Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Unconditional Covenant with Israel

[Music] hi Shalom everyone um it's good to have you here uh once again uh because of the situation in ER Isel for which we pray for Yeshua we're not giving the sheare in our regular site we're giving the shear in the OR library and um I don't have other have I poting I don't have a live audience I'm speaking to the either as it as it were but but hopefully um we'll have some people who will be listening uh first today Shear is dedicated for AA for all of those who have been affect fected by the war and of course uh special tilila for success in the release of all of the hostages who should return to their families in fullness of body and spirit uh in addition uh the she is dedicated leat for all those who were recently murdered or those who died defending the Jewish nation and an anonymous dedication for the and hashem's protection of all of and that they should return healthy to their homes with with health and and victory may bring the Gula uh now um again there's so much that is on all of our minds uh we have so much uh Sor and pain for those who have suffered in addition we have our own fears and trepidation of what will be um if I could just add a personal note uh I just got an email yesterday maybe many of you got an email that one of the hostages is a little boy uh who is celebrating you can call it celebrating his ninth birthday uh this week and we were all asked to send an email card that the uh Red Cross will demand that Kamas deliver to him and my guess would be there would be tens of thousands of cards so at least I hope this little boy and his family will know that we're thinking about him we're pray praying for him and perhaps this will give him a little bit of Hope and courage in this very very difficult time uh the needs are many and it's very very important that each of us even if we're not able or not expected to be actively fighting this war there are many many ways we give our support to theim and to the people that are fighting I had mentioned last week that there's a major major campaign going on to provide SES and evenin toim and there's a great demand from the soldiers even those who are not religious literally tens of thousands and those are certainly phenomenally wonderful Z for is and then at the other side of the coin as sad as it is there is even a need to be mapel to take care of our dead the great people who have died Alem defending ER Israel who have been victims of the am that tried to destroy the Jewish people they've died and I certainly have no worries about their namos that will go straight to but there are needs in terms of burial needs uh in terms of preparing the bodies and as difficult as it is there is even a need for the special Talis that we prepare when we bury a person uh in the ground so this is called Chalet this is considered to be a loving kindness of truth because you're not going to get any compensation so to speak uh from the Met uh but this is also part of the cover that we show the kados of am Israel so if anyone would be interested in assisting in that part of the avod uh they should contact Rabbi Poston directly who will put you in contact with uh whatever service you'll be able to uh to provide Our Hope and our prayer would be that uh the need for such a service will be very very small and hopefully even non-existent but if Shalom there will be a need then our brothers and sisters of the am Israel should volunteer to fill that need because that's part of our effort uh in standing with each other in times of joy and in times of sorrow in times of celebration of life and in times of mourning the tragedy of death may God avenge all of this blood that was shed and may their deaths be a kapar for am Israel and may it be a step in the painful process of bringing the GAA that is indeed described by kazal as mashia the birth Pains of mashia that all of the pain and the suffering will eventually culminate in life and Redemption and and joy and that brings us of course to parous and of course is really the beginning of the Jewish people right Noah the creation of the world Noah the founder of humanity in a sense those are Universal parot but now we talk about ainu and arino is often described in a way that's a little bit confusing it's not such a clear designation and kazal don't use it as a matter of fact but he's often described as the first Jew and what do we mean the first Jew I mean in a sense that's not even true he's not the first monotheist uh shame Noah they all were Believers in Hashem and he's not even the first Jew in the sense that all of his children are Jewish Abraham has a Ismael Ismael is not Jewish he is the founder of the Arab Nations y has um an ASV so if anybody should get credit for being the first Jew in the sense of all of his children being Jewish uh we would give that credit to Yakov so in what way do we even mean what does it even mean when we say Abraham is the first Jew I think what it means is that Abraham is the first person with whom Hashem entered into a unique Covenant that did not apply to all of humanity God's covenant with Noah apply to all of humanity God's covenant with Abraham applies to Abraham and his