WEBVTT

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Good morning, good Shabbos! It's so good to be with everybody today.

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Today is the 14th of February?

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As others have observed, it's Valentine's Day, and it's also Shabbos!

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And in a moment, we're going to take a deep dive into Parashat Mishpatim.

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But first, I invite us to put in the chat box the names of those

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For whom we're praying this morning.

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Praying for healing, praying for comfort.

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And I'm aware also that one of us has recently learned of a loss, and so we're holding

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Debra, would you like to offer the name that you're holding in your heart?

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I'm holding Miguel in our hearts may…

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The ascent of his soul be gentle, may you find comfort.

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With all who mourn.

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Baruch Ta'anai Elohenu Malacha alum.

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Asher Kidshaniuba Mitzvotavitsivanu, padi Ray Torah.

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Blessed are you, Adonai, our God, eternal Sovereign.

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You sanctify us in your mitzvot and command us to immerse ourselves in words of Torah.

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So this morning, we are in Mishpatim.

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And we are diving right into…

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laws, so many laws, laws and laws and laws,

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We have some basic categories at the top of the page here, laws about

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indentured servitude, criminal law, civil law,

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loans, how to treat strangers, kash root, prayer, right?

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We have a thicket of laws about everything imaginable. This is part of what we do and who we are.

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And…

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This section of today's Parsha that we've chosen to lift up is going to take us into a slightly different place.

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That, to me, is an amazing juxtaposition with all of these very practical laws

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We get a…

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different kind of story.

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I invite us to lean into what will invite Midrash here, what is curious to us, what calls to us.

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And let's see where we go.

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Can people unmute and start reading?

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Immediately after all the laws come up,

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Here's what happened.

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Somebody unmute and read.

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And to Moshe…

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Moshe. Go ahead, Brett.

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And to Moshe, God said, Ascend to Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh, you, Aharon Nadav, and Abihu.

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and 70 from Israel's elders, and bow from afar.

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Moshe will approach Yod-Heh-Vape alone.

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Others will not approach, and the nation will not ascend with him.

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Moshe went and told the nation all of Yud-Heh-Vav-He's words, and all of God's rules, and all the answered.

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should be all the nation answered.

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And… and all the nation answered with one voice, saying.

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All the things that Judeh Vavi said, we will do.

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Moshe wrote down all of his commands. He worked in the he… We worked in the morning, built an altar at the base of the mountain with 12 pillars for the 12 tribes of Israel.

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He sent boys of the children of Israel to raise up offerings,

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And they made cow shlameim offerings to Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh.

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Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar.

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He took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the ears of the nation.

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And they said, All the things that Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh said,

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We will do, and we will hear.

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Moshe took the blood and sprinkled it on the nation, saying,

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This is the blood of the covenant that Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh now cuts with you concerning all these things.

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Two more readers.

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Moshe and Aharan Nadav and Avihu, and 70 elders of Israel ascended.

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They saw the God of Israel, and under his feet was like the making of brickwork of sapphire, like the very essence of sky for purity.

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of the children of Israel God.

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They gazed at God and me.

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Thank you. Um, I apologize that

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Apparently, when I'm writing in English to translate from Hebrew.

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I'm writing phonetically like it wrote.

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not always remembering how English goes.

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I forgot how English goes, so it really is.

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inverses 3 and 4, all the nation answered.

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One voice saying, all the things that God said we will do.

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Motion rolled everything down, Don. Moshe won in the morning.

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and all the things happen. So I'm gonna do a little fixing here.

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Um, and as I do when we stall and ask,

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Many of you did not know this happened in Torah?

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I'm seeing a lot of hands going up.

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Yeah.

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First, responses to it. I mean, let's get Midrash for a second.

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What do we…

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what is this?

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Uh-huh.

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Yeah.

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Does that say cut in seven, eight? where Moshe sprinkled the blood.

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Yeah.

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Yep.

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Yeah, that's actually not a typo.

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It said he cuts…

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Yep, that is a direct translation of the phrase, usually rendered as to…

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To make a covenant, or to…

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I don't know what verb most translations use, but literally it does say one cuts a covenant.

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It makes me think, like, a blood oath, or when people… I don't know what it's called when people, like,

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Uh, okay.

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you know, cut their fingers and put it…

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Well, yeah, this is old school.

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together, so you… that's what it seems like.

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This is old school.

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It's cow's blood, you know? When you do that kind of thing that Brett's saying, it's like two people do it together. This is cow's blood splattering. It feels like.

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Harry. Like the movie Carrie.

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I suppose it's, you know, for the good, we have never… human sacrifice has never been our jam.

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Oh, ew.

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Perfect. But, you know, it feels like the movie Carrie, like, you know, you're… lattered with blood.

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Anyone here who saw the movie Carrie or read the Stephen King book may be wincing like I am? Yeah, that's a pretty gruesome scene.

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Alright, so there's… there's some… a little bit of blood here, what else?

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Oh, what about… And against the leaders of the children of Israel, God did not raise a hand.

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Yeah.

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They gazed at God. and ate and drank? He didn't smice him. They looked and lived to tell the story.

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Right, we've seen elsewhere in Torah, God says to Moshe, nobody can look upon me and live, and yet here we seem to be

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gazing at God,

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And… having a picnic?

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If what, in fact, is up with that?

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Yeah, what's up with that?

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too much of them, Natalie.

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Morning note.

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So let's have it. Let's have it. What's going on here?

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what… what else is jumping out at us?

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Yeah.

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To me, it sounds like Egypt. like taking something from what the Egyptians did.

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I don't. I'm still looking for. I mean, I know there's some sort of divinity here, but.

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Seems very cultural.

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which part the sacrificing, or the picnic, or…

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Both.

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Okay.

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Which part? The sacrificing, the offering, the… Yeah, I, yeah, I know there are things not, but I do feel…

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This feels a little Egyptian, maybe a little foreign to us.

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You have to keep in mind the entire book of Leviticus is going to be based on that.

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So, what is this?

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Sure. Dean, I see you.

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I'm really curious about the first…

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births, ascend to Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh,

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is telling… Moshe's telling all these people to ascend to Yod-Heh-Vaveh. What does that mean? Are they still at Mount Sinai? Are they supposed to go up the mountain?

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Are they ascending up to the sky?

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Yeah.

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Um, since when do 70 from Israel's elders and 4 other people ascend to God to, like, chat with Him?

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Or her. Um…

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I'm… I'm just very curious about that.

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Yup, yup. It says, ascends, but then it says the nation will not ascend. Some of you will ascend, but only.

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Yeah, didn't they say, wait. Right? Hank down here.

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So the divine… presence just… I don't know, it was all over the place.

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If they didn't go up there, or… Wolf.

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Is God everywhere? Is God only in this place? Is God extra on top of this place? What is happening?

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Sounds like leftover pyrotechnics and special effects from Sinai.

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All right.

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Cecil B. Jamil had some extra, there's no before or after in Toro.

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So, this is pretty challenging stuff, right?

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You know, it's one very staid…

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Western theology, God doesn't have a

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place you can't see God.

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What's this with the cows, and the cutting, and the sprinkling, and…

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Yeah, yeah.

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keep it coming.

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There is no Vishkan. There is no…

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and there's no Mishkan yet, right?

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the second half. There's no…

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dwelling place for God. That hasn't happened yet.

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There's no physical dwelling place for God. We haven't built the Ark of the Covenant, the second half of the book of Exodus is, for the most part,

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arts and crafts.

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make it with our own hands, Alma.

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Um, I'm still looking at the line that says he sent boys of the children of Israel to raise up offerings.

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I mean, I don't know much about, um, the way they…

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Did the offerings and… I mean, you had priests, and you had Moses, and you had, you know, big, important people who would do offerings, and this sounds like they sent the kids out to do it.

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Yeah, it does, doesn't it? Literally what it says.

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Na array veney Yisrael, the youths of the children of Israel.

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I really can't spell, what can I? Chidren. Chidren.

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I mean, what's funny is both you and I spent so much time on this

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piece of paper, and yet neither one of us noticed.

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Yeah, all… youths, youths. So, yell.

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You… yes, we said the Utes.

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Utes, Utes!

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Yeah, so all of this is asking us to midwash it, and we kind of have to, because…

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There's a lot at stake. What else?

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What else do you see, Rachel?

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How about 9, 9, 10 there? Motion, Aaron and Nandav and Avinu in 70, elders ascend.

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Uh-huh.

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So, you know, God…

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I'm curious about that ascension.

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What God says to Moses, go up.

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And now they're gonna go up, and what do they see?

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They say the God of Israel.

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And apparently God has feet.

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And I blew a brick road.

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At a right foot ball is a…

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And a blue brick road.

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Sapphire Brick Road.

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Yeah, I can't put that in any color other than blue.

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Hmm?

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You have to write Follow the Sapphire Brick Road, and now I see Natalie also.

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And isn't that one of the stones in the uh what family does that represent? What tribe does that represent?

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I don't know offhand, but yeah, you're thinking of the one stone for each of the children of Israel on the breastplate.

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I see Natalie's hand, and then Cheryl's.

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Yeah.

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I'm looking at 11, and against the leaders of the children of Israel, God did not raise a hand. So what I'm thinking is that

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They were able to gaze at God and not killed for that.

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Love that. Right, so this is sort of a reversal of the usual order of things. Usually we can't look at God without dying, we've been told.

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Cheryl and then James.

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So, um… We don't yet have a covenant, so to speak, right? Is this the first time?

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God is making a covenant. with us. And so… and so I'm wondering also using. I mean, if making a covenant is called cut a covenant, or it's also a prelude to.

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to brisk time.

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Hi guys, how you doing?

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Yeah. Like, you know, it's the… it's the… It's and with blood coming, you know, it's like a it's a hint of something to come.

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What is this Book of the Covenant? We've never heard of that before.

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Hands…

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There's a lot here, James.

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Mm-hmm.

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And then Meredith, and then John.

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So the whole thing of gazing at God…

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Isn't this traditionally treated as something along the lines of a prophetic vision?

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That they, uh…

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There's… I don't know if it's Midrash or Talmud, where it says they ate and drank.

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as if they were looking at the king or something along those lines, and…

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There's other things in there. They fed their eyes, um, things like that.

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So it's not…

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Right, so maybe this is not a literal snack.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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correct me if I'm wrong, isn't that kind of the generally accepted…

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interpretation of this, since, you know,

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You can't look upon God, et cetera, et cetera.

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So, well, so that's the question. Let's leave aside for a second. What's generally accepted?

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Why? You're correct. There's a lot of Midrash that goes there.

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Why is it important? Because if we gaze at God, then what happens?

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We die.

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Yeah, our brains explode.

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Wait, wait, what… humanity cannot gaze on… cannot look on God and live.

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And yet…

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So, yup, so God tells Moses later, but it hasn't…

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Yet. So one possibility is that once upon a time, our ancestors actually could see.

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God. Uh, does that mean God has feet?

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Maimonides would certainly say no.

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God, yeah, Maimonides would say they've got…

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Maimonides did say no.

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Maimonides did say no.

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So, it's one thing to be made of the image and valid, it's another thing for, you know,

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Got to have your wax.

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God to be so anthropomorphized.

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So,

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We've got some work to do here, Midrashikly, because at stake is our very notion of theology,

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And God and experienced spirituality itself.

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There's nothing at stake here, and of course, this has to come immediately.

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the after Sinai. It has to.

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Right. It has to come amidst the giving of the law.

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Because it's not just about law, says the lawyer.

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There's something else here. Perhaps there's something more here.

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So hang on to that, James, we're going there, Meredith and Joan.

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I see more hands, yep.

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Um, I'm fascinated that in all my Jewish life,

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I have never…

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seen this.

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that… that…

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It's really weird, we didn't make it up.

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Right?

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people, they're like, oh, come on up.

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Yeah.

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Like, come on up and see God as if it were, I don't know, like a…

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Like, he has visiting hours.

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I love it!

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And I'm just… I'm just wondering why is this a kept secret?

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This portion?

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No. No!

00:17:56.000 --> 00:18:01.000
So why don't… why don't we know, like…

00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:02.000
It's okay.

00:18:02.000 --> 00:18:03.000
There's so much.

00:18:03.000 --> 00:18:04.000
It's… I don't know. I mean, there's a lot we don't know.

00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:07.000
in the… in the Torah, for sure. But this notion of people

00:18:07.000 --> 00:18:10.000
Going that close…

00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:14.000
to Hashem is unprecedented.

00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:16.000
Rabbi David, please put God's visiting hours somewhere on this page.

00:18:16.000 --> 00:18:18.000
Yeah.

00:18:18.000 --> 00:18:19.000
Paper, I love that.

00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:22.000
Okay, thank you.

00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:23.000
And where do I put this?

00:18:23.000 --> 00:18:28.000
I don't know, anywhere.

00:18:28.000 --> 00:18:33.000
Of course, we can make… we can do something with that, and let's call it Shabbos.

00:18:33.000 --> 00:18:36.000
let's call it holidays, let's call it…

00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:40.000
When you're blessed with food, but Meredith is asking it up.

00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:43.000
So yeah, they can track them down question.

00:18:43.000 --> 00:18:47.000
So many of you who raised your hand didn't know this was here.

00:18:47.000 --> 00:18:53.000
Why do you think liberal Jewish life has taken this and sort of kept it over here?

00:18:53.000 --> 00:18:56.000
I don't know, maybe because it's weird?

00:18:56.000 --> 00:18:57.000
It's weird.

00:18:57.000 --> 00:19:00.000
I mean, it's wonderful, and…

00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:02.000
What do we do with this story?

