Not in the flow directly of what we’ve been doing. Lets have a look at that subject. Now this is a very detailed and difficult subject. The principal is easy and simple, but the details are many. Let’s try and first of all, understand the problem and then lets see if we can understand part of the answer. What you’re going to hear now, is one of the most fundamental things there are in Torah. You can’t do without this idea. You can’t do without it, you can’t understand anything in Torah without this idea and it’s exactly the opposite of what’s taught. Certainly in the non-Jewish world definitely, and in the uninformed Jewish world, definitely, this idea is completely held upside down. And it’s a result, what results from it, is complete misunderstanding of the whole Torah. Tremendous confusion, paradoxes, the whole system doesn’t make sense. And many people unfortunately have a negative feeling about many things in Yidishkeit (Judaism) because of this problem. Now if you, you’ll see the problem very difficult. We’ve discussed it before some months ago as I said; we’re doing it again now because some people requested it. We’ll see that the problem is very difficult, if its so difficult to you that you’re convinced from the beginning that you’re not going to be able to understand the answers, then leave now. This is the kind of thing that you have to be able to hear. Once you hear it, you’ll see it’s absolutely obvious, it couldn’t be any other way, it doesn’t need any proof. But if you haven’t been used to hearing it this way, then it may be difficult to hear. But again, this is a subject that you want to hear you have to listen with a sensitivity you have to open yourself to a way that you don’t normally think and you’ll see that it couldn’t be any other way. But it’s hard, I’m warning you. Because its been taught very badly and very much the opposite. The problem is as follows: we have a concept that the people that we talk about in Tanach, the greats of Jewish history, King David, David HaMelech, Moshe Rebeinu (Moses) the great people who went out of Egypt, that generation that was saved, Yoshua (Joshua) time, the sons of Yaakov (Jacob), the tribes, the 12 tribes the people of that order of magnitude that greatness. We have an understanding that fundamental to torah that their greatness was so intense that we can’t begin to understand it. Their sensitivity, their refinement, their closeness to perfection in spiritual terms which means in self-control. The work that they had done on themselves had brought themselves to a level that was so close to perfection that we can’t vaguely begin to understand it. On the other hand we see in Tanach that they did the most terrible sins! That’s the problem. Sins that I definitely wouldn’t do. We spoke last week the reason we got on to this is because last week we had occasion to discuss King David. David HaMelech who took a man and had him killed so he could commit adultery with his wife. Very, very low. You remember we discussed this. Very lowly way of going about things. And to make matters worse, the Tanach says so. The Tanach says so. If you read Chumash you read Tanach not only does it say they did these bad things, but it almost says nothing else. If you read thru Tanach from beginning to end you’ll find very, very few positive comments. The comments of love between HaShem and us, complements that he gives us for being a great people are not that many. There are some there are some ones that we cherish but not that many but there are plenty of criticism. Virtually only castigation from beginning to end. You’re a no-good people you deserted me you murdered widows whole kind of terrible things it says about us from beginning to end. Now are you beginning to hear the difficult problem over here? We’re saying that these people were on a level of perfection. This was a nation that was so close to the ultimate greatness that we can’t even begin to understand it. The number of mistakes they made in the most sensitive and refined areas are almost zero. Almost nothing. And the worse mistakes they made, ever, I’m going to try and show you were almost perfection, let alone mistakes. They were so close to acts of greatness and perfection that we can’t even begin to understand what was wrong about them. On the other hand, on the other hand the Tanach says they did very, very bad sins. Very bad sins. Are you with me? How do we understand this? How do you put these things together? How do you make any sense of it? What’s the Jewish understanding of it? Now let’s try and that was the introduction to the question. Lets try and understand the question. Before we get to the answer lets try and understand the greatness of the conflicts between these two areas. First of all, what was the greatness of these people? Just to understand vaguely the league that we are talking about. If you talk about anybody in Jewish history that’s mentioned in Tanach . To try and explain, first of all, there is no way we can grasp their greatness at all. But just to try and get a vague idea about where it reaches we’d have to spend hours and hours and hours in fact no amount of discussion would do it. The only thing that might give a vague hint is somebody whose ever studied Torah, studied the works of those generations and maybe if you’re lucky met anyone who is still alive who carries with him some of the greatness of the previous generation. If you’ve done that, and then you heard him speak about how great his Rebbe was, making it clear that he is absolutely nothing compared to his Rebbe and it says that his Rebbe spoke the same way about his Rebbe. We have an accurate tradition that it goes back that way, it fact it goes exponentially more that way. By the time you get back a few generations, you can’t begin to understand their greatness. Let’s try and do it briefly. You can’t do it fully. You don’t have to accept it from me, but just to try and lay out what was the Jewish approach to the situation. We’re talking about, what can I tell you? If you’ve ever had the experience, really the only way to go about it is to experience it!!!! You should pack your things and go to Yerushalaim (Jerusalem) while there are still a few people alive from the previous generation. People who knew the Chofetz Chaim (Rabbi Yisroel Meir HaKohain Kagan). Go and speak to people who just ONCE SAW the Chofetz Chaim, never mind what their level is. And see what kind of person lives in the world