Rabbi Reuven Wolf: Who Is The Jewish Messiah and When Is He Coming?

i'm really excited about sharing today's episode with rabbi reuven wolfe of mayan yes royal hasidic center here in los angeles this is actually where i typically pray on a shabbat morning and rabbi wolf is a very special guy uh we're going to talk or we did talk and you're going to hear about the messiah you know this is a this is an idea that in american judaism has become almost distasteful you know we oh we don't talk about the messiah messiah is not that's not a jewish idea and of course it's the most jewish idea there is this sense that jewish history is moving from a place to a place it's not just endlessly repeating but that we're growing towards something and the thing that we're growing toward is that messianic age and rabbi wolf is really one of the the experts in the world of hasidic thought on the subject of mashiach of the messiah and in this conversation you're going to hear about what the jewish idea of messiah is how we help bring the messianic age sooner what the role of a jew is and the non-jew uh in the time before the messiah and after the messiah has come and we're going to share some stories some some very deep philosophy that uh is not abstract or intellectual it's very practical and rooted in the real world uh i loved having this conversation with rabbi wolfe and i think you will enjoy it too accidental just wisdom you don't wanna miss now my pals out take it away [Music] welcome to the accidental talmudis podcast my guest today is rabbi reuven wolff director and rabbi of the minus royal hasidic center here in los angeles and i might add my rabbi it is a real pleasure and an honor to have you here today well it's a real honor to be here and this is exciting the first time i'm sitting with such intense headphones and such a sophisticated microphone so something intense and sophisticated is bound to happen [Laughter] yeah all right so rabbi wolfe let's just get right into it um you bring an energy uh to our show and to every show that you visit and you've been visiting a lot of shows especially in the last year uh because you're you're a gifted teacher a guy who's able to translate very lofty ideas about spirituality about the coming of meshiach the messiah about our relationship with hashem with god which should be a very uplifting and loving and close relationship not not an abstract philosophical one um and and you do this with a great sense of joy that i think is just a a wonderful um a wonderful embodiment of the whole hasidic tradition i mean we we love having you in our midst i i really enjoy davening praying singing in your show and uh and and one of the things that really characterizes your rabbinate uh is is your understanding and your communication about the messiah about mashiach and it's funny because this is a topic that has become somewhat difficult to talk about in the jewish world and it should be quite the opposite it should be you know maybe not the only focus but one of the foci uh of judaism in the modern world so why don't we get into it what is what is your sense of of of the jewish understanding and your understanding of meshiach the messiah now you you had sal you introduced me as the rabbi of the hasidic center you know when we started this center i it was dedicated to israel balchemtov who actually celebrated his birthday last week on the 18th of ello and the hasidic movement from its very very inception from its very beginning is really a messianic movement many people don't know that it's rooted in in a in a drive to drive the jewish people into the last phase of our of history into our like to make the final the final stretch uh into the into the final redemption the ultimate purpose of creation um hasidism particularly near zalman of lyadi the founder of chabadhasidism who gave language to the otherwise more abstract mystical powerful energy of the balshemptov which is just the pure godly light of mashiach ahmed of the yadi was able to give a language to it words a sophisticated language an intelligent language so let's take a step back let's define hasidism who was israel baal shem tov and and what did he create what is the hasidic movement since it's so intimately wrapped up with this idea of meshiach rabbi israel balchemtov israel was a figure that came to the to the into the jewish scene at a moment of extreme extreme darkness for the jewish people it was a time of a people were very disillusioned people were very broken the jewish communities of ukraine and poland were devastated by the riots and the programs of the khmelanitsuki the kazakhs and and also very very heartbroken because of a mashiach a false messiah that had appeared and was just a total facade in the late 1600s and there was a great great rift between the scholars people people at that time you know the only virtue almost in judaism was i mean not the only but what took center stage was talmudic knowledge and and and it was just just a few people who were who had that knowledge and the masses were completely disconnected and those who didn't have the opportunity to study and learn because as a result of all the devastation many of the systems that were in place before craders and so on and so forth and yeshiva systems were all devastated so now you had a whole generation with a big big gap and these people grew up very very ignorant but very simple and they had beautiful jewish hearts with a very deep you know um love for god but at the other hand the rabbinate and the people the the more hierarchy of the higher uh stat you know people of the community were completely were crushing them and made them feel like as if they're nothing and we're talking about poland poland ukraine lithuania that whole uh that whole area it's hard to say exactly because at that time every few years the whole geography of the place changed but that whole eastern european uh where where most of the ashkenazic jews lived during that time were in a complete it was an it was a in the hasidic masters like this we call it it was a time of faint like when a person faints they're lifeless they were in a deep deep sleep like almost in a coma state okay and that's where the balsam tuff came with a new message now most people know the hasidic movement as one of joy of happiness bashem came and he brought the song back to judaism means means really a name for a healer mm-hmm and the balsham was a person that people came for healing someone who's more of a you know you know he has he has the power of healing and he's a miracle worker and so on and so forth he wasn't the only balshemptov balshems there were many balshems at that time these were figures that had like certain higher spiritual powers and they were saintly people sadikim that were but he became the balchemto and the permanent balchemto because he's kind of so specifically means the master of the name or the master of the good name of the good name that's right and so this is someone who can invoke the name of god he evoked the name of god but but but what really the balshampton did was he evoked the jewish soul okay he came to the jewish people and he really sparked our neshama that's where he brought us back and he connected every jew in in the sense that he revealed how every jew has a love and innate love to god and how precious it is the simple things of simple people and how you know like the the famous teaching of the of that god only has one child and that's you and imagine that jews can hear that after the time that they were constantly being told how how how low and how worthless they are because they don't know the commandments and they're not doing things properly and how and how right so the balsamic comes along and starts telling them how precious they are and how even the little things that they do but what people don't realize that the bolshevik also had a very very deep and um insight not just an insight a deep revelation to reveal to the world which is messianic what the bashamtv really brought was he revealed the unity of god um the balshemptuv main message was that he is all and all is him that there's nothing in the world devoid of godliness you know the kabbalists speak of what we call that simtsum a contraction and that in order to create the world god removed himself from a certain space and then there is the space that hollow empty space in where creation takes place so for thou for thousands of years even the mystics and the kabbalists understood this to mean that there is a certain space where god is not and then the creation and and and there is a world outside of god and the basham to change that muslim to reveal that that simpson is not in the god's essence he's everywhere and all the time and the washington also taught how creation is perpetually created by god there is a constant continuum flow of divine energy that creates the world every second and makes it be out of nothing and that's a of teaching and and what am i saying and that's messianic because when the balshamp taught it it's a teaching that we accept in faith when the moshiach will come that is going to be the natural consciousness of all of creation and on all of mankind and all of the world we will all see that there is all that we are really nothing more than an expression of god so um a continuing ongoing ongoing