Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] The Torah tells us about the most successful fundraising campaign in the Jewish history.
[00:00:09] Moshe Rabbeinu. Moses tells the Jews that we need to build the Mishkan, the temporary temple in the desert.
[00:00:19] Its point is to rectify the damage that was done during the Sin of Golden Calf, when Jews were worshiping this big idol.
[00:00:29] And God gives Moses very specific, very detailed instructions how the temple supposed to be built, what materials they needed for it. And Moses just announced, this is what's needed. He enumerated the wish list and Jews started bringing all of the donations. So much that Moses had to beg them to stop.
[00:00:55] So for the first and last time in Jewish history, somebody actually had to tell the Jews, please stop donating.
[00:01:03] And then Moishe has all of the materials that he needs and all of the money that was donated items were purchased with it. Everything's great. Now Moishe is giving an account.
[00:01:17] He wants to present Jews with a budget.
[00:01:21] And guess what? Some of the budget is missing. You know, they audited the Pentagon and $1 billion was missing from the annual budget. Nobody knows. $1 billion just disappeared. Nobody can figure out where it went. So Moshe Rabbeinu, Moses is giving an account of all of the expenses.
[00:01:41] Thousand coins are missing, thousand shekel.
[00:01:44] Right away, Jews start, ah, we know this guy Moishe.
[00:01:50] I saw him buying a brand new Rolls Royce over there. That's where it was from.
[00:01:57] Moesha was very embarrassed.
[00:02:00] Suddenly there's a heavenly voice which is heard by all the Jews that says, first of all, Moses just forgot where this thousand shekel went to. It went on hooks that were holding the curtains.
[00:02:15] He forgot about this line item. That's first of all, says God. And second of all, don't you dare doubt Moses. Moishe Rabbeinu is trusted by me 100%.
[00:02:28] Once Jews heard that, they backed off and they never asked them for any more reports of the accounting.
[00:02:35] If God says he should be trusted, no questions asked, this is the story.
[00:02:42] The question is that really, if God wanted, he could have announced it to begin with.
[00:02:49] Moishe does not need to give you the report. I trust him. Don't worry about it. He didn't.
[00:02:56] Why did God have to intervene halfway through and say, don't worry about it?
[00:03:01] God could have spared Moshe the embarrassment and he could have told the Jews right away that no accounting is needed. And you would have saved Moshe's time. Jews time, aggravation.
[00:03:13] Why did he do it?
[00:03:15] So really, the accounting that Moshe is giving had several messages which are very important.
[00:03:22] The accounting had to be done not just for the purpose of giving Jews a report on how what was spent.
[00:03:29] Here is one of the reasons why this accounting was very important. If you look at the budget, the report that was given actually was very inaccurate and very useless, I should say, because Jews were donating items of value and Jews were donating money. And obviously, whenever you collect any kind of donation, what is important?
[00:03:53] The value of what is given.
[00:03:56] Sometimes people give money. Well, with money, it's very simple. $1 equals $1. But what if people give in kind? Donations.
[00:04:03] People donate cars to our shoe, let's say, to our synagogue. People could donate equipment. We need tablets or laptops for Hebrew school. And somebody came and said, here is five tablets I'm donating. So he is bringing actual tablets, physical tablets.
[00:04:18] So the physical tablet itself, when I'm doing a report, a financial report, physical tablet is not important.
[00:04:24] The question is, how much is it worth?
[00:04:27] And this is how much this guy who's donating could write off his taxes. So the tablet itself is not important. The value is important.
[00:04:35] Moshe is giving the report not on the value of items that were donated, but on the volume of what was donated.
[00:04:44] So much and so much of leathers and so much and so much of silver and so much and so much of trees of wood. Well, we don't care how much leather was there. We want to know how much it's worth. But it's not what Moshe is giving.
[00:04:57] Why is it? Because Moeshe was actually trying to send a very important message.
[00:05:02] You see, every item has volume and has price.