progeny so in a sense with Abraham we see the first winnowing down as the says the ramal says it was originally God's plan that all of humanity would be devoted to worshiping God and and creating Holiness in the world uh but then what happened was that many of those branches shriveled and became incapable many of them were of course destroyed in the flood but even the of the branch of Noah that branched out into 70 branches most of them were not suitable so essentially the mission of humanity was taken over by am Israel and the first one who was designated from the mass of humanity to take on this mission was of ravino so in that sense he could be described as the as the first Jew now we are told already Abraham of course he's not called Abraham yet he's called we'll get to that aam is introduced to us already at the end of par Noah in fact it indicates that although par says when abam was 75 God appeared to him and said go to the land that I will show you in point of fact already before that point Abraham and his father ter it's like going on a pilot trip before alah they left orim in order to go to the land of Canan they stopped at ter died inan and when God Appears to Abraham in the beginning of this par God is telling him to continue the trip so and indeed according to much Rabin chronology Abraham had actually arrived in erit Canan perhaps even with ter years before for example the War of the of the four and the five Kings did not occur in the trip but in the trip before there were some very very significant events that occurred before so be it as it may whether abrah made one trip to AR Israel and stayed there other than going to Egypt or whether abam had two trips in which he made a trip then went back to Karan and then came a second time certainly by the second time when Abraham is 75 God speaks to him and says go for your benefit from your land from your father's home from the place of your birth to the land that I will show you and I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and I will make your name great and those who bless you again the words are so beautiful and we have to remember this because these are the first words that pertain specific specifically to the Jewish Nation those who bless you I will bless and those who curse you I will curse and through you all of the nations of the world shall be blessed you will be a source of blessing not just for yourself you will be a source of blessing for the whole world and I think it's been well said without trying to be too chauvinistic that God blesses those who bless the Jews many have pointed out that the great great success of the United States starting with 13 colonies that rebelled against Great Britain in the 18th century and becoming a dominant power in the world with unparalleled wealth and Authority is precisely because they gave the Jewish people a home free from the anti-Semitism of Europe and God blessed the United States because they were good to the Jews and this is a fulfillment of the verse I will bless those who BL bless you and without getting too alarmist or too political when the United States God forbid turns away from the Jewish people bad things happen even in America and in this sense without getting too political I just want to applaud the idea that you know President Biden so far has given great great support to the Israeli war effort and I hope that this will again translate into to blessing for the United States for which the Jewish people have to be very grateful in spite of the ups and downs in the relationship that we occasionally see so this is a very beautiful meaningful Covenant that God has with abam but one thing is a bit mysterious in the whole story why did God choose this man out of all other people why does God appear to abam why does God say I will make a covenant with you that those who bless you I will bless and those who curse you I will curse so kazal do tell us that there's certainly a backstory there are certainly reasons you know Abraham as a young man even as a child some say repudiate idolatry abam on his own recognized God abam was willing to be thrown into a fiery furnace and die rather than renounce KES and miraculously he was saved and Abraham devoted his life together with his wife SAR to try to bring people to the recognition of God all of that is true and therefore in a sense as the saying goes God chose Abraham because Abraham chose God and it started with what Abraham did and all of that is right all of that is correct but here's the thing the Kish doesn't say it if I ask you show me in the Kish why Abraham is so special that God chooses him and the answer is there is no reason given for it the story of orasim of Abraham being thrown into the furnace is not mentioned in the Kish the direct idea of Abram teaching godliness to the world is not directly mentioned in the it's an interpretation it sayses the souls that he made in but again the simple meaning of that is that simply refers to the slaves that he owned in other words all of the great backstories we have about Abraham are only known through our tradition and the oral Torah they are not in the written Torah question is why doesn't the Torah give us the reason and the Mahal gives a very very