Transcript

Korach · Rabbi Benjy's Shiur

0:01
She and a beer. Parashat Cara is Rocky
0:04
pronunciation parasites Cora. There's a not sure pouch of Kyra
0:11
and I'm putting this down as a as a Mizrahi event because I'm
0:14
here. So we will have a rousing
0:19
rendition of the hatikvah at the end and drink a toast to the, to
0:23
the present and the state of Israel.
0:25
They are men very good. Okay.
0:28
So this is a From a non Meraki sauce from good.
0:33
Dahlia Char of America the or gedaliah who has a fascinating
0:37
essay that takes thus The Narrative of this week cetera.
0:40
So they were barely in against Masha.
0:42
The the argument that? Why shouldn't him?
0:45
And his brother be superior to everybody else have senior roles
0:49
within the community? Everyone is could awesome.
0:51
Everyone is wholly. I've almost everyone was at
0:53
hosseini. Everyone has sought heard
0:55
Revelation. So who are they to assume
0:58
leadership and seniority over? Over the nation.
1:02
And beyond that is subset. Fundamentally a challenge to
1:05
Marsha's leadership his authenticity, authenticity of
1:09
his message. That where's he getting it from
1:12
amateurs saying, it's directly from Hashem.
1:15
And it crack is challenging that obviously the irony of the
1:18
Paradox in any challenge any of these sort of societies where
1:23
the the lower class rise up against us the the ruling Elite
1:27
because they just want to be at the same place as the elite.
1:30
So, Well, he didn't even feel it was, it was it was necessary.
1:37
We know those our democracy with the different political
1:41
ideology. This was, why do we even need a
1:44
leadership? But all of us are senior.
1:47
If everyone has seen it, then get anyone at the top.
1:49
But if he wanted the role for himself, then he would have open
1:51
himself up to the possibility of having the same challenge
1:53
against them to. There's a there's a paradox in
1:58
his argument and if a failure in the logic of what he's saying,
2:01
however, what we want emerges from the Story isn't just a nice
2:06
story, but a fundamental Concept in Jewish thinking which brings
2:10
us to the Orthodox understanding of tourism in her Charmaine that
2:15
the Torah is read the Torah rules turret or ideology is a
2:19
direct Revit. Was a direct Revelation from
2:22
Hashem. The unlike the people from a
2:25
couple of hundred years ago, that wanted to launch the
2:26
ideology. You have multiple human.
2:29
Authors were responsible for the production of the five books of
2:32
the Torah Judaism. All the Way back because gone to
2:35
it's divine authorship. And the rum bum.
2:38
We're going to learn some people around them tonight.
2:40
He predicates that he finds a source for this understanding in
2:43
this week cetera. So again, it's a narrative part
2:46
of the Torah that actually, according to the rambam teaches
2:49
us, the most fundamental ideology that we all subscribe
2:53
to if we didn't subscribe to it. In fact, when I hear arguments
2:58
of, you're not really Jewish them when I when you have kids
3:01
who might go through a reform community and those who To
3:04
Orthodox or whose families are members of Orthodox Souls, but
3:07
they didn't actually go. It's a very strange arguments
3:10
because you have, you have children in school who are
3:13
regular shawl attendees week after week, they've got
3:17
participate in their synagogue youth movement kids, who were
3:20
nominally belong to the spicket, roll out, the are Whitefield,
3:24
and then not turn up there other than maybe Yom Kippur for an
3:27
hour or so. But not actually get inside and
3:30
I might do it out to anyone. Who's the better?
3:33
Who's the better do? Do or when I read on exam papers
3:37
that I thankfully given up marking, 17 years, of marking, a
3:41
level of GCSE, papers have come to an end while I'm in a good
3:44
mood. It's an awful process.
3:47
But when you have people saying that, that reform answers
3:50
religious, it's actually not correct.
3:52
It's it's probably more consistent to be reformed.
3:58
Then to be an orthodox Jew and not practice.
