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Parshas Ba'aloscha: Fleeing from Mount Sinai Joyfully, Just Like a Child Who Runs Away From School! · The Weekly Parsha - With Michoel Brooke

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: If you crave a passionate relationship with the world's creator, if you have a hankering for greatness or you just wish you could finally quit forego sin, I beg of you that you listen to the words of the Ramban.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: I beg of you that you hear the way that of the Ramban.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: I beg of you that you hear the way that Revolba, the great Mashkiach, explains them, and I will, in this episode, endeavor to do my best to give over this yesoy, this fundamental idea, the way it was explained to me.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: I heard this idea in a shiur given by Revolba's Talmud Reb Ruven Leuchter.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: He said it at an assembly in Los Angeles last year and I bookmarked the idea so that when we would have the opportunity to discuss it, I would pull it out.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: I hope that you will see the power of the idea and, if internalized, it can save us a whole bunch of headaches that we face down here on this earth.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: It can really be, if taken to heart, the key that we're looking for to unlock those steps and those rungs that we're trying to climb towards HaKadosh, baruch, hu, pashas Ba'aloscha.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: We begin, we begin.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: It is at the beginning of the sixth aliyah that we have those psukim that you probably well recognize from when we open up the ark and take out the Torah scrolls, we say this little tefillah that Moshe Rabbeinu said in the wilderness, as the Torah marches, moshe madebeinu said in the wilderness, as the Torah marches, moshe made this prayer.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: We mimic his actions and say that prayer Before going on to, but it is rather impossible to miss that.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Just before this Pesach and just after this Pusik, you will find a very rare, odd phenomenon, interesting occurrence if you will.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: There are two island-like, placed in the middle of Randomville in the Torah scroll, inverted letters.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: They look like inverted nuns.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: You got to see it to believe it.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: They look upside down, they look backwards, hard to even understand that they are a letter.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: It looks like the sofa, messed up, quite frankly, but of course there are no mistakes.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Look in every single kosher savor Torah you will find these inverted nuns that bookend and sandwich the why?
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Well, just like every other problem that should arise or lack of clarity that we have in studying the Torah, the best place to begin is the great Ripsh, shlomo Yitzchaki, the great Rashi Akkadosh.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: So too, we look down, we glance down and see what Rashi says about it.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Sure enough, rashi tells us there are signs surrounding these psukim.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Lomar is to tell you this isn't the proper spot of these psukim.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: The passage has kind of been copied and pasted here.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Continues Rashi.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Because to separate from two tragic stories, for it seems to be some bad omen to have sad, perhaps even uninspiring, episodes next to each other.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: So Hashem did us a toiva let's put in Moshe Rabbeinu's tefillah to separate, to divorce the two passages from each other.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: But jumping right into it, the Ramban takes issue with his Rebbe, calls him Rabbeinu Harav Rebbe.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: I don't understand what bad episode happens before Vayihiv and Soa.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: See, it is quite well known just read the Pesukim and translate them, as Parakadolov continues, that we're going to meet two horribly tragic episodes, one about complainers and one about some rabble rousers who were interested in increasing their lustful cravings.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: But Bayib and it isn't separating those, it's before those two narratives.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: He endeavors to say that maybe it's out of order, but ultimately he reverts to his own tarots and he tells us this great Yisod, says the Ramban and I'm sure you've heard it before, but the words never get old that while it may not seem like anything tragic, happened in the Pesukim prior to Vayihi B'Nasoh Ha'aron.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: If you look closely in the subtext you'll see it.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: It says Vayisu Mehar Hashem Derech Shloshes Yomim, aaron Briss Hashem Nosei Lefneim Derech Shloshes Yomim.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: It says In conspicuous, a very innocent Pasuk.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: They marched from the mountain of Hashem for three days and the Aron was with them.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: They traveled before them on a three-day journey to seek a resting place for them, to make it pleasant for them.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: All good things, happy things, peaceful things.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Where is the tragedy here?
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Where is a sin, says the Ramban, inciting a medrash?