after just having laid eyes on man like that. People who’ve seen him, people who saw him, The Chofetz Chaim died in 1933, people who saw him say “that if you ever laid eyes on him, you were never the same again!!! All you had to do was see him. If you look at his picture of The Chofetz Chaim, you’d see a disheveled sort of looking old man with a wagon driver’s hat. You would’ve missed him in the street. But if you knew anything about him and you actually perceived what he was when you looked at him, you’d never be the same again. You get some of this feel from pictures if you have good pictures of the last generation and you can get something of it. Share with you my personal feeling about, I like to tell you about experiences I’ve had. I’m not going to go through a long list of them. But I’ve had experiences of sitting face to face with people whom I regard as “out of this world” I think I’ve met people, whom if you would meet, you’d never be the same again!! And those people told me, they laugh in embarrassment when you discuss them and their generation compared to one generation before. I know a man in Jerusalem, who this man right now who is 90 years old. He’s one of the worlds famous Rosh Yeshiva’s. His Father was … from the previous generation. I’ve been fortunate to have contact with this great man over the last year. Here’s a person who is a Lithuanian Rosh Yeshiva. No mystical stuff at all. He will refuse to discuss anything mystical with you. If you tried to ask him any question about any hidden area, he tells you, how does he put it? Once I asked him about the mystical wisdom, and he got very piercing blue eyes and he leaned across the table and said to me, “when I was seventeen, I wanted to know about the mystical wisdom, so I started studying a certain book”, and he named the book, a book of mystical studies and he said “I had a headache, I had a headache for three days”. He said “you what I decided, I was too young.” And he leaned across the table and said to me “and I’m still too young!!” Here’s a person who won’t admit to any contact with this wisdom. What’s his level?? When I walked in to see him, the last contact I had on this level was when I had a very difficult personal problem in my own life. How to organize certain things, it was very complex, many different personalities involved, many complexities. It took me four days to work out an introduction to my question so that I could just make him of all the variables in the situation so that I could then ask him my question. And I worked on it until I had my introduction down to 20 minutes. In 20 minutes, I practiced it so I could give him a good idea about everything that he needed to know so that I could then ask my question because I needed guidance. so I walked into his home in Jerusalem I sat down I’ve come to ask you a question as I was in the middle of the first sentence of my introduction he said “look, your question is the following…said exactly what the question was and told me the answer. I couldn’t carry on with my introduction and I left and I’ve seen that time and again. If you thought that this was impressive and you expressed that to him, he wouldn’t know what you’re talking about. Because it was obvious to him!! Now he tells you stories about his life, when he live with the Chofetz Chaim in Rodin …what he saw, he tells you mystical miraculous events that he personally experienced with the Chofetz Chaim, right, that are out of this world!! And you see a man like this who is one of the greatest living people speaks of this teacher that he had with an ore that’s impossible to convey. And we have an accurate tradition that the Chofetz Chaim spoke about his Rebbe that way. The Chofetz Chaim spoke about Rev Nacham who was his Rebbe, when he told his boys, the Chofetz Chaim told his Talmidim in Yeshiva he told his stories about his Rebbe that he was unable to comprehend the greatness of Rev Nacham. You follow??? And you’re still only dealing with the late … When you go back to … you have a principle in Torah tradition that you take a quantum leap into another world. We haven’t even touched those yet!! The Rambam, the Ramban, the Gaon of Vilna, the Chaim Veloshon. The Chaim Veloshon was a star pupil of the Gaon of Vilna. The Gaon died in 17 ninety something. He was one of the aronium. … some say he was as great as people 500 years before, but never the less, we have a principle in Jewish life that we go down and down and down. Okay, the Mashiach (Messiah) with come on the heels, on the soles of the feet of human history. We’re there now!! It’s impossible to imagine going any lower, we hope. But we’re at the bottom of history now. But the further back we go the greater you get. Not like the non-Jewish world, they think the further back you go you eventually hit a cave someplace, right. We understand that you hit a level of angelic dimensions if you go back far enough, that’s the way we see the world. They’re right actually, there are people who come from caves. We don’t. We come from an angelic level, but that has to be discussed in detail. But like this the Chaim Veloshon was the star pupil of the Gaon of Vilna. The Gaon of Vilna was somebody that we can’t begin to understand, can’t begin to understand. If you just read his writings, you don’t have to take it from me. You get a little bit of a feeling for his Torah insight when you study what he wrote. Apart from major hallacic works, right, he wrote some of the most central Kabalistic explanations that we have today. And you don’t have to take it from me, you can actually experience it. You take a Zohar or even earlier works that he commented on, and you see his commentary on these works, after reading those and you have a beginning of somebody to show you and hold your hand through it, you definitely wouldn’t be the same again. Not that I’ve studied them by any means, but I’ve seen one or two things. You definitely wouldn’t be the same again!! That was The Gaon of Vilna!!! They say the Maharal who lived in the sixteen hundreds once was in a desperate situation in the Jewish community in Prague that was threatened by the non-Jews and the only way out was to create a super-human creature. Called a Golem. The Maharal created a super-human creature, he couldn’t speak, he couldn’t speak, but he was very physically powerful and he saved the Jews from many lethal troubles that they had at the time. That was the Sixteen hundreds. We have on record that the Gaon was busy making a Golem, the Gaon himself, the Gaon of Vilna, the late seventeen hundreds, busy making a Golem, he said he got a message from above to stop because he wasn’t yet Bar-Mitzvah (13 years old), that’s who we are talking about!!!! The Chaim Veloshon who was a star pupil of The Gaon, once they asked him how his Rebbe, The Gaon of Vilna, compared to the Rambam? The Rambam lived in the eleven hundreds, …died in 1135 the way they count, the way the non-Jews count. The year 1135. 