4:00
If you deny Divine authorship of the Torah and of course the laws
4:03
of To pick and choose as if you're not practicing it, that's
4:07
fine because your ideology allows you to do that.
4:09
So it's completely consistent with the approach that their
4:12
ideology starts from you claim to be Orthodox and you don't
4:15
have the right to argue against this law doesn't work for me
4:18
because Hashem is giving it and you can't really challenged her
4:21
sham. So there's I've argued on behalf
4:23
of a bizarrely. As the only doom on the GCSE
4:26
panel that you also looks cute. I'm often argued on behalf of
4:29
the reform communities that it's wrong to take as announcer.
4:32
They're not as office with rather's, they're following
4:36
their religious teachings. Consistently, whereas an
4:39
unorthodox subscribe, he doesn't practice as being inconsistent
4:42
with their ideology and that that would follow through.
4:45
Think about, it does assert that there's a logic to it even in my
4:48
even if it feels uncomfortable. So the rambam tells us in the
4:52
eighth chapter of his commentary on the mishnah, he goes through
4:56
the 13 principles of faith and he says, as follows, the eighth
5:00
principle is, hey, don't touch her.
5:02
I mean, I just remained Authorship of the source of Tara
5:06
is divine. The who, what does this really
5:08
mean? Should Naaman key, coloratura
5:10
Hazard Nahant 102, not even sure I've been on this whole toilet
5:13
was given by moisture obtain. Oh, I love her.
5:15
Shalom peace, be upon Him, stir throughout the phrase, with my
5:18
human relations, somebody else. He cool.
5:21
I'm a great. The whole in take the totality
5:24
every single letter word comes from Hashem, km means to say,
5:29
she he got a love km, Jimmy's birthday came to him.
5:33
Directly from Hashem. And we use the word Hashem,
5:37
communicated a sham, spoke the Torah, but it doesn't mean that
5:40
literally, because there's no mouth to speak, but it's a
5:43
metaphor that we use in order to explain it.
5:46
The aim you do, I have a key gear, we don't know how, and
5:49
we're never going to know how we can't understand what it means
5:51
to be the highest profit ever. You can't understand how God can
5:54
speak to people. So those questions are are
5:57
redundant that whole area of thought is unnecessary, because
6:00
you're never going to get to an answer.
6:01
So it's pointless asking those questions.
6:04
The question, we have to understand what the concept we
6:06
have to make sense of is, what, what are the implications that
6:10
the Torah is the word of Hashem. The ADT De Niro, who mashallah
6:14
mashallah mashallah, who came to him, that he who hayaku most
6:18
Affair. Most, I was like a scribe again
6:20
metaphoric, she Korean law. That you call the Scribe who
6:24
caught a cold milk or up more Laura art.
6:27
He writes down all the happenings of what happened all
6:29
the stories of the mitzvahed and that's why he was called the
6:32
legislator because he wrote down the Laws.
6:34
He led you wrote down the legislative comments that I Shem
6:36
gave and there's no difference between over now, come the
6:40
children of ham were called Kush and its frame.
6:43
Perhaps should know I can list the genealogies of who's who or
6:47
the shame is Storm. It may head to buy out and his
6:50
wife was called. Mrs. Had to file but timna was
6:54
the pillar gush but she was the concubine.
6:57
They are as Divine as meaningful as I am.
7:01
The Lord, your God or sh'ma Israel.
7:04
And that's all the good. We could unpack that for a long
7:07
time. How can you find meaning in
7:09
learning about some ancient persons concubine or what his
7:12
wife was called the what the children are called compared to
7:15
and the Lord your gods or shammai Israel because they were
7:18
all ultimately said by Hashem and therefore they are Torah
7:22
could Rashad. I'm at the old pure and holy and
7:24
they're all true possession or managed to come on a lab
7:27
stroking, my chest it from me, Delta you want the then claim
7:30
that Masha made this whole thing up.
7:32
Heaney who ate Selkirk remain of in the VA know that such a
7:36
person would be a cafe or Mega weapon in the altar.
