The opening passage of the Parsha holds the key to understanding courage. Zimri desecrated G-d’s name by publicly flaunting his illicit relationship with the Midianite Princess, Kozbi bat Tzor. Pinchas reacts passionately and in accordance with the Halachah of that time, assassinates Zimri and kills Kozbi. Hashem responds by rewarding Pinchas with an everlasting Brit Shalom (Covenant of Peace) manifesting in the hereditary rights of Kehuna. From now on Pinchas and his male descendants would be Kohanim. Rashi and others ask if Pinchas was already a Kohen, the grandson of Aharon the Kohen Gadol, what was new in this “gift” of Kehuna that G-d now gave him? Rashi answers that Kehuna had only been given to Aharon and to Aharon’s sons (and their descendants) who were anointed at that time with Aharon. But since Pinchas was already born but was not anointed, he in fact did not become a Kohen until this moment.The Zohar however says that a Kohen who murders, loses his status and rights of Kehuna. The Sefat Emet[1] points out accordingly that Pinchas had lost his Kehuna when he killed Zimri, and G-d returned it to him as a reward for his intervention in the Zimri affair. Pinchas sacrificed his life (Zimri would have been fully entitled to kill Pinchas in self defense – that was a risk Pinchas took) and his Kehuna. He had no idea that Hashem would return it to him; he assumed it would be lost forever. He was willing to lose his Kehuna to do what was right. His reward lay exactly in the things he sacrificed: He was given eternal life (Pinchas is Eliyahu Hanavi who never died), and he and his descendants are given back the Kehuna they lost.

The fear of loss precludes courage: Herein lies the foundation of courage: So long as people fear loss they will lack courage. We have courage when we are willing to surrender our attachments to everything except our own souls. People who are inextricably attached to their physical lives, will not risk their lives for anything. People who are attached to relationships in ways they could never sever, will never risk them. People attached to power, will compromise their values to retain their power, and people attached to material belongings will never act in ways that could risk the loss of those belongings. The capacity to detach is the condition for courage. The idea in Mussar that best expresses detachment, is Perishut.

Detachment does not mean disengagement: Perishut does not mean disengagement, it means surrendering dependency. A person can be deeply engaged in a relationship, but not be attached to it in a needy or addictive manner. While the relationship exists he or she is fully committed to it and engaged in it. But should the need arise to take a stand on a matter of principle bigger even than the relationship itself, they will not hesitate to put that cause before the relationship. That is courage. The military hero, who has left a loving family at home as he goes into battle to protect his land and his nation, will sacrifice his relationship if that is what is needed for the safety of his land. That does not mean that he does not love his family, nor that he is not entirely committed to them. It simply means he is not attached to them in a way that would make it impossible for him to detach if need be, to do what is right.People who risk their status and influence to make a moral stand, have courage. People who sacrifice their popularity to talk the truth, have courage. People who sacrifice their wealth for the education of their children or to go on Aliyah, have courage. People who fight or whose children fight on our behalf in the Israeli army have courage: they risk, and sometimes sadly give, their lives for us. That does not mean that those people do not value their status, popularity, wealth or children’s lives. It just means they are not inextricably attached to those things, and if absolutely necessary would sacrifice them for a higher purpose.

The reward for sacrifice

The outcome of acting with courage is so interesting and counter-intuitive. We learn from the story of Pinchas that courageous people gain exactly what they sacrificed, but in a higher dimension. People that sacrifice status for a higher purpose, ultimately gain honor: sometimes honor in the eyes of others, sometimes they experience that honor only in their own eyes. The wealth gained from educated children exceeds the wealth of the money invested in that education. Even heroic soldiers who die al Kiddush Hashem (for the sanctification of G-d’s name[2]) and their parents who have sacrificed their sons, achieve an eternity in this world and the next to which no one else can aspire.

Growth manifests in diminishing attachments

As we evolve spiritually, increasing our connection with our own Ruchniut (spirituality), we decrease our dependence on all other attachments. It is a little like a child who grows out of his intense attachment to his childhood toys as he grows older. If we are as attached now to the same things we were some years ago, we have failed to grow. Ultimately, as we loosen our attachments (but not our engagement) with more and more of the things around us, we prepare ourselves for the ultimate evolution. An evolution to a state of detachment from everything we knew except our souls and Hashem. If we die before we detach, the pain of separation is severe.