00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:07.000
We're gonna have to do something. Joe, you want to do something with this?

00:19:07.000 --> 00:19:11.000
All right. Well, I have a notion or two.

00:19:11.000 --> 00:19:17.000
Bring it.

00:19:17.000 --> 00:19:18.000
Yep.

00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:23.000
I think that, first of all, language fails us. And secondly, we tend to be literal when we read passages.

00:19:23.000 --> 00:19:42.000
Because of language. I don't think… I think what this is, is… And we're bid to do this all the time. We bid to either let God in, or approach God, or take ourselves to another.

00:19:42.000 --> 00:19:51.000
mental, spiritual level. If you give rules, and they're all neat, and they fit on a tablet.

00:19:51.000 --> 00:19:56.000
you know, whoever… whoever did that typesetting did a great job.

00:19:56.000 --> 00:20:02.000
Then there's the question of, what do you do to fulfill them?

00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:07.000
I think that this is the beginning of what that is.

00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:16.000
You need, um… You know, it's like when you say to a kid, you have to apologize, you have to say you're sorry.

00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:30.000
And I have learned it's not that simple. So I need more guidance as to how to say I'm sorry. I need more guidance into how to follow the rules that have been.

00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:39.000
given down, and if this is just the beginning of it, it's going to take a long time and a lot of situations.

00:20:39.000 --> 00:20:46.000
This is huge. Yeah.

00:20:46.000 --> 00:20:47.000
do this.

00:20:47.000 --> 00:20:52.000
You can't just say to a people. Yeah, do this and not give them guidance.

00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:54.000
And so, Joan, you just said, like,

00:20:54.000 --> 00:20:57.000
Several books worth of stuff, right?

00:20:57.000 --> 00:21:01.000
Is God the commander? Well, yeah, God is telling us what to do.

00:21:01.000 --> 00:21:07.000
as Moses the commander in the respect of taking dictations with we as Moses can.

00:21:07.000 --> 00:21:14.000
Why should we recognize this God in the first place? Yeah, Ten Commandments, yeah, Sinai, yeah, we were taken out of Egypt.

00:21:14.000 --> 00:21:20.000
you know, from that portion on forward, it's, what have you done for me lately?

00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:21.000
You know, that was…

00:21:21.000 --> 00:21:36.000
Well, these are I'm sorry. These are laws. Nobody knows better than you that just because it's a law.

00:21:36.000 --> 00:21:37.000
It's permanent, it's my permanent employment act, and this is great.

00:21:37.000 --> 00:21:52.000
uh, you'd be out of a job if it didn't take some handling… handling of… Exactly. And putting a law that has more morality to it into the hands of a people who are human.

00:21:52.000 --> 00:22:00.000
and who don't necessarily have their rules yet is a tall order.

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:01.000
Amen.

00:22:01.000 --> 00:22:03.000
Right? But you're saying something…

00:22:03.000 --> 00:22:08.000
At least what I hear, Jones, morality may be reflected in law, maybe.

00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:11.000
But morality can't come from law.

00:22:11.000 --> 00:22:13.000
Most law can express more.

00:22:13.000 --> 00:22:16.000
principle. But that principle

00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:17.000
As to precede the law that expresses it.

00:22:17.000 --> 00:22:19.000
Mm-hmm.

00:22:19.000 --> 00:22:25.000
And then it has to, after the law is given, be interpreted in a way that people can understand.

00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:34.000
Which now becomes the conversation of what is Judaism for 3,500 years. So, there's a lot at stake here.

00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:40.000
context of what's happening here.

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:45.000
What establishes the authority of the lawgiver?

00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:49.000
It isn't just because I said so.

00:22:49.000 --> 00:22:52.000
It's partly, I'm God.

00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:54.000
or not. But more than that.

00:22:54.000 --> 00:23:01.000
I'm God, and you have had wow experiences that have changed you.

00:23:01.000 --> 00:23:04.000
And the first of those was your very liberation.

00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:07.000
your very survival.

00:23:07.000 --> 00:23:11.000
You're very journeyed through the desert of…

00:23:11.000 --> 00:23:13.000
Fear and anxiety and grief.

00:23:13.000 --> 00:23:15.000
Which is just beginning.

00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:17.000
Which is just beginning.

00:23:17.000 --> 00:23:22.000
I'm gonna have your elders come upstairs.

00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:25.000
And have an experience that in Joan's words,

00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:30.000
Language is going to fail.

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:33.000
So here's law written in words.

00:23:33.000 --> 00:23:37.000
based on an experience for which there are no rules,

00:23:37.000 --> 00:23:42.000
And yet, here's this total portion giving us words.

00:23:42.000 --> 00:23:43.000
Welcome to Judaism.

00:23:43.000 --> 00:23:53.000
I would also like to note that of all the paragraphs we have highlighted and written things on, there's one paragraph that doesn't seem to have any markings on it at all.

00:23:53.000 --> 00:23:55.000
How spooky that!

00:23:55.000 --> 00:24:04.000
Anything noteworthy in that one paragraph that doesn't have any highlighting?

00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:10.000
Especially if you compare it to verses 7 and 8.

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:13.000
Yeah, Natalie?

00:24:13.000 --> 00:24:15.000
Um, this…

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:20.000
In this paragraph, they're answering in one voice, which is, like, remarkable.

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:23.000
in itself, that an entire…

00:24:23.000 --> 00:24:25.000
community would agree.

00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:26.000
on anything.

00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:27.000
Jews' three opinions, and yet hear the entire Jewish people

00:24:27.000 --> 00:24:32.000
And they're saying, we will… we will do. So they are accepting…

00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:35.000
The rules here, which has got to be…

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:37.000
a huge thing.

00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:43.000
Is the Book of the Covenant read relative to them saying that?

00:24:43.000 --> 00:24:45.000
Two paragraphs later.

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:52.000
So, what are they agreeing to? They haven't heard it yet.

00:24:52.000 --> 00:24:58.000
Well, they're certainly showing a great deal of trust in Moshe, and…

00:24:58.000 --> 00:25:01.000
you know, trusting that

00:25:01.000 --> 00:25:09.000
So now, reading that told the nation all of Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh's words, so you get the sense that maybe they gave him… he gave them the summary,

00:25:09.000 --> 00:25:12.000
Give them something.

00:25:12.000 --> 00:25:17.000
But that they agreed with it is, I think, remarkable.

00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:26.000
And as Rabbi David is highlighting, you can see almost the same thing appears twice, but it's different the second time.

00:25:26.000 --> 00:25:29.000
Verse 4 and 3.

00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:37.000
all the things that you and Heavalde has said, we will do. By the way, now we're gonna get the Book of the Covenant afterwards.

00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:44.000
all the things that you had Bob Hayes said, we will do.

00:25:44.000 --> 00:25:48.000
And we will hear.

00:25:48.000 --> 00:25:49.000
Well, that's kind of remarkable.

00:25:49.000 --> 00:25:50.000
Okay, do you usually do things before you hear them?

00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:53.000
Kind of reversed.

00:25:53.000 --> 00:25:55.000
Because I don't.

00:25:55.000 --> 00:26:01.000
Usually, I have to hear an instruction in order to do it.

00:26:01.000 --> 00:26:04.000
So, something strange is going on here.

00:26:04.000 --> 00:26:09.000
What could that possibly mean?

00:26:09.000 --> 00:26:15.000
Notice how language is all over the place, it's totally defying us.

00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:17.000
Yeah, John. And then Cheryl.

00:26:17.000 --> 00:26:27.000
although it may say it may say here in the Hebrew, to me it means we'll understand or take to heart.

00:26:27.000 --> 00:26:33.000
And could I just say that going back to my teens?

00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:37.000
I think that a song we sang, not a Seven Ishma.

00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:40.000
That's it. That's where it comes from.

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:41.000
We will do and we will hear, literally.

00:26:41.000 --> 00:26:48.000
As… was… Yes, we will do and we will hear. I didn't know.

00:26:48.000 --> 00:26:57.000
Anything more about it, but it was a good song we all sang. Um, but hearing… is more than the physical thing.

00:26:57.000 --> 00:26:58.000
What's it mean? What's it mean?

00:26:58.000 --> 00:27:02.000
It takes. you really take it to heart, you understand.

00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:05.000
Right. Right. So, in what order?

00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.000
Where is this happening, we will do and we will hear.

00:27:09.000 --> 00:27:11.000
I'll do it.

00:27:11.000 --> 00:27:12.000
And then we'll get it.

00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:13.000
And we'll understand why.

00:27:13.000 --> 00:27:21.000
Yeah, that's what I hear Joan saying. We will do it, and then we will understand it. Sometimes you gotta do the thing first.

00:27:21.000 --> 00:27:24.000
How many of you have ever learned to ride a bike?

00:27:24.000 --> 00:27:30.000
by reading about it in a book.

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:32.000
that there's something…

00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:36.000
existential here about the spirituality.

00:27:36.000 --> 00:27:40.000
And the behaviors of the laws that are being impressed on us.

00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:44.000
by which everything we know about

00:27:44.000 --> 00:27:49.000
than do in Western life is being turned on its head.

00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:55.000
First, be told why you're doing it, then obtain your active consent to it and read the instruction manual.

00:27:55.000 --> 00:28:01.000
Uh, than being given the incentives to do it, and maybe he'll do it.

00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:02.000
Not in this story.

00:28:02.000 --> 00:28:03.000
This is the exact opposite, yeah.

00:28:03.000 --> 00:28:05.000
This is the opposite.

00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:10.000
Let's hold on to that, because all of these things are going to come together, Cheryl.

00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:14.000
And I think we're gonna spend some time on text. We have less text today.

00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:15.000
Because we imagine there's gonna be more…

00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:16.000
Because we're… we're…

00:28:16.000 --> 00:28:20.000
Conversation.

00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:23.000
Charlotte Meredith.

00:28:23.000 --> 00:28:35.000
Yeah, I mean, I think it does say in the 3, 4 that he went and told the nation all that he heard while he was up there with God.

00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:40.000
Has he been up there with God yet?

00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:41.000
He hasn't done it off yet…

00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:42.000
Well, in one to two.

00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:51.000
God… God says come, but it doesn't… we don't know.

00:28:51.000 --> 00:28:52.000
There has to be, right?

00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:57.000
Well, do we? So do we know that? Like, I feel like there's a midrash between 2 and 3 that has to happen there, because I think he does go up.

00:28:57.000 --> 00:29:03.000
He does go up, and they all go, and whatever, and comes back.

00:29:03.000 --> 00:29:09.000
you know, he's the only one that's actually going to be able to be there. And then Shema.

00:29:09.000 --> 00:29:23.000
Um, also has. like, I had to look it up. It's not just listen and hear. It's also obey, isn't it? It's like really take it in what Joan was saying.

00:29:23.000 --> 00:29:24.000
Yeah. Here's your smile, everybody.

00:29:24.000 --> 00:29:43.000
to, like… Then it becomes… intrinsic, then, like the quality of becoming intrinsic. When one hears, one takes in. Like, when we say Shema is hail, we're not just saying, oh, listen to what I'm saying, we're saying, get this.

00:29:43.000 --> 00:29:50.000
Grokthus. You know, this is more… this is the experience of one.

00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:53.000
So it's not just listen with your ears, I don't think.

00:29:53.000 --> 00:29:54.000
Yeah.

00:29:54.000 --> 00:30:02.000
And then when did the 12 tribes actually get identified? I don't remember that now they're.

00:30:02.000 --> 00:30:05.000
The fact of them.

00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:06.000
It was in Exodus 1.

00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:08.000
Mm-hmm. Okay.

00:30:08.000 --> 00:30:11.000
Because at that point, we've got…

00:30:11.000 --> 00:30:15.000
Sons…

00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:16.000
Right, there's a little shift over for…

00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:18.000
Right. Right.

00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:21.000
Joseph and the right author.

00:30:21.000 --> 00:30:22.000
But their descendants are laid out as, as the…

00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:26.000
Uh-huh, uh-huh, got that.

00:30:26.000 --> 00:30:28.000
tribes, and

00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:29.000
they are enslaved, and so they exist.

00:30:29.000 --> 00:30:32.000
Okay.

00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:37.000
We just haven't spent a lot of time on it yet, because there's been so much plot.

00:30:37.000 --> 00:30:42.000
Egypt, Egypt, Egypt, Egypt, get out, oh gosh.

00:30:42.000 --> 00:30:43.000
amendments.

00:30:43.000 --> 00:30:50.000
So this would… Yeah. So this would be curious to me, because by putting 12 pillars, pretty much everything they have is portable.

00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:57.000
And this seems to be that they're creating some kind of concrete, not portable place.

00:30:57.000 --> 00:31:01.000
Uh-huh. Yaha.

00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:02.000
Very good.

00:31:02.000 --> 00:31:07.000
So I see three hands, and then… and then we're gonna actually go to text.

00:31:07.000 --> 00:31:10.000
Chris, I've lost track of who was first.

00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:13.000
Uh, there is Deanne and David.

00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:18.000
I'm thinking that we will do…

00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:20.000
And we will hear

00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:24.000
It's still very much a slave mentality.

00:31:24.000 --> 00:31:28.000
Because as a, you know, as a slave,

00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:33.000
You don't really, you know, you're not really thinking about it, you just…

00:31:33.000 --> 00:31:38.000
You gotta do it. So, I think this is very much in keeping

00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:41.000
with who they…

00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:46.000
were, and now they're becoming something else.

00:31:46.000 --> 00:31:48.000
not only a people, but…

00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:52.000
They're gonna be given space

00:31:52.000 --> 00:31:54.000
to understand.

