Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello, my friends, and welcome back for another episode of the Practical Parsha podcast. This is Rabbi Shlomo Cohen, and I hope you are well. Thank God. It's been a crazy week. The kids are home. It's Camp Mommy, Camp Daddy, and work's been crazy. It's all good.
[00:00:17] But I didn't want another week to go by without an episode of the Practical Parsha podcast. So I'm here. Happy to be here.
[00:00:26] And before we begin, as always, if you have any questions, comments, would like to say hello, or maybe if you want to give an idea of what to do with Camp Mommy and Camp Daddy, I'm all ears. Send me an email@rabbi shlomokonkohnmail.com I'd love to hear from you.
[00:00:44] This week's parsha is Parsha's Ve' es Chanon, and it's a continuation of Moshe Rabbeinu's speech to the Jewish nation.
[00:00:52] It's continuing throughout the Book of Deuteronomy, the Book of Devarim, and just to give a quick overview of the Parasha. The Parasha begins with Moshe praying to Hashem, praying to G D. And G D actually has to stop him from praying. Moshe is davening. He wants to enter the land, and G D says, no, please stop praying.
[00:01:12] The Parsha continues with Moshe Rabbeinu telling the Jewish nation about how they made mistakes and the future, that there will be a point in time they're going to come into the land, and they will be exiled from the land because of their sins, because of their averos. But yet, at the same time, even though the Jewish nation will be exiled, Hashem will still be there for people to seek out, to have a connection with, but it won't be necessarily the same relationship. Maybe we'll talk about that a little bit later in the podcast.
[00:01:44] The Parsha continues with actually the mitzvah, um, of the Arimiklet, with the cities of refuge, that there's a halacha, that if there's. In Jewish law, if somebody kills somebody by accident, they have to run to one of the 42 cities of refuge. So there was six cities of refuge, and then there was another, um, bunch of cities, which are the cities of the Levites. Those are also considered cities of refuge. And Moshe Rabbeinu sets out the halachos of where the cities of refuge should be and how it works and the different halachos that regarding that.
[00:02:22] Now, the Parsha also talks about the Ten Commandments, that the Ten Commandments are listed earlier.
[00:02:28] You know, obviously when God gave the Torah to the Jewish people. But it's also listed here as well. Moshe Rabbeinu reviews the Aserisadibros, ah, ten Commandments to the Jewish people. And there's a lot of talk about how they're listed, because they're listed here a little bit differently than they're listed earlier in the Torah. You would think it should be the same. And the commentaries talk about the different reasonings for that. Another important, uh, verse which is in this week's Parasha is actually the verses of Shema. The first paragraph of Shema is in this week's Parsha. And actually the second paragraph of Shema is in next week's Parsha. And the Parsha concludes with this idea that Moshe Armenia is trying to imbue into the Jewish nation, not to succumb to prosperity, not to fall trap to the different challenges that wealth and goodness can give a person. Because the Jewish people are about to enter the land of Israel. They're about to fulfill the Mitzvos, the commandments of the land of Israel. And all the blessing that comes along with that is a lot of material blessing. So therefore, they are at risk for falling into this trap of denying g D if they have too much wealth. M. Moshe gives them a warning about that. And finally, Parasha concludes with the importance of teaching our children, Giving over the tradition to our children to teach them of the importance of the Torah obviously starts with the exodus from Egypt, Sinai, and in general about the Torah and the way of life and the Mitzvos and learning Torah. And that's incumbent upon us to educate our children regarding the importance of that.
[00:04:12] The first idea I want to share with you today takes us to the beginning of the Parsha.
[00:04:17] And the Parsha's name is Ve' Eshanon. That Moshe, you know, he prayed to Hashem, he implored him.
[00:04:26] And the commentaries tell us that Ve' Eshanon is the numerical value of 515, which is the amount of prayers that Moshe Rabbeinu davened to enter into the land of Israel. Until Hashem had to say, no, no more.
