Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe Podcast Collection

You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of Torch in Houston, Texas. This is the Parsha Review Podcast.

Good Morning, everybody. It's so wonderful to be back here today. We're going to discuss Parsha's Tetzaveh. Tetzaveh is this week's Torah portion and it is Packed with a lot of incredible details about the vestments, the garments of the Kohen, the high priest It really is remarkable because if you look right at the beginning of the Torah portion It says something really really interesting. It says It's the fifth verse
Ve'atah and you, tedaber al kol chachmei leif, speak to all of those who are Wise-hearted, asher meleisiv ruach chachma, whom I have invested with a spirit of wisdom Ve'asu ez bigde Aaron, and they will make the vestments of Aaron Le'kacho lechahano li, to sanctify him to minister to me So it's a very interesting here because if you look and if we try to understand what's going on here It doesn't make any sense It doesn't make any sense. Why doesn't it make any sense?
These guys till 20 minutes ago were slaves in Egypt. It's not like they were before we went live We were talking about all these college degrees that people have. They're so intelligent. They're so smart. They're so What wisdom does he have? He was making bricks in Egypt. He doesn't have education He doesn't have training. He doesn't have skills. Oh, we're gonna pull him out and we're going to Bring him to make clothes. He doesn't know how to cut clothes. He doesn't know how to cut garments.
He did what what can he contribute here to with his wisdom? Bright guy what can he contribute to either the Construction of the tabernacle or the creation of the vestments. This guy has no idea how to make clothes It's not like he was a factory worker in China making garments. What did he do? What does the Torah say? Hatot Hedaber and now Moshe you speak Elko Chachmelev to all of the wise hearted people Hashem Lei Sivorach Chachmelev, whom I have invested with a spirit of wisdom.
For us who has big they are and they will make the vestments of Aaron Lekachot to sanctify him and L'cha Hanoli to minister to me so in general We think about wisdom it says that those who Seek wisdom The Mishnah says an interesting thing. Eizahu Chacham, the first Mishnah in Perek Dalet Eizahu Chacham, who is the wise person? Halomit Bikal Adam, who learns from every person So what really goes first?
Does wisdom go first or does something else comes first and then you become wise because it says to the wise Give wisdom God gives wisdom to the wise They're already wise. Why do they need wisdom? Shouldn't the silly ones? Shouldn't the dumb people get the wisdom? Right, it makes sense. Right those who are wise are already wise. They don't need more wisdom Those who are dumb. Those are the ones who need the wisdom. No Torah tells us that those who are wise get wisdom.
But those who are not they don't get it so what's really happening here, you know there's a there's a story told in Talmud that one of the great sages met with a with one of the Roman noble women and She asked him. I don't understand why your Torah says that you give wisdom to the wise Why give it to the wise they're already wise Give it to those who are less capable give it to those who are less wise
To which he answered he said, okay. So if someone came to you for a loan For their business you have two candidates in front of you. One is just a poor guy He's very poor. He's asking asking for a loan. The other one is like I'm in a cash crunch right now These are the businesses that are pending right as soon as it comes through I'll pay it back.
Which one did you loan? Would you loan the money teacher says, of course the the second one the latter why because he can pay it back Says listen to what you're saying Listen to what you're saying. You don't give wisdom to the people who are gonna do nothing with it You give the wisdom to the people who will do something with it You give the wisdom to the people who will do something with it
What does the Mishnah say the commentaries talk about who is the wise man he who learns from everyone? Say the commentaries who is wise so Ben Zoma This is the first Mishnah in the fourth chapter of ethics of our fathers Ben Zoma does not mean to say that people cannot be wise strong rich happy or honored unless they comply with his definitions rather he's telling us that People are entitled to take pride in their achievements only if they have attained and exercised in accordance.
With the moral teachings of the Torah, okay, so he says hello made me call out them That's a wise person. Let's see what that means says he who learns from every person One who truly values wisdom will seek it wherever it can be found For one who refuses to learn from another person Because he dislikes him or disapproves of him. He's elevating his feelings over his pursuit for knowledge That means if someone really really desires knowledge He doesn't care what the messenger is.
He doesn't care where it comes from if it's knowledge. I desire knowledge from this we can understand that a wise person a Wise person is someone who desires wisdom If someone doesn't someone knows a lot, but he doesn't he doesn't have a passion for it He doesn't have a love for it He happens to be just very bright. So what a lot of bright people who did nothing to this world Contributed zero yet. There are a lot of people, you know, I was amazed Do you know that?
