And today's year is meant to be an introduction. An introduction about the Ramban, who was he? Now that's literally semester long courses in colleges. So that's obviously not gonna be comprehensive, but a little bit of a functional introduction to the Ramban. We'll talk a little bit about what the letter is supposed to be or supposedly is, and then we will begin the letter. We will do the opening line of the letter. As you can see, I brought with me, and I may bring with me every week, two versions of the letter that I have at home. The first ones who really made this popular in the modern era was Art Scroll, actually. And they published an edition, which I will be using extensively, not only today, but in general, by Rabbi Foyer. Rabbi Foyer, who was, I think somebody who was in Miami, before that he was in Cleveland. He was a son-in-law of a gifted from Tels. And he put out an English commentary on the Ramban's letter, which Art Scroll published. There's a nice hardcover version you can get. And at some point, I was at a wedding, and instead of a venture, they gave this out, which is the exact full Art Scroll. They didn't skimp on it at all. It's the whole Art Scroll, with the commentary of everything, and it has benching in the back. So, Anne Shevabrathus. Yeah, exactly, and for the Brits, I guess they were, you know, there was an expectation. (audience laughs) I didn't see a pigeon event yet. Anyway, so this is, there is an Art Scroll version if any one, some of you may have it at home, so if you want to buy it, not only is the text in Hebrew and English, but the commentary is in English. It's very helpful, very nice. You'll also know a lot of things I'm gonna say in advance. So, maybe you'll get this year one day if you buy it. No, just kidding. But anyway, that's it. Now, I also have this hardcover volume, which is actually a compilation of four different letters, all of which are kind of muster or ethical related. From four different authors, the first one in this compilation is Igera Saramban. And it, too, has a running commentary by somebody named Robert Goldberg, our own David Goldberg, who is actually the current Rasheva of Tells in Cleveland. So I guess this must have been a real hot, important text in Cleveland, 'cause you have at least two products of Tells who've put out the contemporary commentaries of it. And the whole letter itself, you know, even in this small version, I think it's three pages. It's not that long. And if all we were doing was just reading the letter together, it would take us two or three sure I'm not more than that. It's not that long. But, you know, they managed to make a whole book out of it. He has 40 pages of commentary on it. That's how rich and how meaningful the text is. So let me now take a step back again and do what I said I was gonna do before we start the actual letter today, which is, let's just give it a little bit of an introduction. The Ramban, you know, in English as nachmanadis. Adis means son of. So mymanadis means the son of mymon. And nachmanadis means he was the son of nachman. His name wasn't nachman, his name was Moshe. Ramban, Ravmosa, Ben-Nachman, or in English, nachmanadis. So the Ramban was born in northern Spain. We know that, you know, pre the modern era, even what you and I now call Spain, or Germany or these countries. It wasn't a unified country where we think of nation states now. There were a lot of different sort of speak nations or, you know, each area, each region had a different king. So he was born in a northern of what we call Spain now. And it plays called Garona. And Garona was its own capital and its own king, which will be important to the Ramban's biography as we'll get to in a few moments. And he was born in the end of the 12th century, 1195 according to our record, the Ramban was born. Again, without going through his entire biography, he very soon became one of and then eventually probably the greatest of all of the reshones in Spain. Not only in his century, I would say looking back, you know, if you were making a top 20 almost, I mean, he's one of the greatest, greatest of all time by any measure. He wasn't just one of the greatest in his country, he wasn't one of just the greatest in his century. Ramban is one of the greatest of all time. He was a polymath around a Sansa man. In other words, you have Ramban him, even in our generation, right? He could be a good person, but not everyone's great at everything. There are people who are known as big tzadikim, and there are people who are known as great Talmudis, mabdanim, and this one's a poisek, and this one's a poisek for medical aloha, and this one's a poisek for hehsnidah, and this one's the best poisek if you have an araben. And then you have some people, but Ramban was the greatest at everything. What I mean to say, literally to this day, he has one of the two or three most important commentaries on the entire Torah. The parish of the Ramban al-Hatora, maybe other than Rashi, is the most important commentary studied by every Yeshiva in the world, every academic Jewish studies, Bible scholar, it's so, so important. I once heard from Avar on Lichtenstein, they asked, and one of these things were like 18-year-olds, asked stupid questions, which I think are clever. If