Matos-Massei: The Drama of Bamidbar — The Possibility, Power and Preciousness of Torah She Baal Peh/Transcript

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Audio: Matos-Massei: The Drama of Bamidbar — Torah She Baal Peh (July 9, 2026)

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Why is the sugya of Ben Sorer Umoreh mentioned twice? I think I wanted to put that aside. And why is the sugya of Pesach, how is that the completion of all of Parshas, all of Sefer Bamidbar? I think we know that sefer comes from the word, say something dramatically, right? That we have, but in Parshas Yisro we base ourselves on the Rashi that Yisro came to the midbar because he heard all that Hakadosh Baruch Hu did in Eretz Yisrael, in Mitzrayim, and then Moshe Rabbeinu sees him and says ויספר משה להמשיך לבו לקרבו לתורה. So you see lashon vayesaper is saying over words in a way that brings the heart close. Vayesaper is the essence of Torah she-b'al peh, the essence of being mekarev somebody. And then we know that Moshe Rabbeinu was successful by, Moshe Rabbeinu was successful because right after it says that according to the Midrash, we know it's the second time but we'll figure that out, but the Midrash says the first time that Baruch Hashem is said is after he ויספר משה אל יתרו. Yisro says Baruch Hashem so it worked, right? Vayesaper is to tell something over in a way that awakens someone to appreciate it. It's l'hamshich libo, Rashi quotes the Mechilta להמשיך לבו לקרבו לתורה. So that's what the, and that's of course what sippur yetzias mitzrayim is. Sippur yetzias mitzrayim, whatever you use the word sippur, it's l'hamshich libo, it's to people moved hearts, they know what happens but we're trying to do it in some way that inspires people and picks people up so it moves them. Which is what we always try and say is there's no reason no one's going to dance with an accounting book, right, and kiss it, but on the other hand, on the other hand, we take a Sefer Torah and we bring it out and it's the time that we have the most hachnasas sefer torah, Simchas Torah, and that's because the sefer is not a book, it's not the book of Bereishis, it's not the book of Exodus, it's the sippur, it's a drama. Are you going to make it? We always describe it again just the three parts. I'm just chozer Chumash shiur, so like, but some people haven't been in Chumash shiur for a while, and Yaakov, you may have suffered when I was younger and dumber than I am now, right? So, but, but, the idea of a drama is always you see something that's great and you go, \"Oh, that's great, I want to be like that.\" And then you go, \"Oh, it can't come out to this world, this world is a horrendous environment for it, there's too many villains, we're not going to make it.\" And then you see when the greatness comes out to the world, you say, \"Oh, it can exist,\" and then you want to do it for yourself also, you want to bring it out to the world yourself, and that's what a drama is. So a drama is you see something great, you see James Bond come in, להבדיל אלף אלפי הבדלות, and you get, I don't remember too many of them, but I do remember like the well-named Dr. No, right, to block everything. We've got that other guy who throws his hat and kills everybody, but... Oddjob! Right, some people have it. Oddjob, thank you. Jaws? Jaws? Oddjob? Why is Oddjob... that's a good name. Okay, but you had Dr. No who wants to block him, right? You make it through Dr. No, you make it through Oddjob, you make it through everything, and then you go, \"Oh, I want to be like James Bond, I see that I can have high ideals and bring it to the world,\" and that's what drama is. And that's what a sefer is. A sefer is Samech, which stands for completion, it's got no beginning, no end, a letter that's infinite. And shishim is always shleimus, shishim, 60, which is mevatel meat, or Shabbos is a 60th of Olam Haba, Gemara is in Berachos nun zayin. So Samech is always completion. You have to bring it out poh, here. So that's the problem, bringing a Samech out here. When it brings out, when the completion is brought here, then Reish, we have a ratzon, we want to bring it out. So a sefer is this process of seeing a high ideal, thinking we're not going to be able to make it, it's blocked by the poh, by the coarseness of the physical world, and then I see it's brought, and I go, \"Give me some more of that stuff also, I'm going to go for it.\" So that's a sefer. So we want to know what the Sefer Bamidbar is, what's the big vision of where Sefer Bamidbar's going, and of course then when one looks at it simply, you can't figure out two things. Why in the world do we end with, we think we should end with Moshe Rabbeinu. passing over the mantle of leadership to Yehoshua or we should finish it with destroying Og and that was a good class you guys all missed. I feel bad for everybody unless you're close to me you'll never know why kugel is eaten by kiddush. You were there? Okay, well we'll have to sit down so you'll figure it out. I liked my sifrei, it was a good vort. And then the but the third one is why so why is it and why is it not just it's the second time taught over? Why is it the second time? What's going on with saying it once in Parshas Pinchas and once in Parshas Masa? What are we doing that for? So what's the drama of Bamidbar? Where are we going? What are we trying to see? What are we trying to happen for? Yes, go. Did Rabbi say it as once you see a samech brought po that gives you a ratzon or is it I have a ratzon to see the samech brought po or is it both? It's like a cycle. The way Zohar understands it is you see the samech brought here and now you have a ratzon. That creates a ratzon which is a resh, which is the beginning, it's