The Three Weeks and Tisha Be’Av

Sometimes we detach from the things we are meant never to be detached from. Sometimes we feel detached from our own souls, sometimes even from Hashem. Many people wonder why they do not genuinely feel pain and sorrow during the Three Weeks or even on Tisha Be’Av. It is because they are detached from the idea of the Beit Hamikdash, and so do not feel its loss. That is misplaced courage! During these weeks we try to gain a deeper feeling of the glamour and majesty of life with the Temple and the tragedy of Jewish life without it. Then we feel the loss. Then we experience the pain.This is a time to experience loss for more than the Beit Hamikdash. During these hard Three Weeks we are all too aware of the millions of courageous people who sacrificed their lives for Hashem, the Torah and the Jewish people. Some had no choice but others willingly chose to sacrifice their lives rather than lose their souls. They are the heroes of this period. They valued their lives but were not so attached to life that they could not sacrifice it for something bigger: the eternity of the Torah and the Jewish people. Those men and women, like Pinchas, teach us courage.

Notes:

[1] Pinchas, 5641

[2] The Torah allows us to risk our lives (even for G-d) only in vary rare circumstances. In the case of military activity we may only do so only to defend our religion, our people or our land when their survival is threatened. This is a very opposite philosophy from that which drives the actions of Islamic Fundamentalist extremists.

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.

No, it is not a typo or spelling mistake. The Manichaeans, (the original faith embraced by Augustine), the Cathars (from where we derive “catharsis”) and the Bogomils (from where we derive “bugger”) were early dualist faiths. They believed that there were, in fact, two sources of divine power in the cosmos, one good and one evil.

I was reminded of these dualists as I chanted the Haftarah – The Prophetic Selection – this past week. Micah has an interesting way of referring to Balak and Balaam’s attempt to curse the Children of Israel: “My nation, remember now what Balak king of Moab plotted and what Balaam son of Beor answered him.” (Micah 6:5) The prophet does not refer to Balaam’s equal desire to curse Israel or Balaam’s strategy to corrupt Israel through the daughters of Moab. Micah asks us to remember the plot and Balaam’s answer.

Balak understood that the battle would be a spiritual war, one with which he was totally unfamiliar. Aware that Midian was equally concerned with this new nation on the political and military scene, He turned to his ancient enemy for advice. Moshe spent many years with them and Balak expected that they would have a sense of his powers. The Midianites, who remembered the Moshe with the speech impediment before his experience at the Burning Bush and the beginning of his prophecy, somehow understood that Moshe’s power was his ability to communicate with God.

The two nations decided to hire Balaam, the great prophet of the nations, albeit a hedonist, to lead them in this battle of unfamiliar territory. The Midianites are too frustrated by Balaam’s corruption to stick with the strategy and Balak is left to handle the only prophet in history considered by the Sages to be the equal of Moses.

Balak was confused by Balaam’s constant reference to God – The God of Israel – as the One in charge. Balak and Balaam offer sacrifices to this great power, and even when the first curses come out as blessings, Balak, despite his frustration, asks Balaam, “What did God speak?” (Numbers 23:17)

Balak accepts that this hedonist, Balaam, is Moab’s only hope. He accepts that they must make offerings to Israel’s God. He even accepts that Balaam will only be able to speak God’s words. So how can he possibly believe that they will succeed in cursing God’s nation with God’s help?

Balak, much as the Manichaeans, the Cathars, and the Bogomils was a dualist, although of a different and more dangerous sort: He believed that the spiritual and physical worlds were completely unrelated. Balak accepted that the former did not function according to any of the rules of the latter. Balak, a supremely practical and insightful king, simply accepted Balaam’s “answers” that the spiritual war with Israel would not make practical sense to a simple human being.

This is why the Targum Yonatan describes the final confrontation between Balaam and Pinchas as he does: “When Balaam saw that Pinchas was chasing him, he used his magic to fly into the air. Pinchas used the Name of God, rose up to the heavens, grabbed Balaam, pulled him down to earth, and only then, killed him.” Balaam, the dualist, believed that Israel could only exist in the heavens. They would never live a physical life on this world. It could only be one or the other.

Pinchas pulled Balaam down to earth before killing him to make a statement that Israel does not believe that there are two separate worlds that are unrelated. The Children of Israel understand that the spiritual and physical function together. We do not strive to escape this world in order to live and flourish spiritually. We find the beauty and spirituality here on this world.

