Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello, my friends, and welcome back for this week's episode of the Practical Parasha podcast. This is Rabbi Shlomo Cohen. And before we begin this week's episode for Parshas Hasinu, I just wanted to share one short story that maybe could give us some inspiration.
[00:00:18] Um, going into the holy day of Yom M. Kippur, which is going to be coming up this Monday, God willing.
[00:00:24] And one of the things which I did here this past Rosh Hashanah, thank God, it's been a very busy time over here.
[00:00:30] And one of my responsibilities where I work as a rabbi is to lead a high holiday explanatory service.
[00:00:39] And we do an hour service for people to bring them in the door to maybe give them a little inspiration for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. And God willing, I'll be doing another one for Yom Kippur.
[00:00:51] But I shared with everybody a beautiful story which I hope we can use to go forward with. Into Yom Kippur, the British bicycling team was one of the worst cycling teams in Europe.
[00:01:09] In their 100 year history, they had never won a championship. They'd won one gold medal and had never claimed biking's biggest title, the Tour de France.
[00:01:25] They were so bad that top bike companies did not want to sell to them because they were afraid it would make their company look bad.
[00:01:35] In 2003, the team hired coach Dave Brailsford to take over to hopefully rejuvenate their team to make them compete again.
[00:01:46] And Coach Brailsford believed in this concept of the aggregation of minimal gains, which means if you take a lot of small improvements and put them together, it becomes something much bigger.
[00:02:01] And what Coach Brailsford did is he started changing bike seats, getting new racing suits.
[00:02:07] He even looked into which type of pillow and blanket the racers would use at nighttime to make sure that they would get the best night's sleep possible.
[00:02:17] And the hope was is that with all these small gains put together, it would make a noticeable improvement in the team's performance.
[00:02:25] The results for this team came faster than anyone could have imagined.
[00:02:30] From 2007 until 2017, the British cycling team won 66 gold medals, 178 World Championships and five Tour de France's. Some people refer to this team as the best cycling team in history. It's coming up Yom Kippur, and we all ask ourselves, we think, you know, we want a good year.
[00:02:57] We want to have a year of success, health, happiness, good things.
[00:03:03] And the question is, what can we do to make sure that happens. You know, obviously, we're in Hashem's, uh, hands. We're in G D's hands. But is there anything that we can do to help the judgment, to help ensure that we have a good judgment to be sealed? Well, that we should be sealed for a good year.
[00:03:21] And the answer to that, the sages tell us, is that taking on a Kabbalah, taking on a small commitment in honor of the new year, something fresh, something new.
[00:03:33] And what we can learn from the British cycling team is that it needs to be something small. And it should be something small, because something small is really very big.
[00:03:45] And if we can think to ourselves, each and every one of us, what can I do to be better this year?
[00:03:54] What can you do to be better this year?
[00:03:56] And if we could perhaps think of one area in our Judaism that could be performed a little better, maybe there's a mitzvah, uh, that you want to take upon yourself.
[00:04:08] Maybe you want to learn a little bit more Torah.
[00:04:12] These are all great ideas to go into Yom Kippur with, because when you go into a Yom Kippur with something, with a commitment that you're going to try to be better, you're gonna do your best to be a new person.
[00:04:27] So then you're justifying your existence to Hashem. Hashem knows we're human beings. He knows we're flesh and blood. We make mistakes. But if we can come into a Yom Kippur with something in our hands, with something small, we're showing Hashem, um, we're showing G D that we're trying.
[00:04:45] And that's something very important that we need to remember. And one other point, just to add on to this, when it comes to this idea of a Kabbalah, I. Of a commitment to do something more in honor of the New year as a merit for ourselves, people sometimes think that it has to be forever to make this commitment. And the truth is, it does not have to be like that.
[00:05:04] If even taking a commitment on ourselves for a limited amount of time, that is something which is an accomplishment, that's a success, that's something that's going to affect change. And when we do something for a week, two weeks, we can reassess after that time frame to, God willing, keep going forward with it. So just a small little message today from the British cycling team going into Yom um Kippur to try to think, something we can do to improve, and, God willing, in that merit, may we all be sealed for a sweet new year. And before we begin, as always, if you have any questions, comments, or would like to reach out, or maybe you want to ask me what I, uh. Or maybe you need help to think about a Kabbalah, something, a commitment you want to take upon yourself, please feel free to reach out to me. Rabbi Shlomo konkohnmail.com I'd love to hear from you.
