Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello, my friends, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Practical Parsha Podcast. This is Rabbi Shlomo Cohen, and I hope you are well.
[00:00:08] This week's parsha is Parshas lechlecha. We're going to begin the story of Avraham Avinu of Abraham.
[00:00:16] And before we jump into the parsha, as always, if you have any questions, comments, would like to say hello.
[00:00:25] Don't be shy, send me the email. I know you're thinking about it. Just do it. Don't worry, you can reach me at Rabbi shlomokon k o h nmail.com I'd love to hear from you.
[00:00:37] This week's parsha is Parshas lechlecha. And just to give a quick overview of the parsha, the parsha begins to tell us about the life of Ramavinu. And really the parsha really jumps us in further in to Avram's journey. And really there's a lot unsaid which is brought down in the midrash in the Oral Torah regarding Avraham Avinu. Abraham, how he came to recognize Hashem, how he came to recognize that there was a God, that idol worship was false, and that there's one Hashem, one God. Different reasons are given as to why that story and the story of Avraham, of Abraham, of how he recognized Hashem, is not included in the Torah.
[00:01:25] But either way, the parsha begins with G d appearing to Avraham Avinu to Abraham and telling him, it's time to go, it's time to move.
[00:01:36] Lech lecha me arzacha umm me la detecha u be' savicha el' eretashe' ar eka that Avraham and his wife Sarah are to pick up to go from the land that he was born in the land of his family, from his father's house to the land that I'm going to show you. This actually is one of the ten tests of Avramavinu.
[00:01:59] And as we go on the parshios, we're going to be making our way through the 10 tests. It's a famous idea, the Asara nicionos of Aramavinu, the 10 tests of Avramavinu. It's a big focus and I've talked about this in other years, the importance of tests, and specifically with the 10 tests of Avraham. And what's the ramification for us as descendants of Avraham Avinu? What does the fact that ava Ramavinu passed 10 tests have to do with me and you just to quickly talk about it, because I think it's important is that the fact that us as Jews, we have the ability to withstand, you know, to overcome challenges, um, whether it be in our faith, whether it be persecution, what gives us the ability to overcome, to do the will of Hashem, to do the will of God, is because it's in our DNA, our spiritual DNA. From Avraham Avinu, from Abraham, from Isaac, from Jacob. That's something which we get when. Which started off from Avraham Avinu from Abraham. The parasha continues with Avraham Avinu, Abraham coming to the land of Canaan. And when he gets there, there's a famine.
[00:03:12] G D tells him to go to Canaan. And now he gets to that new land, there's no food.
[00:03:18] And Avram and Sarah have to pick up again to go to Egypt. When he goes to Egypt, Avraham and Sarah, his wife, gets, um, kidnapped, because she's very beautiful. And the Parsha tells us how Paro, Hashem afflicts Paro with severe plagues for taking the wife of Avramavinu, for taking Sarai, as she's known at that time. She's not called Sarai yet.
[00:03:43] And he gives Sarah back to Avramavinu unharmed and untouched. After Avramavinu, after Abraham leaves Egypt, he makes his way back to the land of Israel. And on the way, one of his family, his nephew Lot, is.
[00:04:02] He decides to part ways from his nephew Lot, who maybe doesn't have the best, you know, attributes. He's doing things which are not so ethical.
[00:04:14] And Avram and Lot decide to split ways to go on their own.
[00:04:19] Parasha also discusses the War of the Kings, in which Lot is captured by one of the nations, and Avram fights to get his nephew back to free him.
[00:04:33] Additionally, the Parsha tells us about the Bris beina besarim, the covenant between the parts. And it's in this covenant, this promise that Hashem makes with Avraham Avinu. He comes to him in a prophecy, and he makes a covenant with him and his descendants that Avram will become a great nation and he will inherit his children. His descendants will inherit the land of Israel.
[00:05:01] Additionally, in this prophecy, Hashem also tells Avraham Avinu about the exile that the Jewish people will go through in Egypt, how they will have to be slaves, but they will eventually be redeemed.
[00:05:17] The parsha concludes with Hashem coming to Avraham Avinu and making another covenant, an additional covenant and he gives Avram the Mitzvah of circumcision.
[00:05:30] And he tells him, asides from having the Mitzvah of circumcision, he gives him a new name and his wife a new name. Instead of being referred to as Avram and Sarai, they are referred to as Avraham and Sara.
[00:05:46] That in addition to having the Mitzvah of circumcision, Avram and Sarai are now taking on this new identity, becoming Avraham and Sara.
[00:05:59] And Hashem promises him that he will be a great nation and from m him will be a great people.
