WEBVTT

00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:04.000
That's on them, everybody.

00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:06.000
to be with you…

00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:09.000
Today is January 29th.

00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:16.000
We're in a truly wonderful.

00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:26.000
Last of the plagues and falls.

00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:29.000
of spirit.

00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:31.000
body, for ourselves.

00:00:31.000 --> 00:00:42.000
Just in the interest of time…

00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:54.000
this blessing in this mirror.

00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:57.000
Lest are you, I'll deny our God, eternal sovereign.

00:00:57.000 --> 00:01:01.000
Who sanctified us in God's mitzvot?

00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:04.000
candidates to busy ourselves.

00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:06.000
of Torah.

00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:07.000
Amen.

00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:09.000
I saw this, everyone.

00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:10.000
Which Ambass?

00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:14.000
This is a heck of a Torah portion.

00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:16.000
We're gonna start it where we were in Spina.

00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:22.000
Our service isn't showing me last night.

00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:29.000
us are going to see some things, so…

00:01:29.000 --> 00:01:35.000
Seven volunteers.

00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:39.000
ask not just what interests you.

00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:42.000
Let's see how this midwashes you.

00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:44.000
There's this really cute.

00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:55.000
comes out and says, you have got to explain me.

00:01:55.000 --> 00:01:58.000
I hear you fine. That's Delia.

00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:02.000
Try to raise my voice, I apologize.

00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:13.000
Is it better? Okay.

00:02:13.000 --> 00:02:17.000
have 7 readers.

00:02:17.000 --> 00:02:23.000
Hey, Vamp. Hey said to Moshe. Um, to Pharaoh.

00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:31.000
For I hardened his heart. And the heart of his servants, that I might show these.

00:02:31.000 --> 00:02:35.000
My signs amidst him.

00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:40.000
And so you will recount in the ears of your son and your son's son.

00:02:40.000 --> 00:02:44.000
How I Made Mockery of Egypt and My Signs.

00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:50.000
That I did on them, that you will know that I am Yudhay Vavhe.

00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:55.000
Moshe and Aharan came to Pharaoh and said to him,

00:02:55.000 --> 00:02:58.000
Thus says Adoniah, God of the Hebrews,

00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:01.000
How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me?

00:03:01.000 --> 00:03:06.000
Let my people go, that they may serve me.

00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:10.000
For if you refuse to let my people go,

00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:12.000
Then tomorrow, I will bring locusts

00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:16.000
to your border.

00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:21.000
It will cover the face of the earth, and you will not be able to see the earth.

00:03:21.000 --> 00:03:25.000
And they will eat what remained after the hailstorm.

00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:30.000
They will eat your every tree growing from the field.

00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:34.000
They will fill your houses, the houses of all your servants.

00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:40.000
And the houses of all the Egyptians, such as your fathers or grandfathers, never saw.

00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:45.000
Since the day they were on the. on the Earth to this day.

00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:54.000
He turned and went out to Pharaoh.

00:03:54.000 --> 00:04:08.000
Pharaoh's servants said to him, How long will this man be a snare to us? Let them go that they may serve Yodhab-Heh their god. Do you not know that Egypt already is lost?

00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:21.000
Do what?

00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:27.000
large enough group that we do need to raise hands today. Hi, uh… oh, so many hands already.

00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:30.000
Nancy Deanna Marshy.

00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:38.000
Um, I've been reading a bit this week, so come to Pharaoh, which is an interesting, instead of go.

00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:42.000
To Pharaoh. So… It sort of implies that.

00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:50.000
God is there with Pharaoh. And, um… And so he's saying, you know.

00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:55.000
I'm over here, come to me, basically, and we'll work together.

00:04:55.000 --> 00:05:01.000
To make things right.

00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:03.000
Okay, thank you.

00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:07.000
Uh, Deanna Marcy Sheryl.

00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:09.000
Well,

00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:14.000
Being an old English major, I'm curious if locus

00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:18.000
It's so specific. I mean, besides the…

00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:21.000
specific kinds of construction that locusts can…

00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:26.000
wreak if they symbolize something in particular at…

00:05:26.000 --> 00:05:29.000
you know, at that time in that culture.

00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:31.000
What do you think they do?

00:05:31.000 --> 00:05:33.000
Oh…

00:05:33.000 --> 00:05:37.000
I haven't had coffee yet, I don't know.

00:05:37.000 --> 00:05:43.000
It's 8 o'clock here. Come back to me in half an hour.

00:05:43.000 --> 00:05:49.000
Seriously, my brain can't think. But that's a great question. Maybe somebody else can answer it.

00:05:49.000 --> 00:05:51.000
But one other thing that…

00:05:51.000 --> 00:05:55.000
sort of stuck out to me is, in the first verse,

00:05:55.000 --> 00:06:03.000
For I hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I might show these my signs amidst

00:06:03.000 --> 00:06:09.000
him, implies to me that

00:06:09.000 --> 00:06:12.000
Pharaoh…

00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:19.000
maybe wasn't so bad? I don't know, like, God used him. I'm reading that as God used him, and God used

00:06:19.000 --> 00:06:23.000
the servants to make…

00:06:23.000 --> 00:06:26.000
a certain point that he wanted to make.

00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:40.000
And if so, what's so bad about that? There's an issue, and there's a serious issue here.

00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:43.000
I'll give you a hint. It's two words.

00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:45.000
The first initial is free.

00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:51.000
And the second initial is Will.

00:06:51.000 --> 00:06:57.000
That's the problem.

00:06:57.000 --> 00:07:00.000
Yeah.

00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:02.000
Yeah, yeah, Nancy.

00:07:02.000 --> 00:07:03.000
Uh, hell, I gotta… yeah.

00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:10.000
Ah yes. He's making it more difficult for Moses.

00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:15.000
I mean, he's hardening his heart, so he's making the task even more difficult.

00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:18.000
Yeah, yeah, this is, this is, this is, this is… whoa!

00:07:18.000 --> 00:07:23.000
Right? David, is it on this?

00:07:23.000 --> 00:07:24.000
You're muted.

00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:26.000
Yeah, not specifically, no.

00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:28.000
Okay, so let's go…

00:07:28.000 --> 00:07:29.000
I have totally lost track of… okay, Cheryl, and Cheryl, and then Marcy, and then Cheryl, and then David, yup.

00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:35.000
I have one on this.

00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:36.000
you know, show along this, and then Marcy.

00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:38.000
Um, I'm next.

00:07:38.000 --> 00:07:47.000
Okay. So, first I'll say that the locusts. Ultimately, we'll create a famine if they are eating everything around.

00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:53.000
Um… But the part about pardoning.

00:07:53.000 --> 00:07:58.000
Pharaoh's heart. In my mind, I can't help but jump ahead.

00:07:58.000 --> 00:08:03.000
to where we sing. And God says, why are you singing?

00:08:03.000 --> 00:08:08.000
My people are dead also. You know, they are my people also.

00:08:08.000 --> 00:08:11.000
My children are drowning, and you sing praises.

00:08:11.000 --> 00:08:12.000
In the rush.

00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:14.000
Right, and that's in the mid-rush, that's…

00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:15.000
Yeah.

00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:20.000
And so… Yes, and so… Okay, so for me, that's… Very potent, and by.

00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:26.000
Gardening is hard, and what Nancy said is he create… he used.

00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:43.000
Pharaoh, you know, he made it harder for Moses, but, um… Okay, thank you. Um… And… what Gianna had said, you know, that he hardened his heart, so maybe he wasn't so bad. The point is.

00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:48.000
He created this situation. It reminds me a little of my little sister.

00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:56.000
You know, who would create… situations, um… That looked awful.

00:08:56.000 --> 00:09:08.000
against me, I might add. Um… So, I… It's like God was playing both sides of the fence here. Let me make him, like.

00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:14.000
bad, so that I get to show off. all these things I can do.

00:09:14.000 --> 00:09:21.000
And yet, I will admonish you later. when you are so happy.

00:09:21.000 --> 00:09:22.000
Tough crowd.

00:09:22.000 --> 00:09:29.000
You know, so… so I don't really get God here. This is a really difficult.

00:09:29.000 --> 00:09:30.000
Yup, yup, yup, we're…

00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:31.000
Um, Karsha, this one. For me.

00:09:31.000 --> 00:09:34.000
Did we talk, Rabbi David, did we talk last week at all about

00:09:34.000 --> 00:09:38.000
Pharaoh hardening his own heart? Or am I misremembering?

00:09:38.000 --> 00:09:45.000
Uh, you know, what is time? I mean, that is a thing, we're gonna get into it today.

00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:47.000
Yeah, Cheryl, just one off.

00:09:47.000 --> 00:09:48.000
I just want to honor everybody's space here.

00:09:48.000 --> 00:09:50.000
Well, I… can I just say also that the deal is…

00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:51.000
Okay, thank you.

00:09:51.000 --> 00:09:52.000
Okay.

00:09:52.000 --> 00:09:55.000
Okay, but Sarah was his brother. for a long time.

00:09:55.000 --> 00:09:57.000
Yeah.

00:09:57.000 --> 00:10:00.000
Right? So there is a sibling. thing also.

00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:02.000
Uh-huh.

00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:07.000
Farrah was his father.

00:10:07.000 --> 00:10:10.000
It's an uncle? Yeah, yeah.

00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:11.000
Yeah, yeah.

00:10:11.000 --> 00:10:12.000
Hasn't he died already, and the brother has…

00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:16.000
Close enough. Right. Uh, Morrissey, then.

00:10:16.000 --> 00:10:20.000
A lot of hands. Rabbi Rachel, you can take over, I'm gonna take notes.

00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:21.000
All right. Marcie, what do you got?

00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:26.000
That's it. At the… End of verse 6.

00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:32.000
He turned and went out from Pharaoh. That refer to God?

00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:34.000
That's a great question.

00:10:34.000 --> 00:10:41.000
And if so, it would, um… give credence to.

00:10:41.000 --> 00:10:42.000
Right. I love that.

00:10:42.000 --> 00:10:44.000
Come. Come to Farrah.

00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:47.000
Right, and the Hebrew is ambiguous, it just says he.

00:10:47.000 --> 00:10:49.000
So… and there's no capital letters.

00:10:49.000 --> 00:10:50.000
So we can't say…

00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:54.000
So check out. So that's…

00:10:54.000 --> 00:10:55.000
Right, so that's super wonderful.

00:10:55.000 --> 00:10:57.000
Yeah, and yeah, it's at the beginning of the sentence, too, so…

00:10:57.000 --> 00:11:03.000
I've never seen that before. Everybody look at verse 3.

00:11:03.000 --> 00:11:09.000
who went to Pharaoh in the first instance.

00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:10.000
Well, look at verse 3.

00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:13.000
Motion, right?

00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:16.000
Both of them.

00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:17.000
Within Heron.

00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:19.000
motion. And Ahura Yadiana.

00:11:19.000 --> 00:11:20.000
Now, in verse 6,

00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:22.000
Now, it's singular, he.

00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:28.000
He turned.

00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:29.000
Beautiful.

00:11:29.000 --> 00:11:33.000
So, maybe, maybe, exactly.

00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:38.000
Well, who's, who's the one who's. threatening with the locusts.

00:11:38.000 --> 00:11:39.000
Well,

00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:40.000
Moses and…

00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:44.000
Is it… is it Moses? Coming up from his mouth.

00:11:44.000 --> 00:11:46.000
speaking through Moses?

00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:47.000
We don't know.

00:11:47.000 --> 00:11:48.000
Or is that God speaking?

00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:52.000
When Aharon came to Pharaoh and said to him, quote,

00:11:52.000 --> 00:11:55.000
Thus says Adonai God of the Hebrews.

00:11:55.000 --> 00:11:58.000
colon, all the rest.

00:11:58.000 --> 00:11:59.000
So…

00:11:59.000 --> 00:12:01.000
So it's God coming through Moses.

00:12:01.000 --> 00:12:04.000
Which doesn't completely answer the question.

00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:18.000
Um, I see Joan's hand and James.

00:12:18.000 --> 00:12:22.000
Okay, I guess I'll go.

00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:31.000
I… The… in one, it appears now that there.

00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:38.000
Uh, there is always hope. Uh, and one… that one can be turned.

00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:44.000
Um, from… to harden my heart and the heart of his servants.

00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:59.000
But that doesn't have to remain. And that God has… the power to create situations that will, uh, ease a person's heart and allow them to be kind.

00:12:59.000 --> 00:13:00.000
I love that. So, having one's heart be hard is not a permanent condition.

00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:06.000
Generally.

00:13:06.000 --> 00:13:07.000
James and then Iris.

00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:08.000
Oh, no, John, you can go ahead. I'll go later.

