Practical Kabbalah (Ep. 304)

Hello, this is David Alowski and welcome to the Rabbi Alowski Show. Whether you're watching with our friends and producers over at Tor anytime or wherever you watch or listen to your podcasts, as always, it's exciting to have you along for the adventure. And speaking about the excitement of having you along for the adventure, I am happy to announce this is the first official announcement that the Rebel Alowski Pesak program in the Nokiner Hotel in Tavaria is on. I just had the meeting uh with the hotel and everything is go on your screen. You will see where you can go and register. I'm not registering people. This is the number you can contact and uh speak to castles uh who are handling the registration. Find about the different types of rooms and uh there's going to be an option as an add-on if you want to come on the night of Badikas Kitz beforehand. We'll have a program and there's going to be an option for those who would like to continue and stay for the Shabas afterwards especially for those who keep two days yet if it finishes Thursday night. So you go right into Shabas. So we're going to have a Shabas program continuing and we're going to have a day camp and we're going to have entertainment and we're going to have Shior or M and we're going to have the time of our life. And uh I'm going to be making a video. I'm going up to the hotel if anyone wants to see all the video. But I have people who are ready to sign up right away. So I just wanted them to know so that we can lock in those people who have been nervously contacting me over the past 6 months till we finally have this thing signed up to make sure that they uh can join us. And my approach is I don't want to give you the best vacation. I want to give you the best pesak. And I would hope that you'll have a better pesak here than even a pesak that you'll have at home. And uh that's it. So, anyone who wants to find out more details or find out about the hotel and what rooms are available and if you want to, you know, pay extra and get a private seda room, if you want to join my family for our seder, if you want to make your own seder, uh well, all those kind of details where we can uh we can discuss and uh go into you can just contact Castle's uh travel agency there and we can get that going. And I for my part am working on a program that I think is unparalleled. And I remember after the meeting um and my son-in-law who came along for the meeting, he says to me, "You've left yourself an enormous amount of work." And I said, "Yeah, I'm not doing this for a vacation. If I wanted a vacation, I would stay home. [laughter] This is not a vacation. And this is a dream I've had for 20 years to be able to make a PES program where I could give everyone the the best PES that I think I could possibly give to people. And that's my goal and that's what we're going to do. And it's going to be a lot of fun. I think I think I I can't say I'm not a Nvy, you know, but I think it's going to be an unbelievable PES experience. And like I say, I have been planning this for 20 years. So, it's going to be a lot of fun. And uh if you want to sign up, uh we would love to have you. Uh okay, that's that's business. And on the subject of business, let's uh let's deal with our special sponsor this week. We are sponsored by actually a book, The Making of the Sitter. Now, this is close to my heart. See, [laughter] it's close to my heart because uh I give uh Shia on um once a week. You can sign up for it. We're in Keshma. And uh it's uh something that is particularly interesting and meaningful to me because most of the avoda that we do during the day in very real terms, right? Assuming it's an average day. It's not a holiday. It's not shabas. You know, nobody was born. Nobody died. There's no bris. There's no pigeon of Ben. You're not getting married. You know an average day most of what you do during the day that is uh connected to Yiddish kite is divinity and I I remember when I used to run NCSY so there were two divisions there was the older division and the younger division and the younger division we used to actually hand them out evaluation sheets I don't know why we didn't do it in the older division but we didn't and uh there was a question there which was what did you think was the most important part of the program and the answer was almost always the and there was another question later on it says which part of the program did you enjoy the least and the number one answer was because everybody is struggling to be able to make meaningful to us so here is the actual sponsorship I is just sharing some of my personal thoughts. I hope that's okay. Today's episode is sponsored by a monumental news safer that is honestly transforming how people understand file the making of the sitter by Rabbi Mosha Walter published by Feldine. By the way, Rabbi uh Walter has put out a number of books which I am looking forward to speaking about when they sponsor another episode. If you've ever opened a sitter and I should know as Rabbi Sitter uh again I did not write this but the obvious reference is to the fact that I am also an animated character known as Rabbi Sid and uh um Rabbi Dan Roth who is the head of Torah live and created the character of Rabbi Sitter uh will hopefully be joining us for Pesak. I'm giving him a