Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] We know that Torah is extremely petty when it comes to words.
[00:00:10] The Torah is trying to tell us everything in the most concise way. And the Torah would not waste a letter, never mind a word, on something which is not absolutely necessary. This is why rabbis need to debate for pages and pages of Talmud, figuring out what information can be learned out from which verse, because everything is said in the most concise possible way.
[00:00:34] Having said that, we have a very strange appearance in the Chapter of Nassau. In the Chapter of Nassau, he's talking about the sacrifices that were brought by each head of a tribe.
[00:00:49] There were 12 tribes that were bringing sacrifices.
[00:00:53] Now, how many tribes are there all together? We know Everybody speaks about 12 tribes of Israel. Well, guess what? How many of 12 tribes of Israel are there? 13.
[00:01:03] There are 13 tribes, but one of them was Levi. They were the ones who were serving in a temple, assisting everybody.
[00:01:11] So besides for the tribe of Levi, 12 were bringing sacrifices. And each head of a tribe, on behalf of his tribe, was bringing the sacrifice.
[00:01:21] And guess what? Each one of these sacrifices were exactly identical. There was not one deviation. Each one was given the same script, everybody was given the same prescription, and they were following protocol meticulously. Everybody brought this exactly the same sacrifice. So the Torah could have just said, and these are the sacrifices that the heads of the tribes brought, and explain what the sacrifice was consisted of, and then say, each one of them brought the same sacrifice.
[00:01:55] But the Torah doesn't do that. The Torah describes every single one of them, forcing, copy, and pasting 12 times the same thing.
[00:02:05] Well, actually 11 times to be exact, because the first time, it was the original one. So the Torah could have saved pages and pages if they would have just made it shorter. So why is it that the Torah is repeating itself seemingly completely unnecessary?
[00:02:21] And especially in light of the fact that you'll hear from every rabbi that the Torah is so concise, it makes no sense. So what is the answer?
[00:02:29] The answer is the same answer that I give to people that come to me about synagogue services every day. We have to pray. What do we do? We open the prayer book, we open Sidur, and we read the text which is written. And guess what? Every single day, we read the same text. And the text that I'm reading is exactly the same as the text the guy next to me is reading.
[00:02:56] So people are asking me, one second, but what if I want to show my individuality? How do I do it? If the text that I'm reading is exactly the same as the text that everyone else is reading, where is room for My personal expression, that's number one. Number two, people are saying, well, if I want to say today, different prayer than I said yesterday, why do I have to read the same text every single day? The same boring text every single day, the same person saying the same thing.
[00:03:23] So the answer is that even though we say same thing, they could mean completely different things.
[00:03:34] And they should mean different things. I'll explain to you. For example, if somebody did me a favor, I was carrying a big box, and somebody said, you know, let me help you carry a box.
[00:03:47] You help me. I say thank you.
[00:03:50] Then later on, somebody called me up and asked, rabbi, I know that our synagogue needs a new this and this. Our synagogue needs a new building, and I'm donating money for the building. It didn't happen yet, but maybe, hopefully soon.
[00:04:09] So I'll say thank you. Also, guess what? I'll say thank you for helping me carry a box. And I'll say thank you for donating. And you're building for synagogue. The word will be exactly the same. The meaning that I put into it will be completely different.
[00:04:24] And the same thing is with I'm sorry. And the same thing is with hello. And the same thing with every single word that we say.
[00:04:33] Now, I've got news for you.
[00:04:35] It could be a hello. It could be a hello.
[00:04:39] It could be an I'm sorry. It could be an I'm so sorry, right?
[00:04:44] Same words, but I could put different feeling into it. And I have a different thing in mind. And the person who is hearing it is also understanding different thing.
[00:04:52] If I say I'm sorry to one person, it's going to be understood in one way. And if I'm going to say I'm sorry to someone else, two days later, he will understand. I'm saying I'm sorry for something totally different.
[00:05:03] So we have, in our language, tools of communication. But these tools of communication are only the external outlier.
[00:05:14] And what is inside of them is really up to us.
[00:05:18] And we know that our prayer in a synagogue is modeled after the Temple. That's why the order of prayers is following the order of sacrifices. And each prayer is corresponding to a specific sacrifice, and so on.
[00:05:30] And the sacrifices were meant to help us become better people, to help us work in ourselves. Now, does it mean that everybody took advantage of this? Probably not.
[00:05:42] The same thing is prayers. Prayers are meant to make us feel think about something higher.
[00:05:48] They are meant to make us think about our lives more seriously. They are meant to make us think about God.
[00:05:56] Does everybody take advantage of it? Unfortunately, not.
[00:05:59] But we cover so many different topics in the prayer that everybody could pick one, at least that's going to be closer to him today and focus on that. In Hasidic tradition, for years, for centuries of existence of Hasidus, there was a very big focus on studying the explanations to the prayers to understand the deeper meaning of the words. So every sentence we read, every paragraph we read, has many different layers of explanation. And maybe one layer will be talking to you more than a different layer today, and then a different layer of explanation, different meaning of these words is going to be closer to you tomorrow.
[00:06:36] So this is why we, even though we read the same prayers, but we are encouraged to focus on different things and think different things every time. And the same thing is with the sacrifices.
[00:06:50] Even though each head of a tribe brought his sacrifice that was exactly the same as the guy before, he was putting in a completely different meaning, and God was hearing a completely different message from him.
[00:07:04] And God is specifically making a point of describing every sacrifice individually to demonstrate that for him, the sacrifices were not the same.
[00:07:14] For him, each one of these sacrifices was something else.
[00:07:17] And when we come and we recite our prayers in a synagogue, in the shul, I could be saying the same thing as a guy next to me, but for God, these are completely different words. For God, these are completely different prayers. For God, there's something individual from me.
[00:07:32] And in Hasidic tradition, there were. People have been always encouraged to pray for longer than people usually spend in their prayer in the synagogue. So people would stay afterwards and pray for longer, and they would pour their heart out, they would put all of their thoughts into it, and their prayer was really individual, even though they were reading all the same books.