powerful answer per tells us call any love that is dependent on something I love you because I love you because you're smart I love you because you're beautiful right that's you know I love people for a reason but when that reason goes away but the love goes away because my love was conditional on a certain aspect but if it's if it is a love that is unconditional it does not depend on any particular thing then even when any particular thing is not there anymore that's not going to affect the love because the love was unconditional love no matter what so here's here is what moral says did God have reasons to love Abraham surely God loved Abraham because he was just God loved Abraham because he was kind God loved Abraham because he was so devoted that he was willing to give his own life later the life of Y but before he was chosen he was willing to give his life for God but if God would have said I chose AR because of X Y and Z that would have made it an so what would be if in future Generations we were not so devoted what it would be if we were not willing to give our lives up for God what would be if we deviate from the Torah if God's choice of Abraham was conditional on his righteousness and goodness then when that righteousness and goodness is not present that would nullify the covenantal relationship so therefore God enters into a relationship with Abraham that is seemingly not based on anything now not really really it is based on something but by describing it in the narrative as a mysterious unconditional commitment that elevates it from an into and therefore what that means is God's loving relationship with isra continues to exist even when we don't keep the even when there's G even when there's the love is there there is no way that the Covenant that hasm has with Israel through Abraham will ever be eradicated because it is an AA now it's obvious that doesn't mean there are no consequences to our misbehaviors we have had Goos we have had Corban we have had Crusades we have had Holocaust we have terrorism we have wars that were going through right now there are consequences but the consequences come out of love even though we don't always understand them to bring us to chuva to bring us to Unity to bring us to AAS Israel to bring us closer to God because for some crazy reason when things are good we slip into polarization dissension makus when things are tough We Come Together We Care we turn to God I wish there was a better way and I can tell you Hashem also wishes there was a better way but sometimes not so the point that is very very relevant for our situation is that if the love that Hashem has for am Israel is an unconditional love which is no matter how low we are no matter how deficient we are no matter how sinful we are the love will never be Abad that means that even in times of war and persecution the love of Hashem is there and I think that that's an important message for us to remember you know when you read the book of Job the book of iov and iov was a righteous man who went through a lot of suffering and he entered into some significant debates about why is this happening if God is just and I am righteous why am I suffering and de if had three friends and they're trying to debate with him and they're trying to argue well you must have sinned because God wouldn't punish you you didn't sin and he have said no no no no no I want God to explain himself eventually God explains himself but one of the interesting themes in the Book of Job is that over and above the suffering that he's going through by losing his wealth first and then losing his children and then having serious illness beyond that great suffering is the sense of a strangementle by God that God doesn't care God has abandoned me and that hurt more than even the specifics of the suffering that he went through I think many of us might go through that same type of trauma in which superimposed on the suffering that we have is another type of suffering that God has abandoned us God doesn't care and therefore I think the morale Insight is very important for us to realize that God's love for us is and therefore we should know that amidst all that we're going through the love of God is ever present no matter what and hopefully that can give us a little bit of sense of comfort a little bit of security something to hold on to in very difficult and traumatic times be hasem these times should not last much longer but Hashem will do whatever his wisdom dictates but we should never falter in our sense that Hashem loves us unconditionally in many many ways this is one of the symbolic meanings of Brit Mila now we know that Abraham's second trip at least to erit Canan occurred when he was 75 years old but when he was 99 years old and yishmael was already 13 and Y was not born yet this is a year before Yak was born abam is commanded by Hashem to enter into the Covenant of the flesh that is called Brit Mila and Abraham had the Brit Mila when he was 99 he circumcised himself he circumcised Ishmael at the age of 13 and he circumcised all of his slaves and a year later when y was born y of course was circumcised at 8 days which is the normal time that we do the bris and the Brit Mila is quite literally a physical symbol