“Your words have been harsh against Me, says God. Yet you say, what have we spoken against You? You have said, it is useless to serve God; what profit is it that we have kept His ordinance and that we have walked as mourners before the Lord of Hosts? So now we call the proud sinners with praise, for those who do wickedness are raised up; they have even tested God and been spared (Malachi 3:13–15).”

“What’s the use in serving God? No matter what we do, we still get abused; we don’t have anything, and we are prosperous!” These are their words even though they had just been relieved from seventy years of captivity and slavery!

King David describes his response to such arguments and complaints in Psalm 73:

This is what the wicked are like

always free of care, they go on amassing wealth.

Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure

and have washed my hands in innocence.

All day long I have been afflicted,

and every morning brings new punishments.

If I had spoken out like that,

I would have betrayed Your children.

When I tried to understand all this,

it troubled me deeply

till I entered the sanctuary of God;

then I understood their final destiny.

Surely You place them on slippery ground;

You cast them down to ruin.

How suddenly are they destroyed,

completely swept away by terrors!

They are like a dream when one awakes;

so You, My Master,

You will despise them as fantasies.

When my heart was grieved

and my spirit embittered,

I was senseless and ignorant;

I was a brute beast before You.

Yet I am always with You;

You hold me by my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel,

and with glory You will receive me.

Whom have I in heaven but You?

And earth has nothing I desire besides You.

My flesh and my heart may fail,

but the Lord is the strength of my heart

and my portion forever.

Those who are far from You will perish;

You destroy all who are unfaithful to You.

But as for me, it is good to be near God.

I have made My Master, the Lord God my refuge;

I will tell of all Your deeds.

Isaiah too, responded to such complaints:

“But now listen, Jacob, my servant,

Israel, whom I have chosen.

This is what God says—

He who made you, Who formed you in the womb,

and who will help you:

Do not be afraid, Jacob, my servant,

Jeshurun, whom I have chosen.

For I will pour water on the thirsty land,

and streams on the dry ground;

I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring,

and my blessing on your descendants.

They will spring up like grass in a meadow,

like poplar trees by flowing streams.

Some will say, ‘I belong to God’;

others will call themselves by the name of Jacob;

still others will write on their hand, ‘God’s,’

and will take the name Israel (Isaiah 44:1-5).”

Malachi continues his message by reminding us that each word we speak is recorded:

“Then those who feared God talked with each other, and God listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in His presence concerning those who feared God and honored His name.

‘On the day when I act,’ says God, Master of Legions,, ‘they will be my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as a father has compassion and spares his son who serves him.  And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve the Lord and those who do not’ (Malachi 3:16-18).”

Malachi well understands our fears and frustrations. He urges us to accept God’s promise of assurance and protection. He wants us to remember that each word of complaint we speak leaves a permanent Mark on our soul. He urges us to fear God, not His wrath, but rather to be in awe of Him, and hold on to His promise of protection just as did the Children of Israel when they risked their lives and took the animal worshiped as a god by the Egyptians and tied them up in front of their homes, provoking their former masters, and saying, “We fear God, not you.”

When the people returned from Babylon to Jerusalem they were still frightened of the military powers who threatened their existence in their new home. They did not fear God as much as they feared men. They cried out against God, rather than to Him, in rejection and anger, rather than connection. They were unchanged despite experiencing redemption. Their complaints were no different from those in King David’s time, and those to whom Isaiah spoke. Their words were the same even after experiencing Redemption. This is our challenge on Pesach- “Peh Sach,” a mouth that converses; has our vocabulary and speech changed because of our positive experiences? (Please see our special series on TheFoundationStone.org: Nisan-Perfecting Our Speech, and Nisan-Fighting The Fire of Anger)

Author Info:
Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone™ is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.

“Moses heard and fell on his face.” (16:4)

I wonder how I would have reacted upon seeing Moshe bow and fall on his face.

I suspect that I would have immediately fallen on my face and waited for Moshe to signal that it was all right to rise. But the people did not fall on their faces; they watched, unmoved by the reaction of their great leader. Perhaps they shrugged off this terrifying scene because this was not the first time: “Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before the entire congregation of the assembly of the Children of Israel.” (Numbers 14:5)

Is it possible that Moshe and Aaron were not bowing in weakness, or sadness, or fear, but as a lesson? How was it received, if it was a lesson?

“Then Israel prostrated himself towards the head of the bed.” (Genesis 47:31) “As the proverb says; “When the fox has his hour, bow down to him.” (Rashi) Jacob bowed to his son, Joseph, who was at his hour as the viceroy of Egypt.

I was extremely uncomfortable when my father zt”l would visit a synagogue where I was rabbi and insist that the congregation wait for me and not for him. I cannot even imagine watching my father bow to me! How could Joseph even bear to watch his father, Israel, bow to him? How could the Children of Israel stand and nonchalantly watch their teacher Moshe bow before or to them?

The Message:

The Brothers Karamazov begins with a confrontation among members of a scattered family. Three sons, all strangers to one another, and a dissolute, cynical father gather for the first time to discuss a quarrel about money, meeting, of all places, at a monastery: specifically, in the hermitage of Father Zosima, a man with a reputation, depending on your view, of either holiness or foolishness. The argument centers upon the eldest son, Dmitri, and his negligent father, Fyodor, and quickly takes on the appearance of a trial, with each man appealing to the elder Zosima for “justice”. But then, the narrator informs us, “the whole scene was stopped in a most unexpected manner”: “The elder suddenly rose from his place and stepped toward Dmitri Fyodrovich and, having come close to him, knelt before him. Kneeling in front of Dmitri, the elder bowed down at his feet with a full, distinct, conscious bow, and even touched the floor with his forehead. “Forgive me! Forgive me, all of you!’ he said, bowing on all sides to his guests.”

