Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan Mystical Insights Into Parashat Ki Tetzeh 2

they are serving God then of course the child that is sent to them and the Nish that is put in the body that they produce is going to be a very high lofty and Holy Soul however if the husband only views his wife as an object of pleasure satisfaction of his desire desire and the wife Shalom views her husband as only a money machine or for any other selfish reason and they unite just because selfish reasons or because one of them is being forced then the child that is produced will not be pure will not be wholesome and holy we know that the the ultimate expression of this is something called M and this paraa is also talking about it that if um a man and a woman who are not allowed to get married to each other have relations and produce a child that child is called M and he is Jewish but he is not all owed to marry a Jewish girl and if it's if this child is a girl herself M she's not allowed to marry a Jewish boy a regular Jewish person they're only allowed to marry another M like themselves and that is because since their soul is on a lower level it's blemished they should they should not mix with a Jew who has the standard Jewish Holy Soul because they will not be able to create together a holy Jewish Family it doesn't match their their souls don't match they can however marry each other and they can have children who are again going to be MIM now we might think that this Jewish boy or girl who were born from a a sinful relationship maybe they shouldn't be treated as full-fledged citizens maybe they shouldn't be Jewish maybe they should be second class citizens and the Torah tells us no in the next paragraph it says if a man will have two wives one beloved and one hated and the sages say how can a wife be hated we're not talking about evil people we're talking about exemplary individuals a holy Jewish man married a holy Jewish woman how can he hate her that's not possible the only reason he hates her is because he recognizes the mistake he made he recognizes that he married a wrong person for wrong reasons so this man will look at his wife that he captured in war and he desired her and he married her and then he'll look at his second wife the Jewish wife and he'll say you know what I made a big mistake I married this non-jewish lady for wrong reasons and I see the difference between my Jewish wife that I married because of her righteous character because of her family and her holy ancestors because of her modesty I like her and this other lady who had a beautiful outer appearance but I see that she's empty inside I can't love her now the Torah says what happens if he has a child with that lady that he made a mistake with and they bear him Sons The Beloved one and the hated one and the firstborn happens to be from the hated one so the question is should I treat a child from a respectable mother better than I treat a child from a mother whom I married for a wrong reason we know as in the case of Mamer it's not his fault that he was born like that it's the parents' fault the man and the woman couldn't control their passions they knew what they're doing is wrong and they still decided to do the sin for their own pleas pleasure and the poor boy or girl were produced with a blemished soul is it the child's fault no does the child suffer yes because the soul that they received is blemished however can the father or the mother or any other member of society disrespect that child who has a blemish on his soul no that child has all the rights as a regular Jew except for the prohibition to marry another Jew for the technical reason that they will not be able to build a holy home together but besides that all his rights are preserved and the Torah says it shall be on the day when he gives over inheritance to his children he cannot give the right of the firstborn to the son of the Beloved wife because the first born is the son of the hated wife even though the son that is the first born was M the father made a mistake he had relations with someone that he shouldn't have and the child is M and the father hates himself and he wishes the son was never there nevertheless the son has a legal right as the first firstborn for double portion of inheritance and the father is not allowed to hide the fact that the m is his first born he has to respect him and he has to treat him as the firstborn and he has to give him double portion of inheritance the same is for the Jewish people if we meet AER or we meet a person who was born out of wedlock or we meet a person who was born from a woman who didn't go to mikah we are not allowed to disrespect them or treat them in any way less than any other Jew like it says here if he happens to be a firstborn you have to treat him as a firstborn and the talmud says if a Mamer applies himself puts in effort learns Torah and becomes a a Torah scholar we are obligated to respect him as a Torah scholar so much so that if it happen to be that we have aen the high priest who might not be as knowledgeable as the mamzer and the mamzer is a greater Torah scholar as the high priest who should we give more honor to the m he still deserves the same respect doesn't matter whose soul is greater and this points to two facts number one is that it's not his fault he didn't do anything wrong he was brought into this world in sin but he himself is righteous and therefore we treat him with respect without remembering the way he came into the world because again it's not his fault he was righteous from