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Parshas Metzora: Light-Headedness and the Erosion of Morality · The Weekly Parsha - With Michoel Brooke

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: There's only one disease known to mankind that is entirely incurable.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: This disease is lethal beyond comprehension.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: If one, god forbid, should contract this disease, he doesn't have much time left.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: He should say his final goodbyes.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Maybe even some video, god forbid.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: It's kind of harsh and hard to describe that in the world of the soul and the spiritual world there is pretty much nothing that is so damning, so wretched, that will put a nail in one's spiritual potential.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: We know that Barassi et Zahara Barassi, torah Tavlin, as bad as things are, as much as a person will struggle with any sin, any midah.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: God gave us the Savior, he gave us Torah as the medicine.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: With enough in-depth, hard-working, diligent Torah study, you can be cured, no matter the disease, except for one.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: There is one mida, one sickness, that the doctors are left to say that you are inoperable, there's nothing to do, and they move you to hospice.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: God forbid.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Parshat Mitzorah tells us what this is, and it's in chapter 15, when we're dealing with the different discharges that will mark a person as contaminated to various degrees.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Some discharges are so impure that they may require said offerings as part of your purification process.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: We have a Zov, a Balkeri, all the different male discharges.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: We have the sixth Aliyah or the seventh Aliyah this week, because it's only Parshah Smithzer, it's not a double Parshah that deals with the discharges of a female, a Nida and a Zavah.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: All the different halachos what about people that are in the room, other people that will touch the fluid?
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: All the different purity and impurity laws.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: And at the very bottom of the rungs of impurity, meaning the most light, the easiest to purify yourself from an impurity, the most Kal is the Valkyrie, right at the very beginning, the Valkyrie is someone who has this certain type of seminal mission.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: It's an easy one you hit up the mikvah and purify yourself.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Except there's a kind of glaring oddity in the halachos thatain to a balkari.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: See this male, this individual who saw this seminal omission, this discharge, while he is impure, he is unable to study Torah.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: I think Amara tells us, while it is very light of an impurity, you're still not allowed to study Torah.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: The Gemara tells us, while it is very Light of an impurity, You're still not allowed to study Torah.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: It's Gemara, gemara, chaf, bezal.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: A lot of Makhluxim Disputes and different laws About the Valkyrie discussed there.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Tanya in the Gemara says it says that you should teach it's referring to Torah to your children.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Uxiv Basrei in the Gemara tells us that the next Pesach, the juxtaposed verse, is Talking about the great revelation and the giving of the Torah at Harsinai, the day.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: You should recall that you stood at the mountain of Horeb.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: The Gemara makes a connection.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: These two psukim are coming to tell us a new halacha.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Just like the giving of the Torah was given with fear, with seriousness, with a trembling and with an awe Afkan, so too, here In the teaching of the Torah, it needs to be with a certain amount of seriousness.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Torah is a serious thing.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: Bikan Amru, chacham Menuhalacha, the sages taught Balkeri Asurim A Balkeri.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: It's Asur for him to study Torah.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Rashi explains to us where the sages found this in this Brisa.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Bikan Amru says Rashi Kol hatmeyim, anyone who is impure, no matter the severity of the contamination, mutarim betorah.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: You can go and you can grab that life-saving pill called Torah Sha'af heim, because they are able to.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Yecholim liyos be'ema uvaresis.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: They can still keep the seriousness needed in Torah.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: They can keep that proper outlook on Torah study and the vibe of Talmud Torah.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: They can keep it in the right seriousness.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: You can keep it in the right seriousness.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: But this individual who saw this type of omission.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: It only comes because of a lightness of head, loosely translated as kind of a loose mind.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: You live life in a very jester-like way.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: It's all good fun.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: We should immediately cite as the understanding to this Rashi the kalos rosh lightness, thinking that everything is all in just fun and games, is what leads a person slowly, step by step, down a path of impure thoughts, impure actions, horrible, wretched sins that you never thought that you could encroach upon.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: But because everything is just a joke, Slowly and rather steadily the seven steps towards apostasy become more like a slippery slope in an elevator down to the bottom floor of this parking garage, this bulk carry.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: You know why you have this emission, this discharge?
