Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Three Weeks and the Power of Prayer and Perception

[Music] I have you buddy the help you had a what are they say a meaningful Shiva Zorba Thomas that's the old question when people wish each other a some cow and easy fast some say well no fast is supposed to suffer right we're not I don't wish it some cow but it should be a film of meaningfulness and we hope and we pray as the nervous Acharya tells us that all of these fast days including of course the ninth of of itself will be converted into sazon with simcha joyous days of celebration when the base hamikdash is rebuilt it should be dim hey Ravi amino Rev silikov lublin has three interesting observations about the three weeks I'll mention all three of them and when we talk about one of them tonight the first observation that he makes is that the three weeks and Tish above kind of corresponds to the redemptive cycle of Pesach in Reverse we know that we have the day of pesos the holiday of Pesa which is a time of redemption and we know that there were four the show notes of gula four terms of redemption in connection with Pesach Jose see I took I will take you out to eat salty I will save you we go out evil look happening now it's interesting that Shiva Zorba Thomas actually in many ways should have been the culmination of Pesach how is that so because the whole purpose of ETS metrium was that we should get to her scene I and receive the Torah now Hashem gave us the Ten Commandments unto us but what was the day that Moshe Rabbeinu came down with the Luke house forty days later it was the 17th of Thomas so the 17th of Tammuz would have been the day that Moshe Rabbeinu brings the Luke host the claw Israel had it not been for the Chateau a gal which caused Moshe Rabbeinu to smash the Lucas now it is no accident therefore says Rev sadaq that the 17th of Tammuz is always the same day of the week as pacer this year it's thrown off because of Shabbos but the 17th of Tammuz is the same day of the week as pacer again yeah pacer was in Chaves yeah yeah last place that was on Shabbos oh but so the 17th of Tammuz was also on Shabbos because the 17th of Tammuz in a sense would have been the culmination would have been the very purpose the realization of the top lists of ETS mitzrayim because the TOC list we spoke about this quite a few times the purpose of freedom is the responsibility of receiving the Torah remember I've used the metaphor from the poet Tagore II that we are like violin strings which have the capacity for beautiful music but when a string is totally loose it cannot make a sound only when it's tied down is the beautiful music within able to be revealed so Shiva Zorba Tamas would have been the culmination of Pesach instead it turned into a journey away from God so if Sadiq actually says the three weeks are a negative mirror image of three cups meaning the three cups of redemption the first three bring us closer and closer and closer to God culminating in the fourth cup the three weeks bring us further and further and further from God culminating in tisha buff which is the fourth cup the maximum distance and estrangement that we have from God it's kind of a negative mirror image of the Arabic osos the Arabic osos are the four cups of gula these are the four stages of rehook of distancing the three weeks culminating in tisha buff but what is interesting about distancing is that we look at dulles as a circle meaning to say we start at a certain point in the circle where we're together with God the two points are touching and then we're moving further and further and further away along the circumference of the circle but the nature of a circle is that the further you move away on one side the closer you're actually getting on the other side and therefore in many many ways the lesson of the three weeks is the paradox that's expressed in the English expression absence makes the heart grow fonder as we become more and more aware of how far we are from our Kadesh portal that very feeling of estrangement and distance causes a yearning and a love that is very very powerful in fact a foot nur when said the greater foot nerwin said when he made Ally a territorial was there anything he missed about his Lawrence and reporter who was a very besides being a girdle and I an enormous Thomas Holcomb was an extremely witty person as well Andrew foot nur said yeah the thing he misses about living in quits larette's was the yearning to come to Eric Israel because when he was in huts laurits it was an all-consuming passion to be here once we're here now we take it for granted either we complain or we see the some of the difficulties of daily life there is a concept that separation creates yearning and therefore of southwark says the parallelism of the three weeks and tisha bow to the four cups is on one level it's a reversal you're moving away away away away as opposed to the four cups in which you're getting closer closer closer but in the process of moving away you're actually getting closer at the same time and that is the meaning of the well-known mind reconcile that Messiah is born on Tisch above now that doesn't have to be understood that the person that will be Messiah will be born on the 9th of of certainly Habad cannot understand it that way because the Rebbe was not born on teach above he was born in neason and even without Shabbat I mean it doesn't have to be understood that literally but rather it refers to a spiritual idea that that color that will bring mushiya into the world is the yearning that we feel the pining that we feel because we're distant from God as exemplified in Tish above which is the highest level of rehook and out of the yearning that comes from that rehook comes the greatest