you'd be at an island, and you could only bring one book, what would you bring? So after, saying, okay, well, I'd have to bring like Shost, or I'd have to bring the Hummish, okay, no, not that stuff. So he said Ramban al-Hatora, because not only is it such an important commentary on the Hummish in terms of just what happened, gaps in the story, figuring it out, but he also uses his commentary on the Torah to what has become now universally recognized as one of the most important texts that we have about Ashkafur, Jewish philosophy. So his commentary, many of the main principles, we say, I took a graduate school course in the thought of the Ramban. So as I'll get to it a second, he has other writings, but one of the main texts where you can find his thought, his philosophy, his Ashkafur, of life, is in his commentary to the Torah. So it's just a remarkable brilliant, not always easy to read, remarkable and brilliant, a commentary on the Hummish. If that's all he had done, Dainu would have been an unbelievable life, we'd still be talking about him a thousand years later. But he also has one of the most important commentaries on almost the entire Shost. Very few people, again, Rashi did both, but we shouldn't take that for granted. There are very few people in all history who could do such a thing. He did both of those. He also was a major, major post-sac, not only in his lifetime, but we have his writings to this very day in certain areas of Halacha, which are still used regularly. He was not only a knower, knowledgeable in what we would call the philosophy of his day. He was a major, major, capitalist, one of the greatest of all time. In fact, his commentary on the Torah is suffused with all sorts of Kabbalah, and it's like when we get to those kind of, that's when people like me skip. 'Cause I don't understand what he's saying, but people who really didn't know Kabbalah, he used even, so he was a massive capitalist. He was an actual leader. Like, he wouldn't spend his whole day. I don't even know when he had time to do all this, 'cause he was an actual rabbinic leader, dealing with people and problems. He was also a doctor. It's a more well-known that the Rambam was a doctor, everyone knows the famous Rambam. My monadies was a doctor. Nachmanis is also a doctor, you know, like this, why not? So just, I'm not even beginning to scratch the surface of how incredible he was. But he was just an overwhelming, overwhelming, genius personality, and there's not much more to say other than it's worth spending a lifetime just studying his works, that's how important he was. Now let's get to some of the fascinating and tragic parts of his life, which will then yield to the texts that we're gonna be studying the next, I don't know if it's a few weeks or a few months. So in 1263, which means that he was 68 years old. That's not so so young now, and it certainly was not young in his century, as he was already an old man. There was an event, which in many ways changed his life and Jewish history, and that was that he was invited, but at certain invitations you can't say no to. He was invited by the king, King James of Aragon, to have a dispute about Judaism versus Christianity. We had many of those in the medieval period. This is one of the most famous. And he was in public, gonna have to have this maklokess, or as he himself called it, the vikuach, with a Jewish apostate. Some who had been raised Jewish, then converted, whose name was Pablo Christiani. So not only was he presumably educated in the Christian sources, but as some who had been raised Jewish, he purportedly had inside knowledge, which then he could use. And not only was the Ramban forced to have this high stakes debate, like we still see in every other era of our life, there's always two rules, right? The rule for the Jews and the rules for everybody else, whatever, you know, always a double standard. So not only did he have to do this dispute, he was prohibited from going on offense. He was not allowed to say anything that would be deemed blasphemous to the church. So all he could do, you know, and point out this thing about them, or he was not allowed to make any of those kind of arguments. Only defense. Apparently, and we have various historical accounts, including the Ramban himself, who wrote up the whole thing. You can get it, it's available now, called Safar Avi Guach. That's, he wrote it up. You know, he claims it's word for word. I don't know if that's a hundred little rule or not, but basically a word for word of his side of it. But the good news is that he was devastatingly successful. Even when he wasn't on offense, his defense was an offense. And it was overwhelming, not only did, you know, the Jews not have to like run away and shame after this, but it was, you know, pretty much clear that he won by TKO. It was kind of a technical knockout. That was the good news. It was also the bad news. 'Cause when, you know, as you know, the battlefield like when it comes to the state of Israel, we're never allowed to win. We're allowed to go to a draw. Nebuchadors sometimes let us stay alive, but actually win. Why should the world ever let the Jews win? So he, Nebuch won. And his offense, his defense ended up being so devastating that the monks and the other people, the Dominican monks in that area, basically, after, so he wrote it up, won't ever want to know about it. 