KEHILAT NOTES 7/24/04
DEVARIM Words Deut. 1:1 – 3:22
Jim:
For 36 days Moses spoke to the people, putting together everything that had been spoken to him. This set the stage for what became the Oral Torah, understanding the feasts and commandments. It’s an interesting book from that standpoint.
The other 4 books directly reflect what God said. Devarim’s 36 days show Moses speaking to the people. He can’t cross to the Promised Land, and knows he will die soon.
2 outstanding things. Moses delivers a rebuke, which does not have a nice connotation to it. Most of us don’t take well to this. He’s presenting us with a way of rebuking which does not entice anger or violence. This is a great teaching, way in advance of what Yeshua teaches later on. He rebukes by memory. When we do have to rebuke somebody it should be done in a loving and caring way. “Is this the way we talked about putting it together? What do you think we should do?” This is an example that Yeshua later on will reinforce.
If rebuke has been done in a violent and harsh voice we pay for it. 2 Rabbis, brothers in the 19th century – one rebuked the other in a harsh voice, and shortly after his synagogue was destroyed by fire. This was not a coincidence. If you see somebody sinning, don’t come up to me and dog-slap me. Do it in a kinder and more pleasant way. That’s what Moses does over 36 days. There were times like when he smacked a rock when he wasn’t supposed to. Moshe accepted things as they were. He keeps saying “remember this”. The clowns that were involved in the earlier incidents are all dead, except for Joshua and Caleb.
“The Vacuum of Choice”. On whose initiative were the spies sent to check out the Promised Land? Nu 13: 1-2 says it was by divine command. When he recounts these events 40 years later, he says the people demanded it. Deu 1: 22-23. Commentaries reconcile this. God knew what was in the Promised Land. Why would we need to send out spies? Moses consulted with God, who said “send you men” as dictated by YOUR understanding (from commentary by Rashi). Thus their mission was a human endeavor born in the desires of the people, but the result was a setback to the people. The entire generation as a result was kept from entering the Promised Land. Up until that time God had imparted specific directives to the people. This was the first instance where God didn’t tell him what to do, but told him to do what he saw fit. It was a turnaround.
Moshe sent off Joshua with a blessing. Why did he not bless the other spies as he did Joshua? Of course later on Joshua sent out spies of his own, which worked out well. Obviously Moses was well aware of the risk. That was like entering a minefield. When we set off without God’s counsel and guidance, we’re entering a minefield. Moses was also opening up a new era for human potential.
A most crucial element of life is choice. God created in us the ability to make choices. In spite of our ability to make choices and really mess them up, he still loves us. He sent Yeshua for us.
The entire point is that there exists a non-perfected world, and we choose to perfect it. This creates a place for our achievements. When we make the right choices, it’s incredible. The concept of choice exists on 2 levels. If God tells us to do something, we still have the choice to disobey. This is choice in a limited sense. Deep down inside us, we have a desire to fulfill the Divine Will. But we cover that up. We need to bring that up, and do that as a brighter light.
Each of us desires to do good. Do we suppress or express our own will? It’s quite hard to do.
That divine spark in us gets brighter as we study Torah, and even brighter as we follow the commandments.
Up until the episode of the spies, people could disobey, but it would conflict with their deepest instincts. You get the Freuds and other baboons who tell us these are part of our subconscious or whatever.
The second level of choice was introduced with the spies. We can make a choice by God not telling us what to do, thus imparting greater significance to human actions. They had Torah, and he’s telling them “you’re going out on your own.” When God was directing people, they could disobey and take the consequences. But now we have to listen more carefully.
Unless we pray, we won’t know. We’re making choices on our own. We need help and guidance. When we enter this arena the possibilities for error are greater. When we proceed without direct intervention, the results are indeed more valuable and significant. Were he to have blessed the spies, he would have undermined the uniqueness of their mission. So Moses didn’t bless them any further. Both Moses and the spies were on their own.
Ex 33:11 Joshua never left Moses’s tent. Moses shone like the sun, and Joshua shone like the moon. It was a bond between a teacher and his most devoted disciple. Everything he had and was came from Moses. Joshua successfully negotiated the arena of true choice. This was an independent discovery of how to sanctify making the world better under God.
You made the choice to hear about Torah. It’s not a popular choice. What comes with choice? Consequences and responsibilities both. If we are exposed to Torah and all of a sudden decide to start ignoring God’s word, he’s probably going to tap us on the shoulder. Once we have become familiar with commandments, our responsibility becomes to live them. That’s what we all live with on a day to day basis. We’re going to make decisions. God has set it up so we make those based on our humanity.
The day is coming where I believe we will go back to the way it was in Exodus. God will direct us again.
Mikhael:
As
you can tell by what I’m teaching, it’s difficult. I’m
apprehensive because I know that a lot of people don’t really
understand it. It is important because it covers how the body
relates to the Mitzvot. The purpose is to try and change our way of
thinking.
We’re going to talk about the body, the dual-purpose garment. Ps 104 1-6.
(from WEB translation) Ps 104:1
Bless Yahweh, my soul. Yahweh, my God, you are very
great. You are clothed with honor and majesty.