00:13:08.000 --> 00:13:10.000
No, never.

00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:17.000
So, one of the things about this particular Parsha that strikes me

00:13:17.000 --> 00:13:20.000
There's a lot in here about memory.

00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:23.000
And we see it even in these first few bits.

00:13:23.000 --> 00:13:25.000
Um…

00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:29.000
God is making a mockery of Egypt.

00:13:29.000 --> 00:13:34.000
with the locus, he's basically undoing Egypt. It's like an act of reverse creation.

00:13:34.000 --> 00:13:38.000
Um, but he's also instructing Egypt.

00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:41.000
One of the things that we see over and over throughout

00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:44.000
this few chapters here.

00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:47.000
is that he's basically teaching Egypt on a lesson.

00:13:47.000 --> 00:13:51.000
And at the same time, he's also teaching Israel a lesson.

00:13:51.000 --> 00:13:55.000
And later on, of course, with the Passover,

00:13:55.000 --> 00:13:58.000
He commands them to remember.

00:13:58.000 --> 00:14:01.000
remember everything here. I mean, before they even get out,

00:14:01.000 --> 00:14:04.000
Yeah, you wrote about that this week.

00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:08.000
Yeah, but I see that throughout the passages, including here.

00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:12.000
He's instilling long-term memory.

00:14:12.000 --> 00:14:15.000
And everybody involved in this, whether it's the

00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:18.000
the people of Israel, or it's the Egyptians.

00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:23.000
Um, this pharaoh and so forth, it's all about

00:14:23.000 --> 00:14:25.000
teaching that lesson and instilling memory.

00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:30.000
Thank you. Iris and then Delia.

00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:31.000
Yeah, of course.

00:14:31.000 --> 00:14:36.000
I can add jump in just one second, just on the comment of the reverse creation.

00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:38.000
I'm gonna give everybody one guess.

00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:41.000
How many times in Genesis 1

00:14:41.000 --> 00:14:47.000
Does Torah record God to say, let there be?

00:14:47.000 --> 00:14:49.000
6? I don't know.

00:14:49.000 --> 00:14:53.000
6 or 7.

00:14:53.000 --> 00:15:00.000
I know more about how many times he says it was good, but oh, 10 times!

00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:01.000
10.

00:15:01.000 --> 00:15:02.000
You're a great guess. Yes, 10 times. It's not 7. It's 7…

00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:06.000
days, but can let their bees.

00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:07.000
Okay.

00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:08.000
Can anybody think of any other important 10?

00:15:08.000 --> 00:15:09.000
Tens.

00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:11.000
In our tradition,

00:15:11.000 --> 00:15:13.000
Yeah. Lots of them.

00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:14.000
the 10 what now?

00:15:14.000 --> 00:15:17.000
And then…

00:15:17.000 --> 00:15:18.000
Right. That's another creation.

00:15:18.000 --> 00:15:20.000
Amendments.

00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:23.000
What are the 10… oops, sorry, 10 plagues?

00:15:23.000 --> 00:15:25.000
That sounds safe.

00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:28.000
disk creation.

00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:32.000
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:33.000
Yeah.

00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:34.000
Thank you.

00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:35.000
Yeah. Thank you.

00:15:35.000 --> 00:15:37.000
Awesome. Thank you for that.

00:15:37.000 --> 00:15:39.000
Thanks for bringing that up.

00:15:39.000 --> 00:15:42.000
I like to see those kind of parallels, so thank you.

00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:47.000
I'm commenting on verse 4 about the locusts.

00:15:47.000 --> 00:15:50.000
And I'm seeing a couple things.

00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:53.000
that the one thing…

00:15:53.000 --> 00:15:58.000
God is giving time, giving a warning, and giving time.

00:15:58.000 --> 00:16:04.000
I think the other plagues, there wasn't a warning, necessarily, like, tomorrow this will happen.

00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:07.000
And I know it's sacred time, so it may not actually be.

00:16:07.000 --> 00:16:10.000
you know, tomorrow as we know it, but there's…

00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:18.000
A warning, and I think that's an opportunity for free will, if, you know, to make a choice.

00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:20.000
Um, and also,

00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:22.000
I'm seeing with the border…

00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:24.000
I will bring locusts into your border.

00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:28.000
So, that can be the land itself.

00:16:28.000 --> 00:16:32.000
the people, um, their hearts, and…

00:16:32.000 --> 00:16:36.000
So, isn't it… it's a penetration, it's a warning of a penetration that

00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:39.000
is going to continue.

00:16:39.000 --> 00:16:41.000
Um, so…

00:16:41.000 --> 00:16:45.000
So that they have a choice to change their minds, but if they don't, then

00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:50.000
this locuses, or the pharaoh has a chance to change his name.

00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:51.000
And if… happen.

00:16:51.000 --> 00:16:53.000
Thank you for that.

00:16:53.000 --> 00:16:54.000
Delia?

00:16:54.000 --> 00:16:58.000
I just have a quick question, which may open up a door or not.

00:16:58.000 --> 00:17:04.000
Um, is it heat-turned or it turned? From the Hebrew.

00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:07.000
Steve broods are false.

00:17:07.000 --> 00:17:09.000
to the masculine.

00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:12.000
And so, it's, it…

00:17:12.000 --> 00:17:13.000
I'm happy I'm answering your question.

00:17:13.000 --> 00:17:14.000
No, I wasn't…

00:17:14.000 --> 00:17:18.000
And he would be the same Hebrew.

00:17:18.000 --> 00:17:27.000
I'm not going for gender, I'm going for something larger. We've had a look than… Then God… than God.

00:17:27.000 --> 00:17:30.000
Can you give another sentence?

00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:34.000
Um, we had a little conversation about it that in the.

00:17:34.000 --> 00:17:43.000
In, um, the race sheet in the beginning. there was… there might be something in the grammar, there might be something that created God.

00:17:43.000 --> 00:17:48.000
And I just want to… it kind of puts it for me a little bit into.

00:17:48.000 --> 00:18:02.000
for lack of a better word, fate. Or with… puts into the free will thing of, like, is there… Even something bigger than the personages that we are pulling out of the infinite.

00:18:02.000 --> 00:18:07.000
Wow, thank you for that.

00:18:07.000 --> 00:18:10.000
It's the infinite, we don't know.

00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:18.000
Alright, is there anyone who hasn't spoken yet who wants to bring a comment forward?

00:18:18.000 --> 00:18:24.000
Otherwise, the next hand I see is Cheryl.

00:18:24.000 --> 00:18:36.000
I have a question. Was… what was… At what point, what plague is locust number-wise?

00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:37.000
Alright, this week we get 8, 9, and 10.

00:18:37.000 --> 00:18:42.000
Ah. Okay, alright.

00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:43.000
Locusts, darkness, and the death of the firstborn.

00:18:43.000 --> 00:18:49.000
Yeah, because it said after the hailstones. Yeah, because it says after the hail storm.

00:18:49.000 --> 00:18:50.000
Which was 7.

00:18:50.000 --> 00:19:01.000
Delete whatever's left. Okay. Thank you.

00:19:01.000 --> 00:19:04.000
So we've got some good stuff on this page already.

00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:06.000
Is there anything else that's…

00:19:06.000 --> 00:19:07.000
Calling out.

00:19:07.000 --> 00:19:11.000
Rachel Radansky. Rachel Radansky just unmuted, and then I see John.

00:19:11.000 --> 00:19:15.000
Oh, thank you, Rabbi, for recognizing my subtle…

00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:19.000
Hand raised. Um, I was taken by…

00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:22.000
that God creates a mockery.

00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:27.000
I know, you know, some of the other people had spoken about that being a…

00:19:27.000 --> 00:19:30.000
whatever was said about D.

00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:38.000
de-creating something, but um… I've been contemplating that, because I also have been reading the Parsha, and I was like,

00:19:38.000 --> 00:19:41.000
God creates a mockery.

00:19:41.000 --> 00:19:45.000
Um, I don't know, that is something I've been contemplating about.

00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:47.000
And, um…

00:19:47.000 --> 00:19:51.000
Everybody's mocking everybody else, and…

00:19:51.000 --> 00:19:53.000
It just is one big mockery.

00:19:53.000 --> 00:19:59.000
battle, and I just wanted to bring that up.

00:19:59.000 --> 00:20:04.000
What I love about the Hebrew about this, if you're taking the Hebrew series,

00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:07.000
This is the heat spot L conjugation.

00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:11.000
This is something your heat, I love to eat.

00:20:11.000 --> 00:20:13.000
in the Hebrew here.

00:20:13.000 --> 00:20:14.000
Oh, wow.

00:20:14.000 --> 00:20:15.000
Heat aloud to.

00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:19.000
The heat-pa-L conjunction.

00:20:19.000 --> 00:20:22.000
is about a state of existence.

00:20:22.000 --> 00:20:25.000
or something that is a reflexive verb.

00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.000
I sat myself down.

00:20:29.000 --> 00:20:33.000
So, it's not just, I made a mockery, that's what we would say in English.

00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:37.000
But I turned Egypt into a mockery.

00:20:37.000 --> 00:20:40.000
I mockeryified.

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.000
Egypt. Egypt. Egypt became this.

00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:48.000
It's a state of existence.

00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:49.000
Which is tremendous.

00:20:49.000 --> 00:20:52.000
Yeah, it is.

00:20:52.000 --> 00:21:02.000
Which also, for me, links back to the hardening of the heart, and who's doing the hardening, because that also becomes a state of beating.

00:21:02.000 --> 00:21:06.000
that one maybe does to oneself, or maybe not.

00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:11.000
Um, there's some, uh, great stuff also in the chat. I want to lift up.

00:21:11.000 --> 00:21:15.000
that Pharaoh's servants advised him to let the people leave.

00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:19.000
And Cheryl is asking about the word snare.

00:21:19.000 --> 00:21:27.000
Is it a trap? Because would that mean that the Egyptians are being held against their will?

00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:32.000
And our text just disappeared.

00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:39.000
Sorry, guys, this happens periodically, it is coming back, and here it is.

00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:40.000
Joan, you've got a… Joan has a hand.

00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:42.000
Rabbi Rachel, when… when you say the servants,

00:21:42.000 --> 00:21:45.000
who sends to have Aaron and Egypt brought back?

00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:57.000
Barrow are the servants?

00:21:57.000 --> 00:22:03.000
I said Rabbi Rachel was talking about the servants there. I was asking who actually sends

00:22:03.000 --> 00:22:06.000
for Moses and Aaron to come back.

00:22:06.000 --> 00:22:14.000
Was it the servants or pharaoh?

00:22:14.000 --> 00:22:18.000
I mean, I don't actually know. All we know is God says, come to Pharaoh, and…

00:22:18.000 --> 00:22:22.000
And he comes.

00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:28.000
In this moment, neither Pharon nor the servants are ascending from Moses.

00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:34.000
He just comes to Pharaoh.

00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:39.000
Joan and then David?

00:22:39.000 --> 00:22:46.000
In… everyone, all of God's creation is ensnared at the moment.

00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:53.000
Although it's… it's written as if, you know, there are the Hebrews and Moshe and Aaron.

00:22:53.000 --> 00:23:00.000
and the pharaoh represents some type of evil. And the Egyptians, but in fact.

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:11.000
everyone is in a tough place and when you go to 4 and it says there'll be locusts in your border, and then immediately it says.

00:23:11.000 --> 00:23:16.000
They'll cover the face of the earth. It, to me, represents that.

00:23:16.000 --> 00:23:21.000
If there isn't, um… a meeting of the minds and a.

00:23:21.000 --> 00:23:26.000
Uh, just for the… sake of ease, a kindness between.

00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:31.000
All of these people for whom there is room to live and thrive.

00:23:31.000 --> 00:23:39.000
then everything is… Everything is wrong. So, it represents the.

00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:44.000
It repa… this all represents the. illness that exists at that point.

00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:52.000
in God's humanity. And that the solving of it.

00:23:52.000 --> 00:24:02.000
Which we see in little bits and pieces. is, um… is the struggle that we have right now in the world.

00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:03.000
There's something familiar.

00:24:03.000 --> 00:24:04.000
Same thing. Yeah.

00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:05.000
about every part of the story.

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:10.000
Yeah.

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:12.000
And what is the tree represent?

00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:15.000
Why is it all about the trees?

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:20.000
Right, do we think of trees… fields having trees? We think of fields having…

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:22.000
I don't know, grain, wheat,

00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:27.000
But we're back to the trees.

00:24:27.000 --> 00:24:28.000
David, you're up?

00:24:28.000 --> 00:24:31.000
What does the tree represent?

00:24:31.000 --> 00:24:32.000
Life…

00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:33.000
Life.

00:24:33.000 --> 00:24:38.000
Yeah. Destructiveness.