special forum to be able to show Torah live videos live. So Torah live. Anyway, so I am a character known as Rabbi Sitter. They've tried to recreate it with AI, but they really can't because I just make this stuff up as I go along. And I am an original. Yeah. If you've ever opened the sitter and and I should know as Rabbi Sitter and wondered how did our daily felis take shape? Where did each braha come from? Why do different communities dive in differently? Right? Because uh there's only one really which is Ashkanaz but some people do in other so we really want to know why other people don't den the way that I do. So because I obviously dive in the correct way [laughter] this finally gives you those answers clearly brilliantly and with breathtaking depth. Rabbi Walter takes you on this guided tour through the history and msor of our prayers. He uncovers the development of the no, the structure of every section and theic foundation behind what we say every day. It's rigorous. It's fascinating. And it's written in a way that's totally accessible for the serious learner and the curious daver alike. This isn't just another commentary. It's a masterwork, meticulously sourced, beautifully organized, and already being called the definitive guide to the evolution of the sitter. [snorts] If you want to elevate your Daviding, or you are just obsessed with understanding how became what they are, you absolutely want this safe on your shelf. Pick up your copy of The Making of the Sitter by Rabbi Mosha Walter today. wherever Jewish books are sold. You can buy it on felheim.com here or on Amazon and we have the links uh put in there for you so that uh if you want to follow it up. Let's take another look at it over there. the making of the sitter and uh listen it's very important you know it's called a vod and a voda on the one hand is of course that it's service to hashem but a voda also means work and dving is work to make it meaningful you know somebody was just speaking to me the other day and they said you know why would I want to dav three times a day it's it's boring it's not interesting thing. I don't enjoy it. Yeah, that is part of the bane of a Jew's existence that we're called upon to daven. And if we don't understand what you're saying or where it came from or what you're doing, it's not going to become a very difficult thing to do. Once you understand davining and daving becomes more meaningfully for you, so then it becomes a labor of love. All right. So let's get to uh to our topic for this week. You know, I started a series of shorts uh doing questions and answers where people send in questions and I try to make uh some short answers to deal with them. But every now and then I get a question that's a little longer. For example, the question last episode, the person who sponsored the episode actually asked a question that was really a theme for an entire episode. This question I also don't feel I could do in a short form. You can always do it in a short form but I don't know if you're doing justice to the question. I remember when I used to teach in Ola. So I was talking about how to answer basic questions and I was giving short answers. That was the the way we did it. And uh the question came up of how could you have free will for who knows everything and he knows what you're going to do. So I gave a short answer to that question and later on in the semester uh Rabbi Yahosua Hartman who was teaching different inyanim uh came to deal with that question and one of the guys said oh Rabbi Alaska you already answered this he said the following so he says yes that is correct but you know there's more to say on the topic so when a person comes to Hill and says teach me the Torah standing on one foot. He gave him an answer, right? But that's not the whole Torah. It's a that the Torah is built on, but it's not the whole Tory. There's plenty more to learn. I was in a shir with Raasha Shapiro where the topic came up of the gummor of Araba niknasula parades a very difficult gamorra to understand where four people went into the parades Alicia Benuya who was known as a ben za and ben Azai and the gur says one of them became a kifer one of them died. One of them went insane and only Rayaka came out intact. So of course what were they growing in this orchard this parades you know that was doing this to people. Yeah. So uh so of course it's not a physical paradise it was a spiritual paradise and it's uh rash for reash and sod. So there was one Shia Rasha said I'm going to speak about that Gamorra and somebody said but you spoke about it 6 months ago and gave him a look and said don't worry I won't repeat myself [laughter] there's enough material on that so yeah sometimes you can give a short answer but uh you know as Visha Shapiro would often saying orim or you know you you need more explanation to go with it to uh round it out but you can give a short answer. The short answer is not incorrect. There's more room for it. So the question that a person asked me was about the nature of kabala. What is kabala? Um you know how does it work? uh is it uh is it just magic? What's the idea about Cabala? So, I really couldn't give a short answer to a topic like Kabala. I'm going to have to take a little time and uh we'll go into it. Yeah, a little bit. And I know that uh people wonder about Kabala