[00:04:46] You cannot daven anymore about entering the land. And it's brought down that if he would have kept davening, Hashem would have had to have let him come into the land of Israel, Right? So therefore, Hashem said, stop. You cannot enter the land of Israel. Right? This whole generation that, uh, left Egypt, they all passed in the desert and were not to enter the land. Now, just a very important lesson, which I think is very simple. And straightforward, is that we see from here the power of prayer. The Talmud tells us different things, different mitzvahs, which are at the highest levels, you know, in the heavenly sphere, uh, or in the world, but yet people trample upon them. And one of, you know, one of the things that is listed is prayer.
[00:05:35] That prayer is such a powerful tool, especially us, uh, as, uh, Jewish people, children of Jacob.
[00:05:42] Our weapon of war is always our tongues, meaning the fact that we daven to hashem. And in fact, the Talmud tells us something very powerful, that there is no answered prayer in the world, that somehow the children of Jacob that the Jewish people were not attached to, meaning that there's no successful prayer, that somehow a Jew is not part of that. Because of that, it was successful. And that's the power of Jewish prayer and just prayer in general. You have to realize that when we daven, you know, it's doing something, it's having effects.
[00:06:19] And, you know, people might say, oh, I've prayed many times and nothing's happened. And I would argue on that that the things that we pray for, the things that we daven for in our life, if you think. Think about it over the years, you know, I'm not talking about magical things like flying, but the things that we daven for have happened. Think about it. You know, you daven to Hashem for our Parnassah, for a livelihood, you know, and then you find a job. But we just. And the person daven for health, and he gets healthier. People should. You know, I think about the people I daven for to get better, to have children, to get married, you know, the important things in life. And overwhelmingly these things have happened. Maybe not exactly the way that we envisioned it, but they've happened. And the point is, you know, and so maybe you'll say, oh, what about the person I daven for when he passed away?
[00:07:11] And. Or maybe I daven for something. I didn't get it.
[00:07:14] So I hear what you're saying, but the way that the commentary is explained to us is that no prayer goes unanswered when we daven. It's like imagine a person, a, uh, UPS driver, Amazon delivery driver, delivering a package. We dive in, we deliver a package, and let's say he keeps delivering packages, and the packages are piling up.
[00:07:35] So what's going to happen when the fellow opens the door? All the packages are going to fall in. So maybe the prayer that we said now didn't have the tended effect that we wanted it where we wanted it to go. But when the door is open, it's going to go somewhere. It's going to go somewhere to help and just go. You know, this is a very powerful idea about prayer and something we should, you know, keep in our mind to speak to hashem in our own words, but yet at the same time also remember the importance of structured prayer from a sitter as well. Obviously, g. D wants our heart, he wants us to talk to him in our own words. But it's also important to recognize the structured prayer that was set up for us by the men of the great assembly, by the anche knessegadola. And the valid question you could ask me is, you know, why is it necessary for us to pray from a sitter? You know, God understands my prayer. He wants it to be from the heart.
[00:08:27] And the answer to that, you know, I'll give it maybe a way for us to understand it is that, you know, I'm not an expert stock picker, but one thing I do know is that if a person just picks a mutual fund or, uh, a fund that mirrors the S and P or the stock market, right? For those of you getting into this high tech stuff over here a little bit, the fancy financials, uh, why do people do that for? Because they know there's a guy who went to, uh, the best business schools for five, six, seven years, and his full time job is to pick funds for this hedge fund. He's picking the stocks, he's picking the different stocks. So when you're buying that one share of that mutual fund, you're getting the biggest bang for your buck.
[00:09:18] And it would be arrogant for me to say that I know better how to spend my dollar on which stocks will get me the best return than the guy who's been doing it for years and years and years. That's his full time job and that's what he does for a living. And he went to the best schools. I would be arrogant to say I would know better than him. And I think that's a little bit way for us to understand the prayers that were set by the men of the great assembly. You know, it used to be that there was no set prayer, that everyone we knew how to pray. The Jewish people knew how to pray. They knew which words pressed which buttons in heaven. But now we lost that skill. So therefore, at a certain point became necessary for the men of the great assembly to set up a structured spare because they knew how to pray. They knew which buttons to press, you know, in heaven, which things press the right buttons, so to say. And Therefore, they instituted this set prayer. Because the words that we say, even if we don't understand it, obviously it's best if we understand it. But even if we don't, we say it in Hebrew. It's pushing the right buttons and it's having a certain effect.