his birth and the second lesson the Torah is teaching us is that we judge people not according to the gifts that they received but rather according to what they earned meaning the talents that I have is not my uh Merit rather it's God's gift to me whether it is my height the color of my eyes the length of my hair the bulging muscles or even intellect all these things were predetermined and given to me by God I didn't construct my brain I didn't decide which DNA I'm going to have all these things are not mine people describe me using these terms but I am not my height I am not my hair or my muscles or even my money even the money is given to a person through Divine decree how do we judge a person according to his own accomplishments according to his personal choices if he chooses to educate himself in Torah wisdom if he chooses to go on the path of righteousness then we respect and this m who decided despite his birth in sin to do the right thing every moment of his life to choose the best Next Step possible and because of that he achieved greatness he spent many years studying Torah he spent many years working on his character and he had hard time time because he had a blemished soul it was harder for him to work on his character and nevertheless he did it he perfected his character he created a powerful mind full of Torah wisdom such a person we respect and we respect him even more than a high priest who the fact that he's not so knowledgeable in Torah probably means that he was appointed to the position of high priest because of a bribe because of connections and because of that we don't respect the position of Co Gad that was not earned but we do respect the mser who earned his title of a Torah scholar these powerful lessons we learn from this description that a man who is going to have a wife who he hates because of his own mistake he still has to treat that child with respect because it's not the child's fault that I made a mistake in marrying his mother I cannot take it out on him and now in the next paragraph the Torah tells us but what happens if such man can't overcome this bias then what's going to happen uh such a man will have a wayward and rebellious son the Torah tells us that there is a progression a man who cannot control his passion he runs after girls he marries someone who is not I ideal for him for wrong reasons they will hate each other they will not have a good marriage and they will have children and if he cannot overcome his negativity to his wife and treat his children with respect that they deserve for being a human being for being a Jew he will continue this cycle of one evil after another and he will have a son who is rebellious who does not listen to the voice of his father and his mother and they discipline him even though they try but he doesn't listen to them the Torah tells us in such a case a very unique specific case we test this child we warn him time and again not to steal not to drink not to eat too much and we give him lashes if he continues and if after all the warnings and the lashes he still continues to steal money from his parents and to buy expensive wine and meet then we say we see where it's going at such a young age and we say this only happens when the child is 13 years old at the moment when he receives his yet when he becomes mature enough to understand what he's doing at that moment we give him one last chance now that you became Bar Mitzvah will you put in effort and control your desires or not and if he shows us that he still doesn't care then we say he just turned 13 uh before 13 he's innocent he's a child after 13 now he starts to accumulate sins let us take him and save him from his own self let us save him from the future life of sin and let us bring him to the next World while he's still relatively righteous and the court the Jewish Court takes such a boy and they kill him this is a a a very um rare occurrence According to some it may be happened once According to some it never happened but the idea is true that sometimes Hashem gives us a chance and Hashem is taking a risk we might take that chance and improve or we might make things worse we might continue on our path and descend deeper into sin and Hashem is hoping please I'm going to give you another Year please use it well and another year passes and again the Judgment Day comes rosashana and again Hashem looks and says I shouldn't have given him a year because if I took him from this world a year ago he would have less sins and by giving him another year I God actually gave him more opportunity to sin and Hashem says I regret that I gave him another year but who knows maybe I can give him another year and perhaps he will repent this time perhaps he will start learning start observing and like this it happens year after year after year Hashem is giving us another chance and Hashem knows that in the future a person will improve or not so if Hashem knows that this person eventually at the end of his life or somewhere along the way will improve so we understand why Hashem continues to give him all these years until he repents but what if Hashem looks ahead head and sees that this person will not repent till his last day he will remain the evil man that he is so then the question is why is God continuing to give him life if God knows that he's not going to repent and one answer is that if God doesn't give him another chance such and and takes him right away such a man will come to Hashem in the next World and complain God why didn't you give me another chance and God would say because I