Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe Podcast Collection

00:01 - Intro (Announcement)
You are listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of Torch in Houston, Texas. This is the Parsha Review Podcast.

00:10 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
All right, my dear friends, welcome back, good Friday afternoon. We are this week's Parsha, is Parsha's Va'era, the second portion in the book of Exodus, and we have in this week's Parsha the seven of the ten plagues that befell the Egyptians. Now there's a very interesting verse that I want to focus on, and that is chapter 7, verse number 3. But I will harden the heart of Pharaoh so that I may multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt. Okay, I'm going to what's going on here. Hashem is punishing Pharaoh, punishing the Egyptians. Then the Egyptians are saying just let them out, Just let them out. God's like no. I are saying just let them out, just let them out. God's like no, I'm not going to let them out. Why I'm not going to let Pharaoh? I'm going to harden his heart. He's going to refuse to let the Jewish people out. I'm going to give them more punishments. All for what purpose? So that my signs and my wonders will be visible throughout the land of Egypt, sort of like this game that's going on over here, so that now you'll see my hand, you'll see my greatness, you'll see my wonders. So there's a lot to talk about here.

01:40
Let's look at what Rashi says. Rashi says an amazing thing to talk about here. Let's look at what Rashi says. Rashi says an amazing thing. It's a good thing for me to make Pharaoh's heart hardened so that you, the Jewish people, will see my greatness. This is the way the Almighty conducts his world. God brings wonders to this world and to the nations of this world so that the Jewish people take a message from it, and that's why Vayichazek Hashem Esleif Paro, vayichazek Hashem, esleif Paro Hashem hardened his heart.

02:35
My dear friends, let's understand what's going on over here. You know what happened when there was a, when there was a tsunami, when there was an earthquake, when there was a hurricane, when there was a twister, when there was. You name the natural disaster and what happens to us. You name the natural disaster and what happens to us, what happens to us as a people? Or say just tell us something very, very important. You need to know that every occurrence that happens in the world is not in a vacuum. We think it's not in a vacuum. It's not something that oh for them over there on that side of the world, it's their problem.

03:28
But me, a Jewish person living in Houston, not really relevant to me, it's not something which is important to me, and we've said dozens and dozens of times in these classes how important it is for us to open our eyes to see that everything that is placed in front of us is a message from the Almighty. Here, rashi teaches us that foundational principle Everything you see is a message from the Almighty. What are you talking about, rabbi? What happens to him? That's his own thing, between him and God. What happens to that nation? What happens to that city? What happens to those people? It's a message that's directly to them.

04:18
What do I have to do with it? I'm just a bystander. I happen to be seeing the news on my phone and I saw this piece of news. I happen to be seeing the news on my phone and I saw this piece of news. I happen to be watching television and I happen to see that piece. What does that have to do with me?

04:35
Let me ask an honest question how many pieces of news do we not see? How many pieces of news does Hashem choose? This is something you don't need to see, so you don't see it. And this you did need to see, so you did see it. How many times does something happen in the news? You're like, wow, what is everyone talking about? I don't even know. I missed that story and then it's hard to even catch up, like what's going on here? You ask Google, you ask Google, you ask Siri. You ask can you bring me up to date what really happened? They say, well, last Wednesday. They're like what? When did I miss this story? What happened here?

05:16
My grandfather said that in the Mir Yeshiva in Poland, rabbi Ruchem, who was the spiritual leader of the yeshiva, would talk to them about current events that were happening on the other side of the globe. There was a demonstration in Japan, there was a pogrom in. Whatever happened, no matter where it happened, if it was in the news, it was there to teach us, the Jewish people, a lesson. Hashem makes things happen in the world for us to take a personal message. I think this is so vital when we understand our relationship with God. God is giving us direct messages through third parties. Hashem is telling us look at this picture and understand that I operate this world, that I have reward and punishment. I have reward and punishment, that I am in charge of everything. You know why God withheld Pharaoh's heart from being compelled by all of these punishments, so that the Jewish people will be able to witness God's greatness. So the Egyptians will have more plagues before them. They won't send the Jewish people out Just so that we can see the message, just so that we can learn, just so that we can adjust our vision to be able to see that Hashem does everything for a purpose, that Hashem is in control of everything. There's nothing that goes on in this world that we hear about, even that we don't hear about. But there's a reason why we needed to hear about it without it being a message. God puts it in this world. God makes it happen so that we learn from it, and for us to turn a blind eye and to not pay attention is ignoring the message. God gives us those messages so that we learn, so that we grow, so that we feel connected. So why only us? Why only us? Why only the Jewish people, the nations of the world? They should also learn.