[00:10:21] But just to jump right into the parsha, a second idea I wanted to share with you today takes us to the Shema.
[00:10:30] Now, probably the most powerful and famous prayer or verse that Jews know is Shemai Yisrael Hashem Eloke. No, Hashem Echad.
[00:10:42] Hear O Israel, Hashem is our God. Hashem, uh, is the one and only. You know, unfortunately, in this generation, there are Jews that don't even know that verse, which is scary.
[00:10:54] And you know, this verse, such a powerful verse. People as they died with that verse on their lips. You know, you don't have to go so far back in history.
[00:11:04] People walk to the gas chambers saying Shemab and forget. Even gas chambers, when people pass, that's how they pass.
[00:11:13] They say it's a special thing. If someone passes, saying the verse of Shema, they're saying that they believe in Hashem, that he's one and he rules over the entire world.
[00:11:23] That's how a Jew dies, with the verse of Shema on his lips.
[00:11:27] Now, there's a question that begs to be asked.
[00:11:32] If Shema is our assertion that we believe in God, it's how we're making a statement that I am a Jew and I believe in Hashem, I believe in God.
[00:11:44] So why does it make sense? The first part of the verse, what's Shema Yisrael? Why does it say Hear O Israel, Hashem is our God, Hashem is one and only. Right? What's the hero? Israel.
[00:11:58] It's singular.
[00:11:59] You know, the verse should be, you know, I believe in Hashem, I believe in God, God is one. Right? What's the aspect of this verse? Shema Yisrael, Listen, Israel, Hear, O Israel. Right? It's.
[00:12:15] You're right. The second part is a declaration, but the first part is singular. It's more singular. It's not a statement. What's the significance of this? What's the meaning of this? Rabbiib Chasmin explains that Shema, this verse of Shema Yisrael, Hashem Eloke is not just a statement of a Jew saying, I believe in Hashem, but it's more than that.
[00:12:41] And the way he explains it is that the way Hashem set up the world is that he put the Jewish nation as his chosen people, and the chosen People, they're supposed to be a light unto the nations. And not even, you know, forget about the rest of the nations, but even Jews themselves were supposed to be a light unto each other.
[00:12:59] And we know that the best way of teaching is not necessarily by preaching. You know, we have to preach. But my point is, the biggest way you make an influence on somebody is by living according to your principles, is by example, is that when we show people, you know, what's the proper way to act, we want to be role models so that people should look up to us, uh, on acting the proper way. So Hashem gave us the Torah. He gave us a blueprint of how to live, how to be, to live life to the fullest, how to be role models for our fellow Jews and for the rest of the world.
[00:13:44] And when a, uh, Jew lives his life according to the Torah, with fulfillment, doing the mitzvahs, people are supposed to look at him and want to emulate him, right? And emulate it in a way that see him, that this fellow who lives according to the Torah, they also, they see he believes in Hashem, they see he believes in God, that just from the way that he acts and he conducts himself, they also want to have that same feeling. And they'll also come to a belief in Hashem because of, just because of the way he acts. So Rabbi Chasmid explains that Shema, this verse of Shema is not just stating that we believe in Hashem, it's us. It's the singular person. It's Yisrael, it's the Jew hero Israel. It's referring to us that we're talking to ourselves.
[00:14:35] It's the act of taking responsibility.
[00:14:38] It's the power of us saying to ourselves, we're saying a statement, but we're also saying we're going to do hear O Israel, Shema Israel, Hashem oken Hashem achad, right? Hashem is our God. Hashem is one and he's one and only. And we have to. It's not just saying that that's our belief. It's actually putting it into action.
