Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe Podcast Collection

00:03 - Intro (Announcement)
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of TORCH in Houston, Texas. This is the Parsha Review Podcast.

00:13 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Welcome to the parsha review podcast. It's so wonderful to be here with everyone. We're coming to you live from passaic, new jersey, uh. So this week's Parshas Parshas, chukas, chukas is one of the very fundamental, famous portions in the Torah that has a great amount of lessons for us to learn. We're going to learn from. We're going to point out a few different pieces that hopefully will help us be inspired and help us connect to this week's Torah reading.

00:49
The beginning of the Parsha begins as follows Vayidaber, adonai el Moshe, ve'al Aaron, leymah and Hashem spoke to Moshe and to Aaron saying Zos chukas, hatorah this is the decree of the Torah, asher Tziva Hashem, which Hashem has commanded L'amor saying as follows speak to the Jewish people and they will take to you, and they shall take to you, a cow completely red, which has no blemish, completely read, which has no blemish, and which there has not been placed upon it any yoke. What does that mean? There hasn't been any yoke? It means it has had no burden, it has had no work, it's unblemished of any sort. You know, if you put a big package on that cow, it could break a rib, it could hurt itself. No blemish whatsoever, no burden, no yoke, okay. So this seems like we have many, many other times in the Torah. We have a discussion about a specific topic and it'll say they have many times where you'll have the instruction or the decree about a mitzvah and it'll say about what specific topic it is. Like it should say here in our parasha, it should say Zos Chukas ha-parah. It should say these are the decrees about the red heifer. Instead it says that Zos Chukas ha-Torah, these are the laws of the Torah, these are the decrees of the Torah.

02:46
So we have to understand that. You know, this is a what is a decree versus a law? So laws make sense, laws make sense. As we discussed this in previous years the importance to understand that there are laws that are common sense. For example, speeding. We all know that when we go on the roads we see that there's a speed limit. It's 35, 45, depending where you are. In some places in Texas it could be 85. There's a law which gives the allowance of how fast one can legally drive. On some highways you'll have a minimum speed limit. You'll have minimum of a certain okay, because they don't want people driving too slowly. Now, when you have a law which makes no sense. What is the reason for that law? What is the reason for a law that has no reason Meaning?

03:46
King Solomon begged God, he says. I requested wisdom, and it's so distant from me. We're talking about King Solomon. King Solomon was one of the not one of the the smartest of all men, and yet he felt that wisdom was completely removed from him because he didn't understand the wisdom behind the red heifer this red heifer that's in our Torah portion. No reason given in the Torah. Do it because I said so.

04:21
And this is a fascinating dilemma that we have. Why would you have a mitzvah? Why would you have a mitzvah that doesn't have a reason? So I think, first and foremost, we know that in parenting, it's important for our children to you know, one of the Ten Commandments is honor your father and mother. One of the Ten Commandments is honor your father and mother. In Leviticus we have fear your mother and father as well. We have this also in Deuteronomy. What is the idea of honoring our father and mother? It's not only if it makes sense to us, it's not only we don't. You know, if it makes sense to the child to eat their dinner, they should eat their dinner. No, your mother said to eat dinner. Eat dinner. Your dad said to do something. You do it, even if you don't understand, and that makes sense to us.

05:13
But why would God create a mitzvah that is completely not understood to mankind? Now, moses got the secret. King Solomon didn't. Moses got the meaning, got the understanding. God explained it to him, but King Solomon didn't. Then he really, really, really desired the understanding of this mitzvah. So we have two questions. Number one is why was it hidden? Why don't we know the reason for this mitzvah of the red heifer? And secondly, why does the Torah refer to this? In chapter 19, verse number two, it refers it as the refers to it as the decree of the torah, the decree of the torah. So we have to understand that, the torah in its entirety.

