Ramban on the Torah | 60 | Ki Tavo, by Rav Eli Weber
What is the meaning of Vidui Bikkurim? Is there a meaning to what the goyim think of us? What is the meaning of writing the Torah on stones?
KMTT - the Torah Podcast
Ramban on the Torah | 60 | Ki Tavo
(upbeat music) - Welcome everyone to another week of Rabannala Parshah. This week we have this close to read. Parshah's Quitovo. Quitovo opens with the Parshah's Habicurim and the famous Sukhim that I read, Parshah's become our Amiyo Vaidavi. And the Torah begins, (speaking in foreign language) As we know, (speaking in foreign language) And then we read. (speaking in foreign language) Okay, (speaking in foreign language) So the Ramban is bothered, right? You say to the (speaking in foreign language) You know, he got it, he means I say, but what's really going on in the Posuk? (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) With these new fruits that I'm bringing now to God, (speaking in foreign language) I've sort of, I've acknowledged, I've confessed, I've announced (speaking in foreign language) I'm acknowledging, you know, after all these years, after 40 years in the mid-bar, after 210 years in Mid-Sriam, I'm acknowledging (speaking in foreign language) It's sort of like, you know, the average Jews making a valid victory address. I've suffered a lot. I've been in gallos all this time, but now God is actually fulfilling his words. (speaking in foreign language) And I am acknowledging and praising his name, right? I'm sort of, I'm stopping for a second. What's (speaking in foreign language) I'm stopping for a second. And I'm saying, here's my history. (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) I'm now coming and I'm acknowledging in some formal way, something which otherwise may have gone unnoticed. (speaking in foreign language) What does it mean? I said (speaking in foreign language) Yeah, exactly that. (speaking in foreign language) God knew what the people said, but nevertheless (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) The second shot says, (speaking in foreign language) It's not that dissimilar, is I'm saying to you the (speaking in foreign language) and to all the people who are standing around (speaking in foreign language) He, (speaking in foreign language) I'm acknowledging in front of all of you that God has done all this for me. (speaking in foreign language) For his own name, (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) God has, after all of these years, brought me for his own benefit. But as a fulfillment of his own promise to us, he's brought us to Ereti Sural where we can do Mitzvot. When I've mentioned before, and we've seen it before, Duramban thinks that the (speaking in foreign language) is Ereti Sural. I'm not saying, I'm not implying, maybe I'm implying, but I'm not saying that (speaking in foreign language) That's not the case. But there's no question there. Mitzvot thinks there's a higher level of (speaking in foreign language) There's a higher level of connection of (speaking in foreign language) in Ereti Sural. And the Jewish people, or in this case, the average Jew who's coming and bringing (speaking in foreign language) is saying (speaking in foreign language) Now I'm gonna get a chance to experience that. Now I'm going into Ereti Sural and we're able to worship you in a way and on a level there was unable to worship you in the mid-bar, and certainly in Mitzrayim before I got to Torah. Okay, so that's the significance of the word he got ati. And that's the significance of what we're up to in the speech, which is the idea that Bikurim represents something unique. We could talk about, you know, how unique the Mitzvot Bikurim is in. And of course it is unique. But in a way, it's the moment that, you know, if he asks yourself, when do we actually become part of Ereti Sural? So there's all different levels at which you could do that. But when we become self-sufficient, when we grow crops and we harvest them, and then we come to Ereti Sural, it's like bonus day on Wall Street, or it's like, you know, it's like the end of the year. We come and we say (speaking in foreign language) we're here, we did it. You kept your word to us, and now we're keeping our word to you. (speaking in foreign language) It's a significant moment in the history of our people, except it's not really commemorated that way. Hence the Ramban, and I think that is Pshat, that Bikurim and the Pasha that we read at Bikurim is a unique moment in Jewish history. And the fact that we did it for every year doesn't make it any less unique. Okay, that's He got a Tiyyom. Now, if you go through the Pshukim, so we sail (speaking in foreign language) we say all the things (speaking