Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] There was a person in Israel before the establishment of state of Israel, in Land of Israel, there was a person who owned several properties, rentals, typical Jewish business.
[00:00:17] And as you can imagine, in Israel before the State of Israel came about, the economy was almost non existent. People lived dirt poor. And somebody who had rental properties was somewhat of a wealthy man compared to everyone else. He was the rich man of the city.
[00:00:41] And many times people came to him asking for charity, asking for help, and he was very generous. He was always helping everyone and he was always giving money, lending money.
[00:00:55] And at the same time he was known for his very strict contracts that he would sign with everyone.
[00:01:03] And once there was a family who were moving into one of his properties and they look at the contract and they see all these late fees and harsh deadlines and what happens if they don't pay and what happens if they don't pay on time and what happens if they break something and they're all, all of these things like miles long contract seems to be draconian. And the guy says, listen, we are Jews, we are local Jews from here, from Yerushalayim, from Jerusalem.
[00:01:32] And I know that if we need financial help, we'll come to you, you'll help us.
[00:01:39] And here we are moving into your property and you are giving us such a strict contract.
[00:01:44] Just come on, we are Jews, we're not Arabs. If you do it with Arabs, I understand, but we are Jews.
[00:01:51] So he answered to them, if I will sign this contract with you now, like with the Arabs, then we were going to live later together as Jews. If I'll sign this contract with you, like with the Jews, we're going to live later together like Arabs.
[00:02:09] So we know that good fences make good neighbors.
[00:02:13] There are very strict borders that we need to adhere to.
[00:02:19] And that's what the third chapter of Bamidbar is talking to us. In part, when Jews were living in the desert, whenever they would camp out, each tribe had its own area and Jews had to live according to that map. And we know that all of the 12 tribes besides Folevi were broken up into groups of three in four corners of the Jewish camp.
[00:02:51] So there'll be three camps, three camps, three camps and three camps. So 12 tribes altogether. And Levi was in the middle together with the Mishkan, with the temporary temple that they had in the desert.
[00:03:05] And it specifically says that Jews were not allowed to enter into Levi's camp and into the Mishkan area without special permission when it was not a time for service.
[00:03:16] So Jews had to adhere to Their borders needed a visa to go somewhere.
[00:03:22] And Medrash says a very interesting thing. It says that if Jews will adhere to their own boundaries within their camps, God will adhere to boundaries between Jews and their neighbors. So Jews will be safe.
[00:03:43] We know that we Jews have, for some reason have one luck that accompanies us throughout our history. We don't have a lot of muzzle with our neighbors, whether it was in Israel in ancient times where we had plishtim, Philistines or Amalek, or today in Israel, when we have other neighbors who don't like us as much, or even whenever we live outside of Israel. Very often, I have no clue why, but very often Jews end up in neighborhoods where we don't have the best neighbors.
[00:04:17] So God says, if we will make sure to be careful about our boundaries within the Jewish nation, he will protect our boundaries from outside.
[00:04:29] This is something which today in the world is very not popular.
[00:04:35] In modern world, we hear a lot about people trying to erase the boundaries between various groups of people.
[00:04:45] And we are trying to make everybody together. Everybody is the same. Well, this is very similar to how it was in the Soviet Union. You know, in the Soviet Union was a slogan which in Russian sounds, Everything has to be the same, even if it looks ugly.
[00:05:09] And as long as everything is the same. And Soviet Union believed that people are all the same. That's why Stalin's motto was, no one is irreplaceable.
[00:05:22] So this is why he end up killing all of the top scientists and top professionals, because he figured, you know, I'm going to kill this guy. I'll have someone else replace him.
[00:05:33] The Torah believes that everybody is unique. And the Torah also believes that since everybody is unique, people also have groups in their uniqueness. People also have different groups that determine who they are and what they need to accomplish. Now, this idea goes in stark contrast to what the modern world usually teaches us.
[00:06:00] Modern world, we don't like having any restrictions.
[00:06:04] So I want to believe that I can be whatever I want. I don't have any restrictions.
[00:06:11] And we see it even in the way how people are raising their children.
[00:06:17] What does an average adult, an average parent, tell to his or her son or daughter, if you will only put yourself to it, you can accomplish whatever you want.
