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Prof. Shlomo Maital and R. Elisha Wolfin discuss Parashat Re'eh - issues of seeing, observing and listening.
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Prof. Shlomo Maital and R. Elisha Wolfin discuss Parashat Re'eh - issues of seeing, observing and listening.
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Prof. Shlomo Maital and R. Elisha Wolfin discuss Parashat Re'eh - issues of seeing, observing and listening.
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The speaker discusses the importance of really seeing and hearing, rather than ignoring important issues. They highlight the idea that we already know everything, but need to be reminded of it. They also mention the experience of having "aha" moments when something we already knew is revealed to us. The speaker shares a story about a friend who used a creative method to sell oranges, and compares it to the process of discovering new ideas. They emphasize the importance of being open and relaxed to allow solutions to reveal themselves. The speaker also mentions the connection between joy and the Torah. Shalom Shlomo, Shalom Alesha, and hello, shalom to all those who are listening, following for the first time maybe, or those who are following regularly, we hope you're hearing well. We got some feedback that the volume wasn't high enough last time, which is very, very cute, because we talked about listening and hearing, and the volume we sent out was a poor volume. We have a new parasha this week, and it's a beauty, Alesha, it is a beauty. And I have to tell everybody that, just to remind those who are following, you know, have heard it, but Shlomo really, really believed that the Torah could end at the end of B'midbar, and all of a sudden he's realizing what we would have missed had we ended there. The amazing thing about the Torah, Alesha, so I'm 80 years old, I guess I've been through the Torah and all the 54 parashat as an adult at least 60 times, and each time there are new things, especially thanks to this podcast where you have to really do your homework and think about these things and read the drashot, it's an endless, endless discovery of new and fresh ideas and modern ideas, things that are truly relevant even though it's 3,000 years old. Right, right, and that's why I love writing a drashot every week, because you get an opportunity to mess with deep and vibrant ideas every single week. And this parashat is called Re'eh, which means behold or look, and in the drashot that we are discussing you say that behold, look, it's far easier to close one's eyes and not see than to close one's ears and not hear, and we do this all the time, Alesha, we ignore poverty, injustice, wrongdoing, the shonharah gossip, so many things we just don't see. And this parashat, it speaks to each of us because it's not Re'eh, which is plural, it's not shim'u yisrael, it's sh'ma yisrael, you, look, you look and you listen and really, really try to see things. I kind of looked this up about vision, you know, our eyes are the most amazing organ in our body, and what happens with our eyes is that we absorb light, the light is captured by our retina, which is this amazing screen, the retina sends the light rays into our optic nerve, the optic nerve goes to the brain, and this is crucial, because our eyes see everything, but our brain, does our brain perceive what we are seeing? A lot of things we simply ignore, we just don't see. Yeah, yes, yes, we often say that it's not the eyes that are seeing, it's the brain, it's the mind that is seeing, and it reminds us, it calls on us to really be humble about what we think we know, what we think we saw, because we did not, we never see reality as it truly is, we only see what our brain is able to see at any particular moment in time. So, in your Dosha, you have a really fascinating idea, which I really, really like, Alisha. I'm reading this, I would like to suggest a radical idea, that God did not say something on Sinai, rather he said absolutely everything, and I believe this, Alisha, I think we know how to be good people, we know how to be moral people, we know this, we absolutely know it, but we need to be reminded, and that's why we read the Torah again, and again, and again, for this personal reminder, and each time we read it, we get this thing that jogs our memory, it tells us, Shlomo, you know this, but I'm going to tell you anyway, so pay attention, Shema, and listen, and look, and I have a small story I want to tell, which I think is relevant. You told me that stories are the best way to relay information. Absolutely. So, I have a friend who is amazing, his name is Aryeh, I've talked about him before on this podcast, he was badly injured in an army accident in Golani, and lost much of his sight and hearing, and went on to build Israel's greatest advertising agency, and he was asked to do a campaign by the Citrus Council to sell more oranges, so you have to do an ad to sell more oranges, how do you do that? Oranges are healthy, oranges are tasty, oranges are good for you, all these things, and he was stuck. People know these things, they know these things, how do you do an ad campaign and tell people what they already know? Be boring. And then he hit upon the idea, you know why, and it worked, Alisha, it worked, people took another orange. The same with the Torah, you know it already, go ahead, take another one, read it again, take it to heart. Right, and you know why, I'm not going to even tell you that oranges are delicious and sweet and healthy and everything, take another orange, you know why, we already know it all, but we need to be reminded all the time, right, and I think that very often it's not just being reminded of a fact that we may have forgotten, I think it's