06:06
We have 248 performative laws, 365 prohibitions, and each one of those mitzvahs have varying levels of understanding. We all know that. We've all experienced a Pesach Seder. We all light the menorah. We've been doing it since childhood and now, as adults, we continue to perform the same mitzvah. Is it with the same depth? Is it with the same understanding, with the same connection? Hopefully, not. Hopefully. Every time we learn and we grow, we elevate that experience and that experience doesn't remain the same. Hopefully it doesn't just stay. Oh well, this is the way I observed it as a child and this is the way I'm observing it as an adult. Hopefully it gets elevated, rung by rung, each and every time we perform it.

07:00
But imagine someone who's, like you know, a black belt in the observance of Shabbos, someone who's a black belt in the performance of the lighting of the menorah. What happened when they performed that mitzvah the first time? And they didn't have a depth of understanding. It's almost like they did it without meaning, without purpose, because they didn't have a connection to it like they do now. Meaning, we see that there is an elevation that comes along with each time we learn something. Each time we observe something, we're able to take it up a notch, we're able to elevate it.

07:39
And being that we learned it previously on a lower level doesn't make it invalid. It doesn't make it something which is less valued because I understand it now, at a higher level. Does this make sense? That means just because now I have a greater understanding of it doesn't mean that my previous observance of it was less. It means there's always room for growth in every area, even someone who's a doctor, someone who's a lawyer, someone who's a scientist, someone who's In every area. You can always learn more. There's always more to learn.

08:16
Our Torah teaches us here in this week's Torah portion Sos Chukas HaTorah. This is the essence of Torah study. The essence of Torah study is you think you understand it now. Learn it again and you'll see you'll have a whole other layer of understanding. You'll have a whole new appreciation when you learn it again. And when you learn it again it'll have another new appreciation for it. It means what you will think you understand is going to be so different when you look at it a second time and a third time and a fourth time. Every time it will be elevated. You'll be able to elevate your experience. Zos chukas haTorah. You don't understand necessarily all of the mitzvahs of the Torah, down to their core, to their essence.

09:07
I once told you I met with a very prominent rabbi and we talked about what it would be for us, each as an individual, to be the perfect Jew that God wants us to be. And he said my entire hope in my life is that one time, one time, I merit to put on my philin, my phylacteries, the way God wants me to. What do you mean? We put it on every single morning. Every single morning, we put it on, yeah, but do I have the right intention? Do I have the right focus? Do I have the right understanding? And it's just like when a child fulfills the will of their parent, the parent doesn't say oh, you're doing it for the right. I asked you to unload, to empty out the car. We just went shopping. I asked does my child have to have the proper mitzvah? I'm fulfilling a mitzvah of honoring my father and mother. No, not necessarily. Maybe at a later stage they'll learn more, They'll grow more, they'll connect more to the mitzvahs, they'll be able to fulfill the mitzvah. But that's not the idea. The idea is your mom told you something. Even if you don't understand why you do it, even if we don't understand the mitzvahs, we perform them.

10:26
Now what we try to do is, each time we perform the mitzvahs, elevate that mitzvah, take it to a new level of understanding, of appreciation, of connection, of connection, connecting to a mitzvah. It means so much to me. For example, there's a mitzvah that people connect with a tremendous amount, which is the mitzvah of lighting Shabbos candles. It's a very special time, it's a very special experience. It's a time for a special prayer. It has tremendous power. Does that mean that every time we light the Shabbos candles we have to have that same feeling? Or we can maybe invest a little bit more in that mitzvah, learn a little bit more about it, buy nicer candlesticks so that the mitzvah is even more beautiful. So now the mitzvah is elevated a little bit more, it means we can take it up many, many notches.

11:30
This is the essence of Torah. The essence of Torah is not just I do what I understand. We all know that there are plenty of laws that we fulfill that we don't understand. If we do research, we can hopefully gain a connection to it. We can learn more about the history, the background, the arguments for it, the arguments against it. The more we invest in learning about the Torah, the more we are able to hopefully elevate the experience of each mitzvah that we perform. So this is part number one.