08:05
We discussed the theme the past couple of weeks, whether it be in our prayer experience, in our prayer podcast. We talked about this in several of our other podcasts. We talked about how the Jewish people are responsible to be an example for the nations. That is our job. Our set purpose is that the nations of the world look at us and they say, oh, that's the way God's people act. You know, it's always astonishing. It's always, to me, the most astonishing thing.

08:44
You open up the news in the morning and you see footage from Iran. They're saying death to Israel, death to America, death to Israel, death to America. Change the channel. A 6.5 earthquake hits Tehran. Change the channel. Israel is preparing a team of volunteers to go help those who were affected by the earthquake in Iran. And you're like what in the world is going on here? They're chanting death to Israel, death to America. They have a terrible tragedy. And what do the Jewish people do? What's our response? We're ready to send units to help them recover their loss. We're ready to go out and help, because that's the way we are meant to be as a people. We learn from what happens in the world. We don't say, oh, you hate us, okay, we're not going to help you.

09:51
You know one of the attributes, one of the qualities of a Jewish person, the identity of a Jewish person. The Talmud says there's three things they're shy, rachmanim. They're merciful, gomlech, hasadim. They're people who do loving, kindness. You want to know the identification of a Jewish person. See their kindness. See their kindness. It's the most amazing thing in the world. You know that for every. I'll just share with you my own experience.

10:35
I was recently visiting in a hospital in New York and I was waiting in the waiting room. They said you know, there's a special room called the Bikur Holim room. Anybody knows what Bikur Holim is. Bikur Holim is visiting the sick. They have a special room in New York City and in New Jersey and most of the hospitals as well. Special room that is sometimes rented, sometimes given by the hospital to the Jewish community. In that room, let me tell you what there is. There's a refrigerator and a freezer. There's usually a hot water urn and then there's cabinets. It looks like a kitchen, like any other kitchen, but it's packed with kosher food and it's packed with meals ready to go. In the refrigerator and in the freezer there's ices and there's ice cream and there's frozen meals. There's usually a microwave dairy and meat.

11:50
Why, what's going on? I remember when my father had triple bypass surgery. It happened on a Thursday evening. I remember I got a phone call from my brother. My brother was in Israel. He says do you know what's happening? I was pulling up at my house at 6 o'clock in the evening. I remember I got a phone call from my brother. My brother was in Israel. He says do you know what's happening? I was pulling up at my house at six o'clock in the evening, thursday night, and my brother calls me from Israel and he says do you know what's going on with Abba? I'm like I have no idea what's going on. Tell me. He says, well, he's going right now into surgery to have bypass, triple bypass. I'm like that's wow. Okay, what do I do? Like you know, suddenly this is like get to New York as quickly as you can. I got to New York that night, that evening. I got the last flight out back in the continental days and I get to New York.

12:52
I get to the hospital and I see my mother waiting in the waiting room and it's very concerning. What's going to be? How's Abba going to feel? How's daddy going to feel? How's he going to recover? How's he going to recover? Is he going to make it? So you know we're dealing with all the medical stuff. The doctor comes out. He says thank God, it was a good surgery, everything went well. Tells me some of the things to anticipate in the recovery process and okay, now it's going to be a long process of recovery and my brother flies in from Israel, comes in the next morning like 6, 7 am. He arrives, he rents a car and drives to where the hospital was and we're dealing with doctors and nurses and my father's, you know, slowly getting out of his anesthesia, you know it's like he's woozy and it's all.

14:02
Suddenly someone walks into the room, someone I didn't even know. He says hello, how are you? He says I'm here from Bikur Cholim, I'm here from this organization. I said okay. He says do you need anything? I said I think everything's fine. My parents live what they live a few miles away. We'll go get food for Shabbos. He says no, no, no, no, no. He says we have a house across the street from the hospital. This is the code to get into the house Room bedroom upstairs. He says it's going to be just you. Is there anybody else? This is my brother as well. We're going to be here for Shabbos. He says you go upstairs. Bedroom number three is yours. There's two beds in there. Down Downstairs, bedroom number three is yours. There's two beds in there. Downstairs there's food. It says when you come into the hospital we had a special door installed because you know they usually have the electronic doors that could be problematic on Shabbos.

14:55
There's a door on the side. You'll look. It's a manual door, not electric. You can use that door. This is the code on Shabbat coming from the outside Arranged an entire house For who? For people who need it. For Shabbos they bought a house across the street from the hospital. Kosher food like you can't imagine the food that's in there, fresh food for Shabbos, do I know what's the fee? How much is the quote? Nothing, that's what the Jewish people are identified by.