'Cause it was for the Jewish community to see the arguments that they shouldn't be constantly under threat of the church. The Dominican monks declared that all his defense was really blasphemous to the church. And he was expelled from Aragon. He was expelled from Spain. And he had to run for his life at 68 years old, which none of us can imagine doing even nowadays, let alone in the medieval period. And I don't know if other people know all the details. I certainly am not an expert historian, so I don't know all the details, but I do know that within a few years, eventually, by 72, he made it to the land of Israel. He made it to the land of Israel. He made Aliyah. I don't know if there were kids that are waiting, David T-shirt. Welcome home, Saba. Welcome home, Saba. He came by himself. That's the truth. He actually left his family back in Spain, which we'll get to in a moment. But he made it somehow, at the age of 72, to the port of Aco. El 1267. He was 72 years old, and he makes it to Aco. Just a brief side point, among all of the Gedolei Rishonim, perhaps with one possible alternative, would be close to him. But you could definitely make the case that he is the greatest lover of Arachistral. He wrote about Arachistral all the time in his writings, and not just writing about it, the way a poet might write about it, or a painter might paint about it, but as I say, he had certain halakhic and certain hushkothic assumptions, beliefs, about the centrality of the land of Israel in our religious life, that he used in halakhic contexts, he used to explain in his commentary to the Torah. I've just mentioned one example. This is, he's not the only one who says this, but because he said it so passionately, so articulately, and so repeatedly, he became famous for this. We actually gave a shear two or three years ago. I think when the shear was still at the Platnik's house, I gave a shear out this topic a few years ago, because there's a particular measure for which the Ramban made famous, and made it kind of his own, which my youngest son, who then was in high school now, he's 18, but this is like his favorite thing, and we had just come back from Pesach in America, and my son thought it would be a great idea, we're about a family of 20-something at the table over Pesach, with all my sisters and siblings and their children, and this particular son loved to go around to all the uncles and aunts, to tell them all about how they're not good people, 'cause they don't live in Israel. And it was based on this Ramban, and it was, in case you're wondering, like what the god, you know, Pesach table is like. So it's not always fireworks, but we had blood that year, we had hail that year, you know, it just was coming from my brother-in-law, you know, whatever, in vice versa. Anyway, so, and every time I brought, my son would be like a real hot debate, he would always say, "What do you think, Abba?" And I was like, "Can you pass the chicken?" (audience laughs) Like, "Don't get me involved in all your fights, these are my brothers-in-law, my relatives, but am I right, Abba?" So he, I said, you know, I told him, I'll give you the biggest cup I can, it's when I come back to Israel, I'm gonna give one or two shurum all about this topic. So I did get it, it's online, you can look at the recordings, but it's a principle that I'm bond-made famous, although he's not the only one who says it, that basically, again, we had a whole sheer about whether what Abba said is really true. Did he mean what he said? But what he says is that the only place that mitzvos really count is in Israel, not just the agricultural mitzvos, true motsamisros, oh, keeping shabbos, keeping kosher. It's really, really, only intended to be in Israel. Does that mean when you live in London or you live in Chicago, you live in, you know, Melbourne, you don't have to keep the mitzvos? No, sir, of course you have to keep the mitzvos. But it's just a way of practice. Just stay sharp, it's like a little girl playing, having a tea party. So when you become a mommy or you're a Shabbos mommy or you're the Shabbos Abba, so when you get older, you'll know how to do it. So when you come to Israel, then you'll actually know what to do. 'Cause if you spent your whole life not doing any mitzvos, what would you do when you got to Israel? So practice when you're in close lorates, so when you come to Israel, your mitzvos count. Now that's a bold statement. How far do you take it? Did it really mean it? That we had a whole shear on. But just to give you an example, Thromban didn't just quote that or state it. He used it as part of his Torah commentary. So for example, one of the questions that a lot of Mafarsham deal with is, how can Yaakov marry two sisters, right? One of the prohibitions is a man is not allowed to marry two sisters. Even if you're allowed to have more than one wife, biblically, you can't marry two sisters. So how do you marry Rocha? So there's different answers to that question. But a lot of them are bother by that. You know what Thromban's answer is? He married them outside the land of Israel. And wouldn't you know it, Rocha dies before they come