00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:41.000
We're an anti-Tree of Life.

00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:44.000
I would just want to make this…

00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:48.000
Perhaps rather obvious observation. I think it's a little…

00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:51.000
disingenuous for us to talk about

00:24:51.000 --> 00:24:55.000
this plague, or for that matter, any of the plagues, as kind of

00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:58.000
enabling free will.

00:24:58.000 --> 00:25:02.000
You know, this is like an offer you can't refuse.

00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:03.000
You know, this is…

00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:04.000
Mm-hmm.

00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:08.000
We always struggle with what seems to be

00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:10.000
Cruelty on God's part.

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:13.000
Um, to me, this is…

00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:16.000
you know, the detail of this…

00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:21.000
Yes, it's cruel, but it almost seems petty.

00:25:21.000 --> 00:25:24.000
all of this stuff. Like, if you're such a great god,

00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:27.000
With such influence, and…

00:25:27.000 --> 00:25:29.000
Such morality. Can't you come up with…

00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:34.000
with a better way of influencing people than…

00:25:34.000 --> 00:25:38.000
threatening to erase them from the face of the earth.

00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:39.000
You know, it just…

00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:43.000
That's a great question.

00:25:43.000 --> 00:25:55.000
I love that.

00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.000
And we're allowed to have some feelings about that.

00:25:59.000 --> 00:26:02.000
Let's hang out there for a second.

00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:06.000
Why is this happening?

00:26:06.000 --> 00:26:10.000
Why? Why is Torah doing this? Why is Torah saying this?

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:12.000
There's no outside midrash.

00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:15.000
Midrash is to include the excluded.

00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:18.000
My rush is to uplift moral themes.

00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:21.000
Midrash is to drive our theology.

00:26:21.000 --> 00:26:24.000
Midrash is to…

00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:26.000
connect text to text.

00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:28.000
Midrash is to bring

00:26:28.000 --> 00:26:35.000
to these words that flows from generation to generation, not as it was, but as we would make it.

00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:38.000
Because we know that we wrote the Midrash.

00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:43.000
So let's pick up this comment, because we've heard it, like, 4 or 5 times today.

00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:45.000
God is cruel.

00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:48.000
God is petty.

00:26:48.000 --> 00:26:53.000
What is this?

00:26:53.000 --> 00:26:58.000
Bring it, bring it. Just have it.

00:26:58.000 --> 00:27:01.000
It's a reflection of… of what people are or can be.

00:27:01.000 --> 00:27:02.000
So, okay, so one, one is God is more…

00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:03.000
Yeah.

00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:04.000
Yeah…

00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:08.000
back to the people how they are in this moment.

00:27:08.000 --> 00:27:19.000
I guess we're better as… got a sick guy.

00:27:19.000 --> 00:27:20.000
This is…

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:21.000
Yeah, as, as… As below, so above as… Above, so below, it's back and forth, back and forth. As we struggle to.

00:27:21.000 --> 00:27:25.000
to lift ourselves towards. all that we can be. It's aspirational.

00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:32.000
Now, that's… that's tremendous. That means that what we do on this plane

00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:38.000
actually affects the supernal plane.

00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:39.000
Whoa, it matters.

00:27:39.000 --> 00:27:40.000
Yeah.

00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:46.000
It means we have an impact on God.

00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:47.000
This is now theology.

00:27:47.000 --> 00:27:49.000
Yep.

00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:50.000
What else is this?

00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:56.000
Yep.

00:27:56.000 --> 00:27:59.000
One of the things I thought I heard just now…

00:27:59.000 --> 00:28:05.000
talking about how we impact God is also the possibility that we…

00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:13.000
imagine God in our image, because that's the only image we know.

00:28:13.000 --> 00:28:19.000
that we are making God what God is.

00:28:19.000 --> 00:28:22.000
I don't know if you meant to say that, but it was a thing I heard.

00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:26.000
Now, I see Iris, and then, Joan, do you have your hand up, too?

00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:29.000
Okay.

00:28:29.000 --> 00:28:32.000
So, this was…

00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:35.000
Something that I'm not sure, whatever. I'm thinking…

00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:38.000
That there's kind of a reciprocal

00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:43.000
existential threat, and not to use, like, a buzzword, you know, from today, but…

00:28:43.000 --> 00:28:46.000
It feels like that to me.

00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:51.000
That there's a risk for the people to not be trees anymore.

00:28:51.000 --> 00:28:53.000
You know, and not to grow, and…

00:28:53.000 --> 00:28:59.000
and flourish in a way that represent good values.

00:28:59.000 --> 00:29:03.000
And in a sense that there's a threat to…

00:29:03.000 --> 00:29:05.000
I don't know, because…

00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:10.000
I don't know, he wants us to be good trees.

00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:11.000
If that…

00:29:11.000 --> 00:29:14.000
Oh, that's lovely. Yeah, but…

00:29:14.000 --> 00:29:17.000
God, make it easier.

00:29:17.000 --> 00:29:18.000
Yeah.

00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:20.000
I think, David's point…

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:21.000
Mm-hmm.

00:29:21.000 --> 00:29:25.000
You know, what is free will if God holds a proverbial gun to our heads?

00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:28.000
Or perhaps a mountain over them.

00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:29.000
Nice.

00:29:29.000 --> 00:29:30.000
let's call… let's call that…

00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:31.000
Oh, wait, that's a mid-rush for later.

00:29:31.000 --> 00:29:32.000
Let's call that Sinai.

00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:33.000
Yes.

00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:34.000
There's a mid-rush.

00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:42.000
And you're gonna say yes? You're gonna say yes to these Ten Commandments? I'm gonna drop a mountain on your head if you say no. You wanna say yes?

00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:43.000
Right.

00:29:43.000 --> 00:29:52.000
Which tells us, I think, that our ancestors were also grappling with this question of when do we have free will, and when is God pulling the strings?

00:29:52.000 --> 00:29:53.000
Yeah.

00:29:53.000 --> 00:29:57.000
And on the flip side,

00:29:57.000 --> 00:30:04.000
God is with Pharaoh, coming back to that.

00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:07.000
is there.

00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:19.000
the morality of the oppressed.

00:30:19.000 --> 00:30:32.000
Four or five of you just did the following. I wonder, I just want to mirror this. You all just… a number of you just did this.

00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:34.000
This is our master story, folks.

00:30:34.000 --> 00:30:37.000
This poor portion.

00:30:37.000 --> 00:30:39.000
is the fulcrum period.

00:30:39.000 --> 00:30:42.000
Bondage to liberation.

00:30:42.000 --> 00:30:47.000
identity, we talked about this in synagogue last night. Our identity is a people.

00:30:47.000 --> 00:30:49.000
He was slaves to a pharaoh in Egypt.

00:30:49.000 --> 00:30:55.000
I'm depressed a stranger. Why? We know the stranger's heart. Why? Because we were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt.

00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:59.000
Move the corners of your fields for the widow and the orphan and the…

00:30:59.000 --> 00:31:04.000
the homeless and the poor. Why? Because you were poor. Why? Because

00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:08.000
And on it comes, this is who we are.

00:31:08.000 --> 00:31:11.000
This is our master story, this is our launch.

00:31:11.000 --> 00:31:15.000
We bear this encoding on our

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:17.000
as a people.

00:31:17.000 --> 00:31:21.000
It doesn't need to be trauma-based.

00:31:21.000 --> 00:31:25.000
But it does need to be social justice-based.

00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:29.000
And so the answer to this question, who is God relative to this?

00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:31.000
It's not.

00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:33.000
a distraction. It's…

00:31:33.000 --> 00:31:36.000
It's the whole thing.

00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:43.000
It's the whole thing.

00:31:43.000 --> 00:31:50.000
Do we want to jump into some text, or does Joe want to raise your hand? Yes, she does. Go for it.

00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:56.000
If you don't think of Pharaoh as a person.

00:31:56.000 --> 00:32:00.000
And you think of Pharaoh for what he represents, which is, uh.

00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:09.000
Uh, a binding the people and not allowing for their freedom and an obstacle them.

00:32:09.000 --> 00:32:14.000
For them, and if God is with Pharaoh, it means that there's.

00:32:14.000 --> 00:32:20.000
That means that there's the potential for him to soften and to do the right thing.

00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:26.000
And that's… that's what everyone has if they're shown the way.

00:32:26.000 --> 00:32:33.000
in some way. And so… Everyone is… everyone is fighting.

00:32:33.000 --> 00:32:37.000
in their own way to live and to do the right thing.

00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:44.000
And we let Pharaoh be our obstacle until. we give that up.

00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:52.000
And he, and God, and if you want to talk about the position of God, it's every… we have as important a position.

00:32:52.000 --> 00:32:58.000
Because we have to understand what God wants of us.

00:32:58.000 --> 00:33:02.000
That'll take the word pharaoh.

00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:06.000
and replace it with…

00:33:06.000 --> 00:33:07.000
Any tyrants that happens to be in your mind right now.

00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:13.000
Mm-hmm.

00:33:13.000 --> 00:33:17.000
And Nancy says…

00:33:17.000 --> 00:33:22.000
Not that, Nancy, that, no, sorry, but maybe both Nancys. You're all like,

00:33:22.000 --> 00:33:24.000
Right.

00:33:24.000 --> 00:33:31.000
Be careful with your midwashing, may or may not like where it takes you.

00:33:31.000 --> 00:33:34.000
That's the point. If God is with Pharaoh,

00:33:34.000 --> 00:33:38.000
Is it… everybody's got a shot?

00:33:38.000 --> 00:33:42.000
Remind him, pardoning his heart. Or is it?

00:33:42.000 --> 00:33:44.000
Like we talked about in services yesterday.

00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:47.000
Going to Pharaoh, confronting the tyranny.

00:33:47.000 --> 00:33:51.000
Face-to-face, up close and personal.

00:33:51.000 --> 00:33:54.000
is where we find divinity.

00:33:54.000 --> 00:33:59.000
Not on our meditation cushion sometimes. Sometimes you actually have to walk with your feet.

00:33:59.000 --> 00:34:03.000
and hold up the signs and do the things.

00:34:03.000 --> 00:34:06.000
move on just because we want to share with you some really…

00:34:06.000 --> 00:34:07.000
We've got some goodies this week.

00:34:07.000 --> 00:34:09.000
We've got some goodies. Um…

00:34:09.000 --> 00:34:13.000
We're actually going to skip a little bit, because you've pulled out

00:34:13.000 --> 00:34:19.000
It means to come, and isn't that cool?

00:34:19.000 --> 00:34:21.000
Some would say that it's an urging individual

00:34:21.000 --> 00:34:26.000
invitation, come with me to take another look. It isn't what you think.

00:34:26.000 --> 00:34:31.000
So in this case, it is exactly what you think. I know David Levin, he's a great guy. He's trying to say, don't give up.

00:34:31.000 --> 00:34:33.000
Don't give up. Don't give up.

00:34:33.000 --> 00:34:36.000
Don't give up, folks!

00:34:36.000 --> 00:34:40.000
No matter how tyrannical the tyrant, don't give up.

00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:42.000
Okay.

00:34:42.000 --> 00:34:44.000
A message for all time.

00:34:44.000 --> 00:34:47.000
Including now.

00:34:47.000 --> 00:34:51.000
Bronstein. He is, uh…

00:34:51.000 --> 00:34:54.000
Rapi and Emeritus.

00:34:54.000 --> 00:34:58.000
that congregation, call on me in White Plains.

00:34:58.000 --> 00:35:01.000
Here in New York. Who wants it.

00:35:01.000 --> 00:35:11.000
We met the cutscore ready last week.

00:35:11.000 --> 00:35:14.000
Once you read. Someone wants to read.

00:35:14.000 --> 00:35:19.000
The Kotzker rabbi begins, Boel Perot, come to Pharaoh.

00:35:19.000 --> 00:35:26.000
Notice that he says. that the Torah does not say lech, as in lechlha.

00:35:26.000 --> 00:35:34.000
to Abraham and Sarah, go to Pharaoh. But Bo, come to Pharaoh. He says the reason is that one cannot go.

00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:42.000
from the blessed Holy One. It is impossible to distance oneself from God.

00:35:42.000 --> 00:35:45.000
So, Bolo Parra was really… God, I'll never

00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:51.000
says, go, God is always saying, come, because God is wherever we're going.

00:35:51.000 --> 00:35:55.000
One cannot distance oneself from God.

00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:57.000
Wherever you go, there God is.

00:35:57.000 --> 00:36:00.000
And that's the Cutskorebby core teaching, whereas God,

00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:03.000
that got in.

00:36:03.000 --> 00:36:05.000
Nice words.

00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:07.000
Easy words.