[00:14:58] And really it's us taking responsibility for the things that we do going forward. Because ultimately, like we said many times in this podcast, Judaism is an action based religion. It's not just about having beliefs.
[00:15:14] You got to put them into action.
[00:15:16] And that helps us with this understanding. To this question, why is it that we say Shema Yisrael, why does this singular statement, uh, in belief in God fit in here and now we understand?
[00:15:28] Because we're not just stating we believe in God, we're taking responsibility, we're saying we're talking to ourselves, that we're going to take it and put into action and live it. And by living it, we're going to have the biggest effect on everyone around us.
[00:15:44] This idea, I believe, ties into the next thought I want to share with you today. The next verse in the Shema is hashem lokeha bechal avavcha v' chol nafsha v' chome' odecha. You shall love your g d with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your resources.
[00:16:03] And, you know, there's a few mitzvahs from this verse. Number one is there's a commandment to love, Hashem to love God.
[00:16:12] There's a commandment to give up all your money for God if necessary, you know, in order not to transgress. And thirdly, there's a mitzvah to give your life up for God if the situation calls for it, right? That if someone, you know, different situations, right? There's the three cardinal sins, um, of either you kill somebody or I'll kill you, or, you know, or adultery. If commit adultery or commit idol worship, Jew has to give up their life and not do those sins. And that's. We see that from this week's Parasha from this verse.
[00:16:47] Now, the question that's asked, and maybe I'll get into this in my next thought, is how is there, how could there be a commandment from Hashem to love God, right? And I've talked about this on, um, last year's episode.
[00:17:02] But love is an emotion. How could you command someone to love, right? And the Torah, God gave us m mitzvahs that are doable for us. How did he give us a mitzvah? That's based on our emotion, how we feel.
[00:17:16] So what I wanted to talk about first, though, before we deal with that question maybe, which I think is tied in to the next verse after this is really the first point. The first word in this verse, it says, uh, you shall love God, right?
[00:17:33] And I think, you know, a lot of Jews, when it comes to their Judaism, there's always this association of guilt, fear, and especially when it comes to God. Most people, it's, you know, it's God the terrorizer, right? I don't want to do something wrong because I don't want God to strike me down, God forbid, right? That's how we think about it.
[00:17:55] But what's the first word in the verse when it, when it talks about serving hashem?
[00:18:02] It's shall love your God, that the relationship we're supposed to have with Hashem is a relationship of love. Now, sure, fear is needed, right? There can be no relationship without both.
[00:18:17] You need to have fear and love. But the point is, the level of love is a higher level, right? When we go through a, you know, when we don't speed, when we don't speed, we follow traffic laws, and obviously there's safety involved. But let's say we don't go over a little bit, right? We stay in the speed limit. It's not because we love the government and we want to follow the laws. It's because we have the fear that we don't want to get a speeding ticket. Right?
[00:18:45] Now, when it comes to Hashem, sure, it is a level.
[00:18:50] And I'm not knocking somebody doesn't do a sin because he doesn't want to get, you know, he doesn't want to be on bad terms with God. He doesn't want to do an avera. He has fear of God. He doesn't want to be punished. But there's a lot higher level when we serve God because we love him, we don't want to do anything wrong to him, right? Our parents, uh, our mother, our father, we want to do for them because we love them.
[00:19:10] And that's the relationship we should strive for when it comes to serving Hashem. And really, more importantly, talks about, you know, following this thought from the. From the, you know, from the first verse of Shema being a role model.
[00:19:25] Like I said earlier, the way that you're a role model is by living by example, right?
[00:19:31] And that's how our kids get these messages.
[00:19:35] That's how our friends, that's our family, that's how the people we want to make an imprint on, to make an impression on.
[00:19:42] It's the way we live.
[00:19:44] And if we show our children that we love what we do, we love serving hashem, we love doing mitzvahs, we love learning Torah. It's something which is special for us. It's treasured.
[00:19:56] So then that's what they're going to naturally make important to them. That's what they're also going to love to do. Because children naturally want to please their parents.