expression of god almost i love the image of uh you know on a cold day when you exhale and you make a cloud of vapor well it dissipates you know and the universe is actually like like a cloud of vapor that god is breathing out and if he would not keep breathing it would just scatter and vanish but that it is all within god you know in the common culture in american culture there's this you know we consider a childish sense of well we're walking around on earth and and god is this you know old man with a beard on a cloud somewhere somewhere else he's there we're here there's a separation and you know once when when we our understanding grows we come to see what you mentioned before this tsim tsum this contraction uh in other words god is everywhere god is infinite and he made a space within himself where the world became possible uh and he's not removed from that space he's just hidden within that space and that's a choice that god makes to be hidden right so this is so mashiach is what mashiach is the net result of all of the actions of all of humanity to seek and connect to god and to reveal him and primarily a major major role is the role of the jewish people in all of this that's from the mystical perspective and prime primarily from the hasidic perspective is that the culmination of all of the torah and all of the mitzvahs is to bring to the messianic era the moshiach state and mashiach state is the simplest aspect of it which is very deep and also just to say it simply is when all the holy godly light that we've accumulated and i should say more than we've drawn down because i think it's better and even deep there's two things is what we draw down from above what we might say from outside from above the creation bringing in new light every time we do a mitzvah but more important it's the digging out what we've unearthed unearthed from all the good deeds that we do every mitzvah we do we're revealing the godly life force that's contained within the world by by virtue of what we spoke earlier that god is the world is only a breath of hashem that god is constantly speaking into existence so as a result of our mitzvos we crack the kabbalists like to refer to it as clippot all the clepot which are the shells that block and conceal and we allow the inner truth of everything to which is the godly energy to be to be expressed now we do a mitzvah and we don't see its impact i mean of course we see the impact that when i help the poor man and give him lunch you know this person isn't hungry anymore but we don't see divinity in this world we don't see god in this world but the kabbalist and hasidic and hasidism explains that that act itself impacts the physical universe and that the the the godly energy that's embedded within the world is now released in that money in the person in the giver who's giving that money in that room where this is taking place that hashem is primarily when we do the mitzvah with the kant with the consciousness that we are doing a godly act because god commanded so as a result of that we're allowing that the divine to emerge from its concealment now why does god set it up this way why does god hide the why is impossible to explain um the rib schneer zalman of lyadi said something you know he said in yiddish is kashinisht which means just like when you have a desire for vanilla ice cream you can't explain rationally what that desire is it's just this is a taiva this is your this is this is what you desire uh the desire the why we can't know the the what we know what's the what the what is that god created a world that most conceals him and hides him and his desire is to be revealed in that which most concealed him and much and has mostly obscured him that's the what okay so we can't to say that he gets something out of it obviously what does he get what does he need it but he does need it how do we know he needs it because he created it he created it and he told us and he told us this is what he wants and in his torah he told us that he can that that he has pleasure and he has anger and little us i mean it's so humble of hashem of god to give us the power to please or displease yes that's the that's the ultimate humility right yes um so let's go back a second so so we've got uh the baal sham tov so he's going to he's going to create hasidism and you and you started to say that he came in a time uh when there had been so much pressure against judaism and against learning uh to where it had come to a place where the the regular jew the humble guy the farmer the you know the shoemaker uh even even the banker in the town was just not getting the education and there were there were a few of course that were keeping it going but the average you didn't have it uh and so they had come to feel like well we're not that important at least maybe if we can give a little bit of charity and support the torah scholars and they can learn at least we can do that but the baal shem tov comes with a different message yes right and and in the sense the bolshem to saw in the simple jew a certain revelation of the purest part of the soul more than in the scholar and how's that because of you see the the the scholar is already sophisticated and sophistication is great it's the mind and the the assault our souls have talents and of the talents of our soul is our intellect and our emotions and so on and so forth these are all part of the makeup of the personality of the soul but there's something deeper in the soul and that's the spark the peace of god that's beyond all definition and that can only be expressed in this simple sincerity of pure pure s sincerity of wanting a connection and the simple jew who doesn't have the sophistication you know that's simplistic love that he wants to be a jew and he wants to please god is more noticeable than the one who has calculations and reasons and is thinking of reward you know the simple jew wants to do a mitzvah just because it's a mitzvah the the the scholar has all the understanding of what the mitzvah accomplishes and what and how he's going to gain from it so it's lacking that that purity so the balshampton sees in the pure jew the deepest reflection of god much more even than he sees in the scholars that's one of the reasons the scholars so despise them okay because of the because of the um when i say the scholars despise them it obviously there were many great rabbis who began to study the balshemptuv and they realized how much their scholarly uh how much they're learning is enhanced so you know greater and greater with these very very deep mystical teachings but those who did not make it so far into actually investigating and and and just looked at it from the outside were kind of irritated if we can say by the and felt threatened and so and so so now he so he comes and he and he has this rabbinate as it were which is for everybody right it's for the common man as much as for the scholar and some of the greatest most gifted scholars of the generation came around and came to realize that this was a very deep thinker he wasn't just uh hey the masses are great and empower the masses because they're the masses i mean he had very sophisticated knowledge to bring he just had a love and appreciation uh for the jew but they opposed him i mean there were people who very much opposed him um and now you've introduced this part of the conversation by saying and what he was bringing was this messianic consciousness this idea in a time when the idea of a jewish messiah had acquired a very bad name because it had gone so badly for the previous generation and now he's sort of gently going to bring this teaching back um and and so why don't we at this point define so so what does messiah mean within judaism what what does it mean on the most simplest of levels the the the torah this week is we're reading the parsha of nitsavim it's the end of the torah portion of the torah of the entire torah moshe is giving his last words to the jewish people and he says he describes that there is going to be an akhiritayam there's going to be an end of days and he describes how the jewish people are going to go through a period of moshe says i know you guys you're going to misbehave god is going to get upset at you and he's going to banish you from the land of israel he's going to scatter you all over the world into the diaspora you're going to barely survive but in the end something magical is going to happen you are going to repent and you are going to do teshuva and god is going to gather you from all the four corners of the earth bring you back to your homeland to the land of israel and restore the divine presence amongst you vishafa this week is this week's torah of the shaft the shamath you will return to god and listened and hearkened to his voice the shah hashem your god is going to return the kibbetz khamikullah on him he's going to gather you from all the nations that is as it is described in the pasuk as it described by mamanides is the codifier of jewish law mahmud is in his last two chapters of the mishnah torah which is again sums up the entire oral law that taught the entire uh um teachings of the rabbis so he he concludes his book of of law with the laws pertaining to the time of mashiach telling us that in the end of days a mashiach will appear a human being who will be greater than any human