850-860 years ago. The Rambam was one of the greatest … When they asked him how his Rebbe, The Gaon of Vilna compared to the Rambam, now you have to understand that you’re asking the student of a Rebbe, there’s no greater love in the world, than a student for his Rebbe. In fact, in some ways it’s closer then for a Father. There some laws that you have to observe closeness to a Rebbe preceding that of closeness to your Father. So they couldn’t have been asking anybody who loved anybody more then they asked The Chaim. They asked him “ how does your Rebbe compare in greatness to the Rambam?” He answered the following thing “ if he would learn for 100 years, he wouldn’t come up to the instep of the Rambam!” That’s what he said about his own Rebbe!! And that’s an understatement!!! The Gemarah says that if the people of that generation were like men, then the next generation were like donkeys! The Gemarah says if they were like angels, the next were like men and the next generation was like donkeys, the Gemarah says that THEN, that THEY were like donkeys compared to the previous generation. And we’ve taken an exponential dive. That was the Rambam!! And you don’t have to take it from me, study Rambam. Look at what he wrote. If you just fathom how he could put together what he put together. Rashi. Nobody got any conception of what Rashi. We have access to Rashi, you don’t have to take it from me. Look at Rashi! Rashi wrote the commentary on everything that we have!!!! Rashi wrote the commentary on Chumash (The Torah), he wrote the commentary on the Whole Gemarah three times (we use the third edition). He wrote in on … Tehillim (Psalms). Rashi wrote on everything. And every word in Rashi has an endless depth. And again, don’t take it from me; sit a Rashi, the deeper you plunge the more you see it comes out. The more down you go, the more accurate you see it is. Every word is measured. They say, there’s a story, they say that there was a group of Kabalistic Sages who got together to write a commentary on the whole Talmud. So they got together to write this Kabalistic commentary explaining the Talmud on Kabalistic grounds. When they finished this thing it was enormous, it was much too long. So they decided to see if they could cut it in half. So they sat down and pared it down to its absolute minimum, and it was still much too long. So they decided to concentrate the whole Kabalistic wisdom even more. Even more compressed, and they did it again, and they did it again, and finally they ended up with Rashi. That’s what they say. Rashi wrote the commentary that goes beyond words!! And by the way, how did Rashi do it? How did he do it? You think Rashi had an automatic word processor, that he typed in the words and it spelled out for him a whole volume of information like today. That isn’t what Rashi did. Rashi did it in Medieval Prague. Rashi lived in Troy, in Prague during the Crusades. During the Crusades!! You have to understand that. That means that this man sat at a table in his little room turning out this work that nobody can fathom how it could’ve been fitted into a lifetime, and you can check it out yourself, he wrote in a phase of Jewish history, when a Jews life was worth less than nothing. When Rashi put his head out of the door to try and find a Minyan (group of ten Jewish men for prayer) right, he was lucky if he made it home alive. There were Crusaders at night riding up and down in the streets outside his home looking for Jews to butcher. That’s what he lived through. He lived through years of that. That what his life was. Right? And in the midst of that he turned out (the works of) Rashi!! You have to understand what a feat that is. If you want to get some vague idea, imagine its around the 25th of next month, in this place. And you got a massive T.V. set on the table in front of you and it’s blasting out this pageantry that they have at that time. You know what I’m talking about? These songs and things that they sing, turn it up to full volume, and try to write a reasonable commentary on anything. That’s what it was like, except it wasn’t just the media that was doing it, he had people who were trying to kill him. When you go back to the … 7th , 8th , 9th century … People like Rashi and The Rambam, they speak about the …from the preceding era in terms that they couldn’t fathom their greatness. Whenever they wished to disagree, whenever they can’t understand anything of the … they write as follows: If it weren’t for the poverty of my intellect I would have asked the following question, but since he was a … and I’m a nothing compared to him, and every word is measured and true, I’m not even going to bother. That’s how they spoke about the … And the goliem compared to the … who wrote the Gemarah are not even starters. That’s less than 2000 years ago. Anybody mentioned in Talmud had the capacity to revive the dead. The Gemarah is full of it by the way. The Gemarah is full of documented stories of … who revived the dead without any problem. Much more miracles even in Tanach (Old Testament) split rivers, revived the dead, lit vinegar, what ever they want, the Gemarah is full of it. What we’ve described up to now is an exponential leap. They weren’t even non starters compared to the Neviem (prophets) compared to the generation of prophecy. Compared to the generation … who lived a few hundred years before them, right, in which Ezra and Nechemyah (Nehemiah) lived who saw the tail end of prophecy, the mystics say that if you compared that generation, to one generation before, when the last prophet was alive, it was like a world with the lights on and a world with the lights off. Because when prophecy ended, the world was completely dark and all wisdom was lost. They described the transition from prophecy to the generation after prophecy as nothing left at all. They described the level of people walking around in these generations, the mystics call us people who have the life force in us and what’s called …You might find this embarrassing, but … is the amount of human life force that invests in a pile of dried bones. You have a pile of dried human bones, the amount of intelligence, spiritual human life in those dry bones is called …That’s what we look like compared to the people of the generation who was called human. You follow what that means? That means if Moshe Rabenu (Moses our teacher) walked in now, even a much lesser man than Moshe Rabenu, if Y’hoshua (Joshua) walked in now or much later generations, if a Tanner, if a Navi (prophet) if Yechezk’el (Ezekiel) or one of the Nevi’im (prophets) walked in now, you would see a room full of faint, powdery, dried bones! Right? If you’re lucky, you’d make out the shape of a bone here and there, compared to the shining example of what a human being should be. And that’s a vast understatement. A vast understatement! Again, you don’t have to take it from me. This is what we understand. This is the Jewish tradition. Check it out, collaborate it for yourself, read what they wrote, study their writings, get in contact with us and try to re-awaken some of this consciousness. And it goes on. The further back you go, the higher it becomes. We have a clear understanding that if Moshe Rabenu would walk in to this room, WE WOULD DISSOLVE , we would absolutely dissolve!! We would disappear in a pile of ash. Right? We know that the people of his generation couldn’t stand to look at him. You remember that? He had such a light, such an intense burning light shining from his face that he had to mask it for the people of HIS GENERATION, who witnessed the giving of the Torah, the people who stood at Sinai couldn’t look at his face! Can you imagine if he walked in here, the place would be fried!! Right? All that would be left would be a small wisp of a bad smell. That’s what the mystics say. That’s all! Now, now that’s who we’re talking about. That’s the kind of people we’re talking about. So when we get back to the times of the Torah, (the Chumash) the Tanach (old Testament), we’re talking about people that, here’s Abraham Avinu (our Father). Abraham Avinu is told to go and sacrifice his son. You have to understand this. You know, you see we got this conflict in your mind, we have this conflict because Abraham Avinu lived about 4000 years ago, there abouts, so if you look at secular history that’s when people were roaming the plains with a bones, bits of bones that they hacked out of animals …bashing each other to pieces that’s what secular history tells you. So you think that Abraham Avinu was sort of a man with rough sandals, a bit of a course old rope, you have this primitive conception of a religion … an idea that is so treif (un-kosher) that it’s an insult to a Jew to even begin to think that way. Here’s this man of shining spiritual greatness that we can’t begin to conceive what he looked like. There are people who say, there are educators who say that it is forbidden for a person write a book for children, a Torah book for children and draw pictures of the characters. What a travesty! They write a book about Adam and Eve in the garden and they draw you a picture of a naked man and woman, who don’t even look that attractive in today’s terms. Right? That’s what they do. Sort of a bit of a snake curled around one of them and a couple of fig leaves, you know? We have a tradition that if Adam HaRishon (the first man) was so incandescent with spirituality that you couldn’t see his body. In the mystical writings it says that if you looked at him, he was so incandescent with Neshama (soul) that you couldn’t see the body. You had to shield your eyes against the light of the Neshama to make out a wisp of a body somewhere. If you want an example, it’s exactly like we are today, the other way around!! Today, if you look at a human being you’ll see a lump of meat!! That’s what you see, a piece of steak! If you want to see the Neshama inside, you have to look very, very, very deeply to see anything alive about a human being. You want to see a Neshama? You won’t see a Neshama . You want to see a soul inside a human being? You won’t see that. The mystics say you’ll see a glow on the face, maybe. If you’re lucky, if you know how to look at it, you can see a glow on the face… that’s what the mystics say, but apart from that, nothing. But Adam HaRishon was exactly the opposite. You couldn’t see the BODY, he was so incandescent with Kadusha (holiness). When they draw you a picture of a man and woman, if there’s any negative education, that’s got to be it. Here’s Abraham Avinu in that generation, he’s ask to go and sacrifice his son. And he does it as an act of love. He doesn’t understand it. It goes against everything he’s taught. That was the test. That was exactly the test. When he withstood all the nine tests previously, without any problem. He was thrown into a fire for his belief, wasn’t a problem at all. Right? We had people 50 years ago (i.e. the Holocaust ) who walked into a fire singing and dancing. Singing in ecstasy! We saw that! So for him to be thrown into a fire for his belief in HaShem, after HaShem had been revealed to him (actually it was before HaShem openly revealed Himself ) but for him it was no problem at all, I can assure you. It was a minor test. But to KILL HIS SON, that went against the previous instruction that he had from the same source, now that’s confusing!! HaShem told him that this son would be the forbearer of the Jewish people, and from him will arise a great nation. And then He says “Schect him” (kosher slaughter) against everything that he believes and is taught. Against his whole understanding of what HaShem means and what He is. Now that’s a test!!! What happened? He lives up to the test with love. What does it mean with love? That means, despite his love for his son. Despite his love!! Don’t think its because he didn’t feel anything for his son. If anybody ever loved a son, it was that man!! That was the son who was born when he was a hundred years old. On his way out of life already, that’s how he felt. And his son was born to him who was going to be the fulfillment of everything he stood for!!! If anybody ever loved a son, it was he!! And he was told to Schect him. Cold bloodily, lay him down and murder him! So they walked together. When you read that Parsha (portion) if it doesn’t make you cry, I don’t know what will. It says they WALKED TOGETHER. When Yitzchak (Isaac) found out what was happening to him, it says they