back. On their way in, on the way outside of Israel. He married them outside the land of Israel. So just as an example, Erich Israel is obviously a very, very big deal for him. It was his whole life, and he was writing about it, et cetera. So many people, Raboudah Lavi, who was maybe of the Rishon, and the only one who's even close to him, in terms of giving such a centrality to Erich Israel, Raboudah Lavi never made it. Or they say he made it maybe and got killed when he got here. It's not really clear. There's a legend about it. And a libibim is Rocha. So Thromban actually really made it here and got to live here for the end of his life. So he does get there. In those days, Akko, the North in general, and Akko was like more of a hub. Everything was pathetic. It was very little Jewish life here. But it was stronger there than in other places. But how could a Jew come to Israel and not get to Yushalayim? So he travels and by Rishishana he gets to Yushalayim. We have a letter, not the one we're gonna be studying, but it's a published letter we have an extant manuscript. He wrote a letter to his son back in Spain, whose name was Nahman, named after his father. Tells me about what he saw. And I'll give you the English translation. And he talks because you have to send those, that was a period of history where the country was destroyed and plundered by the Crusaders. The same Crusaders and Christians who kicked him out of Spain had already made their way to Israel to do what they needed to do. And he writes to his son, "The more sacred the place, "the greater their devastation. "Yushalayim is the most desolate of all. "There was barely a minion in Yushalayim "that was nothing." So he gets to Yushalayim and he finds an abandoned house and he says, "This is gonna be the shul." He starts a shul. They didn't have a Torah. He gets a Torah from Shechem. And they lead Russia, Shana Davening, in this remade house that got turned into a shul. And we have a copy of this Russia that he gave. And he exhorts this small number, this minuscule number of people who are Yushalayim that they should lose faith and that they have to remain in Yushalayim and they should remain strong and careful in their observance because they have to realize that living in Israel in general and it's specifically Yushalayim, you are like the servants who are in the palace of the king. The rest of the Jewish people are somewhere else, but if you're in the palace of the king, you have to even be particularly careful about your observance, right? Living in Israel is not only about privileges and there's more responsibility the closer you are to the king. And if you're in the palace, so he gives them that type of exhortation. Now this house, of course, becomes known as the Rambhan Shul. And from what I've read, it actually lasts and is pretty much in use with a minuscule number of people for about three centuries, until the 16th century, when as we know what the history of our Tisra'o, they just take turns on who wants to kill us. So then it was the Christians, three centuries later, it was the Muslims. The Muslims had then taken over the land of Israel and at some point they confiscate this building in Yushalayim and they turn it into a mosque. It has basically gone from the Jewish people until 1967, when Yushalayim was liberated after the Six Day War and they find out how long, when the last time they didn't use his mosque, I don't know if it had been for a while, but it was basically in ruins. It is refurbished. You can see it today, literally today, if you want to go in Yushalayim, you can go there, in the old city. But can I set a Rambhan? I don't mean the one in Rakhavya, not the modern one, but in the old city, there's the Rambhan Shul. And in the back, there's actually a beautiful plaque, which has the full text of the letter we're gonna be studying, the famous Igueras Harambhan. It's actually on the wall there, of the Shul in Yushalayim, it was refurbished in 1967. Now just to finish his life, and then we'll study a little bit together of the text, I don't know exactly when, but sometime after that Rosh Hashanah, he moves back to Akkal. That was more vibrant Jewish life in those days. And he lives a few more years, three years, he lives of three more years, and he dies in 1270. Interestingly, you've never taken a tour properly, in which someone said we're going to Keverhar Rambhan. We go to Marzakh Paola, of course, we know what that is, even the Rambhan, and Tariya, and the answer is because we don't really 100% know for sure where the Rambhan was buried. There are those who think, this is maybe the strongest that he was buried right outside, the Marzakh Paola and Chavron. And I think there's something, there might be a sign somewhere that claims, it might be true, I just don't know for sure, 'cause other people claim he was buried in Akkal, which is where he was living. Other people was claimed he was buried in Shalayim. So I don't know, as far as I know, we don't know for sure. So that is, again, if I did nothing else, I hope I gave you a little bit of an education about one of the greatest Jews of all time. Maybe even peak your curiosity, you'll go online, you'll look a little bit, you'll buy a book, you'll see a movie or something. I