The Balaks, Balaams, and Manichaeans are all long gone, but we continue to thrive in both the spiritual and physical realms.

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.

Thales is usually known as the 6th Century BCE philosopher who coined the phrase; “Know thyself.” He also famously predicted the solar eclipse of 585 BCE.

He once asked to be taken outdoors by a Thracian girl so he could continue his brilliant study of the heavens. She took him outside and he fell into a ditch as he was studying the stars. On hearing his cry, she said, “How can you expect to know about all the heavens, Thales, when you cannot even see what is just beneath your feet?”

I used to wonder why Moshe chose that the earth swallow Korach and his followers. Perhaps Thales’ Thracian girl has the key: Korach and his group wanted to soar to the heavens, even if their journey meant that they would have to challenge Moses, the man who had lived in the heavens. I can hear the girl challenging Korach; “How can you expect to know about all the heavens, Korach, when you cannot even see what is just beneath your feet?”

I often meet people who are so focused on the heavens, a.k.a. their spiritual lives, that they forget to see the earth beneath their feet. Picture the man slamming a door in the face of someone else so they can kiss the Mezuzah. (The story was recently twitted to me.) We are making the same mistake as Korach and Thales when we ignore others in order to soar closer to God.

We cannot afford to forget the three thousand year old question of a young Thracian girl: How can you expect to know about all the heavens when you cannot even see what is just beneath your feet?”

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.

“Joshua, son of Nun, and Caleb son of Jephunneh, of the spies of the land, tore their clothes.” (Numbers 14:6) Whose clothes did they tear? The Kotzker explains that they torn the clothes of high position off the backs of the other spies. The first step is to expose the Emperor’s New Clothes. We often fall into the trap of measuring others by their externals and Joshua and Caleb wanted to expose the other spies for what they really were.

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 love Michio Kaku’s books, but I have a problem with his Physics of the Impossible: He discusses phasers, force fields, teleportation and time travel, but he does not even mention the invention for which I am most desperate; a thought grabber. Too many of my thoughts escape through the holes in my brain.

I am not the first to seek such a device. Pascal lamented: “Thoughts come at random, and go at random. No device for holding on to them or for having them. A thought has escaped; I was trying to write it down: instead I write that it has escaped me.”

I empathize with Pascal, but my concern is quite practical: I keep a notebook of all my insights, especially those that miraculously arrive during, and as a result of, my prayers. I can usually remember all the insights I receive over a Shabbat, but a two day holiday often provides too much to recall. I want a device that will capture all my thoughts and insights. I assume that it will be in the shape of a helmet, hopefully not a black hat, battery operated to observe the laws of Shabbat and Yom Tov (Holydays) although it will come in rechargeable form for weekdays. I suspect that the physics will be less difficult than figuring out how to comfortably shape the device to be worn 24 hours a day, even when in the shower when the ideas for my newsletters appear and escape, and to allow a person to wear the headpiece without disturbing Teffilin – phylacteries.

I don’t want to scare you, but I would like to custom order a device that will catch some of the great thoughts that have appeared and disappeared over the ages. I promise not to violate anyone’s privacy. There is one person whose thoughts at a specific moment I must catch in my machine: The guilty Sotah who explodes. This woman obviously does not believe in God, otherwise she would not risk drinking the water. She drinks the water and for just a few seconds before she explodes knows that, oops, she was wrong. The water works. God does have power. (Even our friend Pascal tried to cover his bases: He sewed the following thoughts into the lining of his clothes: “God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob,” not of the philosophers and scientists. Certainty. Certainty. Feeling. Joy. Peace.) In the few seconds before she dies, this woman has absolute clarity that God exists and that her “miraculous” death will prove God’s power to all who are watching.

I want to use my device to catch that absolutely clear that at that moment.

She may have been a sinner, but she serves as a vehicle to prove God’s Power to others, and I suspect that the clarity of that fleeting thought purifies her soul.

So, dear Dr. Kaku, please suspend your work on String Theory and start working on my device. I want that one thought, even more than all the other thoughts that were part of the great escape!

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.