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you where the sin is, because if you read the pasuk critically, you'll see that it says vayisu.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: And they not marched, but they fled.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: It has that connotation and denotion.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Denotation they fled, they were leaving with a certain willingness and perhaps even, as we'll see, craving to leave the mountain of where the greatest arena is located, the Mecca of Har Sinai, says the Rambam, citing this Medrash the Indian is.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Is that they left this mountain of Hashem with happiness, rejoicing, chilling, graphic imagery, like a child who's running out of school.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: It's recess time, school's out.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: That's how the Jews left the mountain.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Amru.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: They said in their hearts, maybe God's going to give us more mitzvos.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Oh, the teacher forgot to give us homework.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: It's only 613.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Let's get out of here before it's 614 mitzvos we have to do.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: They were distancing themselves from this area, from this locale, because it was Hashem's mountain.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: And those are the peronios, those are the punishments, the tragedies, if you will, that take place just before this inverted nun and the Ramban continues.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: And you know what would have been the chazaka just before this inverted nun and the Ramban continues.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: And you know what would have been the chazaka, you know what would have been the tragedy, because now we would have three straight tragic narratives that really create a halachic chazaka.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: A chazaka, a predetermined or consistently happening occurrence that makes something set that it will continue to happen.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: A chazakah If something happens three times in a row, we assume it's going to continue to happen.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Three sad stories, three sins, three bad decisions Fleeing from the mountain before the Messianim, the complainers, and then leading towards this Asfutayva.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Hashem saved us.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Let us pause for commercial break between the first and the second sin and throw in the inverted nuns and stick in Moshe's Tvila of Ayyib and Soa Aram.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: And Revolba learns the Rishon, like we all should be learning Rishonim.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: And asking very directly what type of chazakah is the Ramban concerned about here?
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: The halachos of chazakah are that things need to be not just oh, bad, bad, bad, but it has to be three in the same cause, in the same entity, in the same idea, that happen in a row, meaning it can't just be oh, running from a mountain, one bad thing, but that doesn't have any correlation, any connection, it's not synonymous with the next happening of complaining.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: That's not a chazaka.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: They have to be on the same topic.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: And what do these three things have to do with each other that the Ramban is concerned about a chazaka?
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Revolba's answer is insight, is the ticket to the chocolate factory?
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Is the aside we've all been waiting for or should have been waiting for.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Errolba says there's something about every person that is hardwired in.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Every person is called Adam, a person, adam.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: And we know that.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: The letters, the word, the actual etymological basis of the word Adam, its root.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: It tells us a great deal about what the entity is.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: And Adam, because I'll tell us, if you scramble the words around, you'll see what it is.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: It is a beautiful creation that is ma'od.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Adam, aleph Dalet, mem could also be spelled and rearranged for Mem, aleph Dalet, ma'od, wanting more, craving more.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: That is the gift that the job of only one species in all of Hashem's creations is, that it can and should become more than what it is Everything else.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Adomeim Atzomeach Achai.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: It cannot elevate, it can and should become more than what it is.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Everything else.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: It cannot elevate, it cannot do, it cannot become like a person, but people.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Not only do we have the ability to become owed, to become more, but we are commanded that, just like I am Rahim, we are to become godlike, angelic.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: And the biting truth is that this hankering for more in life, it cannot be ripped out.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: You could try to wipe the phone, factory reset it many, many times, but it would be just like taking out the actual motherboard and hard drive.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: That is the phone.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: It can't be deleted.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: It's part of the actual adum is that he wants more.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: It is this idea that is on full display.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: And what is behind the chazakah here of the Ramban.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: If you read the Ramban critically, they were afraid of wanting more.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: They were afraid.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: If you read it, it says we're good with Torah, we don't need more.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: We don't want more, we are joyous, we are content.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: We got 613, no more.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: They didn't want more.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: They didn't want to have the hankering, the craving and aspiring for more Torah.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: They didn't want and they are directly connected all three, for if you don't want in Kedusha, it doesn't fix that DNA of man, for he is Adam, he is Me'od, he wants more.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: One thing led to the next, and we hear about the nation became complainers by Ehi Ham Kimisonanim became complainers.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Hashem became angry at them and ravaging the outskirts of the camp.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: The Ramban tells us though, again, look at it, the nation was.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: They were like complainers.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: They didn't really have anything to complain about, they had everything that they could possibly want, but they still spoke and complained and moaned with the bitterness of their soul, as if somebody who wanted and was craving something, but wasn't sure what it was, even though that they had everything and should have served Hashem with the gladness of their heart.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: But they complained because that hankering can't be quieted, that craving for more they could not quiet in their bellies, even though they had everything.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: The desire for more.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: It reared its angry head in areas outside of Ruchnius, because they've a Yisru Mehar Hashem, but it needed to come out somewhere.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: So it just came out as Kih Miss Onan.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: And they were like complainers, unable to quiet their consciousness, their conscience.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: But it doesn't stop there the descent down the rabbit hole of human and mankind's inability to quiet that inner craving for more.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: It goes from the running from the mountain of Hashem into the kimis onanim, the fruitless and pointless and senseless and meaningless complaints, even though they had it all.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: And eventually the craving for more has to by its own DNA.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: It has to create a longing for more.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: His Asvutayva the Erev Rav.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: They felt a lusting, they incited a lusting, they goaded themselves into a taiva, his asvu taiva.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: The Ramban tells us that they became desirous and lustful, that they wanted to eat ha-pichamim ve-ha-afar ve-ha-me'achilim ha-neve'ashim, eat hapichamim veha'afar vehamachilim haneva'ashim.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: They wanted, and they had a taiva to eat even charcoal and earth, minerals, dirt, sand and other rotten food.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: They craved it.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: How is that possible?