15:42
We do acts of loving, kindness in the finest way. You know that for any type of illness, there's an organization that helps people, children dealing with cancer. There's an organization, high Lifeline, deals with them, helps with the family, helps with the children. No-transcript. Anyone heard of Atzalah? Everyone's heard of Atzalah.

16:20
Emergency medical response Chaveirim. Non-emergency medical. Sorry, emergency, non-medical response. You have a flat tire, your battery is dead. You need a boost. You have a broken window in your house.

16:42
It was recently very strong winds in July. Some of you may remember it was called a hurricane. Hurricane Beryl came through here, one of the local synagogues. The door, the windows, got blown out. What are you going to do? I don't know what to do. Well, they called Haverim. They came there in minutes. Plywood cover up the door. They came with all of these units so that the ventilation, the AC was out, whatever was needed in minutes.

17:29
How much is it Free? We're here for one another. We're all friends for one another. What we need to really understand is that this is our identity. Our identity is being there for one another. But how do we get whipped into shape? This is what our Torah portion teaches us. You know why God withheld Pharaoh's heart from just saying okay, jews, get out of here. So that there be more miracles, so that there be more experiences that the Jewish people see the hand of Hashem.

18:16
Everything that goes on in the world today and forever it's always been like this is for us to learn. For us to learn. Only someone who is putting their head in the sand will say everything is just happenstance, or in Hebrew, they call it B'mikre. B'mikre means it just happened to be. There are many people who say B'mikre means happenstance, but if you take the letters of that word, it's only from God. Everything that happens is from God and we are in a classroom from God. Everything that happens is from God and we are in a classroom where God is teaching us. That's life. God is teaching us and he's guiding us and showing us the right and the wrong, the good and the bad. This is our life. God wants us to see his hand and to learn from these experiences.

19:29
We had 10 plagues that were that befell the Egyptians. For what, why? Why these 10 plagues? Which, by the way, if you remember from the Haggadah, from Seder night at our Pesach Seders, it wasn't only 10 plagues. It's one opinion that the 10 became 50, another opinion that it became 100 plagues, another that it became 250 plagues.

19:57
Because, think of it, a man comes home from a hard day's work. His wife says I have a surprise for you. In the oven, I baked you a beautiful birthday cake, your favorite cake. He's like wow, no, you made that cake for me. Yes, your strawberry shortcake, the one that you love the most. Takes it out of the oven. He cuts a delicious piece of the birthday cake and there's something moving in there, something moving. What's going on? Is this a game? A practical joke? A little frog, a little frog. A little frog Moves it a little bit. Oh, my goodness, and there's another frog. You're doing this to embarrass me Doing this. This is a joke. You know, this is my favorite cake, instead of giving me my delicious cake. So what does he do? This is again. This is Egypt. They weren't such gentlemen. So it's beating his wife. So now she's not happy. She's like I worked so hard on this cake I didn't put the frogs in there. So she starts yelling at the kids.

21:17
The kids go out to the playground. The kids start fighting with their friends. Imagine what happens. The whole city's in turmoil. The kids go out to the playground. The kids start fighting with their friends. Imagine what happens. The whole city's in turmoil. The whole country is upside down because of the frogs that was in that cake. Everyone's fighting, everyone's yelling and screaming. Finally, they find the big frog. Every time they hit the frog, six frogs jump out. People are beating and thousands and thousands of they hit the frog. Six frogs jump out, another another. People are beating and thousands and thousands of frogs are just popping out of this frog.

21:49
The Jewish people are looking. It doesn't affect them. The plague of blood affects the Egyptians, doesn't affect the Jewish people. They're drinking out of the same cup of water. The Jewish person has water. The Egyptian has blood Clear to see, but we think, oh, not so clear to see. Or people say, like, why did the Jewish people have any doubts? Why did they have any doubts? You didn't see God? Isn't it clear to see? See the hand of Hashem. Let me bring you back to April 14th 2024.

22:38
April 14th 2024, 210 ballistic missiles were shot from Iran to Israel. And how much inspiration was there? Eh, they have David Slink, they have the assistance from the Americans and from the this and everyone's like. They tried and they failed. That way of thinking is exactly the way the Jewish people thought in Egypt. It happened to me. It's good luck for us.

23:21
But we look at it now, 3,300 years later, like that's an open miracle. And when God is flicking these ballistic missiles out of the sky, that's not a miracle. But because we have something to lean on, we don't like to think that there's miracles. We don't like to think that it's the hand of Hashem flicking these ballistic missiles away. How many? Each one of these were loaded with thousands of tons of explosives, unreal. You look at how big those, those rockets were, those missiles. It's unbelievable, massive the damage it could have done. It could take away an entire city. Conflict, them out of the ear. In front of our eyes, we're like, oh, science is a real thing. Look, look, the Israelis, they're really advanced. They're, you know, ballistic missile defense Unbelievable. We have to wake up from this. This is our modern day.