00:31:54.000 --> 00:31:56.000
to think about.

00:31:56.000 --> 00:31:59.000
Maybe. I'm… I'm making it up. I don't know.

00:31:59.000 --> 00:32:00.000
Well, well, yeah.

00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:02.000
All right, lovely. Lovely.

00:32:02.000 --> 00:32:06.000
Yeah, it's not the classic Ramid Rosh on this, but sure.

00:32:06.000 --> 00:32:09.000
Who are these people?

00:32:09.000 --> 00:32:13.000
And remember, those people, we have little bits of them in us, too, so…

00:32:13.000 --> 00:32:16.000
we're talking about ourselves here. Thank you, Meredith.

00:32:16.000 --> 00:32:17.000
Deanna, David, and then we're gonna do some stuff.

00:32:17.000 --> 00:32:20.000
And then text.

00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:26.000
Um, in terms of the chronology of what happened when, I have a slightly different reading from Cheryl.

00:32:26.000 --> 00:32:30.000
I'm reading one to two as

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:35.000
This is the quote from God. This is what God said to Moshe.

00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:41.000
3, 4, Moshi goes and says, here's what God told me.

00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:42.000
Yeah.

00:32:42.000 --> 00:32:47.000
They haven't ascended yet. They ascend in 9-10. It says that.

00:32:47.000 --> 00:32:48.000
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:32:48.000 --> 00:32:49.000
Yes.

00:32:49.000 --> 00:32:52.000
So that's how I'm understanding the order.

00:32:52.000 --> 00:32:54.000
And I think that is the shot, that is the…

00:32:54.000 --> 00:32:59.000
you know, taking it piece by piece in the order that we receive it, that is, I think, what it…

00:32:59.000 --> 00:33:00.000
Yeah.

00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:08.000
Which is not to say that Cheryl is wrong, because we also have the principle that says there's no before and after in Torah.

00:33:08.000 --> 00:33:11.000
Good old lawyer, David.

00:33:11.000 --> 00:33:19.000
It's probably a lawyerly comment. Challenged to come up with something in 3 and 4 that was interesting.

00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:26.000
I re-read it, and I decided that the sentence, Moshe wrote down all of Yud-Hev-Av-Heh's commands,

00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:32.000
was just silly and extraneous, and I couldn't imagine what that added to our state of knowledge.

00:33:32.000 --> 00:33:35.000
We already know he's insecure,

00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:39.000
that he takes God's commands seriously. I… I… I don't know.

00:33:39.000 --> 00:33:42.000
It just… it just struck me as something…

00:33:42.000 --> 00:33:46.000
Something silly. I don't know what it adds.

00:33:46.000 --> 00:33:48.000
But it has to add something, right?

00:33:48.000 --> 00:33:49.000
Because it's there.

00:33:49.000 --> 00:33:56.000
Right, right. My assumption is there's a reason for it, and I can't imagine what it is other than to restate that which we already know, which is he's…

00:33:56.000 --> 00:34:00.000
insecure, he doesn't consider himself a leader, and he…

00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:04.000
And so he has to write everything down to remember it. I don't know, it just…

00:34:04.000 --> 00:34:07.000
It just seemed extraneous, unless there's something

00:34:07.000 --> 00:34:09.000
worship. So…

00:34:09.000 --> 00:34:12.000
One possibility, I suppose, is he takes the Book of the

00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:14.000
covenant, and where does that come from?

00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:16.000
might be all the things he wrote down.

00:34:16.000 --> 00:34:21.000
Maybe. We don't know. Toro doesn't say.

00:34:21.000 --> 00:34:22.000
And also, is there some kind of proto-Torah? Like, what…

00:34:22.000 --> 00:34:31.000
Or didn't we get the 10…

00:34:31.000 --> 00:34:32.000
Yep, that was last week.

00:34:32.000 --> 00:34:33.000
Yelp. Yup.

00:34:33.000 --> 00:34:40.000
Didn't we get the 10 Commandments already? Right. So there is that knowledge, that book, that writing down.

00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:41.000
Yep.

00:34:41.000 --> 00:34:45.000
Those laws. Now we're getting more laws. So maybe we've been.

00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:48.000
Yeah. Now, here's the catch.

00:34:48.000 --> 00:34:51.000
Here, here is a little plot point in Cheryl,

00:34:51.000 --> 00:34:53.000
like, you know, she's taking it.

00:34:53.000 --> 00:34:57.000
You look like a guppy, like…

00:34:57.000 --> 00:34:59.000
For a minute.

00:34:59.000 --> 00:35:03.000
The Cecil B. DeMille scene.

00:35:03.000 --> 00:35:06.000
that we all have in our heads.

00:35:06.000 --> 00:35:08.000
Where Moses…

00:35:08.000 --> 00:35:11.000
People are at the 10…

00:35:11.000 --> 00:35:13.000
The, uh, Sinai…

00:35:13.000 --> 00:35:16.000
And lightning comes and strikes the town.

00:35:16.000 --> 00:35:19.000
tablets is not…

00:35:19.000 --> 00:35:23.000
Exodus 20 says.

00:35:23.000 --> 00:35:26.000
God spoke all these words, saying,

00:35:26.000 --> 00:35:29.000
I am. Don't.

00:35:29.000 --> 00:35:31.000
all the things.

00:35:31.000 --> 00:35:32.000
God, we don't get anything written at that time.

00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:36.000
But we don't get tablets until later.

00:35:36.000 --> 00:35:41.000
Yo! Right? In, in, um…

00:35:41.000 --> 00:35:43.000
right before the golden calf.

00:35:43.000 --> 00:35:46.000
God creates.

00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:49.000
tablets written with the finger of God. We're not there yet.

00:35:49.000 --> 00:35:55.000
Moses goes up for 40 days, and while he's there, he gets these tablets,

00:35:55.000 --> 00:36:00.000
Which, when he comes down with them, he sees that the children of Israel have made a calf.

00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:01.000
I've gone sideways, so we have not received…

00:36:01.000 --> 00:36:02.000
none of that has happened yet.

00:36:02.000 --> 00:36:08.000
Right? So, weaving aside and moved down. There's a before or after Torah.

00:36:08.000 --> 00:36:11.000
The thing that was written down here.

00:36:11.000 --> 00:36:15.000
could not yet have been the Ten Commandments.

00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:17.000
It couldn't happen yet.

00:36:17.000 --> 00:36:20.000
And therefore, it's being written down.

00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:22.000
Probably in context.

00:36:22.000 --> 00:36:27.000
These 53 meets votes, all the things that God has said,

00:36:27.000 --> 00:36:28.000
So far.

00:36:28.000 --> 00:36:32.000
Right. This, which we've… this piece that we grabbed here comes after…

00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:39.000
pages of Mitzvot, right? This is what you do if somebody's ox gores somebody else. This is…

00:36:39.000 --> 00:36:40.000
Yeah.

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:45.000
What you do, if you knew that the ox was prone to goring people versus you didn't know that the ox was…

00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:48.000
Right? So there's… there's been a lot of detail that…

00:36:48.000 --> 00:36:49.000
Yeah, yeah, and then.

00:36:49.000 --> 00:36:51.000
We've excerpted this from.

00:36:51.000 --> 00:36:55.000
Yup, and, and, um, in my…

00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:57.000
piece in the newsletter this week.

00:36:57.000 --> 00:36:59.000
Judaisms, uh…

00:36:59.000 --> 00:37:03.000
choice position.

00:37:03.000 --> 00:37:07.000
reproductive rights comes from this week's talk report.

00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:13.000
Um, they are.

00:37:13.000 --> 00:37:14.000
It's not murder.

00:37:14.000 --> 00:37:15.000
Somebody strikes a pregnant person and they miscarry, they owe damages in the form of money. It's not a manslaughter, it's not murder.

00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:18.000
But that's a whole thing. That's a whole thing.

00:37:18.000 --> 00:37:22.000
The notion of civil law, the obligation to stay

00:37:22.000 --> 00:37:27.000
All of this is in. All of this is in. All of this is in.

00:37:27.000 --> 00:37:32.000
You know, they may strike, pun intended, some of us as…

00:37:32.000 --> 00:37:34.000
as legalistic.

00:37:34.000 --> 00:37:38.000
If some of these things really are…

00:37:38.000 --> 00:37:42.000
to our identity and our social justice beingness. So,

00:37:42.000 --> 00:37:45.000
All this has happened, and then after that…

00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:49.000
We have this, you know, up and down thing that we've got.

00:37:49.000 --> 00:37:56.000
Now, the brickwork of sapphire. We've got… we will do when you were here, and we've got the Book of the Covenant, what's

00:37:56.000 --> 00:37:58.000
We've got, you know, the 12…

00:37:58.000 --> 00:38:02.000
And we can see God.

00:38:02.000 --> 00:38:05.000
So let us scroll down, because we have some goodies for you.

00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:08.000
Yeah, is anyone feeling like their brains are…

00:38:08.000 --> 00:38:12.000
There's a lot here.

00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:15.000
And it's very dense.

00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:20.000
I think from a storytelling perspective, it's really…

00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:22.000
And from a spiritual perspective.

00:38:22.000 --> 00:38:25.000
It's really important. We'll bring you a couple pieces. We're gonna do

00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:31.000
First do, then here, and then we're gonna spend time on the Yammer Brick Road. I mean…

00:38:31.000 --> 00:38:33.000
Sapphire for growth.

00:38:33.000 --> 00:38:36.000
So, Rabbi Rachel, you want us?

00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:43.000
Sure. All right, so who wants to read, uh, Sforno? What does Sforno say about Na's 7ishma? We will do and we will hear.

00:38:43.000 --> 00:38:47.000
I will. We will do, and we will hear.

00:38:47.000 --> 00:38:51.000
We will do first by taking in God's voice.

00:38:51.000 --> 00:38:54.000
Like servants serving their master.

00:38:54.000 --> 00:38:58.000
Not expecting to receive a reward.

00:38:58.000 --> 00:39:04.000
Was it Meredith who just talked about, you know, maybe this is the slave mentality.

00:39:04.000 --> 00:39:12.000
Yeah, so maybe that's part of what this is, right? We will do, we're going to listen, and we're gonna do what you say, and we're not expecting

00:39:12.000 --> 00:39:14.000
Cookies for doing it.

00:39:14.000 --> 00:39:20.000
Right? Or alternatively, we're not slaves, we're just doing it out of the goodness of our heart.

00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:25.000
So it's not slave mentality, it's really amenable to both.

00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:27.000
But the attitude of…

00:39:27.000 --> 00:39:31.000
Welcome to the attitude and why we do it.

00:39:31.000 --> 00:39:34.000
is everything here.

00:39:34.000 --> 00:39:38.000
It isn't just about the laws.

00:39:38.000 --> 00:39:43.000
Well, for me, the critical piece here is not expecting to receive a reward, right?

00:39:43.000 --> 00:39:50.000
Doing something because I want a cookie or a gold star, or a trophy.

00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:56.000
is, I would say, morally different than doing it because it's right.

00:39:56.000 --> 00:40:05.000
to his emphasizing, we're doing this because we think it's right, not because God is going to give us a gold in anything.

00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:08.000
And what's next?

00:40:08.000 --> 00:40:17.000
Somebody give us Roshbaum.

00:40:17.000 --> 00:40:23.000
It's in English, folks, you can do it.

00:40:23.000 --> 00:40:29.000
said already.

00:40:29.000 --> 00:40:31.000
So for Roshba Mitzvah,

00:40:31.000 --> 00:40:35.000
this, then that. First, we'll do the things we're told,

00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:38.000
And then we'll listen for what God says to do next.

00:40:38.000 --> 00:40:40.000
We're always in a state of listening.

00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:44.000
for what God says next.

00:40:44.000 --> 00:40:48.000
Stone Saltz is going to take that idea and run with it.

00:40:48.000 --> 00:40:52.000
In addition to their agreement to obey what God already said to do,

00:40:52.000 --> 00:40:57.000
Now we're declaring our commitment to obey whatever God says to do later.

00:40:57.000 --> 00:41:01.000
So not only the fulfillment of the commands, the mitzvot, but also

00:41:01.000 --> 00:41:05.000
Our internal acceptance.

00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:11.000
Going from the commands to the internality of it.

00:41:11.000 --> 00:41:12.000
Yeah, Ellen Ruth.

00:41:12.000 --> 00:41:17.000
Aviva's… hmm.

00:41:17.000 --> 00:41:22.000
If there's no, um, before and after in the Torah,

00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:27.000
then why can't we will do and we will have…

00:41:27.000 --> 00:41:31.000
apply in that same way.

00:41:31.000 --> 00:41:39.000
It's an interesting question. I think usually the idea that there's no before and after in Torah is used

00:41:39.000 --> 00:41:44.000
when our sages want to link to things that are temporarily in the wrong order.

00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:49.000
Um, but I like your idea also that maybe…

00:41:49.000 --> 00:41:57.000
We will do and we will hear can happen in either direction, it doesn't really matter which one.

00:41:57.000 --> 00:42:00.000
Viva Zolenberg, who's a contemporary,

00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:02.000
is gonna say, this

00:42:02.000 --> 00:42:04.000
Covenant is not

00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:07.000
just a treaty with terms

00:42:07.000 --> 00:42:09.000
that we're exceeding to.

00:42:09.000 --> 00:42:14.000
It is an inner commitment to something beyond obedience.

00:42:14.000 --> 00:42:17.000
Covenant is something deeper

00:42:17.000 --> 00:42:22.000
than any treaty or agreement or contract.