Ps 104:2
He covers himself with light as with a garment. He
stretches out the heavens like a curtain.
Ps 104:3
He lays the beams of his chambers in the waters. He
makes the clouds his chariot. He walks on the wings of
the wind.
Ps 104:4
He makes his messengers winds; His servants flames of
fire.
Ps 104:5
He laid the foundations of the earth, That it should not be
moved forever.
Ps 104:6
You covered it with the deep as with a cloak. The waters
stood above the mountains.
Atah = a garment that hides
Kasah = covered, hidden as by thick clothes
The Ein Sof descends to the physical realm and is hidden, so the body conceals and hides and covers the life and sparks within the soul. We talked about shattered vessels, sparks of the light revealed in the world and in the confines of ourselves.
We find ourselves living naturally, on our emotions. The rebellions of the people on their journey in Exodus were this.
Does the world always conceal the light of the Ein Sof, or can we see the sparks?
The Middot are symbolic of clothing that reveal the human’s personal qualities, character, or nature. The Middot reveals about the type of person you really are – attitudes, personality traits, behavior. What I want to get across is our mindsets. It’s hard to change our thinking.
Everyone has within us a Nazi, a hurting mentality, a tendency to go with the crowd. Everyone in the right circumstance will be just as cynical and hateful as we saw in the faces of the Nazis. This is hidden by the flesh. This is all part of the Yetzirah within us. This causes us to see things and do things completely contrary to the ways of God.
Our mindsets are the Middot that cover us that either reveal or conceal our character. These also mean illusions. This is also where the word Midian comes from. They were people who put out illusions – to get the Jewish people to follow other gods. That’s why God dealt with them more harshly than anyone else.
They conceal God’s fullness and restrict its true essence. At the same time they reduce it. We can feel it and get a glimpse of it without the full expression of the Ohr Ein Sof. It’s all within the kingdom and realm we dwell in.
We can utilize this system so we can act as free agents. We can climb Jacob’s Ladder and catch some of the sparks. We can penetrate this system and find God clothed in the very fabric of his existence. This is to enable us by our choices to find God in a way we can receive and comprehend him.
The body assumes the shape and nature of the soul. Khomer – the body is pliable and is the raw material that’s formed and assumes the shape of the soul as the soul is molded by our environment – by our theology, hurts and pains. This affects what we can see by clothing, body shape, sickness and disease. A person who seeks a life of materialism for example, his body will mold according to the requirements of living that lifestyle. Think of the examples, going to the tanning parlor to look good, dying our hair. The physical realm around that soul will conform to that. A person who follows holiness will have a body mold to that.
You might meet a person who you think is like an angel. That’s transmitted to you by the body. Think of Adam, Eliyahu, etc. The physical existence will form around what the soul is dictating.
Gen 2:10 – rivers of Eden. Sod level – between the lines interpretation of Scripture. This refers to 4 basic elements that make up the material world, what Hashem is trying to communicate to us: Fire, Air, Earth, Water. They become central in creation, everything in the material world. They’re revealed in this world, and the world is sustained by man. That’s a certain kind of man, the Tzaddik who is righteous.
One thing in this Torah portion that jumped out, was that you may buy food and water. What changed from Hashem providing manna & water flowing out of a rock? It was the merit of Moshe and his status as a righteous person that brought this forth. Meriam kept people in balance through her merit and righteousness.
With 34 days left in Moses’ life, and Meriam gone, in a short time they’re going to have to buy their own food and water. The merit of these people will no longer be in effect. There are people who are so righteous they keep the world from caving in on us.
About 10 years ago a young man came from Israel, just out of being a captain in the paratroopers. He came to a synagogue I was teaching in. He decided he wanted to stay, and lived with us for a year. His sister & army friend came over too. Tomer was a very good, moral young man, who didn’t know the Torah or anything about God. He was a typical Israeli young man. He said, “I went to Denver and lived with a family that talked about the Torah, quoted verses, celebrated Biblical holidays. I was shocked – I was from Israel and didn’t know anything about this. Because of them I found God. Also my sister, father, brother, mom, dad and several other people did too.” He’s started a yeshiva called “The Sons of Zion”. He goes out in the streets in Israel, finds young men who don’t know about God, and teaches Torah. Many young men get kicked out of their homes, and he has about 40 living there. He told me about miracles. He was in New York, went to a synagogue there. Met a man who heard him praying there in Hebrew. After a conversation, the man offered a check. Tomer would not accept the check until he had explained what he was doing with the yeshiva.
In Shmot, when the children of Israel reached the Red Sea, Moses began to pray. God said, “it’s not time to pray, it’s time to step into the water!” The Sages say a young teenager named Nachshon stepped into the water around Moses. When the sea reached his nostrils, the sea opened up. The man writing the check said that Tomer was like this young man. He offered to pray for him, and asked him what he wanted. He finally replied that he knew a young woman who couldn’t have a baby. A month later, he called back to New York and said his daughter was pregnant. Eight months later, the daughter had twins named Nachshon and Moses.
This is you and me. We can all be Tzaddikim. The merits we can have committing our hearts to change can make the difference.