in foreign language) it's really a lovely, wonderful story. And it's also, then you come to be your Maastros, and then you really come to the end of the speech. (speaking in foreign language) It's a really, really long speech. And now you get to the end of the speech, in (speaking in foreign language) And now you get to the end of the speech, in (speaking in foreign language) And the Torah says, the last possible, (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) And again, you might miss it. (speaking in foreign language) And to make you supreme over the Gentiles. It's a point that we're a little uncomfortable with. But most of me know concludes the speech by saying the following. (speaking in foreign language) And says the Ramban right. (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) The Gentiles will praise you that you're so close to God that when you call out to him, he answers. And when I say, we're uncomfortable with it, but we often like to think, it strikes me, that our relationship with our (speaking in foreign language) is what it is. And who cares what the gallium think, right? Who cares? I'm pressing the guy, I do it for myself. I don't do it for the gallium. And that's true. But the post-doc points out to us again, the last post-doc, the culmination of the longest speech in the Torah, of the dominant speech in Safeth Barim, the post-doc says, (speaking in foreign language) That's a big deal. What the Gentiles, we're not so comfortable with it. What the Gentiles think of us matters. And the fact that they admire us, and the fact that they say, look at these people, it's not just that they're inheriting arets Israel, it's that they have a unique relationship with Akarish Barhu. And our relationship with Akarish Barhu and God's role and God's existence in the world is in fact dependent to some extent, not just on us, but on us in the sense that how other people think of us. When the Jewish people do something great, the Gentiles respect us. When God forbid the reverse happens, the Gentiles don't respect us. Revami tells that, (speaking in foreign language) always used to refer to the Holocaust as a (speaking in foreign language) and I remember thinking to myself, what do we do wrong? Is he blaming us? That's a (speaking in foreign language) And he said, no, it's not a (speaking in foreign language) in the sense that we did something that desecrated God. But the result, he said, who respected the God of the Jews in 1940? Nobody, right? It wasn't, it's not our fault, we didn't do anything. But the fact of the matter is, we are the method or the medium through which Akarish Barhu exists in this world. And when we do something worthwhile, right? Revami tell referred to the founding of the state of Israel as a (speaking in foreign language) So it wasn't a (speaking in foreign language) that you're doing a mitzvah. It was a (speaking in foreign language) that people looked at the Jews and said the God of the Jews has returned to the historical stage. This matters because they matter and they matter 'cause their relationship with Akarish Barhu. And it's really a significant point that God's reputation, how people view God is seen through us. And when we're great and when we do God's will and when God is good to us because we deserve it, God's name is made greater in this world. It's a (speaking in foreign language) and Gentiles respect God more. I'm not saying they worship God, eventually they will, but they respect God more, why? Because of us, (speaking in foreign language) and God will make us great because the Gentiles will see us as great and we shouldn't dismiss it. You know, (speaking in foreign language) When Moshe Rabinu needs to save (speaking in foreign language) after the (speaking in foreign language) that's what he refers to. (speaking in foreign language) Why should the Gentiles say? So God could have said, who cares what the Gentiles say? I care about the truth. You deserve to be punished, but he doesn't. He says (speaking in foreign language) So we shouldn't minimize our role in the world and we shouldn't minimize what the Gentiles think of us. It's important. Now, I'm not saying we should refrain from doing something and we shouldn't go to war and we should do. No, I'm not saying that at all, but I'm saying, somehow or another, it matters what the Gentiles think of us, it matters to us, it matters to (speaking in foreign language) it matters in the (speaking in foreign language) Okay, that's the end of Moshe's speech. What's the first part of the next speech? (speaking in foreign language) Okay, you have to keep all the mitzvahs. We know that. (speaking in foreign language) A strange mitzvah. (speaking in foreign language) When