being ever living before narambam says in his laws of chuva ramam says that the messiah is someone who is close to moshe in prophecy there can't be anybody who exceeds moshe in prophecy because then we can have someone who will come along god forbid and will cancel the torah and that we can't have that's why those who believed in in in the christian mashiach is invalid because he basically says you don't have to keep the torah and that doesn't work no one can negate the torah the torah and the mitzvot are forever and ever so therefore mashiach's prophecy on level of prophecy he's close to moses but in terms of wisdom he's the wisest human being ever to live exceeding solomon king solomon in wisdom in terms of quality of soul maimonides doesn't say this but the kabbalists teach us he is the highest soul ever to be here he exceeds even adam before adam's sin we're talking about the handiwork of god he is a higher greater nishama than that and therefore his job is to bring all of humanity into a state of enlightenment like has never been before but that process involves the restoration of the jewish people to the land of israel the rebuilding of the holy temple and inspiring the jewish people back to observance of all 613 commandments that's the job that that's the job of moshiach that's the ultimate ultimate but when we look a little bit into the world we see things are moving things are moving in that direction for instance amongst the jewish people yes we can always covet and speak about assimilation and people moving away from observance but in the from the 1960s and onwards we have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of jews getting closer to observance taking on we get the concept of bali chuva the people that are returning to years sky that's a phenomenon that never existed we never had that in jewish history you know it's good right now to define that term define baltashiva so that people can understand exactly what that means we refer to it as somebody who comes back to observance but what does the term actually mean someone who it see it's a problem over here is that the the if you see balchuva chuva usually means repentance but most people coming back don't have to repent for anything because they're just one second here fix this they don't have to repent for anything because they haven't sinned the reason why people haven't sinned is because you can't sin unless you have pre-knowledge of the importance and the significance of doing a mitzvah or keeping kosher or shabbos observance and so on and so forth then you choose you know you know not to listen that kind of a thing most jews today are are born without the knowledge of any value even though they know let's say that there is those that are observant but they don't have a value system that that gives meaning and value to that so no one has to repent in a sense we don't have we don't have sinners anymore because the the level of ignorance is so it's almost like all there is i might say by god is not anger and upsetness for the lack of observance but tremendous compassion for so many people who are missing out on being able to live such a godly life like the mitzvah life in which you know every every moment and every you know there's so so much opportunity to live not as a human being but as a godly being doing godly things so people so but the deeper meaning of truth is not repentance the deeper meaning of chuva is returning yes so there is and that's a very appropriate term abaltruva meaning i would say a master of returning the beauty of of that is that you know uh there's two you know a parent has two children he has his child who's always been like the perfect child and always did everything that the father and mother want them to do and so on and so forth and they you know and they grow up to be the valedictorian and everything and their parents are shepping so much nachos of that of that child and then they have the child that they're struggling with and it's always making the wrong choices and there's a lot of pain and there's a lot of a lot of anguish the opposite of what we would say in the edition good yiddish nachas it's not happening but then after all the struggling and after all the pain and after all the misery and all the rejection and all of that there is that child's awakening that the child wants to come back to the parent i want to make amends i want to i want to i want to return i want to be connected to you and then there's a certain intensity and then they after like in the child older and they meet together again and they they begin a relationship from the distance there's something so much deeper so much more intense in this in this in this and the satisfaction of this child is reaching in the pair into a much deeper more essential core than the child that has always been following the the law and that's why we say that the return needs the standards that the one who is from religious from birth religious personal religion birth can never have that drive like the baltimore does because he's been missing it he has an aching soul yeah it's an aching soul and it's that deeper yearning which brings mashiach is a very intense light which will only come you know the mammal that he says god promised based on the promise of this week's torah portion that the jewish people will do teshuva will return now if they realize we don't need to have all the jewish people doing the chuva before mashiach comes there's a critical mass that has that has done chuva enough to bring the messianic revelation once the messianic revelation reveals itself and the once once that higher godly consciousness kicks in then it's going to awaken the souls of all jews even those that have become so dried out or so disconnected that suddenly they are going to discover within themselves a burning desire to put on the tefillin to light the shabbos candles to be able to participate in a midsole so that's so beautiful um because if it if if we needed everybody on board before the messiah would come it would feel daunting if not impossible but when we think that it's a critical mass that we have to hit well then maybe we're there maybe we're just one soul away maybe 10 maybe 20 we don't know what that number is but every one makes such a difference the man most responsible in the in the 21st century or in the 20th century uh for driving this return was the great hasidic master the lobavi who created this powerful network of chabad houses across the entire world running just seeking out every jew and inspiring and the rebbe who's more in touch with deeper truths and higher realities that we don't have access to said time and again and again and again that the jewish people have done already the chuva that is necessary to bring about the mashiach revelation and the rebbe said the reason mashiach isn't here is still a mystery meaning there's nothing that needs to be done anymore we've done it already what we could say is yeah we're basically at a point now where the tiniest action from anybody can be that trigger and that's why it's so important to to to get involved these days because you never know who we're waiting for for whatever whatever is done is done like everything is ready it's like i'll give you an example it's like you know you have a wedding or an important show or something and everybody showed up already the caterer is there the music musicians are there this is the other like there's nothing technical but you have one person that you want them to be there by the opening you don't want them to miss it you keep on looking around are they there already are they there already so there's nothing technical it's just that you don't want you just don't want to start that show without that person being there so in a sense it's like at this moment we don't know who the person is that from up there but it might be somebody listening to us right now yeah it might be any of us it might be any any person here that just you just show up yeah just show up just show up and uh and now one thing that that is a distinction perhaps between between our faith between judaism and some of the other traditions around the world uh you know there are other traditions that say okay well the world is going to become a good place when everybody believes that we believe in practice is what we practice and judaism doesn't say that there there is a role for everybody but it doesn't mean that everyone has to be a jew no you know and so there is a role for the non-jew that's very special and important and when we talk about that a little bit what what is the non-jews role in this coming age of mashiach of the messiah and in bringing it one of the jobs of mashiach is that he's going to rambam uses the words he's going to fix the entire world meaning bring the entire world to a perfected state the perfected state that maimonides is referring to is to the state of obedience to the seven no id laws a recognition of a higher power and a willingness to serve that higher power and and a basic moral code which is expected of all of humanity which is really not something that is only for the time of mashiach it is really something an expectation that has been there from when god created the world adam now is coming rosh hashanah on the day that hashem we're gonna we're gonna commemorate the