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: I've never heard of anybody that wanted a charcoal meat board.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: You want to eat dirt.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: You have a passionate taiva for it.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: It doesn't make any sense.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: But of course we understand that that hankering and that drive for more, if it isn't met somewhere, our brains, the gates of our heart, are creating new routes to fulfill it.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: So we may even come to crave the most rotten foods, and in the easiest segue.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Just look at America.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Look at the gross rotten foods that people lust for.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Look at the odd things that people indulge in.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: Look at the ma'od kite that people are suffering from because they aren't striving for something more.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: In Ruchnius I actually wrote a letter that I was going to publish somewhere, but I think God chose not to.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: I was upset one day when I was going to listen to one of the Jewish podcasts I like to listen to and I was inundated by rainbow flags declaring and appreciating and celebrating the month of June that's supposed to represent Pride Month.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: And I was to go immediately and I was going to write a letter about how horrible it is that this clearly written, wretched sin of Mishka, of Zohar.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Of course it's prohibited, but now people are even rejoicing, celebrating and taking pride in the sin.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: I didn't publish it.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: I'm happy I didn't because it and I'm happy I didn't because it's not even novel or new.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: Of course somebody will bake up rotten food, gross hankerings if they don't want more in Torah mitzvos and in matters of the soul, and there isn't hardly one American in a thousand that will be found that actually has a real craving for just moral justice and matters of the mind and soul.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: So Pride Month was imminent, dare we even say inevitable.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Another classic example of this that just is too easy sitting in broad daylight.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: It is between a season and any of the basic sports, between seasons and any basic television series, books, series, show series, basic television series, books, series, show series, radio series, anything that the average American will enjoy as entertainment.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: There's always a break between seasons Time to either revamp, renew, revitalize, recreate a new season, Time to give players, actors, performers a break.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: But one of my Rebaeum pointed out I go onto the news sites or don't, but if one looks God forbid at these news sites in the offseason, they're packed with updates, with new free agent signings, what somebody did or said made to be important, the promotion of the product, even though it's in between seasons.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: It's as if you would have thought that is the regular season, even though it's in the dead of winter and the next season isn't to begin for many moons.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: But it's obvious because those that run these platforms understand that you got to keep people constantly wanting more.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: They're wanting more, otherwise they will eat rotten food or, in their case, they will turn to a different show, movie, book or entertainment outlet.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: You have to constantly revamp and renew the content so that there is no off-season.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: They know that Adam always wants ma'od and they will always give you ma'od to keep you in and, of course, in the most basic human craving and wanting of more.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: When it comes to wealth, when it becomes to craving more money, one must be so careful of this idea that, yes, kesav ya'anes, akol ekklesiastes, shlomo ha-melech, tells us that money does answer everything.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Those are his words.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: And yes, we must have money to be able to pay our bills, to be able to give charity, to be able to do what is obligated to be done, but, god forbid, don't ever come close to the you have 100, the craving for the money.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: We are told very clearly that, yes, you should have money, yes, you should take it seriously, but don't have that craving and lust for it, but don't have the craving and lust for it.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: And, ladies and gentlemen, what is the answer?
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: How is it that we are faced with these guns facing at us that we, by our DNA, crave more?
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: How is it that we are supposed to turn off these valves if they cannot be turned off?