very often being reminded of things that we didn't even know that we know, and yet there's a whole school of thought that I'm kind of close to, claims, and it goes along with what I wrote in the Shabbat that you were quoting, that God said everything. The equivalent is that we already know everything, but in one particular point in time, we know a very narrow bit of information, but all the rest, it's all there, it's all there, so whenever we learn something, we simply uncover something that we already knew, but we didn't know that we knew, so it's a process of revealing that which we already know, and we have the experience of it, when someone says something, or we read something, or we hear something, and we have an amazing ah-ha moment, the ah-ha moment is a bodily sensation that goes along with it, it's not just like, oh, okay, interesting, yeah, ah-ha, it's not that, it's like our breathing changes, our whole body says yes, yes, yes, yes, there's something deep in this idea, and I think this experience suggests, it's not that we heard something new, it's that something within us got revealed, something we already knew was rediscovered, or brought into the light of day, and that's the feeling of tremendous expansion, something inside of us expands. And you know, Alicia, this is also a method in start-up entrepreneurship. My friend, Aryeh, whom I mentioned, and I, we wrote a book about creativity, and this book contains Aryeh's method for discovering new ideas, and it's very similar to what you mentioned about Mount Sinai, God's Word, and the Torah. The method is, zoom out and zoom in. You zoom out by, he describes it this way, you take the elevator to the 989th floor, and you harvest ideas that are already there, they're there. All these ideas are known, we got them from Sinai, you just have to discover them, and you start by assuming that everything is known, I just have to locate it, and then you put it in your basket and you bring it down to earth and apply it. But in a sense, it confirms my idea also that many creative ideas are divine in nature, they come from God, because they're so amazing, so many of them. So when you say they, in nature, can you say a bit more about that, what were you referring to? Sure, so ideas, you start by assuming that every problem has a solution, we just have to find it, because God has created it and it's out there for us, but you have to zoom out and look broadly and widely for it, and you have to really see. It's not enough that it reaches your optic nerve, it has to go into your brain, and you have to perceive it, and you collect these ideas, but they're out there. By the way, that assumption, Elisha, that every problem has a solution, not every problem has a solution, at least not for humans. But if you assume that, you have a much better chance of finding a solution to your challenge. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. This idea that there is a solution, there is a solution, but we're not, our minds are not open enough, we're not ready yet to see it, to understand it, but knowing this knowledge that the solution, the information, the wisdom is there, and that's why I think very often this idea of we're stuck, when we simply cannot, we're sitting around and trying to solve a problem or an issue, and a solution is not found. The best thing is to let it be right now, just let it be, go for a walk, go do something fun, go take a shower, take a nap, or just go to sleep for the night, and the solution will reveal itself, the information, if we're indeed ready to see it, the information will make itself available to us, but we can't push it, you can't hurry love. Because a lot of these solutions are deep in our brain, in the back of our brain, in our subconscious, and you start to tackle a really hard problem by thinking hard about it and by a deep desire to solve it, and then you file it in your subconscious, and your brain, while you're sleeping, while you're eating, while you're jogging, your brain is working on it, and then you have to really listen, you have to listen, and your brain will throw you these ideas, and suddenly it appears, I'm sure this has happened to you, it happens to me a lot, and you have to listen, and then you get these ideas, and grab a pen and scribble it. As a member of the artillery corps, we used to scribble firing data on our hands, so I often do that when I get these ideas, write it down, write it down anywhere. That's beautiful, and my vision of it, the picture that I have in my mind is that the less we work hard at it, actually the more we're relaxed about it, the more we're having fun with it, the more we're having fun, period, the more rested we are, the more relaxed we are, the more readily available will the new data present itself. It's something very constricting in narrowing in, in working really hard, in straining our vision, our brain, our letting go, and relaxing, it opens up. Exactly, and this is another brilliant modern point that comes out of our Shadra'eh, Elisha, and I got this from our friend Rabbi Jonathan Sachs, the brilliant man. The word simcha, or joy, joy, simcha, simcha's word appears one time in each of the first four books, in Deuteronomy, in Deuteronomy, 15 times, and 12 times in Parshat Ra'eh. Ra'eh has a lot of laws, what is simcha doing a dozen times, and the answer, I think, one of the answers is this, so the Declaration of Independence, the American Declaration of Independence, it says, every American has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Simcha is not happiness. Happiness is an individual thing, what makes an individual, what makes me happy. Simcha is collective. When we say simcha as a noun, simcha is a collective celebration, a wedding, an engagement, a birthday party, so simcha, or joy, occurs