creation of the first human being and when god created adam god gave him six commandments not as a jew but as a human being and when noah came and he saved them from the flood and like kind of here is again we're back to one human being or just a small little family then there became one it was added one more mitzvah against cruelty on animals and that was before that there was forbidden for humans even we were all vegetarian after noah say maybe some states because he took care of the animals so that's why god gave him whatever the reason is but it's today's it was permitted for the human being the consumption of animals but not cruelty on the animal so that's the seventh one now this was an expectation of mankind god wants the human race to live with certain morals and certain certain uh you know regulations and the way he and um but it was really never never accepted by humanity to actually live that way um maimonides tells us that it's part of our role of the jewish people god commanded us when he gave us the torah and not oh guys you want to be religious coming here and i have i have a religion for you god chose the jewish people to be a a light for all the nations so we're actually told in maimonides that god commanded moshe that we should influence all of humanity to keep the seven no i'd lost now during all of history we kind of kept ourselves for a simple reason because we would open our mouth we wouldn't really sure if we would come back home with our tongue that's the way it was all the time now the rebbe the lobovich rebbe uh began to inspire jews to actually talk to people about the seven knowing laws and so when mashiach will come um all of you again the main the main react the main truth of moshiach the main change in the messianic era is an awareness a powerful awareness it might even go further than an awareness it might even be that the naked eye will be able to see physically the true energy that's within the physical world was to really look at an object not as an object but as an event right because right now we think that we're physical beings that maybe have some kind of a spirit but we'll learn then and see we'll see that we are spiritual beings and and and that so in that state of mind every creature and every being will want to live consistent with with that truth but in order to live that way and to achieve higher higher higher levels of consciousness and awareness of godly consciousness there will be directives coming from moshiach and the disseminators of that wisdom and that knowledge will be the jewish people as the teachers of the world the rest of humanity are going to be very much involved in that learning process very much involved i mean let's just review for a second what the noahide laws are yeah uh because people have heard of them and and and sometimes people encounter them and they say oh look it's just seven laws and they can be stated with just a few words each and it's so simplistic i do that i'm doing that and they're enormously subtle there's so many levels of them i mean the first one is to know god right to know about hashem well that's torah's study i mean well just knowing levels of that knowing god yeah is something that is an infinite occupation exactly exactly that's an infinite occupation and there's because because you know of our finitude finiteness and god is being infinite so the expansion of that knowledge goes on and on and on by the way just an interesting thing when souls leave the body and they go up to heaven what's the paradise experience what's the experience the bliss and the ecstasy of heaven you know there are those who have like really ridiculous ideas of what heaven is um judaism and very much based in maimonides teachings but also of course taken from the talmud and so on and so forth sees the ghanaiden experience what we call the afterlife as a time the garden of eden garden of eden is a spiritual place a spiritual place where the soul is privileged to be able to perceive and know god and its knowledge increases the more the soul gets the the the more knowledge is is being absorbed or the soul is grasping more and more and more the greater the pleasure god is awesomely pleasurable just to illustrate that this that there is pleasure in all and all physical things that we have whether it's pleasure from food and there's many levels of pleasure of food the real fine gourmet food or pleasure in in in seeing beautiful things or hearing music or whatever whatever the pleasure is the kabbalists say these are the energy what's the pleasure the pleasure is not in the in the the stuff the pleasure is the sensation it's more spiritual there's something in it there's a certain thrill there's a certain sensation but that sensation you can't define it physically it's you might say it's a chemical reaction it's not there's a pleasure there's something it's related to a little spark of god that's in it but that's only a crumb of a crumb of a crumb of a crumb of a crop of divine energy so imagine like eating this cake but you got this tiny little crumb crumb of that and then you have this big and they get a slice so all the pleasure we have in the physical world is just nothing compared to perceiving the source of life and the source of pleasure so the soul goes higher and higher and higher and higher and higher and higher in its pursuit of knowing god now here's an amazing thing and we had i know you had rabbi chase taub last weekend and you sal were with us on shabbos at shul and he spoke and i spoke about this many times but he was so nice the way he spoke about this he spoke about the souls that are in the garden of eden spiritual worlds higher and higher for three and a half thousand years and they're constantly ascending to higher levels of experience higher and higher and higher like moses was there ready for three and a half thousand years and he started on a very high level you can imagine and yet they're all going to make a u-turn and they're going to come back because part of the messianic belief is the resurrection so we believe that all the souls are going to come back down here and there is going to be and come back and to be reincarnated in bodies and and that but that tells us an amazing thing that tells us that notwithstanding all that growth in the spiritual world the godly knowledge and experience that's going to be available down here on earth is going to far exceed all that journeys of the souls in the afterlife what a contradiction it seems so counterintuitive you would think oh when you finally leave the body behind and you're ascending realm after realm of spiritual ecstasy and and you know the true nature of the universe and you're part of the heavenly choir and and you you hear the angels singing the angels singing the gazillions of angels singing with beautiful voices not bad voices like mine but big beautiful voices and yet all of that is going to lead to the souls coming back here why would they want to come back here where things are so limited and the answer must be because there's something available here that even up there is not available right and what is that it's god himself up there in heaven it's only his light it's not himself god's truest self is only revealed in the physical world captured captured in the act of a mitzvah that's when god's essence is revealed now to us right now we're clueless we can do a mitzvah and be thinking about a mitzvah is a commandment as a commandment you know we can put on the to fill in we can give sadak a charity and at the same time not be aware that we're connecting to god in the deepest highest possible way you know we can be thinking about lunch while we're doing the mitzvah so we're totally disconnected because right now the the godliness of the mitzvah is still hidden well going back to what we spoke in the beginning of our talk today that when mashiach comes all the mitzvah that we've done all the shells and concealments will will be blown away and all that godliness will finally reveal itself so in the days of moshiach it will be a miracle to be able to do a mitzvah and to survive stay intact but we will have the strength because we've strengthened ourselves so much in this observance already now the ecstasy and the delight of that mitzvah of that godliness is beyond beyond because it's infinitely superior to all of the the lights in heaven but i want to bring it back to the gentile okay the gentile world is also part of that experience because they're going to be living in this physical world which this physical world is going to be a place of such intense godly revelation so which means they're there as well so judaism doesn't believe in a in a a in an exclusive you know uh um club club not a club the jewish people right it's a certain tico and it's a certain correction it's a certain purification it's a certain refinement that needs to be done to the world so that all of humanity and can live in this ultimate enlightened connected state so what is going to be the work daily work for the for for for not we know for the jewish people it's continuous observance of mitzvahs the nanju doesn't have these mitzvahs but what is going to be the instructions of what to do that's why we have a leader that will instruct that will teach and the verse describes that in the time of mashiach in the in