knew that you will wouldn't repent anyway and such a man will answer God but how do you know you should should still give me a chance I would prove to you that I can improve this is like a conversation that parents have with their children and they tell them it's not healthy for you and children say yeah but I'm going to eat and I'm going to still be healthy and parents say don't go to sleep late because tomorrow you're going to be tired and children say no I'm going to go to sleep late and I'm I'm going to be okay I'm going to wake up on time and parents know that this is not so but children say just give me a chance I promise and a good parent will say you know what let's see I'm going to give you this chance stay up as long as you want and let's see what happens tomorrow because it's a good lesson for the child himself so to Hashem Hashem doesn't Force us he says I'm going to give you another chance even though I know you're not going to improve so that in the future you don't claim that if I gave you another chance you would be better I'm going to give you all the chances in the world so that when the time comes for punishment you yourself will accept your punishment wholeheartedly because you you will know that I gave you so many choices that is answer number one and the answer number two is sometimes even if Hashem knows that the person will not repent however Hashem sees that one of his children will become righteous it's like a link in a chain if Hashem knows that somewhere down the line the chain will be valuable the chain will be golden Hashem wants to save those later links and the only way he can save if he allows the rusty uh links that are in the middle to remain because if he cuts off that link everything else even the gold that comes later will be lost so sometimes a person may see good fortune and he might attribute it to himself but in reality he is foolish Hashem is only giving him Good Fortune money and long life because he will have a child or maybe even a grandchild or maybe even a great grandchild who will do TOA who will be righteous we see that this happened to many evil people the talmud mentions again and again and again all theim all the evil men of antiquity and iniquity who eventually had good grandchildren including many non-jews who did a lot of evil but Hashem gave them another chance kept them alive until later great personalities came from them so when we see someone amassing large treasures and we might say why is he so lucky he's not observant he works on Shabbat or uh doesn't keep mitv why is he getting good life and the answer is he's just a tool in God's hands God is giving it not to him but God knows that after he dies he's going to give this money to his children and his children are going to take the money that their evil father collected and they're going to put it to good use so that's what a verse in um Mish says that an evil person may amass large amount of money so that the righteous person can use it and that righteous person is his own descendant so the lesson that story is teaching us that some sometimes we see the nature of a person such that as he will grow he's only going to become worse and sometimes it is good for a person to leave this world young rather than wait until he becomes a sinner this is one of the answers given to the TR tragedy of the Holocaust the I the the theory is that the jewry in Europe was on a downward steep descent they were dropping their observance their commitment to Judaism and if things Remain the way they are in another few years there would be no Jewish communities in Europe because they would all assimilate and integrate into the non-jewish societies so Hashem said I don't want all these Jewish people to lose theira how do I save them I can cause a plague to kill the entire population of Europe and take them out of the world but that's going to be a waste they just going to die without any benefit yes I saved them from sin but I don't give them a merit instead I'm going to create a situation where they will lose their life for the sake of God and thereby they will earn infinite reward so Hashem inspired the evil people who hated God and hated the Jews to go and kill the Jewish people because they are specifically Jewish because they represent God because they represent morality and consciousness and because of that every Jew who was killed because he is a Jew and in the Holocaust every Jew that was killed was killed because he was a Jew all those 6 million Jews no matter what their observance level was all of them immediately ascended to the highest level of Heaven because they in their death Sanctified God's name so that idea comes from this para that sometimes Hashem takes a person out of this world as a benefit for that person now to finish on a good note we have the Mitzvah of in this week's partial before introducing the Mitzvah of the Torah said says do not plow with an ax and a donkey together and do not wear a garment that is made from wool and linen these two laws basically mean do not use animal products in a way that God doesn't allow and right away the Torah says make yourself Twisted threads on four corner corners of your garment with which you cover yourself and ra points out that the Mitzvah of is given right after the prohibition of misusing animal animal products either animals themselves or their wool and he says like this the prohibition against shates of of Kim mixture of wool and linen calls our attention that we shouldn't look too much at our outer appearance but rather concentrate on our