12:06
Okay, and that is again in summary. Not everything we are commanded to do do we need to understand. We don't need to understand everything in order to perform it. Okay, for example, another, just one more example. It's popping into my mind the laws of kosher. Do we need to understand the laws of kosher in order to perform them, in order to fulfill them. No, all I need to know is that this is what God commands and because I have a relationship with God, I believe in God, I believe in reward and punishment. I know that there is a world, a physical world, and a spiritual world, an eternal world that is forever. This is a beautiful, a beautiful understanding for me to realize. I fulfill it because it's the will of Hashem. I fulfill it because it's the will of Hashem. Actually, I just saw a beautiful idea.

13:06
It says one of the mitzvahs in the Torah. It says and you should live by them, by the mitzvahs and our sages. Tell us, what is this referring to? It's referring to the world to come, because not necessarily do we feel, by the performance of a mitzvah, life coming out of it, but when we understand that this world is temporary but the world to come is eternal, the reward I get for the mitzvahs is I'm going to live in eternity with the reward for the mitzvahs that we perform, which is a very important idea for us to understand. We need to invest in our world to come. This is our eternity. The world to come is our eternity. That's the reward we get for every mitzvah and, by the way, even if we don't understand the reason for the mitzvah, we still get rewarded for it. If we have no idea what in the world we are doing, we're just doing it because I know that this is the will of hashem, without any asking questions in.

14:12
In yiddish, they would call it. They would call it a, a, a um, a simple emunah. A simple emunah, a pashata emunah. People who had a simple emunah. They had no, they weren't well educated People in Europe during the Holocaust, they were talking about the emunah, the knowledge of Hashem's existence that they had in their DNA. They had it in their blood. You'd ask them questions. I don't know. Don't ask me questions. This is the will of Hashem and that's it. I'll do it and I'll do it out of love.

14:48
Today we have so many opportunities to advance our understanding. You can ask. You know any of these AIs? Tell them. Give me some more inspiration about candle lighting. Give me more inspiration about the mitzvah, this mitzvah, that mitzvah, whatever mitzvah. We have so much that we can make it that it's not just a dry, black letter law, but rather it becomes something which is uplifting, something which we're able to connect to and that's hopefully something we're able to take with us every day of our lives.

15:26
There's another very important part of this week's Parsha, where we have the passing of Miriam and the passing of Aaron, and we see that the Jewish people are complaining we don't have bread, we don't have water. If you imagine what miracles the Jewish people are complaining we don't have bread, we don't have water. If you imagine what miracles the Jewish people are experiencing. They're leaving Egypt. The Midrash tells us and this is a Talmud as well that says that each person left Egypt with 90 donkeys filled with riches. You're talking about millions of people with tens of millions or hundreds of millions of donkeys filled with riches.

16:05
Now, the wealthiest country in the world was Egypt, so there was a lot of riches to be had and a lot of riches that the Jewish people were able to take with them, which, by the way, an interesting tale that they say is that the egyptian government wanted to sue the israeli government for all of these spoils that they had taken with them through, uh for when they left egypt. So the israeli uh, israeli government countersued the egyptian government for the 210 years of slavery, plus interest. So they said okay, forgot, just keep, you, forget it. You just keep the, keep the spoils. And plus, by the way, it wasn't stolen, it was given to the jewish people by the egyptians. The egyptians gave it to them. He said just take it and go, just leave, we don't want you here anymore, right, so okay.

17:03
So now the jewish people are complaining that they don't have water, they don't have bread. Now we know that the water was coming through the, the, the fountain of miriam. It was the, the spring of miriam. It was in her, her merit, that the Jewish people had water, and that stone that the water was coming from, coming forth from that spring, was coming, traveling along with them throughout the desert.

17:34
What type of complaint is this you have? I mean, you think of the amount of food. They say that it was about two and a quarter kilograms of food that each person ate every day, that they had to eat, not that they were forced to eat, but that they received as their food, as their portion, two and a quarter kilograms. That's about. It's more than five pounds of food. That's an enormous amount of food. Nobody eats that today. And they're complaining that they don't have food. That's an enormous amount of food. Nobody eats that today and they're complaining that they don't have food. They're complaining that they don't have drink.