because we have such luminaries as Madonna and people like that studying it, you know, in the Cabala Center. [laughter] Well, you could have professors of Cabala. My friend uh Rabbi Redd who's been on the show now twice, I asked him once about these professors of Cabala. He says it's like a person who has memorized the NBA handbook. He knows all the rules of basketball backwards and forwards, but he's never bounced a ball. Now, so you can't really say that you're a basketball player because you memorize the rules from a book. Cabala has to be within a context. So, let me explain what that means. And I will start with the paradise. Oh, as luck would have it, it ties right into our subject because it explains that there's four ways to understand the toy. Shot, uh, Remes, drash, and sohat is what is the text saying. Now that's deceptive because even for you have to really understand the written there very often is not the so if you read the story of Makiris Yoseph the way it's written and there were a bunch of uh brothers who were jealous of their brother because he got a pretty coat. And so they decided to kill him. And then they decided they would just sell him as an Evad. And as soon as he gets a position of power, he takes advantage and tortures his brothers. I I I've seen people who write, you know, well, the beauty of the Torah is, you know, that we treat them as if they're regular people. This is not regular people. Yeah. This is the Sopranos. You know what I mean? This is the Fona family. You know, you kill somebody because you you got a coat and you're jealous of him. Some of my brothers were pretty tough. If I got something they wanted, they might have roughed me up to take it, but I don't think they would have killed me, served me into slavery. And when you take into account that these are the children of Yakov, who the Torah tells us battled the Malik. These are the children of who we seek talking to all the time. you you not shocked that this is the way they're behaving. So it means it's not shot. Whatever is going on there can't be shot. You didn't understand the story. Even though that's what's written there. Just to read what's written there is is deceptive. It's not what it means. You have to understand it. And you have to learn. You may have heard that expression. You have to figure out what thehat is. What's going on over here? And just I'm talking about porchup shots. I'm not talking about anything more advanced than that. But you have to ask your questions until you really understand what it's saying. And you can't just read it and then walk away and say, "Well, yeah, that's what happened." There's obviously more going on and it's important for you to figure out what the real shot is. But at the end of the day, there is the story that the Torah is trying to tell us or the law that the Torah is trying to tell us. And then the Torah is to things. It hints. There's a little hint there. And Cen said to his brother He never says what he said. So that's only a Rez. It's it's hinting that there was a conversation took place here, but you don't know what it is. That's a hint. That's a Rez. Yeah. A Remes could be by words. It could be by letters. It could be in all kinds of different forms. Yeah. A suka should ideally have four walls. It's kosher with three walls. And even if it has two walls and a doorway, it's kosha. If you look at the word suka, it's a sam which is surrounded on all sides followed by a which is surrounded on three sides followed by a hey which is two sides and a little doorway. So it's a rese where you can darian things out right. It says shiv. It says shiv sukus. Why is it using the same word? It's making a connection. So we have to dion out of it. What does it mean? Why did it say this? Why these two words together? We have to learn out to read do to seek it out. So this is what when you learn gamarra that's what most of it is trying to figure out from the Torah all the different that we know and we learned out that'll help you to a certain extent until you come to a level called sod means secret which means it has not been revealed it was revealed to Moshe Hari He passed it down but it was not meant to be revealed. I will give you a simple example. The Gomorrah says they went up in the attic to learn safes because in the time of the Kazal the Jewish people did not know that there was a safer of Tanakh called because there were things there that were problematic for an average person to understand. And so they hid the book away as a safer cabala. They did not want people learning it and only people who were on the ability to understand the secrets that were being revealed were allowed to learn it. And there are certain sukim that you cannot understand what it means. Not in shot, not in rez and not in dr. They stood at Hari and under the feet of God was lies. It was a brick work of sapphires and the heavens in its purity. There is no shot to what that means. There has to be a secret of what of what the Torah is talking about. And sometimes there won't even be an illusion to it. There'll be parts there that we just don't understand. And so these things were passed down as secrets. It's a Mishna and Khaga which says you can only teach me the story of the fiery chariot that is described in yeescal in the book of Ezekiel to someone who