Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe Podcast Collection

You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of TORCH in Houston, Texas. This is the Thinking Talmudist podcast.

Welcome back, everybody. Good afternoon. It's so wonderful to be here at the Thinking Talmudist. We're going to do a small piece of Talmud continuing the previous Talmud that we talked about, Titus, and we talked about all of the details previously mentioned in the Talmud here in Gittin 57a, we're in the middle of the page. The Talmud now says a very interesting story about one of the cities, one of the towns
that was laid to waste by the Romans. Rav Manyomi Bar-Chilkia and Rav Chilkio Bar-Tovio and Rav Huno Bar-Chio, Yasvei Gabi Adodi, they were sitting together. Amrei, they said, E Iko Deshmielei Milsom Mikfar Schanio Shel Mitzrayim Leima. If anybody has heard anything about the residents of Kfar Schanio in Egypt, we want to hear from him. Pasach Ad Minayov Amar, one of them started to speak and he said, Maaseh Ba'orus Ve'arusosol She Nishbul Levein HaOvdim Kochavim.
It was an incident where a man and his engaged wife, his betrothed wife, from that town were captured by idolaters. And their captors wed them to one another. His wife said to him, to her now new husband, She said, I ask you not to touch me. Why? Because I don't have a ksuba from you. Ksuba is the contract, the ketubah. I don't have the marriage contract. And as the Torah teaches us, if you don't have a marriage contract, you cannot be with
a woman, with that woman. Ve'lo Noga Ba'ad Ya'mosa And he did not touch her until the day of his death. Rukishah Maaseh Omrolehen, when he died, she told those assembled at the funeral, Sipr Luzeh, eulogize this man. She Pitpeit B'yitzro Yoser Miosif He vanquished his desire in a trial that was more severe than even that of Joseph. Di'ilu Yosef lo hava elochad shato. We know that Joseph's trial happened only once. Talmud says it was actually every day. It was a daily thing.
We mentioned it previously in our Parsha podcast. So Joseph had to overcome the challenge, the temptation once. Ve'hai kol yoma ve'yoma, whereas he, this, my husband, overcame this challenge every single day. Di'ilu Yosef lo hava elochad shato. He says, furthermore, Joseph and the woman who was trying to seduce him, didn't sleep in one bed together. They didn't sleep in the same room. Ve'hai elochad shato. We slept in one bed and yet he was tempted every single day to be with me and he wasn't.
Di'ilu Yosef lo hava elochad shato, and Joseph was not married to that woman who was trying to seduce him, but, ve'hai elochad shato, but whereas my husband was married to me. Pasach idach ve'amar, okay, so this is the story. I want to talk about a few things, a few aspects of the story. Number one, let's give some background of knowledge so we can understand what's happening here. The first thing is that the Torah tells us that a man who is married can only be with
his wife if they have a kdua, if they have a contract. There's no such thing as a one-night stand and there's no such thing as kicking the tires before you buy the car. None of this happens in Judaism. This is, the Torah clearly tells us you need to marry a woman in order to be with her. Man can marry a woman just because he wants to be with her, fine, you do you, okay? But there's a proper way that things can be done.
It's an amazing thing if you look at the blessing that we recite under the chuppah. It's really special when we look at it and we see and understand how the Torah deals with us. So listen to this amazing blessing. Under the chuppah it says, Baruch atah Hashem Eloheinu melech haolam. Bless to you, Hashem, our God, King of the universe, Asher kidishonu b'mitzvosu v'tzivonu, who has sanctified us with his commandments and commanded us regarding forbidden unions, ala aroyos, va'asolonu esarusos,
and forbade betrothed women to us, vi'hitir lano esanesu oslonu alidei chuppah ve'kiddushon, and permitted women who are married to us through canopy and consecration. That means there's a proper way to do things. This way is forbidden. This way is permitted. So this man goes through an entire lifetime. I'll tell you that one of the amazing things that you will find in every Torah observant home is that the master bedroom doesn't have one bed. The master bedroom has two beds. Why?
Because there are times that a husband and wife cannot sleep in the same bed together. Why is that? The Torah says that a man cannot be with his wife when she is a nida. We talked about this in other classes. We're not going to get into it in too much detail here. But the concept is that there's certain times of the month that a husband and wife cannot be together. What do you mean? I'm married to her. I can do whatever I want. It's true.