18:09
It's just the miracles that they were experiencing is just so incredible. How can they complain? How can they complain about anything? They had such remarkable revelations every single day and they're complaining. It doesn't add up. What's going on over here? So we need to understand what the power of habit is. Habit and we've talked about this so many times habit has the ability to numb a person, even when they're experiencing the most incredible miracles.

18:49
When we have miracles that we are experiencing on a regular basis for example, does anybody ever get, you know, have an epiphany of realizing the miracles that function inside our body? You go to a doctor and the doctor gives you your blood test and they have all of these results and, like, all of that is in my blood. Well, my blood speaks about all of those things. It's interesting. I have this little idea. The Torah tells us the blood is the soul of the human being, and what I think is just as like a little, maybe an idea that we can derive from that, is that if you want to know everything about the person, look at their blood and that's what you see the blood test. You have a blood test that can test for a thousand different things your genes, everything is in your blood. Everything is in your blood. It's the most miraculous thing.

19:49
We have a blessing that we recite every time we come out of the restroom To thank Hashem for the miracles that seem ordinary, it seems ordinary, it seems like it's just like I was born like this. Everything works. I never had to think about it. Such incredible miracles that we have. But if you ever have an epiphany, if any of us ever have an epiphany where we suddenly realize, wow, I'm a walking miracle. Wow, I'm a walking miracle. Right, that should not we're off, we shouldn't let it. We're off now. Naturally it does.

20:31
Naturally we have something called habit and we get into that habit of this miracle the happening day after day after day after day. We don't even realize what an incredible miracle it is. You know, as many of you know, our family had a very challenging couple of months and we suddenly realize, when you hear a baby being born and they say, yeah, mother and baby are well, that's it. Do you know how many millions of miracles needed to happen for everything to go right? How many millions of things had to go right for that. To just be mother and baby are well, it's such an amazing miracle.

21:23
But it's very easy to become numb till God gives us a big bump on the road and we realize. You know, we're always living in a miracle. It's not ordinary at all that things are what we see as being normal. It's not normal, it's a magnificent miracle every single moment of life. But we have habit and habit comes along and pushes away miracles and we think it's just normal that things are. You know, everything just operates the way it operates, how the body distributes exactly what it needs to each part of the body and there's a priority system. If the body's in shock, the extremities are the first to go. When the body is in shock and it needs to preserve its resources, it locks it down to the core. So the fingertips, the toes, they lose blood supply first. I have to keep the resources here so that the human, the brain, continues to operate, that the human being keeps functioning.

22:47
We're living in miracles every single day. We're living in miracles every single day and it's very easy for us to fall into the trap of habit and or pointing fingers at the people of the generation who lived in the desert and saying I don't understand. They're living in miracles. They have manna descending every day from heaven. They have water coming out of a rock day from heaven, they have water coming out of a rock, the most remarkable miracles happening every day. How can they complain? How can they think for a second anything otherwise of the great miracles that they're experiencing? Of the great miracles that they're experiencing?

23:33
The answer is there's something called habit and we have to break habit. Habit is our enemy, habit is the greatest danger in our lives. Because habit, by the way, this is in relationships too. In relationships too, a meaningful relationship between a husband and wife cannot operate on autopilot. It needs to be unique and it needs to be special, and it needs to be every day something fresh, something new. And you need to be special and it needs to be every day something fresh, something new, so the relationship doesn't just show up 20, 30 years later or 10 years later when it's just like there's nothing exciting in this relationship anymore. Every day needs to be with a renewed excitement, with a renewed vigor, with a renewed appreciation, with a renewed appreciation, with a renewed passion. This we need to not become numb when we live in a world where everything is plastic, where everything is just, you know, ordinary, everything just is To take the time to appreciate, to acknowledge, to love and to not let it become habit.

25:03
We talked about the new car. You buy a new car and you're like, oh, I'm going to keep it clean, I'm going to keep it organized Right, and three weeks later it looks just like the old car looked. We have to instill within ourselves a constant reminder like pinch ourselves to not allow ourselves to fall into rote, to fall into habit. I think this is an important thing for us to every day. You know we talked about this.