15 years ago 20 years ago Elon Musk knew nothing about cars and he knew nothing about rockets He wrote that about himself He knew nothing about cars and he knew nothing about Rockets and yet the number one car 20 years later in the entire world is the car that he produced the the Tesla why was the best-selling car in the world and The best rocket in the world that NASA with all their billions and billions of dollars.
they're hitching a ride with him to the space station and back and Getting our astronauts to and from saving them and Sending all the satellites and everything else. It's like You you think like oh, he's probably just a genius. No, he just desires wisdom. I Think he's a great modern-day example what it means to just never stop yearning for more He could just say enough. I have enough money and goodbye. He's gonna be the first trillionaire who cares. He doesn't care about the money
He cares that he's doing more With the wisdom with his desire with his yearning to never stop When it comes to each and every one of us in our pursuit of Torah Wisdom, I have a friend He buys books. Oh my goodness non-stop Doesn't need to be bright Doesn't need to be smart He has never quenching thirst For more Torah more and more and more that's wise Someone who's wise never stops learning
Now it doesn't have to be degrees in college and stuff like that, but to always be learning To always pursue more knowledge To never say, okay now I know enough wisdom. You know, I just saw a picture this morning of In this set here the new set that we just got for the magnificent Levitt family library here at the Torch Center. It has a picture there of It has a picture there of Rebel Yashiv sitting and learning Torah
When he was a hundred and two years old and you can see the fervor the excitement the Enthusiasm like it was his first time opening up a Talmud. He one time came home Rebel Yashiv he came home and nobody could find him. They're looking in his room. He's not in his room not in the bathroom Where is he? Oh, he's in the back of his library sitting and learning He had a big library. He had the rows and rows of books
Sitting sitting and learning that's what he walks in. That's the first thing he's doing. Ah Had a tough day, let me just sit back and watch some television See what's going on in the world. Are they attacking Iran not attacking Iran? They this that doesn't care about that He wants more wisdom more wisdom more wisdom what he learned everything already he knows everything already what more Every time you learn it you see so you learn something new Every time you review it you refresh you understand it better
It's like we learned in the Talmud just recently Someone who learned something a hundred times and someone learned something a hundred and one times. It's totally different completely different I Mentioned this story a number of times of Ramosha Feinstein called his nephew and told him that he gets a Mazel Tov He gets a Mazel Tov why what's the Mazel Tov he says I get a Mazel Tov because I finished Talmud four times
He says how's that possible 15 years ago. You called me and told me that you finished it. You finished the whole Talmud 101 times How is it possible you finished the fourth time? He says yeah, it's my fourth time Finishing the entire Talmud 101 times Never ending never stopping. He finished the entire Talmud of Shabbos the whole tractate of Shabbat every Shabbat 150 some odd pages of Talmud And not easy Talmud tractate Shabbat
Every single Shabbat why because he couldn't stop learning for a minute if you desire something you want it you go crazy about it I can't it's like someone who wants money. They everything they talk about. I remember I once met a guy I Met a guy he says he's walking back and forth pacing back and forth. I said good morning. How are you money money? Like they'd like did you say money like I said no good morning. Good morning. He's like money money money money money
That's it. He could think about So everything he wants to do is make money But someone wants wisdom. That's a person who's gonna get wisdom Someone who loves wisdom someone who desires wisdom So what's Hashem referring to here in this verse? It's very clear You see if you take Someone who desires wisdom and put them into a factory In five minutes, they'll know how to stitch still know how to sew they'll know but it's not only that
They want to be close to God. They want to understand. What are these vestments represent? So it's not about learning new skills you learn you ask most people out there they'll tell you they learn more One day on the job than they did in four years in schooling. I've asked hundreds of students that where did you learn more? They just finished college. They got their first job. They said lawyers they learn a lot of law in school, but when they're actually a A
Assistant to a lawyer and they see what goes on in the courtroom. They see what goes on just in actual life Everything else is theory People who are becoming doctors they go to residency. They actually take care of patients They actually are reading and and and and dealing with reports They learn a lot more than they do with all the books This is it's an amazing thing how if someone desires and this is just another another important thing that we have
This whole thing of people being ADHD in our generation. I'm very familiar with that. It takes one to know one But when there is a desire to learn something Nothing stands in the way When there's a true desire I've seen it with myself When when I'm all in focused on it Nothing, it's it's it's locked in like cement locked in And you get it you get it the first time
