Terumah ~ Purim - Aish Kodesh 02/23/2012

Rabbi Henoch Dov Hoffman

Index of Rabbi Hoffman's Audio Files   February 23, 2012 Aish Kodesh Terumah - Purim Favorite quotes: For people to choose to be in relationship with me, because I’m so powerful, I have to choose to disappear. Moshe can teach from a place of success and great intellect. Those are things that men are comfortable with. But Esther can teach from the empty receiving vessel. Student: Shabbos is supposed to not having plans, and I was thinking how paradoxical that it is bounded by a strict sense of time, that you have to set a certain time to be not bound by time. Student: It’s the effort, not the success. * * * * The Fast of Esther is a very important idea of her mobilizing people to support her in that moment of national abandonment. She created a feeling of strength. Mt. Sinai is called going from a high mountain to a deep hole. The premise of the Torah is that we’re all slaves and the only free person is an ehved HaShem. The enslaved person is ehved Paro. Paro also means neck, so he’s a symbol of stubbornness and rigidity because he watched his whole country be destroyed and he still wouldn’t let the slaves go. Sherman’s march to Atlanta was worse than a plague. He destroyed everything and they still didn’t want to let the slaves go. Today there are more slaves in the world than ever before. In Denver there’s a vigorous white slave market. Women come here, their passports are confiscated and they’re enslaved. The Torah says the same word, avoda, means work of the heart, which is this work for freedom which is prayer and service to G*d, and slavery. It’s also the word for work. At the seders we say maybe next year I’ll be a little bit freer. We’re working on preparing for Purim. We’re having a big Purim party. Esther could do what Moses didn’t do. We dress up as Esther, Mordechai and Haman and on Thursday we go around to several nursing homes. Esther finished the work of Moses. Student: She got people to be collateral for her, support her, fast for her. Rabbi: Right. There’s rain that comes down, which is masculine water, and we want the baby to be born (the Jewish people) and the feminine water is from the aquifer, the earth. Moses can’t do it all. He’s a man. He brings down rain from heaven. He says I’m bringing the truth to the earth from G*d. Okay, but that’s not enough. Student: He can bring it down all you want but we need to receive it, the desire, the longing, the want has to be there. I recognize my own limitations and admitting them- Rabbi: how do you experience the need for the feminine? Do you relate to Moses as a man doing this? The Torah says to think the paradox and one is the balance between the masculine and the feminine. Student: Men are builders, taking the initiative. Rabbi: We’re trying to be aware of how G*d built us all. Adam and Eve, Esther and Mordechai are in this painting, and Esther and Mordechai are coming to repair what went wrong in the Garden of Eden. The snake with the sword through him is Haman. Student: Men are hunters- Person: -warriors, farmers. The ground waters are more nourishing where the rain stimulate the seed. Rabbi: Part of this discussion is foreign to American culture. We have this wonderful essay by the Aish Kodesh that says the symbol of the feminine is Miriam whose well provided water from the ground water and she brought things from the bottom up. She provided the cohesion for the whole camp. The women from the different tribes had little boats that took them so they stayed connected to each other, otherwise the competition between the tribes would have split the cohesion of the camp, creating an environment. That’s why she was punished so much for loshon hora about Moshe. She said he shouldn’t have separated from his wife, so she got leprosy and put outside the camp. Nothing breaks cohesion like gossip. This is my paradoxical triangle that’s broken. Instead of taking her complaint to Moses she takes it to Aaron. Any time you have that triangulation you have a break in cohesion. Moshe climbs Mt. Sinai (I climbed Mt. Sinai. I recommend it even though it’s in Egypt. It starts at sea level and goes to 9,000 feet. ) G*d held the mountain over our heads; it was a forced contract. 