[00:06:07] The first idea I want to share with you today takes us to the Bris Beina Bisarem, the Covenant of the parts. Now, the Torah tells us how Hashem commands Avraham um Avinu to make this covenant, to take different animals, to cut them in half, to make a fire, and Avram walks between them. And there's different significances to the different parts of this covenant. But in the psukim tell us that during this prophecy where Hashem came to Avraham Avinu, it says, um, and the Almighty took Avram, uh, outside. And he said to him, look up please, at the heavens and count the stars, if you can count them.
[00:06:57] And he said to him, so too be your descendants. Mean to say is just like you can't count the stars, there's too many of them, so too your descendants will be as numerous as the stars.
[00:07:11] And, um, the commentaries explain that one of this idea of Vayetza Yisayakuta, that Hashem took him outside.
[00:07:20] On one level, this means that Hashem took Avram and Sarah out of the, you know, out of the natural realms of nature. He brought him above nature, showing him that he could be above the laws of nature.
[00:07:33] And we're. Maybe we're going to get into that a little bit later.
[00:07:36] But the idea here, on a more simple level, the BAAL Shem Tov explains that the significance of showing Avraham Avinu the stars brings out a very powerful idea. I mean, there's this deeper symbolism of going above someone's nature. Because Avraham at that time, he had no children.
[00:07:57] And aside from not having children, he wasn't capable of having children. It was a known thing to the people at that time that Avram and Sarah were barren. They were not physically capable of having a child.
[00:08:11] So Hashem was making this promise to him, saying to him, you're going to have children. I'm taking you outside. I'm taking you above the laws of nature. And this is actually an important concept.
[00:08:22] There's such a concept. Ein oyd novada M. You know, I'm going a little bit off on a tangerine over here, but I think it's something important.
[00:08:30] There's the laws of nature.
[00:08:33] But when a person believes in Hashem to in the most pure and the most highest ways, he has the ability to transcend nature. Now, that doesn't mean that it's going to happen every time, because maybe it's, uh, Hashem's will. Let's say if someone's sick and they believe in this idea of there's nothing else except for Hashem, right? This is brought down from the Nefesh Hachaim, a, uh, famous sefer. But there's this idea that when we have belief in Hashem, we can have this recognition that it's possible for G D to suspend the rules of nature and bring us above that. Now, if someone's sick, doesn't mean that it's for sure going to happen. If they have this idea, have this thought, because God has his calculations. But for us, we should know that we can tap into that idea if we channel our thoughts, if we channel our emunah, which is our belief, and we channel our bitachon, our trust, and we remember that it's G D who's in charge, and we really believe it. With our essence, we have the ability to put ourselves in that category of Inoi Movado, in that G D is running the world above nature. That Hashem will take us out of the realms of nature and work with us on our merit, not necessarily tying us down to the laws of the world or the laws of nature. That's a little bit of a side idea. I don't want to go into it so much right now, but I wanted to bring out here on a more simpler understanding, the BAAL Shem Tov explains that the descendants of Avramavinu are like stars.
[00:10:12] And that's what Hashem was telling Avraham Avinu here when he was taking Ahmed, um, outside and showing him the stars. He was taking him outside. You see a star, it's far away.
[00:10:22] The light of a star is, you know, years and years away. Meaning that light you see that we see when we look outside is years old, right? I don't even know. Thousands of years old. Light years, they call it. Light years away that the light you're seeing was sent out from that star many, many, many years ago.
[00:10:42] But at the same time, if we would go close to that Star, right.
[00:10:48] Those stars are much larger than the Earth, much larger than the sun. It's humongous.
[00:10:54] And you can't recognize its greatness necessarily from the distance from the Earth that we're sitting on right now.
[00:11:02] And he says here, the BAAL Shem Tov, that we have to know that the descendants of Avraham Avinu, the Jewish people, are like stars. Maybe they see them at a distance, they're specks.
[00:11:14] But in the reality, there's a tremendous potential for greatness.
[00:11:21] Each person, and really, you know, each person is an entire world. When we look at individuals, many times we judge them based on how they look, how they speak, how they smell, uh, uh, we make judgment calls.
[00:11:36] But the point is we have to know that each person, they have a, ah, story to tell, they have greatness within them.
[00:11:47] And it's our job to find the greatness within each person.
[00:11:53] You know, it's like the star, maybe it looks so small from a distance, but when you get closer up and you have that look, you look at it in the right way, you look through the telescope, you're able to appreciate the greatness of this cosmo. And I think when we have this look at people, we don't just judge them at first glance.
[00:12:12] We try to, you know, use the telescope to appreciate who they really are and who they could be.
[00:12:19] You know, we can realize the greatness in people. And I think it's very important to have this eye when you're dealing with other individuals, no matter who they may be, anybody, to try to see the goodness and greatness in people and especially within the Jewish people.
[00:12:36] Another idea I want to share with you today is also regarding the Bris ben Apsarum, the covenant of the parts.