[00:06:29] That's the motivational speech that we hear all the time, parents telling their kids, you just have to put yourself to it?
[00:06:39] Well, we understand that it sounds very motivational, but how true is it?
[00:06:47] Can I really accomplish whatever I want? Can I, Volvo Balinsky, become a basketball player?
[00:06:54] Can I become an opera singer?
[00:06:56] If I will only put myself to it, I can be what I want. Can I really be whatever I want?
[00:07:03] So it's not true. It sounds very motivational.
[00:07:05] And, you know, children believe in unicorns and many other fairy tales.
[00:07:10] And over the time, they realized that unicorns are not real.
[00:07:15] And they also realized that whatever the parents were telling them about them becoming whatever they want is also not real.
[00:07:22] There's one safety mechanism that God gave us that protects us from terrible failure in this area, because God gave us this natural desire we love, usually things that we are good at.
[00:07:39] So if I will want to become an opera singer and I will go for training and I'll go to musical school, I go to voice lessons when I will soon enough realize that I'm not actually good at singing, my psyche will work in a way that I will not want to be a singer at the end.
[00:08:02] So that's a safety mechanism that prevents me from falling from for this trap of I can be whatever I want.
[00:08:10] But if I would really believe that I can be what I want, and if I wouldn't have this safety mechanism that would prevent me from doing things that I am really bad at, I would really spend my whole life trying to be an opera singer and fail because I cannot be an opera singer.
[00:08:29] So we understand that when we are born, God gives us a lot of limitations.
[00:08:38] I don't choose which era I'm born in, I don't choose which society I'm born in. I don't choose who my parents are.
[00:08:48] And all this determines a lot for every child.
[00:08:52] Some parents are capable of giving to their children more education than others. Some parents are giving more emotional stability to their children than others. Some people provide more protection than others. And that just depends what parents can.
[00:09:09] Some children are born into a wealthy family, some children are born into a poor family. And obviously everybody's capabilities because of that vary drastically which country you live in, which society, which culture you live in, and same thing, what are your talents?
[00:09:26] So we look at the world around us and we are thinking, listen, it's not fair.
[00:09:32] Why is it that this guy is born into a wealthy family and his parents value education and his parents gave him so much. And I was born into a poor family and I and my parents were not giving me so much in terms of education, right?
[00:09:51] Or you could also say, look, this guy was born with this and this and this and this talent, and I don't have this talent.
[00:09:57] It could seem very unfair.
[00:10:00] So obviously it is much easier to Believe that I can be whatever I want to be this way the world will seem much more fair.
[00:10:10] But it's not true. I can't be whatever I want to be. I cannot become whatever I don't have talent for.
[00:10:17] And if I'm born in a poor family, I have a very big uphill battle for becoming wealthy. And whoever is born in a wealthy family has everything full fed to him.
[00:10:29] So now the question is, where is fairness in this world?
[00:10:34] That's what many people have a problem with.
[00:10:37] So what is the answer? The answer is that God creates every single person for a specific purpose.
[00:10:45] And God gives this person only the things that he needs or she needs to fulfill his or her purpose.
[00:10:53] God doesn't waste any resources.
[00:10:56] So if God didn't give me a talent for singing, that means God did not want to waste his talent on me. I don't need it for me fulfilling my purpose.
[00:11:05] And by the way, the same thing goes for people who are born of a certain gender.
[00:11:10] The Torah believes that if you are born a male, then to fulfill your purpose in life, this is what you need to work with. If you're born a female, same thing.
[00:11:21] They believe that I can be whatever I can be. And for the society and for the world and for nature, to be fair, I should be able to switch between my genders. Comes exactly from the same worldview.
[00:11:35] God gave you whatever you need.
[00:11:39] So if my purpose in life can be accomplished according to God without me having certain ability, that means I don't need it.
[00:11:48] And this is why there are boundaries between certain groups of people.
[00:11:55] There are boundaries between men and women. There are boundaries between different ages. Because God demands of a child something very different than he demands of an adult.