a new beginning. Once I see that someone can do something great, now I am a rosh, I'm a rishon, I can do something great myself. But it could be the other way. It might be like once I saw the thing with the person had the ratzon, they did it, now I have the ratzon because I want to do it in my own level. Yeah. Now and the yeah. Okay. So that's what we're setting up. Okay, so why is that that we're going for? And the key to it in almost everybody, there's a Zohar Chadash. My notes seem that maybe they're wrong, I don't know exactly. I'll have to look for the Zohar Chadash again but we'll find it slowly. That says that this is the key. Over here is the word v'chein. Word v'chein is used four or five times, it's used in very strange ways. And that's the key to understanding this parsha over here. וכן בנות צלפחד דברת, וכן בני יוסף דברת. What's going on and what's happening? That's going to be the mafteiach, the key to open up what's going on. And so we don't get lost, I'll make the title pretty clear. It's the what's going on is that there's two countings. And we always everyone believes that the way to really especially Chumash teachers that the most important part of Torah is Torah she'b'ksav, is Chumash. And that תורה שבעל פה is a weakening of that vision and a making that vision opaque behind confusion. And that we can't rely on human beings, we have to just rely on Hakadosh Baruch Hu. We don't want תורה שבעל פה, we don't want rabbis in the Talmud, Hillel, Shammai telling me what to do. I want Hakadosh Baruch Hu to tell me what to do. And the drama of Bamidbar is finding out that the only way Klal Yisrael is going to make it is by listening to תורה שבעל פה. And it's possible for Yehoshua to become the leader of Klal Yisrael because he's not the smartest but he's the one who's m'shamesh the most. So he has תורה שבעל פה and that that's the real power and preciousness of the world. That's what we're trying to go on and look for. Okay, so that's the big foundation, now we know where we're going. Now we'll just fill in the details. We're good? Okay, here we go. So, וכן בנות צלפחד דברת. In Parshas Pinchas, the first time it comes up: כן בנות צלפחד דברת נתן תתן להם אחזת נחלה בתוך אחי אביהם. So the bnos tzelofchad say we're going to lose out. Our father had no portion in Eretz Yisrael. Eretz Yisrael is clearly תורה שבעל פה, it's the way the world's being carried out. We have no aspect. The lowest of the low is not that we have Yehoshua saying it, it's not that we have a am ha'aretz saying, we have women speaking and saying what we think: לאביהם והעברת את נחלת אביהם להן. So Moshe Rabbeinu says Kein, the bnos tzelofchad speak properly. They have been megaleh תורה שבעל פה. This is the ultimate. Maybe you have a problem with Moshe Rabbeinu with תורה שבעל פה, maybe you have problem with Yehoshua with תורה שבעל פה, but at the end we see that even women, nashim, can bring out תורה שבעל פה in a way that Moshe Rabbeinu responds: you've been mechaven to what God wants. And that's the ultimate תורה שבעל פה. You've got it right, you're correct, I didn't know this, and we're going to see... He didn't know it because there are certain ideas that are too low for a Torah she-bichtav person. They're the ethereal desire for purity of everything should just go along can't deal with the opaqueness and the complexity of a physical world where well maybe I'm not going to marry a maybe there'll be a family doesn't have any boys so they'll lose their inheritance. Maybe the girls want to marry outside their shevet. What are we going to do? So Moshe Rabbeinu didn't think about this nuance. Hakadosh Baruch Hu obviously held it back from him to megaleh this idea that your sevara, sevara in this world, a human sevara, ki mechaven to what Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants. And that's the ultimate drama. There's nothing greater than that, that if some days you have a bad day and think you can't say a sevara to save your life, yes you can, you can say a sevara to save your life and your sevara can be Da'as Torah. That's what we're trying to go for. So take a look. The Rashi sets it up, the Gur Aryeh explains the Rashi and then we'll look at the Sfas Emes setting it all out. וכן בנות צלפחד דוברות. So Moshe Rabbeinu says guess what, they said correctly. So of course the word chein is a strange word. And the word chein is an extra word. It should just be the halacha is like the Bnos Tzelofchad. What's the וכן בנות צלפחד דוברות? So Rashi's bothered. Really the Tanchuma's bothered. וכן בנות צלפחד דוברות, what's the word chein for? K'targumo ya'os. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. וכן בנות צלפחד דוברות, k'targumo like the Targum Onkelos, ya'os. It's beautiful. Go down there. Kein kasuv this we read Rashi first. כן כתובה בפרשה זו לפני במרום. This is what's written upstairs. מגיד שראתה עינן מה שלא ראתה עינו של משה. They understood downstairs what Moshe Rabbeinu didn't understand upstairs. Okay, so that's what we're going for. So that's the chiddush we want. The word chein, let's just figure everything out in it. Kein means kein, we, everybody hopefully who's gone through the yeshiva again knows that the Gur Aryeh on מכון לשבתך פעלת השם, Rashi says mechuvant there, that a kein is kiro v'khano. A kein is simply as a base. Right? We have kiro v'khano, we have a laver and its base. So v'chein Bnos Tzelofchad have given us the base. They're down here. They see down here that down here that's not going to work out right. So they're giving a base to the Torah which is what תורה שבעל פה is. They're giving וכן בנות צלפחד דוברות. Kein means and now we add the Gur Aryeh on from Parshas Beshalach that מכון לשבתך פעלת השם is v'chein is not just a base, but it's