of a covenant that we make with God it's a covenant of the flesh the gamorra tells us that when David would go to the bath house or the Mikvah DAV felt very vulnerable because he was not doing a Mitzvah at the time he was not wearing Tain or tiis or learning Torah or daving or saying to which D wrote uh he felt vulnerable but then he realized that on his body was the sign of the Covenant the Brit Mila and that gave him strength even when he was bereft of any other mitzvot so I just want to go over very very briefly some of the different things some of the different ideas some of the different symbols that Brit Mila might signify and many of which are going to be relevant to the mat that we are facing first and foremost a Brit Mila is generally not in the case of a per se because he did it on his own uh after God commanded him but generally speaking the Brit Mila occurred URS involuntarily in other words the child is not asked it's just done to him which is kind of a sober reminder that you don't choose to be a Jew unless you're a g unless you're a convert then you're a Jew by choice you're born to be a Jew and that gives you a Destiny and that gives you a responsibility and a privilege that you you can't escape so obviously God gave us free will so people can reject the Torah they could decide not to practice Judaism they could convert to other religions but you know no matter what you do you're a Jew a Jew who converts to Christianity is not a Christian he's a Jew who unfortunately is practicing Christian worship so the BR me just reminds us of the inevitability of your Jewish identity you can't escape it even if you want it to that's the first component responsibility privilege inevitability the second component of Brit mea is it is a ceremony that involves a c certain modum of pain and suffering I think the parents may suffer more at AIS than the child but the child at least has some discomfort in fact the Rama actually says that the outside of Israel is we don't recite theanu blessing at a bris because since the baby is suffering a little bit we don't have a full s however let me point out those of you that live in Israel know this init Israel even with the suffering we recite sh we recognize the joy and the reminder here is that to be a Jew does involve a certain amount of suffering in the world number one on the most basic level keeping the Torah involves a certain amount of sacrifice I can't eat what I want to eat I can't do what I want to do second of all there is so much anti-Semitism and hatred of Jews in the world and we've suffered it throughout our history so yeah being a Jew involves pain being a Jew involves sacrifice being a Jew involves Bloodshed this is part of the deal but as rosha feon once remarked you there's a famous yish saying it is hard to be a Jew you know people would say it's hard to be a Jew rosha Feinstein said that line in the 1920s turned off a whole generation of Jews because European parents who tried to keep shabas and they worked so hard and if they didn't come to work on on Saturday they had to find a new job on Monday and they would come home to their tenaments and they would say it's hard to be a Jew and the the children who grew up in a Land of freedom and they didn't have to keep shabas they thought to themselves why do I have to have such a hard life let me enjoy freedom and that is why the generation that grew up in America between the wars in World War I and World War II largely assimilated BR there were some very courageous Orthodox Jews but they were a small small minority the vast majority not only left Torah but many intermarried and many are not their descendants are not even recognizably Jewish anymore and rosha Feinstein said maybe it was hyperbole a little bit of an exaggeration that when you convey to your children how hard it is to be a Jew even if you're loyal and faithful they're going to Rebel our attitude has to be the sweetness the joy of being a Jew yes there are sacrifices but those sacrifices are worth it for something much much greater no Weinberg the great you know legendary founder of Asa Torah and really one of the great great masters of bring bringing Jews back to yish Kate maybe who ever lived maybe Abraham II one said a startling Insight um he once asked a woman she was a reporter she was actually doing a story on the kir of movement uh what is it that human beings treasure above all things and she said they want pleasure in various forms and he accepted that he didn't call her a hedonist then he said and what is it that people want to avoid the most she said they want to avoid pain the opposite of pleasure is pain he said no the opposite of pleasure is comfort so she didn't understand p uh pleasure and comfort seem to be roughly the same idea so he made the very profound point that true pleasure only comes out of pain you work hard you struggle whether it's building a business even in a secular sense whether it's building a business whether it's the time and effort you invest in a marriage or in working with a child that you have difficulties with in that struggle or whether you know you want to be on the Olympic team in high school so you get up 4:00 in the morning for for five years and you practice gymnastics