already understands it. Now if they already understand it then what am I explaining? And the answer is they have to know enough that you can see these are people who are learned in the secrets of Torah and then you can reveal more. And the Gomorrah goes on to tell of people who started darishing the story of the meava of the heavenly chariot and it came down the heavenly fiery chariot. It made an appearance. It's got to be pretty freaky, right? But it's only for somebody who can understand it. And if you don't understand it then yeah Shapiro used to give shurim and many of them would be considered kabala on different levels. In fact, somebody asked him once, "How do you inspire amuna today?" And he said, "With kabala, those secrets and depth of Torah when people see it." Um, but of course it exists on many different levels. So the Thursday night share that he gave, which was open to the public, was what he called cabola light. I don't know if he called it that exactly but because he would start to say something and he realized that this is goes and if you have the to on the Ramban you know it gives a running commentary on the Ramban and all of a sudden it will leave out a large section and it says from here till the end it's kabola I'm not explaining it but you can look in the Ramban and you can that he talks about Kabala. There are obviously gimmar that talk about kabala secrets and you don't understand them if you don't have the key to them because they wrote it that way and they don't want people to play around with these topics because you have to be at a certain level of intellectual ability and Torah erudition in order for you to be able to um to understand what's going on. And you can't just be a dilotant who's learned a couple of rashies and then start dabbling in these things because there are ideas that are very easy to misunderstand. So that was the Thursday shar. I went to the Tuesday shar which was a little deeper. The Friday morning shar was much deeper. And then I heard this from two different people. He used to give these shirum late at night in certain locations for real miku bull. I heard this story of somebody who came from America and wanted to go to one of these shiurum thinking that I would know where they meet. And uh no, in fact, there was one time when this one particular gu got very angry at Mosa Shapiro and he decided to take it out on me of all people. And I said to him, you're angry at the king and you want to kill the jester. You really think I'm Shapiro's representative? And the person said I, you know, I want [clears throat] Raisha to apologize to me or you're, you know, you're you're persona nangrada. So I went to Raisha and I I told him I told him my line. He said, you know, uh, [clears throat] I said, you're angry at the king and so you want to kill the jester, you know, uh, I said, you really think if wants to get a message out, he's going to choose the guy in the fourth row who doesn't really understand what's going on. He has Rashi Yeshiva, he has scientists, he has all kinds of people who is Talmid, he would choose one of them. And Mosha said in English, it's really very funny. Now, that's not exactly the answer I was hoping for. I I was hoping he would say something like, "What do you mean with David? Of course, I would be proud for you to represent me." But no, that's not what he [laughter] said. He says, "Yes, it's really very funny, you know." So, I certainly wouldn't know where his secret kabala shur in the middle of the night were, you know. But, uh, I met a guy who said to me, you know, gives these secret secret sharam. I said, I heard of this. How do you know? says, "One night I couldn't sleep." So, I went to the local base majes. I opened up the door and there's Misha with a bunch of these people around him. And he gave me a look and I walked out quickly before I turned into a frog. [laughter] So, you can take it much deeper. And this is Shapiro. When he was younger, he used to learn Cabala together with Rav Hutna and Revdo Schwarzman. And the story goes that at certain points they would tell him to leave the room because this was too deep for him. Yeah. But I remember in the Tuesday shar somebody who was very close to him asked him some sort of question and Mosha stopped and looked around the room and said low po not here. Now I don't know if that was specifically because of me or somebody else who was not on the level to hear these ideas. You have to be on a certain level to be able to hear it. So okay, so you can look at the Ramban and see certain basic ideas which um people can at some point pretend they understand. I remember hearing this story a long time ago where this asked this rasha, "Why is it that when we cut our nails, we're supposed to burn them or bury them? Why can't we just throw them in the garbage?" He says, "I don't know." So he was a he said, "Ask my reb." So he came back and he said, "He because they're kipus." Cleus is a car cabyistic concept of where there's a uh a hard shell covering something protecting something. So he says it's kipus. So chief says ah now I understand. [laughter] So you can throw around terms like kipus and spherus and stuff but to really understand what they're talking about it takes tremendous amount of learning and understanding to reach a deeper understanding as opposed to a