called a chein because it's mechuvant, it connects up with what goes on upstairs. It connects up, it's מכוונת לכיסא של מעלה, so a kein is something that's a foundation down here that connects exactly to what's going on upstairs. And that's תורה שבעל פה. תורה שבעל פה is exactly that connection of what's going on downstairs resonates with what's going on upstairs. There's a Zohar Chadash, I haven't Parshas Yisro on Anochi but maybe I can't find it right now. But there's a Zohar Chadash that says that kaf-nun is Keser down to Nun, down to Malchus, the Nun of Malchus. That we have the whole system and Kaf can also be Keser Chochma Binah. Right? But it means the intellectual parts are connected with the down parts. The Nun obviously is the first letter of nekeiva. It's obviously the letter that brings it all the way, all the way, all the way out into the world. So וכן בנות צלפחד דוברות, that's the drama of Parshas Bamidbar, Parshas Bamidbar as we see that whoa, by saying a good sevara downstairs, I can resonate all the way, all the way upstairs and reveal to me the pathway to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, the pathway of the cloud, glory, everything that's going on. That's why the word chein. chein is used over here extra. So that's the Targum. Ya'us is one of the places again that it's explained that why is the word ya'us the word for beauty in Aramaic? Because it's aleph to tav. It's the first letter, the last letter connects everything, and that's what beauty is we know, we always say yofi is yud to pei, it's the intellectual is connected down here. What makes something beautiful in Judaism? We have many, many different types of art that resonate with people. Eastern religions, Eastern culture, wants the physical world to be unimportant and therefore they make their paintings of ten-winged people with purple hair because they say the physical world is a veil, don't look at it, just be mystical, the meditation will get you above that world, look at the idea behind it. Right? The Greek world as understood by Rav Tzadok is just the beauty is down here. You want to look at the strong sensual human being, they emphasize the physical beauty, the physical aspects down here. Jewish beauty is we have to connect the two together, we have to connect the yud and the pei together, we have to connect the ches and the nun together and that's ya'us, that's the aleph to tav, that's the whole aspect that we have over here, so it's beautiful. Benos Tzelofchad beautifully because beauty is the ability to take something downstairs and see it's connected upstairs, that's what we're doing. And the huge chidush is that what they so don't think that they added something onto the Torah Benos Tzelofchad, and don't think that Moshe Rabbeinu knew it. Both are wrong. What they did is they said something that Moshe didn't know because Hakadosh Baruch Hu didn't want him to know it so we'd have this chidush and this beauty over here. And the two are going to resonate backwards and upstairs downstairs, that's what we're looking for, that's what the end of Bamidbar is. So the power of תורה שבעל פה is what's being brought out over here. Take a look at the Gur Aryeh, MiTargumo Ya'us מה שהוצרך להוסיף כך כתוב בפרשה זו לפני. It doesn't look like it's connected to the original question. The original question is what the word chein mean over here. So it should be enough to say ya'us, it's beautiful. So the Gur Aryeh is bothered by it, it doesn't, Rashi is just darshaning something beyond the text, we know Rashi is coming to resolve a problem in the text. So what's the problem in the text? מפני שקשה למה הוצרך לכתוב כן בנות צלפחד דוברות. Why do we need the extra word chein? לכתוב נתון תתן להם נחלה. Just say the halacha. What makes this so beautiful over here, what do we have to have the chein? So what's beautiful and what the chein is for is ממילא ידענו כי יפה דיברו. We'd know they spoke properly. ולמה כתב כן בנות צלפחד דוברות? לפי כך פירש כי לכך כתב כך, that should be chein. לפי כך פירש לכך כתב כך, chein, לומר לך כי כך כתוב, and that's what's written upstairs and therefore the word chein tells me that there's a perfect resonance between upstairs and downstairs, that's what beauty is in Judaism, that's the greatness is that's happening over here. That's, and that's what Bamidbar is about. Let's just see Sfas Emes in a sefer over here. Oh, I didn't write it down. I could have confused it's when you do things fast and it's not in this week's parsha, it's in Parshas Pinchas. Right? So just Sfas Emes Parshas Pinchas you should write down, otherwise you won't find it. Okay, here we go. So the Sfas Emes over there explains a whole flow of how all the parshas flow at the end and again I can't find it, I was just putting this together the last 40 minutes here, so again in my notes I have it and I don't see it in my Sfas Emes over there. But this was obviously what the Sfas Emes was working on at the end of his life, this flow of all the last four parshas of what's going on because this is the last year the Sfas Emes wrote and then there's the Hosefos of the Sfas Emes, it used to be a separate sefer which I have and now they just stick it in the back over here, but they stick it in a different order in my sefer it's written next to it but here they just stick it in the back someplace I don't know where they did it. I thought that the likutim were from when he was younger. No, likutim from when he was older when he was too sick to give or maybe there's two likutim, likutim that I have in the separate sefer is what he gave did in 5760. So again my notes which I wish my memory was better but my notes say it so I believe it's true says that over there he adds on that this is the vechen that