00:36:07.000 --> 00:36:12.000
But wherever you are, God is also, so you're always going from God if you're going anywhere.

00:36:12.000 --> 00:36:14.000
Thank you, Council. There it is!

00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:17.000
I mean, really?

00:36:17.000 --> 00:36:20.000
There it is! I was waiting for that, uh-huh.

00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:23.000
So why go anywhere? We're already there.

00:36:23.000 --> 00:36:30.000
from Mike Brady, from the Brady Bunch, wherever you go.

00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:32.000
But I think, I mean, it's a little bit of a columnist.

00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:36.000
Not C-O-H-E-N, a K-O-A-N.

00:36:36.000 --> 00:36:39.000
divinity in years, and in every space.

00:36:39.000 --> 00:36:44.000
that are… that our challenge, our journey, or opportunity, our mandate,

00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:51.000
on the journey of liberation is to discern the presence of the sacred where we are.

00:36:51.000 --> 00:36:56.000
And to discern the presence of the sacred where we know we must go.

00:36:56.000 --> 00:37:02.000
Even when it's where we're not sure we want to go.

00:37:02.000 --> 00:37:05.000
I'm pretty confident that Dr. King

00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:10.000
had a sense of what was coming.

00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:14.000
reached a mountaintop with you.

00:37:14.000 --> 00:37:21.000
won't reach the Promised Land.

00:37:21.000 --> 00:37:25.000
But he knew that he must go.

00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:31.000
close. It is an Aramaic translation.

00:37:31.000 --> 00:37:34.000
And…

00:37:34.000 --> 00:37:36.000
Our ancestors divined some meaning.

00:37:36.000 --> 00:37:40.000
intended to find some meaning through a translation into Aramaic.

00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:45.000
Um, some rabbis call him a political.

00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:54.000
God said to Moshe, go into Pharaoh.

00:37:54.000 --> 00:38:03.000
I hardened is hardened also the hearts of his servants, so that I will be able to set, perform these signs in their midst.

00:38:03.000 --> 00:38:10.000
Marcie is doing the Universal Sign Language for head, shoulders, knees, and toes. Marci, what are you doing?

00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:11.000
You're… you're…

00:38:11.000 --> 00:38:16.000
in his mind, go into his mind, go into his heart.

00:38:16.000 --> 00:38:18.000
Yeah. Yeah.

00:38:18.000 --> 00:38:19.000
How do we do that?

00:38:19.000 --> 00:38:22.000
Um…

00:38:22.000 --> 00:38:24.000
I mean, for me, one of the…

00:38:24.000 --> 00:38:31.000
to compel them to do Teshuva. Because that's what this whole thing is all about at its base.

00:38:31.000 --> 00:38:35.000
And especially when it's said. that he turned.

00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:36.000
My hobby, yeah? Yeah?

00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:37.000
And then left.

00:38:37.000 --> 00:38:42.000
And we were speaking earlier about Pharaoh not just as a person, but as, right, the…

00:38:42.000 --> 00:38:44.000
Yes.

00:38:44.000 --> 00:38:52.000
In some way, the concept of constriction and oppression

00:38:52.000 --> 00:38:53.000
And I shortened his heart.

00:38:53.000 --> 00:38:54.000
How about… how about a system?

00:38:54.000 --> 00:38:55.000
A state of mind.

00:38:55.000 --> 00:39:00.000
Right, how about go into the systems and structures that perpetuate

00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:07.000
fill in the blank.

00:39:07.000 --> 00:39:08.000
Yeah, but I hardened his hearts.

00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:09.000
Narrowness.

00:39:09.000 --> 00:39:14.000
How am I supposed to go into his heart? I hardened? God, God is, um, I'm too many people today.

00:39:14.000 --> 00:39:17.000
Pharaoh's heart.

00:39:17.000 --> 00:39:24.000
How should Mosia go under?

00:39:24.000 --> 00:39:27.000
If you took our course on tshuva,

00:39:27.000 --> 00:39:33.000
Let's say someone's upset with you.

00:39:33.000 --> 00:39:40.000
Ask for forgiveness. 3 times, and then if they don't.

00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:43.000
Except after the 3rd time. Not on you anymore.

00:39:43.000 --> 00:39:45.000
Correct. But even before…

00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:47.000
Yeah, yeah. But…

00:39:47.000 --> 00:39:48.000
As Tonya Ruckner's

00:39:48.000 --> 00:39:50.000
And then…

00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:52.000
great rabbi and guest talk.

00:39:52.000 --> 00:39:57.000
you know, apologize for us.

00:39:57.000 --> 00:40:02.000
You try to change your ways, you show you changed your ways, you do the inner work.

00:40:02.000 --> 00:40:03.000
Oh, Shuva.

00:40:03.000 --> 00:40:09.000
Yeah, that's literally the Shuva part. I mean, the apology is the top of the iceberg.

00:40:09.000 --> 00:40:11.000
Most of it's underneath.

00:40:11.000 --> 00:40:19.000
Notice that this is aimed at Moshe.

00:40:19.000 --> 00:40:22.000
You ought to blame the people who are

00:40:22.000 --> 00:40:29.000
pressed, hang on, be oppressed, then why should I do anything?

00:40:29.000 --> 00:40:35.000
It's on them. It's on her, it's on him.

00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:36.000
Include.

00:40:36.000 --> 00:40:41.000
It's on everybody. They're inextricably… Connected.

00:40:41.000 --> 00:40:46.000
It's a sickness! It's like dancing, a toxic dance.

00:40:46.000 --> 00:40:53.000
And you have to either change the music. or change the dance steps?

00:40:53.000 --> 00:40:54.000
Okay…

00:40:54.000 --> 00:40:55.000
to break the pattern.

00:40:55.000 --> 00:41:00.000
Put another way, often you cannot solve a problem except a level 1.

00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:02.000
But…

00:41:02.000 --> 00:41:04.000
change the system.

00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:07.000
That's a harder thing to do.

00:41:07.000 --> 00:41:10.000
And it means…

00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:15.000
Not aiming just at the instantiating circumstance of

00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:19.000
I've been mistreated.

00:41:19.000 --> 00:41:23.000
They're anti-Semitic.

00:41:23.000 --> 00:41:28.000
He doesn't believe in the Constitution.

00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:31.000
Even when those things may be manifestly clearly true,

00:41:31.000 --> 00:41:33.000
Absolutely.

00:41:33.000 --> 00:41:35.000
Yeah, hypothetically.

00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:40.000
But they have to be validated as well, you know, that's why people keep repeating it.

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:47.000
Because they don't believe that. the person they're talking to has heard.

00:41:47.000 --> 00:41:51.000
What they're saying. And it will change.

00:41:51.000 --> 00:41:56.000
Yeah. And often we respond out of our suffering.

00:41:56.000 --> 00:41:58.000
Which is legit.

00:41:58.000 --> 00:42:04.000
But it's not going into…

00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:06.000
Easier said than done. Joan.

00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:07.000
And then we're gonna go to Zohar.

00:42:07.000 --> 00:42:12.000
to follow. To follow Marcy may be the first step.

00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:19.000
is to communicate and be. a person to the person.

00:42:19.000 --> 00:42:28.000
Uh, or the system that is oppressive. Because until you reach that kind of intimacy.

00:42:28.000 --> 00:42:34.000
Uh, of personage. you're not gonna get things to change.

00:42:34.000 --> 00:42:39.000
So it requires relationship, it requires encounter.

00:42:39.000 --> 00:42:43.000
And sometimes even that is not possible.

00:42:43.000 --> 00:42:46.000
And nevertheless…

00:42:46.000 --> 00:42:50.000
What does it say in Pirkea booked?

00:42:50.000 --> 00:42:53.000
In a place where there is no person.

00:42:53.000 --> 00:42:56.000
Be a person.

00:42:56.000 --> 00:43:00.000
be a person.

00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:02.000
But tyranny…

00:43:02.000 --> 00:43:04.000
misbehavior…

00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:07.000
of another.

00:43:07.000 --> 00:43:11.000
We may generate reactivity.

00:43:11.000 --> 00:43:14.000
But our aspiration.

00:43:14.000 --> 00:43:17.000
is to be as good as we can, nevertheless.

00:43:17.000 --> 00:43:21.000
Because it ain't about whether they deserve it.

00:43:21.000 --> 00:43:25.000
And it ain't even about whether it'll work.

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:28.000
It's a victor of Frankel.

00:43:28.000 --> 00:43:31.000
We have the ability to make choices,

00:43:31.000 --> 00:43:34.000
Even in the smallest of situations.

00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:40.000
Even in the tightest of situations.

00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:46.000
can take that away from us without our own consent.

00:43:46.000 --> 00:43:49.000
Victor Franzel.

00:43:49.000 --> 00:43:51.000
a psychologist of the Holocaust.

00:43:51.000 --> 00:43:59.000
be on the right, so are we saying that perhaps God hardened the heart of certain contemporary Pharaoh-like persons and their servants, and is now bringing about plagues?

00:43:59.000 --> 00:44:01.000
So that we, the oppressed,

00:44:01.000 --> 00:44:05.000
I'm just reading the chat.

00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:09.000
I was gonna say, Deanna, you just said it, so…

00:44:09.000 --> 00:44:12.000
Here we are. Also, Rabbi David, do I need to bring you a duck?

00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:15.000
Um… I have a better idea.

00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:20.000
Or we'll just move on to Zoho and take an orange.

00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:23.000
He has nothing to say. He has no thoughts.

00:44:23.000 --> 00:44:28.000
Please bring your face back.

00:44:28.000 --> 00:44:30.000
Let's do some Zohar.

00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:35.000
Who wants to read Zohar?

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:36.000
Somebody unmute.

00:44:36.000 --> 00:44:39.000
Why is it written, Bo,

00:44:39.000 --> 00:44:43.000
to Pharaoh. Why bow and not lech?

00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:51.000
To indicate that the Holy Blessed One led Moshe through a labyrinth into the abode of a supernal dragon,

00:44:51.000 --> 00:44:54.000
That is, Egypt's celestial representative,

00:44:54.000 --> 00:44:58.000
many lesser dragons emanated.

00:44:58.000 --> 00:45:00.000
This is a great secret to understand.

00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:03.000
A great secret, does everyone understand it?

00:45:03.000 --> 00:45:06.000
Show of hands, who understands it?

00:45:06.000 --> 00:45:08.000
Because I'm seeing so many heads shaking.

00:45:08.000 --> 00:45:13.000
Great, let's move on. Can I just reflect something? That was another weather in the room.

00:45:13.000 --> 00:45:19.000
So, when David was reading and reached the supernal dragons,

00:45:19.000 --> 00:45:22.000
Aunt Nancy Goody had another one I'd love to play poker with.

00:45:22.000 --> 00:45:25.000
Yeah, you're almost as good as I am. Yep, eyebrows.

00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:30.000
Sort of, sort of was like…

00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:32.000
Eyeball saucers.

00:45:32.000 --> 00:45:35.000
I hate when I… I hate when I get a reading,

00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:39.000
That doesn't make sense to me as I'm reading it. I think I'm screwing it up.

00:45:39.000 --> 00:45:41.000
No, that's not you. So…

00:45:41.000 --> 00:45:44.000
One thing to remember about Zohar…

00:45:44.000 --> 00:45:49.000
is that it speaks in very symbolic language.

00:45:49.000 --> 00:45:53.000
you can think of it as being almost like poetry.

00:45:53.000 --> 00:45:56.000
In the sense of, right, there are no dragons.

00:45:56.000 --> 00:45:58.000
In this story.

00:45:58.000 --> 00:46:00.000
But soup.

00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:04.000
But supernal tells us that we're talking

00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:08.000
Maybe metaphorically about something on high.

00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:11.000
There is a teaching that

00:46:11.000 --> 00:46:16.000
Every nation has an angel.

00:46:16.000 --> 00:46:20.000
Reb Zollman, the teacher of our teachers, said that when

00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:26.000
this delegation of rabbis went to India to meet with the Dalai Lama,

00:46:26.000 --> 00:46:30.000
The angel of the Jews and the angel of Tibet.

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:33.000
We're also meeting.

00:46:33.000 --> 00:46:35.000
So in this sense, we've got Moshe…

00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:42.000
Going through the labyrinth, maybe the difficult path that he's walking.

00:46:42.000 --> 00:46:47.000
And he's connecting with the supernal forces

00:46:47.000 --> 00:46:51.000
that represent Egypt on high.

00:46:51.000 --> 00:46:55.000
So the great dragon is…

00:46:55.000 --> 00:47:01.000
The essence of Egyptiness.

00:47:01.000 --> 00:47:07.000
I don't know if that helps, but it's what I've got. Rabbi David, what do you got?

00:47:07.000 --> 00:47:12.000
want me to come after Matt?