[00:05:07] Volume is objective. It never changes unless this object becomes bigger or smaller. But the value, volume is objective and it's always there.
[00:05:17] Price, Price is subjective.
[00:05:20] Real estate goes up. Real estate goes down. Stock market goes up, stock market goes down. And value for one person could be different in the value for another person. You show this person a house, this person says, if it would be $50,000 less, I would buy it. But for this price, I'm not going to buy it. Another person says, I'm grabbing it right now.
[00:05:36] So volume is objective and steady.
[00:05:40] Value, which is price, is fluctuating, and it's subjective. Kabbalah explains that volume and value is the difference between our actions and the intent, the emotion, the thought that's put into this action.
[00:05:59] The action itself is objective, and it's always the same.
[00:06:04] The intent, the emotion, the thought is put in. It is subjective.
[00:06:09] I gave you a present.
[00:06:12] If you will be looking at the present itself, there's no doubt about it. It was this and this model iPhone. I know you like iPhones, but if I'm giving you a present, the object itself is objective. Well, it's object, it has to be objective.
[00:06:28] But the emotion into it, you might say, you know what, when he gave me this present for my birthday, he didn't even like smile at me. He didn't say happy birthday to me. He just gave it to me, walked away, doesn't feel good. And somebody else who was standing right next to you says, no, what do you mean? He smiled that you just didn't realize. And it was a small smile, it wasn't real. A big Rabbi Bilinski smile that he usually gives people. So my emotions are subjective or you will tell me, well, you didn't put enough thought into it. What do you mean I didn't put enough thought into it? It's subjective. It's very hard to judge. It's almost impossible to judge. We always try to judge other people's emotions.
[00:07:05] We most often have a hard time judging our own emotions.
[00:07:09] Whether we are sincere or not, whether we are really truly wanting something that we want to want. Everybody says that they want to be rich and famous. How much work do you put into being rich? You know, everybody says they want to be rich. How much work are you putting into it do you really want?
[00:07:25] A very big percentage of people who say they want to be rich don't really want to be rich.
[00:07:31] Their desire is not deep enough, not strong enough. And same thing with being famous, same thing with being whatever their dreams are.
[00:07:38] So our emotions, our intent, our thought that we put into something is subjective.
[00:07:44] So Moishe is now collecting all these donations to build the temple. The temple is here to atoned for the sin of golden calf.
[00:07:53] So Jews are bringing all these donations. There are two components in everything.
[00:07:58] The intent and the action. Jews are very excited to bring all of these donations. Jews are really energized. They're going to build a temple now. They're going to rectify their bad mistake in the past and now it's going to be they're starting from new slate. They're ready to move on.
[00:08:14] They're very excited.
[00:08:16] Moishe says, you know what? Now you're very excited and I appreciate it. But I know for a fact this excitement won't always be there.
[00:08:23] You know, people don't always give donations with very big excitement. There's a story of a famous Khosid. He was a Chosid of the first Lybich Rebbe, the altar Rebbe. His name was Binyamin Kletzker, he was a big Hosset. He was a very learned Hasidic Jew. Besides for that, he was also a big businessman. He was very wealthy. And he knew that whenever he visits a community, a synagogue, everybody always welcomes him and gives him the best seat in the front. And he knew it's because he is giving donations. And he started feeling that whenever he give donations, it's already not as sincere. He's giving it at least in part, because he wants to be recognized, because he wants to get a thank you, because he wants to get an honor that comes with it. So he started feeling that his donations are not as sincere anymore, and he was bothered by it.
[00:09:19] So he came to his teacher, the altar Rebbe, and he said that my donations are not as sincere anymore and it's a problem. I'm trying to get rid of this greedy emotion that always comes along with me giving charity. And I have a hard time doing it, so what should I do?
[00:09:36] The Alter Ebbe thought about it and he said, the fact that your donations are not sincere is a problem.
[00:09:43] But this problem has been already fixed.