you cross the (speaking in foreign language) Pick up gigantic stones, this side of toe, (speaking in foreign language) Okay, (speaking in foreign language) Okay, write down the (speaking in foreign language) and (speaking in foreign language) So what's (speaking in foreign language) Are we really writing the entire Torah on the stones? So Rashi thinks yes, (speaking in foreign language) In the name of (speaking in foreign language) It's like a reference in the Torah to the idea of (speaking in foreign language) which doesn't exist in the Torah. (speaking in foreign language) In the middle ages, all the early we've shown starting with the late going and wrote their own as Harot. As Harot basically means, (speaking in foreign language) It's like a type of (speaking in foreign language) Maybe it's written as a poem, but it is in fact the (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) Right, (speaking in foreign language) Can't mean with explanations. Right, Rashi says you write the whole Torah with in 70 translations. But if you're just writing (speaking in foreign language) So by (speaking in foreign language) Can't mean that. So it means very clearly. It means the writing should be clear. But it's a fascinating idea. Some idea that the Mitzvah's Torah was to write down (speaking in foreign language) not to write down the entirety of the Torah. That's the Ibn Ezra. The Ramban disagrees. Raman quotes (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) Right, that's what we know from Rashi. (speaking in foreign language) If you open up a safe for Torah, so words have tag in, right? The tag in really look like little Zion's. (speaking in foreign language) Right, if you open up a safe for Torah, so words have tag in, right? The tag in really look like little Zion's. (speaking in foreign language) With the Zion's on the top. Sometimes there are three on top of a shin. There are different ways. And they're darshan in different ways by Rabbi Akiva and other Tanohim, et cetera. So here the Ramban says, what are you supposed to write down? (speaking in foreign language) What are you supposed to write down? Are you supposed to write down the entirety of the Torah? So in a way, you know, it makes sense. I'm coming to Aras Israel. What matters most and why I'm inheriting Aras Israel is because I kept the Torah. Why I'm going to continue to inherit Aras Israel is because I'm going to keep the Torah. So it's no big surprise that Akarash Barhu says, you know what you should do right now? You should write down the Torah. And the Ramban says it's not just that they wrote down the Torah. They wrote the Torah with its tag in so that in the future, people who wanted to write other sifre' Torah, the model that they used for other sifre' Torah was the Torah that was written on these giganticly large stones that Benays Israel took out of the Yaredan and put down in Aras Israel. "The Yitah'ain," says the Ramban, "Shihayu ha'avonim gidolot" mode. Well, the Ramban, as we know, minimizes miracles. He thinks Akarash Barhu doesn't want to do miracles all the time. He doesn't when he has to, but otherwise he doesn't naturally. So the simple shot is, if you wrote down the entire Torah in 70 languages, these stones must have been enormous. Or says the Ramban, "O Shihayamim m'asah nisim." The Ramban doesn't, of course, deny miracles. They're all over the Torah. I think he'd rather say this was done naturally. He'd rather give us credit for sitting down and writing it all down. But he said, "Okay, I don't know that for sure the other possibilities was a miracle. It was a miracle that there was a regular stone and you could write the entirety of the Torah on it, and people could read it." Right? The Ramban's not against the fact that Akarash Barhu does miracles. But if Akarash Barhu has to change the rules of nature, it's not just an effort on his part. It needs to be for some significant, significant purpose. Okay, so maybe this is a significant purpose, or maybe it was done naturally. But the idea that not just the first myths for that I get when I come into Harris' Israel is to write the Torah, which is completely significant and makes complete sense, but that it's a sign that because of this, I'm inheriting Harris' Israel and going forward because I'm going to keep the Torah, I'm going to live in Harris' Israel. And God forbid, if we don't keep the Torah, or God forbid when we don't keep the Torah, we're kicked out. But otherwise, the first myths when we come into Harris' Israel is writing the Torah. It's significant and it's very compelling. Okay, then the puzzle continues. Let me just find it. We're in posse of gimbal. Let me just find it. We're in posse of gimbal. Let me