25:36
You know these phones, these devices are really amazing, amazing devices. You can communicate with the entire world from a little bunker. It's an unbelievable thing. You can be wherever you are Rhode Island, passaic, new Jersey, you could be in. Everybody else is in Texas, here, but you could be wherever on planet Earth you are and you can communicate. You can see each other. It's just unbelievable. You can send each other messages in a millisecond. They have it across the globe. It's unbelievable. We can't stop being in awe. It's like, wow, that's amazing. That is amazing. Oh, I'm not in awe, I'm used to it already. We can't get used to things. Every day we have to have a renewed appreciation, a renewed joy that we're able to move our joints, we're able to eat, we're able to breathe, we're able to use the restroom Each one of these gifts.

26:46
Don't let it become habit. That's why the Torah tells us this story. Let it become habit. That's why the Torah tells us this story, to remind us it's very easy, even when you're living in the desert, the food is descending from heaven, you're getting water out of a rock. They're the most incredible miracles. Even then, it's easy to fall into the trap of habit and becoming numb to the miracles that we're experiencing. Every single day. We're seeing those miracles and it's just nothing.

27:22
Because habit and this, I think, is so critically important, particularly our generation, where everything is just like served to us. You know people get frustrated when they go to any of those. You know drive-through, pick up, you make your order, you drive around and the order is not ready yet. Are you crazy? And the order is not ready yet. Are you crazy to make dinner? Have your dinner ready or your coffee ready in 20 seconds, 30 seconds? Oh, I'm so sorry you had to wait a half a minute, but we're just accustomed to everything just being autopilot, everything just being there. The second I say, boom, it's got to be ready for me.

28:13
And we fall into a trap, we fall into a habit, we fall into a routine of this is the way it needs to be always for me. Everybody needs to serve me, and we don't. It's very easy to fall into that trap and that's the danger. So, hashem should bless us all. We should merit to never, ever have habit. Break that habit. Every day should be unique, every day should be special.

28:42
It's like you know anybody who does not live next to a beach and then you go visit a friend who does live on the beach, like this is amazing. Look at the sunrise, look at the sunset, whatever it is that you see, it's like how do you? And they're like, oh, we enjoyed it for the first couple of days, but then it's just like we just got used to it. That's tragic. That's tragic. You can enjoy this every single day and you're just letting it become routine, you're letting it become habit. We can't let that, because we want to enjoy and maximize life. We're taking away our joy of life when we don't appreciate things. We're taking away that joy, which leads into a whole other discussion. We'll leave for another time about why people today are so miserable. Where we have the most we have today, again, we have a device here that has more technology than the space shuttle that went up to space in the 60s. There's more technology here in our fingertips and yet people are more depressed, people are more sad, people have more anxiety, people have more why? Because if we just stopped and appreciated it, we'd be the happiest people on earth, which leads us to prayer.

30:02
What is prayer? Prayer is stopping the world to give thanks, stop the world, stop all the chaos, and just say thank you. Thank you, hashem, for a magnificent life. Thank you, hashem, for giving me all of this, these things, from the birds chirping to hearing a violin play music, to seeing the heaven, to seeing the earth, to seeing the trees, trees, the fruits, the vegetables at all magnificent mankind. And, most of all, I'll call Neshima on. Neshima for every breath that we breathe. Thank you To not take it for granted, because when we pray and we talk to God and we give thanks, which is prayer, you don't take anything for granted. Hopefully, it becomes real within us. I'm saying thank you to God, thank you for giving me this blessing Thank you for giving me life. Thank you, and hopefully never take it for granted. So, my dear friends, this concludes our Parsha review episode for Parsha's Chukas.

31:19
Okay, so this is a very, very good question. You're asking why did Miriam have such a short notice of her death and such a short eulogy? It seems like it's devaluing her greatness. We see the same thing, by the way, with Aaron, and you see the same thing with Moses. You see, all the great people had a very quick and short notification of their passing, and that was it. So there are two very important things that need to be learned from it. Number one is that less is more when it comes to eulogy, for example, about Moshe. What does it say? It says that Moshe died.