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Because it's all a joke.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: The thoughts popping around your head, like that logo that you'll see when a computer screen goes into its screensaver mode, that it bounces off the walls, kind of the logo there.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: That's all going on in your head because of your inability to take life seriously.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: So slowly, these thoughts bouncing off of the walls of your brain, eventually they root themselves inside of your head, it becomes part of your consciousness.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: And then it all led you because of your lightheadedness, your ridiculing of the serious you're just joshing around.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: You led yourself to this sin and that this disease lights on us.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Lightheadedness, to be a jokester, witticism, quipping, is the only disease that is incurable, that is so lethal that you have lost your one hope, which is Torah.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Study, connection to Torah, but not this folk, not this man, because Torah has to be done in a certain way and you clearly can't keep your end of the deal.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: So this sickness, I'm sorry it's the end of the road.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: It is rather astonishing that, as light as the impurity is of the Balkeri, it would seem, why not give him all the hope and chances in the world for purification?
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Yet no, because it came about through lights on us, this one inoperable and horrible disease.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: You've been locked out of the cure.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: I heard from a friend once that there is nothing sadder in the world than an alter-lets, an elderly clown, somebody that when they're 90 years old they still have a way of joking about heaven and hell.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Joking about heaven and hell.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: They have this sort of looseness.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: If the rabbi's collar is up, the whole sheer may go out the window because it reminds them of something silly.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: They once saw Light.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Sunnis is a.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Makes it like one's soul is wearing Something silly.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: They once saw Light.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Sonnus is a Makes it like one's soul is wearing this impenetrable force field Because everything is in good fun.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: I ain't harming anyone, it's just a joke.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: But the Masilaski Sharm outlines how, when things are just a joke, when life isn't taken seriously, it is a great escort towards sin and impurity.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Margielon, it makes it habitual and it makes it inevitable.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Lightsonis, everything's a joke.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: The great Rav Shalom Shwadron, the Maggid of Yerushalayim, was in his mode, feeling it one day in his drasha in the Zichron Moshe Shtibel, I believe it was between Kabbalah, shabbos and Marv.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: When he would give his famous talks, the crowd was whipped up into a frenzy.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: The way that he could describe vividly the details of a story, sholem Shadron, with his catchphrases and an ability to make the crowd feel as if the lesson was tailor-made for each individual in the crowd.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: It was just working.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: That day the VART was Well.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: It had the crowd in tears and then afterwards, when people were inspired, ready to dive in a booming Marav, a fellow came over to the Magid, rav Shradron, and said a drusha like that, nobody could refute it.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: And Rav Shradron responded what are you talking about?
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Of course somebody could refute the drusha.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: He could even do it in just two words.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: The man, bewildered, said yeah, what is that?
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Which words?
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Rodron's response?
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Ha ha, because lightsonis is like canola oil on top of your metal shield that makes the arrows of musser and reproach slip right off and absolutely pointless, helpless and piercing the heart.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: To ever give over some real Torah to push one to change?
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Because it's just a joke.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Everybody relax, change Because it's just a joke.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Everybody relax.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: People will make a mockery of the way a holy rabbi will shuckle.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: They will make fun of a face of a sage when he's studying.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: They will make fun of a face of a sage when he's studying.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Look how he's kind of clenching his forehead.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Kind of looks like a yeah, what was that that we just saw the other day?
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: It's a.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, hey, relax, why are you mad at me for making fun of our Abba?