the vechen is that bemidbar if you make it through the difficult times you come out with the beautiful times at the end that's what we're looking for over here and that the Torah shebe'al peh has a beauty and a precious as nothing else has. Let's take a look at the - so over here in 57, 56, 63, he's finishing up and he puts together as best as he can all of parshas pinchas and he gets into Mattos-Masei also. המשך פרשיות מבנות צלפחד והעברת את נחלת אביהם להם. Why is that the end of the sefer? We should finish up with the census, he says. Just finish up Torah with one census of going out of Egypt and one census of coming into Eretz Yisrael. ואחרי כן עלה אל הר העברים. Afterwards they went up to the mountain of the transference. Sfas Emes has this idea that he reads through all the Sfas Emes-es that Moshe Rabbeinu was put buried har ha'avarim because it was the place of ma'avar. Moshe Rabbeinu didn't do anything wrong, he had to be ma'avir the Torah over to Yehoshua on a lower level. The word avarim comes from the ayin-beis comes from the word for course, av. It's a place where what happened? Moshe Rabbeinu was too refined, he couldn't give over, he couldn't relate to the world of teva. Two different ways of learning it. Either one is that Moshe Rabbeinu couldn't be the moon and therefore he couldn't give it over, or that the nation had dropped to a level where he couldn't be the proper leader. Whatever it is, the har ha'avarim means there's a ma'avar, there's a passing from the sun to the moon, and the people cried about it, they didn't appreciate it. But the end of bemidbar we have to appreciate the greatness of that passing over and that the moon is what we need for Klal Yisrael to move on, therefore Klal Yisrael always counts by the moon. קח לך את יהושע. kach lecha says Zohar, take for yourself, it's good for yourself you have Yehoshua. There's something he can do you can't do, there's something smaller people can do that the great people can't do. u-semachta and make sure he's connected to you, you have to know that there's a smicha, you can't - Yehoshua's nothing without a shimmush of Torah and shimmush of Moshe Rabbeinu. A moon is nothing without a deep connection to the sun. You have to make sure that he goes to Chumash class at the Mechones and then afterwards they can learn Gemara in the Mir. But if they forget there's a big picture that's moving them upstairs, then we got problems, they'll become in the opaque world and miss what's going on. That's the smicha we're going for, yadecha alav. ואחרי כן פירש התמידין והמוספין שדרשו על צו את בני ישראל. And then afterwards we bring on the temidin and the musafin and the temidin and musafin you understand is the idea of what's going to happen every day, the prosaic world of how you make Kadosh the prosaic world. de-hinei but there's part one for our parsha now. Chazal omru the Gemara says in Bava Basra פני משה כפני חמה. The face of Moshe like the sun. It was illuminating, it was powerful, it was strong, but it could break the vessels. פני יהושע כפני לבנה. The face of Yehoshua was like the face of the moon. It was Torah shebe'al peh. He received the ziv from Moshe, he received the ziv from Torah. זקנים שבאותו דור the people of the earlier generation, they cried, אוי לאותה בושה אוי לאותה כלימה. Woe to this busha, woe to this klima. Rav Tzadok says zekeinim, the older people, they cried. They cried because they still could kach the higher level. The younger generation said no, we need this, I got this, this is good, right, I appreciate the whatever it is, the moon, the lower level perception of what's going on. Rav Tzadok says that the zekeinim - what are the two bushas? There's a busha and a klima, alright? I think we've always talked about this, there's two forms of embarrassment. One embarrassment is when you recognize you're too physical and one embarrassment when you recognize you're spiritually not focused. I've got the brain but I'm just not using my brain right. One is my hedonism, my coarseness is is controlling me and other one is no, I've really beaten my physicality, I'm not going to go running for for the best cheese steak in the world, Philadelphia can't take us out of this right? Like you know like you know what are you going to do? I never had one, it's okay. And and and the other one is I don't care about the cheese steak, but I can't really focus, I'm not doing what I'm not living my ideals the way I want to live my ideals because I'm not living with my mind. And so Busha, Busha comes from the word basar, Maharal says. Busha comes from the word basar, it's a physical embarrassment. I feel constrained by my physicality. And klima is Malkus upside down, you're supposed to have moach leiv kloyos, you're supposed to have your moach, your head, leiv, your heart, kloyos, your physicality, you're supposed to have them organized with your moach going first. When you realize that you're not thinking deeply, not leading with your head, then that's the opposite, that's chaf lamed mem. Shem MiShmuel makes a big, this is one of his big where he finds in the Torah he goes for it. You're klum, you're nothing, you're an embarrassment because you're embarrassed you're supposed to be intellectual. Rav Moshe would many times walk in the street and I don't know he'd he'd be upset with the world or something, we'd be getting to Mea Shearim and I think him seeing bnei Torah like pushing and pulling and just like he would go he says isn't it the funniest world that we have over here? He says everyone should be having their everyone should be really walking on their heads. Everyone's walking on their feet but no one's really doing it. Like you just think that was the funniest statement to make that there's a world of people who are upside do