rudimentary saying over from rambana you know where he uh mentions an idea that you may or may not understand. The Gore Ary does this very often when he's explaining something and he says from here on in it's swed and uh I'm not going to explain it. You know you see it in the Ramban where the Ramban will say something he goes you know if you understand what I'm talking about you understand what I'm talking about and if not not. Yeah. So there's always been this secret level of understanding of Torah because the Torah is meant to be understood on multiple levels. Mosher goes up to Shayim to get the Torah and the Malim want to kill him. How dare you try to take the Torah away from us? So Mosha becomes very frightened because Malim, you know, made out of fire and stuff and they're pretty scary. So, Hashem says, "Hold on to the kayak co and answer them." Okay. He holds on to the kayak cavode, the throne of glory. By the way, there is no throne of glory. God doesn't really sit any place, right? Says he holds on to the throne of glory and he says to the malim, "Okay, let's take a look what's in the Torah. It says, honor your parents." Do you guys have parents? Uh, no. Um it says don't steal. Do you guys have any possessions? Uh no. It says lo don't desire you know uh other people's things. Do you guys have desires? So they said no. Okay take it. So asks the uh altoka what what was this conversation here? He says the conversation was the malim said you will never understand the depth of Torah the way we understand it. We are on this tremendous level of maka and power and you're just not going to get it. So what Mosha says to them is you're right. But at the end of the day as it says in You learn in order to do. You guys can't do anything. You can't do anything. We can do it. We can get the Torah and keep it. You can't. And they said that's true. In the world of we can do it in the world of dora higher levels. Yes, the Maloim have a deeper understanding, but they can't do it. We can do it because as the malam is saying, I ain't got nobody. Yeah. If you don't have a body, you can't do the mitzvah. You need a goof. Yeah. And so all the mitzvah are there for us to be able to do them. But there is a deeper and deeper understanding of it. So those are the secrets of Torah. And they're like I say problematic there after the Shabai debacle where he convinced people that he was the Messiah and it caused a tremendous destruction and claw on a lot of levels. Theim passed a law that you could not learn Kabala until you were 40 because you were too immature. So the one of the reasons is Shabiti used his knowledge of Kabala to manipulate and trick and [snorts] fool people because if you reveal a certain secret understanding and you don't apply it correctly and you say it over to people who aren't on a level to understand what you're talking about, then you can do a tremendous amount of damage. And that's that's what the were worried about. But this idea of this secret understanding of Torah has always existed. And there is a separate misora of cababala. So the safa bah was a very early kabala. Even earlier than that was Sepha um which was either written by Adam Arishon or by Aramino. But basically if you know how to use say for you can make a golem by using the cabalistic incantation golem. Golem golem I made him out of clay. [laughter] I'm just kidding. That was a line in the which I still think to this day was one of the funniest lines I ever saw. There were a few of them, you know, in that same play. This guy says, "That's it. I'm going off to Derek and I'm taking him with me." And this other guy says, "Take me. Take me." [laughter] There was some very, very brilliant lines in that. But in any event, um, the Vagian said he could have made a golem, but he was stopped by Shamayim. He told, he says he thinks it's cuz he wasn't bar mitzvah yet. But in the Gmorrah, they used to build golems to help them around the house and then before Shabas turned them back into dust, which is great because you don't have to pay overtime and there's no PE, you know, there's no damages at the end or unemployment services. Just turn them back into dust. Dust. Poof. You're done. So, there's a way of doing these things. It's it's it's a real thing. Iron. We've all heard that one. Yeah. But the idea of a of an iron is brought down in the gum. Don't look at somebody's field when it's fully grown cuz you might damage it with iron har. So that that's a real power that exists. Which means to take this on a broader level, the physical world is guided by laws. What they call the laws of nature. Water freezes at 32 degrees and boils at 212 degrees unless you use Celsius and then it boils at 100° and it freezes at 0°. Um that's that's just the reality. That's the rules. There's something called gravity. There's something called uh you know erosion. There's something called the evaporation condensation cycle. There are certain things that are built into nature and these laws apply to nature. The spiritual world is no different. It's ruled by rules. Saw somebody once with a radio and he says, "How how how is that working? I don't see any wires. I don't see any." You know, so the person explained to him it has all these little tubes in it and it's able to pull the radio waves out of the air. He says, "Well, what if one