Kirov and therefore that is the coop that brings mushiya into the world so that was rough sadoc thoughts number one in which he correlates the three weeks and Tish above to the four Co sews rhapsodic thought number two which I'm just going to say in two lines in fact I'll leave it for next week's year is that rough Southwark basically looks at the three weeks and at the time when we eradicate three character flaws that create our estrangement from God we know that Pirkei avos tells us there are three positive factors that build up kedusha that is Torah the study of Torah avodah prayer and sacrifice and jameelah's Kassadin acts of loving-kindness al Schlow shed the varam Alamo made the world stands on three pillars ala taurah allah wahda the alchemy Lascaux Sodom each of our of us exemplified those pillars Avram was the pillar of loving-kindness and Yeats Clark who was a carbon was the pillar of avodah defines the vine service and Yakko who spent 14 years in the yeshiva of shame be a ver not even sleeping possesses Alcatel us represents the coop of Torah learning those are the three positive factors but Picabo says just as there are three positive factors that bring godliness and holiness into the world there are three negative factors that destroy them and that is heart inna envy jealousy Tyva is excessive lust for the material and sensual pleasure and carve out a desire for honor glory ego gratification self-advertisement what does rubble Asura copper say Akina of our type of our coverage might seen as a dumb mean olam they take a person out of the world they destroy all of the good that a person could could achieve so if Sadako says that the three weeks preparing us for the ultimate redemption that will be seen on teach above with the birth of Messiah in the spiritual sense the three weeks are a t-con a rectification for her kena at IVA for her covered okay I will leave a fuller explanation of that for for next week but that's a second thought so thought number one is the correlation of the three weeks and Tish above to the four cups for the show notes of gula in kind of a reverse circle idea that the further and further you get away from a point on the circle the closer you are to the other side point number two is the three weeks are connected a t-con of kena type of a cover by the way let me put in a a little commercial for a book that was written by someone that I know very well I know if you've heard of Erica brown Erica brown is six I said that's a book written by a very very fine woman in silver in the Washington area she lives in Silver Spring but she's a very a very accomplished scholar and writer and she wrote a book I don't remember the name but if you google Erica brown you'll find it it's a book on the three weeks but Africa and she has for every single day of the three weeks a reflection about what one could work or think about and contemplative meditation and then she also has some practical activity to implement during the weeks it's a very very fine book and would be it's a worthwhile companion people sometimes wonder you know we looking for three weeks it's kind of you know kind of dreary restrictions it gets worse with the nine days but you know can't do this can't do that can't do that and then nine days and we're always looking for ways out and we're looking for leniency and I get for some reason question after question can i buy this can I do this can I build this it seems like a year's worth of activity always seems to always have to be done during these three weeks I don't know why you know building and buying and doing you know every single thing but it's kind of a negative way of looking at it when you just look at it as a bunch of do's and dont's and restrictions you don't see it and you don't perceive it as a spiritual exercise in trying to understand the nature of gullets the nature of what it is that we're missing what it is that we're mourning in a way the greatest sign of how bad we are now there's how much in trouble we are is we don't even know what the problem is right so this is a book that I think would be helpful so you look for it Erika Browns book on the three weeks that's a little commercial and I think I'll ask you for a commission a little later on but that is the second thought of rhapsodic that the three weeks are connected Coquina vltava for her Cubs now the third thought of rhapsodic which is the main thing i do want to talk about is he focuses on the half tourists for the three weeks and it's very interesting that you know for most of the Parsee OS we always have a half tour on Shabbos something from the prophets I used to think when I was very young that haftorah sounded to me like half Torah so I made a connection which I thought was pretty smart that okay the real tour is full tour and this other thing we read is like half tour and it's not that it's not that important but then when I heard half Dulla I didn't listen I didn't carry didn't carry through but be it as it may the haftorah is a Tucanos Cohanim that's side-by-side with 800 reading we have something from the prophets now this isn't this is an omission of the Mishna says such a law but the Mishnah does not dictate which haftorah goes with which parsha that was left to every congregation to decide on their own and that is why to this day there are many many different men huggin of Hough Taurus there's Ashkenazi there's far D there's t money there's Ito key there is a there is a yucky all sorts of things because cuz I'll really didn't care as long as it had something to do with the parsha or the yumps if whatever it would be they allowed you to do whatever you want but there are some exceptions because I'll did say that the three Chabot Oats before tisha buff you have to have