WALKED TOGETHER AGAIN!!!! Yitzchak found out that he was about to be sacrificed. So he said to his Father, Dad, tie my hands. Because in case when you lift the knife, I might flinch, and first of all, I might hurt you. I might flinch and hurt you, so tie me up. And not only might I hurt you, but in case I flinch and you do an un-kosher Sliteta (slaughter) you’ll make a (blemish) and I won’t be a kosher korban, I won’t be a valid sacrifice. So we’ve got to do this right. So Abraham tied him up. That’s how the two of them were. Abraham is about to Schect him, and as he lifts the knife, he hears a voice. Right? A voice says “Abraham, Abraham don’t touch the boy” Right? …Don’t set your hand to him and don’t do anything to him. So the neforshum (Sages) say “Why two instructions?” Because you know what happened? When HaShem said Abraham, don’t kill him, Abraham said to Him, HaShem, PLEASE. I want to do this thing for you. Don’t deny me this mitzvah (commandment). Can you imagine such a thing!! He just been given the opportunity to save his son’s life, and he begged. And HaShem said I don’t want it. He said “HaShem, just a drop of blood!” At least let me draw a drop of blood, that I’ll show the world. I’ll put into the Jewish people this power of self sacrifice. Greater than self sacrifice. It’s easy to sacrifice yourself. Sacrifice a CHILD!!!!!! That’s just about impossible. And HaShem said NO, I don’t want a drop of blood. THAT’S THE LEVEL THEY WERE ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It says when…I don’t want to make the whole shir or we’ll never get to the problem. I’ll give you one or two more examples, maybe next week we’ll have to carry on, I don’t know. It says that when Yaakov (Jacob) went down to Mitzraim (Egypt). I’m just picking one or two examples, it’s an endless discussion. You have to go through Torah to understand it correctly. When Yaakov went down to Mitzraim, to meet his son Yoseph (Joseph). He hadn’t seen Joseph for 22 years! Do you remember the story? Joseph had been away for 22 years, he was the ruler of Egypt. Yaakov went down to meet this boy whom he hadn’t seen for 22 years. Right? He mourned actively for this boy for 22 years. The mystics say that his mourning was as intense as a normal mourners is in the first week. His mourning was that intense for 22 years. Why? Because a normal mourning of a mourner gets less with time because the Neshama (soul) of the person that you’re mourning for goes to easier levels all the time, so it sucks out less of agony from you. But in Yoseph’s case, he wasn’t dead, so there was no pathway of the Neshama. So Yaakov never had the relief. He never sensed the relief of that and he mourned like a new mourner for 22 years. What happened? When he went down to meet him, first of all, I’m sure you all are familiar with the story, that he didn’t respond. When Yoseph hugged him, and embraced him, Yaakov didn’t respond at all. Why? It says he was saying “Shema” (Hear O Israel). Saying Shema. That’s the moment he chose to say Shema. You have to say Shema THEN??? You have all day to say Shema. He wanted to sanctify the most precious moment of his life. He’s about to meet… and don’t think its because he didn’t love his son, its because he loved his son that much, that he wanted to sanctify it to HaShem. That’s the moment to say Shema!! You’ve got to understand how these people felt!! Then it says this: Seventeen years later, SEVENTEEN YEARS later, it says Yaakov died. Yoseph came into the room and it says “he kissed him”. When his Father died, it says “he kissed him”. (Gen 50:1) So the Neforshum (Sages) say, you know why it says that? Cause for seventeen years he never let Yoseph kiss him! This son, for whom he had mourned for 22 years, on whom he pinned all his hopes for the Jewish people, he never let that boy kiss him until he couldn’t help it anymore, he was dead. Why???? Say the Neforshum like this: because when Yoseph was seventeen years old, he was living in Mitzriam. And he lived in the house of a man called Potifar. And Potifar’s wife was a very seductive lady who tried to seduce this seventeen year old boy with every means at her disposal. And she knew exactly how. For a year, without any, without letting up, she tried to seduce this young boy of seventeen. And she tried to seduce him with, you have to understand, not with physical attraction. That was the least of it. A Yoseph, who becomes the Forefather of the Jewish, one of the Forefathers, he wasn’t to be attracted, I can assure you, by something that they pin up on the wall today. That wasn’t what attracted him. He had a prophetic vision that out of the two of them would come two of the tribes of Israel!!! Now that was a temptation!! He had a prophetic vision, and so did she! That out of the two of them would come two tribes of Israel. Only the relationship happened to be forbidden. But listen, you’ve got to weigh it up. Now that’s a temptation. And in fact she was right! Because what happened, ultimately what happened was, her daughter married Yoseph, and the two of them had two children, Ephraim and Menasha. But they didn’t know at the time, he didn’t know it would be fulfilled in that way. All he knew was that out of the two of them would come great offspring. So she had him tempted on every level, spiritual, physical, emotional, every level and he resisted!! Neforshum say this: at the end of a year, after he’d resisted her temptations for a year, once he was alone in the house with her. And she tried very, very strongly to seduce him. And for an instant, he considered doing it. That’s what it says. For one second, he considered sinning with her. And as he considered it, he saw his Fathers face at the window, an image, a vision of his Fathers face appeared at the window and when he saw that vision, it brought him back to his senses, why he merited that is another story, and he ran out of the house, she grabbed his clothing to try to hold him back, he ran out naked, knowing exactly what it would mean. He didn’t go back. He was much stronger than she was. He could have gone back to force his clothes, but he didn’t want to risk it. It didn’t know if he’d be saved again. He chose to run out naked, and be accused by her, just as he was, and he spent 12 years in jail because of that. Misery. That’s what happened to him. The Neforshum say this, the deeper commentaries say this: When Yaakov came down to Mitzraim, and he saw his son, that he hadn’t seen for 22 