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: It's just a joke.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: But in the Torah's eyes it is far from a joke.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: But in the Torah's eyes it is far from a joke.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: You can't study Torah because everything is a joke and you have now taken the most powerful source in the world, your only hope, and barred yourself from it, because you can't live life with Amah with the slightest bit of euro and a bit of recess physio.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Now, for clarity's sake, when we talk about light sonnus and making a joke about things, it doesn't mean that having a good time and laughing from time to time is incorrect.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: I do believe that there's a Gemara that says that that only then can one open up his mouth in total laughter and total happiness.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: That happens during the days of Oz, during the days of Messiah, but that's for a different talk, because I've seen holy rabbis do it, which must mean that I'm not well-informed about other gemaras that may permit it.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: But having a good time and laughing, of course, simcha happiness, it's kind of proof that you're doing things right if you're happy in a real way, in a content type of way.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: But what we are referring to here is just not taking matter seriously.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: I hope that I'll have some better judgment in a little bit to edit this following part out, because maybe it might not be suitable for the waves of the Motivation Congregation podcast.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: But I really believe that there isn't anything worse for a person's spirituality than the WhatsApp memes that people share about any concept or idea that is serious, you'll have a meme.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: I just saw something about a meme about Bernie Hummets that was making fun of it, something like if you do this, right, when we do this on Pesach, it's almost like this.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: And it was making a mockery of the cancerous nature that is Hametz on Pesach, because the Almighty, through infinite wisdom, told us that it's prohibited.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: But a fellow was just joking around.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Making a meme for fun right, there is no cure for that disease.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: And making a meme for fun, right, there is no cure for that disease.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: A meme, a ha-ha, could take an entire mother or father's seriousness in their avodah sashem.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: They could become inspired overnight.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: And then, with one ha-ha, one meme, one joke, one pun, a bit of mistimed, misplaced witticism, and they will destroy it all.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: There's no future.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: It's not exactly a laughing matter.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: What is the answer?
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Well, block those people that send you those memes.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: But what else?
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Well, we have a very clear-cut Masorah, a clear-cut tradition about how to deal with living life happily but taking life seriously.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: And to cut straight to the point, the Elder of Kelm told us that we take the word seriously when the torah tells us the answer.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: The torah tells us that lightheadedness, kalos rosh, zachus, hadass, is the type of situation that balkeri will find himself.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: He takes everything with a light head.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Kalot rosh, light head.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: The opposite is the cure.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: A kovet rosh, a heavy head.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: We read the words literally.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: The author said you get for yourself a bowling ball head, some heavy headness.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Yes, that means that sometimes you have your head fall forward and keeping your head down, you keep your head with a COVID roche as a sort of way that you just don't flip your head flippantly left to right like a bird.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Everything is jostling you out of your seriousness.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: But a heavy head, not from left to right, not all around.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: You stay focused, composed and centered.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: With a heavy head it isn't exactly easy to develop overnight, but what can be an impetus for having a heavy head is I think they're kosher now.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: But looking at the wrapper of the candy, the airheads, the balloon heads, the airhead candy, this big old airhead that just can fly around and look all over the place, anything would be permitted, any joke allowed, any meme welcomed.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: That makes life very, very relaxed, open, calm and happy with.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Everything can go, no matter how immoral it is, because it's all just a joke.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: But a bowling ball head, a little bit of seriousness, a little bit of a COVID roche, at least at the times that you are engaged in a positive commandment, then having a seriousness about life, pushing off the looking of a funny meme from your friend during a hour-long Torah study session, a bit of bowling ball headness yeah, that'll be a good place to start.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: You know, in the television, radio and movie industry I'm not exactly that well-versed in it, but from what I do know, one of the biggest proofs to this topic about Light, sunus and Erevo really being connected and how even Torah can't save you is very much proved from this.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Because I don't believe you'll find a high-grossing book, radio show, television or movie production or movie production, anything that's real comedy, that isn't just packed with lowness, immorality, everything in good fun and jokes that just quickly leads to promiscuity, to other things that they're really trying to sell.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: But when things are jokes you know it's not exactly us, sir, it's just a joke.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Quickly things spiral out of control and lines are crossed.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Al-karha the Alenu to live life with a little bit more seriousness, to care a little bit more about our soul, our journey, our unique kohos, heaven, hell, punishments, excitements, real pleasures, eternality, goals, aspirations, the will of the almighty, the will of friends, the will of parents, and less about memes and jokes and about balloon-headedness, because the shocking revelation is that whatever impurity and inappropriateness we currently live with it may be easily purified, easily cured.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: We just need a little bit of Torah, a little bit of Torah with some seriousness, but God forbid even the slightest bit of inappropriateness, the low level of the impurity of the Balkari.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: He is still left, hopeless, uncurable, because the way that he lives with everything is just one big joke that ridiculing and that mocking of serious things that leads him to be suffering from a lethal illness that is uncurable.