three very specific tough tourists that are connected to tragedy and peroneus so the half tourists were going to start reading this coming Shabbos and two more half terrorists are actually mandated by hazael in massacres Megillah and rhapsodic focuses simply on the first words of each of those of terrorists the haftorah we're going to read this coming Shabbos is the beginning of the book of year me Oh give ray or me oh the words of Jeremiah so the operative topic word there is deep or speech the second tough Tyrel the week after is also from your meal and it begins with shimmer divination listen to do Irish em so after our number one is speech after number two is hearing and then the last of Torah the Shabbos before Tish above actually this dish above but the day before we observe the fast is the one that is not from your mio it's the first chapter of Isaiah VI oh and that begins with Kazan yo yo the vision of Isaiah Seraph sadaq says there's a progression here that goes to the idea of say no evil here no evil see no evil it reverses the the order of the expression and therefore the idea is one of the spiritual ideas series number one is let us control our speech the way we describe people in terms of Russia and Iraq but then you progress to a higher level in which not only do you control and moderate your speech but you also try to avoid listening to what other people say but there's a higher level than that and that is to change your perception of reality in which you strive to see the good and the positive because ultimately that is the only long-term strategy for Lashon Hara that truly works because if you think negatively about people you think he's a bum and he's a bomb and he's no good but you have the inner discipline of biting your tongue well after a while your tongue is gonna bleed meaning to say if I truly look at people in a negative drugget Airy way but I control myself then at some point I'm gonna break down but when you change your perceptions of reality then you look at people in a very very different way and that is you're not oblivious to shortcomings I'm not I'm not referring to the naivete in which you make believe everybody's the sadiq of the generation that's an unrealistic type of modality but rather there's a way in which you try to understand where people are coming from and then you recognize as the saying goes people who hurt hurts meaning people who have been hurt in their lives hurt others and then you realize that if people are behaving a certain way towards you there are probably factors in their life that made them that way I think I had mentioned before with moshe cordovero recommends a certain exercise that you should imagine people turn the clock back when you encounter difficult people who read people mean people inconsiderate people try to imagine a time in their lives where they hadn't yet to reach that state turn the clock back imagine them as children imagine them as babies usually there was some point in their life that they were cute and adorable and maybe you have to go back pretty far but you know when they were six months you know they were cute they were adorable and then something happened they became what they are how did that happen what we obviously don't know but remark Rivera says that's a meditation that can change anger and resentments to compassion and mercy because then I tell myself oh such a beautiful little boy and what a bad person he became what happens and then that's my or a rock monitor all different type of feeling so there's a certain trajectory in which initially I control my speech and then I try to control the inputs in my to me from others that create negativity and then ultimately I try to refine my perception of reality again I'm not talking about the extreme evil I'm not talking about how to look at Hitler I'm not dealing with that particular case although well well that would you know again I mean I don't want to go there in particular but you know to some degree it may even include that but certainly if we deal with the daily irritants that's coming up coming our way of course we might be a daily irritant to somebody else but whatever it would be then usually you're not dealing with radical evil you're dealing with a lack of consideration you're dealing with people who are not as thoughtful as they ought to be people who are perpetually grouchy and then in deeds if we turn back the clock so to speak we could have a different perception and ultimately that is how we get out of the Russian horror modality not so much by controlling our speech but by changing our perception of how we look at people in the world but be visit may this week is the first stage controlling our speech because the after it begins d'Avray yummy oh the words of yummy oh and of course we all know that what's called the KOA kadhi bore the power of speech is very very strong in fact a famous targum uncle is when the hummus says God breathes into a dumb rule uh kya a spirit of life life the targum says Ruach me Malala a power of speech and it's not so much the physiological process of speech but speech connotes a certain capacity of abstract thought that can be communicated that can be articulated there is something distinctly very very elevating about this but at the same time Shalimar MELAS says in Mitchell a famous verse Hamas Baha Khayyam be awed hallow shown that means life and death is in the hands of the tongue the tongue creates life the tongue creates death the plastic in the mattress in Mitchell a gives a story that illustrates this again it's a it's a it's a mattress the measure says all of the limbs of the body were arguing who was considered to be the most importance you know the the the brain said I'm the most important because I