years, he parted from him when the boy was seventeen. And he hadn’t seen him for 22 years. The first thing he saw when he looked at his face was this was the face of a man who had once had a thought that crossed his mind of sinning with a woman. And such a man, he wouldn’t let kiss him!! You hear that? This boy, he never make a mistake in his life, maybe when he was sixteen he made a mistake, he said something wrong about his brothers, maybe. But if Yoseph it was the only mistake he ever made, in fact he was justified later, he was exonerated later. If he ever made a mistake, it was ONCE the thought of sinning with a woman in a physical way crossed his mind. When Yaakov perceived that, just by looking at his face, he wouldn’t let him kiss him!!! Not until he was dead. Try to understand the perfection, the level of people that were talking about. And it goes on and on and on. If you think, there’s a case in the Talmud, there’s a case in the Gemarah of two Kohanim (Cohen-priest) who were running up , they were running up to do the (sacrifice) Misbayach (altar) and one of them was fatally stabbed!! One of the Kohanim was fatally stabbed. One young Cohen, a young man, a very young man was bleeding to death in the Beis HaMikdash (Temple) Right? A Cohen, who had been running to do the avodah, somebody stabbed him and he lay bleeding to death. His Father ran over, his Father ran over to him and said: quickly, he’s still alive, lets get him out of here and save the Kedeshua (Holiness) of the Beis HaMikdash. Because if there’s too much mase in the Beis HaMikdash when a person dies in the Beis HaMikdash it a terrible trumah for the Beis HaMikdash. So the Neforshum say this, there are two possibilities in such a situation, either this man felt nothing for his son, or he felt a great deal for the Beis HaMikdash!! The Kedushua (Holiness) for HaShem. You start to understand these things. We don’t have time. There’s much, much, much more, that’s only the beginning, I assure you. Every incident in Torah is only told to us because it’s an act of perfection. The Torah says that Abraham Avinu “lifted his eyes” you know that? …He lifted his eyes and he saw. Every dot in Torah, the cosmic reality depends on it. If the Torah bothers to tell us that “he lifted his eyes” that means that it was a cosmic event. He lifted his eyes with such control that the universe was never the same again. That’s what we’re talking about in Torah. Now, if that’s true, if that’s true, how did they do such terrible things????? These people at this level of perfection. How did they do such crude and lowly things??? What did they do? Lets take some of them. The generation of the desert. They made a golden calf. It says it openly. They bowed down; they worshipped a piece of gold!! This generation that saw HaShem, they stood at Sinai, right? They witnessed the revelation. That means personally, they witnessed HaShem appeared to them, a short time later, forty days later to be exact, they panicked for certain reasons and made a piece of gold and bowed down to a piece of gold! Is there any way to understand that???? I promise you, if I’d seen HaShem, If HaShem appeared to me and said: “Akiva, I like you to do this and this, I’ve got 10 things that I want to discuss with you, and I’d like you to do this and this for me”. I promise you that forty days later I wouldn’t bow down to a piece of gold!! And if, yes, I must be schizophrenic. Do you agree with me? There’s no way to understand that. What is going on? And if that’s what they did, I don’t want to be descended from such people. I’m not proud to be descended from people who did that!! People who made a piece of gold and bow down to it maybe, that’s one thing. But to have met HaShem personally, and then a short time later do that??? What were they thinking????? Are you with me? Reuven. It say that when Yaakov lost his wife Rachel, it says that Reuven committed a sin with his Father’s wife. ( Gen 35:22) That’s what it says. And the words are very dangerously close to be explicitly a statement that he had physical intimate relationship with his Father’s wife. Reuven??? One of the twelve tribes?? People of such perfection that they were able to form Chal Israel? You that we say that when Abraham had two son’s, one of them was Ishmael, he wasn’t …although he did Teshuva (repentance) in the end, and he came very close, but because he lacked a little bit somewhere, he was thrown out. Thrown out of the house with his mother. Nothing to do with the Jewish people anymore. The Torah doesn’t mince its words with people who commit… The next generation, you had an Esav. Esav didn’t make it. Esav failed. Reuven? Reuven is not regarded as someone who failed. He’s one of the perfect twelve tribes. And it says that he committed such a sin???? The man on such a level of greatness?? Such a crude, who would do such a thing? Who would do such a thing??? It says that when Joshua, I’m just picking a few examples, you have to discuss them all at great length, we won’t have time, we have to go through each of them in great detail. Joshua. It says when he took the people into Israel, there was a rule that when they conquered the land, they weren’t allowed to loot. When they conquered Jericho, it says that they weren’t allowed to loot. The next battle, the battle of Ai, it says that the Jewish people lost, and many were lost. Many people were destroyed. It came out that they had looted. And the Tanach says, you stole, you looted, you lied, you covered up. Words of very strong castigation. How did they do such a thing? People who witnessed HaShem bring them all this way, they experienced the miracle of living 40 years in the desert. And they were so crude as to disobey blandly. You follow? Ezra. Ezra lived at the time of the Great Assembly. Ezra lived in the generation, he saw prophets. Ezra lived in the generation of Hagai, Z’kharyah (Zechariah) and Mal’akhi (Malachi), the last three prophets. When Ezra brought the Jewish people back to build the second Temple, to BUILD THE SECOND TEMPLE, that means that the Jewish people were on a level that they could build the Beis HaMikdash. They could build a Temple! Do you know what kind of level that is??? It says that he couldn’t get them back. Do know why?? Because the men had intermarried. The Jewish men had intermarried with Babylonian women. Yet today we think today intermarriage is a problem because we got no Jewish consciousness and people are giving up their