of those tubes were missing?" He says, "It wouldn't work." He says, "You see, for years we've been saying that if you have a perfillin and there's one letter missing, it doesn't work." And no one understood why that is. And now we see it in the physical world. You're missing one of your little vacuum tubes and the radio doesn't work. You're missing one of your little letters and your filling. It doesn't work cuz it's not a feeling. Yeah. Not what makes me feel good. It's a reality. The spiritual world is ruled by rules. The reason we keep kosher is because otherwise you will have what's called tim. If you eat certain foods, it will close you off to roas. I have a friend of mine who's an armchair cabalist and he does this little party trick when he gives a shir to beginners. The end of the sh he says I'm going to go around and tell everyone who keeps kosher and who doesn't. And he's always right. And they said well how do you do that? And he says, "Because I threw in one advanced concept and these people got it and these people didn't because they don't keep kosher and you're closed off from a level of spiritual understanding. Tuma tuma is some sort of a aura that blocks you. Tuma is a stea. It's a closes you off. It's a spiritual power that has real now sometimes there's overlap like if you speak lash and har you get saras on your body there's you know there's an interface between the spiritual and the physical world the the spiritual world is run by rules just like the physical world is therefore right for argument's sake you are like myself computer illiterate. And so you have a little mouse. I made him out of clay. [laughter] Just kidding. And you're moving it around your screen and you're blinking. You're you're clicking on icons and you're making things happen. And all of a sudden things start going crazy on your desktop and you don't know why. And you see someone has the keyboard and they're typing in and messing around with the source code and they're making things happen to your computer that you have no control over. That's what Cabala is. It's the source code. It's the secrets. It's getting down to the basics. So the real purpose of Cababala is just to be able to have a deeper level of understanding. But sometimes it's important to uh see where the spiritual and physical world's interface and then you have to deal with it. Right? So bas uh has many many witnesses. A girl was possessed by a dick, some sort of a spirit, and he had to go down there and perform some type of an exorcism and drive the dibbe out of the girl's body. And there were people there who witnessed this. So, it's good if you have somebody who's versed in kabola to be able to do that. Otherwise, it doesn't work because it's it's a real thing. It's a real spiritual problem. You could take you could take aspirin from today till tomorrow. It's not going to address the underlying problem. So, Ramos Shapiro who was well-versed in Cababala was not involved in the what we call practical aspects of Cababala. And if somebody needed practical aspects of kabala, he used to send them to Jacob Hil who uh was a fellow actually learned in England became a bouva came to became a tremendous and mosha held from him and he did not hold from all of the mikubam. So I heard a story of a family in Denver. I don't know if it's true or not. I'm not Pesakron. Yeah. Let me point out Pesakron is a good friend of mine. Somebody wrote me once and complained that I call him Pesakron and not Rabbi Pesakron. I I I would hope that he would call me David Orowski. Yeah. Because we're friends and we don't need to use titles. Yeah. And uh not to compare us but you'll find Rabbi Schmo will say in the in the Gmorrah Aka speaking to Riva they obviously had a relationship where they didn't have to add on the title. Yeah. So uh I always say I'm not Pesakron. I don't check out my stories. I don't feel obligated to. Uh I I I heard it at the time from somebody reliable. I don't remember who. It was so many years ago. Anyway, there was this family in Denver that uh wanted to buy a house, but the houses were out of their price range. And there was this one house that was going cheap, and they of course asked, "Why is this house different from all other houses?" Yeah. And um and they said, "Because we were slaves in Egypt and God took us out." No, that's the wrong question. Anyway, they said, "Well, it's haunted." He said, "What?" says, "Yeah, there was a murder that took place in this house and people have bought it since and they were haunted by spirits. So, nobody wants to buy it." So, we're nice from Jews. We're not falling for that. We need a house. So they uh bought the house and shortly after they moved in their son started talking in voices and he knew things that people did not know and it was mamish like a demonic possession. And they took the kid to one makub after another and this one gave him a kama and this one gave him this and someone gave him something to say and all kinds of different things. At the end the kids wearing a whole bunch of kamias. He's still talking. So they finally I don't know whose advice it was decide to take them to yakobel. And he said to the parents please relieve the room. I want to speak to him privately. And after they talked for a while, he calls the parents back in and he took off all of the