control everything the legs say I'm the most importance they're actually talking to each other without me you can't go anywhere the arms and hands were saying I'm the most important without me you can't grasp so finally the tongue says I'm the most important so they started laughing at the tongue because they said to the tongue you don't even have a backbone you kid you can't even stand up you're just lying prone how can you have any significance whatsoever so the tongue said I will show you all how important I am so apparently this person works for the king and the King was ill and the person goes to the king and says a man like you are to drink the milk of a dog and you'll get better apparently that was a very disrespectful thing to say so the King says kill this man he talks to me he calls me dog he says no a man a dog like you ought to drink the milk of a dog so at this point all of the limbs are panicking we're gonna die we're gonna die and the tongue says there's other measures the tongue says I told you I could get you killed if I wanted now I'll get you out of it and the tongue says the person says to the king Oh your majesty in my language the word that you thought was dog actually means courageous lion it's just a question of a different language and I was saying a courageous man like you should have the milk of a lioness so the king said oh that's what you meant you're off the hook so the tongue so the tongue is a fanciful story but the tongue says to the other limbs you see I could get you killed and I can give you life this illustrates the verse I'm our vets ha ha I am death and life are be at Ellucian but for our purposes it's not so much that particular story we have to realize that the power of speech gives life and death not only for the speaker obviously a speaker could say words depending on which country you are that can get you killed or can get your life but also the effect we have on others we can use our power of speech to build up others to give them courage to give them strength to give them confidence to give them hope words can build life and words can destroy not so much physically killing somebody but words can break a person's spirits the words the denigrating words that a child can hear from a teacher or a parent can haunt that child all of his life fact is I still remember I know we have the childhood saying sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me it's not it's really not true I remember seeing an interview with Richard Nixon after he had left the presidency and you know Richard Nixon had been through quite a lot and he put the country the United States through quite a lot although like to Israel he was you know pretty good and Richard Nixon all of a sudden started talking about playground taunts in the sixth grade here was a man who was president of the United States and he was forced to resign etc and he had been through so many things and at his age he was already in his mid or late 70s he's thinking about those things being there are decisions that are made in the world today that affect the whole world that are based on their hurt feelings that people had as children we think as we grow up we escape that that's just those kids stuff we really don't it kind of stays with us it's it's scary and it's in many ways its theological and yet it is the psychological reality that you know even if you're a president even if you're a king even if you're an emperor even if you have your finger on a nuclear button the playground taunts are going to be a factor in the decisions you make in how you interact with people it's going to be there with you very scary and I include the current US president as maybe perhaps an example of that as well so we have to recognize how powerful speech is how we can build and give create hope and confidence and goodness now there was an I hesitate to say this to give this example because some people have said it's been discredited so I do know that there's some controversy whether it's true but an experiment was reported around 20-25 years ago looking at molecules of water under an 11 elect an electron microscope which could actually show the individual molecules of water and when people spoke harsh words the molecules assumed like ugly configurations and when people spoke gentle words the molecules assumed beautiful snowflake like patterns to indicate that even the physical world itself the physical structure of reality responds to kindness versus cruelty now number one I have two points about that number one some people have claimed that was a made-up experiment so I can't state it as scientific reality yeah different designs we did the frozen water I know there are different designs now that I understand but the question is whether those designs are a function of the positive or the negative words the other possibility is the other possibility is that even if you assume that the the water path the patterns did shift shape it may not have been because of you know mean versus good it may have simply been because people who speak cruel words just do it louder in other words it may be the sound waves as opposed to the contents and they're bad I think I'll throw those you'd have to have a sentence in order to prove this point you would have to have the words at the same modulation level and then we would say oh the water was responding to kindness versus cruelty as opposed to loud versus versus quiet and as we know angry words tend to be louder than kind words and that that throws off the experiment a little bit but be as it may whether we have a scientific proof or not I think all of us know that in human relationships the vibes are genuine that the idea of using words to comfort and to strengthen and to build up is