1,000 years later she effectuates something Moshe couldn’t do. Esther means I will hide. Last week we said a wise person, Talmid chacham, is somebody who makes their teacher wiser. We’re giving a lot of power to the students. Moshe’s teacher is HaShem. Moshe has the assignment to make G*d wiser. At the Golden Calf G*d is going to kill everybody, and Moshe says if you kill everybody you can erase me from your book; I’m not going to be your partner any more. So G*d learns from that. He says I’m going to erase my name from the whole Megillah of Esther. This is the Megillah. We have a man who was in the concentration camp who reads it every year. In this whole scroll G*d isn’t mentioned once. Moshe said I can be more effective if I’m not mentioned, if I’m willing to be erased from the book, and G*d says maybe that will work for me, too. For people to choose to be in relationship with me, because I’m so powerful, I have to choose to disappear for people to relate to me. 2,000 years ago in Iran, they rose up to receive the Torah, and after that it was a kosher contract. At Mt. Sinai they had no vessels to receive the Torah. Religion itself can become like a poison: intolerant, rigid and even murderous. We have to choose to make things holy. Yud is the male sperm, the microscopic point. The hey is the womb. (8 06). The vov is masculine, the birth canal. The final hey is the birth of that baby into the world. The Big Bang also started with a very small point and expanded, according to some theories. We’re looking to give birth. Esther was modest and helpless. How did she accomplish what Moshe couldn’t do? Achashveros had just killed her wife for not dancing naked in front of the men at a big party. He was serving up pork chops on the holy vessels from the Temple. Esther’s idea of the ideal life for an orthodox woman was not marrying a non-Jew who cuts his wife’s head off for not dancing naked. When she goes into Achashveros she says the famous line in the psalms and repeated by Jesus on the cross, ‘My G*d, my G*d, why did you abandon me?’ He’s saying it because Esther says it; words of abandonment bring on redemption. Student: You have to look to yourself when you’re abandoned. Rabbi: Mordechai says you can save yourself, but our salvation will come from another place and you will be lost, so Esther makes this difficult decision to marry Achashveros, and her children rebuild the Temple. G*d doesn’t work in straight lines. Rav Dessler says it’s important for Jews to be threatened with annihilation in every generation. The less at stake, the more people fight. I grew up with the slogan never again, so I thought the ADL would protect me. 2,000 years later we’re back at step one, with the same misshugana crazy country and leaders who don’t care about the world. Mark Twain said the Jews should have been worn out by all this. But we got up and we formed Israel. That’s what the Aish Kodesh is working with in the Warsaw Ghetto. We get energized. He’s able to empower them and say, ‘You’re job is to make me wise.’ There’s some deep secret there. Rav Dessler said the threat of annihilation is not our world. You can get comfortable in America or Israel; you can have the best guns and planes, but you still have to pray to Me. However much control we get, we also way have to turn to the Master of the Universe. Esther said I need people to do avoda ha lave. She touched people’s hearts in a way that Moshe couldn’t. the intellectual awareness of the Jewish people; he gave us so much in writing the Torah down, the oral Torah. The Talmud is called the Mind of Moshe because he’s teaching us how to think about things. But there’s a whole other thing called the service of the heart. She says I have to go marry this drunken lout; and if I do, you’ll have to support me. And this was after they sold their souls to the devil by eating pork chops. What did she see that she decided that her atomic bomb weapon was, what? She invited Haman and Achashveros to a drinking party. How did she figure out that a drinking party was an appropriate way to save the Jews? She saw that the poison and the cure were the same thing. Achashveros wrote on the wall- Jeremiah had predicted that in 70 years the Temple would be rebuilt. He said 70 years have passed and there is no Temple and G*d has abandoned you. in the Warsaw Ghetto we’re saying G*d has abandoned us. We think this anytime we think about the Holocaust, and we’re here again, right? We know that in moments of abandonment is where we grow. Abandonment is empty space, the feminine empty space. This is where we grow as people. Student: that sadness allows the heart to grow. Rabbi: Aish Kodesh says the main avoda, servitude, is self-doubt. But Amalak (Haman). Haman’s name comes from this Tree. G*d says did you eat from this Tree? HAMIN HA ATZE ACHALTEM. Adam responds the woman You gave me. There has to be a repair on that. The word Amalak has the same numerical value as doubt. There’s a way of doubting that’s very toxic and discouraging. Esther says how do you grow from this sense of abandonment and self-doubt? When they feel abandoned they feel sad. We’re looking for something deeper. When you’re abandoned you feel the self-doubt. Who ever thought that crazy people would take over a huge country like Persia? In every parsha there’s a mention of Shabbos, which is a very important idea. Shabbos is a cathedral in time. Time can really drag you down. Time can be a tyrant. We have Shabbos, which is tied to the Mishkan. In Shabbos we say we can sanctify time. We can change it from cruel time to