kamyas and all the things and he said, "Take your son to a psychologist." Because if you really know, you could tell whether there's a really a divic there or not. And he knew that he was not possessed. It was some sort of, you know, psychological condition where he convinced himself that he was possessed and he really wasn't. uh you have to be on that level. So I have a guy at my shabas table, a friend of one of my nephews. And he says to me, what is the significance of the number 242? I said, uh I don't know why. He says, I was on flight 242. It crashed and everyone died except for me. I was hit by a bus on 2:42 in the afternoon and he starts rattling off all sorts of things that happened in his life related to the number 242. So I said this is above my pay grade and I would suggest you go speak to Yakov. That's the story. Most of my stories are what they call litfish stories. The story just ends at that point. And a story always has an end, but most of my stories don't have an ending. People say, "What happened?" I said, "I don't know. I never saw the person again. [laughter] It's called a litfish story. It doesn't have to have an ending. A story has to have an ending." Not a lfish story. But guess story. I saw him u a month later. I see him. I say, "How you doing?" And he goes, I said, "Did you go to Yakaville?" He says, "Yeah." He says, "Did he explain to you the significance of 242?" And he said, "Yes." And I said, "Oh my gosh, what did he tell you?" And he said, "I'm not going to tell you." I mean, it's kind of spooky stuff, but it means that there's a certain level where when you need to If somebody davins they can change a gazer up in Shmayim. How does that work? Hashem was said this is going to happen. So the answer is you're right in this world you can't change it. But when you dab in, you go up to Shamayim, you get a hold of the keyboard, you type in something else, and you come back down. That's why there's another popular religion whose uh symbol is a dollar because dollar equals four. And there are just and this is four directions. I don't know if you realize that that's a crisscross. Yeah. Goes in four directions. But we use a Jewish star. It's got six points. Yeah. And that includes the four directions and up and down because we have the ability to go up, change things, and come back down through our file. That's a whole different way of functioning. So when you dive in, if you think about it on a certain level, that's practical cabaler and you're changing the gazer. But if you know how things work, I'll give you an example. The marel points out that there are two words that are really the same word. They just have different vocalization. Dair and davar. Because a davar which is a thing is a d hashem. All of the bria was created by excuse me. Hashem spoke and things came into existence. Which means if you know what the word is at the basis of each thing then you can change the essence of the thing. That's how practical cabala works. If you know the base code of each thing, hence the mystical connotation. Abracadabra. Abracadabra is Aramaic. Abra I a is I. Barra create like dabra I speak. Because with your words you can create if you know the right words to say then you mess around with things. But you have to be old enough to remember this. Um the uh platform for the internet was an organization called AOL. That was like the most popular platform. All of AOLO was down for a day because whoever was inputting information left out a comma in the source code and the whole thing went down. So if you know if you know the source code, you know what to say and how to move things, then you can do stuff like that. But you understand that if you do it wrong and you mess with things that you're not supposed to do, then you can mess up things. There's a story about a person who spoke the language of the birds. He'd learned the language of the birds and he saw there was one of his uh boats were going to sink because there was going to be a storm. He heard the birds talking about it and he didn't send out his boat and then he heard there was going to be a fire and nothing that thing and and it was going to hit this area and he emptied out his warehouses and he got saved and at the end his wife got sick and there was no cure and he didn't know what to do and he went to the old man who had taught him the language of the birds and he said you deserve the punishment from Shay Hashem was going to sink one of your boats and you stopped it outside of the normal functioning. You cheated and then it was going to be a fire and you stopped that too. So that's it. You you could have gotten the punishment in an indirect way, but you thwarted the will of Hashem by playing around with forces that were greater than yourself. Everything comes at a risk. It comes at an expense. Aram was afraid after he had this miraculous salvation by him and his man's servant Eleazar managing to defeat the four world powers at the time. I'm talking about four world powers that destroyed Og's people wiped out the giants. These guys were really strong and Abraham took them on and he was afraid afterwards that he used up all of his by doing this. When you want to do something miraculously if you want to go outside of the normal functioning it costs there's a there's a price to pay and uh Hashem said don't