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Parshas Nitzavim-Vayeilech: CRUSTLESS BREAD & DEER SKIN · The Weekly Parsha - With Michoel Brooke

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: They call them snowbirds, the folks that travel south during the winter season looking for some warmer weather, specifically the New Yorkers that want to get out of all that muck and dirty, snow and 30 degree days.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: So what they do is act like snowbirds, fly down to Florida, get some warm weather.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: And this was always a dreaded time for the community in Florida governed by their holy rabbi, rabbi Beryl Wine, who used to be a Ruv in Florida before he moved to Eretz Yisrael.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: The brilliant writer, historian and Ruv wrote in one of his most recent books an incredible vignette how his community and many of their members would always notice how all the snowbirds would come waltzing right into their community where their sleepy, happy and peaceful minyunim would become more rambunctious, more loud-mouthed and more rushed because of the influx of the warm-seeking snowbirds from Brooklyn.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: But all in all it wasn't a huge problem.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Most of it was all in good fun and good for the economy, good for the Minion, b'roiv am hadras, melech, more people at the Minion.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: It was mostly friendly, except there was one individual, says the great Rev Beryl Wine, that the community dreaded.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: He would return year after year, migrating south for the warm weather, and when he would come he would put up a big fight to make sure that he got the most prestigious aliyah in the shul on Shabbos Seems like this fellow may have had a screw loose or a bunch of screws loose, or perhaps the entire motherboard pulled out, but on Shabbos he would show up and make a big scene.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: You make sure, rabbi, you make sure Gabbai, that I get the prestigious either third Aliyah or the sixth Aliyah, because someone of my stature is the only one fit to receive that Aliyah.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: You may cringe as you hear those words, but this is what would happen year after year.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: It would become awkward.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: People in the Gabbai specifically would refrain from walking down this man's aisle, not wanting to start up a whole fight, a whole rash, a whole machlokes.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: But it was very hard to handle this fellow.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: And one Shabbos, this rather rambunctious and odd snowbird came to show.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: The Gabbai, honored him with a beautiful aliyah to approach the altar, to come forth and have the great honor of doing Pesicha, opening up the Arn Kodesh, taking the Torah out, giving it to the Chazen, and all of a sudden, after he was told by the Gabbai to get that Aliyah to go up and open the Ark, he started an entire rally and riot.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: I't believe you gave me psicha.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: You think I'm only worthy of the lowly psicha.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: I should be getting the most prestigious aliyah, as awkward as it was and as people were rather awkwardly squirming in their seats and this fellow barking at the Gabbai that he got such an undesirable Aliyah.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: The Gabbai sat there quietly waiting, kind of humming and owing and waiting, and I could have and I should have, I'm sorry.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: And Azrabi Wein watched this episode.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: He writes that he thought to himself I did have a drusha prepared to speak about something else, but this response must be addressed.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: There's a problem here.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: So Rabbi Wein, off his cuff, wanted to be able to direct a drusha to this fellow but not make him feel bad.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: He didn't want to walk over to him in the middle of the community, for that would obviously not be of any positive effect.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: It's the likelihood he would listen to rebuke, so the whole drusha would be made up.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: He would listen to rebuke, so the whole drusha would be made up, sources all coming together to address this fellow's issue and how he should improve.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: But it would be masqueraded by a happy, nice talk directed to the audience so as not to embarrass the fellow.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: And sure enough, rabbi Wein began by describing the greatness of Pesicha and anyone who would ever be upset that they got Pesicha not pointing any fingers.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: But one must internalize just how great Pesicha is, citing the Zohar's of how we say when we open up the Aaron Kodesh, because we're opening up the gates of heaven, this is the most prestigious Aliyah, and who wouldn't want the greatest Aliyah of them all, pesicha?
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Rabbi Wynne continued that this Aaron Kodesh was protected and adorned by a beautiful curtain, a beautiful parochas.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: That was taken out of the Holocaust when it was placed on top of the door to the gas chambers and somebody grabbed it before and they remade it.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: It's almost become this beautiful memorial.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: And anyone who gets to open up the Arnkite is just so lucky and so blessed.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: And as everyone's paying attention, it looks, says Rabbi Wein, like his talk is landing, for this fellow is glued and even seems stirred.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Sure enough, after davening this fellow comes running over to Rabbi Wein and he says Rabbi, rabbi, that was the most incredible drush.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: I heard every word and I'm taking it to heart.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: From here on out I will continue and try my best to fight to acquire and make sure that I have the rights to the Pesicha honor, that I have the rights to the Pesicha honor.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: The fellow missed the boat and just took it that he should continue fighting and fight even more for another honor.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: This is a prime example of Beshriris Libi Eilech in our Parsha.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: This whole episode that somebody listens to a drasha but may sit there and soak up the words of wisdom but somehow think it's not applicable to him.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Or I'm good.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: And how can I use this to my benefit?