00:42:22.000 --> 00:42:27.000
into which we might enter as human beings otherwise, because this is covenant with God.

00:42:27.000 --> 00:42:29.000
And we are committing to something.

00:42:29.000 --> 00:42:32.000
Right? It's relationship, it's identity.

00:42:32.000 --> 00:42:35.000
That's big, right? It isn't…

00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:39.000
I am buying an apple from you, and it's transactional.

00:42:39.000 --> 00:42:45.000
Covenant is fundamentally about relationship. It's fundamentally about

00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:49.000
Mutuality of identity. I am because you are.

00:42:49.000 --> 00:42:56.000
I am changed because you're with me.

00:42:56.000 --> 00:42:57.000
Mm-hmm.

00:42:57.000 --> 00:42:58.000
Well, exactly right. Exactly right.

00:42:58.000 --> 00:42:59.000
Saying it's a ketubah.

00:42:59.000 --> 00:43:03.000
That's one of our fundamental human metaphors for what this is. It's like…

00:43:03.000 --> 00:43:10.000
Right? It's like a ketubah, it's like the covenant a parent makes with a child. I'm gonna bring you into this world, and I'm going to…

00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:12.000
be changed thereby.

00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:18.000
As opposed to, I took you into this world, I can take you out and make another one look just like you.

00:43:18.000 --> 00:43:19.000
different.

00:43:19.000 --> 00:43:22.000
Different covenant.

00:43:22.000 --> 00:43:25.000
And so it's, again, why is it so important?

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:28.000
that we have this right now.

00:43:28.000 --> 00:43:31.000
Because this is the first time we're getting walls.

00:43:31.000 --> 00:43:34.000
The Ten Commandments, yeah, but…

00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:38.000
So many of you have written in the chat box that it's really important to have laws.

00:43:38.000 --> 00:43:44.000
It finds a community, it creates a nation as a collective experience, as a shared

00:43:44.000 --> 00:43:48.000
Judaism, in spiritual life, these laws

00:43:48.000 --> 00:43:52.000
are not just about modes of behavior.

00:43:52.000 --> 00:43:55.000
They're also about being.

00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:56.000
And we…

00:43:56.000 --> 00:43:59.000
about who we are in the world, and how we are in the world.

00:43:59.000 --> 00:44:03.000
with each other, with God, as if a ketubah.

00:44:03.000 --> 00:44:08.000
And therefore, with the track that's being laid down from the very start

00:44:08.000 --> 00:44:11.000
is, and I'm saying this as a lawyer,

00:44:11.000 --> 00:44:15.000
You're gonna do a whole bunch of lawyering here.

00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:18.000
Don't over-lawyer.

00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:21.000
Be sure to be here.

00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:22.000
Fast. Get out.

00:44:22.000 --> 00:44:24.000
Don't mistake the finger for the moon.

00:44:24.000 --> 00:44:26.000
Right.

00:44:26.000 --> 00:44:32.000
Your mind's right, isn't it? And about intention as well to go all the way back.

00:44:32.000 --> 00:44:33.000
Yeah.

00:44:33.000 --> 00:44:35.000
Before you think or do anything.

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:43.000
Yeah, so case in point, let's use Shabbat. There were a whole bunch of laws about Shabbat. There's your have-tos, there's a whole bunch of you can'ts.

00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:48.000
We can invest ourselves completely in the have-dos and can'ts.

00:44:48.000 --> 00:44:51.000
If we lose the juice of wine.

00:44:51.000 --> 00:44:57.000
If we lose the juice of the relationship.

00:44:57.000 --> 00:44:59.000
then it's just gonna be…

00:44:59.000 --> 00:45:01.000
so much sheetrock on our…

00:45:01.000 --> 00:45:02.000
Do this, don't do that.

00:45:02.000 --> 00:45:05.000
pathways of life, right? But it's not that.

00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:11.000
And so when we use that…

00:45:11.000 --> 00:45:17.000
That's why it's being laid down right now, from the start.

00:45:17.000 --> 00:45:21.000
We will forget over and over and over again.

00:45:21.000 --> 00:45:32.000
Oh. Why don't you, can you say that a little more plainly? Are we talking about not just ruling citizens, but actually human beings?

00:45:32.000 --> 00:45:33.000
Okay. Yeah, um…

00:45:33.000 --> 00:45:37.000
Is that… you know, which I think is very important.

00:45:37.000 --> 00:45:44.000
So think of it this way.

00:45:44.000 --> 00:45:47.000
There's the black files, the black letters of…

00:45:47.000 --> 00:45:49.000
laws are.

00:45:49.000 --> 00:45:52.000
Midwash is sort of infusing…

00:45:52.000 --> 00:45:55.000
written with something that's not written.

00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:57.000
There's a juice behind an internal one.

00:45:57.000 --> 00:46:02.000
probably being, right?

00:46:02.000 --> 00:46:10.000
Don't work on Shabbat. If we experience don't work on Shabbat, whatever that means, merely as a restriction.

00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:13.000
We can honor it.

00:46:13.000 --> 00:46:16.000
But it's not going to transform us.

00:46:16.000 --> 00:46:19.000
We're not gonna experience it.

00:46:19.000 --> 00:46:22.000
as continental.

00:46:22.000 --> 00:46:27.000
As something more than a promise, a relationship of identity.

00:46:27.000 --> 00:46:30.000
We will do, and we will hear, we will do what we will do.

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:32.000
be changed from the inside.

00:46:32.000 --> 00:46:36.000
In order for all of that to happen.

00:46:36.000 --> 00:46:39.000
bring back to…

00:46:39.000 --> 00:46:42.000
don't work on Shabbat if that's our thing.

00:46:42.000 --> 00:46:52.000
Build a power pen on the roof, or what we eat, or how we eat, or how we engage in community, or how we talked about people, or whether we talk to people or not.

00:46:52.000 --> 00:46:55.000
We've gotta bring that God's spark into it.

00:46:55.000 --> 00:46:56.000
Otherwise, it's just a law.

00:46:56.000 --> 00:47:01.000
It's just words.

00:47:01.000 --> 00:47:05.000
We will do and we will hear.

00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:10.000
And that takes us right to the Kahot Humash here, right, by saying we will do

00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:12.000
Before we will hear.

00:47:12.000 --> 00:47:19.000
They imply that they were prepared to fulfill God's will unconditionally even before they knew what it was.

00:47:19.000 --> 00:47:22.000
When the ministering angels heard this,

00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:24.000
They descended from heaven,

00:47:24.000 --> 00:47:30.000
And placed two ethereal crowns woven out of the splendor of God's presence,

00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:32.000
on the head of each Jew.

00:47:32.000 --> 00:47:36.000
One for we will do, and one for we will hear.

00:47:36.000 --> 00:47:41.000
Can everyone just look at me for half a second? Because I want… this is one of those visual moments

00:47:41.000 --> 00:47:48.000
Whether you were watching the screen or not, or you were just listening to Rabbi Rachel read this,

00:47:48.000 --> 00:47:50.000
Looks on some faces were just…

00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:53.000
Precious.

00:47:53.000 --> 00:48:02.000
And placed two ethereal crowns woven out of the splendor of God's presence on the head of each Jew.

00:48:02.000 --> 00:48:08.000
Yep, we all have invisible crowns, you can't see them, but they're there.

00:48:08.000 --> 00:48:09.000
Woven out of God.

00:48:09.000 --> 00:48:11.000
out of the splinter.

00:48:11.000 --> 00:48:13.000
of God's presence.

00:48:13.000 --> 00:48:18.000
How long does it feel to know?

00:48:18.000 --> 00:48:23.000
That you wear on your head.

00:48:23.000 --> 00:48:26.000
Rounds woven out of the space.

00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:30.000
Lender of God's presence. Oh, no, Rabbi Rachel, you did not just do that.

00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:36.000
Oh, I did!

00:48:36.000 --> 00:48:38.000
helped all the team around my ears.

00:48:38.000 --> 00:48:40.000
Woven out of the splendor of God's presence.

00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:42.000
There you go. Out.

00:48:42.000 --> 00:48:44.000
How does it feel to know

00:48:44.000 --> 00:48:48.000
Imagine that actually you're wearing a crown of

00:48:48.000 --> 00:48:56.000
God's splendor.

00:48:56.000 --> 00:49:01.000
And we're wearing them, we merit to wear them because we…

00:49:01.000 --> 00:49:02.000
will do when we'll hear.

00:49:02.000 --> 00:49:04.000
do it here. Call it out.

00:49:04.000 --> 00:49:15.000
I mean, is this word solid, or is this real? What is this?

00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:16.000
Yeah.

00:49:16.000 --> 00:49:17.000
Yeah.

00:49:17.000 --> 00:49:18.000
It feels great to know that. Everybody who's wearing one, you know, it's not just an individual thing, it's you look around and it's reflected back to you.

00:49:18.000 --> 00:49:21.000
Several.

00:49:21.000 --> 00:49:25.000
You have one, too.

00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:39.000
I really love this, but I feel like. I feel like I'm devil's advocate right now. Placing to take creates a duality versus having one that would encompass both.

00:49:39.000 --> 00:49:40.000
Legit. Legit.

00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:43.000
Yeah. Yeah, I agree.

00:49:43.000 --> 00:49:45.000
Legit.

00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:49.000
If it said 1.

00:49:49.000 --> 00:49:52.000
Um, we will do and we will hear.

00:49:52.000 --> 00:49:54.000
You feel differently.

00:49:54.000 --> 00:49:57.000
We're in God's crown, how you doing?

00:49:57.000 --> 00:50:07.000
No, I mean, it's fabulous. It's wonderful. And, and also I think… I hope this isn't too crazy for people, but.

00:50:07.000 --> 00:50:09.000
We just saw God's feet on a brick foi sapphire way. What's crazy now?

00:50:09.000 --> 00:50:14.000
When we…

00:50:14.000 --> 00:50:29.000
I think one of the ways that I. have dealt with discomfort with humanity sometimes, like when I used to ride the subway, I would imagine each of the people as, like.

00:50:29.000 --> 00:50:48.000
angels in their own right. And I would, like, go from face to face. And so this feels like now I have a… Judaic brand of that, where when I'm in a crowd and, you know, how do we consider people as much as ourselves? You know, the golden rule, the…

00:50:48.000 --> 00:50:49.000
Beautiful.

00:50:49.000 --> 00:50:50.000
Yeah.

00:50:50.000 --> 00:50:55.000
Um, so I think this is a really good tool for me that I can use going forward.

00:50:55.000 --> 00:51:02.000
Yeah, look on the screen, everybody. I see crowns of God.

00:51:02.000 --> 00:51:07.000
I see. Crowns of God!

00:51:07.000 --> 00:51:12.000
What happens if you go about your day like that? That's… talk about going through the world

00:51:12.000 --> 00:51:13.000
with, uh…

00:51:13.000 --> 00:51:14.000
Different eyes.

00:51:14.000 --> 00:51:17.000
With god-colored glasses.

00:51:17.000 --> 00:51:18.000
Yeah.

00:51:18.000 --> 00:51:19.000
James has a hand up, and then I want to get us to the sapphires.

00:51:19.000 --> 00:51:21.000
Yeah.

00:51:21.000 --> 00:51:27.000
So, I don't want to be Debbie Downer, but doesn't it also later say that after the golden cap, they lost the Crowns?

00:51:27.000 --> 00:51:31.000
Yeah. Why did they lose the grounds?

00:51:31.000 --> 00:51:32.000
Well,

00:51:32.000 --> 00:51:38.000
Yes, because we're going to screw up. We haven't done it yet, but we are about to engage in an epic screw-up.

00:51:38.000 --> 00:51:39.000
We are going to engage in an ethics group.

00:51:39.000 --> 00:51:40.000
Do they come back?

00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:44.000
Do they come back somewhere else in, I don't know, the Talmud or something like that?

00:51:44.000 --> 00:51:47.000
Yeah.

00:51:47.000 --> 00:51:48.000
Yeah, they do. Alright.

00:51:48.000 --> 00:51:52.000
So, I'm just… I'm gonna move us quickly through these last couple of little texts so that we can get to sapphires.

00:51:52.000 --> 00:51:59.000
Do me a favor, just because I know that for someone here, this is going to be really meaningful to read.

00:51:59.000 --> 00:52:10.000
If I may, Martha Salter, would you mind waiting for it lost?

00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:19.000
We will do and we will hear. Corresponds to hidden and revealed.

00:52:19.000 --> 00:52:31.000
We will do evokes the revealed. Precepts that each and every person can fulfill commencer it with one's level.

00:52:31.000 --> 00:52:35.000
We will hear… evokes the hidden.

00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:40.000
That which is elevated. And hidden from us.

00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:44.000
Beautiful.

00:52:44.000 --> 00:52:45.000
Hidden in the revealed, the outer and the inner.

00:52:45.000 --> 00:52:46.000
Back fourth…

00:52:46.000 --> 00:52:49.000
The orientation that's being asked of us here.

00:52:49.000 --> 00:52:55.000
is to continually listen.

00:52:55.000 --> 00:53:00.000
We will hear. We gotta keep listening for what's above us.

00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:01.000
And what came in for us.

00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:02.000
that quality.

00:53:02.000 --> 00:53:04.000
Right, right, right, right, right.

00:53:04.000 --> 00:53:08.000
Which means that it's not just what we think is right already.

00:53:08.000 --> 00:53:12.000
This is not just about chimney cricket.

00:53:12.000 --> 00:53:19.000
This is opening ourselves up to a radical not-knowing.

00:53:19.000 --> 00:53:23.000
and listening up.