00:47:12.000 --> 00:47:15.000
To me, there's a real…

00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:22.000
theological quandary, and it goes back to what David Green was asking. It's essentially, why can't God make this easier?

00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:27.000
Why should Egypt have a dragon?

00:47:27.000 --> 00:47:34.000
Why should there be such scary things in the world?

00:47:34.000 --> 00:47:37.000
That breathe fire.

00:47:37.000 --> 00:47:45.000
Why should this be at all?

00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:52.000
Now you're all waiting for me to give the answer.

00:47:52.000 --> 00:47:54.000
Lovely.

00:47:54.000 --> 00:47:59.000
I don't have one.

00:47:59.000 --> 00:48:00.000
And…

00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:08.000
But I think we have a… we have the question, just as our forebears did, which is, why was it like this?

00:48:08.000 --> 00:48:10.000
Why is it like this?

00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:19.000
Let me fills the question, why is it like this? This isn't just then, it's now.

00:48:19.000 --> 00:48:20.000
And hard-hearted.

00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:21.000
People are hard-headed.

00:48:21.000 --> 00:48:23.000
And they have…

00:48:23.000 --> 00:48:26.000
And it keeps coming up again and again because.

00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:31.000
The circumstances are recreated.

00:48:31.000 --> 00:48:37.000
We are not just one and done in our liberation from bondage.

00:48:37.000 --> 00:48:39.000
Here come all the hands.

00:48:39.000 --> 00:48:45.000
Cheryl Delia.

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:59.000
So, I'm looking at this. Where it says… Um, a labyrinth into the abode of a supernal dragon, that is, Egypt's celestial representative.

00:48:59.000 --> 00:49:09.000
Uh, with her many lesser dragons. So, it feels to me as if this is, um… a comment on.

00:49:09.000 --> 00:49:14.000
the one God versus the many gods of Egypt.

00:49:14.000 --> 00:49:21.000
And… how we tend to get distracted.

00:49:21.000 --> 00:49:32.000
by the many around us. And forget to be mindful.

00:49:32.000 --> 00:49:33.000
Nice.

00:49:33.000 --> 00:49:34.000
Um, to the one.

00:49:34.000 --> 00:49:38.000
Nice.

00:49:38.000 --> 00:49:40.000
Delia, and then I'm gonna…

00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:41.000
Well, I… yeah.

00:49:41.000 --> 00:49:47.000
shift gears a little bit.

00:49:47.000 --> 00:49:56.000
Can't hear you.

00:49:56.000 --> 00:50:00.000
In the east associated with water, luck, and knowledge.

00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:04.000
But in the West, associated with challenges are evil.

00:50:04.000 --> 00:50:14.000
So I just wanted to edit that, but generally, drag and signify harnessing inner strength, embracing profound change.

00:50:14.000 --> 00:50:15.000
Thank you for that.

00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:16.000
Funny, you should mention Delia.

00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:18.000
seeking enlightenment and battling opposing forces.

00:50:18.000 --> 00:50:23.000
Shepard Gold's teaching is for you. Go ahead and read, please.

00:50:23.000 --> 00:50:30.000
Okay. At the beginning of the portion, God speaks to Moses, the prophet within us.

00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:37.000
and says, Bo, come on in. I am waiting for you inside the heart of Pharaoh.

00:50:37.000 --> 00:50:44.000
The heart of Pharaoh is inside you. It is the place that has grown heavy with the weight of life's experience.

00:50:44.000 --> 00:50:52.000
It is a place that has hardened. Its outer shell cynical, its inner layers made of fear and unhealed grief.

00:50:52.000 --> 00:51:00.000
through this heart of Pharaoh, you must come, if you are to know me.

00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:01.000
Come to Pharaoh. Come to that part of you.

00:51:01.000 --> 00:51:05.000
If you are to find your freedom. And…

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:08.000
Which is Baronic…

00:51:08.000 --> 00:51:12.000
Uh, in Hebrew, Sarah, we said last, uh, last night, was probably what?

00:51:12.000 --> 00:51:16.000
Wild! Um, not wild like bunny rabbits.

00:51:16.000 --> 00:51:19.000
with, like, amoral.

00:51:19.000 --> 00:51:22.000
ripped apart.

00:51:22.000 --> 00:51:26.000
Scattered.

00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:29.000
Paint.

00:51:29.000 --> 00:51:32.000
Gripping, clutching…

00:51:32.000 --> 00:51:36.000
oppressing.

00:51:36.000 --> 00:51:38.000
That labyrinth.

00:51:38.000 --> 00:51:44.000
Can you ultimately know me with a capital M?

00:51:44.000 --> 00:51:48.000
You gotta do the work.

00:51:48.000 --> 00:51:50.000
the teaching that I put in the chat from.

00:51:50.000 --> 00:51:54.000
Probably many people, but I got it from Rabbi Gershon Winkler.

00:51:54.000 --> 00:51:56.000
in the obstacle is the solution.

00:51:56.000 --> 00:52:01.000
There it is. Whatever gets in the way of the work is…

00:52:01.000 --> 00:52:02.000
the work.

00:52:02.000 --> 00:52:06.000
And then, if you have… if I have a moment to say a thing that might send reins of whatever.

00:52:06.000 --> 00:52:08.000
Delia, forgive us, forgive us.

00:52:08.000 --> 00:52:09.000
Can we… can we hold, can we hold that until 11.30?

00:52:09.000 --> 00:52:13.000
I'll stop. We can… I'll say it later at 11:30.

00:52:13.000 --> 00:52:14.000
Awesome, thank you. Ellen Ruth, is it on this?

00:52:14.000 --> 00:52:19.000
Got it.

00:52:19.000 --> 00:52:23.000
Um, I got myself into a conundrum.

00:52:23.000 --> 00:52:26.000
F.

00:52:26.000 --> 00:52:28.000
F…

00:52:28.000 --> 00:52:32.000
God, it's just the God of the Hebrews.

00:52:32.000 --> 00:52:37.000
Then I'm acknowledging that there are other gods.

00:52:37.000 --> 00:52:43.000
And that doesn't feel like none of these isn't to me.

00:52:43.000 --> 00:52:47.000
Um, I've got is the God…

00:52:47.000 --> 00:52:50.000
Of everyone.

00:52:50.000 --> 00:52:56.000
And that's a whole other way of looking at the situation.

00:52:56.000 --> 00:53:01.000
And that God isn't on either team.

00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:05.000
The team of the pharaoh, the team of the Jewish people.

00:53:05.000 --> 00:53:06.000
Beautiful.

00:53:06.000 --> 00:53:10.000
So, one… one thing I would say to that is…

00:53:10.000 --> 00:53:15.000
There's an existential question. Is God

00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:17.000
the singular god of all.

00:53:17.000 --> 00:53:24.000
There's also the question of how the people in this story were experiencing it.

00:53:24.000 --> 00:53:28.000
Because we might say that God is the God of everyone,

00:53:28.000 --> 00:53:31.000
But Pharaoh didn't think so. Pharaoh thought he himself.

00:53:31.000 --> 00:53:34.000
was a god.

00:53:34.000 --> 00:53:40.000
So, here's… here's the best answer I've got, Ellen Ruth. It's at the end of this week's Torah.

00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:42.000
portion.

00:53:42.000 --> 00:53:48.000
Ultimately, after the tenth plague, after the destruction of Egypt's economy,

00:53:48.000 --> 00:53:50.000
Dr. Faro's own son.

00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:54.000
Sarah calls Moses back.

00:53:54.000 --> 00:53:56.000
And says, GO!

00:53:56.000 --> 00:53:58.000
Pray to not your God.

00:53:58.000 --> 00:54:03.000
A pray to Adonai, and ask a blessing for me, too.

00:54:03.000 --> 00:54:05.000
Wow.

00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:07.000
Suddenly, a pharaoh that…

00:54:07.000 --> 00:54:09.000
You know, a memorable winner.

00:54:09.000 --> 00:54:14.000
I do not know this god, and neither will I let the people go.

00:54:14.000 --> 00:54:16.000
Suddenly, this

00:54:16.000 --> 00:54:23.000
God… become God.

00:54:23.000 --> 00:54:25.000
Too far.

00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:27.000
It sounds Jacob like God was in this place, and I did not know.

00:54:27.000 --> 00:54:29.000
And I, I did not know.

00:54:29.000 --> 00:54:33.000
So, somehow…

00:54:33.000 --> 00:54:37.000
the alchemy of these ten plagues.

00:54:37.000 --> 00:54:41.000
And undoubtedly a lot of suffering.

00:54:41.000 --> 00:54:44.000
Pharaoh comes to see that God is God.

00:54:44.000 --> 00:54:52.000
So let's talk about the hardened heart alone.

00:54:52.000 --> 00:54:57.000
Anyone ever had a heart attack?

00:54:57.000 --> 00:55:02.000
Okay, come on the hands…

00:55:02.000 --> 00:55:03.000
Yeah.

00:55:03.000 --> 00:55:04.000
Yeah. Yeah.

00:55:04.000 --> 00:55:14.000
Yeah. Who hasn't had a chance to read and maybe wants to? This is from Shmope Raba. This is classic Midrash.

00:55:14.000 --> 00:55:17.000
If you're going.

00:55:17.000 --> 00:55:25.000
I must unmute.

00:55:25.000 --> 00:55:29.000
For I hardened his heart.

00:55:29.000 --> 00:55:34.000
Rabbi Yahan said, From here there is an opening.

00:55:34.000 --> 00:55:42.000
For heretics to say that he had no opening to do to Shuva.

00:55:42.000 --> 00:55:47.000
Rabbage Shimon Ben Lakshi said to him,

00:55:47.000 --> 00:55:51.000
Let the mouths of the heretics be sailed, rather.

00:55:51.000 --> 00:55:53.000
Proverb 3.

00:55:53.000 --> 00:55:56.000
To scorners.

00:55:56.000 --> 00:55:58.000
God…

00:55:58.000 --> 00:56:00.000
scorns…

00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:05.000
The Holy Blessed One for warns a person

00:56:05.000 --> 00:56:08.000
The first time, second and third.

00:56:08.000 --> 00:56:16.000
And if they do not relent, God locks their heart from teshuvra in order to plunder.

00:56:16.000 --> 00:56:19.000
Or pay off further sins.

00:56:19.000 --> 00:56:23.000
The same is true regarding the wicked Pharaoh.

00:56:23.000 --> 00:56:29.000
Since the Holy Blessed One sent him warnings five times,

00:56:29.000 --> 00:56:34.000
With prior plagues, any disregarded God's words.

00:56:34.000 --> 00:56:37.000
The Holy Blessed One said to him,

00:56:37.000 --> 00:56:40.000
You stiffened your imp…

00:56:40.000 --> 00:56:41.000
Purity. That is,

00:56:41.000 --> 00:56:42.000
You stiffened your neck.

00:56:42.000 --> 00:56:46.000
You stiffen your neck.

00:56:46.000 --> 00:56:50.000
You stiffened your neck and hardened your heart,

00:56:50.000 --> 00:56:55.000
So here I will add impurity to your impurity.

00:56:55.000 --> 00:56:59.000
That is, for I hardened his heart.

00:56:59.000 --> 00:57:01.000
What is hardened?

00:57:01.000 --> 00:57:06.000
The Holy Blessed One made his heart like a liver.

00:57:06.000 --> 00:57:08.000
Which, when cooked,

00:57:08.000 --> 00:57:11.000
Twice becomes hard.

00:57:11.000 --> 00:57:14.000
Pharaoh's heart became like the liver.

00:57:14.000 --> 00:57:20.000
Because he did not accept the words of his Holy Blessed One.

00:57:20.000 --> 00:57:21.000
I hardened his heart.

00:57:21.000 --> 00:57:24.000
So this is functionally…

00:57:24.000 --> 00:57:30.000
You kept making that face, and now you got stuck that way.

00:57:30.000 --> 00:57:31.000
Right. Wow.

00:57:31.000 --> 00:57:35.000
Wow, you do have a teenage son.

00:57:35.000 --> 00:57:37.000
I sure do.

00:57:37.000 --> 00:57:45.000
Right? But, so, plague after plague after plague, Farrah's been given all of these opportunities to make tshuvah,

00:57:45.000 --> 00:57:50.000
And he kept choosing not to.

00:57:50.000 --> 00:57:55.000
So then at a certain point, God says, okay, if that's how you're gonna be,

00:57:55.000 --> 00:58:00.000
Fine, you're gonna stay that way.

00:58:00.000 --> 00:58:04.000
There's a little bit of a pun here.

00:58:04.000 --> 00:58:06.000
His commodity.

00:58:06.000 --> 00:58:14.000
I pardoned.

