it hook line and sinker and he took this book and he translated it into 16 languages and it was distributed all around Europe and the Nazis a lot of their initial ideas and excitement to destroy the Jews the way they tried to destroy us were began with with this book and then as as the article goes Henry Ford realized this book was a fake and he apologized but it didn't do much because the book was already translated to 16 languages now I'm not standing here today to bash Henry Ford we could do that a different day but the point is in this extreme sense this man's restrictive naseeha came that way ended up being partial cause to the slaughter of million jews of millions of jews we all need to look into ourselves and ask ourselves the question we are we restrictive and we are we open what areas of our life can we be more connected in what areas of our life can we care more about another you know the next speaker who's gonna speak now is Robert Van Zeeland clásico and if I think of a Jew who cares more about other Jews that he never met before I don't know if there's a Jew more than her by classical fits that description a Shabbos table that's 24 feet long that splits up into four tables and whatever many guests he has at his shop his table through Shabbat camis hosting thousands of others all around the world I had the opportunity recently to me with a philanthropist a wealthy Jewish person and this person in my opinion together with a few others our probably the greatest people in the world in their sense of connectivity of seeing old Jews as part of one and caring about old Jews the same way he cares about his next-door neighbor how do we become that kind of Jew how do we become that kind of person and what I would suggest is and I think this is wife Rifles perspective is try to look at every person as if they're your brother if there's Jews that dress different than you they live in bar park or Jews that just listen different than you to live in the five towns or Jews they dress different than you that live in Mexico Israel whoever it is around the world try to think about that's my brother I have a brother who wears to keep us through god I do I have a brother with a stri mo I have a brother maybe who's not religious each person should think that's my brother and if that's my brother then I treat them differently that I would treat somebody who I just want to like say oh that's not my type they're different from me and if we can have this perspective because if we think about what was the ultimate sin if you're safe being sold by his brothers his brothers stopped seeing each other as brothers that we could for that is for all of us to see each other as brothers you know I just had the opportunity to be in Israel for a few weeks and when you see Israelis protecting each other a person who stands guard at the front of a mall and he could be Ilan ISA ready who knows what he is but he's there to protect everyone that's from inside or someone protecting a issue that if you think about it is really the ultimate about his child the ultimate love for every Jew and somebody who prays for every Jew I'm not going to go into the story in depth but there was a fascinating story where there was a there was a soldier who was captured in East Jerusalem national waxman and the entire Jewish community came to pray for this one per it made such a big impact and made it to the front page of the New York Times and according to many spiritual people we got as close to the machine of coming at that point that we ever got to in our recent times let's care about each other let's connect to each other let's realize that this connection comes when we appreciate how special we are the Torah tells us about half the Loreal komova love your neighbor like you love yourself appreciate how special you are and then it's easy to appreciate others care about each other feel that sense of connection and byzantium will be able to get to Beit HaMikdash back very speedily in our days thank you [Music]