7:38
Be called a costume would be the ultimate heretic, to deny the
7:42
divine origin of the Torah. It needs brings you into the
7:44
class of Heretics and it's nothing worse than that because
7:48
such a person would say, okay I can get the laws.
7:51
I get some of the laws maybe not sacrifices today because
7:53
outdated but I can get the moral laws.
7:55
Some of them I can get some of the big theological statements.
8:00
But only get some of the other stuff.
8:01
For some of this history looks a bit bit weird and it's not
8:03
really so important. But then what have you done?
8:06
You've decided on your own initiative that some parts of
8:09
the Torah are essential. Some are secondary and some of
8:14
these stories are, there's no there's no purpose to them.
8:19
And they're really that this emerge from the pan of Macho,
8:21
decided to write some narrative elements in this book of laws,
8:25
just because he wanted to and that would be someone who holds
8:29
the opinion of ain't, I'm in a shaman, the Torah is not from
8:32
heaven. So I'm real cut from the
8:34
rabbi's. Have told us, who am?
8:36
I mean, chocolate, Aroma paragrah, quotes minute, Papa su
8:40
casa. So someone who believes the try
8:42
is not from Heaven, can be comfortably holding that some
8:45
aspects are, but the minute you think something isn't?
8:48
You are out Outside of the realm of kosher Jewish beliefs.
8:55
Okay. So that's a whole other topic.
8:57
You're right. You are Al also needs to be
8:59
understood that the content emerge from from Hashem, but
9:05
that's a whole different topic because then you have
9:06
contradictory you have conversations are really, you do
9:09
have that's there are challenges on the oral law because you have
9:13
rabbis debating is that the simplest easiest idea is that
9:16
question about Hanukkah and handy candles?
9:19
To light on the first night that we start with eight to go down
9:21
to one or do we go from 1 to 8? So obviously, if there was going
9:24
to be a festival called Hanukkah that need, that was foretold to
9:27
ma said that the laws would have been told, but they're never
9:30
arguing over the big question. The gemara doesn't argue.
9:33
Do you have Shabbos? Do you keep kosher?
9:35
It's always the details of how I'm gonna remember learning from
9:39
the left Force America to be there by.
9:40
It was a, just a couple of fascinating moments where you
9:43
read a commentary commentator and then you read a latter
9:47
commentator, On that first one that you've read who hold who
9:52
reads it differently. And that was imagine some
9:54
fantastic. Cause there's like, they were
9:55
one bizarre, what I think of as the Rams are not managers and
9:58
some other, and it when you read the round bun, on one way, you
10:02
could read it. As, if he said, I'm gonna get
10:04
this back to Father's benefits been more than 20 years since I
10:07
saw this inside, but whether or not you can take grapes off the
10:11
off the stem on Shabbos. So, no, I think you what, I
10:15
think he said you could, but then the commentator on him said
10:18
you Don't see interpret him. Did he read the words
10:21
differently? And I remember just thinking
10:22
that was the right idea. Imagine they came back to life
10:25
again. I had a Shabbos meal together
10:27
and then you don't have one of their wives brings out grapes
10:29
for dessert. What would that sound like?
10:31
What are you doing? What do you mean?
10:33
Well, you said, you couldn't know, I didn't.
10:35
And how would that strange conversation the back and forth
10:37
between various ages? Complex and precise like how to
10:42
make the filling your is in your law.
10:45
But not, how was that given the given to Moshe up on Mount Sinai
10:51
in detail? Or I progressively when he came
10:54
back downtown writing, things down is also top realtor on the
10:57
run but wait would tell us the room has definitely an
11:02
authoritative stance in Jewish thought there are other opinions
11:06
that are not normative. So they are outside the pale.
11:09
I love what most would accept, although they're still there.
11:14
A bizarre said, the but our giant, so we can't just
11:16
disregard. Yes, the Rumba and other would
11:18
say that Masha, got that interpretation on Mount Sinai,
11:22
the classic white. Yeah.