wn. But that's the Tosfos over here, אוי לבושה אוי לזו לכלימה זו, that why do we have to drop down to Torah Shebe'al Peh? Zekeinim, the people still connected, the old dor, the people stood in the way of chiddush, and this is of course the problem of zekeinim in every generation. B'ezras Hashem we should have this problem together for the next thirty years, forty years. Right, like the world goes all the way and and I'm gonna go more than like you know like this. That's a bracha l'vattala. But it's this is the problem of every generation that the zekeinim are afraid to let the new people be too creative because they're going to go down too far. And the the ne'arim, I don't know what to call the ne'arim, the the ne'arim, no, it comes from the word naar comes from the word m'orer they're right there, the ones who are overly like Yosef was a naar, they're overly excited. Oh we know the way to bring Mashiach, if you if we just didn't listen to the zekeinim and we just like now that's a good joke but I don't want to do it. I really, I think I love the person but I don't know but like you know if we just all become Eli Stefansky's and like you know and do the Daf with mivtzas and everything that's going to bring Mashiach to the world like that's, and both sides have to be very careful about the dialogue over there that the new generation has to m'chadesh, but they can't just say yeah go you're not talkin' you're who am I more worried about? It's okay. So like hi Adam. So like you know just don't you know just go out and do your thing but if they don't have the proper connection to the sun then we got a problem. So we need that, the key over here is the connection of the sun and the moon together. That's we're looking for and going for. כי בחינת משה רבנו הוא אמה דדכורא. The aspect of Moshe Rabbeinu is the world of the masculine yud, v'hu pnei chama like the sun. ויהושע בחינת לבנה שאין לה מגרמה כלום. The Yehoshua is like the bechinas levana. The major greatness of Yehoshua was he was meshamesh. No one was meshamesh. Why was he picked to be the gadol? Because he was meshamesh yoteir from his from Moshe Rabbeinu's sons. Moshe Rabbeinu obviously thought that his sons were worthy. That's why he asked because he didn't realize the importance of shimush, the connection. רק שמקבל מאור החמה. והיא בחינת תורה שבעל פה דלית ליה מגרמה כלום. We can't say a svara ourselves but when we're connected to Torah you can say the svara. רק על ידי דרישות מן התורה הוציאו חכמים כל תורה שבעל פה. וזהו כל אסמכתא שסמכו חכמים מן התורה. That's why we use a lashon asmachta because asmachta is showing Like Moshe Rabbeinu was someich Yehoshua, הוא כעניין וסמכת ידך עליך. That's what the word samachta over here is what we're going for. והוא בחינת נוקבא המקבלת מן הדוכרא. So the flow of the end of Bamidbar is moving from the vision that the world has to be run by Torah shebichsav and males, nissim, miracles, Moshe Rabbeinu and the Chumash, to the world in which we're going to have Yehoshua and the nekeivos, obviously expressed by B'nos Tzelofchad and Torah sheba'al peh running the world. Okay. Velachein amru אוי לבושה דמאן דאכל לאו דיליה בהית לאסתכולי ביה. Woe to the embarrassment that if you always rely on something else, there's a certain greatness you're lacking. U've'emes ha'avaras nachala l'bas. That's the idea of ha'avaras nachala l'bas. That's in the world of like Har Ha'avarim. It's the world of coarseness, it's the world of unclarity. What do we do in this case Moshe Rabbeinu where the world didn't work out right? Really in truth every family should have a male and a female and there shouldn't be worlds where it's just females or males. But what do we do? העברת נחלה לבת על פי הנהגת בני ישראל בחינת יהושע בחינת נוקבא. The women, they were m'chadeish what we should do. ולכן נעלם זה הדין ממשה רבנו עליו השלום. Therefore Moshe Rabbeinu didn't know the din of B'nos Tzelofchad. הקדוש ברוך הוא מגלה, this is the aspect that he needs the nashim, the Torah sheba'al peh, the Yehoshua for. V'amru Chazal, דין שאין אתה יודע נשים דנין אותו, lashon HaZohar. The law that you don't know, the nashim know. The nashim know because an aspect of nashim is that you need to appreciate to come into Eretz Yisrael which is again a feminine aspect to bring out into the physical world. כי זה משפט בא מבחינת נוקבא. This halacha comes from the aspect of the feminine, the practical. U'Moshe Rabbeinu haya b'chinat ben, he was the masculine. וזה שכתוב במדרש בנות צלפחד לי שיר שנעשה הירדן כחומה לפני משה. When they said this halacha, the Midrash says Tanchuma that the Jordan River became a wall before Moshe. שלא יכנס לארץ לפי שהתחיל בה עלמא דנוקבא. Because here is the world of nukva. You can't go in here, the Midrash says. Because here is the world of Torah sheba'al peh. וכן כתוב בזוהר הקדוש. This is what happens also by Yosef at the end of Yosef, we won't go in the bin of Yosef, stop there. Okay. But that's the idea that we're looking for. Okay. Now let's see Moshe do Vav-Alef-Teis, the word v'chein with this now. Back of the page. Should I stop and breathe there? We're good. Yes, good. Why is this coming now when they're still in the midbar, still under Moshe Rabbeinu's reshusa when he's still very much the sun? This is like the foundations and beginnings of that Torah sheba'al peh. You have to be someich. There has to be a semicha, so Moshe Rabbeinu is giving over Torah shebichsav is giving over to v'chein. This is right the transition now. That's it. This is the end. And now it's going to be Yehoshua and the women asking questions from now on in. But it's got to be a samachta, it's got to be connected. Yes. Is this what inspired Moshe Rabbeinu's circulating to do his own chiddushim in Sefer