[00:12:43] It says in the, you know, during this back and forth between Avraham Avinu and Hashem, this prophecy and this covenant that Avraham Avinu makes, or God makes with Avraham Avinu, it says, vehemin b' Hashem v' yachshevel loy litzedaka. You know, part of the verse it says, it says, and he trusted in God and God reckoned it to him as righteousness. And the commentary explain that it means that Avraham, when Hashem told Avraham Avinu that he would have offspring, Avram had complete faith that that would happen.
[00:13:20] He didn't question God one iota, that even though at this moment he was barren, his wife was incapable of having children, Hashem made a promise to him and he believed it 100%. He didn't question him.
[00:13:34] Now, the question that's asked is, you know, if God would speak to you, if God would speak to me and tell me, you know, make a promise, a direct promise that, you know, you're going to have a child, you're going to have a son, wouldn't it be an easy thing to believe him? Like, what's so hard? What's the praise of Avramavinu? What's the praise of Abraham that he believed the word of God?
[00:14:06] If there's anybody in the world that you can keep that would keep their word, it's God, right?
[00:14:12] So why is it that we give so much credence and so much credit to the fact that Avraham, uh, Avinu, That Abraham, even if he was childless and even if his wife was uncapable of having children at that moment, right, we're talking about God, master of the universe, who could do anything, and he tells him, you're gonna have children, so of course you believe it. What's the big deal? Why is it such a praise of Avraham Avinu?
[00:14:39] And this question, I think, is a great question.
[00:14:43] Because if you think about it, you know, people, we think to ourselves, like, maybe we could have a sign. Maybe G D could perform a miracle for us. It'll help our emunah. It'll help our faith. It'll help us believe in Hashem. It'll help us do the right thing. You know, if. When God, you know, that would be great if every once in a while, God could just come to us, appear to us, and tell us what's going to be right. It'll give us some clarity. Right. Wouldn't that be good for you? For me?
[00:15:12] And the answer to that is based on, you know, there's a lot of different answers. We can go in a lot of different directions. But I want to focus on right now is what Rabbi Tversky brings down the name of Rav Mordchai of Lechovitz.
[00:15:25] He brings down that the Talmud tells us, you know, there's a fascinating Talmud that tells us when a person comes up after, you know, living a full life after 120 years, they come up to heaven or they come up to the heavenly tribunal. And there's different questions that we will be asked.
[00:15:45] And one is, you know, did you.
[00:15:48] One of the questions that's asked is, did you transact in faith?
[00:15:56] Did you act faithfully? Did you, you know, and, um, the simple understanding of that is that did you do your business dealings honestly? But the way that Rav Mordechai V. Lechovitz understands this is that when did you transact in faith?
[00:16:12] You know, it doesn't just mean business, but it has an additional meaning as well, right?
[00:16:19] Because when a person is in business, a person doesn't just, you know, give the goods and then get the money. There's a negotiation, there's a back and forth. There's, you know, you're looking to constantly maximize your profit. You don't just settle for what's given to you. We try to do the best we can to maximize our investment, to maximize our profit.
[00:16:44] And, you know, there's a back and forth.
[00:16:49] And the way he understands this, this additional, this deeper meaning over here, which ties back into our parsha is that when it comes to, you know, what the heavenly tribunal is also asking us is did you maximize your faith? Did you do whatever you could to maximize your emunah? Your, your belief in hashem?
[00:17:11] And I don't like using the word faith so much because faith is Jewish.
[00:17:15] We have faith, but not in the way that other religions say that we have belief. But the point is, did we work on our emunah or we just took what was given to us, we just accepted it and went forward with it, right? So over here, it's the posse is telling us the verse of Avraham that he said that he trusted in Hashem and Hashem, uh, reckoned it to him as righteousness. It's not just telling us that he just believed the word of Hashem, right, Even though he talked to him, it's that he actually internalized it within him. He constantly was working on his emunah, he was working on his belief in Hashem.
[00:18:01] He lived it, he breathed it. Because, you know, taking this one step further, a person sees miracles.
[00:18:10] It's not gonna imbue him with that faith in Hashem. And I think this is something we see, you know, constantly throughout the Torah where our forefathers sinned against Hashem, even though they experienced open miracles.
[00:18:25] Because that's not, that's not what's going to make a person have that belief in hashem. You know, sure, it's good. It gives us the inspiration, it is a necessary component. But for day to day living throughout our lives, to help us get through and to go, it has to be internalized within us, by ourselves. We have to be the ones to work on it. And that's what it means. Vayakcheve loyla tzedak. That, uh, it didn't, uh, even though Hashem God spoke to Avraham Avinu directly.
[00:18:56] He worked on it, he breathed it, he lived it.
[00:18:59] And I think this answers our question that we said that Hashem speaking to us on a daily basis is not going to give us that faith in Hashem.