[00:12:06] There are boundaries between. That's why we have in Jewish law, we also have boundaries between tribe of Levi and the rest of the Jews. Or Cohen, which is part of tribe of Levi and the rest of the Jews. There are different spiritual demands.
[00:12:19] And this is the idea which is today in modern world is very not popular because we want to blend all borders and all boundaries between all the people.
[00:12:32] And this is the only way how the world will seem to us to be fair.
[00:12:36] But the Torah believes that we are here to fulfill a mission. And you know, in a factory you never have factory of thousand people. And everybody does the same thing. In a factory you need an assemblyman, you need an engineer, and you need a chemist, and you need a project manager. You'll say, well, how come we are not doing all the same job? There's no way for everybody to do the same job. So God created this world as one big factory.
[00:13:06] We are building this world.
[00:13:09] We humans are his partners in building this world. When God created this world, he created it unfinished. That's why it's so imperfect. And God gave us the job of finishing it, of making the last adjustments to make it perfect. So we are working on this factory called the world. If you are working, in fact you call the world, then everybody is going to have their own job because everybody has to do something else.
[00:13:35] And the same thing is with boundaries between us Jews and other people.
[00:13:40] We Jews know that we have our own mission. That's why we are different.
[00:13:45] And throughout the history, whenever Jews were forgetting that we have our own mission, our neighbors, other nations, for some reason, were reminding it to us.
[00:13:57] But if we realize we have a different mission, that's why we. There's a story about when Rothschilds came here to the US they were very wealthy and they wanted to break into the upper echelons of society.
[00:14:12] And they would meet with very influential, wealthy, famous people.
[00:14:18] And they would want to say that, they would want to talk to them, they would want to spend time with them. And everybody was telling them, yes, let's meet for lunch, business time.
[00:14:29] Till someone explained to them that in America of those days, to meet somebody for lunch is a business meeting with your friends, you meet for a dinner.
[00:14:40] So the following time when somebody said, yeah, let's meet for lunch, this. And this time they said, how about meeting for dinner?
[00:14:48] So they told them, you are Jewish, right?
[00:14:51] With you on meat for lunch.
[00:14:54] So our other friends often remind us who we are.
[00:14:59] And we see it now in the world more strikingly than ever that we Jews always thought that we finally were able to be accepted. And we thought that the boundary between us Jews and everybody else was already erased. We. We are fully accepted.
[00:15:17] We live now in a world where everywhere in the U.S. in Europe, in South Africa, in Latin America, Jews are reminded time and time again that we worked so hard on erasing this boundary, and this boundary was not erased.
[00:15:33] Our non Jewish neighbors remember about this boundary very, very well.
[00:15:37] So the Torah is telling us these boundaries will never be erased. Because different people have different missions in life, different tasks.
[00:15:46] And my tasks will never be like yours, and your tasks will never be like mine. There was a Hasidic Rebbe whose name was Zusha of Anipoli.
[00:15:56] And he was saying, when after 120 years, I'll go up to heaven and God will be reviewing my behavior here in this world.
[00:16:06] And he'll say, look, in this situation, you here did this and this.
[00:16:11] Why didn't you do like King David? Why don't you act like King David acted in a similar situation?
[00:16:18] So Zusha of Anipoli says, I'll have a good answer because I'm not King David.
[00:16:22] Then God will ask me, why didn't you act over here the way Moses acted? Zusha of Anipolis says, I'll have a very good answer because I'm not Moses.
[00:16:32] Then God will ask you, why did you act here in this situation? Like Zusha of Annie Polis should have acted? Zusha says, for this, I'll have no answer.
[00:16:41] So I am not King David, and I'm not Moses, but I am Valvol Balinsky. So I have my own expectations that God has from me.
[00:16:49] In this, I'm unique.
[00:16:52] So that's why God created me unique. That's why I have capabilities that nobody has. And that's why I don't have capabilities that others have. No, I cannot accomplish whatever I want.
[00:17:01] I can accomplish only what God gave me a talent for.
[00:17:06] And is it fair? I guess I could say it's not fair.
[00:17:09] But this world is not built in order to justify my feeling of being fair. This world is built in order to accomplish something, in order to make this place a better place.
[00:17:23] So for that, we all are working on it. Every has a different mission.