Judaism and so forth and going down hill. But in that generation? These people were considered fitting to building the Beis HaMikdash and we tried to bring them back they were intermarried with Babylonian women. One of the most serious crimes in Jewish life. It says that when a person has a sexual relationship with a non-Jewish woman, he can’t be saved from Gehenim. Abraham Avinu can’t pull him out of Gehenim because he can’t recognize him. Before you panic, it depends on your level of knowledge and responsibility and so on. But they certainly knew. They knew. That generation, if anybody knew what it meant, they knew. And it says that they married non-Jewish women??? How did they do such a thing? King David. King David. King David was a man who says clearly made only two mistakes in his life. That’s not a bad record. That’s not bad. I wish I only made two mistakes in my life. But one of them was SOME MISTAKE!! He took a man, he craved his wife, saw his wife bathing at night, had the man killed so, he committed adultery with her, and it says that. But that a hideous mistake!! And so it goes, on and on and on. And we have to understand this subject. Now, do you agree with me, IT’S A PROBLEM???? Somebody? If there’s no problem, I’ll go home. Now, what we have to understand here is this. What we want to come out with this evening is an understanding, a resolution of the subject. But we’re going to need more than that. We’re going to need to understand how their greatness was their greatness and it wasn’t sullied at all by these things. What these sins were. And we can’t whitewash the subject. We can’t whitewash it and say well they weren’t really sins. Actually, it wasn’t the way it seemed. We can’t do that because the Tanach says IT WAS. The words of Torah have to be true in every single way. You follow me? It just not good enough if I tell you well David didn’t really commit a sin because actually it wasn’t that bad, it’s a bit of hyperbole, a bit of exaggeration. I can’t do that, because if you open the Tanach it says exactly what he did. If you want to whitewash the Jewish people and say the Jewish people are people of greatness and the average level of the Jewish people throughout the generations has been incredibly great, open Tanach anywhere. Open any of the Nevi’im, it doesn’t say that. It says we’re the lowliest of people. We’re an unfaithful wife. We betrayed HaShem. Traitorous. Harlotry. All kinds of terrible things, hardly a word of praise. Hardly a word of praise. And of course the people who do that are the non-Jews. The non-Jewish nations do it all the time. You know the part of Christian dogma; part of Christian doctrine is that they are the chosen people. I don’t know if you’re aware of this. Part of Christian dogma is that we WERE the chosen people. They admit that. We WERE the chosen people, but the age, of what they call, the age of wrath, of anger, gave way to what they call the age of grace, which is now what we’re in, and in the age of grace, the REAL CHOSEN PEOPLE, shone their light forth, and they became the chosen people. HaShem real chosen beloved ones. Why?? Where do they get this from?? Because we betrayed HaShem. Why did He give us up? And what do they do with all the promises in the Old Testament that say that He’ll NEVER give us up? When HaShem makes a promise, He MEANS IT! So how did He give us up and choose them? Do you know where they get it from? Tanach!!! Open it up any place, it says exactly like them, it says you people betrayed me. I trusted you and you betrayed me. That’s what it says. You let me down, you left me, you betrayed me. Your wanton harlotry. You left me! It says it all over. They’ve got a very good source. Their source is us! They prove it from our Holy Writings!!! You follow? Now, lets try to understand, so we have a tough problem here. We have to understand what the sins were, these people of greatness, we cannot touch! We have to understand their greatness. Without saying well they failed, we can’t say that. And then we have to understand how they did such terrible sins. Well I’m going to tell you the terrible things they did were acts of perfection!! What they did is inconceivable, it’s impossible to find what was wrong with it. But then I’m going to have to explain to you that it doesn’t say that in Tanach. If that’s going to be true, we have an enormous problem on our hands. But you’ll see its an obvious, once its clear, once you’ve thought about it you’ll see it couldn’t be any other way, it’s obvious, it’s fundamental, it’s the core of Judaism. It’s the core of Torah. And it has to be expressed this way and you’ll see it clearly. The concept is as follows. First lets say the principle, lets try to explain the principle try to go through its applications and understand it. Are you with me so far? You’re not going to enjoy the answer unless you’ve got the problem. The principal is as follows. The people that we are talking about were people very, very, very close to perfection. The mistakes they made were a tiny, tiny deviation from perfection. An imperceptible deviation from perfection. That’s the principle. Now, now why does the Tenach say that they failed so miserably, why does it put it in such gross and graphic terms? The Tenach doesn’t say that they failed almost imperceptibly, the Tenach says they failed MISERABLY. Why? Concept number 2 is your failure is relative to you, not relative to some outside standard. When you’re a failure or a success, you’re a failure or a success relative to your potential not relative to mine! Whether you succeed or fail depends on what you could’ve done. Do you follow? It’s only this crazy system that takes children in the school and nemech, compares them against each other. You ruin Children for life that way. We live in a system where we don’t judge a child for what he’s capable of and reward him if he does the best that he could do. We don’t do that. We ask the child what did you get and what did the other kids get in the class? So the child did his best, he did his best, he extended himself and he did great. and came near the bottom of the class and the child is made to feel like he’s a failure. That’s a terribly cruel system. That’s completely against Jewish education!! That’s terrible, no body should go to school like that! Now that’s how it is. Now, how do you judge a child accurately? And its the only way to look at it, When you think about it for a minute, you’ll see that it