The Torah says there's times in which, by the way, I believe is the secret to preserving relationships. The gift of a relationship is when it's not always available. I'll give you an example, an example I came up with many, many years ago. So imagine this guy graduates high school, top of his class, and his rich uncle calls him and he says to him, Joe, I'm so proud of you. I want you to come to the house. I have a surprise for you. Congratulations on your graduation.
So okay, Uncle Joe comes to Uncle Joe's house. Be there at three o'clock. He comes at three o'clock. Uncle Joe clicks the garage door opener, opens up the garage, and he has a beautiful new convertible. He says, what's this? He says, this is a gift for you. This is a gift for you that you can have. It's yours on condition that as soon as I ask you to bring it back, you bring it back. You pull it in. No questions asked.
He says, what, but I can have it. You can do whatever you want with this. This is your car. This is your gift. But as soon as I ask for it back, you need to bring it back in the driveway. No questions asked. And when I tell you you can have it back, you can have it back. Deal? Deal. No problem. Goes out and all his friends, this beautiful new convertible, they're so excited. He can pick up anybody he wants. It's amazing.
It's like a dream come true. What else does a teenager want than the most attractive car out there? He's going and having a great time, picking up everybody, doing whatever he does. And one day, in the middle of all that, he gets a phone call from his uncle. He says, uh-oh. The uncle says, in 30 minutes, I want it back in my garage. 30 minutes? What? I want it back. What? I love it. Remember what I said? No questions asked.
Comes, he brings the car back, puts it in the driveway. The uncle takes the keys, closes the garage door. He says, come back in seven days at 12 o'clock, it's yours. Let me ask you a question. What do you think is going on in that teenager's mind for the next seven days? The first day is like not so bad. The next day is like, you know, and then it starts building up that excitement, that eagerness to get back to my new car. It's my car, my baby.
I want my car back, right? As soon as 11.59 hits, seven days later, he's waiting by that garage door for that garage door to open up so that he can drive his car again. That excitement can live on for a very, very long time. Let me tell you the contrast of that, the flip side of that. A friend of mine bought a very special, very unique Mercedes, and I remember exactly where
we were in the coffee shop on Westheimer when he said, because we used to learn in his house, he says, no, no, no. I want you to see the car. I can't. You're not going to see the car in my driveway, in my garage. I want you to see it public. I want you to see how people look at this car. So we're sitting there, and he's wearing this fedora, and he's wearing this car. I'm like, what?
This guy's been in jeans and t-shirt every time I met him. Like what's going on? He says, oh, it has to match the car, you know? Comes out, and we're sitting there, and he's looking at the car with such admiration. He says, look how beautiful this car is. Look how beautiful. And he just couldn't, he couldn't even drink his coffee there at the Starbucks. He's just like, he's like, Rabbi, I got to take you on a drive in this car. This is the most incredible car.
You have to come into this car. That's fine. We're going to the car. And he's showing me the beautiful trimmings, and the light, and all the lights, and inside is just so incredible. It's like, wow. So we get to the first light, and this car pulls up next to us. I think it was a Jaguar or something. And he looks at that car, and he says, huh, maybe I should have gotten that car. I said, are you crazy? You just spent so much money.
You flew to Germany to drive this car from the factory on the autobahn. You like, they had it wrapped up, and packaged, and shipped back to the United States for you. And after all of that, you're looking at other cars. But that's what happens when we have things that we don't take it away. In order to preserve a freshness, you have to take it away. That's the nature of humanity. Things become dull. Things become stale.
Even the most beautiful wife in the world, if you don't take it away, and this is the gift that's embedded into a Jewish home, where, yeah, for 12 days, you're not going to sleep in the same bed. When she goes back to the mikvah, it's that excitement, the Talmud says, like a bride and groom anew. It's like a honeymoon, 12 times a year. That's what keeps a Jewish marriage fresh. It keeps it fresh, it keeps it spicy, it keeps it successful with anticipation.
And then it doesn't become dull. I remember when I was looking to buy our home in Houston, when we moved here over 20 years ago. The guy who we were buying the house from said that, he says, you can trust me 100%. Everything is kosher. This was a kosher kitchen. He says, we're very, very, very stringent on Jewish law. And we're looking around. We look at the kitchen. He says, this is the dairy side, this is the meat side, and he was very, very meticulous
about everything. And then I come to his bedroom, and he has this giant California king bed there, and there's no second bed. I'm like, what in the world is he talking about? If he's not keeping the laws of family purity, like, you know. So then as we continue looking at the other rooms, and he says, and this is my room. So what are you talking about? And he says, oh, when my wife is Anita, we don't sleep in the same room. Like, yeah, it's like, that's okay.