for 3 hours that's pain that's discomfort but then you achieve something and that's such a joy and that's pleasure Comfort is when you never bother to get out of bed pain is a necessary condition for pleasure so being a Jew Noah said is not comfortable it's not comfortable to be different it's not comfortable to stand out it's not comfortable to stand up for values when the rest of the world may not agree with your values or live by your values so yish is not meant to be comfortable but yish guide is meant to be pleasurable in the deepest sense and therefore God is warning us at the very beginning of Life 8 days old in your life there will be pain in your life there will be sorrow in your life there will be difficulties but ultimately this is the Covenant of Love that you have with God so at least these first two symbols the symbol of uh pain and this idea of being involuntary you're a Jew whether you like it or not are kind of directly connected to the situation that we are facing but I want to share with you some other thoughts as well that are all connected to the symbolic meaning of Brit now the points out that the Covenant of the flesh is on the part of the body that on some level is least susceptible to voluntary control I.E the sexual organ the sexual organ represents a function that we have in common with animals whether it's a the organ of of ejaculation or the organ of urination or whatever it would be it is not necessarily what you might call the highly spiritual part of our being it's connected to the animalistic part of our being and the profundity of that idea is that in Judaism we believe that you can sanctify even the most materialistic and animalistic parts of the human being and this is something that is a distinct teaching of Judaism that some other religions reject if you take for example uh Christianity at least classical Christianity they basically teach a dichotomy a contradiction between body and spirit the spirit is Holy and Noble and good but the body drags you down so the Holier you are the more you have to distance yourself from the desires of the body so the priest is supposed to be celibate not to be involved in sexual intimacy the clergy are supposed to be take vows of poverty because once you get involved in whether it's sex or money you will get dragged down and therefore you must separate in fact in a famous statement uh Paul uh says that the reason why God allowed marriage is better to marry than to burn meaning people are going to have sex anyway they'll go to hell so God gives them a legitimate outlet but optimally if you're spiritually higher you don't need that outline Judaism rejects that we do recog izee that there is the body and the spirit there is the gof and the Nish but we don't consider physicality to be evil we don't Advocate an aesthetic lifestyle of renunciation we believe that physicality can be elevated and Sanctified you eat and you enjoy your food but by thanking God and by having conscious meditation that I'm doing this to be strong and healthy and to be able to serve the almighty you have elevated your eating into Divine worship the very first Mitzvah of the Torah is to be fruitful and multiply to get married and have intimacy because we believe that with the right intention the right purpose and by containing intimacy within the framework of a Sanctified Union it itself becomes holy so the Brit Mila teaches us the idea that instead of rejecting the physical instead of repudiating the physical we can elevate it and we can transform it and we can make it an Avenue into serving God in fact the rambam writes that this is true for everything you can go on a vacation and your vacation could become aod hasem if a person says when I'm going to the Grand Canyon I contemplate the greatness of God the grander of nature or this renews my spirit or this gives me enthusiasm so I can learn better I can DAV better then the rambam says it is not just your learning or your daving that's serving Hashem but your Grand Canyon vacation is aod Hashem playing basketball jogging going to a museum all of this can be elevated can be Sanctified the Brit Mila teaches us that instead of looking at the physicality of the world as an evil we look at it as an opportunity for elevation and sanctification and in the famous language of the balat which actually is based on a medish it was God's deepest desire to make his residence the draa his residence in this world in the lowest level of the material where Divinity is most concealed and most obscured and least visible that is precisely where our job is to uncover the godliness within that and that is why it's been said over and over again that Judaism is not a religion in the sense that it's centered in a synagogue or lurgical practices Judaism is life in all of its fullness and all of its richness the way we have sex the way we raise children and the way we have marriages the way we conduct our businesses all of this can become kadosa and that is a remage in the Brit Mila that we sanctify the physical and the material and even the animalistic and the like another point of Brit again I'm just catalog c cataloging a number of points and now I'll review of them very briefly when I finish is that you know