00:58:14.000 --> 00:58:21.000
Anyone see the root?

00:58:21.000 --> 00:58:22.000
And that's not holy cupboards.

00:58:22.000 --> 00:58:30.000
Divod, holy. The code…

00:58:30.000 --> 00:58:31.000
Glory. Honor.

00:58:31.000 --> 00:58:32.000
Glory.

00:58:32.000 --> 00:58:33.000
Which is liver.

00:58:33.000 --> 00:58:34.000
Honor.

00:58:34.000 --> 00:58:35.000
And also…

00:58:35.000 --> 00:58:36.000
A bed is…

00:58:36.000 --> 00:58:38.000
And… Liver.

00:58:38.000 --> 00:58:43.000
Liver. Delia, I knew you would know that one.

00:58:43.000 --> 00:58:44.000
Yeah. And also…

00:58:44.000 --> 00:58:46.000
Yeah.

00:58:46.000 --> 00:58:50.000
Heavy.

00:58:50.000 --> 00:58:55.000
So, I heavy in his heart. I mean, the word harden is…

00:58:55.000 --> 00:58:59.000
And it's… it's not the best translation.

00:58:59.000 --> 00:59:05.000
I heavied, but I frayed his heart.

00:59:05.000 --> 00:59:09.000
Does that change how we receive the Word?

00:59:09.000 --> 00:59:13.000
I hardened his heart is different from isolated his heart.

00:59:13.000 --> 00:59:14.000
I never provide it.

00:59:14.000 --> 00:59:18.000
Oh, I've gotta lift this up. Look in the chat, folks, from Adam.

00:59:18.000 --> 00:59:22.000
The meeting of a heavy heart in Egyptian mythology.

00:59:22.000 --> 00:59:28.000
There's an Egyptian teaching that when the soul enters the lands of the dead,

00:59:28.000 --> 00:59:31.000
Heart is weighed on a scale.

00:59:31.000 --> 00:59:34.000
And if it is heavier than a feather,

00:59:34.000 --> 00:59:37.000
or not, that determines…

00:59:37.000 --> 00:59:39.000
What comes next?

00:59:39.000 --> 00:59:41.000
So, Pharaoh's heart has become…

00:59:41.000 --> 00:59:45.000
Heavy. On the scales of justice.

00:59:45.000 --> 00:59:47.000
Wow, Adam, that's!

00:59:47.000 --> 00:59:52.000
I had never thought of that before. Thank you, that's amazing.

00:59:52.000 --> 00:59:57.000
Using ancient Egyptian…

00:59:57.000 --> 00:59:59.000
mythology, or…

00:59:59.000 --> 01:00:01.000
experience.

01:00:01.000 --> 01:00:08.000
Precisely to shape Pharaoh's experience.

01:00:08.000 --> 01:00:09.000
Super awesome.

01:00:09.000 --> 01:00:16.000
Nancy Goody asks, would anyone's heart be lighter than a feather? I think so, actually. As I remember the teaching,

01:00:16.000 --> 01:00:21.000
Well, it's… okay, this is also… this is poetry. It's metaphor, right?

01:00:21.000 --> 01:00:26.000
So, a heart that is light is a heart of someone who has done what…

01:00:26.000 --> 01:00:28.000
good in the world.

01:00:28.000 --> 01:00:35.000
Think how we feel after Yom Kippur, aside from Hungary.

01:00:35.000 --> 01:00:42.000
hopefully unafraid, hopefully light.

01:00:42.000 --> 01:00:47.000
I just want to touch on this Shlomo cats, and then we can move to the longer piece that we have.

01:00:47.000 --> 01:00:49.000
Um…

01:00:49.000 --> 01:00:51.000
What I love about this is that

01:00:51.000 --> 01:00:54.000
is this third paragraph, right? He's…

01:00:54.000 --> 01:01:03.000
He notes that a Midrash Rabba, we just looked at this. When God says, I hardened his heart, that might seem to give credence to the idea that

01:01:03.000 --> 01:01:06.000
Pharaoh didn't have a chance.

01:01:06.000 --> 01:01:14.000
He says, no, explains Raish Lakeish in the Midrash, Hashem did not take away Pharaoh's ability to repent.

01:01:14.000 --> 01:01:17.000
God made Pharaoh's heart heavy.

01:01:17.000 --> 01:01:20.000
Meaning that God made tshuva more challenging.

01:01:20.000 --> 01:01:24.000
Rish Lakeish says God locked the door in Pharaoh's face.

01:01:24.000 --> 01:01:27.000
But, explains Revlopian,

01:01:27.000 --> 01:01:31.000
A locked door does not need to be an obstacle.

01:01:31.000 --> 01:01:33.000
What if you said this earlier?

01:01:33.000 --> 01:01:37.000
Granted, a locked door is harder to open than an unlocked.

01:01:37.000 --> 01:01:43.000
But it CAN be opened if one makes the effort to find the key.

01:01:43.000 --> 01:01:47.000
Even when change is difficult, even when one's heart is heavy,

01:01:47.000 --> 01:01:52.000
There are still ways to change.

01:01:52.000 --> 01:01:56.000
That was our free will.

01:01:56.000 --> 01:01:59.000
We might feel like the door is locked,

01:01:59.000 --> 01:02:11.000
We might feel like we don't know how to get there, but if we really try, it is always possible to make teshuvah.

01:02:11.000 --> 01:02:16.000
Marcia, I see your hand.

01:02:16.000 --> 01:02:22.000
Is this the, the, um… The origin of.

01:02:22.000 --> 01:02:23.000
the saying, I don't know whether I'm coming or going.

01:02:23.000 --> 01:02:32.000
Lovely.

01:02:32.000 --> 01:02:33.000
Love it.

01:02:33.000 --> 01:02:35.000
Um, Bo? And left…

01:02:35.000 --> 01:02:38.000
Spiritually, we don't know if we're coming or going.

01:02:38.000 --> 01:02:43.000
But Rabbi David's heart is light.

01:02:43.000 --> 01:02:44.000
Yeah…

01:02:44.000 --> 01:02:49.000
Love it.

01:02:49.000 --> 01:02:50.000
We have, um…

01:02:50.000 --> 01:02:52.000
Just… alright, good. This brings us to the on-being.

01:02:52.000 --> 01:02:59.000
longer piece here, um, in order to get into it.

01:02:59.000 --> 01:03:01.000
mind a little bit of the

01:03:01.000 --> 01:03:07.000
uses of the word condensed, convent, you need to not need.

01:03:07.000 --> 01:03:11.000
And then even… has everyone heard about being with Krista Tippett?

01:03:11.000 --> 01:03:13.000
It's the NPR piece.

01:03:13.000 --> 01:03:14.000
Yeah. Um…

01:03:14.000 --> 01:03:16.000
She's so good.

01:03:16.000 --> 01:03:23.000
In this longer excerpt, it's just a long excerpt, but it's still just an excerpt of…

01:03:23.000 --> 01:03:27.000
An NPR piece that aired in 2005.

01:03:27.000 --> 01:03:30.000
It's an interview with Dr. Abdel Zornberg.

01:03:30.000 --> 01:03:35.000
Again, we're lifting up feminist commentary, women's voices,

01:03:35.000 --> 01:03:39.000
Avila Zornberg is a rock star.

01:03:39.000 --> 01:03:41.000
Yes, she is.

01:03:41.000 --> 01:03:46.000
Mid-Ross generally, and…

01:03:46.000 --> 01:03:48.000
E… deep.

01:03:48.000 --> 01:03:52.000
Deep commentary of the way.

01:03:52.000 --> 01:03:55.000
Words shape experience.

01:03:55.000 --> 01:04:00.000
It isn't just a brainy, sort of,

01:04:00.000 --> 01:04:01.000
It's hard.

01:04:01.000 --> 01:04:08.000
But it's the profundity, it's the profundity of how

01:04:08.000 --> 01:04:11.000
We experience our syntax.

01:04:11.000 --> 01:04:14.000
actually drives our experience emotionally and spiritually.

01:04:14.000 --> 01:04:17.000
So let's get into it.

01:04:17.000 --> 01:04:21.000
I think it will be helpful when we do to have

01:04:21.000 --> 01:04:26.000
Um, yeah, so maybe one page, I believe, one of the Zornberg and one…

01:04:26.000 --> 01:04:29.000
Krista Tippett, and then on the next page, we'll get more

01:04:29.000 --> 01:04:31.000
and one Krista Tippett.

01:04:31.000 --> 01:04:34.000
So, in Exodus 4,

01:04:34.000 --> 01:04:38.000
Moses says to God, remember, he's at the burning bush.

01:04:38.000 --> 01:04:41.000
It's just like…

01:04:41.000 --> 01:04:44.000
We gotta choose somebody else. I don't have this, I can't do this.

01:04:44.000 --> 01:04:46.000
I'm not your guy.

01:04:46.000 --> 01:04:49.000
You know, I'm not a man of words, I wasn't before.

01:04:49.000 --> 01:04:52.000
I'm not now. I don't know how we'll be.

01:04:52.000 --> 01:04:54.000
are gonna come through me. Why?

01:04:54.000 --> 01:04:59.000
I am slow of speech and slow of time.

01:04:59.000 --> 01:05:02.000
look at the Hebrew.

01:05:02.000 --> 01:05:03.000
Heavy.

01:05:03.000 --> 01:05:11.000
I am heavy in speech, I'm…

01:05:11.000 --> 01:05:15.000
So there's that heaviness again. So that heaviness of motions

01:05:15.000 --> 01:05:17.000
lips and tongue.

01:05:17.000 --> 01:05:24.000
somehow is gonna sh… something about the heaviness of the heart.

01:05:24.000 --> 01:05:25.000
Same word.

01:05:25.000 --> 01:05:27.000
Same word.

01:05:27.000 --> 01:05:29.000
Uh, folks who haven't had a chance to read

01:05:29.000 --> 01:05:40.000
Perhaps. Do we have an Aviva Zornberg here?

01:05:40.000 --> 01:05:41.000
I'd like to do it.

01:05:41.000 --> 01:05:46.000
Okay, do we have a Krista Tippett?

01:05:46.000 --> 01:05:49.000
We need a Christie Tippett.

01:05:49.000 --> 01:05:51.000
Deanna.

01:05:51.000 --> 01:05:52.000
Got it.

01:05:52.000 --> 01:05:55.000
I've already… I've already read that I really want to be Krista Tippett in life.

01:05:55.000 --> 01:05:56.000
Okay, so you got it.

01:05:56.000 --> 01:05:57.000
So I didn't read it.

01:05:57.000 --> 01:05:59.000
Thank you.

01:05:59.000 --> 01:06:00.000
You got it.

01:06:00.000 --> 01:06:07.000
There's something wrong with Moses' speech, exactly how one is to understand it.

01:06:07.000 --> 01:06:14.000
Slow of speech and slow of tongue in one translation.

01:06:14.000 --> 01:06:17.000
Yes. Heavy.

01:06:17.000 --> 01:06:20.000
The word he uses, heavy,

01:06:20.000 --> 01:06:22.000
Covered Pet.

01:06:22.000 --> 01:06:27.000
Heavy mouth. But the interesting thing is that the word…

01:06:27.000 --> 01:06:33.000
heavy is the word that the Torah texts use to describe Theros.

01:06:33.000 --> 01:06:34.000
Alright.

01:06:34.000 --> 01:06:39.000
Right, it's that same word, is it?

01:06:39.000 --> 01:06:41.000
It's the same word.

01:06:41.000 --> 01:06:45.000
There are several words used to pharaoh's hearth

01:06:45.000 --> 01:06:52.000
As his heart is constantly hardened in the course of the ten plagues.

01:06:52.000 --> 01:06:55.000
But one of them is the word

01:06:55.000 --> 01:06:57.000
have it. Heavy.

01:06:57.000 --> 01:06:59.000
Which means, really,

01:06:59.000 --> 01:07:03.000
Somehow resistant and pervious.

01:07:03.000 --> 01:07:07.000
Closed off. And it seems to me

01:07:07.000 --> 01:07:10.000
That can't be by accident.

01:07:10.000 --> 01:07:11.000
That you have the same word used.

01:07:11.000 --> 01:07:16.000
that echo.

01:07:16.000 --> 01:07:20.000
Yes, it seems to me that Moses' sense of…

01:07:20.000 --> 01:07:22.000
Himself is…

01:07:22.000 --> 01:07:29.000
It's a very deep sense of not being able to open himself to the Word of God.

01:07:29.000 --> 01:07:31.000
To such an extent,

01:07:31.000 --> 01:07:37.000
that he is willing to forego the opportunity to redeem

01:07:37.000 --> 01:07:40.000
The people. Because he is simply…

01:07:40.000 --> 01:07:43.000
Not the right person for this.