Okay, when a person's not in the frame of mind of learning when a person is not focused when they're not Desiring because not important to them Where do we get this from? This is where our Torah teaches us how we raise children The Torah teaches us to raise our children The first words they speak should be Torah Tziva Lanu Moshe First words, he's just able to start saying Mama Abba Abba, right? He's starting to say words
Ah Torah Tziva Lanu Moshe the Torah was commanded to us through Moshe Why? Give them a desire to learn give them a infuse them with a want for wisdom from a young age that's why It's important when you know, there's an age called the why age Children when they get to like two three four years old They start asking why about everything see that's the Sun why? the moon why
It's time to go to sleep why they ask why about everything and sometimes parents get frustrated Can you stop asking why about everything just do it? No, no, no, don't don't don't Limit their curiosity. They're asking trying to understand the world now They're trying to see how things happen. I Think one of the biggest challenges we have today with all of these Deliveries from Amazon from Walmart you have Walmart plus they deliver your groceries straight to the door There's a couple of big problems with it
Because children don't understand how things come about anymore They think that you know a bottle of juice just comes from the front door Why wasn't it delivered? Where does milk come from? It comes from the door It comes from the refrigerator But really they should learn the miracles of how these things Come about through a shem's hand the milk you get from a cow and the fruits that grow on a tree, these are things that children need to learn and
Instead it comes out of a box Amazon. Ah Gets delivered to your front door. They have no no connection with it By the way, it doesn't either come from the store Okay That's another thing but another another side thing that we lose out By having these deliveries. No, don't get me wrong. It's it's a phenomenal Luxury that we have in this generation You don't have to schlep out. Someone will schlep out for you is We don't get to see the variety of a shem's beautiful creations
I'm not talking about only the human beings who are shopping alongside you when you're picking out your fruits and vegetables I'm talking about the actual produce The fruits and the vegetables to see the magnificent colors the grandeur of a shem Beauty it's unbelievable It's so magnificent We can feel an incredible amount of love by looking and appreciating the gifts from a shem I Remember and this is many many years before Apple computers many more years before Apple phone iPhones
One of the great rabbis in New York rabbi Avigdor Miller used to talk about the Apple the fruit the Apple and The brilliance of that Apple is far exceeding any piece of technology you will ever find That will ever be created Do you know what's in that Apple Millions of apples are in that Apple Millions, you know why? Because in it are the seeds for the next generation of apples and The next trees that produce fruit that will produce more trees this little beautiful Apple
to realize that those seeds are all of the future of All the apples in the world. It has the ability in this one Apple To be the future This is in one little Apple And you look at how beautiful it stands you look at the different shades and the different colors The nutrients that it provides for our body It's it's a miracle and Then what we look at we don't have time for it because we're busy on our Apple devices
We don't have time to realize imagine if you put your Apple phone into the ground and three weeks later It starts buds start growing and you have new Apple devices Wait, that's that's the amazing thing. You put an Apple to us. It seems like yeah, that's the way nature works There's no such thing as nature One of the things we learned previously When we discussed the Hodu Now morning prayer Remember his wonders that he performed his marvels and the judgments he decreed
Our sages tell us you know what that means Remember Hashem's wonders that he performed way back in creation but his marvels The marvels in our creation and the judgments he decreed That they continue to be created daily by the Almighty The miracles didn't just happen then back. Oh, it's embedded into nature mother nature did this mother nature did that? most of Mishpa tape you Hashem's marvels Is his command? It's the most incredible thing that we are able to live in a world
Where every day we're able to see the miracles of a sham Where you walk outside and you see the the marvels in a tree in a sunrise a sunset The whole world it's it's an amazing thing We should live in total amazement But that's if we desire wisdom If we desire to learn and to grow and to connect We'll be of the Chachme Leif We will be Moshe go talk to all of the wise hearted people Hashem
Whom I have invested with a spirit of wisdom For us who is big they are in Lekatcho, Lechan Oli They will create those vestments. They will create those garments. They will create Everything but they don't know how They desire wisdom Wisdom of the heart wise hearted people people who never stop learning and it's the charge for us To never stop learning I've said this numerous times To people who I learn with who are coming of age already That they want to retire. They're considering retirement
Tell them don't do it Don't retire or if you do be like Ed be like others here who are never stopping to learn I've seen so many people Their lack of activity even if you go to work and fall asleep on your desk, it's fine You're tired fine. So lower your schedule, but go continue to work a person needs to continue To have vitality to have vibrancy Every single day to not stop Because the minute we stop it all shrinks it all falls apart it all Disappears