there is unfortunately in the world an anti- circumcision movement of people who are claiming that circumcision of children is a surgical practice that is done without therapeutic benefit and is a form of child abuse there actually was a court case in Germany it actually involved Islamic circumcision but it would have affected the Jewish Community where a lower court actually ruled that uh parents were not allowed to Circ CCIS a child without the child's consent which would require waiting till he was an adult because it was a non therapeutic surgical procedure uh it was not medically necessary nowm I believe that that Court opinion was overruled so at least right now circumcision is legitimate in Germany of course if I could be a little bit sarcastic uh the German Court exhibited a a tremendous solicitude and raim for Jewish children by not allowing Brit which only 70 years before that uh during the Holocaust they tended not to show so it's interesting that maybe it's a good sign I say this sarcastically that they developed a greater sense of compassion and concern for the children that they had thrown into the criteria criteria uh just seven decades earlier uh but unfortunately there are even Jewish people who are involved in the anti-circumcision movements and they make the theological arguments the religious argument that if God wanted Jewish babies to be circumcised then why didn't God create them circumcised in a sense the argument is you think you're better than God are you perfecting God's creation are you saying that God created Jewish boys at least in a defective incomplete State It's Kind of a Funny type of argument in a sense because God gave us the Commandment of circumcision but then they're using the theological argument that it's against God for you to circumcise because you're second guessing God's wisdom and what's interesting is that this question is is actually not new uh this question was raised by a Roman matron a Roman uh princess who asked the great rabi Akiva if God wanted Jewish boys to be circumcised then why were they created uncircumcised and rabi AKA gave the following mall if you want to eat bread what happens is you plant seeds you harvest the Grain and then you have to you know you have to harvest the grain you have to thresh the grain you have to remove the husk and the brand you then have to grind the grain make it into dough and then bake it into bread now why are there so many stages that you have to do why doesn't God give us the bread on the trees and the answer is rebi AA says God deliberately left the creative process incomplete so we become his Partners in making creation perfect and better so God did not give us a perfect world God gave us a world which is imperfect because God says you are my partners in making this this world a better place and Reb AKA says the same way that God does not give you bread he gives you grain and you have to take the Grain and make it bread God brings the human being into the world and again the Jewish male women apparently are considered to be more perfect but the Jewish male is brought into the world in a state of imperfection so we take the responsibility now this too is actually a very very profound idea because in some religious traditions and maybe even within some Jewish Traditions emuna faith in God tends to be a very passive thing meaning if there's sickness I I don't go to a doctor if God wants him to be better he's going to cure me right if there's disease a person can say if someone's even if someone's poor someone say well if God wants to take care of him God will take care of him philosophically this is called quiessence quiessence simply means that what I do has no particular significance because God will handle the situation one way or the other seventh day Adventists do not believe in going to a doctor because they say if you're sick if God wants you to get better you'll get better without going to a doctor if God doesn't want you to get better you won't get better even if you go to a doctor so what are you trying to do by second guessing Hashem but what is our answer our answer is surely God is the source of healing surely God is the source of pinosa surely God is the source of any success that we have in life but we are we are obligated to be his partner in trying to make this world a better place and thus Hally we have to go to doctors Hally we commanded to drain the swamps to conquer disease even to create Justice one might even make the argument why have court systems God will punish the evildoer one way or the other well surely that's true so one of the lessons of Brit Mila is that God put us in an incomplete imperfect world because amuna is a proactive obligation to take initiative to make the world a better place they say it's kind kind of a joke that someone once asked a kutar rebbi they say that every negative attribute can be used in a positive way so what about the negative attribute of heresy denying God is there any time is there ever a good time to be an aorus so he says yeah when a poor man comes to you and asks for charity don't say God will take care of you you have to be an up and kind of say I have to take care of you now of course he doesn't really mean being aorus