11:23
Yeah. They tried to other one.
11:24
Is it Shaquita? The parts are going to Taro says
11:27
Slaughter the animal as I have told you, well know, where is
11:30
their desire, their description in the five books of what was
11:33
told. So that seems to be one of those
11:35
and then the argue on the nuances, the best way.
11:38
And ultimately one way of Looking at it.
11:40
Is there arguing how do we fulfill the will of Hashem?
11:43
What is that? How do we do that now?
11:48
With this topic, say this is, this is this is Hannah and he
11:51
learns it from the organ failure.
11:53
Brings his whole thing here that he is.
11:55
Learning it from The Narrative and this week's addres because
11:58
hush, no, he's, there's a conversation between them where
12:02
it says kiosk em Sherlock. Honey left him out him.
12:05
Gila monsters has to cry. God sent me and then it says,
12:09
kilo Millie. Be, it's not for my heart.
12:11
Haven't imagined all of this, I did.
12:14
Wangler way round. I haven't made up all these
12:16
rules. Haven't imagined my My authority
12:19
in the community. And we have this tradition and
12:24
the Camaro that every 30 days car and his band of merry men
12:28
are under the ground in Gahanna. Whatever.
12:31
That really means stating Moshe Amersfoort or also a module is
12:36
true in the Torah is true as a consequence of the story.
12:40
Take it again. Is it literally true?
12:43
You could say, yes. You could think.
12:44
No it doesn't. It doesn't matter to me very
12:45
much what you think you can measure invoices but what is
12:49
significant. Is this concept that there's a
12:53
Need to rehash on a regular on a 30-day cycle, fundamentals of
13:00
Jewish faith. So you have the fundamental of
13:03
Jewish Jewish teachings. Emerging from this story,
13:07
correct? Challenging much as Authority,
13:08
much the same back. I didn't make it up.
13:10
It's all I'm authentic. You sent by Hashem but in the
13:13
Gomorrah saying to us that what the every 30 days, why?
13:19
Because the guard tells us in another gemara that Rubbie
13:22
coming, but Hammer, but I, but he says, slow Simeon who she
13:26
wrote should lower your head chakra, 30 days.
13:30
And you forget something, and therefore, you need to rehash.
13:33
And then what emerges from this piece of Gomorrah, is the need
13:36
for all of us to rehash our fundamental beliefs, as part of
13:41
living Jewish. So practicing halacha is one
13:45
area of living a fulfilled Jewish life.
13:47
In addition to the, to the practice of religion, which can
13:51
become robots. Attic and Mindless than just
13:54
sociological and many people were practiced long after their
13:57
beliefs of have left them because they're embarrassed and
14:00
don't want to be an outsider in their social group so it's more
14:03
convenient to practice rather than stand out and be alone.
14:09
And so with the guard cells as you got to repeat it, every 30
14:13
days and another girl which is fascinating that you have a
14:16
thief broke into somebody's house.
14:20
Death by doing so they have given up the right to exist.
14:23
So if you kill the thief, you are innocent.
14:26
Someone breaks into your house to steal.
14:28
The assumption is they will do. Whatever they can to steal from
14:31
you. And therefore they lose their
14:32
right to live. You killed them, you're not
14:33
guilty of murder. And at that point, the governor
14:36
says that such thieves less, you will even doesn't a chef to help
14:41
them to be successful. Please God get me out of here
14:43
without being killed. So you're a gun of, you're a
14:46
thief, you're breaking the halacha, the they do not.
14:49
Deal and you're still diving into a Shem.
14:51
So this character has fascinating because every from
14:54
rubber he's got em on our because there's like, it's a big
14:57
benefits addict, you know, he's got the rubber.
14:59
Is there a? It will be careful his it.
15:01
Yeah, he's got a mother in Hashem to put.
15:04
We believe, God can save him from Dire Straits from, you
15:08
know. I think about the music.
15:09
I just lost you completely. As I said, there's words and
15:12
sort of lost a certain group of people here tonight, okay?