Devarim? One more time. Is this what inspired Moshe Rabbeinu circulating to do his own chiddushim in Sefer Devarim? Yeah, and his own chiddushim but he's doing Torah sheba'al peh. It's the flow, this aspect is Torah sheba'al peh. Okay, just take a look at the two places that I underlined then on me-fi-me. ויצו משה את בני ישראל על פי ה' לאמר כן למטה בני יוסף דברים. In our parsha. כי היו צדיקים ומצודקים דבריהם כיוסף אביהם. ובכל מקום שנאמר כן רוצה לומר שהוא מכוון ממש. Kein means there's a foundation that connects all the way upstairs. It means there's two etymologies I know, one is Kesser to Malchus, the upper level flow all the way down, and the other one is the Zohar says, the sound cuts. This sounds Chassidic but it's not, it's the Zohar. It says it's keilim nishbarim. L'khaf is you have to work with vessels that are broken. The vessels show that they can't take Torah she-bi-khtav. The written law just like God put too much light in the world, the vessels broke and then we have to build a new world. So whenever we use the word v'chein, it stands for those keilim nishbarim. They have to say their own svaras because we saw that we can't exist with just Torah she-bi-khtav upstairs. That illumination's too high for them. So v'chein is start down here, make it sense from yourself. From the foundation understand it. Don't try and bring things down from upstairs. What's all... what's the irkiness of learning Gemara? The... what's the amal of learning Gemara? One second, one second, I'm sorry, one second, my mind's going off. Now, let's go far away. Sorry. So, so what's going on here? So the chein is, we're starting... so the reason people don't want to learn Gemara is because we have 25 wrong svaras before we get to the right svara. Why can't we just get what the right answer is and then we'll be good? But the answer, of course, is that you have to have something that comes from you. You've got to understand it. You need a foundation. You can't just... if you start just learning, right, Rav Wolbe used to always teach us, Rav Wolbe used to always say, the problem of the generation is that people don't want to learn Mesillas Yesharim and then Derech Hashem and then Daas Tevunos and Klach Pischei Chochma. They just want to go up and learn Kabbalah right away and don't realize that the Ramchal gave you the entrance to it by asking all the questions. The idea is if you don't get the foundational ideas going and you just take in ideas, you don't know what a Keter is, you don't know what a... you're going to destroy the world. You'll be keilim nishbarim, you'll be broken vessels. So that's what we're looking for. V'chein שהוא מכוון ממש על סדר הנהגה העליונה. That's v'chein. V'chein is exactly like the Gur Aryeh that we always do. I just wanted to show it over here that the same idea comes up, that v'chein means there's a foundation here that resonates upstairs. And again, we can have a long multicultural discussion, but not for right now, that that's what yes... I don't know what yes means in English, I actually forgot. I did remember it once, but I can't remember what it means now. I had a very difficult time yesterday. I had a group of guys... oh no, no, I got Russian guys, I'm sorry. I wanted to relate to them. I had the rage boys over yesterday. So I wanted to talk about shalom with them. And so I thought I'd just look up the word for 'hello' in Russian. And I must have listened to it ten times on Google and I couldn't get it. Privet. Was it? Privet. Yes. It was harder than that. There was more words than that. Zdrastvuyte. That's it! That's the one I want. What was it? Zdrastvuyte, from the word health. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, but I couldn't get the word out of my mouth, so I lost my teaching advantage. I couldn't do it. I tried. I'm so bad at languages, it's not one of my skills. But I respect you Russians much more now that you can learn that language. Now I understand why you can learn Gemara well. At least I can hope like that. So 'hi' is like American, like that's easy, 'hi', you can do that. Like, what's the big deal? So, but v'chein does not mean yes. V'chein in Torah means that the idea we have down here connects with a spiritual idea, which is the opposite of postmodernism or multiculturalism. There's a v'chein. There's got to be a kivun between the lower level world and the upper level world that's going. That's what we're trying to sit for and do. That's what we're doing. וכן רצונו שהוא מכוון ממש על סדר הנהגה העליונה. And that of course is what Torah she-ba'al peh is. That's what we just saw the Sfas Emes say. That the whole switch is, yes, we can do it down here. We don't need to do it Moshe Rabbeinu's top-down. We can do it from bottom-up. v'chein ra-uy la'asos. And that's the right way to do it. And right so he says, Hakadosh Baruch Hu of course made the world work out that there'd be a tribe that only had women. Because the seder hanhaga will begin with a world of women, that's what we're going for. Not at the end. Next place I marked off. וכן כאשר צוה ה׳ את משה כן עשו בנות צלפחד. Again we have to hit the word v'chein. כי בכל מקום שנאמר כן רצונו תיקון ישר. That's the idea of Mesillas Yesharim we've explained, that the key to Mesillas Yesharim is Mesillas Yesharim is the world of chein. It wants to start down here and connect everything directly upstairs, right? That's what yashrus is, a mesilla yashar. Yashara is that we're down here working on how we're going to bring Kesser out to Nukva, how we're going to bring deep ideas out to the physical world of Asiyah, we're going to do that by going Yashar and connecting it all the way upstairs, that's what we're looking for. And Moshe Rabbeinu didn't... how are we going to do