don't know what else there is about the Rambhan, but there's plenty and it's all worthwhile learning about. Now that brings us to what we're gonna start studying. So he has a super duper famous letter, just known as Igeres Harambhan, the letter of the Rambhan, which he writes to his son. It's a little bit of a dispute as well. When did he write the letter? The most popular theory, if you open up the art scroll, this is what they mentioned in the introduction, the most popular theory is that it was when he was in Israel. When he got to Israel, he sends this letter back to his son. I don't know what it's based on, and I have no reason to necessarily dispute it. I know that there are others, there are some scholars who think that maybe it's, again, there are deep ideas, which we're gonna tease out, but it's not written in a complicated way. It's a lot, his commentary on the Chumish, he has commentary on it, Eove has commentary on the Gamara, he's actually one of the harder we shown him to read. Since only Hashem is perfect, so I've already talked about how amazing he is, he's not the clearest writer. But this, the Igeres Harambhan is actually very easy to read. So if he's in his 70s, which means his son is at least in his 40s or 50s, when he's written this kind of short, simple letter to his son, some people think that that must've been earlier when his son was younger. I don't know if that's a good argument or not. I don't know. I'm not even sure if it matters, but it may be that it was connected to his story about going to Israel, or maybe not. Either way, he writes this letter to his son, which is basically an ethical will. It's not just, you know, I saw the pyramids, and it wasn't just that kind of thing, and it wasn't, you know, I left an olive tree and you just put it with your sister. It was an ethical will about how to live a good life. And that's why whenever he wrote it, and whoever he initially wrote it to, it's relevant to all of us who want to live a good life. Okay, so let's start now, and we're gonna just do a little bit, and then we'll finish for today. So the letter, as I say, which is not long if you just printed it out, and I have it on my computer, I found it somewhere online, and I could have fitted it on one side of the page. If I made the letters bigger and made more space to one double-sided page. And he has drushes, which are 30 pages, but this is actually, you know, just one or two pages. But he opens up the whole letter before he says a word of his own, which we'll start with next week, please God. But the opening of the letter is just a pussock. Like, you know, the preface right on top, which is the pussock, very well-known to all of us, from the opening chapter of Mishle, of Proverbs. Shema Bani Musar Aviqah, the Al-Titosh Tarasimahqah, right? That's Shlomo Melch's words. But it's not a bad choice of a pussock if you're about to begin a letter of ethical guidance to your own child. Shema Bani Musar Aviqah, listen my son to the teachings, to the ethical teachings of your father. Al-Titosh Tarasimahqah, don't abandon the Torah of your mother. So I just want to spend a few more minutes today talking about why he might have wanted to start the letter with this pussock, or just understanding some of the pussock on its own terms, what can we learn from this pussock? So the first point I want to mention about that is that as we shall see, please God, when we get right into the text, fuller detail next week, I'll just read even one line now. And then again, we're going to repeat this line tomorrow, next week, excuse me, but he says right away, "Titnaheig," this is the rambana right here, right away, the opening of the letter. "Titnaheig, Tamid," the dabair, called the varecha, "banachas," "lakol adam," "lakol ais," "wazette natsal minakas." Opening sentences, don't raise your voice. Always talk kind, gently, and softly to other people. And by so doing, that will be a quote-unquote trick yourself. You train yourself not to lose your temper. That's an opening line, we'll break that down and it's more profound even than just the way I read it, it's not simple at all, but we'll do that next week. But I give that to you as an illustration because the rest of the letter is like that. What do I emphasize in that? 'Cause the rest of the letter, I believe they're from meaning of the whole letter, it doesn't say how to be a good person, da vin three times a day. Get where wolves it is with trellis. Go to mikvah. Biznius, do all the mitzvahs. None of that is in the letter. Now, it's obvious that he did it himself and he would want his children to do all those things too, but there's nothing in the letter about Holocaust observance. There's nothing in the letter about mitzvahs. Apparently, and we have to tease out what this means, but the message he wanted to give his children, his child would give all of us was not about mitzvahs, but about ethics, about midos, magilah, chai, muster. And I think the first thing that we notice about this is the overwhelming importance of midos. Not in any way to take away from ritual observance. Obviously, he wouldn't mean that and I wouldn't mean that, but I don't need to tell you and our generation is no better and if anything may be worse, but still no better than