15:19
Okay, there you go. To your house.
15:35
And you are allowed to kill him because when he walks in, he
15:37
loses self-defense, but he gives up the right.
15:40
But through his actions, he forfeits his right to life and
15:44
he died doing. So like saying, I don't care if
15:46
you kill me. That's the Assumption here.
15:48
And the girl, That there's such a person might double to our
15:50
show. Now, you can't say, come, come
15:52
become Yom Kippur, oh, this God of his such a Sadiq.
15:56
He demonstrated emunah in the, in the most awesome moments of
16:00
stress in his life and he were to die tomorrow.
16:02
He's not going up there. No, not no, not not to the
16:05
highest points. Now.
16:06
Such a person is better than someone that has no Emma.
16:10
This guy's obviously reached a level, but the Amana that we
16:12
need is a Mona. That is constant, not a manner
16:16
that is fleeting and other. A desperate moment, your Express
16:21
that that fear and Hashem. Please stay, please help me and
16:24
the proof texts he has with all the money I had never thought
16:27
about this beautiful words McGillis.
16:29
Esther, it says the pulse, look by Hyo, men as Hadassah as as
16:33
Hadassah Mordecai looked after group helped her guardian Oh
16:40
man, it's like the word and Mona.
16:42
So a mother has to be like a Guardian.
16:44
Guardian, is constant. Modify was constantly doting
16:49
over as the winning formula from even when how we behave after
16:52
she was taken every day for three years, he walked past
16:56
those Gates checking on this one girl, never know.
16:58
And you imagine the snooping people and all religious rabbis
17:02
checking on a girl. What will the blabbermouth would
17:05
have said down? Instruction he brought me the
17:06
sacrifices own reputation for note for to check on her.
17:10
He was it was that constant doting over esta and if you
17:15
connect the word or men, which is looking after the rearing
17:18
that helping to develop her character to the idea of the
17:23
permanence of their mana and Mana is something that we need
17:26
to develop as a as a habit for any home owner, Nick nearby Mira
17:30
Salomon. I'll make some people like to
17:33
read pages of a sitter and fulfill that they've done
17:35
something Noble or worthwhile. You can't get a money just by
17:40
reading. I'm gonna moment after chakras.
17:42
So you've got all those pages in The siddur.
17:43
After you finished opening which make people feel very from to
17:47
say. Because they look at me, it was
17:48
running up to work and I'm still praying and it's nobody that
17:51
it's definitely got a place that I'm not.
17:53
No, no, I'm not rejecting the place.
17:55
But what I am rejecting was the concept that simply by reading
17:57
the 13, I believe you're going to have belief that it can, then
18:02
it that it can be true and it's simply not true.
18:10
Be acquired but a mere a stunning moment I had to fill
18:13
up. Right.
18:13
So it was that he's spoiling us because our apartment rappers.
18:17
You have to contemplate it too. Well, on the on those principles
18:21
of Faith or paying lip service, doesn't allow you to achieve it.
18:26
I'm at 12 knots, the rumble. Now, there's a beautiful line
18:30
when they say it here. Also the last.
18:33
Yeah. It's part of it, he's not
18:41
rejecting the element aspect of it, but he's rejecting it as all
18:45
that. That's all you have to do
18:47
correct. And has a beautiful anecdotes
18:49
here, where someone starts just and, you know, you can call me
18:53
out, but how I didn't start my share tonight.
18:56
So here's a little story here, the footnote where he quotes a
19:01
maggot are avocados. Rub are don't know, who are
19:03
doing is referring to. Unfortunately, he was a teacher
19:07
and he's He said that when he would teach his children in
19:09
school mission, is he would say that this you laddie, mm
19:13
children Doula can you should know he's cool under a mod new
19:17
behoove Cena? We all stood there at Mount
19:20
Sinai. The Shema new Chalmette collar
19:22
Torah and we heard they're all of the Torah and then he would
19:26
start teaching the mission. It's so sweet.