the days of the messiah the the the temple temple mount where the holy temple is going to be standing is going to be a magnet for the entire world it says like nations will all flock it will be papier the house the mountain with the house of god berosharim at the top of mountains which is and vanaharu a love they will flock to him all the nations will flock to israel and why kimit everybody were familiar with this verse kimitsi on because from zion tate say torah torah will come out with hashem in the word of god yerushalayim will come forth from jerusalem to enlighten the nations so every the place the hub of humanity is going to be jerusalem that's why i'm so excited and it will be a house for all people for all people that's why i'm so excited that they moved the embassy to jerusalem of course the embassy has to be there this is going to be the capital of the world this is so messianic and and really you know all nations need to have their embassy there because if everybody's gonna come to jerusalem and what happens if you lose your passport what happens if you need something you need to turn to your embassies and life is gonna go on as in a sense like normal there's still gonna be governments and there's still gonna be embassies and it's still gonna be passports and things like that yes in in this enlightened state so what we're seeing this year is in so many ways in this past year some so many um like you can sense within the world over the last i don't know it's been a struggle forever but there's been such tension regarding israel in general and regarding jerusalem and such a powerful campaign to resolve the palestinian-israeli conflict and the solution that was always suggested was a two-state solution in which it was and it was like insisted by like all the nations in the world that we have to split jerusalem i see it not as a physical war but as a spiritual battle subconsciously the unholy is not comfortable with the restoration of jerusalem and the building of the temple for mashiach to come israel has to be a jewish place even though it's open to all of humanity to come and and why it's god's decision he gave the land of israel to the jewish people the whole land of israel and you know rashi there is a famous rashi rashi is the is the um main um commentary on the hummish on the bible that the jewish people have studied all along in his opening verse to the hamish rashi is prophesizing talking about rashid lived somewhere in the 10th century or in the 9th century i'm not exactly not a historian to give you the exact date but back then rashi writes that the reason why the torah begins really the torah is about instructing the jewish people on our mitzvot and our commandments but in the beginning we have a narration of creation right rashi says he could have began the time could have started with the first commandment which is setting the calendar the jewish calendar why do we start with the story of their of creation they say well this is such important defamation yeah it's important information we could have received another book why is it part of the torah which is instruction so rashid says the reason why the the torah begins with bereishis that entire story is for now rashi says a time will come when the nations in the world will accuse the jewish people of stealing land and the jewish people need to have an answer what's our answer our answer is not the belford declaration what's our answer the answer to our ownership of the land of israel rashi says is because bereshas bara elokim as a shamayim bazaar creator who created heaven and earth has given created a world and has put in according to torah there are 70 nations okay i'm not exactly how you count those 70 but that's the torah view so and has given the entire globe for the various nations to each one to settle one small party says this part is mine and and in that little part i am choosing to give it to the descendants of abraham isaac and jacob i promised them this piece of land and here is important it takes for the jewish people to live in the land of israel to set the stage for this incredible powerful divine download it's when all the souls of the jewish people live in the land of israel we have all the wiring if we can say set up for powerful godly enlightenment and powerful infusion when mashiach will come it will be beautiful for all of humanity it will be spectacularly beautiful for all of humanity for ever and ever but for whatever reason part of the darkness that precedes mashiach is that people don't realize that so there is a great struggle to try to stop that from happening which translates into bds into uh into all the resolutions in the un into all the incredible pressure on israel so therefore i it's clear to me watching all of this that what was witnessing in the last two years happening at least from the united states is a complete shift in policy which is causing like everybody like to go crazy is actually a divine intervention because it doesn't make any sense i'm talking about the elections the president and all of that it's not just whatever uh uh an occurrence that happened because it doesn't make sense because it's upsetting everybody so much it's because of there is a messianic process that's taking place that's setting the stage there's this this this horrible attack against israel had to stop so you see for instance the new appointment of nikki haley into the u.n and how she's this unbelievable defender of israel and it's all preparatory stages for for the united nations uh is i mean it expends so much energy opposing this little country people who don't look at a globe regularly are shocked to discover that israel which seems to be in the news constantly it's the tiniest of places it is so small compared to other nations of the world uh you know you look at there there are countries in africa which just they do not get in the news people are suffering there every day terrible things are going on the news doesn't care those countries you could fit several of those countries you could fit a hundred israels uh into any one of them and yet there's so much attention focused on israel and what's amazing is what you're describing uh when the messiah will come when this con this you know the divine presence will be revealed taken from the hidden aspect and into a more revealed place and it will involve the jewish people and and and this people that against all odds have survived for thousands of years you know hasn't survived because it is so big and so strong and so numerous and so powerful it just did survive i mean it could only be the hand of god that enabled us to survive against so much opposition and no people ever returned to its land and no people ever returned to its land before after being scattered to the four winds uh and and what's amazing i think is when we talk about that time that is coming and may it be today uh but but when you know this messianic consciousness in a messianic order will will start to take place and prevail in the world well then the jewish people which is so small right it's so small it'll it'll be there in a kind of a leadership role but especially a teaching role right it's a teaching role that the jews have and it's not a you know it's not that we say that we're chosen because we have a power trip because we don't it's not it's not for power that we've been chosen it's just for living in this consciousness and and what's amazing is there's a role for everybody in that world that is coming you know and when you look at uh the eschatologies of other cultures where they point to what the ultimate order would look like if they could have their way there wouldn't be other peoples you know everyone would become one of them and there wouldn't be this role and what's funny is that you know these days there's such an emphasis on diversity this is the original diversity teaching you know the jews don't come to say that everyone should be a jew the jews come to say that everyone has a role after the messiah comes we don't accept any more converts we've never been into making converts even though it was always a jewish thing to inspire gentiles to live a moral godly life but not to become jewish but converts are permitted if they're willing to you know go through the there's a lot of work process right after the messiah comes it's closed um and that me but but yet the nations of the world are very much part of moshiach's world and now you know an undercurrent of what we've been saying here today what you've been talking about is the messiah is going to come when the messiah comes and one might think well okay it's the messiah's gonna be an incredibly powerful force and it's up to the messiah when the messiah comes so we'll just wait around and see what happens but no we teach our our teachers teach you teach that there are actions that we can take to help bring about this age sooner it is possible that it will come sooner rather than later and and how do we do that how can we help that time come and get past the difficulties of the current world first of all there are certain mitzvos that are particularly related to hastening redemption to the world the first one is charity charity tadaka is a huge mitzvah and charity doesn't have to be in charity where you're giving millions of dollars charity is a is is