24:34
Exodus from Egypt, the splitting of the sea the same miracles that they had then were also clear. The Jewish people didn't see it Like what it just so happened to me, happened to me. No, we have to see the hand of Hashem in everything that goes on around us. We have to see it or we're missing the message. We cannot miss the message. We cannot allow ourselves to just live life. And it's not a message. There's nothing. It is what it is. No, hashem is talking to us, he's communicating with us. Every single day is a message from Hashem. Hashem is talking to us. Hashem wants to help us. Hashem is there with us. And when something happens a tsunami happens on the other side of the world, hashem is talking to us. And when something a fire happens in the West Coast Hashem is talking to us. And when something a fire happens in the west coast, hashem is talking to us. And when there's an earthquake in Iran, hashem is talking to us. The things that happen around the world. Hashem tells us right here in the verse I'm doing these actions to Pharaoh so that my children will see my hand, they'll see my greatness, they'll see my glory. We need to investigate why did Hashem pick this specific spot, why this place? It's not random, it's not happenstance the hand of Hashem that is bringing it about so that we can learn from it.

26:29
Dear friends, let's not take the Parsha just as a story. It's teaching us something. Let's take the opportunity we have such magnificent resources to study the Parsha, to learn the Parsha, to understand the depths of every Torah portion. It's easy reading. Open up the Arts Girl Stone Edition, the Interlinear Schottenstein Edition. They're so easy to read. It's not written in thou thee, thou. It's written in thou thee, though it's written in in plain english for us to understand it, to see the hand of hashem. My dear friends, have an amazing shabbos, you know, yeah, so there's an incredible book. I think we have here in the. We don't have it here. I can try to get it for our.

27:20
It's called Bible Codes, bible Codes. What it is is the Torah. If you take every letter of the Torah, put it into a computer program, every letter, no spaces, no periods, no commas, just all the letters of the Torah. And you type in any word in our history, like, for example think of one of the greatest philosophers in Judaism, rambam. Rambam was an incredible philosopher, an incredible Torah scholar. He was also an incredible author and a doctor. You type in the Rambam's name Reish Mem Bez, mem Rambam, that's how he's known. Or if you know him as Rabbi Moshe Ben Maimon I don't know if that's the book, but it's one of the. There's many, many good ones.

28:18
Make sure it's published by a Jewish publisher. We don't need the ones that will start selling us messianic paraphernalia. So it'll come up. The Rambam's name will come up in the code in the same portion of Mishpatim. Mishpatim is the laws. What did the Rambam focus on? The laws? And then you find in that same area of the Torah you'll find Mishnah Torah, which is the name of the book that he wrote. Yad HaChazakah is there as well, and all the year of his date of birth and death all show up in that same area.

28:56
It's really a remarkable, remarkable science, the likelihood of that happening for any other book in the world. They tried this on other books. Take a Harry Potter. How divine is Harry Potter? Not divine at all. It's written by JK Rowling and that's it. They couldn't figure out. They couldn't find anything that would by coincidence show up as an acrostic or as a sign. You'll understand more of what I'm saying when I show you this book. It's absolutely remarkable. They did all the signs they found.

29:34
The Holocaust, for example, is in those plagues. But also, did anyone ever hear of the God syndrome? Anybody ever heard of the God syndrome? The God syndrome was when the Jewish people were in the Holocaust, in the camps. There was something called the God syndrome, where people were saying to one another where is God? Does he not see the suffering? Does he not see the brutality? Does he not see the inhumanity that's going on here? Where is God? Where is God? And many resorted to the conclusion there is no God. And many said I see God, I see the hand of God. And if you open up our magnificent Torah Deuteronomy, you will find that one of the curses given is that there will come a time where the Jewish people will distance themselves from Hashem and they will be punished to the point where they start asking where's God? It says that in the Torah. The Torah says this is going to happen, prescribed Already in the Torah, where this is going to happen, where the Jewish people are going to be there saying where is God? This is a reality. I can show you the verse, but this is for another class, another topic, another time.

31:23
But indeed this is the theme of our lives. We can ignore God and just go on our merry way. Lives. We can ignore God and just go on our merry way. It's like. I will just give a disclaimer. I've done this before to many of my students.

31:40
Okay, a guy called me up one time. He says listen, rabbi, I need to tell you something. Since I started learning with you, my life has been turmoil. It's literally for the past 63 years. I've never had an issue. Suddenly you come into my life and everything turns into hell. I said welcome, welcome to the world.