just find it. We're in posse of gimbal. Let me just find it. Let me just find it. We're in posse of gimbal. Let me just find it. Let me just find it. Let me just find it. Right? God is helping us now. God is giving us the land of Israel now. Why? Because we kept the Torah. The Torah that we just wrote on Iraq, we kept it. It's a reward for that. kizoti ha mitzvah harishonah. Ah, that's where I got the idea that I just told you. Kizoti ha mitzvah harishonah le bia tam larets. This is their first mitzvah. Their first mitzvah is to write down the Torah. Not so much because it's important to write down the Torah because it's a sign. It's significant because we're saying, this is the reason we're inheriting Erich Israel. U le phi da ati. The rambant continues. le mana sher tovoh. Remes le chol divre ha Torah. Re le mana sher tovoh. Not tavi. It's a hint to the entirety of the Torah. Yomar sher tov al hoh avonim. Chol divre ha Torah hasot bah of rah bah yardang. Mi yard le mana sher bah tah el hoharets. Kiba avor ha Torah bah tashama. Says the rambant explicitly. It's a statement on our part that the reason why we're inheriting Erich Israel is because we kept the Torah. Had we not kept the Torah, we wouldn't. Right? The rambantas said elsewhere. Certainly, and safe or bracious. Right? Promises that a karish bar who make to us are all contingent. Right? When a karish bar who promised averham yadaw taydah ki yayyayyayyayazah hab aras lo lo haem vah badum vinu wa tama bah meo shana. Right? And then you'll come back to Erich Israel. Contingent is us being the chosen people. Contingent is us keeping a karish bar who's word. Contingent is says the rambant, us keeping the Torah. And now, having kept the Torah for 40 years in the mid-bar, the rambant says okay. Le mana sher tovoh. As far as we write it down, and we acknowledge and God acknowledges that we deserve to live in Erich Israel, that we've earned the right to live in Erich Israel, and therefore, he's going to bring us into Erich Israel. Right? So, it's sort of like we've spent four svarim and, you know, an 80% of pashas devahram in gallos, in the exile. And now, finally, at the end of Kitavo, in the middle of Kitavo, we're coming to Erich Israel, and we're acknowledging. This is a really big moment in our history. This is the moment in which God keeps his word, A, because he's God, and B, because we earned it. Okay. Let's do one more. Parik kraav zayin pasa kraavav says the Torah. After all of the, after the 13 arurs, the last one, I think 13. O rur asha lo yokim et divre ha tarazot la usototam vamar kohamamein. So we have all these specific arurs, don't do this, don't do that, don't do that. And finally, cursed is a person, or would we be, if we don't keep the Torah. Okay. First of all, you know, the obvious message in this, which Raman doesn't need to say, is that there's more to the specifics, right? It's not just tai yagmezvos, it's not just do these things, don't do these things. But there's arush lo yokim et divre ha tarazot, there's something bigger than that. There's kidoshim tiyu, there's vasita hai ashar vahatov, there's being God-like, which can't be encompassed in a particular mitzvah. But Raman is saying, the Torah is saying, it's not just the do's and the don'ts, there's a bigger message here. And there's the idea that if the Torah doesn't specifically tell you that you have to pay your taxes, it doesn't change the fact that we know from the Torah that it's what a person should do. It's what a moral person should do. It's what a law-fearing, a God-fearing person should do. Okay, so we know that. But there's a different message here that the Raman has, and I think it's fascinating. Can kalal et kal hai tarah, kula, here, ashar lo yokim et divre hai tarazot, includes the entirety of the Torah, vik qibluah, alayhambalah, bishvua, loshon rashi. And that's what rashi says. And they kept and we took the brit I vote mo'av, we accepted a covenant right here. Now says the Raman, ulu fi dati, kiyakabala hazot, shayyode bim mitzvah, bili boh. On the one hand, I acknowledge in my heart all the mitzvos, vihi yu beinav emet, right? There's something personal about this. I have to acknowledge that they're true and they're right. Viyyah amin, shayah o seotan yihi yu lo sakhar vitovah, viho o vera, alayham yayannesh. Not only do I have to acknowledge the truth of the Torah, I have to acknowledge sakhar vonesh. It says the Raman, to accept the Torah, I have to acknowledge that if I keep the mitzvos, I will be rewarded, right? Vayyah am shawan tish mo'amizosai, vin nah tati, mitaar, tacham beitou. And God forbid, if I don't keep the Torah, I won't be an order. So, I won't be rewarded and I'll be punished. Viyyah miyach