a penny is a getting into the habit of having a charity what we call judy's always had a tzedakah box a charity box having it around you all the time putting one in your kitchen putting one on your desk putting one in your car and constantly dropping change into it and today they even have charity apps which give a sound of like uh of of of of you know you're dropped a couple of you know you you you're you're giving a dollar and it gives that and it's really happening it's on in in that and and the more charity the con and with the thought every time we have that thought i'm giving now tzedakah fulfill the mitzvah of zidak and eventually you take that box and you send it to your favorite charity but it's the main thing that is that you're you're you're conscious of that that you're giving to dhaka now to hasten godly revelation in the world and the coming of mushaf so that's why it's better to give one dollar to a hundred people than a hundred dollars it's everything trains it's a constant training yeah take a look at the lo at the rebbe if you see the rebbe would stand every sunday if those familiar and people would come for hours and he would meet people and he would give them dollars the point of giving them dollar was i'm making you as an agent to give charity to hasten the redemption thousands of people would go by and he would and wanted to get a blessing and so forth and it was always connected to people giving the tzedakah giving trouble looking at a video of this just the other day i mean he had a brick of dollars several bricks of dollars on the table in front of him and his assistant would keep handling him stacks and he would hand out those dollars and and and he made every person who received that dollar and an emissary an agent yes what people would do is because they felt they wanted the holy dollar so the point is they would redeem it right you would take a dolla another dollar and give it in its place or many thousands that can also be the dollar this itself was something that you kept as a uh to remind you to remind you yeah as a as a as a thing so so to duck a charity is one of these mixes one of these commandments that we can observe and that can help bring the messianic age what else can we do by the way we talk about a rebbe dollar i don't want to interrupt what we're saying now but at the end if you want to if you want to ask me for a story i can share with you an incredible story that just happened with the rebbe dollar to us all right we're going to come back to the rebbe dollar i've made a note of that later all right but other mitzvahs that we can do we should do one of the other things the rebbe spoke very much that hastens the redemption is the studying about the redemption in other words it's important for us to become redemption conscious so the more conscious the the more it enters into our consciousness so i would say two things number one studying tory in general in torah itself studying focusing on the more esoteric elements of the torah primarily of hasidic nature because that's the the torah of the messiah it's the torah of mashiach the future torah and today's days it's made very accessible online one can listen to classes on in various whether you study the tanya which is you can hear rabbi wolfe's classes if you go to my ion.com m-a-a-y-o-n.com there is many chabad.org has phenomenal stuff uh so much so much this is really one of the great things that khabad has done at chabad.org i mean just almost everything of great import in our study tradition is available online to everyone all the time jli courses at your local chabad mostly provide these courses they're like really really really insightful and taking the these deep hasidic terms and or teachings and translating it into a modern simple uh you know uh translation for people to relate to accidental talmud that's another one of knowledge available all that all these teachings are very very important the balchemtov soul ascended he on he writes he wrote a letter to a student how is on rosh hashanah he he made what we call what is called aliyat nishama was i mean something that only great sadikim are able to do is to raise their soul out of their bodies while they're still breathing and enter into a more spiritual state and from there travel to deeper deeper higher levels he describes that on rosh hashanah he was elevated to places he has never gone before and he entered into the chamber of the messiah of mashiach and he asked him the question that jews that that a jew should ask when he meets messiah obvious question where are you it's getting late you're late you're very late when is the master coming right borrowing a term of the talmud which it also says that one of the great talmudic sages met moshiach and said when are you coming so mashiach said when your teachings will spread over the entire world it's part of the coming of mashiach is that these deeper teachings of the oneness of god needs to permeate all of creation and therefore so that's another thing sign up to a hasidic class um that's studying hasidism but within hasidism itself to focus on the teachings that that that speak about the end of days and mashiach so when we learn about it see we are the conduits for cosmic energy every single one of us becomes more conscious of of of the truths and the light of mushy the more that becomes real in the world so these are the particular things that people can do and then automatically as a result of that we start seeing things differently we start recognizing so many things in the world that the reason why they're happening and what's their soul is that it's messianic right and then so we have a teaching i mean it's from pierre chavos right that uh make make his will your will yes right so so you're looking around and asking yourself it's very hotspot right it's this chutzpah of the jew to say to the messiah when are you coming you know and to say to god how could you let this happen and god loves that you know god god encourages us to do that god encourages us to challenge and we have many many stories uh along those lines and and and so part of that is to is to get into it right it's like get your get your hands into it and start studying and talking about these things if you don't like something that's going on in the world say to god i don't like what's going on in the world i'd like you to do something about it and i think that you know when i i'm a film director when i'm directing a movie it often happens that uh you know it's a big set there's a lot of people working there and and somebody comes to me and says there's a big problem you know these costumes aren't going to be there that car is not going to be in the right place the camera the lights there's about this problem right and i will always say thank god we have a person who has noticed this problem you must be in the best place to solve it i appoint you my agent to go solve that problem that you just noticed and brought to my attention and likewise if you see something going wrong in the world in god's world that there was this gift to us and that's given to us you know with lots of problems lots of issues if you notice one of those problems then you're probably in the best position to go do something about it right fetch not just a fetch and then you're doing god's work and becoming an agent right becoming an agent and to also realize another thing talking about what what it is we can do is to to pass this this this idea of the messianic age and the age of enlightenment to all the people you meet in other words getting an uber lie right it's not to do with jews it's to everybody to speak about a universal consciousness a higher truth that's coming to the world and awareness and what they can do an act of kindness and an act of goodness so basically we're generating we're generating powerful energy in all of our encounters if we're if we're infused with this mashiach consciousness then automatically it spills over into every conversation all the people we meet and how they as well are part of this of this of this flow of this of this process right and so earlier we mentioned these these six laws that were given to all mankind and then it became a seventh uh after noah uh so one is to know god right and so this involves so much of what we're talking about having conversations like this studying going into the sources reading the torah reading bible having conversations asking questions which probably translates as well into prayer and prayer because if you know god and of course and that he is the source of everything so of course you don't need a mitzvah to pray because i would i don't know if the mitzvah of prayer is for a gentile as well but it doesn't have to be a mitzvah it's a natural consequence if god has personally created you and he's personally involved in your life and he's so then of course you pray to him for anything that you need and say thank you and yes and and that's why when it describes the temple the temple is going to be a home for prayer for all nations it's interesting that king solomon when he when he inaugurated the first temple he prayed to god that when gentiles come they should be answered faster even than when jews come and pray do you know that because he figured you know jews there you know they're they're they'll keep coming