other generations. In the Orthodox community, we are uniquely prone and vulnerable to getting so myopically focused on the mitzvahs that we can lose sight of the bigger things. Tragically, there are other parts of the Jewish world who only care about ethics. And let's even assume that we agree with their ethics, which I don't always, but even if we did. But for them, that's all that counts and so it doesn't really matter if you drive on Shabbos or keep Shabbos or kosher, 'cause all the matters is being a good person and it's going to alarm and whatever. We have the opposite problem, often. We are often so focused on the mitzvahs and how big is it 'cause I said, how much masa do I have to eat and how quick of a time and these kind of things that we can lose sight of, the importance of actually being a good person and a kind person and having a good middos and treating people well, et cetera. And clearly, by not only starting the letter with this posseok, but by that being the introduction to an entire letter, which is only going to be focused on middos and mitzvahs kite, Ramban is underscoring that that vulnerability that we have in that common misconception that we have is really tragic and that to be a good Jew, to be a good person, are the same thing. He can't be learned without the other. Again, Ramban, first among anybody would say, yeah, that's not a substitute for davening, it's not a substitute for keeping kosher, that's a substitute for Shabbos, you have to do both. But you shouldn't think that it's enough to just do the Shabbos and the kosher. Being a mensch is of the utmost importance and that's the legacy that he wants to leave his son. So that's point number one and I just wanna read briefly, both of the commentaries, I don't know who's copying from who, but they both, in conjunction with this point that I just made, they both quote from a text, which I don't know if I had any years ago, but it definitely was included an associate that we gave as a woman's shear in our shul, is a famous text, a very important text, from Refchai Nvital, Refchai Nvital, was capitalist, was by the foremost student of the Arizal, and he has a book called the Sharaqadusha. And in that book, most of us, including me, no, almost nothing from that book, 'cause it's way over the head, Kamala. But there's one point which is like the part that everyone knows, and the minute you two. But even people like me know, and I've taught it in the past here, which is very important, which is he notices, I don't know if he's the only one, but he's maybe the most famous one to address the following question, which is if we always talk about meadows and muscer and menstrual kite, we have a tradition of their 613 mitzvos, none of the mitzvos are mitzvos. They're pesach and they're Shabbos and they're cautious, and they're needa, and there's arios, and there's kibra v'aim, okay, that's a, but they're mitzvos. What happened to the, there's no mitzvos, that seems to say, be a nice person. Duchas said, be humble. So yes, the arm of fortune would try to claim that these things are hidden and embedded in different things, but on the face of it, it seems to be absent. The opposite of everything we've been saying, until now. So if Kaimi tells us, no, you're missing under, you misunderstand. The reason that they're not counted is because they're too important to be counted. That is to say, hey, and I'm now quoting, (speaking in foreign language) They are the foundations upon which all of the mitzvos rest, have counted mitzvah number at 272. The immense, that wouldn't be showing how important be those are. Oh, you see, it's counted. It would have been reducing it. It would have just been one of the 613. It would never be only as important as, don't wear shadows. On the contrary, Senator Kaimi tell, you can't even get to mitzvah number one until you're already immense. All of the 613 rest on the foundation. And he says, (speaking in foreign language) It's like, again, it would be the most myopic, simplistic, and therefore incorrect thinking to say, but they're doing wrong, Rabbi, show me where, where's this (speaking in foreign language) You know, I just lost my temper, I just yelled at somebody, embarrassed somebody, show me where, what's the favor that I did? It's not just that I would have an answer for the person. I said, the whole question is already self-achromant. To give you a place in the Mission of Buru that says what you did was also how if I, that's all the problem was. This is much worse than not eating matzah. It's not a tactical problem. This is a essentials fundamental problem. You're not even a mensch. The Torah was given to help a mensch become a better person. But if you don't have a middos, you're not even a mensch. The Torah assumes all the mitzvahs assume that you have a good middos, and now is that this is the most fundamental thing possible. I saw in one of the commentaries they quoted, I think from the Altered Slobatko, like a Marshall. Somebody has a contract for a house with the builder. I must have been an Israeli builder as you'll see in a second. And when the house is built, so maybe not so Israeli, the house was built, he had, whatever the price they had agreed on, the builder added a whole extra price. And he