00:53:23.000 --> 00:53:24.000
So, whatever your language is.

00:53:24.000 --> 00:53:26.000
or in, or whatever metaphor you need.

00:53:26.000 --> 00:53:30.000
Erico, just because you're getting low

00:53:30.000 --> 00:53:35.000
Does it mean you stop listening?

00:53:35.000 --> 00:53:38.000
Just because we're being told what to do.

00:53:38.000 --> 00:53:41.000
doesn't mean…

00:53:41.000 --> 00:53:46.000
orientation to it isn't.

00:53:46.000 --> 00:53:48.000
what Heschel would call radical amazement.

00:53:48.000 --> 00:53:52.000
Listening.

00:53:52.000 --> 00:53:53.000
thinking. Law doesn't take the place of that.

00:53:53.000 --> 00:53:56.000
Hmm.

00:53:56.000 --> 00:54:01.000
Just don't take the place of that.

00:54:01.000 --> 00:54:04.000
It is that we be told this

00:54:04.000 --> 00:54:09.000
The start of it all.

00:54:09.000 --> 00:54:15.000
And the last thing we have here is something that some of y'all evoked earlier when we were looking at our verses.

00:54:15.000 --> 00:54:17.000
Jonathan Shacks says…

00:54:17.000 --> 00:54:27.000
Our ancestors derived the conclusion that we can only understand Judaism by doing it, by performing the commands and living a Jewish life.

00:54:27.000 --> 00:54:31.000
In the beginning is the deed. Only then comes the grasp.

00:54:31.000 --> 00:54:33.000
The insight, the comprehension,

00:54:33.000 --> 00:54:38.000
The only way to understand a way of life is to take the risk of living it.

00:54:38.000 --> 00:54:46.000
I love this, right? We light Shabbat candles not because someone explained to us why lighting Shabbat candles is important,

00:54:46.000 --> 00:54:53.000
But because we do it week after week, and in the doing we come to understand it and understand what it does in us.

00:54:53.000 --> 00:55:00.000
We do, and then we get it.

00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:02.000
We could spend all day just on that.

00:55:02.000 --> 00:55:07.000
But we have some real goodies for you about the sapphires.

00:55:07.000 --> 00:55:09.000
out on the South Harbor Road.

00:55:09.000 --> 00:55:17.000
Oh, while you're raising your hands.

00:55:17.000 --> 00:55:23.000
There, okay. Um, I'm writing, I'm writing down madly here, um…

00:55:23.000 --> 00:55:28.000
There's something about this following of rules, if you've got some rules,

00:55:28.000 --> 00:55:30.000
It takes away

00:55:30.000 --> 00:55:37.000
a whole lot of other options around you that might be distracting so that you can focus on

00:55:37.000 --> 00:55:41.000
Where you are, and that way, you connect with God.

00:55:41.000 --> 00:55:44.000
Yeah, absolutely, Elmo.

00:55:44.000 --> 00:55:50.000
Hello, come on board, well done. There's a reason for Siobhan

00:55:50.000 --> 00:55:53.000
For instance, there's a reason for being…

00:55:53.000 --> 00:55:57.000
you know, guided in how to treat people.

00:55:57.000 --> 00:56:00.000
It makes space for God.

00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:04.000
Yeah.

00:56:04.000 --> 00:56:08.000
Yeah.

00:56:08.000 --> 00:56:11.000
Okay.

00:56:11.000 --> 00:56:17.000
Did anyone understand the sapphire when you were there? I didn't hear anyone explain the sapphire.

00:56:17.000 --> 00:56:19.000
It was sapphire show.

00:56:19.000 --> 00:56:25.000
We're about to go take a deep dive into this.

00:56:25.000 --> 00:56:32.000
Yeah, well, I do work with crystals and sapphire is.

00:56:32.000 --> 00:56:38.000
Um, wisdom and. Like, divine blessing, like, being looked upon favorably.

00:56:38.000 --> 00:56:44.000
Something about that is also the blue. I mean, in Buddhism, we use lapis lazuli.

00:56:44.000 --> 00:56:46.000
Yeah.

00:56:46.000 --> 00:56:47.000
Yeah.

00:56:47.000 --> 00:56:53.000
So the sapphire, you know, also it's the it's very grounding. So to have it as.

00:56:53.000 --> 00:56:54.000
This is going to take us, I think, to some surprising places.

00:56:54.000 --> 00:57:04.000
have.

00:57:04.000 --> 00:57:06.000
So let's take a step back.

00:57:06.000 --> 00:57:16.000
When last we left our intrepid heroes, they were in Egypt making bricks.

00:57:16.000 --> 00:57:20.000
In fact, they had to make bricks without straw, if you remember.

00:57:20.000 --> 00:57:24.000
Not only will they not have a Shabbat, they're gonna have an anti-Shabat.

00:57:24.000 --> 00:57:28.000
Go make your bricks without straw.

00:57:28.000 --> 00:57:32.000
You want to make your text larger if you could.

00:57:32.000 --> 00:57:38.000
Not larger, but you've got your own personal screen up at the same time.

00:57:38.000 --> 00:57:39.000
Rachel, that may be elope.

00:57:39.000 --> 00:57:44.000
Rabbi David, want to take us in?

00:57:44.000 --> 00:57:45.000
Okay.

00:57:45.000 --> 00:57:46.000
The green… the green button, I think.

00:57:46.000 --> 00:57:47.000
You know, we're… yeah, we're… I think we're having some… some technical difficulties with making the thing full screen.

00:57:47.000 --> 00:57:49.000
Hold on, let me, I'm gonna try it one more time, how's that?

00:57:49.000 --> 00:57:50.000
There we go, now it's… now you got it.

00:57:50.000 --> 00:57:52.000
Oh, okay, okay. Okay, thank you.

00:57:52.000 --> 00:57:54.000
Okay, so sorry about that.

00:57:54.000 --> 00:57:56.000
Sorry about that. Okay.

00:57:56.000 --> 00:58:01.000
So we made bricks without straw. So what's the first thing?

00:58:01.000 --> 00:58:12.000
symbol that God is going to give us of something transcendent.

00:58:12.000 --> 00:58:15.000
God will turn.

00:58:15.000 --> 00:58:18.000
The symbol of…

00:58:18.000 --> 00:58:20.000
enslavement.

00:58:20.000 --> 00:58:24.000
The thing that we made with our own hands.

00:58:24.000 --> 00:58:26.000
Into…

00:58:26.000 --> 00:58:35.000
A symbol of transcendence that we cannot make with our own hands.

00:58:35.000 --> 00:58:37.000
like the making of a brickwork.

00:58:37.000 --> 00:58:41.000
of sapphire writes Rashi of this.

00:58:41.000 --> 00:58:46.000
This came to God.

00:58:46.000 --> 00:58:49.000
We're jumping the gates for a second. During the time of the subjugation,

00:58:49.000 --> 00:58:53.000
was the way of Israel by which they were subjugated, making bricks.

00:58:53.000 --> 00:59:01.000
let's say God is trying to figure out, hey, how do I reach these people? I mean, how do I really reach them?

00:59:01.000 --> 00:59:07.000
Let me take the circumstance that broke their backs.

00:59:07.000 --> 00:59:15.000
It bespeaks a divinity really trying to reach us.

00:59:15.000 --> 00:59:16.000
Which itself is huge.

00:59:16.000 --> 00:59:18.000
That worked.

00:59:18.000 --> 00:59:21.000
And we can apply this to everything in our lives.

00:59:21.000 --> 00:59:24.000
Like, trying to speak in human metaphors.

00:59:24.000 --> 00:59:27.000
And in particular, the metaphor

00:59:27.000 --> 00:59:31.000
that reflected our greatest suffering, um…

00:59:31.000 --> 00:59:37.000
I forget who wrote it, I'll think of it when I'm not trying to think of it.

00:59:37.000 --> 00:59:42.000
God uses our suffering to call us by name.

00:59:42.000 --> 00:59:47.000
God uses our own experiences of pain.

00:59:47.000 --> 00:59:54.000
As a way to reach us not that God sent those experiences.

00:59:54.000 --> 00:59:58.000
To try to redeem them in some way.

00:59:58.000 --> 01:00:00.000
Healing from them, we can come.

01:00:00.000 --> 01:00:06.000
To experience divinity, the sacred, the holy, in new ways.

01:00:06.000 --> 01:00:09.000
That has nothing to do with Sapphire.

01:00:09.000 --> 01:00:12.000
But the very fact of using this…

01:00:12.000 --> 01:00:15.000
now becomes profound.

01:00:15.000 --> 01:00:24.000
I want to note that in the chat, Elma has mentioned sapphire is sky blue, which we will loop back to, so hold on to that.

01:00:24.000 --> 01:00:27.000
This group, this is so great.

01:00:27.000 --> 01:00:30.000
But he's funny, tons of mid rush.

01:00:30.000 --> 01:00:33.000
And this is a very feminist midrash.

01:00:33.000 --> 01:00:36.000
For reasons that will become apparent.

01:00:36.000 --> 01:00:45.000
I would like to read, we will help you with the Hebrew.

01:00:45.000 --> 01:00:47.000
Rabbi Akiva said,

01:00:47.000 --> 01:00:51.000
Pharaoh's servants forced Israel

01:00:51.000 --> 01:00:54.000
To prepare a double set of bricks.

01:00:54.000 --> 01:00:57.000
And refused to supply them straw,

01:00:57.000 --> 01:01:02.000
to reinforce them. So they had to forage in the fields.

01:01:02.000 --> 01:01:05.000
They gathered straw full of thorns and thistles,

01:01:05.000 --> 01:01:08.000
which pierced the skin of their feet.

01:01:08.000 --> 01:01:12.000
Blood from their wounds mixing with the clay.

01:01:12.000 --> 01:01:17.000
A pregnant Rachel, daughter of Methuselah's son,

01:01:17.000 --> 01:01:20.000
was trampling clay with her husband.

01:01:20.000 --> 01:01:26.000
Bloodied all over until she miscarried on the birthing stool.

01:01:26.000 --> 01:01:28.000
The fetus…

01:01:28.000 --> 01:01:32.000
The fetus emerged and mixed into the clay.

01:01:32.000 --> 01:01:36.000
underfoot. She wailed for her son.

01:01:36.000 --> 01:01:40.000
Her cry ascended to the throne of glory.

01:01:40.000 --> 01:01:43.000
The Archangel Mikael descended.

01:01:43.000 --> 01:01:44.000
took him, brought him before the throne of glory.

01:01:44.000 --> 01:01:47.000
all day.

01:01:47.000 --> 01:01:51.000
turned him into a brick.

01:01:51.000 --> 01:01:55.000
and placed him under the feet of the Holy Blessed One.

01:01:55.000 --> 01:01:58.000
As in, and under his feet,

01:01:58.000 --> 01:02:03.000
was like the making of brickwork of sapphire.

01:02:03.000 --> 01:02:05.000
Meaning, a brick of sapphire,

01:02:05.000 --> 01:02:08.000
was made from the placenta.

01:02:08.000 --> 01:02:11.000
of the birthing woman.

01:02:11.000 --> 01:02:14.000
word for sapphires up here.

01:02:14.000 --> 01:02:19.000
for placenta in Hebrew Shapir.

01:02:19.000 --> 01:02:26.000
are very similar, and in some places, pronounced exactly the same.

01:02:26.000 --> 01:02:27.000
She's up here, very good, yes.

01:02:27.000 --> 01:02:28.000
also means to improve too, right?

01:02:28.000 --> 01:02:32.000
And in the same way, between birthing stool and brick,

01:02:32.000 --> 01:02:35.000
These are both oral…

01:02:35.000 --> 01:02:40.000
audible wordplays. This is a technique our sages use a lot.

01:02:40.000 --> 01:02:42.000
So, connecting the…

01:02:42.000 --> 01:02:44.000
Birthing stool with the brick.

01:02:44.000 --> 01:02:46.000
The sapphire…

01:02:46.000 --> 01:02:50.000
with that which nourished

01:02:50.000 --> 01:02:52.000
the baby in your… in utero.

01:02:52.000 --> 01:02:57.000
So, very cute. Why is this Midrash here?

01:02:57.000 --> 01:03:02.000
every mid-rush is making it to clone of some kind.

01:03:02.000 --> 01:03:04.000
Why is this here?

01:03:04.000 --> 01:03:13.000
Now, why did we choose it? Why does it exist?

01:03:13.000 --> 01:03:18.000
What you got?

01:03:18.000 --> 01:03:19.000
This may take a moment.

01:03:19.000 --> 01:03:22.000
I will offer an I statement.

01:03:22.000 --> 01:03:24.000
And then I see Cheryl.

01:03:24.000 --> 01:03:31.000
If anyone here… I have experienced… I experienced a miscarriage before my son was born.

01:03:31.000 --> 01:03:34.000
And it was excruciating.

01:03:34.000 --> 01:03:37.000
emotionally and physically.

01:03:37.000 --> 01:03:43.000
Here again, taking the experience of suffering and…

01:03:43.000 --> 01:03:47.000
Not subjugation, but grief.

01:03:47.000 --> 01:03:52.000
And inverting it, lifting it up, making it something holy.

01:03:52.000 --> 01:03:58.000
It's the same kind of move that our ancestors are making with the bricks.

01:03:58.000 --> 01:04:00.000
So it's redemptive in some way.

01:04:00.000 --> 01:04:03.000
That's the… thank you, that's the word I wanted.

01:04:03.000 --> 01:04:15.000
Okay, Cheryl.