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: It is the easiest way to understand Moshe Rabbeinu's final day.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Moshe Rabbeinu is passing the torch to Yeshua.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: He does a bit of fortune telling, a little bit of coaxing and a little bit of some delivering of the two final mitzvos, our double parasha this week, nisavim Vayelech and one of the most blunt statements that it will be that after you hear all of these curses, this entire covenant, all that it is to be Jewish and the response by the Almighty, based on your actions and maybe you should say, dear congregation, that maybe you will say in your heart that peace unto me, that you will think in your heart that peace will be with me I'll do what I think is fine, for the talk that's being delivered doesn't apply to me.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: Shall, immediately, I'll go with the sentiment of my heart.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: I won't hold myself back from any of my pleasures, because all of this, all of the curses that should be applied In the books of the prophets, In the books of Moses, to a person that doesn't listen, that's not talking about me Fighting for psicha.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Maybe I should even embrace this To further my inappropriate passions.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: It's important that by every word of Moshe's rebuke and Moshe's fortune telling, we take it to heart.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: For I even caught myself today In reading Moshe's words, to be thinking that, oh, moshe must be discussing this part of the Golis.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Moshe's trying to emphasize to Klai Yishol not to do this, but never did it cross my mind that I don't need to improve.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: It's not referring to me.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: I never once thought that.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Wait a second.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: All of this is talking to me, for I am a Jew and Moshe's giving me his guidance for how to make it until that ultimate reveal of Moshiach.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: So I want to make sure that at the end of this passage we fully internalize that the lesson is talking to us and to no one else.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Moshe Rabbeinu is telling over the Jewish people do not be like that fellow.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Be like that fellow, the snowbird, that imagines that this whole talk is really devoted to Pliny or to Maishi, but not to me.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: And the verse continues the Pasek finishes.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Very complex words.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Do not be this fellow, for lest To add For you the unintentional sins On the intentional sins.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: That's how Unkles translates it.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Rashi seemingly does the same thing, harava, as Hatzimea seems to be referring to.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: If you choose to not take this to heart and be like the fellow that says that Torah is not applicable to me this whole Musser thing isn't discussing me.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: It's not my fault, I'm fine, I'm going to do what I want then God views any of your unintentional, accidental sins as intentional and he heaps the blows upon you because you have literally decided that the whole thing isn't applicable to you and therefore your unintentional sins really are intentional because of your initial mentality that the whole thing doesn't have to do with me, initial mentality that the whole thing doesn't have to do with me.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: So really, everything after that could be deemed intentional.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: But it is here that I'd like to show you one of the Rambans that truly is one of those Rambans that shook the world and that someone, anyone, everyone in us needs to remind themselves of constantly and, might we even suggest, articulate that this Ramban foresaw, foretold what would happen in America, how society would become immorally corrupt rather quickly, and how to steer clear of that and keep society morally proper, Says the Ramban.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you what this pasuk means L'man safos, harava es hatsmea.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: The words literally mean harava es hatsmea.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: They're words that rava means content, quenched, properly filled.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Ramban proves this.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: For a visi nefesh hako hanem deshen v'haisa, nafsham kigan rava, full Satiety.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: But sama tzmemea, that means thirsty, somebody that wants more, and specifically in a liquid form Soma Nafshi, lilo Kim.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: As Davra Malach said, I'm thirsty for Hashem.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: It's talking about a lust, talking about a true inclination.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Talking about a true inclination, a true drive, urge, temptation for something.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: It's remarkable to see here just how much David al-Melech loved Hashem and wanted to be righteous.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: But the word itself means temptation and lust.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Thirsty for more, says the Ramban.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: That this fellow and lust.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Thirsty for more, says the Ramban, this fellow who decides to go by the happiness and songs of his heart to fulfill all pleasures.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: A person is naturally content, doesn't need more.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: He has everything that he needs, based on God giving it to him Air, water, bread.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: It's all very basic and very easy.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Life is simple.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: But when a person will indulge a little bit.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Some taiva, something extra, some taiva, something extra, v'yamali ta'avosu.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: And then he fills that thirst, quenches that desire Az, yosef b'nafso, taiva yaseyra.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Then the level needed to quench your desires increases.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: V'tia, tsemea.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: You now become even more thirsty.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: You become even more thirsty.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: You want even worse things Putrid foods, putrid desires that you never even wanted at the beginning.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: The Ramban tells us that Hashem increases the level needed to quench your desires.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Hashem increases it.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: The DNA of a person is that it increases.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: One needs more if he goes out of his way to fulfill his thirst.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: The verse should read In order to add increase the quenching on the thirst, because when a person indulges, it's like a gateway drug.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Tyva is backwards when you see something and you want something that's out of your own normal realm of happiness and contentment, and then you go to acquire that pleasure.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: The next time you may get a similar high from that taiva, but not the same.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: You need a little bit more, but not the same.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: You need a little bit more, says the Ramban.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: And listen here to the description of America in 2024.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: One has a taiva for immoral relationships for the other species man, woman, woman to man, man to woman but if he indulges in it for long enough and constantly seeks to fulfill this immoral passion, what happens next when he's eventually?