this? We're stuck and a little bit that's going to be too complicated for right now. We'll do it later, maybe we'll do it. That Moshe Rabbeinu from up there, how are we going to bring down here when a family's got all daughters? What's going to happen to the land? What are we going to do? It's so far away from upstairs, what are we going to do? That it would not be Yashar not to give them a piece of land. ונכון שהוא מכוון ממש אל הנהגה עליונה כמו כן בנות צלפחד דוברות וכן מטה בני יוסף דוברים. That's why he keeps using the word Chein and Chein and Chein in this Parsha that Moshe Dov v'Abba was saying to teach you that that's the crescendo, that's the grandeur of Sefer Bamidbar that after all the mistakes and sins we've done in the Midbar where we tried to do just with the light of the sun and just with written law and just with Moshe, Chein, this is the way we should act now, we have to sit down and we're going to move to the world of Torah shebe'al peh. Umilashon kina. So hopefully you see that that's the part that we're looking for. And then if we just want to get to the last verse of the Sefer, ויצו משה את בני ישראל על פי השם לאמר. Sorry. No, that's not the last verse. The last verse is... the guys gave me a... there's a Chamisha Chumshei Torah one of the guys gave me one here so I have... they're bothered by me it's right there in the blue stuff okay I don't... fine. So anyway over here it says, אלה המצוות והמשפטים אשר צוה השם ביד משה. So why is it beyad Moshe? In Vayikra it says behar Sinai without... at the end of Vayikra it says, אלה המצוות אשר צוה השם את משה בהר סיני. So over here it says beyad. So what's the difference of course? So over here it says, אלה המצוות משפטים אשר צוה השם ביד משה. Beyad Moshe, so what's beyad mean? Beyad means two understandings and the Tzror Hamor says, one is that it means what comes out from Torah shebe'al peh, אשרי מי שבא לכאן ותלמודו בידו, he quotes the Gemara in Pesachim daf nun, that this is what happened in the Midbar is we became with Torah shebe'al peh. We got beyad or like Rav Dessler wants to learn, a yad is what's amel, what's works hard, so we have to start downstairs and work our way upstairs as opposed to a speech which starts upstairs and comes downstairs, beyad Moshe, el b'nei Yisrael, be'arvos Moav. What's be'arvos Moav? Be'arvos Moav is in the confusion, the erev, the complexity of Moav, a foreign land. Over here in Vayikra it's behar Sinai. Vayikra is we're living in a world of Zachar, we're living in a world of upstairs. Over here we're getting to the place of it's be'arvos Moav, it's be'arv, it's mixed up, Moav is, right, Moav is incest, Moav is the overcoming the sensuality, al Yarden... Al Yardein. Yardein is yoreid din. Judgment comes down. That's the idea that the wall, Moshe Rabbeinu can't get in. There's a world of din, a world of nature to get into Eretz Yisroel. Yardein, you have to break through the din before there's a world of hanhagah of יהוה. Now there's a world of din. Yericho. Yericho is the aspect of a city that can only be opened up by our fighting a war against it, by our blowing the shofar against, we have to awaken something up to bring it through. So we're breaking through all the blockages. So these are two ideas of the two ending sefarim is the end over here is saying Klal Yisrael made it to where the place is they've got Torah Shebaal Peh and they can make it through Moav, they can make it through Yericho, they can make it through Yardein and they can do it with yad, they can do it by taking the yud out to the physical world, the dalid. That's why the strange Parshas Bnos Tzelofchad is at the end of the Chumash. Lots more to explain, but that we're going to stop right now. What we didn't explain is why two parshios and there's two parshios because one is I'm not going to explain why you're going to write for your notes, one is because the first parsha is about what is right for individuals, but the end this week's parsha is talking about what you do as a nation, how there it's not we have to we have to keep the diversity of the nations alive, we don't want to water down the diversity as opposed to becoming united, we have to make sure the land stays in their tribes. And the ultimate vision at the end of Bamidbar is which is the ultimate part of Torah Shebaal Peh is you need Hillel and you need Shammai and you need all these thirteen different groups fighting with each other to get the right answer. So the ultimate end is we can't let property leave the tribes. Back in Parshas Parshas Pinchas is a parsha of individuals. Does Moshe Rabbeinu deserve the Torah to be leader, can his kids be the leader? Now at the end we're getting to the fact that we need everybody all the tribes to exist as multiple aspects because each of the thirteen aspects are a different way to God. Right, there's famous Arizal, there's thirteen gates to get to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, you need all the gates to get everybody in, you can't just do it one way. And that's why the last halacha is that we have to make sure that we don't water down any halacha. You could think that there's one universal answer for something and we say no, רבי שמעון בר יוחאי's going to be great in Aggadah and Rabbi Yehudah will be great in psak halacha and Rabbi Gamliel will be great in Torah derech eretz and everyone's going to have their own knisa into what's going on and that's what we do at the end of the sefer, preserve it. Didn't get that far. Yes, Rav Eli. Rashi says that this was a step in faith to Moshe that he had said דבר גדול ובינו עלי. Does that mean that his lack of ability to connect was a failure on his part? Many different nuances to it. The normal nuance is that the Maharal wants to explain