The Gemara tells a story about a man who found about the world’s best professional. She was very expensive and had a very long waiting list. But he scrimped and saved and made an appointment to see her. Finally the day came and when he attempted to close the ‘transaction,’ he passed some gas. She giggled, and said to him, “In the same way that you will never recapture that air, you will never be able to do teshuva!” He said to her, “You’re right.” Since he wasn’t in the mood anymore to finish what he was doing, he went outside. He was desperate to do teshuva. He cried out to the stars and the moon. “You’ve got to help me.” They said to him, “Before we can pray for you, we have to pray for ourselves.” He cried out to the hills and the mountains. “You’ve got to help me do teshuva.” They said to him, “Before we can pray for you, we have to pray for ourselves, sorry.” So he cried out to the trees. “Somebody’s got to help me. The trees, grass, the flowers?” They replied the same as the mountains and the hills. Desperate, the man put his head between his knees and began to cry. He cried until the heavens shook. His heart was so broken, he died crying. A bat kol, a heavenly voice sounded forth saying, “Rabi Elazar ben Rudai has a portion in the World to Come.”

This is a very strange story. The point, however, is the Jewish idea that everything we do affects all of Creation. The world was created for human beings to come closer to God. If you don’t use the world in the proper way, or don’t use all that the world has to offer, then the world itself is suffering, it is being damaged. The world itself needs to cry out to God. A cow is just a cow, but it can be elevated to the level of a karban. An apple is just an apple, but it becomes lunch that is eaten in the presence of God, by reciting a bracha beforehand. On the other hand, eating the apple without a blessing takes it from being a vehicle for the manifestation of God in the world to denying that.

Therefore, one of the ideas of the story is that everything we do affects the entire universe. At the end of his life, Rabi Elazar ben Rudai understood. I don’t think he ever lived under the impression that he was a tzaddik. But once he was confronted with the metaphor that this woman used, he realized that even the grossest thing reflected the reality. Everyone in the story was telling him the same thing. People who don’t understand that cause a tremendous amount of destruction. This is what happened with the destruction of the Temples. Everyone in the world knew that we used to bring forgiveness for the whole world. To lose that opportunity didn’t only affect us in our immediate vicinity, in Jerusalem, but it affects the rest of the world, and universe as well. This idea helps us appreciate the positive aspects including what we could hope to accomplish. The last of the kinot that we say at night speak of how the constellations cry out and how they, too, mourn for the destruction of the Temple.

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.

There is a special gift of satisfaction, which we request as part of the Shabbat and Holy Day Prayers: V’sabeinu MiTuvecha – Satisfy us from Your Best – Our souls are desperate to reconnect with their source and cannot find satisfaction without that connection. This is why the generation of the desert, despite all their gifts, could not find satisfaction. Our Souls must integrate with our Sechel to be whole.

We discuss Creation from God’s perspective: Yecholet – Ability and Chuko – His Nature, and we then discuss Creation from the perspective of the Nivrah – The Created Being. Chochma is used when discussing the needs of the creations.

The Divine Ratzon – Will was for a creation that could master itself and achieve perfection. That Will can only be perfectly satisfied with a creation that lacks Shleimut/Perfection and has an opportunity to achieve it for itself.

Therefore, the Creation is PERFECTLY matched to the Ratzon/Will processed through Machashava/Thought.

God’s Yecholet?Ability and Chuko/Nature are part of the Creation, therefore it expanded, bit Olamo – The world as we know it, and Shamayim – The System as governed by through the Transcendental Forces and Angels in Heaven, expanded until stopped. Their nature is to expand.

Whenever we limit ourselves we are experiencing the “Stop!” of Shadai.

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.

John, Doctor Subtilis, of the village of Duns in Berwickshire, Scotland, (1266-1308) developed the notion of “Haecceity” as a way of giving expression to the uniqueness or the indivisible “thisness” of a person. His followers were called “Dun’s Men” from where we get the notion of a “dunce” or stupid fellow who believes himself subtle.

I don’t know about the subtle part, but I do believe in the importance of appreciating the uniqueness of a person.

A great debate rages in my family whether each of us must first focus on becoming individuals and only then submitting to God or vice versa. Is the submission of a person who does not have a sense of self, worthwhile? Is it too risky to focus on self-development? Even if we acknowledge the importance of developing ourselves: Do we consider the challenges of our times so terrible that we must sacrifice our self-development in order to fight for the Jewish people?

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 invite you to join this discussion by commenting below:

“There will be no eating or drinking”: is only necessary if we exist as we are now; souls and bodies.

“Crowns”: indicate relationship, as with the Mitzvah of Brit Milah/Circumcision which is the shaping of a crown on the place of relationship. The Crowns indicate the level of relationship we have achieved.