That's a different level there, but you understand. But that was like, so this is something we need to understand. This is a fundamental mitzvah in every Jewish home. There was a woman whose husband passed away in Israel, a Russian woman. It's a recent story. She passed away. She had no children. And she begged the Hevra Kaddisha. She says, I need to eulogize my husband. I need to recite Kaddish. I need 10 people. So they gather 10 people together.
And she says, can I eulogize? It's not really common for a wife to eulogize her husband, particularly not in Israel. It's not something which is so common. She stands up and she says, I want you all to know something. We lived in Russia. And where we lived under communist rule, we were not anywhere near a mitzvah. And for that reason, we never had children. She said, this man dedicated his life to the observance of the Torah. And foregone what a teenager, what a 20-year-old, what a 30-year-old,
what a 40-year-old, et cetera, et cetera. She says, by the time we moved to Israel, I wasn't able to have children anymore. By the time I was able to go to a mitzvah, that's a holy man, someone who's ready to, you can't. Where are you going to go to the mitzvah? There is no mitzvah. I saw written that Reb Moshe Feinstein had a gap between his two sons of over eight years, between Reb David and Reb Reuven Feinstein, the sons of Reb Moshe Feinstein.
And he had said that that was also, he lived in Russia. At the time, he was a rabbi and they didn't have a mitzvah. So for eight plus years, he has a gap of no children because his wife couldn't go to the mitzvah. His son said, I think it was much more difficult for my mother than it was for my father. But the idea that, yes, the physical relationship is a bond between a husband and wife. It's an emotional, it's a physical bond. It's a spiritual bond.
Contrary to what the world out there believes of intimacy, where it's become so cheap, it's become dirty, it's become something which has become unholy out there in the world. In Jewish life, it's very holy. We see that there are people who, look, the story of the Talmud says here, this guy never slept with his wife because probably they didn't either have a mitzvah there. I can guarantee you, where they were, they didn't have a mitzvah. This is something which is admirable, indeed admirable, that people are ready
to have such devotion to the word of Hashem. The Talmud now continues and says an amazing thing. So another sage started to speak. And he said, in that town, there was an incident in which the price of 40 modios, which is a volume of grain, stood at a dinar. And then the rate dropped. By one modia, a dinar purchased only 39 modios of grain. And they searched for the cause of this inflation. They found, they said, it can't be that the inflation comes for no reason.
Inflation is coming because of a sin. So they investigated and they found that there was a father and a son who had slept with a woman who was committed to somebody else on Yom Kippur. And they brought them to court. They brought them to court and they stoned them to death. And then the rate went back to the proper position, to return to its proper value. Pasach, another sage started to speak. And he said, there was a man who decided he wanted to divorce his wife.
But he had a problem. The nuptial was a little expensive. And a ksuba payment was great. So what is he going to do? So what did he do? He invited his friends. He fed them and he gave them to drink. He intoxicated them and he laid them in his bed together with his wife in one bed. Then he brought the white of an egg and put it between them. He positioned witnesses to see them. And then he went to court.
And this was sort of like a framing. He claimed in court that his wife had committed adultery. And as the Torah teaches us, a woman who commits adultery does not get the pay of her ksuba. There was one of the elderly sages there, one of the students of Shammai the Elder. And his name was Baba Ben Buta. He said to them, and this is the following lesson that I learned from my teacher, Shammai the Elder. The white of an egg contracts from exposure of fire.
And semen flows away from fire. And indeed, they examined what was found, the evidence that was found on the sheets, the questionable substance. And they tested it and they discovered that indeed it was the white of the egg in accordance with the words of Baba Ben Buta. So they brought this man to court and they gave him lashes and they collected her ketubah appropriately from him. Having established that the residents of Sakhania were righteous, the Gemara seeks to know why they were punished.
So why were they punished? Amar leh Abay said to Rabbi Yosef, Umeachar dehavu tzadikim kulihai. Since they were so righteous, maitai ma'in eyanushu. Why were they punished? Amar leh, Rabbi Yosef said, Mishum dehlo i'abol al Yerushalayim. Because they did not appropriately mourn the destruction of the Temple. Tekhsev, as the verse states, Simchu es Yerushalayim vegilu ba kol ohaver, Sisu ita mesos kol ha-mesablim olel. Gladden Jerusalem and rejoice with her all those who love her.