It come live We have a command to learn every single day Torah Vigis a bow Yom Avila to learn Torah morning evening to learn Torah every day I Remember in yeshiva. There's something they would tell us Every day even you're not feeling well open up open up a little perky of us a little ethics of our fathers open up the Parsha learn something have Torah in your in your life. I
Grandfather would say sometimes people leave their homes. They go travel and they're overwhelmed with temptation. This is because they don't have Torah We need to have Torah in our mind Boredom brings sin If you have your mind is busy. You're not bored To take a verse before you leave the house. Okay, let me contemplate this. Let me learn this What does it mean to be a wise person? to always be thinking to always be Challenging our mind more
Such an important thing for us to learn the real wisdom is the desire to have wisdom That's real wisdom. That's why the wise are those who receive the wisdom God gives the wisdom to those who are wise What does it mean to be wise to desire wisdom Shem should bless us all that we should merit to have wisdom. We should merit to always seek wisdom Everywhere we can get it. Shem should bless us all with an amazing Shabbos. Thank you so much
The first thing in our Amidah that we ask for is wisdom Atachonei l'adamdas you give man intelligence After we recite the first three blessings, which are patriarchs God's might and God's Holy Name We go with the first thing is insight. You graciously endow man with wisdom and teach insight to frail mortal Endow us graciously from yourself with wisdom Insight and discernment bless the USM gracious giver of wisdom Shem gives wisdom to who to those who seek it. All we need is a desire
It's an amazing thing. All we need is a desire the Ratzon the will the the the want for wisdom Is the only ingredient necessary? Who would you rather train someone who just my parents told me to just get a job and get a life So I'm just that's why I'm here versus someone who wants to learn the skills. He wants to Be a an Apprentice, who do you want to take in the person who wants to be there?
That's the people that Hashem infuses with wisdom. I should leave I filled them with wisdom Shem should bless us all So we see by King Solomon King Solomon said about wisdom He had all the wisdom in the world the wisest of all men and the one thing he was missing was the understanding for the Red Heifer and he considered it like he wasn't wise at all because he was lacking that It's like we mentioned with Haman that Haman says Haman had everything
The wealthiest man alive aside for the king. He had power. He had connection He had the signet ring of the king. He could decree anything he wanted One thing he didn't have He didn't have Mordecai bowing down to him. All of this is worthless Because someone who desires honor when he doesn't get that one ounce of honor it's worthless When someone desires wisdom and they don't get that last drop of wisdom. It's like I don't I'm a dummy
I don't know anything and this is the this is the real what we're what we're essentially what we're actually saying is that the root of everything is desire when a person has a will a Desire to attain something whatever it may be whether it be wisdom honor glory fame Imagine someone who's like the number one Influencer out there, but they're Deplatformed from Facebook. It's like it's like the because if their desires to be the number one in every area of Influence and they're missing a big one
It's worthless They're not gonna be sleeping at night because how do I get back on there? What do I need to do to get back on there, right? It's like you mean you have everyone on all the other platforms. No, no, no, but this one I don't that Spark is really what we're looking for that spark for whatever it is that we desire in life You don't want to just a person shouldn't just want to be a pilot
He wants to be the best pilot the most experienced pilot Person shouldn't want to be a video Technology or whatever video editor. He wants to be the best Versus you have people who? Yeah, it's okay What are those people in our eyes like what do we call those people mediocre people who just are There It's okay as long as I'm you know, I would even say that it's curiosity for more for more for never-ending
our quest for more wisdom for more knowledge for more understanding for more You know, it's like you ever wonder why people who've made a trillion dollars What like what's in it for them to make another trillion? Because they want more. Oh, I've cast employees by Kessa one thing that's one hundred percent certain is though someone who has Love for money will never be satisfied with money It's never satiable ever. No, you should haven't you have enough already? Hundred billion dollars enough never enough 101
102 like you know, it's like what it this craving is A very powerful good thing if it's used for good I'm not saying that money is bad, but I'm just saying the money is Temporary wisdom is eternal because what we do with that wisdom guiding our lives Bringing us closer to God You know that used to be in the altar shtetl and it still is today when you meet Jews from around the world
That when they meet one another they say over a little thought of a little idea of Torah. I met a guy this morning Leaving shul he came here to collect charity for her for an institution Right outside of shul. He says I want to tell you over something from Satmar Rebbe Some idea. What does he have with me? All right. He came to collect charity. What are you giving me wisdom? Because that's the way Jewish people greet each other We're people who that's our our aspiration our goals
Is more wisdom more wisdom more wisdom. And if someone says to you I heard it all you're missing something And in every area of life, it's important for us to never never never allow Mediocrity take reign over us.

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