oh keep coming that's the jewish place but the gentile needs to needs to see that that he's answered so that's that's just an interesting thing and so let's just quickly review the other ones the other laws yeah right so one some of them just make a lot of sense don't kill yes right really don't murder don't murder which is very specific it's not the same as don't kill because there are some things that deserve a death penalty somebody's coming to kill you you kill them first of course mitzvah but don't murder yeah uh don't steal theft yes right wanna name the rest the laws of family morality meaning the laws do not commit adultery so and which which i see each of these laws is is really a chapter heading for so many other things right i mean if we're gonna say we're gonna not murder okay well then we're gonna make sure that the actions of people don't result in in in the deaths of people and that's a whole system of thinking in a way of life if we're going to say that you can't steal okay well then we're going to make sure that there's not theft at any level there's so many different ways that societies and governments can steal from their people and if we're going to say that the family is is is a is a sacred unit and that we're going to protect the family there's just so many different things that are involved in that right and and understanding that yes setting up courts judicial systems i mean look at this this is not a small law to set up courts that work imply so much that is to say uh that god does not want chaos in this world that god wants the the orphan and the widow protected uh that god wants there to be a place where people can feel okay i know that i can get up in the morning i can go to work i can come home i can save up money in a bank and and that there isn't just going to be some strong man come through the neighborhood and take everything away because he wants to you know and and and so systems of law and courts by definition protect the weak and powerless uh and this was an innovation that was brought into the world i mean the way that the general population of the world was living did not adhere to this this this commandment this very important commandment that is not just for the jews but is for all people um there's a prohibition against blasphemy in other words um just like the belief in one god and not to serve idol it's also that you have to in a sense as we said before you can argue with god but you can't uh you know um you can't desecrate the name you can't say he doesn't exist you can't there's a lot of things you can't say and that also teaches us that our words matter very much our words matter i mean you know we believe that the world was created through words and and that our words have power and for example i i talked this before that somebody walks around saying i'm such a loser well that's that that's a very harmful statement that you're making not only about yourself but about yourself as one of the creations and about god and about god that he created a loser right yeah i think what did we cover i think we covered um um so no god don't blaspheme don't murder don't steal don't commit adultery don't commit adultery having court systems having a court system and then cruelty to them and then don't eat the living animal which is a little damaged it's a is a broad broad category uh and so these are commandments that are given to everybody and again it's just an important distinction that i want people to understand there are other religions other political systems that say you know you're either with us or against us if you're against us it would be better that you don't exist we want to you know we have a utopian idea that that that we the laws we have figured out are gonna be for everybody you gotta be one of us or you're a problem and that is just not jewish at all um but what we are is is very much rooted in distinctions you know so much of what we learn and talk about is the ability to distinguish one thing from another and and and being everybody the same is is not a way to serve god it's not a way to serve the world and it's common sense because if you look at this world it's differentiated there's so many different good things in the world and if we try to make them all the same would be a much less interesting world when when things are all the same you're getting back to pre-creation to having only god who is just the same and that's undoing the creation and undoing everything the point over here is that within the within the diversity should be revealed the singular oneness while they're diverse and how the diversity how the diversity each aspect of it complements the whole yeah that's that's the deeper oneness that comes about through creation but each one has to play the role that they need to play not some someone else's role yes and if you're not sure what your role is in bringing about the redemption okay ask the question because if you keep asking the question what is my role it will become apparent to you it's without a shadow of a doubt a person that is sincerely looking to serve their creator it's it it's it's a definite that the creator who's has all the means possible and is directing everything will lead them to that knowledge some way or another but first we we need to seek that yeah and that is messianic consciousness right you had a story about the review dollar okay i'll let's make sure we share it because our time is winding down so the rebbe gave dollars every sunday i merited to receive some of those dollars i think between me and my wife i'm a late calmer to chabad i grew up in hasidic world but in an in an in boro park you know some listeners know where that is and i did not um i i only started coming to chabad when i was 17 years old and then the rebbe had his stroke about three years later i got married young at 19 and my wife and i married it to go by sometimes and receive some dollars fine this past summer i was invited to israel to on a speaking tour and spoke in various different places and the main instigator of bringing us out to israel was this chabad organization operating in i think were they in peta nothing ramat and so they invited they were the main reason i came and then in order to offset the cost they enabled they got me some to speak in other places and so on and so forth they were making a dinner their once a year dinner for their to raise funds so i came sitting there and one of the things they did to raise money was they were they were selling rebbe dollars that means that there were people who lived in crown heights in close proximity who received hundreds of dollars so sometimes they in order to help a charity you give the dollar to the charity so the charity can either auction it or something like that people want it those who didn't merit this dollar of blessing so they were asking for a sum of money for this uh actually it was 7 700 shekels okay but they wanted it to be paid over three years i'm sitting there and i'm listening and and and people weren't people weren't biting on the bait they did sell they do they were auctioning many things but when they got to this was pretty high or whatever and i was and i and i had thought you know what i haven't received a dollar in a long time you know even i will have to give some charity to get it so i took out my calculator and figured out how much that is in american dollars because i can't think shekels and it was two thousand dollars over three years i said okay how much is it per month sixty dollars a month so i said to myself you know what i have to give charity even though i am an organization of charity but everybody has to give charity so you know what i see this organization doing good stuff it's not the end of the world if i give them 60 bucks a month they'll run it on my card it'll be a mitzvah my mitzvah and i'll get that special dollar so i texted my wife we were sitting it was a separate the men were on one side so i text my wife should we get it she said do it if you want to go you want to buy it buy it so finally they sold a couple of dollars they did and then they asked me to speak when i stood up i said what a shame i told the audience that i see the auction is going so well if i'm speaking here for 20 minutes i'm going to be taking time from this from the fundraising that's going on it's a shame i said i thought it i thought it was cute i said i will i'm gonna pay for the time that i'm taking so at least it shouldn't be a loss of my speech so i said i'm buying a dollar okay and they got a little excited you know like uh it was it was great and it added infused the room with an energy and fine so then afterwards i get up and i take it's framed it's in a frame i take the the the frame with the dollar and i bring it because they had a picture of the rebbe on it and the dollar and and i brought it to my wife and i said here is our dollar a few minutes later the guy who's announcing announces on the phone you know mrs wolf we have a dollar for you so she says no i got mine already i have my doll then she came over to me my wife and she said you know what this one is in a frame but i see he's got dollars that are not framed and for us who's going to schlep that frame back you know a suitcase and let let me just maybe we should just take switch it for the dollar that's just a