Kodesh time. We can change doubt from toxic abandonment from Amalak. Amalak is the head of all the forces of discouragement in the world. We can take Sufake and turn it into an avoda. Self-doubt is the number one avoda of the Jew because it’s the only way one can make teshuva. When you lose defensiveness- we have to turn this into a good place for our teshuva. Turning the empty abandoned space of the womb space of the hey. Person: When I’m done blaming everyone, I finally look inside and find the birth place. Rabbi: Sinai was a return to Eden. G*d said let’s hit the reset button and immediately things got messed up with the Golden Calf. The idea is teshuva, not to do everything right. HaShem builds the deficit into each person and it’s the greatest gift, because then you know your purpose. Shabbos is really the key to the whole thing. Every time you have the word Kodesh it’s taking something that’s absolutely poison and lifting it up. Student: By letting go of control and being present is how Shabbos is the key to the whole thing. Escher plays with visual negative space. The 39 types of work that go into the Mishkan is what defines Shabbos. We’re building a place and then Shabbos is NOT Mishkan. The balance is the strength of my hand has made this bread v. this is your world, G*d. No matter how bad it is we say it’s good. We can’t focus on the bad on Shabbos. On one day I can really live that and not criticize. Initiative, human effort and trust in G*d: how can you have total hashkacha pratis and total effort on your part? It seems like a contradiction. But paradox is the only freedom. HaShem created this whole appearance of opposites. How do you turn that into a helpful opposition? The craftsmen all thought they were doing their best work, but when it came together they saw there was a guiding hand. Connecting faith and effort, hishtalut and emuna bitachon. The more effort I put in, the more trust I have. That’s not the way we usually experience the world. Student: It’s the effort, not the success. Rabbi: We have to stand on the shoulders of the people who came before. She learned the line why have you abandoned me from tehillim. She learned from King David. You have to find yourself in the Torah, what story, what person can help you. I ask Moshe for help to be a good teacher. I dreamed that the Aish Kodesh was running outdoor programs. Every day I pray for my life. All it takes for one valve to be closed or open at the wrong time and we’re dead. This isn’t just a political situation. Abandonment at the toxic level shuts people down; they feel empty and they don’t have power. Self-doubt is avoda, to be an ehved HaShem, at that moment we’re mobilized. At that point of abandonment we learn from all of our wise teachers. Moshe can teach from a place of success and great intellect. Those are things that men are comfortable with. But Esther can teach from the empty receiving vessel. Esther’s first thought was I have to help these men who just got castrated at this party. Everyone went to the party but Mordechai. Everyone should have something they would die for. A Jewish family helped Hitler through the depression. Mordechai was the only one who would lend money to Haman when he went bankrupt. Why would somebody resent the person who helped them? Mordechai said I’ll give you money for your barbershop on one condition: that you never deny that you got the money from me. He knew that he was going to come to a place where he would say I did it all on my own. It’s like the story of Shylock. Why did the guy who borrowed the money hate him so much? Mordechai recognized that Haman was a dangerous type of person. Student: He lent Antonio the money because he made money. The loan was collateralized because Antonio had ships on the way. Rabbi: You can’t lend money at interest. Xtianity and Islam both adopted this rule. It caused no end of problems. The Jews said if it’s important to the economy we can make loans with interest, but Xtianity and Islam were rigid; it was black and white. Shakespeare took this Jewish money lender and said aren’t I human, if you prick me don’t I bleed? We always sold the booze because it was corrupt. They put all the other people in charge of the sins because they’re caught in it’s either prohibited or permitted. In this country the Jews were very much against prohibition. We have to make kiddish over wine. The way to handle liquor is to raise it to Kedusha, not by repressing. We say take the wine that causes so many problems in the world and raise it to Kedusha. Take time, take food. Food can destroy you; it can create war. You have to raise interest to Kedusha. There’s a number of complicated laws on how to do that. You have to understand how money works. Interest is called the bite of the snake. Moshe picks up the snake and it turns to a staff. We have to turn these things in the world to helpful things, rather than projecting