19:30
Mean it before we learn anything for wheel and Gomorrah call us
19:34
whatever, we're picking up their lunch to rehash that Believe
19:37
that originally, we were we were there and this is an authentic.
19:42
See, these texts are authentically, given to us down
19:46
the line from a sham I her see. Now what we're doing is engaging
19:49
them with the word of Hashem and that's really what's going on
19:53
here? It's not about intellectual
19:55
acrobatics or how skilled you are a balancing various opinions
20:00
and juggling ideas. Yes, there was a cerebral
20:02
intellectual aspect of learning Torah.
20:05
Yes and it does stimulate the brain.
20:07
Rain in a way that many other things don't and that's fine.
20:11
And that's what you. And you can get joy out of the
20:13
intellectual challenge, but if you're not connecting the
20:15
experience to standing at her see night and to read feeling
20:19
deeply that you're learning, the words of Hashem, that something
20:21
is missing in in the experience of learning Torah.
20:25
And that is what Moshe, tell him to cut.
20:26
He'll only be. It's all from Hashem and
20:28
experiences, al-sham, and be living with that.
20:31
So, we say, at the end, I'll conclude with this for your
20:33
data. I am saying it and I lay no
20:34
should know. I'll know this day by shavasana
20:36
Oliver. Al-Qaeda should reflect it back
20:39
into your heart. What?
20:40
Cash em? Hello.
20:41
Kim. That God is such a, the gothic
20:43
cetera. Hey, the other snouts mud below
20:46
I'll shovel of a night, Ella UD rockets on it.
20:49
If you know, this concept as an intellectual proposition as an
20:53
idea, that's true about Jews. Well, I could tell you, lots of
20:56
ideas, I've taught it for number of years but other faiths about
21:00
Islam. I can tell you ideas about Islam
21:02
but unless I internalized the experience and put it in my
21:05
heart That I'm not having to travel down the aisle.
21:08
So I'm not going to do that with that religion is not my religion
21:11
and the same is true. You can do the same thing of
21:15
Judaism. The I do it myself.
21:18
I have our Cosmic up. The cot scrubber says he come
21:21
on. Shamone Shamone are Hsu.
21:22
Mahalo commercials Mill. There's 500 mil.
21:25
There's a huge distance from Heaven to Earth, similarly, from
21:29
the brain to the heart. There's a vast distance between
21:33
them and their, the cops Grabber.
21:34
Could say that because sounds like you only said that in a
21:37
younger than what do you mean? Look, the hearts that the braids
21:40
that, but but there is, there's a huge gap between the two to
21:43
really penetrate one to the other, is that it's a huge
21:46
distance of We need effort to Torah study really.
21:49
Comes with effort, comes with a 30-day repetition of the
21:53
fundamental by a car. The main thing in learning Torah
21:56
me talk and more now because you'll shut tight area over
21:59
immediate or after lunch hour with a sense of there's a
22:02
sanctity, there's a Holiness, it's separate from other things
22:06
we do in life in its unique and special And the words of Torah
22:11
other words, if I share my sham Love Letter, it's the words are
22:14
shame game. To moisture are Beno the
22:16
different styles, by the way, the different nuances, the
22:18
language the, the different genres of text, your poetry and
22:23
your law and your history and the wisdom literature.
22:28
Well it's a vast text and you're going to communicate it in
22:31
different ways that we communicate things differently
22:34
throughout the day you could phone up, somebody wish them
22:37
happy birthday. For just by giving a statement
22:40
or you someone you're close to, you might sing it.
22:42
But no one's suggesting because you've sung out on the phone to
22:45
one person and giving a statement to another person that
22:47
you're two people know. We all communicate differently
22:50
depending on who on the situation who were talking to.
22:53
So the turrets text on Multi genres because that's the way
22:57
that's the way we all speak in the Torah was communicated in a
22:59
way that made sense to the audience and this therefore T
23:04
which demonstrates to us that from a narrative.
23:07
Text comes very Three fundamental aspects of Jewish
23:11
belief and theology. Thank you very much.