[00:06:00] This week's Parsha is Parshas Azinu and Parshas Hazinu is we're finishing up the Torah and like we said, this is Moshe Rabbeinu's last day on earth. And now he is going to sing the Song of Hazinu. And in the Song of Azinu, Moshe Rabbeinu, Moses calls upon heaven and earth to bear witness to the covenant that he is making between Hashem and the Jewish people.
[00:06:26] And in this song it prophesizes and foretells, you know, how Hashem helped the Jewish people and unfortunately, uh, how the Jewish people will fall away but eventually will be redeemed in the final redemption.
[00:06:42] And the first idea I wanted to share with you today from Parshas Hazinu, the special song of Azinu. In the beginning of the Parsha, the Torah tells us, hazur tamim palo ki chalderachav mishpat el amunav ein avel tzadik v'. Yasharhu. The rock perfect is his work, for all his paths are justice. A God of faith without iniquity, righteous and fair is he. The posse tells us. The verse teaches us that Hashem's ways are with perfect judgment, everything is exact.
[00:07:19] And this is a very important concept for us to internalize because the most, the biggest, the hardest question for humanity has always been, why do you bad things happen to good people? Why do tragedies happen? Why do horrible things happen to people that are upstanding, good individuals? And this is a good question.
[00:07:41] And we have to realize and remember that Hashem's, uh, ways are perfect. And I've talked about this last year and in other times on this podcast, the different ways we can understand this as a conversation on its own, that, you know, you take a, ah, portrait and you look into the portrait, you're not going to be able to see if it's right in front of your face, but if you pull it away from you, you'll be able to see the whole beautiful picture.
[00:08:07] But when it's zoomed in on your face, you can't see it only when it's out. And Hashem, uh, who's been before us, and he will be after us, Has a plan, and there's a vision and there's a picture, and we're part of that picture, but we're not going to understand just what's in front of us. We can only see as far as our meaty eyes can see.
[00:08:26] And this is a very important, uh, thought and idea that we need to internalize.
[00:08:32] Because hashem's ways are perfect. It's brought down that our faith must supersede our logic. You know, we can just understand as much as we can understand.
[00:08:42] We're limited, but hashem is unlimited. It's told that when the first world war broke out, many people were terrified of the different dangers that were surrounding them.
[00:08:54] Armies were invading.
[00:08:56] There was poverty, hunger. There was a certain sense of just trying to survive. And the Chavitz Chayim trying to encourage people. He said that. The Talmud tells us that on the first day of Adam Harishan's life, Adam, we're going to be talking about in a few weeks when we start the Torah again.
[00:09:13] On the first day of his life, when the sun set and darkness came onto the world, he said to himself, you know, woe is to me. I sinned.
[00:09:24] The world's coming to an end.
[00:09:27] And it's brought down that Adam and Eve, that whole first night when it was dark, they cried because they thought, it's over, it's done. Hashem, uh, is going to destroy the world. Now I've sinned. But when the sky started lighting up in the morning and the sun started rising.
[00:09:47] Adamarishon Adam said to himself, it's not the end of the world.
[00:09:51] It's the natural phase that darkness after darkness is light.
[00:09:57] And since he never experienced it before, he never knew that after darkness comes light. He thought the world was over. And the Chavitz Chaim would tell people that this is not the first time that we've, uh, experienced challenge. We've experienced darkness. We've gone through this before, unfortunately, and we know that we always come out on the other side. The Jewish people have continued and always will continue. And after every period of darkness is a period of light. And from this, the Chavez chaim tells us, for one who has faith, there are no questions. But. But for one who lacks faith, there are no answers.
[00:10:34] And this is a very important concept to remember.