01:04:15.000 --> 01:04:18.000
that are suffering is not separate

01:04:18.000 --> 01:04:21.000
from God, it is actually become…

01:04:21.000 --> 01:04:24.000
God's footstool.

01:04:24.000 --> 01:04:28.000
So sacred, is it?

01:04:28.000 --> 01:04:33.000
emotions are in the room now.

01:04:33.000 --> 01:04:35.000
And I feel very strange moderating this part of the conversation.

01:04:35.000 --> 01:04:39.000
conversation. Bye-bye, Rachel, please save me.

01:04:39.000 --> 01:04:40.000
Thank you.

01:04:40.000 --> 01:04:44.000
What are we feeling, friends?

01:04:44.000 --> 01:04:46.000
Joan.

01:04:46.000 --> 01:04:54.000
Well, the… They were refused the straw to make the bricks.

01:04:54.000 --> 01:04:56.000
Mm-hmm.

01:04:56.000 --> 01:05:04.000
Why did they put themselves through the misery of finding an alternative.

01:05:04.000 --> 01:05:11.000
Uh, what, you know, or should we say, why do we go through, uh.

01:05:11.000 --> 01:05:28.000
uh, you know… fire and brimstone to get to solve a problem. Why couldn't they have just… made the bricks without, except they knew that if they did it that way, it wouldn't work well.

01:05:28.000 --> 01:05:38.000
So, there's sacrifice in this. It says, uh, it says sometimes stuff is tough.

01:05:38.000 --> 01:05:47.000
Bloody, miserable, and you are rewarded. in having gotten through it.

01:05:47.000 --> 01:05:51.000
Hmm, beautiful.

01:05:51.000 --> 01:05:55.000
I am not blind to suffering.

01:05:55.000 --> 01:06:00.000
What else?

01:06:00.000 --> 01:06:07.000
I will say, to me, there's something really striking about seeing this in the classical Midrashic tradition. This was not written

01:06:07.000 --> 01:06:11.000
by a woman in the 20th century or the 21st?

01:06:11.000 --> 01:06:13.000
Right?

01:06:13.000 --> 01:06:16.000
there's… there's a care…

01:06:16.000 --> 01:06:20.000
here that really moves me.

01:06:20.000 --> 01:06:24.000
And again, a fundamental intention not only to

01:06:24.000 --> 01:06:26.000
include, but to the longify.

01:06:26.000 --> 01:06:30.000
Because as we saw last week,

01:06:30.000 --> 01:06:34.000
Everybody had to be there. The covenant is about everybody.

01:06:34.000 --> 01:06:36.000
It's not just about the 70…

01:06:36.000 --> 01:06:39.000
punitively male elders who get up and they see.

01:06:39.000 --> 01:06:41.000
you know, this sapphire.

01:06:41.000 --> 01:06:47.000
In this mid-rush is existentially feminine.

01:06:47.000 --> 01:06:48.000
existentially of

01:06:48.000 --> 01:06:52.000
Mm-hmm.

01:06:52.000 --> 01:06:57.000
Now, is there anything else here? Iris.

01:06:57.000 --> 01:07:01.000
We're gonna get really woo on you.

01:07:01.000 --> 01:07:02.000
Because we haven't yet.

01:07:02.000 --> 01:07:16.000
I feel… Yeah, just personally, I feel very touched by all this. I actually had to go get a tissue, so… Um, yeah.

01:07:16.000 --> 01:07:26.000
I… just, like, in… well, in a more condensed way, if it's possible to condense feelings.

01:07:26.000 --> 01:07:56.000
I feel that it's making. Well, we've already said taking suffering and making it redemptive. I also feel that it's… a way of bringing… it's another way of bringing us into community, because… The, you know, the placenta becomes something it is life. And then it wasn't sustaining life anymore because there was a miscarriage. But yet.

01:07:59.000 --> 01:08:00.000
Beautiful.

01:08:00.000 --> 01:08:01.000
Yep.

01:08:01.000 --> 01:08:19.000
Um, it still sustains life by being transformed. from suffering and to redemption, and that… So, and then I think it gives us empathy and compassion for other people's experiences, because.

01:08:19.000 --> 01:08:20.000
Right?

01:08:20.000 --> 01:08:27.000
as the specific example of a miscarriage that we're not… marginalizing a person in the sense of ignoring their pain, but we're becoming more of.

01:08:27.000 --> 01:08:28.000
Oh, man.

01:08:28.000 --> 01:08:33.000
A community of compassion and understanding and empathy and other things that bond us together instead of separate us.

01:08:33.000 --> 01:08:37.000
This is not to distract us from the world.

01:08:37.000 --> 01:08:40.000
This is to invest us in the world.

01:08:40.000 --> 01:08:41.000
Yeah…

01:08:41.000 --> 01:08:52.000
Yeah. Yeah, that demands other people's experiences, or if we share that it enhances our connection instead of dividing us.

01:08:52.000 --> 01:08:54.000
Deanna, and then we're gonna go…

01:08:54.000 --> 01:08:56.000
Way off the windy bed.

01:08:56.000 --> 01:09:03.000
I want to get to the Sefer Ha Bahir.

01:09:03.000 --> 01:09:06.000
Sorry, I forgot to mute, unmute. Um…

01:09:06.000 --> 01:09:12.000
Two things. One is, I have a memory of the word sacrifice,

01:09:12.000 --> 01:09:17.000
meaning to… or having the same root as to make sacred.

01:09:17.000 --> 01:09:19.000
I don't know if that comes from the Latin, maybe somebody knows.

01:09:19.000 --> 01:09:22.000
That does come from the Latin.

01:09:22.000 --> 01:09:23.000
So…

01:09:23.000 --> 01:09:25.000
It's Latin, and in Hebrew, it's even better, it's to draw close.

01:09:25.000 --> 01:09:30.000
Yeah, the Hebrew word korban comes from the root meaning to draw near to God.

01:09:30.000 --> 01:09:36.000
Oh, that's beautiful. So, I think of that as I read this passage, this Midrash.

01:09:36.000 --> 01:09:40.000
And also, um…

01:09:40.000 --> 01:09:46.000
I've had personal experiences. I've done a lot of work with Sacred Plant Medicines of Latin America.

01:09:46.000 --> 01:09:51.000
And I have had some personal experiences of…

01:09:51.000 --> 01:09:53.000
having deep trauma,

01:09:53.000 --> 01:09:58.000
of my childhood transformed in ceremony into the deepest

01:09:58.000 --> 01:10:00.000
most incredible

01:10:00.000 --> 01:10:05.000
splendid holiness that I cannot even describe with words.

01:10:05.000 --> 01:10:08.000
So I associate those experiences with what I'm reading.

01:10:08.000 --> 01:10:09.000
Or… excuse me.

01:10:09.000 --> 01:10:13.000
Oh, beautiful.

01:10:13.000 --> 01:10:16.000
Now let's bring it even further.

01:10:16.000 --> 01:10:25.000
So there's… we're gonna go through the intellectual gate first, and then we're gonna go through the

01:10:25.000 --> 01:10:29.000
This foreno is trying to figure out…

01:10:29.000 --> 01:10:34.000
What is this sapphire thing? It's not really sapphire to him.

01:10:34.000 --> 01:10:37.000
James, this one might be for you.

01:10:37.000 --> 01:10:42.000
If you're willing to read,

01:10:42.000 --> 01:10:44.000
Sure.

01:10:44.000 --> 01:10:51.000
I just need to find the screen again.

01:10:51.000 --> 01:10:58.000
I'd like the making of brickwork of sapphire, an essence transparent, devoid of all colors and permanent contour.

01:10:58.000 --> 01:11:05.000
So it is almost completely abstract, capable of receiving them like the human soul's white sapphire.

01:11:05.000 --> 01:11:08.000
in the level of wisdom.

01:11:08.000 --> 01:11:12.000
Transparent to all knowledge and ready to receive them.

01:11:12.000 --> 01:11:16.000
In my opinion.

01:11:16.000 --> 01:11:17.000
Right, so…

01:11:17.000 --> 01:11:21.000
The human soul's white sapphire on the level of chokna.

01:11:21.000 --> 01:11:22.000
I like that.

01:11:22.000 --> 01:11:23.000
undifferentiated wisdom.

01:11:23.000 --> 01:11:25.000
Okay.

01:11:25.000 --> 01:11:29.000
He desperately trying to put…

01:11:29.000 --> 01:11:31.000
something to this.

01:11:31.000 --> 01:11:33.000
And where he goes.

01:11:33.000 --> 01:11:36.000
is this quality of wow.

01:11:36.000 --> 01:11:40.000
that essentially wipes away everything.

01:11:40.000 --> 01:11:43.000
pre-existing.

01:11:43.000 --> 01:11:45.000
empties us.

01:11:45.000 --> 01:11:50.000
So that we can be filled.

01:11:50.000 --> 01:11:53.000
transparent to everything.

01:11:53.000 --> 01:11:58.000
able to receive everything.

01:11:58.000 --> 01:12:00.000
Is it on this?

01:12:00.000 --> 01:12:03.000
Go for it. And then we're gonna go to Ezekiel, because, hang on…

01:12:03.000 --> 01:12:06.000
It might be bridging both of them, so…

01:12:06.000 --> 01:12:13.000
When I saw this, I immediately thought, oh, well, the whites… what's white? What's white when I'm thinking of chakras?

01:12:13.000 --> 01:12:18.000
Because Sapphire is technically Third Eye Chakra, and then the crown is…

01:12:18.000 --> 01:12:23.000
indigo or purple, and then white is your aura chakra. So…

01:12:23.000 --> 01:12:26.000
I don't know where I'm going with this, but I'm…

01:12:26.000 --> 01:12:31.000
seeing, like, um, the third eye connection with

01:12:31.000 --> 01:12:33.000
the, uh…

01:12:33.000 --> 01:12:36.000
intangible soul and connection.

01:12:36.000 --> 01:12:43.000
There's a warmness here, different systems, we use different language and different imagery.

01:12:43.000 --> 01:12:46.000
Luckily, before we get to Ezekiel, what emotions are in the world?

01:12:46.000 --> 01:12:48.000
Not sentences, just words.

01:12:48.000 --> 01:12:51.000
quickly. Don't think, just feel.

01:12:51.000 --> 01:12:52.000
Emotions are here. What else?

01:12:52.000 --> 01:12:54.000
Huh. Aw.

01:12:54.000 --> 01:12:57.000
What else?

01:12:57.000 --> 01:13:00.000
Yeah, what else?

01:13:00.000 --> 01:13:01.000
Great, what else?

01:13:01.000 --> 01:13:05.000
Expansive.

01:13:05.000 --> 01:13:07.000
Curiosity.

01:13:07.000 --> 01:13:09.000
Curiosity.

01:13:09.000 --> 01:13:11.000
Yes.

01:13:11.000 --> 01:13:14.000
Curiosity. There's something drawing you in.

01:13:14.000 --> 01:13:16.000
What is this? Is anybody feeling?

01:13:16.000 --> 01:13:20.000
Pulsed.

01:13:20.000 --> 01:13:28.000
Yes, says Rachel, why?

01:13:28.000 --> 01:13:35.000
Not telling us, but okay. It's so repulsive, she's repulsed by the repulsion. Okay.

01:13:35.000 --> 01:13:46.000
No, I just, you know, just the blood and the, you know, the womb and the scent and I don't know, just also repulsed by all the narrative.

01:13:46.000 --> 01:13:54.000
Yeah, yup.

01:13:54.000 --> 01:13:57.000
Right.

01:13:57.000 --> 01:13:58.000
Right? How do you describe the indescribable David?

01:13:58.000 --> 01:14:00.000
when it's something that, you know, we really have to experience, right? We experience it, and then we know, rather than…

01:14:00.000 --> 01:14:08.000
I find it hysterical that he adds, in my opinion at the end, as though he would think otherwise had he not said that.

01:14:08.000 --> 01:14:11.000
Yeah, I love that, too. It's like, he's…

01:14:11.000 --> 01:14:12.000
He's betrayed.

01:14:12.000 --> 01:14:16.000
you know. It's like when people say… it's like when people say, my two cents at the end of…

01:14:16.000 --> 01:14:18.000
An email. You know, by the way.

01:14:18.000 --> 01:14:25.000
Right. And he's one of the greats, so here he is going, like, you know, it's as if he's saying, like, I don't know.

01:14:25.000 --> 01:14:29.000
These little things, like, that it means a lot. So…

01:14:29.000 --> 01:14:37.000
There's a link here to Ezekiel, and we're gonna go through this quickly.

01:14:37.000 --> 01:14:44.000
So, as you wish, you can click on Ezekiel 1 and read the whole thing in context.

01:14:44.000 --> 01:14:46.000
Here is the prophet Ezekiel.

01:14:46.000 --> 01:14:55.000
And he's seeing something that transcends any words that he's got, and he's got this chariot, and there are creatures that are…

01:14:55.000 --> 01:15:01.000
meals, and there's all sorts of stuff going on.

01:15:01.000 --> 01:15:04.000
Would someone like to read?

01:15:04.000 --> 01:15:07.000
excerpts that we've got here.

01:15:07.000 --> 01:15:11.000
Maybe someone who hasn't had a chance to read.

01:15:11.000 --> 01:15:26.000
I would like to, please. Ezekiel one and the image above the heads of the creatures was an expanse like an awesome eye of ice spread over their heads.

01:15:26.000 --> 01:15:35.000
under the expense, each had a pair of wigs extended towards the others, and each had another pair covering its body.

01:15:35.000 --> 01:15:44.000
And above the expanse, over their heads, was, like, the appearance of sapphire stones.