01:07:43.000 --> 01:07:50.000
The most extraordinary image he uses about his speech capacity is when he says he is…

01:07:50.000 --> 01:07:53.000
Ralph's for time.

01:07:53.000 --> 01:07:55.000
Arasa…

01:07:55.000 --> 01:08:00.000
But I am. Which literally means that he has uncircumscribed lips.

01:08:00.000 --> 01:08:02.000
uncircumcised.

01:08:02.000 --> 01:08:06.000
And it says it twice.

01:08:06.000 --> 01:08:15.000
What does that mean? What does that mean? I mean, when it gets translated into English, it just doesn't make any sense.

01:08:15.000 --> 01:08:18.000
Yes, it is odd.

01:08:18.000 --> 01:08:23.000
It's as if an operation needs to be performed on him.

01:08:23.000 --> 01:08:27.000
As if he is a newborn baby.

01:08:27.000 --> 01:08:29.000
As his whole…

01:08:29.000 --> 01:08:37.000
as his whole people are newborn babies. An operation needs to be performed.

01:08:37.000 --> 01:08:39.000
Which is called circumcision.

01:08:39.000 --> 01:08:49.000
So, as to open up the possibility of healthy communication with the world, there's a kind of connection

01:08:49.000 --> 01:08:52.000
Here, between language,

01:08:52.000 --> 01:08:56.000
And sexuality, which I find fascinating.

01:08:56.000 --> 01:09:01.000
Both have to do with the possibility of communicating.

01:09:01.000 --> 01:09:08.000
Let's stop there and switch. I'm sorry to take Krista Tippett away from you, Deanna. I know this has been your life dream.

01:09:08.000 --> 01:09:18.000
Can we have two other readers?

01:09:18.000 --> 01:09:19.000
Okay, and we need a Viva.

01:09:19.000 --> 01:09:25.000
Ms. Tippett.

01:09:25.000 --> 01:09:27.000
I think I could do that.

01:09:27.000 --> 01:09:32.000
Thank you, Becca. Go for it.

01:09:32.000 --> 01:09:33.000
Relationship, yes, yes.

01:09:33.000 --> 01:09:35.000
And relationship.

01:09:35.000 --> 01:09:40.000
And Moses is very sensitive to the problem that he has.

01:09:40.000 --> 01:09:43.000
And that he senses the people also have…

01:09:43.000 --> 01:09:50.000
So, the whole situation, as I understand it, as the story begins, is not a simple one.

01:09:50.000 --> 01:09:55.000
of a cruel, persecuting pharaoh and poor, helpless victims.

01:09:55.000 --> 01:10:02.000
Its poor, helpless victims who will need, in some way, to arouse within themselves

01:10:02.000 --> 01:10:05.000
The capacity to be redeemed.

01:10:05.000 --> 01:10:11.000
That is to open themselves to relationship and communication.

01:10:11.000 --> 01:10:16.000
I'd like to suggest that the whole story really is about the need for the people

01:10:16.000 --> 01:10:19.000
to be more than an object.

01:10:19.000 --> 01:10:22.000
That has to be yanked out of Egypt.

01:10:22.000 --> 01:10:23.000
Hmm.

01:10:23.000 --> 01:10:29.000
But for the people to become, to acquire the kind of life and openness

01:10:29.000 --> 01:10:34.000
and communicability that makes them want to emerge from that place of death.

01:10:34.000 --> 01:10:39.000
Which is Egypt. I'm so glad I got to read that.

01:10:39.000 --> 01:10:48.000
Let's talk about the Pharaoh himself that, for such a long time, as you say, he hardens his heart and God brings punishment.

01:10:48.000 --> 01:10:57.000
Plagues, which Moses sort of, I guess. He announces, doesn't he, the frogs and lice and locusts and pestilence.

01:10:57.000 --> 01:11:05.000
But it's only after a number of those, and after the people get boils, the people of Egypt then suddenly, the text says.

01:11:05.000 --> 01:11:14.000
God hardened Pharaoh's heart. And I don't know, maybe you could tell me if the Hebrew gives more nuance to that.

01:11:14.000 --> 01:11:20.000
And… but what is that saying there about the nature of Pharaoh or the oppressor?

01:11:20.000 --> 01:11:26.000
If that's what he stands for, and also the nature of God, who is rescuing Israel.

01:11:26.000 --> 01:11:28.000
Talk to me about that part of the narrative.

01:11:28.000 --> 01:11:34.000
Nice, easy question, Miss Tippett, thank you.

01:11:34.000 --> 01:11:37.000
Shall I go on?

01:11:37.000 --> 01:11:42.000
Well, it's really quite a theological problem, actually.

01:11:42.000 --> 01:11:46.000
which the Midrash pays a lot of attention to.

01:11:46.000 --> 01:11:52.000
And that is that if God hardens Pharaoh's heart, then obviously…

01:11:52.000 --> 01:11:56.000
Pharaoh's not responsible anymore for his intransit…

01:11:56.000 --> 01:11:57.000
Why should he be punished?

01:11:57.000 --> 01:12:00.000
Hmm.

01:12:00.000 --> 01:12:05.000
It's God who is interfering with His vital organs.

01:12:05.000 --> 01:12:09.000
And the classic direction to answer it has to do with

01:12:09.000 --> 01:12:12.000
Reaching a point of no return,

01:12:12.000 --> 01:12:14.000
That one can make oneself

01:12:14.000 --> 01:12:19.000
obdurate and close to all appeal from the outside world,

01:12:19.000 --> 01:12:21.000
To such a point that, in fact,

01:12:21.000 --> 01:12:27.000
It's as if human anatomy ceases to act altogether.

01:12:27.000 --> 01:12:31.000
One no longer has the power to backtrack.

01:12:31.000 --> 01:12:39.000
And from that point onwards, I think it's a kind of figure of speech, then, to say that God hardens his heart.

01:12:39.000 --> 01:12:42.000
That's the end of the snippet. We encourage everyone

01:12:42.000 --> 01:12:44.000
We're gonna send this out again. Isn't this cool?

01:12:44.000 --> 01:12:48.000
The entire piece, you can just…

01:12:48.000 --> 01:12:50.000
on this.

01:12:50.000 --> 01:12:53.000
It'll take you right to it. It is…

01:12:53.000 --> 01:12:57.000
An extraordinary piece.

01:12:57.000 --> 01:13:00.000
Journalism in Rosh, I love the fact that the word

01:13:00.000 --> 01:13:07.000
Rosh appears on National Public Radio, I mean, you gotta love

01:13:07.000 --> 01:13:09.000
Reactions. This is, you know…

01:13:09.000 --> 01:13:11.000
Really shaved down today.

01:13:11.000 --> 01:13:14.000
So that we now have some time to…

01:13:14.000 --> 01:13:16.000
Talk about this.

01:13:16.000 --> 01:13:20.000
Because, again, if Dr. Zornberg were here,

01:13:20.000 --> 01:13:26.000
I think she would say this… obviously, this was then, but it's also now.

01:13:26.000 --> 01:13:28.000
It's also now.

01:13:28.000 --> 01:13:34.000
Oh, so many hands, this is great. Uh, uh, Dr. I'm sorry, Ms. Tippett?

01:13:34.000 --> 01:13:36.000
Nancy Goody, I think you're first.

01:13:36.000 --> 01:13:43.000
Um, well, all I could say is. it just feels, like, so now.

01:13:43.000 --> 01:13:51.000
Trying not to be political, I… If only. That's all I'll say.

01:13:51.000 --> 01:13:53.000
Delia?

01:13:53.000 --> 01:14:02.000
Well, this was what I was gonna say, so she said it for me in this way, which is… As much as I hate the big T.

01:14:02.000 --> 01:14:08.000
And what he does, in my understanding, he is the boy… he is the carbuncle.

01:14:08.000 --> 01:14:13.000
On the butt of America. And he is pulling out the pus that has been there all.

01:14:13.000 --> 01:14:19.000
along. And in that healing, there are people who will die in that pus, and that.

01:14:19.000 --> 01:14:26.000
is very horrible. But may it be for the healing that the upswelling of reaction and the.

01:14:26.000 --> 01:14:32.000
The thing that our country is based on needs to be purged and healed.

01:14:32.000 --> 01:14:37.000
And may this be, unfortunately, the process. Unfortunately, I don't know.

01:14:37.000 --> 01:14:44.000
It's another plague thing that has happened. May have come forth for the healing.

01:14:44.000 --> 01:14:46.000
Even as we grieve, because there's what to grieve.

01:14:46.000 --> 01:14:54.000
Because we, we cross and we need to grieve for the people, everyone who is suffering.

01:14:54.000 --> 01:15:01.000
Right, and maybe this is a good time to link back to that Midrash that was mentioned at the beginning of our hour.

01:15:01.000 --> 01:15:02.000
It's just that…

01:15:02.000 --> 01:15:05.000
But when we crossed the sea and we were rejoicing, God says, how can you rejoice? Those were my children who were swept away in the waves.

01:15:05.000 --> 01:15:09.000
Yeah, right. Right, right.

01:15:09.000 --> 01:15:14.000
Right? We're all God's children.

01:15:14.000 --> 01:15:17.000
That's what I was referring to, thank you for elucidating.

01:15:17.000 --> 01:15:22.000
keep it coming.

01:15:22.000 --> 01:15:24.000
It doesn't… then it's, you know…

01:15:24.000 --> 01:15:27.000
Morrison.

01:15:27.000 --> 01:15:36.000
Consideration. But… This man… is just a symbol.

01:15:36.000 --> 01:15:42.000
Or… whatever. And that there are other people.

01:15:42.000 --> 01:15:50.000
Uh, actually. making their lists… checking them, and executing these ideas.

01:15:50.000 --> 01:15:58.000
And you can tell, if you pay attention. That other people are writing things.

01:15:58.000 --> 01:16:02.000
And his name is on it, but he's not writing that, because.

01:16:02.000 --> 01:16:11.000
He's not really thinking about those things. And so… You could get rid of… Him.

01:16:11.000 --> 01:16:17.000
Well, the people that are actually. Coming up with these.

01:16:17.000 --> 01:16:23.000
ways to… do whatever it is they're trying to achieve, I personally think.

01:16:23.000 --> 01:16:32.000
What they're afraid of. is that… They'll be in the minority by… 2045.

01:16:32.000 --> 01:16:38.000
And they're doing a test run. To find out how to do crowd control.

01:16:38.000 --> 01:16:42.000
And we can look no? Further than apartheid.

01:16:42.000 --> 01:16:48.000
South Africa to see how. a minority could control.

01:16:48.000 --> 01:16:54.000
a majority, and if you think about. sending in troops to cities.

01:16:54.000 --> 01:17:01.000
It's like a dress rehearsal. For how to do that, because they know what's coming.

01:17:01.000 --> 01:17:06.000
If I'm sitting on my couch here and I know what's coming, you know they know.

01:17:06.000 --> 01:17:07.000
And I think that's what we're seeing now, and.

01:17:07.000 --> 01:17:08.000
Amen, David, amaine!

01:17:08.000 --> 01:17:13.000
We have a decision to make. About how we want things to go.

01:17:13.000 --> 01:17:15.000
But never think that this guy is running the show.

01:17:15.000 --> 01:17:17.000
Hi, I'm Branch.

01:17:17.000 --> 01:17:20.000
So, I want to make a request to us.

01:17:20.000 --> 01:17:24.000
Because this is Shabbat.

01:17:24.000 --> 01:17:27.000
The elephant is in the world.

01:17:27.000 --> 01:17:29.000
And it's okay, it's okay to name the elephant in the room.

01:17:29.000 --> 01:17:32.000
Always.

01:17:32.000 --> 01:17:36.000
I think… for Shabbat purposes, um…

01:17:36.000 --> 01:17:42.000
And just… just so I can be part of this conversation also, because we're right at that line.

01:17:42.000 --> 01:17:44.000
at least for the next 8 minutes.

01:17:44.000 --> 01:17:46.000
for the next 8 minutes, what do we do?

01:17:46.000 --> 01:17:50.000
What do we do spiritually?

01:17:50.000 --> 01:17:53.000
What is it?

01:17:53.000 --> 01:17:57.000
of faith and action.

01:17:57.000 --> 01:18:01.000
If we can be in that ballpark.

01:18:01.000 --> 01:18:06.000
And if the group wants to go somewhere else, that's absolutely fine.

01:18:06.000 --> 01:18:09.000
I would just personally need to step away because of the

01:18:09.000 --> 01:18:12.000
of my day job.

01:18:12.000 --> 01:18:15.000
To me, this goes back to the…

01:18:15.000 --> 01:18:22.000
The text we looked at that says, go into Pharaoh, in the sense of go into the systems and structures

01:18:22.000 --> 01:18:27.000
that support injustice and oppression.