but that's the idea amuna is proactive rather than quiescent so we fight disease we fight Injustice we try to make the world a better place even Science and Technology have a religious Dimension because they are the wisdom that Hashem gives us to deal with different problems and issues that the world faces and to make make life better for people in various ways so Brit represents what you might call the collaborative partnership between God and man and the idea that myuna in Hashem must not turn into passivity indifference or quiessence but must have an active engagement in making the world better spiritually for sure and even physically and materially as well so so far I believe I've mentioned uh four ideas of the Brit Mila one is the involuntary nature of the Covenant the second is the pain and the suffering but that's the pleasure versus the Comfort idea uh the third is sanctifying even the material and the animalistic the fourth is the collaborative partnership we have with God the fifth idea uh is the notion and maybe this is more of a message for the parents than the child that you'll notice that the way a person is initiated into the Covenant of Judaism is by uncovering and exposing basically the the foreskin is cut and then it's folded over like those are two parts of the Brit ceremony one is the cutting of the for skin and then there's the Priya which is the exposing of the top of the penis by folding it over so it's very very interesting what are we doing when we're doing a Brit we are uncovering something that is already there and the message to a parent is that your goal as a parent or if you're a teacher your goal is a teacher a rebi a MOA is not to change a person not to take a square peg and put it in a round hole but to allow the person to come in contact with the Beauty and the talent that is already within him true education is to expose the inner greatness that's already there now they have a famous Parable that they use in the education Community it's it's not of Jewish origin as far as I know but it's a parable about how the fact that education is not really geared to the individual strengths and talents of students in a way you can't do that in fact the original educational model of the Torah was homeschooling a parent taught his child V you know on one hand uh Judaism is rightfully proud of the fact that we were the first Society in history that had compulsory education we created publicly funded schools to teach Torah and Jewish literacy this was at a time when in Greece and Rome and Babylonia only the rich people could teach their CH or you know paid for their children to have learning Judaism created Universal public education people don't realize this so on one hand this is something of which we can be enormously proud on the other hand if you look at the gamarra you actually see that this was a second best this was a necessary evil because the ideal way of learning I teach my child because every child is different every person has different talents train a child according to their personality only when it was no longer possible many children were orphans or many children had parents who were not able to teach or children had parents who were working so neb there had to be a school system but the ideal is onetoone individualized instruction so I certainly cannot blame our wonderful devoted the vast vast majority are wonderful devoted committed teachers of both Jewish subjects and secular subjects but by definition when you have a standard curriculum there are going to be children who are not going to be reached and we divide them into let's say smart medium dumb may not use the word dumb but the truth is they're not dumb their talents May lie in other areas that are not being tested they have their own brilliances they have their own competencies they have their own talents but by requiring them to be that instead of that the kot that are within them are never going to be developed and this is what schom is saying in Proverbs train a child according to his youth there are children who may not be gifted with what you might call analytical book intelligence but their emotional intelligence in terms of empathy of understanding people maybe genius level but those are skills and abilities that are not tested or recognized in the curriculum so in the in the parable of the animal school it mentions that you know some animals were great swimmers and some were tree climbers and some uh where they could dig holes and each of them excelled but they couldn't do the other thing so the school wanted to create a curriculum where everybody did everything so at the end of the curriculum instead of the eel being an excellent swimmer the eel was mediocre in everything but could climb trees meaning you made a mediocrity by imposing the same standards on everybody so one of the lessons of Brit Mila is recognize the uniqueness of your child your goal is not to remake him your goal is not to break him your goal is not to shape him your goal is to uncover what he really is and let that light shine you know I I can't say I understand this of not being an artist but sculptors often say that when they look at a piece of wood or a piece of stone piece of rock they actually see