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: The answer is to channel.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: It Is to crave more.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: In Rukhneus, it is the only way.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: The aside is that, even if you try to put up all the filters in the world, all the blockades to prevent evil from getting in.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: It will not help unless you channel that inner belly to want more of what matters.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: The Kiddush is that even if you love Torah and you're proud of what you have amassed Torah knowledge we are still sitting in harm's way unless we learn to want more.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: We must want more chesed.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: We must have that drive in the belly to have more understanding of gemara, of halacha, more of a devakas and a connection to Hashem.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: It is not to be pushed down, hidden, covered inside of us to try to get rid of this, but to channel it to crave more of the Almighty and His precious Torah, to create a longing for what is good, for what is just, for the boirei olam.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: That is it.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: It truly actually is an empowering idea.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: It isn't about blockading the evil, which can feel impossible in these days, with the assault of immorality at every turn.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: It's obvious that one still needs to have his protection.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: But where the battle is really won and lost is in the belly, if you can change your mindset and attitude for what you aspire in life, what you wish to amass.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: So what is only left to discover is how we can create this longing for what is spiritual.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: How can we have a fire in our belly for God and his Torah?
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: I compiled a couple ways and if you use your brain I'm sure you can think of a couple different approaches.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: But you know how you can love spirituality.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: You know how you can love Hashem Well, very simply, give to it.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Rav Destler taught us that have ahava love.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: When you love someone, is because you are actually giving to them.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: The soul, when it gives, it, connects to something you love it.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: A mom gives everything to a child and just look at the love that the mom has for a child.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: The more you give, the more you love.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: It's really a topsy-turvy, backwards world.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: So give more to God, give more charity, consecrate yourself, set up more study sessions, give more to Hashem and watch how your heart will begin to want more of it.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Maybe use Chazal's famous phrase that a person should learn what his heart desires mashali boy chafetz in this instance.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: A second way to learn how to love God is to learn how to enjoy it.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Instead of going, like we say, for a jog, go play basketball because you enjoy it, but it's the same exercise.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: Find the part of Tyre you enjoy to study.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Find the part of Chesed that you are passionate about Masha'li b'chafetz.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: This way you can learn to want more of Hashem and His Torah.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Maybe, thirdly, surround yourself with only things.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: This is a hard way, but surround yourself like they do in some ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods in Yerushalayim and Ma'a Sha'arim.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: You'll see that they completely lock out any evil influences.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: So the whole world, really their whole neighborhood, it is only one big world of matters that are of God and matters of the soul.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: So of course, you're going to only crave for what you know about.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: It's easier said than done, but surround yourself with only things that are of the soul.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Maybe this one seems like the most practical.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Set up time to study about why engaging in a spiritual world and its pursuits is just so extraordinary.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Learn about what life would look like when you had a mastery over Torah, over Halacha brood, over the Chovos, halevav O'Shara, betachon, and just imagine your life with total peace, as you know that you are like a baby that has been wrapped, snuggled, nestled in a swaddle.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: So too, we are taken care of by the Almighty and nothing evil can happen to us.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Contemplate all the words of the Nefesh HaChayim, reb Chaim V'Lashoners Nefesh HaChayim, specifically gate number four, shardalad.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Learn about the Milas HaTaira.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Learn about the eternal reward that it gives you and your family, learn about self-control.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Learn about how the keeping of halacha makes one mentally structured.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: It gives him a methodical and pleasant life, whatever it takes.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: But we must find a way to have a passionate drive to want more of what is truly good, and like this it will protect us from initially just meaningless complaints, because our belly is growling, it wants more, but it doesn't know what it wants more of.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: It just wants more of something.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: But if that wanting more isn't channeled towards Torah, then this three-legged tragic chain of events ends up in the graveyard of Kivros Hativa, the cemetery of the lustful.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: I've never been there, but it doesn't sound like a pleasant place.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: It is our job, it is our responsibility to learn to crave the nutrition, the food, the nourishment for the soul, to warm our hearts and inspire our souls to want and long and hanker, and crave and aspire for more.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Ruchnius, that is the answer.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: Friends.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Run after it rots, skip to try to gain connection to the Almighty.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: It is this way that the Ramban shows us that we can be protected from senseless complaints that lead to rebellious sins Like this learning to want more that will keep us from God forbid ever severing our connection to our loving Father in heaven.