[00:19:08] It's when we live it, it's when we breathe it, it's when we go through our life with it.
[00:19:14] And I think the way we accomplish this is that the things that we learn, the concepts that we learn, the ideas that we learn, right, the ideas of Hashem that we inculcate within ourselves, it has to be lived. The only way that it has an effect on us forever is if it's lived, if we live through it, if we go through a challenging time and we fall back on that emunah and that belief and that trust.
[00:19:45] So it becomes real, becomes real. It becomes part of us. And it. In fact, it becomes more real than just hearing God speak straight to you, because that after five minutes, a person could forget, because that's human nature. I think this is a very powerful idea. We see from this week's parasha, from this story, the prophecy of the parts that happen between Hashem and Avraham Avinu, to remember that it takes the work, the breathing, the living. It's not just hearing it. That's not what it's going to do. It's the active involvement, living our life with the principles that we learn. That's a very important factor to remember.
[00:20:22] The last idea I want to share with you today takes us to the end of the Parsha, where it talks about the mitzvah of circumcision, the mitzvah of bismillah. Now, Bismillah in the parsha over here, Hashem commands Avraham Avinu, at 99 years old, to circumcise himself, to give himself a brismillah, to remove his foreskin, which is on his organ, on his male organization.
[00:20:44] And this is a mitzvah which is not just for Avramavinu, but for all his male descendants.
[00:20:51] Now, there is a lot to talk about here. There's a lot of depth to the meaning of brismila. And in fact, this is something, you know, no matter what the Jewish people have gone through, it's something which we've held onto so tightly that Jews, as far as they've, you know, moved away from different things, you know, or m. Maybe they're not as connected as they should be.
[00:21:16] Many, hopefully most still perform the mitzvah of Bismillah. It's something which is intrinsic to the Jewish nation. It's very interesting, and I'm sure there's a lot to talk about there. But I wanted to focus on here is this idea of Bismillah. And there's a lot of depth here, because the mitzvah of Bismillah is, you know, on a deeper level, is a way to help a Jew return to the spiritual state that Adam was before the sin, that the commentaries tell us that Adam, Harishon, Adam, he was born without a foreskin. And only after the sin, this foreskin came onto Adam and Avraham Avinu, the Abraham and his descendants. By removing this foreskin, this superfluous piece of skin, uh, which is on the male organ, which represents reproduction, continuity, we're symbolizing that many times man has to remove the natural barriers that are holding him back from spiritual advancement.
[00:22:22] And that's one of the significances that we remove the foreskin to show that we are not made perfect, but we have to make ourselves perfect. And that there are things that are blocking us from achieving our spiritual potential, our spiritual, you know, greatness, and it's our job to remove it. Then, on a deeper level, the Maharal explains that, you know, we know the Bismillah is done on the eighth day.
[00:22:47] The eighth day is a mitzvah to do Bismillah. Now, again, if somebody is not able to do it on the eighth day, they still have an obligation that it should be done.
[00:22:57] There are people who are 40, 50, 60 years old. They never had a brismillah, and they have the obligation to do it still. But optimally, we want the Bras Milah done on the eighth day.
[00:23:07] And the symbolism here is that the natural order of the world is always in sets of seven, seven days of the week.
[00:23:14] And there's seven years in the Shemitah, which is the sabbatical cycle.
[00:23:19] And seven represents nature.
[00:23:23] So when you have eight, eight is when is going above nature. And this really takes us maybe a little bit back to what we said originally, that when we give the Brismila on the eighth day, we're showing that us as human beings, as Jews, we have the ability to transcend nature, to go above nature. And that's our responsibility, that when we remove this extra foreskin that we were born with, right? That quote, unquote, nature gave us, right, that we got when we were born with. And we remove it on the eighth day, we're symbolizing that we have the ability to go above, to reach spiritual greatness, to reach this zenith of humanity. That even though we have this, the natural physical desires pulling us down.
[00:24:16] The circumcision represents and signifies to us that. No, it's not that. Even though there's a pull the other way pulling us down, we're able to go above it, to go above nature, to rise above and to become, to remove the barriers and to become all we can be, to reach our spiritual greatness. And since we could, we must. This is a very powerful idea we see from this week's partial. It gives a little bit of a insight into the sacred mitzvah, uh, this sign, it's referred to as a OS a sign and a covenant that we have as Jews.
[00:24:55] This Prismila makes us.
[00:24:58] It's this badge that's on our skin. We're physically different. And what it represents is this idea of us going above and beyond, that we're part of this mission that we need to reach this spiritual greatness. And I think this is a very beautiful thought that can help us understand the mitzvah, uh, of Brismila. So with that, I'm going to 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 at Rabbi Shlomo Kon Kohn at gmail com. Have a great day.