makes sense. You compare a person to what he’s capable of. Like I’ve oven said before, We’ve often used this example: when you have two children in a home, in a house, one is a mathematical genius ok the one is such a mathematical genius that he never gets anything wrong. Ok? He never fails, he never drops a mark ever in his whole history at school. He so far above the level that he never gets anything wrong. He’s got a young brother, he’s got a brother at home who always gets 50%. This child does it utmost, and never gets more than 50%. He’s has never ever got more than 50. One day they come home after a test. The child who gets 100 came home with 99. The child who normally gets 50, came home with 55. What happens? Well the kid who normally gets 50, they make a party! Correct? And the kid who gets 99, they give him a thrashing. The father gives him a beating. Correct? Why? Because you failed. You were capable of 100%, you were careless, you were silly, you were careless, you didn’t care about your record, you didn’t live up to your level of expectancy. You failed. You’re a failure. Is that correct or not? But the child who gets 50 extended himself beyond all expectation, got 55, that’s a tremendous success!! Are you with me? It’s obvious. Of course in the mystical dimension, we say that a person in the next world is judge exactly this way. In the next world, they don’t say, “Why weren’t you like him?” They don’t ask you, “Why weren’t you like Moshe Rebenu?” You weren’t supposed to be. They ask you, “Why weren’t you like YOU??” And that’s a tough question to answer. They show you in the next world what you could’ve been; they don’t show you somebody else. They just show you a picture, and you know it by the way, you know it, you have a little bit of an inkling of what your powers are, some times when you’ve really been pushed by a bit of adrenalin or a bit of some of the lower senses or the lower emotions or something totally unworthy. But you got a bit stimulated, you pulled out the stops and you turned out something I’m sure everybody has felt that and they show you what you would look like if you would’ve done that all the time. And you look very different from that. But that’s what they do. They compare you to, that’s the principle, you compare yourself. Now, now these people did things that were 99.999% right? To what they should’ve been. Right? These are people capable of 100. And when somebody is capable of 100 and he’s been enshrined in Torah that way. When David HaMelech is capable of 100% and he’s teaching the world 100% And going to be written down in Torah. Its going to be in my genes and the whole future of the world is going to be dependent on what he does the Jewish people are going to look that way, the Mashiach is going to come out because of that. You can’t afford to have .999 of an error. You can’t afford that!! You were put in this position, he was given his tremendous abilities because he was capable of never dropping .999% so when he drops that, he’s a failure. He’s a total failure. He deserves to be castigated as strongly as a lower person who failed much worse. Do you follow me? And the Torah tells it like it is. The Torah is not writing to some idiot out there who’s not capable of anything. The Torah is speaking to 100% people. When you write a letter, right? when you speak in private, you take a child and speak to him in privately about having gotten his 95 instead of 100 when he should’ve got 100, you speak criticism you don’t tell him that he did very well compared to some idiot out there who never gets more than 20. That’s not how you do it. You compare him to himself. And the words that you give him are words of criticism. Is that correct? The Torah is speaking to US, its not speaking to anybody out there. THE TORAH IS PERSONAL PRIVATE LETTER. The Torah is not written for anybody else. When HaShem wants His people to be perfect, He tells it like it is!!! Are you with me? Now, now, so now with this principle, lets try an understand, let’s try an understand a few details. First of all, let’s deal with one that can be thrown out immediately, when the Non-Jews come to us and say, “You miserable failures”, you have to understand this very deeply, when the non-Jewish world, the Christian world, they come to us and say we are the Chosen people. You know why we’re the Chosen People? Because you people failed!! You people failed, and it say so. THE CHUTZPAH!!! You have to understand what that means. The situation is like this. Some of the Neforshum say, they say its like a Father who takes a child that he loves, and this child is always perfect. This child never ever makes a mistake. The child has such good middos (Character qualities) he always behaves correctly. This child was ONCE disrespectful to somebody, once he made a mistake. He’s a child, he made a mistake. So the Father gives him a beating, a beating. He wants the child to be perfect. He shows him exactly what he feels about somebody who fails. Some lot from the street, some crudish lot from the street, he’s never done anything in his life. Capable of nothing, happens to walk in while this Father is busy beating his child, so he see’s what’s going on and he gives the kid a kick!! This lot from the street, gives this child a kick. Well the Father turns to him and says. “What are you doing?” He says. “Well you’re doing it aren’t you??” But the Father will take him apart!!! When the time comes, the father will turn to this lot and tear him apart. You follow? “I’m beating this child because I love him, you’re not worth being spoken to!!!!” “Nobody’s speaking to you!” You follow me? I’m speaking to this child with castigation and criticism because he capable of perfection and I’m devoting my life to perfecting this child, but nobody bothered speaking to you. Of all the chutzpah!! You follow what’s going on here? They walk in from the outside, people who failed from the beginning, people who didn’t live up to the challenge of Torah, never even tried the challenge of Torah, Right? Like its says at Sinai we accepted and they turned away. They walk in now and say that we blew it and they’re the Chosen People and the evidence is that HaShem is speaking to us like this? Do you hear how pathetic it is? Are you with me? The Torah is a love letter between HaShem and us. It’s a letter between a father and a son that he loves very much. And when you write to a child, you have a child away in Yeshiva someplace 45:39 1