[00:10:37] I'm not saying it's easy to internalize, but it's something that, uh, we believe in a g D, and we believe in a divine Torah. This goes along with it. And it's only from Us working on this idea and internalizing it, that the ways of our shem are perfect, the ways of hashem are just. Will it go into us? A second idea, which I want to share with you from this week's Parasha, is that the Torah tells us, zechariimo binu shneur shalavicha vagetcha ziki necha v' yom ru lach.
[00:11:10] Remember the days of your understanding, the years of generation after generation.
[00:11:16] Ask your father and he will relate it to you and your elders and they will tell you. And Rashi tells us that the simple meaning of this verse is that hopefully generations will learn from the previous mistakes of the last generation. Right? That's the point of history, to learn from your past mistakes and go forward in the future as a better person.
[00:11:39] And hopefully the generations will learn from their ancestors to become better and not follow in the bad ways of the past.
[00:11:50] Rabbi Twersky, in his commentary on Chumash, brings down another important lesson that we can take out from this verse.
[00:11:58] The Torah tells us, sha' ala vicha viageidcha zikei necha viomrulach.
[00:12:05] Ask your father, and he will relate it to you, your elders, and they will tell you.
[00:12:10] He says that the natural tendency of a person, and specifically children, is to accept the authority of their parents. And it's not just parents, but it's accepting authority.
[00:12:27] And this is something which probably has manifested itself in the world more recently over the past 60 years, especially in Western countries.
[00:12:36] And if you look around the world in general, the countries that probably are not as, ah, advanced the. There is a certain sense of respect and deference when it comes to parents, elders, and unfortunately, um, a good portion of that has been lost in our current society.
[00:12:56] And if we would like our children to listen to us, if we want people to respect us for our positions, we have to show that the people that are looking up to us, whether it be our children, whether it be our employees, whether it be the people, uh, you know, we're friends with, we have to show others how we have deference for others.
[00:13:19] And sometimes that means even if we think we're right, we have deference for the person who's older, who's wiser, who's our parents, even if we think we're correct.
[00:13:32] And that's one of the lessons of this Pasuk shaala vilchavi ageha v'. Amrulach. Ask your father, related to you, your elders, and they will tell you that if we want our children to respect us, we Want people to look up to us. We want people to listen to us and to take us seriously.
[00:13:51] So then we have to model that same behavior.
[00:13:54] We can't expect that our children, our friends, our community should treat us differently than we treat others.
[00:14:03] And this is something which is extremely important when it comes to Yiddishkeit, Judaism, spirituality.
[00:14:10] That many times it's easier for someone to project their spirituality, their Judaism and others and not want to role model itself. And I was reading a book about Rebbetson Esther Youngris, who was a prolific speaker. She was a Holocaust survivor, a speaker, a writer.
[00:14:26] You could look her up. She has some great books. Get online.
[00:14:30] The Committed Life is one of them. The Committed, Committed Marriage. In one of the books, she writes that one time two Jewish parents came to her very upset about their son, that he was marrying out, and they asked for her help.
[00:14:47] So after getting both parents on board, she told them, okay, you, father, you're going to come and learn once a week with the rabbi, and you, mom, are going to light candles every Shabbos. And the parents were taken aback. Like, what, you want me to come in every week to learn and you want me to light Shabbos candles?
[00:15:11] So she turned to them and said, you want your son to give up this girl that he loves for something that you're not willing to give up an hour a week for?
[00:15:21] How is that right?
[00:15:24] Aren't you willing to give up some time? Isn't this important enough for you to give up an hour, to give up some time to do a mitzvah, to learn Torah?
[00:15:31] And this is something we need to remember that we have to walk the walk. It's not about just talking the talk. We know, we all know, we all recognize that our Judaism is important to us and spirituality is important to us, and our connection to Hashem is important. But we have to walk the walk. We have to do the actions. We can't eat. You know, we have to model good behavior. Because if we want our kids to follow in our ways, we have to act the way that we want them to follow.
[00:15:59] And we can't just expect that it's going to happen by itself. We have to put in the hard work. And that's the biggest lesson that you could ever give for another person, especially your children. And it's not just children, it's anybody. If you want someone to recognize certain things as important, you. You have to show that those things are important. You can't just expect that people are going to assume you're Jewish and assume that Judaism is Important to you. You have to show it's important. And the way you do that is by doing mitzvahs and learning Torah and getting up early to do this and pushing yourself and adding time into your schedule to do things that need to be done, to do mitzvahs, to learn Torah. Because preaching by itself is not the way how we get people to recognize how things are. It's important.