says, what are you talking about? That's not the price we agreed to. He says, no, no, no, but the contract had never mentioned the foundation, I had to build a foundation, and that cost all the extra. Now, that could have been an Israeli move. But of course, the client says, what are you talking about? If we agree that you were gonna build a house, obviously the house doesn't stand on stilts. Obviously, that would include a foundation. Then after you're written, you're gonna build a house out of foundation. Now, I don't know who would win in Israeli courts if that was an actual debate. But the point is the same one there of five retailers making. They don't even have to tell me, be a mensch. That's the whole premise that you can have. The mitzvahs are worthless if you're not already a mensch. It's the foundation of everything. So that's a very important point. And that's a broader point. But this letter is a great statement in that tradition. They have an entire letter of a last will and testament, so to speak to your child. And all the focus is on, you know, if you wanted to give one headline, be a good person. If you don't want to come back for the next few show them, so you heard the whole letter. Be a good person. You'll be missing a lot, but that is the headline of everything. So I think that's one important point. A second point I want to connect to, which I think will take us to the next five minutes of the finish, is what you see here is something very profound, you know, for all of us who are blessed, and those who aren't, so hopefully one they will be, but all of us who are blessed to be parents or grandparents, and so we have, by definition, we all have had parents and grandparents. And that is, why would a letter that's gonna all be about ethics that we just talked about? Why would we introduce it with this postdoc of [speaking in foreign language] And maybe this is more than one reason, but for sure one reason that he's trying to convey, one point he's trying to convey is the incredible role of parents in character forming. That people can grow and hopefully do grow throughout their lives, and therefore they can be open to influences of books, of a speaker, of a friend, of a mentor, and later on in life. But if me, those are the foundation, the foundation of the foundation, the foundation of the me, those, is what a person got from his or her parents. In many, many ways, me, those are hereditary, not only because it could be that certain people who have like a hot temper passed that on even genetically, I don't know if that's true or not, but even if that would be true to some extent. But that's not what I mean. What I mean to say is, the home is the crucible what character formation takes place. It could be good and get ruined later in life, and it could be bad and get improved. I'm not saying it's, we don't believe in fixed. People always say [speaking in foreign language] But unquestionably the most dominant influential place in a person's character formation, even much, much more than their religious observance, much more than that. As we know, plenty of people grew up in religious home and unfortunately aren't anymore. And then there are Bali Chivu who went in the opposite direction. That's, we know that. But even a person who maybe didn't grow up religious, and that was religious, very often they're still the same, whether they're nice or not, whether they had a temper or not, that didn't necessarily change. 'Cause that they kept, 'cause that was formed when they were younger, that's formed in the house for better or for worse. [speaking in foreign language] Is the perfect introduction to a whole letter which is all about Mido's and national height. Because we, as parents and grandparents, number one, have to realize the awesome responsibility, but also possibility and potential, that we have a really making that difference. How much of what we give them in terms of, don't leave the table and you forgot to bench. And you know, in fighting with our teenage sons to wake up for a minion, I believe in all that to some extent again. Parents can overdo it and make mistakes in that realm, too, of course. But I don't believe that parents should just be lazy fair about those things. But how much of whether your, for example, your son is gonna be a minion when he's 40, is gonna be 'cause you woke up when he was 13, open question. What kind of person is he? Kind of husband will he be? What kind of father will he be? That is a largely, not entirely, not inexorably anything could be better or worsened. But the dominant influence is gonna be what he got, for she gets, obviously for boys and girls, from their parents. The flip side of that is, I think as people, you know, who have the famous medrash that we all know, that when Yosef was tempted by H.S. Potifar, Rashi says the famous medrash, why did he in the end not sin or he was tempted, but why didn't he sin? Oh, the most, do you know, she loved it? He imagined, he dreamed, he daydreamed, he saw an image of his father. And that shook him out of his momentary weakness, which is basically a very powerful metaphor in a way of saying, not everyone, unfortunately, is blessed to have healthy relationships with their parents, so that's big parentheses. But if