really a tremendous idea and therefore the notion of all of these laws against lush and Jara and the like the purpose is not that we should keep quiet all the time that would be an abdication of our great one of our greatest skips which rather to utilize words in positive and constructive ways you know when the hoppy time wrote his famous work on the laws of legend era so there were some rabbis that were very suspicious of him they said who is this guy that can write a book about not speak English and our everybody speaks Russian Hara and they wanted to check him out to see if he was living by the standards that he was espousing so they would send Spotty's they actually would send people to spend Shabbos with the carpet I am to see and actually entrapment to entrap him as a word to say loshon Hara or whatever it is are you allowed to do it that that's a good question but they wanted to check it out so there was a rabbi that was there a young rabbi that and he noticed two things the puppet time had a son-in-law who was such a righteous person that he wouldn't talk at all he would only say Torah and Fela he did not talk how his time was very talkative so at first glance the rabbi thought gee why do people make such a big deal about the carpet I am the son of Allah seems to be much more righteous he guards his tongue with such meticulousness but then he realized that in spite of the fact that the carpets higham was not at all inhibited in his communication he never crossed the line in prohibited wash Nara and therefore he realized that was a greater level to simply close your mouth bite your tongue is a high level to be sure but it's not as high as using your power of speech in good and constructive ways now what's interesting is the connection to the power of speech is not only in the haftorah it's in the Torah itself the partial meaning of the Torah itself the Torah begins this is the parsha that deals with the notion of ned dare and Shavua now the Torah says that if I make an oath or about these are technically two different formulations an oath which is called a Shavua is when a person swears in the name of God that they will do something or they will not do something as a person could swear I will eat two apples a day or they could swear I will not eat chocolate and you can make it for a time limit you can say for the next week and you can do can do it any way you want but that is a Shibui and the Torah says once you make a schwa you must keep it low yah kale devar oh you may not profane your words that's the negative Commandments and the positive is Kahala yo se me peeve Yassa everything that comes out of your mouth yassuh you must still so if a person violates a chihuahua they have transgressed a negative Commandments and a positive Commandments as well as possibly taking God's name in vain which is really a separate category now a net there is essentially the same thing but it's a different verbal formulation a Shiva is phrased in terms of the person I will not eat chocolate or I will eat an apple a nether is in the phrase in terms of the object apples are forbidden to me in the language of the Gemara Shavua is Easter Gaara the person prohibits himself Netta is it sir cepsa the object is prohibited now you might say you know that doesn't seem like a very very important difference that's just a matter of how you say it I just want to mention as an aside that there is a major monumental a logic difference in another and I show up and that is whether it's effective to annul a mitzvah for example if a person made a chihuahua I'm not going to eat matzah and Pesach I make a schwa I am NOT going to eat matzah I make a schwa I am NOT going to wear it to fill it the Shiva is null and void it is null and void you cannot make a schwa to abrogate a commandment of the Torah in the language of the Gemara because you already swore at Mount Sinai to keep the Torah a second schwa going against that is not valid so if a person made a sroa I'm not gonna wear it's fill-in we would simply tell him you Shavua is null and void where to fill it now what if however instead of phrasing his prohibition as a Shavua I will not eat matzah I will not wear its felon he phrased it as a nether tefillin are forbidden to me matzah is forbidden to me strangely enough although he is absolutely not allowed to do that because he's abrogating a mitzvah and he has to go to a basin to get annulment but until he does that his nether is valid and he is not allowed to wear it's filling and he is not allowed to eat mat and the difference is Shavua is a frontal direct contradiction to your commitment God said at Sinai you wear its villain when you make a statement I will not wear its villain that's a contradiction but when you say it it's filling is forbidden to me that's called an indirect confrontation so to speak so what starts off as I don't want to get into the whole office too much because it's a technical area but I just want to point out that don't just assume this is a minor semantic trick this semantic distinction has enormous distinctions in terms of whether it is effective to abrogate a commandment of the Torah be it as it may whether it's nether or shabu what do you see what is unique about net or Shavua it is the power of speech to create a spiritual metaphysical reality that didn't exist I mean I've afterall we what we normally assume that God prohibits things they become spiritually damaging in one way or the other God prohibits traif now if I make a nether or schewe I'm not gonna eat chocolate then eating chocolate becomes the same thing for me as eating a piece of pork I literally changed through my speech the spiritual metaphysical nature of that which a second ago was permitted and has now become prohibited in a