Be elated with her all those who mourn for her. And he says that since they didn't properly mourn Jerusalem, they had this punishment that befell that town. So it's an interesting piece of Gemara, and it's an interesting story that we see here. I think that one of the important points to bring out is, we mentioned previously that we need to be intentional Jews. We need to be intentional Jews. Live with a purpose. To live as a Jew. You know, people ask,
one of the common questions that people ask is about death. What's gonna be when I die? Can I be buried in a Jewish cemetery with a tattoo? Can I do this? All of these questions that people ask. Why are people so obsessed with dying like a Jew when we can live like a Jew? We have to find a way to not just die like a Jew. When I die, then I'll make sure. No, no, no. Now, life, today.
What change can I make to improve my Judaism? What change can I make today to live more intentional? Can I live with more vibrancy in my Judaism? We all have areas. Every single one of us, there's no exemption here. We all have a way in which we can improve. And we need to find what it is to improve our connection every day with the Almighty. For every person to know we have responsibilities, we have accountabilities. We see here there was accountability here.
If someone does something that's against the Torah, they will be punished. Not necessarily from a Jewish court, from the Almighty. The Almighty has accounting of everything. Everything is written in the book, everything. We are gifted with the opportunity to learn in our generation like we never have been able to ever before. Where we have podcasts, we have videos. You can learn any. We had a coffee machine that's been broken. It hasn't been working properly for a while.
So I said, you know what, today is the day. So I pull up the nifty YouTube app. I say, coffee machine's not working. I put in the details of the coffee machine, and there's like about 1,000 results. And it works. It was fixed. It's so easy. It's amazing. We live in a world that we can learn so much. It's so readily available. All we have to do is live with intention. I want to change. We're a new year.
It's a new year. It's a new opportunity. There's a story I want to share. Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetzky, who was a great, great sage, also a relative of mine. He once came into his yeshiva and asked the students on New Year's Day, so what are your resolutions? And they're like, Grebby, that's not our new year. We have Rosh Hashanah. This is, you know, Gregorian calendar begins on January 1st, but that's not our calendar. He says, you mean everybody else in the country
is taking upon themselves resolutions, and we're not going to be inspired by that? We have to take upon ourselves a resolution, to live with intention, to live with a purpose, with a meaning, with a focus. My dear friends, have an amazing Shabbos. Thank you so much. That's an excellent question. When we talk about nida previously in this episode, and we talk about it being taken away, or is it just limited access? So the way the halacha and the Talmud refers
to a husband and wife is that they are more distant than any other man and your wife. Meaning, are sages added to the laws of nida that not only they can't have sexual relations, they can't have any form of touching, they can't be on any surface together where there will be, for example, you know, you have sometimes those couches where someone sits down, the other person sits down, and it like moves around the couch. You can't even do that. Oh, absolutely not.
There's no physical contact whatsoever. Not only that is you can't even pass things to one another. If you are ever with a religious couple who are during that time period where they're not together physically, you will notice that even if she has a phone call and he picks up the phone, he'll put it down and she'll take it from there. Why? There's complete, complete and total isolation physically. But I'll tell you something even better. Although physically there's isolation, emotionally you're all there.
And what the Torah understands here and how Hashem implanted this so perfectly into Jewish life is that what you do is a woman doesn't want to only feel like she's an object for his satisfaction. She has needs too. 12 days out of the month, those emotional needs are 100% because there's nothing else. There's no physical contact whatsoever. There's no touch. There's no passing. There is nothing except for that emotional connection. And when you properly feed that emotional and you nurture it properly,
then the remaining 18 days of the month are absolute bliss. Okay? Absolute bliss because you fed it properly and that's the way you preserve a very healthy relationship is that it's not just, it runs on empty. You got to fill up that tank with love. Yes, it's important to have the physical component. Very important. But that can become abused. And in many relationships, people fall into love and they fall out of love. And that's devastating. It's tragic. And it's happening.
What do we have today? You know, they say that first marriages have over 50%. Second marriages, 60% or higher. I heard this this week. I was listening to a book on tape by Gary Chapman on the five love languages. Magnificent. Magnificent. I highly recommend it. And then he says for second marriages, it's over 75% of divorce rate. What's going on here? Well, it's very obvious. I had a friend of mine who got divorced and I met him at a conference.