32:10
I said you know, you can go to every single Texans game and sit in the bleachers and sit in the audience viewing the game and you have no risk of getting hit by a football. But the minute you step on that field, watch out, you might get knocked over by a 398-pounder and crush you and they'll throw a football and hit you. You won't know what hit you. If you're not on the field, no risk. But when we're in the field of learning Torah and we're in the field, what is learning Torah? Learning Torah is learning God's Word. So if we're not looking for God's Word, then we're just living in a world of oblivion, which is fine. Everyone can choose to live how they want. But we should never be ashamed of living in a world where we're aspiring to connect to God. That's our goal. Our hope and our dream is to connect to God. And you know what Part of that challenge.

33:18
I remember in one of our classes a bunch of years ago in Shalom. It's a class every Sunday morning and every week I would announce what's the topic the next week and a woman says to me Rabbi, what are we learning next week? I said we're learning about patience. She says patience. Eh, I'm very patient, I think I'll skip it, I'll come back in two weeks. So I said that's fine. I said, but you may not know what the definition of patience is. It might be worthwhile to come. You may want to, you may not. It's fine, I don't want to waste your time, but you may learn something about it. So the woman the next week showed up. She came to the class and we talked about the topic of patience. The following week following week, about'm about to start the class, she says Rabbi, before you begin, she says two weeks ago I announced here arrogantly that I'm a very patient person and I probably don't need to show up to the class. But last week was my most difficult week in my life because I realized how impatient I am. Once I learned about patience, I realized I'm so impatient. I always thought I was patient. She says as I pulled out of class I was honking the horn at the person in front of me. What's wrong with you? Just move it already. Go, pull out, let's go. I was gettingking the horn at the person in front of me. What's wrong with you? Just move it already. Go, pull out, let's go. I was getting so irritated I realized one second. I didn't even know what patience was. Suddenly I learned about patience. I realized I'm impatient, I'm sorry and I'm thankful I came to the class.

35:07
My dear friends, that's the way life works. Life works that the minute we start opening ourselves up to something, suddenly we see that there's a whole world there that perhaps we were ignoring and we turned it off. Like, sometimes you learn about a new concept and suddenly you see it everywhere you ever have that you notice, oh, is that a new car? It's called a Tesla. And suddenly you see it all over the place. Right, like all over the place there are Teslas. The world we're living in is a world of messages, where the Almighty is designing a curated experience for us, all around us, for us to get those messages. The messages are there, they're waiting for us to pick them up, to learn from them, to grow from them, to change from them, to improve our lives from them. That's really what Hashem wants from us. Hashem wants us. There's no greater place than to be close to. Hashem wants from us. Hashem wants us. There's no greater place than to be close to Hashem.

36:16
Why, if you look at the story of Rabbi Akiva, the aforementioned Rabbi Akiva, rabbi Akiva, they were combing his body with steel combs and he was smiling. He was smiling. His students said, rabbi, what are you smiling? He said my whole life I've been wanting to devote myself to God with, we say, with all your hearts. Your good inclination, your evil inclination is that I did with your soul, with all of your means, because I can finally fulfill those. To give my soul for God, to give all of my means, my entire body, everything that I have to live my life committed, my relationship with God. That I was never able to do. I'm finally able to do that mitzvah. Finally I can show my full commitment to God. This is why I'm smiling.

37:36
There's a lot to talk about here. There's a lot to talk about giving our full, undivided attention to Hashem. Hashem, I know that everything is coming from you. We get caught up with so many things. It's very easy to get distracted in our world. That's the gift of Shabbos, by the way, gift of Shabbos of knowing Hashem. Everything's going to be taken care of.

38:04
It's a weekly test from Hashem. A weekly test from Hashem. Are we ready to let go? Are we ready to let go? Are we ready to let go? Do I have to be in control? Can I just allow Hashem? Hashem, you're in charge. I don't need to pick up my phone, I don't need to cook anything, I don't need to be involved in creation. It's a day to be, a day to be involved in creation. It's a day to be, a day to be connected. This is the the test of life. The test of life is seeing the hand of Hashem every minute of the day, every minute of the day.

38:56
Not easy. I don't know anyone who can say that they see it in every single thing that goes on in their lives. But we see we just talked about this in the parasha Everything that happens to us. Hashem talking to us. Hashem communicating with us, telling us I got you right here. Hashem talking to us. Hashem communicating with us, calling us I got you Right here. Just look a little bit, remove the veil, you'll see me. I'm there, and it's not always going to be easy for us to see it. It's not always going to be clear, but it's there.

39:44 - Intro (Announcement)
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