01:15:44.000 --> 01:15:54.000
As an image of a throne, and on the image of the throne was an image, like the appearance of a person on it from above.

01:15:54.000 --> 01:16:00.000
So just notice how many layers of image, appearance, as if, it's like.

01:16:00.000 --> 01:16:02.000
Language is breaking down.

01:16:02.000 --> 01:16:08.000
We've got, like, a fifth… a metaphor of it's this, like that, like this, like that, like something else.

01:16:08.000 --> 01:16:12.000
That's how close we can get to understanding it.

01:16:12.000 --> 01:16:16.000
Everybody got it.

01:16:16.000 --> 01:16:19.000
Good! On we go!

01:16:19.000 --> 01:16:24.000
Ezekiel was having a spiritual acid trip.

01:16:24.000 --> 01:16:27.000
He cannot possibly describe this.

01:16:27.000 --> 01:16:30.000
And his language reflects that, right?

01:16:30.000 --> 01:16:34.000
And yet he, too, had this appearance.

01:16:34.000 --> 01:16:39.000
of a sapphire stone, using the exact same words.

01:16:39.000 --> 01:16:43.000
So there's something here.

01:16:43.000 --> 01:16:46.000
What is it?

01:16:46.000 --> 01:16:50.000
We invite you to read Ezekiel 1 on your own.

01:16:50.000 --> 01:16:54.000
Not while you are driving.

01:16:54.000 --> 01:16:55.000
Create anything while you're driving.

01:16:55.000 --> 01:16:58.000
Not… not while you are distracted.

01:16:58.000 --> 01:17:02.000
Not when you have somewhere else to go.

01:17:02.000 --> 01:17:08.000
ask yourself what's going on.

01:17:08.000 --> 01:17:10.000
This became…

01:17:10.000 --> 01:17:14.000
A focus of Kabbalistic imagination.

01:17:14.000 --> 01:17:21.000
And we're gonna move through some of these things quickly, because we want to get somewhere with you.

01:17:21.000 --> 01:17:31.000
Why? In our text, in Exodus 24,

01:17:31.000 --> 01:17:34.000
They saw the God of Israel.

01:17:34.000 --> 01:17:37.000
And under his feet.

01:17:37.000 --> 01:17:41.000
Which already is a problem.

01:17:41.000 --> 01:17:43.000
the making of brickwork.

01:17:43.000 --> 01:17:49.000
of sapphire.

01:17:49.000 --> 01:17:54.000
The very essence of sky.

01:17:54.000 --> 01:17:56.000
purity.

01:17:56.000 --> 01:18:00.000
Why would Taurus say that?

01:18:00.000 --> 01:18:02.000
and Ibn Ezra.

01:18:02.000 --> 01:18:06.000
It says this. The reason for that…

01:18:06.000 --> 01:18:15.000
isn't enough, right? Now you've got the essence of sky for purity above it.

01:18:15.000 --> 01:18:18.000
was the very fact of the essence.

01:18:18.000 --> 01:18:26.000
the expanse itself, like the ice of the firmament stretching over the heads of the animals that Ezekiel

01:18:26.000 --> 01:18:28.000
Saw.

01:18:28.000 --> 01:18:32.000
Here, in Exodus, it's written, they saw the God of Israel.

01:18:32.000 --> 01:18:37.000
And there, it's written in Ezekiel, this is the animal I saw under the God of Israel.

01:18:37.000 --> 01:18:40.000
And given Ezra is saying…

01:18:40.000 --> 01:18:42.000
words, words, it's just brevity.

01:18:42.000 --> 01:18:45.000
It's all allegory.

01:18:45.000 --> 01:18:51.000
Something is under, something is under, something is under something, and above it all is the God of glory.

01:18:51.000 --> 01:18:54.000
utterly stale.

01:18:54.000 --> 01:18:56.000
utterly breakdown.

01:18:56.000 --> 01:19:04.000
Rain goes…

01:19:04.000 --> 01:19:08.000
You know, this whole Midrashic journey.

01:19:08.000 --> 01:19:11.000
is this is like that.

01:19:11.000 --> 01:19:13.000
And so here comes the safer, how about here?

01:19:13.000 --> 01:19:15.000
Which is…

01:19:15.000 --> 01:19:19.000
400 to Zohar.

01:19:19.000 --> 01:19:24.000
and being the old Hebrew, so I'm gonna take us.

01:19:24.000 --> 01:19:29.000
The throne of the Holy Blessed One member of God could have feedback, God could have a tushy to sit in something.

01:19:29.000 --> 01:19:35.000
Of course not. Is precious stone like the Sea of Chachnah, the Sea of Wisdom?

01:19:35.000 --> 01:19:38.000
Which we just read about, that…

01:19:38.000 --> 01:19:43.000
impossibility that empties us, that allows us to fill again.

01:19:43.000 --> 01:19:45.000
And that corresponds to the T'Elat.

01:19:45.000 --> 01:19:48.000
Let's seat, sweet. What color?

01:19:48.000 --> 01:19:50.000
is the seat, seeds.

01:19:50.000 --> 01:19:52.000
tallit.

01:19:52.000 --> 01:19:56.000
A twine of wood.

01:19:56.000 --> 01:19:59.000
And Rachel was sharing this from her hers.

01:19:59.000 --> 01:20:02.000
And read by me ears said.

01:20:02.000 --> 01:20:04.000
I let from the… from the…

01:20:04.000 --> 01:20:09.000
Sit, seat. Different from all the colors?

01:20:09.000 --> 01:20:18.000
Watch the images to how it resembles the scene.

01:20:18.000 --> 01:20:19.000
Bye.

01:20:19.000 --> 01:20:22.000
the deep blue sea, and the sea resembles the farmament, which is the Rekia, which is the expanse above, and the firmament, remember, resembles the

01:20:22.000 --> 01:20:28.000
glory, from our text, they saw God of Israel, and under his feet was like the making of brick

01:20:28.000 --> 01:20:35.000
Book of Sapphire and The Essence of Sky and Light, Ezekiel, like the appearance of sapphire stone.

01:20:35.000 --> 01:20:38.000
resembling a throne.

01:20:38.000 --> 01:20:42.000
So next time you see a blue thread on Seat Seat,

01:20:42.000 --> 01:20:49.000
It is evoking the sea, and the sky, and the sapphire, and the throne.

01:20:49.000 --> 01:20:51.000
And God's glory.

01:20:51.000 --> 01:20:57.000
Which means that the next time you see the sky,

01:20:57.000 --> 01:21:01.000
Same thing. The next time you see the C,

01:21:01.000 --> 01:21:02.000
Same thing.

01:21:02.000 --> 01:21:05.000
Same thing as John looks to see, is the sky blue today?

01:21:05.000 --> 01:21:08.000
Above the clouds, it is.

01:21:08.000 --> 01:21:12.000
This is not far away, as far away as is water.

01:21:12.000 --> 01:21:22.000
Visiting his. It's not about far away. It's about right here, right now, every day, right here, right now.

01:21:22.000 --> 01:21:28.000
Made of that same God's glory,

01:21:28.000 --> 01:21:31.000
This is the indwelling Presence.

01:21:31.000 --> 01:21:34.000
of God. This refers to the kavod.

01:21:34.000 --> 01:21:37.000
They honor the glory that we have previously noted.

01:21:37.000 --> 01:21:38.000
whose other name is…

01:21:38.000 --> 01:21:40.000
For sure, you know.

01:21:40.000 --> 01:21:45.000
The indwelling presence, the feminine…

01:21:45.000 --> 01:21:48.000
punitively feminine presence.

01:21:48.000 --> 01:21:50.000
We know it is impossible.

01:21:50.000 --> 01:21:54.000
to experience a direct vision of the attribute of God,

01:21:54.000 --> 01:22:00.000
God specifically told Moses, you take a kid, you can't see my face and live.

01:22:00.000 --> 01:22:03.000
So we're not actually seeing God, God, God.

01:22:03.000 --> 01:22:06.000
We're having a spiritual experience that defies words.

01:22:06.000 --> 01:22:14.000
That defies our senses, scrambles our senses, that we can barely touch.

01:22:14.000 --> 01:22:17.000
That's what Ezekiel's trying

01:22:17.000 --> 01:22:22.000
to describe.

01:22:22.000 --> 01:22:26.000
This, in the context of receiving law.

01:22:26.000 --> 01:22:30.000
Which seems the exact opposite of all that.

01:22:30.000 --> 01:22:31.000
Right, but it's not.

01:22:31.000 --> 01:22:33.000
precise, and…

01:22:33.000 --> 01:22:37.000
Binding with consequences.

01:22:37.000 --> 01:22:39.000
And also mystical.

01:22:39.000 --> 01:22:43.000
And beyond all words.

01:22:43.000 --> 01:22:44.000
The last texts that we…

01:22:44.000 --> 01:22:48.000
So take that in, everybody. Take that, take that up. Rabbi Rachel, take that in everybody.

01:22:48.000 --> 01:22:55.000
Take a minute, because in order for us to get to Rabbi Jessica, we need

01:22:55.000 --> 01:22:59.000
It's this and that.

01:22:59.000 --> 01:23:01.000
And that Jewish life.

01:23:01.000 --> 01:23:04.000
We need bubbles.

01:23:04.000 --> 01:23:09.000
Because we can't live in the world.

01:23:09.000 --> 01:23:17.000
And we can't live and do this, do that.

01:23:17.000 --> 01:23:21.000
Should the awe.

01:23:21.000 --> 01:23:30.000
glory and whiteness of things.

01:23:30.000 --> 01:23:33.000
And some of us are better at one than the other.

01:23:33.000 --> 01:23:36.000
And so that's why community turns out to be so helpful.

01:23:36.000 --> 01:23:43.000
I get to do it together, get to hold the books together.

01:23:43.000 --> 01:23:47.000
Heurism is one big giant tzitzi. It's what it is.

01:23:47.000 --> 01:23:54.000
One big reminder, one big reminder.

01:23:54.000 --> 01:23:55.000
Most traditions in the door.

01:23:55.000 --> 01:24:05.000
That's what it is. Yes, yes. And then I said, no mistake that it's, like, schma, hello? Hello? Hello? Anybody there?

01:24:05.000 --> 01:24:07.000
Everybody got it.

01:24:07.000 --> 01:24:10.000
For the moment. Rabbi Rachel.

01:24:10.000 --> 01:24:14.000
Here's our last text for the day. This is from Rabbi Jessica Catenmeyer.

01:24:14.000 --> 01:24:21.000
It points out, a lot of people have lost a lot of sleep figuring out how to translate Livna Sapir.

01:24:21.000 --> 01:24:27.000
12th century commentator Ibn Ezra imagines it as a sculpted sapphire-looking glass.

01:24:27.000 --> 01:24:32.000
A prism through which all present see deeply and experience prophecy.

01:24:32.000 --> 01:24:38.000
I imagine our 70 elders and Aaron and Moshe, perhaps they too look up

01:24:38.000 --> 01:24:43.000
lean their heads back and glimpse through the sapphire-tinted prism.

01:24:43.000 --> 01:24:45.000
of Livna Tasapir,

01:24:45.000 --> 01:24:48.000
An aspicloria, a speculum.

01:24:48.000 --> 01:24:54.000
They glinse further with more depth what they couldn't see with their naked eye.

01:24:54.000 --> 01:25:00.000
In our tradition, the aspicloria is the lens through which we perceive divine presence.

01:25:00.000 --> 01:25:04.000
Through which we filter holiness in the world around us.

01:25:04.000 --> 01:25:07.000
According to Talmud,

01:25:07.000 --> 01:25:13.000
A select few see this world through an aspicloria ma'era, an illuminated lens.

01:25:13.000 --> 01:25:18.000
While most of us peer through a glass darkly,

01:25:18.000 --> 01:25:23.000
Carrying an unlit lens through which we perceive very little on the other side.

01:25:23.000 --> 01:25:27.000
What lens are you carrying right now?

01:25:27.000 --> 01:25:30.000
Is it lit from within?

01:25:30.000 --> 01:25:35.000
Does it magnify depth and texture, the kadoshness, the holiness?

01:25:35.000 --> 01:25:39.000
of the world around you.

01:25:39.000 --> 01:25:45.000
As we go out on this Shabbat mishpatim, I bless us to carry two props in our hands.

01:25:45.000 --> 01:25:47.000
borrowed from Livna Sapir.

01:25:47.000 --> 01:25:54.000
A bright, clear lens with which to perceive depth, texture, holiness,

01:25:54.000 --> 01:25:56.000
And a transmutable brick.

01:25:56.000 --> 01:25:59.000
To remind us to turn mud and straw.

01:25:59.000 --> 01:26:05.000
And our suffering into sapphire.

01:26:05.000 --> 01:26:11.000
The first of our bonus materials is a link to a song

01:26:11.000 --> 01:26:14.000
that sets this one verse

01:26:14.000 --> 01:26:19.000
about the brickwork of sapphire that's like the very sky for purity.

01:26:19.000 --> 01:26:25.000
to music, and it is one of my melodic touchstones. I hope you'll listen to it.

01:26:25.000 --> 01:26:26.000
Touch. Snow.

01:26:26.000 --> 01:26:29.000
I hope it was carrying you through today. Oh, that was not even…

01:26:29.000 --> 01:26:32.000
Look, I have a poetic license, and I'm not afraid to use it.

01:26:32.000 --> 01:26:34.000
You may not pawn.

01:26:34.000 --> 01:26:37.000
I did. My subconscious made a pun.