dollar that's not on a frame i said i don't know where the thought came to me i said this is the one we got this is the one that's meant for you fine that night we come back to jerusalem and the next and i was so tired we just the next morning we bring up from the car the frame and i'm looking at the dollar and what many people did when they received the dollars they wrote on the dollar when they received it their name so on and so forth so i'm looking and i see the name that says yitzhak in hebrew yitzhak so i i don't know why it occurred to me i said hey we have a new addition in in the family my first grandchild and his name is yitzhak so i said hey we got a dollar for yitzhak but then my wife says hey let's lead further it says this guy's it says yitzhak zis now this it with a little little what is it like a posture a little line on the top which probably stood for the name zuccia which can be a z z z something like that like a nickname uh yeah that would it was written now my daughter my my grandson is a son of my daughter her name is ziesel so it says this and actually on the sama which is the there was a line which basically can be red ziesel so i said hey ben zesel that's his whole name it's on the dollar then my wife says but let's read further we're looking at this it's unbelievable it says the in yiddish which means translated the first light of chanukah so this dollar was given given given by on the first night of hanukkah in the year five seven five two that's the year the last year we received dollars from the red so that was 1990 it was the first night of hanukkah okay so then we suddenly got shivers my daughter got married three years ago she just had her third anniversary about four years ago a year or four and a half i remember chanukah remember the hanukkah which came out on thanksgiving they said it was once they called it thanksgiving yeah remember that sure so that night of chanukah my son-in-law who at that time was not yet married to my daughter hadn't even met her yet didn't i okay was coming back from his yeshiva where he was teaching he was in a car he was coming back to the city for hanukkah right to new york from pennsylvania wicksbury pennsylvania he was in a van they were involved in a head-on collision he and his friend though him and not his friend though him and someone else who was in the van were thrown from the van landed like 30 40 feet away yeah the other person was killed on the spot and when they brought him into the hospital they thought he wouldn't make it and he went through a lot a lot a lot in order for him to be who he is and the ability to get back to his strength and then he met my daughter and they got married and uh that accident was the first night a hanukkah so on that dollar bill i have my grandson the son of zizzle was my daughter whose husband is the father needed a special blessing on the night of an accident which was many years after the rebbe gave the dollar on that very night wow which he had a tremendous miracle the fact that he can get married and have children and so it was just unbelievable he had a miracle recovery yeah so it was all on that dollar and when i brought it to them they were crying it was like it was like a blessing that was given and that dollar made its way to us exactly so i realized that when as when we are ready to step out of our boundaries and to do something larger like the two thousand dollars was a little bit big for me at that time i said you know i was i was fighting yeah no yeah no and i said let's go ahead let's do it and you open yourself up that's the whole idea to open oneself up to things to to be a channel and a conduit for greater godly revelation rabbi wolf it's you know i feel like you live your life in this consciousness uh god is not some abstract philosophical idea to you he's he's present in your life he's emotionally present in your life you're constantly open uh to god and to the jobs that god gives you to do uh the mission that only you can fulfill and so you teach us and you travel the world teaching and and you live in that consciousness and i think what's so special about you is that you share that consciousness with others and enable them to fill to feel it because your nisham is so beautiful this this wonderful positive energy there's a joy that comes off you you know and and and it it gets around and it gets into the people that are near you and and and i hope that our audience uh can feel that about you coming through this microphone and these wires and whatever device they're listening uh right now uh and so and so why don't we you know for a final message because i think the rabbit would always say when people would come to him and say oh you know i just opened this this chabad house or i just opened this organization or i just uh you know raised all this money or i did all these good things but he would always say to the person and did you ask people to do a mitzvah right did you get people to do a mitzvah that they wouldn't have done otherwise um so then so why don't we end by by asking you what can people do to bring the mashiach to bring messiah sooner so that that god's presence is revealed to all the world and we get into these great goods and positivities that are coming people should get in touch more with their neshama and we do that he said before hasidism is the power in it so there's people can buy a hasidic book today and and and and start reading it and allowing it these are all these are ideas that resonate so deeply because these are it's not information from the outside it's the information of your soul of your own of your own soul so if you're speaking about that energy that i'm giving off is i was i merited for that that that for whatever reason god has directed me to be a teacher of hasidism that forces me to learn it just because even if i i you know if i'm lazy or tired or not in the mood and so on and so forth i have another class i have to give so i always have to study and learn and it's these teachings that that degenerate the soul that that's what it is and when you're in touch with your soul then you're happy and you're full of life and and that's infectious so that spills over to all the people you you come into contact with so the the best thing for people that are listening if i can give a message is we have such opportunity we have such godly we have such access these days that we've never had before to hasidism and the more we all study it the the the the the more we enter we all enter into that consciousness and to um to live that way so sign up or that's the sign up just pick once a week to give yourself a class so set a regular time to learn yes because the mitzvah that we're talking about is torah study yes right so torah study it's you know it's one of the mitzvahs it's available to everybody it's the first commandment uh of the know-how commandments that apply to everybody to know god means to study how are you going to know if you don't learn and and once you've learned something share it with somebody that's right right i mean we've gotten to this place in modern culture uh where i mean one of the great difficulties of the world that we live in is is that people are speaking badly about god you know they're giving god a bad name and they're saying oh religion it's old hat it's old-fashioned it's superstitious it causes more harm uh and and so americans today and i imagine other countries too actually they don't care for god talk don't bring god into it you know and so they they diminish god's name and so if we learn something that's inspiring and that will help others uh and and that it comes from learning and knowing about god and then we share that the god that they read that they don't like is the god that i don't either like it's just that they don't they they don't they've created a god and they that god that they created they don't like that and they created a very small and limited god that's right and i don't like that god either so the god that is great and has goodness and love for everybody let's talk a little learn more about god learn more through the tradition if you want to learn uh about hasidism about hasidic teachings a great place to go is myon.com m-a-a-y-o-n.com that's rabbi wolf's website uh you can also learn at accidentaltalmodus.org there's a lot of teaching there and at chabad.org it's just an incredible incredible resource there's another the meaningful life center by rabbi simon jacobson phenomenal stuff uh there's um there's a lot of learning to do uh and and especially we're encouraging you that when you learn something find somebody to talk about it with because that's when things really become real and today we also have the opportunity to share things on all these you know you just hit share with a whole sharing on facebook sharing on what's that's an opportunity to like to like ins to like uh spread to really spread a message so quickly so fast to so many people so you're listening to this podcast share it rabbi wolf has been wonderful to have you too thank you thank you keep up the awesome work oh thank you

Channel: Accidental Talmudist

Views: 32,776

Rating: 4.2751679 out of 5

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Id: e4z1K1onxhM

Length: 88min 57sec (5337 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 19 2020