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: It leads to?
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: To same gender marriages and relationships, to bestiality, to other odd taivos, the other odd taivos, the shara taivos.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Because it takes more of an odd desire, a creation of an odd desire.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: Something else, because the guardrail, the yardstick of measuring the taiva that one needs to quench his thirst, it needs more, more because it becomes increased when you fulfill the taiva.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Taiva is unlike anything else in the world, because everything else in the world must be.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: If you should satisfy it, pay your rent, it's then over until the next due date.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: You should need to take care of your bodily health issues.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: You fulfill them and then it's over.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: You fill up the cup and it's over, but not in taiva, not in lust.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: As soon as you masbio, as the Gemara Naransuka says you satisfy it, rav, it gets hungrier and hungrier and hungrier.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: It's like feeding this little devil.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: But my review if you should starve it sova, then it's backwards and you will feel full and content because you haven't expanded your horizons into zohar and behema, into odd, unappreciated or previously unsought after tivos.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: But now it's something different and something new that I need to quench my inappropriate thirst.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Moshe Rabbeinu tells us that the person that doesn't take this Musser to heart will end up in very, very funny places, and this gateway drug will bring him to want things that he previously does not want.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: It hit me this past week A couple different things that I enjoyed in the physical world or noticed in the physical world that they may not have been.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: I don't believe them to be inappropriate or out of the guidelines of Torah, but I just noticed in the grocery store.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: I purchased it.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: It was delicious, but I question it now.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Have you seen this?
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: They make a sandwich with bread.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: They have now crustless bread, crustless bread, because we love bread.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: But how can we do it better?
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: How can we indulge more?
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: It's not us-er, but my point to portray is that when we deal with the area of life, temptations and wants, one must approach with precision and caution because of what comes next, because the nature of everything is that once we enjoy, we want more and you end up from regular bread but then that doesn't scratch the same itch in the sandwich to extra crunchy peanut butter with extra jelly jam and extra crustless crust or extra crustless bread Because it slowly grows and I love how, in Jewish history, we're thousands of years old here.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: But when you compare more recent times of Jewish history, let's say the Vilna Ghosn about 200-300 years ago, that's the very beginning, the inauguration, the inception of American history.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: The Vilna Ghosn was alive, I believe, at around the same time as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and John Hancock and Benjamin Franklin, while they were signing the Declaration of Independence.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Vilna Ghosn was learning Torah with angels and saving the world a couple thousand miles away, but in just 300 years.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Look at where we're up to no right and wrong because we're a nation governed by the people.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: But the nature of people is to indulge, but then it doesn't stop and new rules must be created to allow new indulgences, because there are.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: We must allow same-gender marriages because harava as hatzmea.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: We must allow same-gender marriages because when someone never knows how to quit or to stop or to master self-control, even put a little bit of some brakes on his temptations, the Ramban says first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes zachar, then comes behemah, same-gender marriages and bestiality.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: You can bet your bottom dollar will be next, because it doesn't end.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: The sad part is is that our Parsha tells of how one should make sure that, even though you've seen some really bad idolatry in the next nation over, we were on the way out of Egypt, but you saw and met some people that weren't doing the right thing.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: You saw some grotesque idol worshipers, but be sure, do not act like them.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: And Rabbi Reuchem wants to know don't act like them.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: What do you mean?
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: You told me that they're gross.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: We saw that they're gross.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: They're excreting upon idols doing horrible sins.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: We saw that it's gross.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: It's obvious.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: So why do I need to be warned again, doubly warned and then signing a pack all over again to make sure that I don't fall into the poor habits of those that are engaging in grotesque actions?