The elder Zosima bows to the ground before Dmitri who is suffering. He does not judge, for he knows from within himself this pettiness and arrogance. He sees himself darkly in Dmitri, and knows that this seeing is a gift. His bow and words simply return the gift purified.

Is it possible that Moshe’s bow was a message that he understood the nation’s response to the spies’ report? Was Moshe sending a message to Korach that he understood Korach’s issues: both the ones on Korach’s consciousness and those issues underlying his rebellion?

Did Moshe observe Korach and gain insight into himself? The Ba’al Shem Tov often taught that we observe in others what we do not want to see in ourselves. (Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer used this idea to explain Proverbs 4:25)

Perhaps Moshe’s fall to the ground was an acknowledgement of what he perceived as his own shortcomings; a message to all of Israel that he was aware of his limitations.

I wonder whether anyone watching had enough insight to reflect on the powerful image of Moshe falling on his face. I imagine chills running up and down my spine at the tangible expression of Moshe’s humility. I picture myself forever changed by the scene. The participants were unmoved. Their hearts were sealed by their anger and resentment.

Imagine anger so intense that it is impenetrable even by such an awesome expression of Moshe’s humility.

Author Info:

Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation stone is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.

People have been having difficulty finding their place ever since Adam and Cain. Adam was sent out from the safe environment of the Garden into a strange world. God told Cain, “You shall become a vagrant and wanderer on earth.” (Genesis 4:12)

Abraham wandered for many years, as did Jacob until he settled in Egypt. But even that settling ended in a sense of exile. (Location! Location! Location!)

We need a sense of place, and a sense of belonging. When God punished Cain as a “Vagrant and wanderer,” He deprived Cain of both a sense of place and that of belonging. Both are certainly seen as punishments.

“The son of an Israelite woman went out – and he was the son of an Egyptian man – among the Children of Israel; they fought in the camp, the son of the Israelite woman and an Israelite man. The son of the Israelite woman pronounced the Name and blasphemed.” (Leviticus 24:10-11)

Rashi explains that since he did not have a Jewish father he wished to dwell among the people of Dan, his mother’s tribe, but they refused him a place in their area of the camp on the grounds that his father was not a member of the tribe. The man ran to Moshe’s court for justice, and Moshe ruled against him, whereupon he uttered his curse.

It seems that this man literally bore the “Mark of Cain,” at least as a vagrant. He was Jewish. He left Egypt with Moses, crossed the Sea, ate Manna, and stood at Sinai, but he remained an outsider. He was desperate to be part of a tribe and was rejected. He probably knew that if he did not have a place among a tribe that he would not receive a portion in the Land of Israel. He would always be outside the community. He probably had a place to pitch his tent, but would live as did Adam and Cain, outside the place he wanted to be his.

As a child of an Egyptian man and an Israelite woman, he had probably grew up without being part of either the Egyptian or Jewish communities. He was desperate to feel that he belonged.

I can picture the scene as he walked out of Moshe’s courtroom: He is angry with the world, and frustrated with the injustice he suffered, at least in his mind, and soon came to blows with someone else. The Outsider fought an Insider. He made himself the ultimate outsider with his blasphemy.

Wherein we learn that he was an outsider long before the dispute over a place in the camp. He shared another characteristic with Cain: He was an angry man, and an angry person is the ultimate outsider.

Yes, we can say that he felt provoked, but we know that his response to the provocation was to come exit the court and provoke a stranger until they came to blows. He was so consumed by his rage that he blasphemed God’s Name.

The Talmud describes an angry person as being an outsider to himself – he is a different person when angry, a stranger – no matter where Moshe would find a place for him, he would remain an outsider, even from himself.

Ever since Adam and Cain, angry people have been the ultimate outsiders. Some things never change.

Author Info:
Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone™ is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.

I am often asked to post new “Tools” to deal with anger. I recently read “Life Lessons” by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler and found a powerful lesson:

Untreated fear turns into anger. When we’re not in touch with our fears – or when we don’t even know we’re afraid – that fear grows into anger. If we don’t deal with the anger, it will turn into rage:

Andrew was supposed to meet his girlfriend, Melanie, at a coffeehouse. There are several of the coffeehouses spread throughout the city, and each went to a different one. Andrew waited for Melanie for thirty or forty minutes, left a message on her answering machine, and went back to his apartment. “I figured that there must have been some sort of mix-up, so we’d try again,” he explained. “That was not Melanie’s impression. She was very angry with me. She was implying that I deliberately left her there, that I disappointed her, that I couldn’t be trusted. I pointed out that we both just assumed it was a different coffeehouse.”

What for Andrew was a simple mix-up was for Melanie a horrible letdown suggesting he was unreliable and would disappoint her again. She brought more anger to the situation than it deserved, anger that was left over from an old hurt. Out of touch with the fear under her anger, Melanie made Andrew the villian. Unfortunately, she only took the first step – she got mad.

We’re all very good at this step: “I’m angry because you weren’t there,” “I’m angry because you were late,” “I’m angry because you didn’t do a good job,” “I’m angry because of what you said.”

We need to learn how to take the second step, looking into ourselves to explore the fear underneath. Here are some clues to what may really be going on:

The anger: I’m angry because you weren’t there.

The fear underneath: When you’re not there, I fear you’re abandoning me.

The anger: I’m angry because you’re late.

The fear underneath: I’m not as important to you as your work.

The anger: I’m angry because you didn’t do a good job.

The fear underneath: I’m afraid we’ll make less money and not be able to pay our bills.

The anger: I’m angry because of what you said.

The fear underneath: I’m afraid you don’t love me anymore.

“Life Lessons” by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler, pps 150-152

Author Info:
Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.