is it's a nuance that he didn't understand that he needed Yehoshua, right he could never be Yehoshua, but he didn't understand he needed it. He came to the he came to the Shivim elders in the wrong way because he was upset with the people, not realizing that he should have asked for it in a normative way. So that's that way I always like to go with Maharal, just take that as the main way. There's a lot of pshat you can say around it but one of them is one you're saying. Yes. Why is preserving heterogeneity the key to Oral Torah? Because human beings are limited and therefore I have to know that my svara is not going to be God's svara, right? So I need my perspective, I got one part of finitude and he's got one part of finitude and you got another part of finitude and together we're going to אלו ואלו דברי אלוהים חיים. Again the Maharal and the Shlah that אלו ואלו דברי אלוהים חיים. These words and these words together build the whole vision up of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. You have to have all thirteen perspectives, you're going to make a we see the world as a cube, you need to have all the different lines to make up the total reality. So Shammai's right, that's not really right, but Shammai's right in the spiritual world and Hillel's right in the physical world and that's what we're trying to say, you need all the aspects. So once we're not infinite, once we don't have everything, now we have to preserve that I need every opinion. institution you need Jimmy Jimmy needs you right and you need your wives and there's lots of what do we need this is getting complicated can't just really be Jimmy and Olivia and even someone close to you all shut up and just listen to me and we should bring it out and the complicated answer is no you got to get right now he just thinks he understands it but don't worry a year from now we'll talk. Yes Noah. What's the nuance of the word Kavana and why in the rare double Vav between the Kaf and the Nun? You saw that you're asking or no? Yeah okay you saw it. So you know that's it just make it that there's a Vav of connecting the world of action there's a Vav of connecting the world of thought they both have to go back up there's a first part your Midah the first part's the Vav of the Nukva going up and the second part's the Vav of the male coming down and they have to meet in the middle and that's what we're going for and because their two aspects are so radically different he said if you saw where it comes from that's what we're saying we're saying what the Arizal is saying over there that's the idea the two aspects. I didn't see it in the Nusach. Oh well whoever you saw someone pointed out but that's what's going on the two sides have to connect the male has to want to connect to the female the female has to want to connect to the male unless we've got double reaching out if we're not going to make it. So Kavana is a total total alignment from upstairs to downstairs and it's not easy to get to you need a double alignment if you're not it's too big a if I say it the wrong it's not too big a valley we usually say as you're jumping over a gap it's not a gap there's the problem is it's much more difficult than a gap because there's different realities in between it's how do you change from the realities if it was just a gap it would probably be easy but you have to go through all the different Sefiros to understand what's going on that gets very confusing you can just worship Tiferet or just worship Chesed or just worship Din lots of parts where you can get caught up in as we see in the world yes Victor. Rabbi you said drama is like when we celebrate the fact that we overcame it but apparently like the Torah Shebichtav was supposed to be like higher but like we ended up moving lower like we lost Moshe Rabbeinu we couldn't connect and like we go down so what's the aspect of celebrating it seems like a loss. No Hakadosh Baruch Hu made the world first we're following what Hakadosh Baruch Hu did he made the world and he made it too high and broke all the vessels and then he said oh I gotta make the world a second way I'm going to make it so I don't break the vessels and that's what we did Torah Shebichtav is oh that's the way to do it we need Moshe Rabbeinu and then no no we really need someone down here at a lower level we're following Hakadosh Baruch Hu this is the only way to do it. But why didn't we lift us up? We were supposed to lift up and that's Torah Shebichtav going to lift us up Torah Sheba'al Peh going to work on ourselves and move ourselves up it has to start from us you think it's going to start from downstairs upstairs down we got to start from down here unless you're engaged in the process of receiving it's not going to happen that's what again this Zohar Chadash that I like says that wherever you find a Nukva the Zakhar will always come wherever you find a feminine the male will always come Hakadosh Baruch Hu sees you working on it he'll give you the completion of what you're trying to look for yes Noah. It's so good to see your hand raised completely naked I don't usually like nakedness but no cast it's good pleasure yes. It's not only a pleasure to see it's a pleasure to be able to feel it. Okay good. There's a phenomenon that women have historically come to the rescue of the Jewish nation when things were very very low and the idea that ultimately women will be involved in the ultimate redemption is that related to the idea that there has to be at the level of Nukva at the bottom coming all the way up to Keter in order for the redemption process to take place? But just we're going to be very clear that's too liberationist a position for us to hold let me take this off so I can just talk.