sense the power to make nether or Shavua is the godlike power to effectively add to the Torah you have added to God's list of prohibited foods things of your own nature so in a sense it is a metaphor for the power of speech to create new realities that did not exist prior to that meta or prior to that Shore now as I say it's actually improper to do that we are told it says in coalesce better not to make a vow than to make a vow that you might break and that's why we always say any commitment it's bullying there there it's not a vow it cetera it's an important idea because vows are very very new and Earth's as well Shavuos Mizoram they are very very highly discouraged because if you break them the sin is very very severe but nevertheless nether is the epitome of the power to create realities through the of de Bourgh but there's another connection to the power of speech and that is in the reference to the cities of refuge which is not in this week's part it's next week's part sure but I'll often and there get there the parts are combined so I'll give myself for chefs to mention now the emic lot is a very interesting institution a person kills inadvertently so he does not get the death penalty but in the time of the base are Mick - there were designated cities of refuge called ear Mia Rhema clots that a person would go to and he would be protected from the half of the blood avenger but he would have to remain in that city very strange sentence indeterminate sentence until the Kohen Gadol dice now that could be a short amount of time that could be a long amount of time if the Kohen Gadol dies one day after the murderer went to the Year McNutt he goes free after one day if the Kohen Gadol lives for another 50 years the road saya would have to wait 50 years if there are safe dies before the Kohen Gadol he is buried in the Year mek'leth not to be a killed until the Kohen Gadol dice it's a very it's an indeterminate sentence first of all the barbecue Rebbe is a nice aura above sure every points out that RA MacLeod is the closest we have to what you might call a prison system in the tourist penology right the Torah does not normally send people to jail we have just penalties we have lashes we have financial obligation sation we have fines but we don't have a system of sending people to jail the only reference to jail in the Torah besides Spyro is when Moshe didn't know what to do with somebody he put the person in a kind of a prison until he found out but that was not the permanent punishment but the closest idea we have to some type of confinement is the City of Refuge now that's not really a prison the city of refuge is a city but he can't leave that city if he leaves the city any time before the Kohen Gadol dies the go Aladdin is given carte blanche permission to kill him if the guard um kills him in the city of refuge he committed murder if he kills him when the road safe takes a step out of the city of refuge perfectly okay yep yes that's majors he's not actually he is not that's an interesting question even when the go L atom has the right to kill him they wrote saya can fight back in self-defense and if he chose them he does not get punished for that in fact anything more even says it by Pincus when Pincus was killing zimri if zimri would have killed Pincus Zimri would have been exempt because Pincus would have the halacha of a row Dave someone trying to kill me and and alike very interesting even when the homicide is justifiable the victim can resist and claim that the law of the pursuer okay now the question is this the question that the Bob Lee asks is why should the road say our sentence be dependent on the Kohen Gadol and the gomorrah says in massacres Marcos because the Kohen Gadol is responsible for what the road saith did how so because the Kohen Gadol was said to be the spiritual leader of the generation and it was his job to pray that calamities not occur on his watch and if calamities did occur on his watch he is considered to be morally responsible for the tragedies that occur right because his the power of his prayer could have averted these tragedies that's what the Gemara in in the the Bob Lee says now the Mishnah then goes on and says that the mothers of high priests used to send food packages to the people in the year Macbeth care packages in order that they shouldn't spray that the Kohen Gadol dice because after all they would pray the Kohen Gadol will die because that gets them out the food package was like a bride so the Gemara esta kasha the implication is if they would have prayed that the Kohen Gadol would die somehow that prayer might be effective why would it be effective so listen to this mic locus between the bobbly and the you show me the Bob Lee answers the the prayer against the coloring goggle would have been effective because the Kohen Gadol as I said a moment ago is culpable because he should have prayed that these calamities not take place so it's a double prayer thing the prayer of the murderer that the Kohen Gadol should die would have been effective because the Kohen Gadol deserved to die because he failed to pray to avert those tragedies that's what the Bob Lee says the Talmud you saw me says and the same question meaning why would the prayer of the murderer be effective if the Kohen Gadol didn't do anything wrong so the Bob Lee's approaches he did something wrong by not praying etc the you show me says something that's even more startling a prayer that is given with complete heart Lafe Shalem is effective or maybe effective even against a person who's totally blameless yes the Kohen Gadol didn't do anything wrong but a prayer offered against him may nonetheless be effective so I want to just spend a moment here to analyze the difference in orientation