them out and saying You did it! She did it! We have to do teshuva in a way which brings out the best in each of us. I’m going to give you three sets of three and challenge your brain. Terumah means an offering and it means also to raise. One was for the Mishkan, one was for mizbaiach (the altar to buy the offering that unifies the Jewish people), and the third was for the silver sockets. The first of Adar, which is tonight there’s a Mishna- We’re going to match this with two more sets of three. There’s a Mishna that there were three things that happened on the first of Adar. Set up tables and collect a half a shekel from each person. Why a half a shekel? Student: It takes two to make one. Rabbi: My half and your half makes a whole. It was a small amount, so rich and poor could give. It was also a way to do a census. When we turn people into numbers it can be holy or toxic. You have to make people count. The Nazis turned us all into numbers; everybody had a number on their arm. Keylayim is bad mixtures, like you don’t plow with an ox and a donkey. A prohibition from mixing wool and linen. Don’t mix wheat and grapes. They all go back to the Tree, which is the Confusion of Good and Evil. Student: Some people say it was wheat. Rabbi: some people say it was wine. The last thing is we start repairing the road for Pesach. The winter rains mess up the roads. The last three is three alephs. We add one to death to create truth. We add aleph to judgment to spell Ad*noi and to blood, dam, to spell Adam, which is a mensch. The net result is ALEPH DAR which means we have to bring G*d a dwelling place in the lowest place of all of us, abandonment, failure, alcohol, money. That’s calling raising the darkest place to holiness. Aleph Dar means give G*d a dwelling place in the lowest places. The two holidays we have are Purim and Chanukah because these are the two holidays of the exile, and they’re both rabbinic, and they’re based on the same idea: we put the Chanukah lights in the darkest place and the party was the darkest place in Jewish history: we were kissing tuchis; we lost all our identity. We have to know how to throw a Jewish party which gives meaning and enlightenment to the alcohol. Mishkan Mizbaiach Silver sockets Collecting half-shekel Repairing roads Aleph: death ‘ truth Aleph: judgment ‘ Ad*noi Aleph: blood ‘ Adam In the Garden of Eden they were hiding in the bushes. The word clothing in Hebrew means treachery. By freeing ourselves by wearing a costume- One of the highlights of the party is when everyone says why they are wearing what they are wearing. We talk about the clothing of the Kohane Godol. Mordechai was dressed in those same materials. Each piece of clothing means something. Very few people choose what they’re wearing. We wear according to fashion. It’s always the same process, taking something that could drag us down. Your shmatas can be a disguise, too. We get stuck in what statements we’re making with our clothing. The bottom line of real life is good judgment. Student: Good judgment comes from making mistakes. Rabbi: Your solution is to be balanced and balance comes from good judgment. The Torah says you can’t stand in a place where you haven’t failed. So the whole setting of the story is a miserable failure of all these Jews who go to a party and lose their integrity. The worst politician is somebody who thinks he perfect and self-righteous. SACRED FIRE PAGE 288 We started out with this powerful image of the mystarim. When one of G*d’s tears falls in the ocean it causes a tsunami and an earthquake. I never saw anything so awesome as those Japanese cities floating out to the ocean. That’s just one tear! Student: In the darkest place I’m not alone and G*d feels my pain more than I do because I buffer. Rabbi: HaShem is feeling our pain more than we are. Person: My pain is so big to see my children in pain. I want to take their pain. Rabbi: Mystar is the same word as Es-tair. It’s the hidden place. So when Esther says I want everybody to fast with me, you’re not chopped liver, I’m risking my hide to go into the king, I’m giving up all my values to help you. The Fast of Esther is a very important idea of her mobilizing people to support her in that moment of national abandonment. She created a feeling of strength. Student: Metatron wants to cry for G*d and G*d says if you don’t leave me alone to cry I’ll go to my hidden place to cry by myself. -At the time of the destruction of the Temple’¦. Rabbi: These are quotes from Haggigah about the Haggadah. Binah is right brain, feminine intuition. In Stroke of Insight it says we are left-brain cripples, we are so intellectual and analytical that as we have become more civilized we have lost our intuitive abilities. Jill Taylor is a Harvard brain scientist, just like this woman, Gabby, who got shot in her left brain. Shabbos is associated with right-brain. She threw away her schedule book because