pore, now here comes the important part, viyyah miyach pore bahat miham. If I reject even one mitzvah, o tihi ya beinav beitailah le olam, or I think that a mitzv was canceled forever, hinehu arur, that's the meaning of this postukah, sure arurah, shaloh yakimetivraturazot, aval, im avar alahat miham, kigon shah alhachazir vahashek atlutah avatau. I was so overcome by desire to have a cheeseburger, I was so overcome by desire to pork, right? Oh, shaloh asas sukah v'lululah v'lah atselah. I was too lazy to build a sukkah, I was too tired to go out and buy dalad miham. Enanu bhairimzah, says the raman, it's not good. But that's not included in this arur, kilo amar hakato of ashe lo yah ashe tivraturazot. The Torah's not saying, curse it as the person doesn't keep the Torah, ela, ela, ashe lo yah kimetivraturazot lahasot, right? I don't hold up the Torah, qitamam, qitam, qimu v'qibulu, haiyahudim, says raman, vihinehu qayram ha'mordim v'hakoh frim. And this is reminiscent of a raman in the first showresh and a much, much bigger, deeper point. We like to think that there are two categories of avaros, this mazid, God forbid, and this shogig. But says the raman, it doesn't work that way, there are really two types of mazidim. There's a mazid where I was exhausted, I was tired, I know there's a mitzvah of sukkah. I know there's a mitzvah of lulah, but I was so tired, I didn't put up my sukkah, I was so tired, I didn't buy a lulah. In a way, that's a mazid, but that's not a rejection of a karashbarful. That's just a human weakness and says, raman, that's one category, that's not this aurur. What's this aurur? This aurur is when I reject the Torah. This aurur is when I say, it's not that I'm not putting up a sukkah because I'm lazy, I'm not putting up a sukkah because I don't believe that it's a mitzvah because I don't believe that God commanded me to do that. Maybe I don't believe in God at all, but the raman says, that's a major difference. There's a major difference between, okay, I'm weak, I'm lazy, I'm tired, I'm a human being, the raman, God will cut you slack for that. But when you reject the Torah, that's problematic. It's aurur, I'm sorry, that's carried over rightly or wrongly into hilkhos giyur, right? In the fight about conversion in the state of Israel now, mostly it's not really, is a convert going to keep all of Tyre Agmitzfus. I think that's wrong. But if a convert, when he's doing conversion, says to himself, it was tasamish bakhad, that doesn't make any sense to me, I reject that. No, you can't accept such a person. You have to accept a person who respects Tyre Agmitzfus, even if he doesn't know it. So whether you have to specifically ask a convert, every single question, that I don't think you have to do it, I don't think you should do. That's not how we're supposed to get converts. On the other hand, if it so happens that a convert tells you, I'm not doing this, right, so the raman would say to you, perhaps ask him. If the reason he's not doing it is because he just doesn't think he can do it yet. He plans to do it one way, yet one day, he just doesn't have the self-control and the self-confidence and the self-discipline that's necessary. I think the raman would say, we can live with that, that's okay. But a person who says, no, I'm never going to keep Tyre Agmitzfus, I'm never going to keep Shabbos, I'm never going to keep Sukkah, I'm never going to eat matzah. They don't speak to me. If anyone, one of those myths who doesn't speak to him, then that's not an acceptance of the Torah, right? That's not as the first part of the raman says, that's not me acknowledging the truth of the Torah and the truth of Akhaddish Barco and the truth of Sqarva Onesh. So in a way, now that the main speech is over, now we're doing the covenant and the covenant requires me to acknowledge the truth of the Torah, to acknowledge the truth of the Torah, meaning every single mitzvah in the Torah. It doesn't mean I can't sin, it doesn't mean I can't be a human being, I can. I'll feel bad about it afterwards, I'll do Chuvah, I'll try to be better next time. But you're allowed to be weak, you're not allowed to reject. If you reject, God forbid, then you're a rurash al loyo kime tivrata or asot lassot al tom, the almahr kohama mane, however, if you just fall, if you make a mistake, if you succumb to your Yeats Ahara, says the Ramban, that's not that a rur, that's being a human being. And we want to be better and we're going to try to be better, but we have to acknowledge I think, says the Ramban, that we're weak and we make mistakes and we fall and we'll try to be better. K. Yashqah, to everybody, have a great, great week and see you, God willing, next week. [MUSIC PLAYING]