Parshas Eikev 5786

Automatic transcript of the voice note (unedited) — Hebrew and Yiddish terms may be spelled phonetically.

This week's parashur is a very interesting psuquim. It's a paratess, a posik daal, the beginning of shlishi. Moshe Rabbeinu tells Klah Yisrael, Don't say because you're so good. I'll toymah b'sikoshe, don't say because you're so righteous. That's why you deserve all the good stuff. And then the next posik, lo b'sikoshe, not because you're so righteous. Be'yoshua lovcha, not because you're so straight. It's not why you're getting hurt Yisrael. And then the next posik, again, you should know, lo b'sikoshe, it's not from your righteousness. Over and over, you guys, that posik ends, you guys are amkshe oyerif, you guys are brazen, you're hard people to deal with.

And the next posik says, zechorish, remember you sinned in the midbar. And it goes on to talk about b'chayiv etzaphtem, talks about the fact that Klah Yisrael sinned by Harsinai, this reference to Feit HaEgel pashtas, and maybe other ones as well, the Baal term. It says, why, why is this posik so violent? Mershah ben Eskrimi, there's one of the world's going on over here. So the truth is, it's a very fascinating medrash. A few posik before that, because if you go back, a lot of times you want to get context, you go back. What was the posik like before that? Posik Gimel says, edat tayoim, you're going to know, Hashem will kecha, Hashem's taking care of you. Everything's good.

So why was on this big speech? So if you go back to posik alef, it says, sh'ma Yisrael, tem oyivra yom esayardeh. Sh'ma Yisrael. Sh'ma Yisrael. Now you're going to cross the Yarden. The medrash says, very fascinating thing, Mershah ben Atol Chol Yisrael, you once had tus chosim, you had Nasa and Nishma, you had both by Har Sinai. But you lost the Nasa, presumably because of Feit HaEgel. You lost the Nasa, you only have the Nishma. So sh'ma Yisrael, ebarit dem Nasa, you had it. Shimru Nishma, hold on to the Nishma. This is your only ticket in Eretz Yisrael. So he's trying to figure out, what in the world does this mean practically? But before we get there,

so I thought that could be shot down in the psukim. That's why Mershah ben was going on to talk about the fact that at Kleistro, it's time to go and tell Shul, they have to realize that they blew it big time in terms of what they originally had with Nasa and Nishma. It could be that's why the psukim are saying this. You once had the ability of Nasa serving Hashem. And your own sh'ma, you don't really have that anymore. Maybe that's what the context is of this psukim, that will explain why Mershah ben Yeruan is this big speech. And now let's get back into this concept. What does it mean practically for us? Hold on to the Nishma. You lost the Nasa, but hold on to your Nishma.

So I speak to Futamir HaChemim, trying to get some type of clarity on this. And one of them, he told me, I shouldn't quote him by name, but one of them very close friends of mine, he's a very big Tamachochem. Futamir Faham Pshah, I love this. It's a beautiful thing I want to share with you. He said, maybe the Pshah and the Medrash is like this, that there are two ways for Klal Yisrael to connect. One way is to connect through the Torah to Hashem. That's one connection. And that's really the Nasa. But there's a second connection. The second connection that the Medrash says, hold on to the Nishma, that's why HaKadosh Baruch Hu, Moshe Rabbeinu, told Klal Yisrael, Sh'ma Yisrael.

Hold on to Sh'ma Yisrael. Sh'ma Yisrael and the Midrashim, have two Pshatim. One is that it's a way to connect to Hashem with another Pshah. So we'll have Klal Yisrael to come together. The Medrash that says that the Ichud of Sh'ma Yisrael is actually for Klal Yisrael itself. And that's the concept that we find over and over in the Midrashim. That even when we weren't Zecha to such good things, but the fact that there was peace between us, then we were Zecha. We even have that by humankind. The humankind had peace. That's why Ben Megdol Bavil, even though the Einesh should have been much worse, it wasn't. It wasn't so bad because there was peace between them, as opposed to the Mabo,

where there was no peace between them. But we find that by the Ba'i Sheini, that even if Klal Yisrael was on a high level, because they didn't have peace between them, they didn't have the Akhtas between them, the Mele, that's why they get punished. So he said, maybe the Pshah is, hold on to the Nishma. Nishma is another way for Klal Yisrael to come together and hold on to the Yichud. And there's a concept of Yisrael Reis, the Koshu B'richu Chadhu. It's one unit in order to attach the Nitzcheh. So there's one way to attach. To Hashem through the Torah, but there's another way to attach. So we should attach to one another, attach to one another and become one solid unit of Yisrael.

Maish Rabbeinu, Mastan Klal Yisrael, going into Yisrael now, realize the Nassah is gone. You don't have it anymore. It's too much of a, too much rebellion against Hashem and serving Him. But the Nishma you can still have. The Nishma is always Sheik. Every time Klal Yisrael comes together, they automatically are able to connect to the Nitzchehs because they're able to connect to one another. So that is very, very important. One lesson for all of us, obviously, the concept of Avav Tarecha Kamech, is that Klal Gavah B'tayirah, we know by the Chor Ben and we know also by the Echan Shem Yisrael. There are millions and millions of Midrashim that stress this point over and over and over.

We have to just internalize into our lives. We have to remember that there are different ways for us to connect. And if we lost the ability to connect, Maamish be one with Hashem, as we lost the Nassah, but the Nishma we didn't lose. So if there's Hashem, we should all be as connecting as we can to one another.