Deu. 1:12 How can I endure your complaints. Isaiah chapter 1 asks how can a faithful city become like a prostitute? Jeremiah also asks this. It relates to the destruction of the Temple. Am I the only one praying for the orphan child in China? We can all elevate ourselves to the level of Tzaddikim by doing the mitzvot.
Definitions of Tzaddikim:
In the book Nolam Eli Melech the Honor of My King – the righteous will inherit the Earth. The Tzaddik is a mediator between God and the common people, who you work with or who come into your shop. Through you, you bring an understanding of Chai, Chayyah, God’s life in the world. Tzedek means justice. The heroes in the Jewish army are the Tzaddiks, who conquer their evil inclinations of power and evil, and who are like God on the side of the oppressed. Eccl. 3:15
The Avot are our fathers, who exemplify what we should be, like Abraham, Issac, etc.
A poster here says, “Missing, the 256 positive commandments”. Love your neighbor as yourself. Be considerate of the needs of the sick. See the good qualities in other people. Offer kindness to a newcomer. Give money with a generous heart. Be the first to smile, to greet, to express gratitude. On the merit of that the world stands.
How to have a basic understanding of Torah, how to bring ourselves out of the Galut (being an outcast from Eden). The Midrash says in the Book of Proverbs that the Tzaddik will sprout like a palm tree, and like a cedar of Lebanon will grow tall. There are two types of Tzaddikim – one attached himself to the service for Hashem. He doesn’t necessarily influence others with his actions. He’s compared to the cedar, which doesn’t bear fruit. Even so, he has great reward. The second is compared to the palm tree, which brings forth much fruit, like changed lives. He takes those souls which have been stained with sin, and makes them sprout.
The Hazal says that even a complete Tzaddik cannot stand. You in the Kehilat are called Balachevat, a master of repentance. You are able to turn others to good. You cause Chuvah to appear in this world. It’s much more than the first Tzaddik. Ps 89:14. Pr 10:25. The uncompromisingly righteous have an everlasting foundation.
The world stands on the righteous Tzaddik. The world is composed of the elements described before. Each element has traces of the others. The continued existence of the world is based on the proper composition of these elements.
Each of these elements is different from the other. But God in His supreme Chochmah, wisdom, sees that they can exist in combinations to all can stay alive. When life ends, the elements disperse, creating the concept of the world of separation. It is the life force that combines the attracting elements together. The Tzaddik who has ascended from the materialism of the world transmits spiritual life to the material existence of this world. When they leave their source, they can exist as long as there is energy from the life force of righteousness.
Every person is made of all four elements. Every person is rooted in a specific element and character trait. Every person has a different force that’s dominant. The main thing we seek to do by the Mitzvot is to bring harmony to the differences, to bring things back into balance. Stress and strife become the norm. People resist. Strife goes down into the elements, causing inner disharmony, evolving into disharmony above, as a result imbalance in the world, which invites sickness into the world.
The Tzaddik brings repair to the world. The righteous repair it by walking in Mitzvot. Attempting to live in ways people don’t understand, and saying things you can’t communicate.
I walked into my grandson’s birthday party in kippah and titziyot. I hadn’t seen several of these people in years, and got some comments from some of them. My instinct was to react harshly, but that wouldn’t have done any good.
You learn to harmonize all the elements, becoming a single source element that unites everything. The body becomes the Torah. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I want to try to communicate what that means. It’s the spirit of Torah. It’s not “I keep 322 commandments and you keep 297, so obviously I’m doing much better than you”. When you find this place you can perceive but you can’t communicate it.
I can’t communicate the spirit of Torah. It’s just something I know and walk and perceive. These are things that guide your life. It’s because your mind is changing – you’re beginning to think like Moshe. Your body is beginning to transform your soul and shape according to the Torah.
It’s about the greater spirit of the Torah that binds everything together. We perceive the Mitzvot as a unified system; that’s what our life is. Each individual Mitzvot in the Torah contains bits and pieces of every other Mitzvot in the Torah. That’s how God makes a body out of 248 limbs and 365 connectors. It becomes a single object. Every one can become a Tzaddik on a level where we are. We attain mastery over the four elements that make our body. This applies to one that has even a low spiritual understanding. He still can have the power to harmonize these elements within himself. That’s how it connects. We see the body being something that’s able to absorb, transform, and change its shape according to the Mitzvot.
One of the earlier Sages describes Fire as the lightest in its composition. Heat rises – on the Yetzirah side, it’s the source of arrogance, anger, leading to irritability, hunger, a thirst for power and honor.
Air – source of gossip, idle chatter, Lashon Hara, flattery, falsehood, slander, mockery, boasting. We need to bring each of these characteristics around to the Mitzvot.
Water – those who seek pleasure, cravings for various lusts, jealousies, envy, inappropriate behavior.
Earth – the body becomes the clothing that creates and expresses laziness, depression, dominated by the material aspects of the Earth, always bemoaning his fate, never satisfied with what is happening to him.
Next week we start getting into real physical connections between Torah observance, Torah rebellion, and how it affects our bodies.
NEXT WEEK: DEVARIM 3:23 – 7:11 Va’eschanan