“Crowns” are also reminiscent of Sinai when they had two crowns one for “We will Do” and one for “We will relate.” The Crowns were a reflection of what they had achieved through experiencing Revelation. They lost the crowns when they sinned with the Golden Calf. Moshe collected the crowns and offers them to us on Shabbat, the day on which we can experience the level of Olam Habah/World to Come that we have earned.

The Crowns also reflect the teaching of the Zohar that each letter of our prayers is raised to heaven by an angel, and the angels if empowered by our prayers, dance around each other as they fly to heaven, creating new combinations of letters and words, that all go to decorate the Divine Crown. The Zohar also teaches that each Mitzvah we perform can fly upward and decorate the Divine Crown. As we enhance the Divine Crown we are actually preparing the Crowns we will wear in the World-To-Come. They will be an exact reflection of our efforts and , therefore, we will be able to fully relate to and enjoy the Shechina – The Reflection of the Level of Relationship Achieved by The Perfected Community – without any dissonance.

The Soul in its natural state cleaves to God. We do not need to create a new reality that seems so beyond us. D’veikut – Attachment to God – is the natural state of the Soul. That is why the Ramchal adds the words Teshuva – to Return to our natural state.

We also found the three levels of barriers repeated.

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.

The Ramchal describes “Attaching to God’s Kedusha – Sanctity” and then being able to enjoy our grasp of His Kavod – Presence. The concepts of Kedusha and Kavod are associated in the praises of the Angels that we describe in Kedusha: “Holy, holy, Holy…His Kavod – Glory – fills the earth.”

Kedusha is not the boundary, but the unique relationship that is created by its boundaries. The Kedusha of the relationship between a husband and wife develops from an appreciation of the uniqueness of what they have. When two young people marry they have only the boundaries of marriage, but not yet an appreciation of how they help each other grow and develop. As they grow together, they begin to appreciate how they are shaping each other and that they have something that reflects the deepest parts of each of them. They develop an awareness of the uniqueness of their relationship. They develop the sense of Kedusha.

As they increase the Kedusha of their marriage, they a) have a greater sense of the presence (Kavod) of the other in their lives, and b) it becomes heavier (Kavaid) or more intense.

A soul that successfully masters herself understands that she has a unique relationship with the Creator. She develops her strengths and attaches to her Source. Her relationship with God is unique, or in our terms, Kadosh. She can then experience the joy of God’s Presence (Kavod) and the relationship intensifies (Kavaid.)

We now say: “Blessed be the Name of His Glory”, because we can speak of His Kavod only with an appellation, a name. However, once we achieve D’veikut – attachment, we will not speak of “Shem kivod malchuto” but “Kivod Malchuto.”

The Soul forms a unique attachment to God.

The Soul enjoys the Intensity of God’s Presence without 1) anything holding her back, 2) anything blocking her development, and 3) any barrier between God and her.

The first verse describes “Az” as in “Az Yashir” of the Song of the Sea. It is the pleasure of the moment of realization. The Wow!

The second verse is a description of living with God’s countenance.

The third describes the creation of Satisfaction, for which we often pray: “Sabeinu”. The creation of satisfaction will be developed as he continues to define Shleimut – Perfection & Chisaron – Lacking.

We compared these ideas to the two verse the Ramchal quotes in Messilat Yesharim – Path of the Just, Chapter 1: (Psalm 73) “As for me, Closeness to God is what is good to me.” Note the stress on me; my unique experience.

2) (Psalm 27) “One thing I have asked…” The soul reaches a stage in which she realizes that there is only one good.

We compared this too to Derech Hashem – The Way of God – Section One, Chapter 2, Paragraph 13.

The Ramchal then seems to wax poetic: “Verses in every corner of the prophets and Writings, Revealed to all the nations, Search from above the Torah and Read!”

Once you understand these three verse, you will discover hints throughout the Prophets and writings, tucked away in the corners. You will have begun a process that will only expand until you realize that this concept of the Torah offering a relationship with God is revealed throughout all its words, and then you will be able to develop it more and more. It will not stop expanding. You will only have a sense of Shleimut – Perfection being more. Which is why the Sechel – Intellect said earlier that it did not want to begin with Perfection: It is impossible to be defined. In fact, this sense of constant expansion is so intense that God created a sense of satisfaction so that the person will not experience the search as an eternal quest without ever achieving any peace.

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.