between the bubbly and the you show me and how under both views you see the power of Tefila which is of deboard the color of speech first of all this idea that the Coen gutturals prayer could have averted tragedy it's not so clear here because keep in mind the following very important electric points the murderer that goes to the ear Mick what is not a person who killed somebody by an unavoidable accident if for example somebody falls off a building and falls on a child killing the child you don't go to the air milk what that's called unavoidable accident every case of ear Mick what is what we would call in legal terms manslaughter some type of negligence carelessness unintentional but careless going through a red light or a stop sign not looking both ways at an intersection throwing some heavy garbage throwing something metal out of your window without looking who is below in other words your Mick lot is not for accidents ear McCloud is for carelessness and negligence again what is in legal term for that would be manslaughter right murder is intentional murder manslaughter is careless homicide unavoidable accidents you don't go to the army equip so here's the thing since we have a cloud that says how Colby - am I am everything is decreed by God right tsunamis are acts of God one way or the other whether whether you look at it as directly mandated by God or a consequence of God creating nature that's another muck locusts but the decisions that people make are not mandated by God there are functions of freewill so how could the Kohen Gadol pray that people shouldn't be careless people's carelessness is a function of the application of their responsibility so how can the bobbly suggest Oh Cowan goggle is culpable because he should have prayed that these tragedies should not occur on his watch well if the tragedies would be accidents or acts of God okay that's something perhaps you can pray for the Dodger to intervene or or whatever but if we're talking about the evil that human beings make as a result of their own decisions that's how Kobe they should move everything into the hands of heaven let's me arrest room I am except for the moral decision so the cousinís says you see from the bubbling an amazing thing that prayer is so potent that you can actually pray that God guide human actors in making responsible and good decisions in other words you can pray that this driver look both ways when he's at an intersection you can pray that he doesn't throw garbage out of his window without looking who's below in other words prayer can override the principle of free will in the universe and as a result of cousin it says you can pray that someone does children right let's say a person has a child that is off the derrick unfortunately so we often tell the person pray that God should inspire them to do chuva now there's a philosophical problem with that because the decision to do Shiva is a function of free will and free well is left to the human actor now maybe you say well gee I'm not praying that God should make him do children but maybe I'm praying that God should give him experiences that have a probability of inspiration that's one way of looking at it in other words you're not praying Hashem you know make him do children maybe that doesn't work but Hashem exposed him to things that may move him in a certain direction that's one answer but the cousin edge says very very directly chuhwa upside prayer can override free will and you can pray the National hardened pyros art Hashem could put into somebody the idea of Cuba so that's what you see from the bobbly the idea that Shula I'm sorry the Kirk of prayer is so enormous that it can actually override another fundamental law of spiritual reality and that is both IRRI and that is why the Kohen Gadol is held responsible for the negligent homicides of his generation didn't pray enough now yep I didn't hear you well there's no particular text but but generally you know he could have prayed for that no you shall me takes a different tack the you show me does not assign blame or culpability to the Kohen Gadol perhaps because the Usami says you can't blame the Kohen Gadol for the irresponsible volitional decisions of people who don't look both ways at intersections and run over a child but the you shall me highlights the power of prayer another way by basically saying yeah he doesn't deserve any of any punishment but a prayer will get him anyway meaning that's even scarier the co-ack of Prayer could if it's sincere belief shall then could call down the wrath of God even on someone that is not morally deserving of any blemish now that is a problematical idea because that word god forbid suggests even an idea that when you have terrorists who pray to God that they should be successful would God give them success again that's problematical idea but the Usami indicates that a prayer beloved Shalem has a certain power even if it's offered by a wicked person with no justification now most of the time wicked people don't offer prayers to God with a complete heart but hypothetically if a wicked person offers the prayer beloved shall them it will have kind of a dark spiritual energy and a power so both the bobbly and the you shall me you see this enormous color of FEMA one is Fela can override bashira that's the Bob Lee's perspective and the other is - Fela kids could even be effective against somebody who's not guilty of anything in particular now there is a gomorian condition again this is a story it's a it's hard to understand the story literally the Gemara says there was a certain there was an abandoned building in a certain city and this building was inhabited by a demon a demon of seven heads and anyone that slept in that building would be killed nobody