the image of the statue there and all they're doing is removing the impediments so that which is already there becomes evident that is what is that is what parenting is and that is the fifth message of the Brit Mila uncovering what is already there the final message of the Brit Mila is connected to the number eight and here maral says very beautifully BR me the eth day of course that eight represents a level that is above nature because the natural cycle of life is six days of creation culminating in a chabas and then you start over again so seven represents nature or be it with the spiritual culmination of chabas eight represents a that is above nature the Supernatural and the Covenant of eight represents that God's relationship to the Jewish people is not subject to the normal laws of historical causality you know uh if you go on the internet especially you look at I think Ken SPO who is a very good Jewish historian has wonderful classes so one of the themes that he emphasizes in his historical teaching is in fact the miracle of Jewish survival is one of the most powerful indicators of a God because as a matter of logic there ought not to be a Jewish people and in fact there was a famous British historian Arnold Toby who was a brilliant person and he wrote a massive work called a study in history in which he analyzed I believe 50 ancient civilizations the Babylonians the Sumerians the Egyptians the Greeks the Romans everybody in between and he was able by comparing a huge amount of data he was able to chart the factors that caused the rise of a civilization and the decline of a civilization what causes civilizations to rise what causes civilizations to fail and this was remarkable imagine the amount of learning he had to absorb if he's analyzing 50 50 civilizations but in this brilliant work he was able to identify the factors this worked for 49 out of the 50 it didn't work for the Jewish people because based on his analysis there ought not to be a Jewish people because one of the factors that guarantees survivability is having a definite piece of land that your people live on for so many centuries we were in a diaspora we were in the galut even today uh a little bit more than 50% of the Jews are not living in the land of Israel although that may change soon common language well we have the Hebrew language but for most of those centuries Hebrew was not the spoken language either not having a common government not having a common land not having a Common Language there ought not to be a Jewish people at all now that got Toby pretty upset because you know in fact uh tby happened to be anti-semitic but you know I kind of don't blame him if I wrote a 10,000 page book and everything worked out except for the Jews I would be a little angry at the Jews right they messed up my theory and you can go to YouTube there was a famous debate I think it was in the 60s maybe even earlier between uh Yakov herzo uh who was the ambassador to the UN uh the son of the chief Rabbi Yad and toy about toy said that Judaism is a fossil it shouldn't exist it's like finding a dinosaur and the Herzog toy be the debate a brilliant debate in Oxford whether Judaism is a fossil or not a fossil but I'll tell you the truth if toin be's point is that under the rules of historical causality there ought not to be a Jew my answer is toin be is Right Jews ought not to exist the laws of history and history does have a sense of how things normally work the normal laws of History say we shouldn't be around if we are around and not just around it's not like we're around hiding in a cave in Afghanistan but that we're vibrant we're active we contribute to the world religious or non-religious again we hope more Jews would be religious but Jews make a difference wherever they are for good or for bad but we're a presence in the world world and it makes no sense the Babylonians the Egyptians the Greeks the Romans the Crusaders the Holocaust Hamas Isis all tried to destroy us and sadly sadly sadly we suffer awesome awful sacrifices but at the end of the day am is at the end of the day the Jewish people not only endur but is strong and vibrant and productive one has to know this is a miracle and the moral says this is mumas all the way back to the Brit the number eight8 above nature Jews are not governed by Nature that is why when God the way K explain it God lifts Abraham above the stars because Abraham based on astrology based on the Stars he shouldn't have had a child even he was infertile but God said you are not governed by the Stars you are not governed by Nature you are not governed by causality you are not governed by the principles that may control everything else else in the world you are special you are unique you are directly in the part God has your portfolio directly so biter these are some of the lessons of Brit Mila and again I hope and I pray that in these difficult challenging times we will absorb these lessons they will give us strength and beem may we soon come to Shalom and braa and Yeshua our prayers are with theim our prayers are with the captives that all should come home in a good uh Place Body Spirit and may the Soros be a distant memory as we March towards the mashiach thank [Music] you [Music] it's