[00:16:43] It's how we act ourselves. And it's funny talking about podcasting, you know, my family, my kids, they know that my podcasts are a big part of my life, and I'm very proud that I'm able to spread Torah and to teach Torah to each and every one of you. Something which I'm very happy to be able to do. And please God, and I should have the strength to continue doing this for many, many more years.
[00:17:13] And my children see me do this.
[00:17:15] And one time my wife was, uh, watching my kids play and had these kid cameras, and she sees my son taking a video of himself and saying, okay, everybody, learn Torah. Have a great day. Meaning he was making a podcast of himself, a Torah podcast, teaching Torah.
[00:17:35] And thank God I'm not taking any credit for it, because he sees that I try to do this. It's important to me. And God willing, my kids should see. I want them to see that learning Torah is important and spreading Torah is important.
[00:17:51] And it's not, you know, it's really everybody, if we take these, uh, the mitzvahs that we do and we show it's important, so it becomes important, and we're living what we learn and what we do. The last idea I wanted to share with you today is from the posse, which says, tzur ya ladecha teshi vitishkach el mecholeka. You ignored the rock who gave birth to you and forgot God who brought you forth.
[00:18:17] Which means that the Jewish people unfortunately forgot Hashem and all that he did for us and didn't remember all the good that Hashem constantly does for us and use forgetfulness in a negative way.
[00:18:33] The Dobnurmaged explains that the Dobr Magid gives a parable. He says, there once was a pair of friends, Reuven and Shimon.
[00:18:47] Reuven borrowed money from Shimon, and when the loan came due, he didn't have the money to pay back the loan.
[00:18:57] But not wanting to just not pay him, Reuven asks his friend Levi what should he do?
[00:19:03] And Levi gives him his advice that when Shimon comes to collect the loan from you, act crazy. Act like you don't understand.
[00:19:12] And he'll think that you've gone nuts and he'll ignore you and let it go. And sure enough, when Shimon comes to collect the loan, Ruvain acts crazy. He does crazy stuff. And as Lavi says, Shimon forgets about the loan. He lets him go.
[00:19:30] A few weeks later, Reuven comes to Levi and asks to borrow money.
[00:19:35] Levi gives him the money.
[00:19:37] Now when the loan comes due, Levi comes to Reuvain to get his money back.
[00:19:43] And Reuvain starts acting crazy. Levi turns to Reuven and says, stop it. I'm the one who taught you that trick, and now you're using it on me. The Dubn Magen explains that forgetfulness is something which Hashem put into this world.
[00:20:00] He gave it to us to help us forget pain, to help us forget suffering, to move on, to move up, to be better people. But we can also use that trait in a negative way, to forget where we come from, to forget what Hashem does for us, to forget all the good we have in our life.
[00:20:25] And from this verse, the Dobn Ramabag explains says that Hashem gave forgetfulness to us for our benefit, to help us, but yet we used it against him.
[00:20:38] We used it to help forsake our obligations.
[00:20:43] And really, the lesson is really twofold. Number one is that every trait could be used for good and for bad.
[00:20:51] Everything, and it depends how you use things. Forgetfulness could be used for good and for bad.
[00:20:59] And secondly, to never forget where we come from, to never forget all the good that we have in our lives.
[00:21:07] Because as, uh, I've talked about this before, when we focus on the good, it truly makes us appreciate everything that we have. We're able to live a happier life, a better life, a life on a higher plane. And that's just another lesson we could take out from this verse and from this week's Parsha. To remember that forgetfulness and really every trait can. Can be used in two different ways, for good and for bad.
[00:21:33] And it's our job to use it for good and to remember everything that Hashem does for us.
[00:21:39] And God willing, that will help us go higher and higher. And merit to be sealed for a sweet new year. That's going to finish for this week's podcast. I hope you all enjoyed. If you have any questions, comments, or would like to reach out, please feel free to send me an email at Rabbi Shlomakon k o h nmail.com have a great day.