we were fortunate enough to have healthy relationships, loving relationships with our parents, or hopefully we have it with our children, so it's hardwired into the human consciousness, you don't want to disappoint your parents. You want your parents to be proud of you. And you know, there really, really, really, there is nothing more powerful than a parent tongue, a child, is posished. I thought I upset you, but I'm disappointed in you. And most kids understand that instinctively, you know, you're afraid that your mom's gonna find out that you took the keys and went out with your friends, not just 'cause they might take away the keys to ground you, but a real good parent knows how to convey disappointment, not just anger. And in a healthy relationship, that's the last thing a child wants to do, right? The great, I've said this many times, but not 'cause I'm special or unique. I mean, my parents are very special and very unique. But the point is, there's like very few things, it's like in the top three of the things that are most important in my life, is to give them not us. Like when we go away for pesos or something, I get to speak and do other things. I enjoy the other stuff, I'm not a malloc. I enjoy the barbecue after the lunch, after the breakfast. I allow myself a little indulgence. But that's not why I go. I go 'cause my parents get to hear me in front of hundreds of people. And at least some of them are gonna say nice things about me. And that means everything to them. How many, in my stage of life, at their stage of life, how often do I get to do that? Or they call me, oh, we just met somebody with their, they said, they read an article you wrote. So first they were upset at me, I didn't tell them I wrote the article. Why don't you tell us? I forgot. Oh, we were so happy. But again, I'm not special. This is how every child is. If they have a good and loving relationship with their parents, you wanna make them. So not only is, proactively as parents, can we convey this? But it's an investment that has dividends. Because hopefully then years later, and even for ourselves, we have to think about it again. If you had a parent, unfortunately, who doesn't model these kind of things, so that's a very sad thing. But if you were blessed with parents, we're good people, and raised you properly. So whatever, you know, www, no, not the only two W's. What would, you know, not J, but, you know, that's the famous thing, www.JD. But now what would, you know, WWW, AD? What would Abadu, what would mommy do? What would Hima do? If a person had good role models and had a good relationship with their parents, that's implicitly enough to go through the process of thinking about it. It's just that we all say it, it was the most, you know, shawl. And last but not least, I just want to finish now with, on this point, maybe we can come back to this another time, but everyone points out, you know, the difference in the language. Musa'ar Avikha and Tauras Yim'cha. What's the difference with Musa'ar Avikha and Tauras Yim'cha, why those two terms? So Rashi actually says the difference is because one is, the Musa, interestingly enough, is the actual Halaqos Midarayza. And the, and the Torah of the, of the mother is the things that the Ha'hamim added. This is an interesting look of the Rashi. That's what Rashi says. But we've taught here in this room and certainly in the Platinik's house and other Shuram, there's a very famous teaching of Arfsalvechik, we had a slightly different approach. And it's funny that Arfsalvechik who gave that approach as part of his Hespid, or his Mahatenista, the Tonga-Rabbits in a Boston. So what he says, and I actually made myself a little quote of it, Rabbi Goldberg, the Telzer from Cleveland, who I assume never read Rabbi Salvechik on the Tonga-Rabbits in a Boston, he says the exact same thing. Without the flowery language in the poetry of Arfsalvechik, but in terms of the Poshok and the Poshok. And again, we're speaking in categories and in stereotypes, and there are exceptions to both directions. But why would the Torah or the Tanaf use this language? So the basic point that they both make is that generally speaking, there is a difference in parenting styles and influences between parents and fathers and mothers. And that the way Arfsalvechik puts it, and Rabbi Goldberg in his own way says it in his book as well, fathers are usually more frontal, teaching, talking, focus on discipline, rules with a child. And Torah, Simecha, Torah, (speaking in foreign language) Torah often actually, in its etymology, Rashi-Mexus point in another context, has to do with stories. So to speak, the way Arfsalvechik puts it, that a mother's influence is often more in not so much the instruction and the discipline, but in the role modeling, and the time spent, and the casual conversations, and what the children see from the mother. Again, I'm quite cognizant of the fact that there's exceptions to both directions, and probably both parents should have a little bit of both. But that there should be this difference traditionally or stereotypically, so that also perhaps is hinted at in this puzzle. Okay, we're gonna stop now. Okay, so Mr. Shem will meet again next week, and we will get into the letter in more in depth.