I asked him how things going? How are you coping? How are you dealing with it? See, he says, actually, I'm terrified. I said, why? He says, because I just read an article that said that most second marriages have the exact same problems as the first marriage. He says, I'm terrified of getting remarried. I said, well, you have to understand why. Because if you don't change, the problems aren't gonna change. A person, you see, I believe, I believe,
and I believe that women are the greatest vehicle in the world to bring a man to perfection. I really believe that. Well, that's the way Hashem created it. Hashem created a man and woman. Hashem created Eve. To contrast, Adam is their connecto and a helper opposite him. She's the greatest vehicle. If men understood the power of women, they would go crazy that this is the greatest gift in the world. The problem is, is that they let all of the external,
physical attraction take over the purpose and meaning of the relationship. That's not what it's about. It's about reaching perfection. So yeah, so I don't wanna be crass, but he's like, I married the most beautiful woman in the world. And then two years later, she's not the most beautiful woman in the world for you anymore. Because you've never taken a stop. You've never taken a break. You've never taken time to build the emotional aspect of the relationship.
So it's so fundamental that a relationship have a time to just nurture the relationship without any ulterior motives, without any other side benefits, just to focus on the relationship, on her emotional needs. This is so key. I would say the most profound part of all Jewish life is the laws of family purity. The most important part of Jewish family life. I will tell you that my grandfather mentioned this. I heard him say this numerous times.
A couple that observes the laws of family purity have a honeymoon 12 times a year. That's the exact words he used in Hebrew. They have a honeymoon 12 times a year. And people don't understand that that is the greatest treasure the whole world is looking for. People are not really running after women. That's not true. They're running after themselves. They're running after trying to reach their own perfection. And they think that that pretty woman is going to provide that perfection for me.
It's not true. It's got, we have to work on ourselves in order to become a vehicle that is able to grow and become perfect. And we have a partner who's ready to work with us. I hope I answered your question. Any other questions? What's the difference between halakha and takana? Takana is a decree. And halakha is a conclusion of discourse that gets encoded as our law. One is a decree with the rabbis based on, how many takanot do we have?
Not many, but the takana is based on a, for example, I'll give you a takana. There is a halakha of the 39 laws of Shabbat. But there's a takana, a decree from the rabbis not to go swimming, not to go horseback riding on Shabbat. Why? Because that will very easily lead to one of the desecrations of the Shabbat. So it's more of a protective measure to ensure that you don't overstep the line. So where a person,
my rabbi said a very interesting thing to me. He said, if you notice most of the decrees that you have regarding Shabbat are all about vacation-like activities. Shabbos is not vacation. All right, it's a very interesting thing. If you notice the things about horseback riding, when do we go horseback riding? When you're on vacation, you go horseback riding. When do you go swimming? When you're on vacation. Shabbos is not vacation. Shabbos is a different type of service of Hashem.
It's a very, you understand what I'm saying? It's such a powerful thing. Walking, we don't just walk outside of the community on Shabbat. You have trum. You have the perimeter of a community because you're gonna lose the fabric of community if you walk out. There's a certain element that is being preserved through the takkanot. No, so once it's a takkanot, it becomes, you know, I'll tell you something. The Torah says, the takkanot of our sages are not to swim in Shabbat.
You know what my takkanot is in my house? My decree in my house? We don't even touch the water from the pool. We have a pool in our backyard. We don't even touch the water. You know, just don't. Just don't. That's what I tell my children. We don't even touch the water. I can't dip my feet in. No, we don't do that in our house. Is it prohibited? It's not prohibited. I just don't wanna get to a point
where one thing leads to the other. You have an extra barrier to protect yourself. And that's okay for one to create that. Yes. Halacha could also be overwritten if there's just cause again. But halacha, if you look at the halacha, there's always, the halacha always gives two sides to something. So the halacha will never say you can go desecrate the Shabbos. Well, if it's for a life-saving matter, you're obligated to, not you're allowed to. You're obligated to.
So driving on Shabbat is never permitted except that it's required for life-saving purposes. You understand? It's so amazing because now you have something that supersedes Shabbos and that's life. So to save a life, you're obligated to, not you're allowed to. You're obligated to. All right, my dear friends. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Have a great Shabbos.

You've been listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe on a podcast produced by TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. So we can continue to produce more quality Jewish content for our listeners around the globe. Please visit torchweb.org to donate and partner with us on this incredible endeavor.