she realized she wasn’t present. On Shabbos you try to be present in your life in the world. The more civilized you are the harder it is to be present. Shabbos at the cabin is very quiet and focused; time changes. To have good judgment you have to show up and be present. Ram Das did a movie about his stroke; it was a beautiful talk. He says it’s a lot different when you have health problems. Student: It’s one thing to be on top of the game when you’re on top of the game. Rabbi: Esther felt a connection in the psalms to G*d’s presence in the Mystarim, therefore that’s her name. it fits quite nicely. -This, though, is the difference’¦. Rabbi: G*d and Moshe were hidden by their own greatness, G*d by His power and Moshe by his intellect. It’s too high, too good. Esther in her abandonment reaches people in a place that Moshe and G*d couldn’t reach, in the mystarim. Aish Kodesh reaches people in a place that $400,000 a year rabbis can’t reach. -note the word ‘chambers’’¦. Rabbi: The threat of annihilation from Person is the thread that holds these things together. How many people say there are great things hidden in Ahmadinejad? We know our history and we sit on the backs of Mordechai and Esther and say sometimes the vessel looks bad and great blessings are hidden in them. We have to pray hard and beg G*d for our lives; that’s a bracha. Esther’s children rebuilt the Temple. Is that apparent? No. Winning the lottery brings disaster. You never know what you’re looking at. It takes a lot of confidence to say I don’t know what I’m looking at. Dressing up is not for children; it’s for adults. Get out of the rut. You don’t know what you’re releasing when you get out of your habit of what you’re wearing. You know you’re a chacham when you’re like a child. We go to the nursing homes because you’re supposed to go to the most discouraged people. They remind us of ourselves; we might be there. We all fear it. -we learn in the Mishnah’¦. Rabbi: When there is a severe drought they would do a series of 13 fasts and take the business accounts into the street. There were community trustees who would review the scrolls of everybody in the town. The land of Israel responds with drought with dishonesty. That’s what was stopping the rain; somebody was fudging somewhere. When you chat in business is the worst idolatry, with anger. I cheat because I have no faith. I’m saying I can’t get by. I have no faith in the process of the world, of life. Student: A man in a market in Israel enjoyed taking the paintings out and putting them back every day. He said tehillim while he did it. He wouldn’t be cheating; he was okay with the process. Rabbi: We’re not telling you to act morally when other people are acting immorally. It’s to create relationships of reciprocal trusts, where people trade in a fair way. Morality is conversation, not a monologue. That’s why the contract is the main deal here. The Torah can reveal the most hidden things. ‘Through the Torah we are capable of revealing the most sublime and concealed light’¦.’ How many times have you heard rabbis and ministers talk about G*d’s pain? Hardly ever. Even the pain of the Jewish people becomes something exalted in this context. -It is possible that this is the meaning (page 289) Rabbi: I didn’t know he was going to say that sentence on abandonment. It makes perfect sense to me that he was quoting David and Queen Esther. -Of course, we believe that You will save us, that You have not forsaken us’¦. Rabbi: Dwelling in the lowest place is based on, when we hear Jews begging G*d because we’re facing an atomic bomb, it creates a dwelling place for G*d in the lowest place. That’s an outrageous claim. It’s not logical. Student: It has to do with the binah and the potential borne out of prayer, I have no physical control and it because spiritual. Rabbi: I’m going to put a plug on the greatest part of my teaching I’ve never sold anyone on: the beggings of the Jewish people. The holy beggars course, where we go out for three days without money or credit cards and live as beggars. In other traditions when you got to a certain level you would lose your life story, this is who I am, a high level of holiness and maturity, where you could just let go of all of them. There used to be many rabbis who do this. Not today, zero. I did it in 18 different cities. I said I was going to hook up with a homeless guy and see how they get by. He said we’re going to sleep in the backyard in the mansion district on Sixth and Vine. We stuffed newspapers in our sleeves and pants. I said I can’t believe I’m doing this. 2 in the morning it got too cold. We went to this Laundromat and we had a whole support group. One kid was in a an abusive home, he was living with his sister, they were fighting, the woman who cleaned the Laundromat was there. Sometimes we have to make space for HaShem and with all the control we have in our lives sometimes doesn’t leave HaShem much room to act. In this type of thing there’s lots of room and amazing things happen. 