[00:20:04] Children want to do what their parents do, and especially when the parent is living a fulfilled life. But if it's just fear, we're just serving Hashem, um, out of fear.
[00:20:14] So then it's not something which lasts. It's not something which is everlasting. It reminds me of someone once told Me that the Soviet Union was held together by fear.
[00:20:29] And that's why it ultimately crumbled, because these police states, it can't go on forever.
[00:20:37] You can't run a country with this fear. And that's exactly what happened. It crumbled. But this really ties in to the next thought I want to share with you, which goes back to the question, how do you have a commandment to love Hashem?
[00:20:55] How do you legislate emotion?
[00:20:58] How do we, you know, how could Hashem put that upon us? The Torah is all mitzvahs. And, you know, this seems to be a challenging mitzvah if it's all based on emotion.
[00:21:10] So I saw another beautiful idea which I think answers this question.
[00:21:15] And this idea that I saw is on the next verse, because after the first verse of Shema, Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokoyn Hashem Achad is the second verse which we just talked about.
[00:21:28] You should love God, right, with all your heart, with all your soul and all the resources. And then the next verse, right after this is, and these things which I command you, this day shall be on your heart.
[00:21:45] And it's interesting.
[00:21:47] What does it mean on your heart that the words we're about to talk about, you know, the Torah, the Torah of the mitzvahs that we're talking about, these ideas, these principles should be on your heart.
[00:22:00] It should say bilvavecha. It should say in your heart, right? That these things which I command you today shall be in your heart. What's on your heart? The Katska Rebbe explains that many times.
[00:22:14] Ideas that we hear, Torah, ideas, concepts, principles, mitzvahs, and, you know, maybe even more specifically these, uh, ideas of loving Hashem, serving hashem with all your might, giving up your life for hashem, um, giving up your resources for hashem, um, or different mitzvahs and concepts, we have a hard time, you know, accepting it. We have a hard time understanding it. We have a hard time maybe putting it into our heart, right? We're humans, right?
[00:22:48] We can't just love on a dime. It takes years and years, real love between, let's say, husband and wife. It's not, you know, there's no such thing as love at first sight. It has to be developed. Real love is developed over years, over a relationship. Takes time to build that, to bring it out, right? Between a husband and wife.
[00:23:08] So when it comes to loving Hashem, it's not something which happens necessarily right away. But the point is, the ideas that we're learning, we have to put them on our heart. Even if we're not ready to hear it, we put it on our heart. Because as soon as our heart opens up, it goes in means we have to circulate these ideas in our mind, the concepts of the Torah. And the Torah is telling us this is the way we get to loving Hashem. Maybe that spark is there, but we're not necessarily able to hear everything.
[00:23:40] But if we think about these ideas, we say the Shema, we learn Torah, we do the mitzvahs, you know, we contemplate about the principles and the foundation and just of Yiddishkeit, of believing in Hashem, that he runs the world, that he's won, right? And all the different ideas that we see all the time.
[00:24:03] And maybe we're not there yet to fully put it inside, but if we think about it, we put it on our heart, eventually it will go into our heart.
[00:24:12] I think that answers our question about how can there be a commandment to love Hashem? The next verse is telling us, put the commandments on our heart, that if you think about them enough, you do it enough, you will get to that level of loving Hashem, it will go into your heart. And I think this is a very powerful idea from this week's Parasha. It's the thought I had, and I think it fits very beautifully with the order of the three verses. These three verses, starting with the idea about Shema, going to the second concept about loving Hashem, Right. And now going to the third concept about. Or the third verse of how to apply those ideas and how it should enter into your heart to get the love of Hashem. Uh, and that the principles of the Torah should go into us.
[00:25:05] And how the principles and concepts of the Torah should go into us. So with that, I'm gonna finish for today's podcast. I hope you enjoyed. If you have any questions, comments, or would like to reach out, feel free to send me an email@rabbi shlomakonkohnmail.com have a great day.