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Of course we won't do that actions.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Of course we won't do that.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: But Rebbe Yeruchim says, because the number one sakana for a person and his honest driving force is that he always wants to fit in.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: You don't want to be the outcast, the odd man.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: You want to have honor, you want to feel high end, you want to feel accepted.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: You don't want to be different and weird.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: And as Jews we are different, although we are not weird.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: But I can feel when you're surrounded by everyone else doing something different, it can feel like we are acting in an odd way, perhaps even God forbid weird, and you may want to engage in the weird and disgusting idol worship practice just for the sake of fitting in, because that's what 99.9% of the world does.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: So a new commitment is needed to not follow in the ways of how fitting in is done, to be like everyone else, and not trying to follow in the ways of other people.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: I don't think we're off base if we say that maybe we are at times trying to fit in with the other nations in our pursuit of pleasure.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: You find, even in Jewish circles, ridiculous indulgences that seem to be way off base and not part of our culture, not part of the brand that we represent, and definitely not one of the prominent stops on the highway up to Gan Eden, the amount of money used not for righteous things but instead for pleasure seeking.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: It feels like we need a new pact, a new commitment with Hashem, because we recognized that, even though we've seen how other nations may spend their money and what they may put on a pedestal.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: But we're well aware that we're different, but we're not the weird ones, and we're well aware that when we do follow other nations, then the taiva never ends and then hit needed to scratch that temptational itch is much, much more.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: And, without sugarcoating it, we definitely have our own fair share of sins.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: All of us should take to heart that Moshe isn't just speaking to the nation that was in the desert, but speaking to us.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Don't think it's not talking to me.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Don't think that, even though I see other nations but I don't really want to be like them, fitting in and even wanting to fit in in society is one of the oldest desires known to mankind.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: It's one of the oldest desires known to mankind.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: And lest we get a grip on it and stop wanting to mimic others, instead want to mimic what it says in the Torah.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: The Jews of France, when Napoleon took over and basically said Jews are allowed to do anything and be anything, which is to quickly assimilate and move the Torah down ranks.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Or maybe we'll just be like the Talmudim of Mendelssohn, moses Mendelssohn that made the adjustments and modernized things so that we could fit in and have prestige, not be such outcasts, and have everything, but ultimately it ended with nothing.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Lamant, sveis, harava, esatsmea.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: One needs to be on alert that, although things aren't necessarily prohibited, but it can become a gateway for the prohibited very, very quickly.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: I was shocked, appalled, stunned, dumbfounded and stupefied my last Svarim store trip Just to see how that's made its way into mitzvah observance.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: People will claim that I'm glorifying the mitzvah observance.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: People will claim that I'm glorifying the mitzvah and then do all sorts of crazy things.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: I've seen tefillin bags instead of just normal pictures of Hashem or pictures of a crown, pictures of tefillin holy words, your name Putting on crazy things, fur, not necessarily prohibited things.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: I just recently saw it literally look like an entire deer, shaggy skin and hair, all there to beautify the mitzvah.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: And it's not prohibited.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: But it just hit me as it seems to be like dangerous territory If we fully let ourselves beshviris libi eleich to fit any passion that we have into the Torah, because quickly, the next hit that we need needs to be a bit further and maybe that's God forbid outside the Torah.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: One needs to have his passions in check and know that taiva is a gateway drug and know that the more that he tries to quench his Tyvos, his desires, the more he will feel at peace and won't want gross food, gross relationships, and the more that he chooses to indulge and to scratch the itch, the worse it will get.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: The psak, the halacha psak, the hashgafa psak, is clear that you take everything that you need from this world, but not extra.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Could be that you need a lot.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: It could be you need a fancy car, and then that's not taiva, because it's needed to serve Hashem happily.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Sometimes we need nice food, nice drink in order to remain happy, and that's not taiva.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: But when it goes too far and you can use your own imagination and give your own examples, you have to be scared about what comes next.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: Because the man suffice harava es hath smeah, that the Baal taiva his quenching level.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Because the man suffice her rova as hath smea that the Baal Taiva, his quenching level increases with his thirst and his quenching of the thirst.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: Be on the lookout for this.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Protect against this.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: Don't say that Moshe's not talking to me, but instead take it to heart and for the whole coming year, commit to take as much as you need from the world, but be careful not to go too far, for if, god forbid, this gateway drug does get a hold of us, the results get pretty ugly.