would go into the building it was very very dangerous and the rabbi's of the city the hakama of the city didn't know what to do about this demon that was stalking the city so abaya said I tell you what there's a great Sadiq rav-dini that's coming to town and he surely will be able to handle it so when he needs lodging nobody should give him any lodging forcing him to sleep in this abandoned building and then he will confront the demon so FD me shows up he needs a place to stay everybody says don't have room so no Brera he sleeps in this abandoned building this demon comes this frightening seven headed monster and rev D me prays and every prayer a head of the demon gets lopped off and finally the demon is killed and the next day he goes to a baiance as why did you put me up in this building I mean you expose me to this monster so a buyer says don't worry I knew yours felis would protect you so the Marsha asks a a question the you Maura says that when you benefit from open miracles in this world supernatural miracles that reduces your Olam haba because it's otherworldly so even if a buyer was permitted to make the assumption that gravity me would be saved by miraculous means let's say a buyer was so sure that he could make that assumption but what gives him the right to take away Rev Dimas over my BA by making rev D me have a miracle so the marshes answer is anything you get by prayer does not have the cirrhotic status of a miracle because it is the nature of prayer to bring miraculous things into the world so the rule so to speak that miracles take away your album Abba do not apply to miracles that come through the power of prayer now this is reminiscent of actually a famous story with Winston Churchill and the gara Rebbe again they say it's if they say it didn't happen but this is a story that is a very well-known story and that is at some point after the gara Rebbe was smuggled out of the warsaw ghetto the story goes he met Winston Churchill again there's a lot of problems of the guy rebels Roger was never in London but somehow he met when Sir Winston Churchill heard that this was a holy man a righteous man who could perhaps give him spiritual counsel and this is during the Battle of Britain this is a very very difficult time so Churchill says the Rebbe we're going through a very difficult time we don't know if we're going to make it we don't know if we're going to survive we don't know if Western civilization is going to survive how do we come back the evil that Hitler and Nazism represents again the obvious leaders through an interpreter in Yiddish so the gay Rebbe said I can give you a supernatural way of doing it and I can give you a normal way of doing it which do you want to hear so Churchill said tell me both so the Garrett Rebbe said the supernatural way would be you have your army your Navy your bombers and for you to defeat the Nazis based on your numbers and based on your army that would be a supernatural miracle the natural way of doing it is going through a corner and say the Psalms and that's got to help you that'll be the normal the normal will be the prayer the supernatural would be the military the military force and that's what the martial arts saying what happens through prayer is considered to be normal basically and this is the colour of prayer so be kids are therefore everything is connected to the power of speech the haftorah deals with the power of speech the ability to use your mouth use your talking to strengthen people build them up give them encouragement and the negative power of speech to destroy and to devastate we have the partial of neder and Shavua where the power of speech creates new metaphysical spiritual realities and finally we have the interesting mark locus between the body and the you shall me regarding why would the prayer against the Kohen Gadol be efficacious and that's why they had to be bribed the bobbly says because the colouring goggles prayer could have changed the wrong decisions that people make you Shami says even if the Kohen Gadol is not culpable he could be vulnerable to that prayer so we have to know that both speech and prayer are very very precious gifts that God has has given us and we should use them to the maximum but one final point about Fela that that one needs to keep in mind and that is all of us understand that prayers are not always answered in the specific way that we want them to be answered this I think we have to know and if I could quote the words of the great sage Mick Jagger how I should maybe shouldn't say it in a in the show you can't always get what you want but you get what you need and that is actually a very profound spiritual idea that God is not simply at our beck and call to give us whatever we want we pray and we ask God for mercy and often he will give us what we ask for but but often he will not but people do die there are sick people who do not recover tragedies happen but the meaning of a prayer is not always in this specific answer that God gives you sometimes a prayer is answered by God giving you the strength to recover from your tragedy to go on to rebuild to put one step in front of the other step not to be broken after the Holocaust people lost their families they lost loved ones but many had the courage to start again from the very bottom and build something beautiful that's also God answering a prayer it's not answering the prayer in the direct thing that you were asking for but a sham answers prayers in many many many ways so we have to understand that we shouldn't judge a prayer by whether the very specific thing we wanted was given to us there are many many ways in which prayers are answered so fkin they may all of arts felis thought could be answered with a college bar whose rahman [Music]