8:00 in the morning a woman comes in and says I’m from Israel and I’m begging. I fixed her breakfast. It’s the first of Adar and things happen. It’s not our world. A lot of times we close ourselves into our own control mechanisms. All we have to do is open up and get not a mile out of our tunnels but just an inch outside our costumes. And all of a sudden we find G*d there. Purim is a time to act differently than we do the rest of the year. I wear a yarmulke because it reminds me HaShem is in control. I said I was going to ask these delinquent kids for a place to stay. They had just robbed a bank and there were bullet holes in a door and one guy brought out the heroine and I jumped out the window and started running. It was 2:00 in the morning. It was too heavy. I did eat kosher. You do dumpster diving and panhandle. -We learn in the teachings of the holy Rav’¦. Rabbi: Even the world Holy can mean the opposite, the word condemned. That’s an important paradox. -meanwhile as Rashi explained in the verse’¦. This holy word kadosh means prostitution and condemned crop. -this then is the meaning.,. Esther says in this terrible suffering we are making a place for you to dwell. It mobilizes them in a way that Moshe’s big show did not. The negative became position and the positive became negative. We’re not saying it’s a great privilege to be threatened with annihilation. -You are to be found in Torah’¦ Rabbi: What a powerful statement. This is not like John Calvin saying G*d loves rich people and hates poor people, but we’re always seeing the paradox. The rabbi’s job is to reveal G*d’s Kedusha in all situations. FINAL REMARKS Student: Shabbos is supposed to not having plans, and I was thinking how paradoxical that it is bounded by a strict sense of time, that you have to set a certain time to be not bound by time. Rabbi: G*d’s unity can only be found in the dialogue between the opposites, the precision of time and the relaxation of time into one mitzvah. Person: the idea about if we’re feeling abandoned that it creates a space for HaShem in our lives. The supplications of the Jews creating a space for HaShem to dwell. We touched on the idea of trying your hardest, going along with having great faith. Rabbi: we’re playing with the passive and active in the classroom. Student: I like what you said about initiative and trust. I saw that recurring through this whole thing. Is there a place of initiative in feeling abandoned. Rabbi: G*d is modeling. Student: By withdrawing he’s creating the potential for us to move forward. Rabbi: He says you have the power. Student: His drawing out as if beseeching will make all evil disappear like smoke. Rabbi: the people got the strength from Esther’s difficult situation. Student: To allow oneself to feel your own pain. Or to feel someone else’s pain. Rabbi: Esther said share my pain and get strength from it. Most people feel that if they ask people to share their pain it’s embarrassing and humiliating. Person: the slideshow is like giving birth. I can give thanks to G*d all day. Saying modeh ani starts the dialogue, but we can continue it. Student: When I feel abandoned I have a lot more room for G*d and to switch from self-dependency to G*d-dependency, when I’m in a position when I realize nothing I can do can change anything. When adversity comes, that’s a time that it puts us in a position to live out a principle and not rely on our feelings, thoughts and emotions. Person: Abandonment has always been the time to intellectualize. Or drink or smoke. I have never opened up and had faith and let G*d in. I depended on myself, drink, smoke, and other things. Rabbi: Mystery and mystarim are the same word. Maybe the Hebrew is the origin of the word mystery. Student: The most powerful thing was thinking of ten years ago when I was abandoned. The clouds parted and I got to see myself in a painful, naked and truthful way, and my life changed. It was miracle. It was slow. Just how lucky I was, just how blessed. Rabbi: Sometimes we hit bottom and something jells there that doesn’t jell in other places. Student: Through the pain the world looked very beautiful to me. Person: I like good judgment that comes from Shabbat. How to become more and more clear. Student: the garments that Mordechai wore when he was honored by the king are similar to the garments that the high priests wore, the colors and things. It’s just appropriate the connection with the Torah portion and the upcoming Purim. Rabbi: and the mishkan and Shabbos. They’re all connected. Academia is a place where conflicts are so severe because the stakes are so low. Henry Kissinger Rabbi Henoch Dov teaches in Denver, Colorado. You can contact him through his web page, www.RabbiHenochDov.com or via email sh6r6v4t9@aol.com.

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