01:18:27.000 --> 01:18:35.000
And those systems and structures existed in the time of Pharaoh, and they exist now.

01:18:35.000 --> 01:18:38.000
Which means our work is always…

01:18:38.000 --> 01:18:39.000
this work.

01:18:39.000 --> 01:18:40.000
Mm-hmm.

01:18:40.000 --> 01:18:50.000
I thought Rachel had her hand up, but it disappeared. Now I see Deanna's.

01:18:50.000 --> 01:18:55.000
What I see, in addition to the hardening of the hearts,

01:18:55.000 --> 01:18:58.000
is the exact opposite, that when

01:18:58.000 --> 01:19:02.000
Suffering is created by those whose hearts are hard,

01:19:02.000 --> 01:19:07.000
Those whose hearts are not hard soften more.

01:19:07.000 --> 01:19:08.000
I love that.

01:19:08.000 --> 01:19:12.000
And come forward… come forth and help.

01:19:12.000 --> 01:19:14.000
When they don't have to.

01:19:14.000 --> 01:19:16.000
And they take risks.

01:19:16.000 --> 01:19:20.000
And justice can arise from that, and we're seeing that.

01:19:20.000 --> 01:19:27.000
So, one answer to hardened hearts is for us to dove to soften ours more.

01:19:27.000 --> 01:19:30.000
to lean more into being who we are.

01:19:30.000 --> 01:19:32.000
choose to be.

01:19:32.000 --> 01:19:34.000
What we know is right.

01:19:34.000 --> 01:19:39.000
How many of us have felt our own hearts hardening during these, uh…

01:19:39.000 --> 01:19:42.000
days, weeks, months, years?

01:19:42.000 --> 01:19:45.000
I want to say both yes and no.

01:19:45.000 --> 01:19:46.000
Yeah.

01:19:46.000 --> 01:19:47.000
My heart is hardening in some ways.

01:19:47.000 --> 01:19:52.000
And in other ways, it feels like my heart is just an open…

01:19:52.000 --> 01:20:01.000
you know, like, my chest is torn open, and I have no skin protecting…

01:20:01.000 --> 01:20:02.000
And I'm seeing some heads nodding.

01:20:02.000 --> 01:20:07.000
Yeah, yeah, yup. Circumcise the force, yeah, circumcise the force, get on the…

01:20:07.000 --> 01:20:11.000
parts.

01:20:11.000 --> 01:20:16.000
We know it can be different. And that's a… positive thing.

01:20:16.000 --> 01:20:21.000
Yeah.

01:20:21.000 --> 01:20:24.000
Becoming real always does.

01:20:24.000 --> 01:20:27.000
Yes, Velveteen, Rabbi.

01:20:27.000 --> 01:20:28.000
Irish?

01:20:28.000 --> 01:20:30.000
Mm-hmm.

01:20:30.000 --> 01:20:38.000
Thank you. So, I'm thinking about sort of a biological thing that goes with a spiritual thing.

01:20:38.000 --> 01:20:42.000
The hardening… well, when Moses said,

01:20:42.000 --> 01:20:45.000
He had heavy lips, and…

01:20:45.000 --> 01:20:50.000
they needed to be circumcised, so that is reminding me of…

01:20:50.000 --> 01:20:57.000
When we say where is our connection, it's right with us, it's not far away, the source is right in us, in our…

01:20:57.000 --> 01:20:59.000
mouth, so if…

01:20:59.000 --> 01:21:02.000
Moses needed to have… he was…

01:21:02.000 --> 01:21:08.000
There, in his heart, but he needed a little more, um, openness in order to feel that he could go

01:21:08.000 --> 01:21:11.000
forth with the mission that was so challenging.

01:21:11.000 --> 01:21:14.000
And then the bio thing…

01:21:14.000 --> 01:21:17.000
With the liver being hardened, also,

01:21:17.000 --> 01:21:23.000
So, to me, that's like a biological block to teshuva, because your liver…

01:21:23.000 --> 01:21:27.000
Helps to process, you know, all of the…

01:21:27.000 --> 01:21:32.000
waste, or what… all of the unnecessary things in our body that come…

01:21:32.000 --> 01:21:35.000
From what we eat, and the metabolism of all of that.

01:21:35.000 --> 01:21:40.000
So, it's just… I just found that as a very interesting…

01:21:40.000 --> 01:21:42.000
And you'll become toxic.

01:21:42.000 --> 01:21:44.000
Yeah, yeah.

01:21:44.000 --> 01:21:50.000
And, yeah, and so then it is blocking teshuva, and it's like this pulse.

01:21:50.000 --> 01:21:54.000
when we take in too much of this poison,

01:21:54.000 --> 01:21:56.000
Yeah, yeah.

01:21:56.000 --> 01:21:57.000
Wow.

01:21:57.000 --> 01:21:58.000
It says…

01:21:58.000 --> 01:21:59.000
liver gets freighted.

01:21:59.000 --> 01:22:00.000
No. And it can't do.

01:22:00.000 --> 01:22:02.000
Oh, that's lovely.

01:22:02.000 --> 01:22:03.000
So, so, notice…

01:22:03.000 --> 01:22:09.000
Sorry, the system, you know, that's what it is, too, the way the system

01:22:09.000 --> 01:22:11.000
is supposed to flow. So, I'm sorry, go ahead.

01:22:11.000 --> 01:22:13.000
Right. No, no, no, I…

01:22:13.000 --> 01:22:15.000
I'm just building the time.

01:22:15.000 --> 01:22:17.000
So, I wanted to narrate something, if I may.

01:22:17.000 --> 01:22:19.000
We are about to disappear.

01:22:19.000 --> 01:22:20.000
Yeah.

01:22:20.000 --> 01:22:25.000
disappear… we're gonna shift gears. So, for those of us…

01:22:25.000 --> 01:22:27.000
I'm relatively new to this.

01:22:27.000 --> 01:22:31.000
What tools did we just use in Midrush?

01:22:31.000 --> 01:22:35.000
The words themselves.

01:22:35.000 --> 01:22:41.000
text-to-text. Moses had come dead lips.

01:22:41.000 --> 01:22:44.000
Cut that heart. Text moves to text.

01:22:44.000 --> 01:22:47.000
Just a little grammar for giggles.

01:22:47.000 --> 01:22:50.000
symbolism.

01:22:50.000 --> 01:22:54.000
technology. We used storytelling.

01:22:54.000 --> 01:22:55.000
God said to Pharaoh,

01:22:55.000 --> 01:22:57.000
God said so far.

01:22:57.000 --> 01:22:59.000
She did, she did.

01:22:59.000 --> 01:23:02.000
God did was it? Who's they? Who is he?

01:23:02.000 --> 01:23:03.000
Right? What was Moses thinking? I can't do this, I would rather

01:23:03.000 --> 01:23:06.000
loans it's thinking, I can't do this.

01:23:06.000 --> 01:23:10.000
of my people's Path to Freedom.

01:23:10.000 --> 01:23:11.000
I have been…

01:23:11.000 --> 01:23:16.000
Risk being able to do something that I know in my gut I can't do.

01:23:16.000 --> 01:23:24.000
It's the storytelling tradition, all of that. Um, apparently we used AI

01:23:24.000 --> 01:23:27.000
ancient commentary.

01:23:27.000 --> 01:23:29.000
Modern commentary.

01:23:29.000 --> 01:23:35.000
News National Public Radio.

01:23:35.000 --> 01:23:40.000
As we saw on day one of our Midrash journey, and you can go back and look,

01:23:40.000 --> 01:23:42.000
Ed Roche is as much Torah.

01:23:42.000 --> 01:23:44.000
As the black…

01:23:44.000 --> 01:23:47.000
ink on the scroll.

01:23:47.000 --> 01:23:53.000
Right, the scroll contains both the black fire of the letters and the white fire of the open spaces.

01:23:53.000 --> 01:23:57.000
In which our Midrash emerge, and both

01:23:57.000 --> 01:23:58.000
are holy.

01:23:58.000 --> 01:24:02.000
And you can't have one without the other.

01:24:02.000 --> 01:24:07.000
Midlash evolves from generation to generation because the uplifting of more

01:24:07.000 --> 01:24:13.000
Seeing this makeshift from generation to generation. What we need to complete the Torah.

01:24:13.000 --> 01:24:18.000
It may shift from generation to generation other things.

01:24:18.000 --> 01:24:22.000
And to stay pretty close to…

01:24:22.000 --> 01:24:25.000
They've been because we've stayed pretty close to what we've been.

01:24:25.000 --> 01:24:28.000
Is there bondage in the world?

01:24:28.000 --> 01:24:31.000
Yup.

01:24:31.000 --> 01:24:34.000
Is there creation and destruction in the world?

01:24:34.000 --> 01:24:39.000
Yep. Is there a need to uplift more things? Yup.

01:24:39.000 --> 01:24:43.000
Revelation and concealment, yup, as below, so above, as above, so below.

01:24:43.000 --> 01:24:47.000
We try to make… yup.

01:24:47.000 --> 01:24:51.000
Getting pissed at God sometimes? Yup.

01:24:51.000 --> 01:24:54.000
Something's don't change.

01:24:54.000 --> 01:24:56.000
So for those of us who…

01:24:56.000 --> 01:24:58.000
I've been here for a while.

01:24:58.000 --> 01:25:00.000
I hope a little bit of this…

01:25:00.000 --> 01:25:03.000
helps to concretize some of our learning.

01:25:03.000 --> 01:25:07.000
For those of us who are here for the first or second time,

01:25:07.000 --> 01:25:11.000
I hope likewise, and also quets the appetite a bit.

01:25:11.000 --> 01:25:12.000
Because next week is the song of the sea.

01:25:12.000 --> 01:25:16.000
Uh, we have got some goodies for next week.

01:25:16.000 --> 01:25:20.000
Next week, we're gonna be able to stay on. We will be home from Los Angeles.

01:25:20.000 --> 01:25:22.000
Well, you will be.

01:25:22.000 --> 01:25:25.000
more detail, you will just…

01:25:25.000 --> 01:25:26.000
will be in New York. Got it.

01:25:26.000 --> 01:25:29.000
I will be in a hotel. I… but I will… but I will be here.

01:25:29.000 --> 01:25:30.000
Just not here.

01:25:30.000 --> 01:25:33.000
Okay, so we… right, with that…

01:25:33.000 --> 01:25:37.000
Unless you look up a deep, enriching Shabbat.

01:25:37.000 --> 01:25:41.000
Your hearts should be white as a feather.

01:25:41.000 --> 01:25:46.000
I know some of us will want to stay on and talk. I need to assign the Zoom room.

01:25:46.000 --> 01:25:48.000
All you gotta do.

01:25:48.000 --> 01:25:51.000
is close your computer when it's done.

01:25:51.000 --> 01:25:54.000
would like to host.

01:25:54.000 --> 01:25:58.000
I need someone to go like this.

01:25:58.000 --> 01:25:59.000
Nancy.

01:25:59.000 --> 01:26:02.000
Nancy, you're gonna hope Nancy Goody, you're gonna host thank you.

01:26:02.000 --> 01:26:03.000
I will… I will get…

01:26:03.000 --> 01:26:05.000
Sure.

01:26:05.000 --> 01:26:10.000
onto our website very soon, just not right now.

01:26:10.000 --> 01:26:13.000
Because something about an airport.

01:26:13.000 --> 01:26:17.000
So, with everything, please, if you're anywhere near

01:26:17.000 --> 01:26:22.000
East, stay safe, stay warm, snowmageddon, snowpocalypse.

01:26:22.000 --> 01:26:29.000
Snow Beast. Have a wonderful Shabbat, and I think, like, Brad I Rachel, I think we should, like,

01:26:29.000 --> 01:26:31.000
Go to, like, California…

01:26:31.000 --> 01:26:33.000
California?

01:26:33.000 --> 01:26:38.000
We're gonna join Becca on the West Coast.

01:26:38.000 --> 01:26:39.000
Good Shabbos, everybody.

01:26:39.000 --> 01:26:40.000
If you wanna keep talking.

01:26:40.000 --> 01:26:41.000
Safe travel, Rabbi.

01:26:41.000 --> 01:26:43.000
Bye-bye, everybody.

01:26:43.000 --> 01:26:46.000
Safe travel.

01:26:46.000 --> 01:26:55.000
Okay. So, I'm just holding this space open. I'd say anyone who wants to stay on, please just unmute and.

01:26:55.000 --> 01:26:56.000
And stop the recording.

01:26:56.000 --> 01:27:06.000
Fuck. Oh, um, I… I think it's to… oh, how do I stop? Oh, wait a minute, hold on.