worry about it that one was on me you didn't you use your for that when you understand it's a it's a tricky thing to to know what I'm doing and how I'm doing it and what I'm supposed to do so a person who knows these secrets, do not use them lightly. And so anytime something comes up for practical kabala, be very careful because there's a price to pay was so terribly poor. When you hear stories about how poor he was, there was no oil to burn for the shabas candles. So he used vinegar and Hashem made the vinegar burn. Yeah. He says, "Hashem said oil can burn, vinegar can burn. It was miracle." But at some point his wife complained, "I just can't live like this." So he says, "Okay, I'll get you wealth." And he davened and out from Shamayim fell a golden table leg. He says, "Tomorrow I'll sell it. You'll have all the money you want." That night she had a dream that up in Shamayim all of the sadikim were sitting at tables with three legs and their table had only two legs. They were trying to balance it. So she got up in the morning and she said to him, "Daven, did it go back?" And she davins and it goes back up into the heavens. Because you can use shortcuts. There's going to be a price to pay in this world, in the next world. And so you have to be very careful before you use any of that. So to use kabala to get deeper understanding, that's wonderful. But to use it to be able to do practical things, it comes at a cost. Okay. My producer Ari likes to send me uh your comments and uh I read them. So uh I read them for you. I read them for me. I read them for everybody else. Uh who sometimes are moved by just hearing, you know, people's observations. Every time I listen to your podcast, I feel uplifted and inspired. You speak with honesty and courage. It doesn't really take a lot of courage. It just takes a certain lack of intelligence. So you do not appreciate consequences. [laughter] >> [snorts] >> even when the message isn't always easy to hear. I got a very nasty email. Somebody was very upset with my explanation of the Fila Kenneth that was made where we all went to Davin and he wrote me really nasty vicious email. The the advantage was I don't have to answer it because it wasn't it wasn't a question. He didn't say how do you explain this? How do you explain that? What do you do with this? He just laced into me and called me names and insulted me and stuff and and I'm okay because obviously it made him feel better and that's what's really important. It's like these people write these letters to the editor. Who are you writing to? You're writing just to get it off your chest, you know. Anyway, so it doesn't really take a lot of courage. Yeah. Uh I hope the younger generation really listens. I'm guessing this person is from the older generation because your words carry truth, strength, and light or lavski. Get it? That's the light. May you always have the energy to keep inspiring others. Yashayak. Now, it's so interesting that the first comment talks about the younger generation. I discovered this podcast in 2019 while quarantine and have since been following nearly weekly. Yes, I can practically put out the podcast for you for now. If you ever need a break, that would be great. Though I was in eighth grade then I found your shows relevant, entertaining, and reminded me how much fun it was to be Jewish. That is my mission statement. I want people to walk away with a positive attitude towards Yahadus. Yeah. Um I feel as if I have grown up with the Orabolski show. I haven't. I've just been doing it, but one day I'm going to grow up with it. And it would be an exaggeration to say that my Torah understanding and lots of my opinions have been shaped by your stories, jokes, draas, and of course recipes for Hashem. The aas aid kite that you have instilled in hundreds of teenagers in the past seven years is priceless and to be a for you and your family. Amen. Amen. And uh to find a zeug for all my children who need zeugim. I really want to make a wedding. Hashem should give you the kayak to continue inspiring. Thank you. And thank you. And thank you to everybody who listens. And that's it uh for this week. If you want to find out more about this show, uh you can go to my website railowski.com where you can post a question. You could sponsor an episode, sponsor a paran, sponsor one of our question and answer [music] shorts, you could uh help to sponsor one. There's different levels of sponsorship over there. You can listen to the Rabiaskki theme song and [music] download it. Apparently there are articles there and other shorim that are available. You can sign up for one of our online shurim. Yeah [music] on Sunday, women's missile shashim on Monday and men's dafi [music] every morning. And that's it for now. Until next time, I am David Olowski and this has been the Rabbi Olowski [music] show. It's the Rabbi Orlovski Show. Torah and Sima, ready [music] to go. The Rabbi Orlovski Show. Knowledge and wisdom will help you grow. Lots of fun in every episode. And we don't have to rhyme, don't we? [music] It's the Rabbi Orlovski show on Rabbi.com to [music] anytime, YouTube, and more. It's the Rabbi Oravski Show. Torah and ready to go. It's the Rabbi Orski Show. Till next time, till [music] we meet again, it's the Rabbi Orski show. It's the Rabbi Orski show. It's the Rabbi Orlowski show.