[00:09:46] I understand that when you give donations, you don't give them with great sincerity, but the sincerity of people who take your donations makes up for your insincerity.
[00:09:57] So the Alterev was telling Binyamin Kletzker that in you know what the main thing is, what you do, your emotion, I mean, it is important, but it's secondary. As a matter of fact, most of the time your emotions are important to you and what you do is important to others.
[00:10:12] See, if you want to work on yourself, if you want to work on your self development, work on your emotions.
[00:10:18] But if you want to make this world better, if you want to help others, if you want to do what God placed you on this earth for, just do things and don't worry about how you feel about it.
[00:10:28] So Moishe Rabbeinu Moses tells the Jews, I know you're very excited now and your donations are coming now with great emotions, but you should understand that these emotions are going to dissipate and what is going to be left is just your physical ability to give. And that's fine. Why? Because the main thing is volume, not value.
[00:10:54] The main thing is the action, not the emotion.
[00:10:58] And this is the key to generally how Judaism is looking at what we do. Judaism is a behaviorist ideology. We look at what people do primarily. And that's what Moshe was telling this. That's the message that Moishe was giving And I once read a fascinating historical account.
[00:11:23] You know, many people will tell you that if you give something to someone has to be with your pure heart. And otherwise it's just for a show, it's not real. And if you do things for show, don't do it. It's better not to do things than to do things for show.
[00:11:38] And as a matter of fact, you hear it mostly or much more often from people who were educated in the Soviet system.
[00:11:49] And I knew that. And I was always wondering, why is it you hear this that people say when you put on tefillin has to come from your pure heart, otherwise it's not real, it's not worth anything if you don't put it on, if you come to synagogue, it has to be with your pure heart, otherwise it's not worth anything. I was wondering where it comes from. I found out.
[00:12:09] If you look at the history of Russia or generally all of the parts of the ussr, you see quite a fascinating turn. Historically, Eastern Europe, Russia was a very religious society.
[00:12:23] Everybody was a religious Christian. I'm talking about among the Russians.
[00:12:27] Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusian, whatever it is, Lithuanians, whoever else was there.
[00:12:32] And within literally one generation, couple decades, the whole Soviet Union becomes purely anti religious, purely secular. How did this cultural change happen so quickly? It was the genius of none other than Lev Trotsky, AKA label brunch name, who was the brains behind the Soviet revolution.
[00:12:57] And he, besides for everything else, was a great PR professional.
[00:13:03] And he did many things that forced this transition. One of them was he knew that churches live because people bring them donations. That's the only revenue of any religious organizations.
[00:13:16] So he knew that the only way to close down churches is to cut off their money flow. How do you do it?
[00:13:22] If you tell people, don't give money to churches, nobody's going to listen. You are telling me not to do what my father, my mother, my grandparents did their whole life. What do you mean?
[00:13:31] What he was saying, you give money to churches. But you know what? Church is a very lofty institution. It's very spiritual. When you give money to a church has to be with your pure heart. Otherwise you are defiling this lofty institution of church.
[00:13:51] So before you give every ruble, every whatever it is, every dollar to church, look deep inside your heart. If you are doing it with pure intentions, then do it. But otherwise, if there is even one ounce of impurity there, then don't give it.
[00:14:08] So every person who was thinking of giving money to church was holding this ruble in their hands and like, do I really purely want to give it away.
[00:14:18] You know what? Maybe no maybe at least some part of it wants me to go and buy an ice cream with this money for my children, or buy new shoes to my children, you know? Yeah. My intentions are not pure, so I'm not going to give it.
[00:14:31] So this idea, you know, it's like Trotsky's thinking was, don't go against them, but maneuver, channel their ideology.
[00:14:42] And it worked. So now people, when they give anything to anyone else, when they do any mitzvah, when they put on film, they come to shul, they learn Torah, they do other things, they all look at how pure are my intentions. Moshe was telling the Jews, first look at what you do. Your intention is going to come secondary.