32:04
Servant of Hashem. In Hebrew, that's two words Eved Hashem. Two words, that's it. That's his whole eulogy. I mean Moshe. This is Moshe. This is the leader of the Jewish people who took them from Egypt. 10 plagues according to our sages, a total of 250 plagues took them out of Egypt split the sea, beat Amalek, got them the manna 40 years, 42 different encampments in the process, all of the miracles, the receiving of the Torah. You have all of the golden calf that they. You just think of all of the incredible challenges the Jewish people experienced. I mean, they were pretty tight with Moshe. Moshe was a pretty amazing leader and yet that's it. You can say about him when he dies by Yom HaShem. Same, by the way, with Miriam, same with Aaron. It really is remarkable. Our sages tell us that I'm going to share regarding Moshe and this relates as well to Miriam and to Aaron and to all of the others. By the way, abraham Isaac and Jacob also don't have a whole long drosh about their passing.

33:28
First thing is about Moshe. What does it say? It says that he died a servant of God. The Torah tells us that a servant doesn't have any acquisitions of his own. Everything they own belongs to their master. Their identity is their master's, everything is their master's. Moshe was a servant of God. He had no self. Everything he did was for God. Therefore, the greatest eulogy you can possibly give to someone like that is indeed to say he died a servant of God. That means it encompasses everything.

34:13
Just here, looking about, I'm just going to pull up the verses that talk about the passing of Miriam. Yeah, it says. And they arrived, the children of Israel, the entire assembly at the wilderness of Tzin in the first month and the people settled in Kadesh. And then it says she died there, miriam did, and she was buried there, all right there. So there's another piece here, which is the reason why we don't talk a lot about people passing is because this world is a very temporary place. We don't want to focus on this world, we want to focus on the next world. If we're going to be busy talking all the time when people pass about their accomplishments in this world, we might get the wrong idea that this world is the world that we need to invest in. But really we need to invest in the world to come. You know my father, when we were growing up, would always tell us when we would see a new house being built and we lived in a community where there were people who would knock down little, small houses and build up these massive, massive mansions. You know he would say this is a person who thinks he's never going to die. So invested in this world, so invested in the materialism of this world, of the physicality of the materialism. Our goal is not to be invested in this world. Our goal is not to be invested in this world. Our goal is to use this world for our investment in the next world and that's why you see a very.

35:50
You see Aaron also passes away in this week's Torah portion Doesn't either have a very, a very elaborate discussion about his passing. What does it say? So Hashem says take Aaron and Elazar, his son, and bring them up to Har-Hahar, the mountain called Har Ve'hafshet es Aaron es begadov, and disrobe Aaron of his garments, ve'hal bilbashdam es Elazar b'no, and dress those clothes on his son, elazar Ve'aron ye'osef. And exactly what happened? And Aaron died. That was it. He died at the top of the mountain. That's it. There's nothing else that's discussed about it.

36:45
Hayiru kol ha'edah ki gava Aaron. And then it says that the entire nation saw that Aaron died. Va'yifku es Aaron shloshim yom kol beis Yisrael, the entire house of Israel. It says the entire house of Israel mourned Aaron for 30 days Regarding Moshe. By the way, at the end of the Torah, it says that the entire children of Israel cried for Moshe 30 days. You see a difference by Aaron. It says the house of Israel cried Regarding Moshe. It says the children of Israel cried. What's the difference? Our sages tell us because Aaron, what was his key feature? Aaron's key feature was a peacemaker. So the households were preserved. Peace at home between a husband and wife, between a father and a mother, peace was maintained because aaron was there. Aaron was the peacemaker in households. So therefore, the houses of israel mourned aaron, while moshe was the leader for each of the individuals. It says that the children of israel mourned, israel mourned moshe. It was a very different relationship they had with Moshe.

38:05 - Intro (Announcement)
You've been listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe on a podcast produced by Torch, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. Please help sponsor an episode 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.