01:26:37.000 --> 01:26:47.000
And we also have a little image of a piece of art that, for those of you at CBI, you may have seen in a little frame on a bookshelf in my office at Schul.

01:26:47.000 --> 01:26:52.000
watercolor and sand art called Livna Sapir, the brickwork of sapphire.

01:26:52.000 --> 01:26:53.000
Over that.

01:26:53.000 --> 01:26:58.000
Which now looks something very different, doesn't it?

01:26:58.000 --> 01:27:02.000
Because that's the lens that allows us to see.

01:27:02.000 --> 01:27:05.000
the illuminated world as it really is.

01:27:05.000 --> 01:27:09.000
under a suffering.

01:27:09.000 --> 01:27:12.000
invoking something more.

01:27:12.000 --> 01:27:14.000
And the brokenness of the world.

01:27:14.000 --> 01:27:23.000
And something above it all.

01:27:23.000 --> 01:27:26.000
What emotions are in the room?

01:27:26.000 --> 01:27:29.000
Because this was a lot.

01:27:29.000 --> 01:27:32.000
There are people that…

01:27:32.000 --> 01:27:35.000
confesses that we have no words.

01:27:35.000 --> 01:27:36.000
We have a lot of words.

01:27:36.000 --> 01:27:39.000
Got some words.

01:27:39.000 --> 01:27:45.000
And this emerges amidst…

01:27:45.000 --> 01:27:49.000
So what's here? We're gonna stay on a few minutes on record.

01:27:49.000 --> 01:27:51.000
I'm gonna stay on as we usually do, but we won't.

01:27:51.000 --> 01:27:53.000
harness a little bit here.

01:27:53.000 --> 01:27:55.000
Because there's just been so much.

01:27:55.000 --> 01:28:09.000
Whatsoever.

01:28:09.000 --> 01:28:14.000
I'll bite. And I feel very…

01:28:14.000 --> 01:28:18.000
this might be, like, a sensitive subject for people, but…

01:28:18.000 --> 01:28:21.000
As it relates to the miscarriage,

01:28:21.000 --> 01:28:27.000
If suffering brings us closer to God and the…

01:28:27.000 --> 01:28:28.000
Right.

01:28:28.000 --> 01:28:30.000
fetus or child becomes part of the…

01:28:30.000 --> 01:28:34.000
uh… is it live, not step year?

01:28:34.000 --> 01:28:35.000
We've got this appeared, yeah, VP.

01:28:35.000 --> 01:28:36.000
Not too severe.

01:28:36.000 --> 01:28:41.000
then… is there… is…

01:28:41.000 --> 01:28:44.000
the loss of a child somehow, like,

01:28:44.000 --> 01:28:48.000
Does that… I guess, like, does the child become

01:28:48.000 --> 01:28:52.000
part of God go to God, do you then, as the mother, become closer to…

01:28:52.000 --> 01:29:01.000
God or the Divine. I feel like there's some thread there that's very sad, but very poignant.

01:29:01.000 --> 01:29:09.000
The piece that I would underline is that I don't think the Midrash is saying, and we are certainly not saying,

01:29:09.000 --> 01:29:17.000
that, yea, suffering is great, it brings us closer to God. I'm so happy I have that miscarriage, right?

01:29:17.000 --> 01:29:20.000
For me, at least, it's more…

01:29:20.000 --> 01:29:25.000
I love that our sages imagined even this most…

01:29:25.000 --> 01:29:29.000
intimate and often heartbreaking of…

01:29:29.000 --> 01:29:31.000
experiences…

01:29:31.000 --> 01:29:34.000
can become something that…

01:29:34.000 --> 01:29:39.000
Not only can we lift it up to God, but it is worthy of being part of

01:29:39.000 --> 01:29:45.000
of God's dwelling, of the divine palace, however you want to imagine that.

01:29:45.000 --> 01:29:48.000
Bearing in mind that God doesn't have a but and doesn't sit on a throne.

01:29:48.000 --> 01:29:49.000
Right? This is all metaphor.

01:29:49.000 --> 01:29:50.000
doesn't have feet.

01:29:50.000 --> 01:29:56.000
Doesn't have feet, but that we can imagine lifting up our grief.

01:29:56.000 --> 01:30:03.000
to that highest of places and placing it before God.

01:30:03.000 --> 01:30:07.000
Divinity, the sacred, the holy.

01:30:07.000 --> 01:30:11.000
does not exist.

01:30:11.000 --> 01:30:13.000
one side of…

01:30:13.000 --> 01:30:17.000
an ontological being, this universe over here.

01:30:17.000 --> 01:30:19.000
And we're over here.

01:30:19.000 --> 01:30:23.000
You know, we suffer.

01:30:23.000 --> 01:30:26.000
Rejoice, rejoice.

01:30:26.000 --> 01:30:30.000
Wait, hang on, wait a minute.

01:30:30.000 --> 01:30:33.000
that there's some alchemy that has to happen.

01:30:33.000 --> 01:30:38.000
Where we go deep into the suffering.

01:30:38.000 --> 01:30:43.000
Yeah, there was a graphic midrash.

01:30:43.000 --> 01:30:46.000
And we can't do it alone. She couldn't do it.

01:30:46.000 --> 01:30:48.000
with the Angel Michael Mikael.

01:30:48.000 --> 01:30:49.000
National Angel of Israel.

01:30:49.000 --> 01:30:51.000
Wonder.

01:30:51.000 --> 01:30:54.000
Stay tuned for a course on angelology.

01:30:54.000 --> 01:30:58.000
It will happen.

01:30:58.000 --> 01:30:59.000
There's a lot here.

01:30:59.000 --> 01:31:08.000
Let me also just put out if any… if this miscarriage stuff is bringing anything up for anyone, and you want to talk to me at any point, I'm here for that.

01:31:08.000 --> 01:31:11.000
Always.

01:31:11.000 --> 01:31:12.000
Thank you, Rabbi Rachel.

01:31:12.000 --> 01:31:13.000
Carry on.

01:31:13.000 --> 01:31:14.000
And I want to add one thing, it isn't just for folks who have miscarriages. I think Cheryl just wrote, it's about the transmittal

01:31:14.000 --> 01:31:19.000
I…

01:31:19.000 --> 01:31:21.000
capacity to this kind or any kind of suffering.

01:31:21.000 --> 01:31:22.000
For sure. For sure.

01:31:22.000 --> 01:31:24.000
So, this may push other kinds of…

01:31:24.000 --> 01:31:29.000
Yeah, Rachel.

01:31:29.000 --> 01:31:37.000
I'm just grappling with the connection of this theme and all of these laws.

01:31:37.000 --> 01:31:44.000
Like, I just, um, I know we went over it, I'm sure it's there. I just am kind of grappling with that.

01:31:44.000 --> 01:31:52.000
Because I'm looking for something in contemporary times of how to look at law.

01:31:52.000 --> 01:32:01.000
As a human being, and maybe there's some context here, but it's a little, it's taking a little time to.

01:32:01.000 --> 01:32:05.000
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and…

01:32:05.000 --> 01:32:10.000
And I think that's one of the great…

01:32:10.000 --> 01:32:12.000
Missions of…

01:32:12.000 --> 01:32:18.000
of this imagery to ask the question that you're asking Rachelor precisely, because it comes on the heels of

01:32:18.000 --> 01:32:20.000
About 53 needs votes.

01:32:20.000 --> 01:32:24.000
There were 613 in Jewish life. We get approximately 10%

01:32:24.000 --> 01:32:29.000
Right here. Yes, 613 Maimonides counted it.

01:32:29.000 --> 01:32:32.000
613.

01:32:32.000 --> 01:32:34.000
53 of them happened right here. So…

01:32:34.000 --> 01:32:39.000
How do we actually do the work of connecting all of this to law?

01:32:39.000 --> 01:32:41.000
So… eh.

01:32:41.000 --> 01:32:45.000
This level of being where I'm wearing a vest.

01:32:45.000 --> 01:32:51.000
And… you know, I've got some cold tea here.

01:32:51.000 --> 01:32:54.000
One way I understand it, Rachel, is…

01:32:54.000 --> 01:32:57.000
that every law…

01:32:57.000 --> 01:32:59.000
is there.

01:32:59.000 --> 01:33:01.000
For relational reasons.

01:33:01.000 --> 01:33:04.000
Case in point.

01:33:04.000 --> 01:33:07.000
Um, I will not confess.

01:33:07.000 --> 01:33:14.000
Just speaking. I will never, ever confess to speeding in my car. I would never do such a thing.

01:33:14.000 --> 01:33:18.000
And… when somebody speeds…

01:33:18.000 --> 01:33:24.000
What are we doing? We are raising the risk to other people.

01:33:24.000 --> 01:33:27.000
They aren't.

01:33:27.000 --> 01:33:30.000
laws of speeding.

01:33:30.000 --> 01:33:36.000
you know, something as menial as, you know,

01:33:36.000 --> 01:33:39.000
Take the snow off your car.

01:33:39.000 --> 01:33:41.000
After a snowstorm.

01:33:41.000 --> 01:33:45.000
is not about we say so, although…

01:33:45.000 --> 01:33:49.000
When you get a ticket, you have to pay it. It's because we say so.

01:33:49.000 --> 01:33:54.000
But because embedded in that is something

01:33:54.000 --> 01:33:57.000
active understanding.

01:33:57.000 --> 01:34:01.000
That's kind, and wise.

01:34:01.000 --> 01:34:03.000
protective of other people, and…

01:34:03.000 --> 01:34:06.000
including ourselves.

01:34:06.000 --> 01:34:08.000
That may be a trivial example.

01:34:08.000 --> 01:34:11.000
most of Jewish life.

01:34:11.000 --> 01:34:13.000
Most of those 613…

01:34:13.000 --> 01:34:16.000
In one form or another.

01:34:16.000 --> 01:34:19.000
embed in something like…

01:34:19.000 --> 01:34:21.000
And if we don't have…

01:34:21.000 --> 01:34:28.000
Some consciousness that transcends our own selves. Why the hell would we care about other people?

01:34:28.000 --> 01:34:31.000
Why the hell would we honor any other woman?

01:34:31.000 --> 01:34:33.000
principle.

01:34:33.000 --> 01:34:37.000
Much less one that limits our autonomy.

01:34:37.000 --> 01:34:41.000
It's what we can do to eat.

01:34:41.000 --> 01:34:48.000
Why would we self-limit?

01:34:48.000 --> 01:34:49.000
And so does God.

01:34:49.000 --> 01:34:53.000
But that's what being in community is, right? We self-limit in order to be in relationship with others. If I can't self-limit, I can't be in relationship because I think I'm everything.

01:34:53.000 --> 01:34:56.000
Right. And therefore,

01:34:56.000 --> 01:35:02.000
Anything that transcends our individual consciousness, that jolts us out of the

01:35:02.000 --> 01:35:08.000
Not the meanness to me-ness of everything.

01:35:08.000 --> 01:35:10.000
helps you serve that function.

01:35:10.000 --> 01:35:13.000
Precisely so.

01:35:13.000 --> 01:35:18.000
that our ancestors needed to have that, wow, it ain't just about you.

01:35:18.000 --> 01:35:22.000
There's a brick sapphire way. Yeah, Rachel.

01:35:22.000 --> 01:35:30.000
But is that true about the law itself, that it also is reflexive that the law is also caring for.

01:35:30.000 --> 01:35:32.000
The human being that is. Try.

01:35:32.000 --> 01:35:38.000
Gosh, I want to hope so, otherwise I'm in the wrong business.

01:35:38.000 --> 01:35:44.000
But it's…

01:35:44.000 --> 01:35:46.000
I would, for what it's worth, I would…

01:35:46.000 --> 01:35:50.000
I hear you.

01:35:50.000 --> 01:35:53.000
Rachel, I… I would…

01:35:53.000 --> 01:35:54.000
I would distinguish between what we

01:35:54.000 --> 01:35:56.000
Yeah, but it isn't. It isn't. If you look at it, look at what we're experiencing now and breaking laws and, you know, all of these things, where…

01:35:56.000 --> 01:36:01.000
bad behaviors that we see people engaging in, which we sure do.

01:36:01.000 --> 01:36:07.000
Versus the intent and spirit of what law and justice to be.

01:36:07.000 --> 01:36:10.000
And they ought to be…

01:36:10.000 --> 01:36:13.000
Right? Those highest ideals of…

01:36:13.000 --> 01:36:21.000
community and covenant and protecting each other and caring for the vulnerable. That doesn't mean we actually live them that way.

01:36:21.000 --> 01:36:26.000
And sometimes we do a better or a worse job of trying. But to me, there's a…

01:36:26.000 --> 01:36:29.000
There's a difference between

01:36:29.000 --> 01:36:35.000
the reality as we see it, which is flawed, and the ideal of what we are dreaming toward.

01:36:35.000 --> 01:36:40.000
Which, I guess is another way of saying the coming of the Messianic era, when…

01:36:40.000 --> 01:36:42.000
everything will be okay, for real and forever.

01:36:42.000 --> 01:36:45.000
Whatever that means.

01:36:45.000 --> 01:36:47.000
Um, just, just in the interest of a literal

01:36:47.000 --> 01:36:49.000
bandwidth, I'm gonna stop the recording.

01:36:49.000 --> 01:36:51.000
Morning and stay on.

01:36:51.000 --> 01:36:55.000
Shabbat Shalom, everyone, it's Parshat Mishpatim.

01:36:55.000 --> 01:36:58.000
Go find your brick sapphire way.

01:36:58.000 --> 01:37:00.000
And we'll see you again very soon.

01:37:00.000 --> 01:37:04.000
We'll stay on.