when we are part of a group, and we celebrate together, and we enjoy things together. In terms of challenges and ideas, Elisha, one of the things I try to teach my students, or did when I was actively teaching MBA courses, was that pressure is counterproductive. You have a team of people, right, you have to design something, and innovate something new, and then you tell them, all right, I want this tomorrow, on my desk tomorrow, and that's pressure, and it's counterproductive, it doesn't help, but if you put them in a fun setting, go on an outing, go to a bar, go to a restaurant, or whatever, and joke around, and laugh, laughter is a great aid for creativity, because it's simcha, and simcha, the joy of creation with a group of people, that helps us find truly creative solutions. I find what you're saying to be so incredibly true, and yet, at the same time, it's amazing how counterintuitive it is to our day-to-day living. We are so used to telling our children also, like, no, so try harder, so work harder, yeah, because you're being lazy, and knowing how to connect to simcha through relaxing, through actually letting go, and the opposite of effort, that is a huge lesson, and each time we're pressed for an answer, we need an answer now, no, no, we'll take a break later, we'll go out to the restaurant later, no, right now, we have to have an answer. It takes a lot of courage to say, we need an answer now, great, so let's break, let's break and go do something fun. Fun is definitely not in the playbook of many focused CEOs of companies, and again, a small story, Alicia, Sarona and I have agreed to do a workshop for a group of Chinese parents, and it has to do with creativity in their children, and they're concerned. Sarona and I have been to China, we visited schools and kindergartens, and boy, they are serious, Alicia, these are serious places. These little kids are taught, and it's really hard to learn the Chinese writing, which is complicated. There are thousands of characters, and our message to them will be, how do kids learn? How do they remain creative? By playing, by having fun. Play is the work of children, but guess what? Play is also the work of adults, and when we play together, often in a relaxed atmosphere, we come up with incredible ideas. One of the takeaways here is, there are many, there are many takeaways, and I hope people are listening and benefiting from this, but we each have different ways of connecting to Simcha. There are different ways, for one, it could be going to a football match, for another, it could be seeing a play, for another, a hike in nature. I know that for me personally, nature, being out in nature, is a, being out in nature is the arena, the place where I connect. I connect to deeper and higher dimensions. If I'm taking just time out and doing just messing with my phone, it will not happen. It will not happen. It's more of an escape. It's not a means of fun and opening up for the soul. I agree, and Elisha, after our podcast last week, you mentioned taking an evening walk with your wife, Ronit, and I adopted that solution, and on, let's say, Shabbat, took Sharona out for a sunset walk to look at the beautiful sunset, not far from here, and it really works, and suddenly, you look around, and Elisha, Zijon is an incredibly beautiful place. We have these beautiful old trees, greenery, just beautiful, but we don't see it. We just don't see it, unless you take a moment, pause, and really, really look, and let the light go through your optic nerve to your brain, and really perceive it, and then you see it as this incredible blessing. Yes, and I want to even continue this thread that you've started weaving here. I think that what I've noticed when I go out to nature, and I have to admit, it's more when I'm actually on my own in nature, is that I look at the trees, but it's not just, not only the beauty, the physical outer beauty of the trees, that too, for sure. I mean, nature around Zijon Yaakov is beautiful, and for those who are visiting Israel, make sure you visit Zijon Yaakov in the area, and let us know, so we can meet you, but what I find is that when you start seeing the inner beauty of the trees, I'm always amazed, especially in the summer, when we go out for an afternoon walk, especially Shabbat, before Shabbat is out, we usually go around 6 o'clock, when it starts cooling down a little bit, or earlier than that, it's way too hot, and I saw walking out in the nature reserve around Zijon Yaakov, and I look at the trees, and the shrubs, and the brush, and I ponder, they were here all day in this blazing hot sun. How did they do it? They didn't wilt, they didn't burn, here they are, green, lush, and beautiful, how did they do it? And all of a sudden, this inner beauty gets revealed, the inner beauty, I would personally call the life force, the life force within everything, so there is a level of seeing the outer, there is a level of seeing, which is basically seeing a deeper and deeper and deeper level of the beauty that's around us, and those levels, I think, they are the levels of the wisdom that we're talking about, connecting to creativity, to wisdom, to solutions, and it takes taking time out. Indeed, and this leads me to an observation and a question, because you end your D'Rashabh by saying that our task is not to learn anything new, just to check whether we are faithful to what we already personally and subjectively heard at Mount Sinai, to what we already know, or not, I like that, or not, so here's a tough one, Alicia, the Parsha is Re'eh, behold, okay, so let's look at things, and let's remind ourselves of what we already know about ethical behavior, that's not enough, it's not enough, and I found this passage by a theologian, somebody who thinks about religion and God, his name is Rabbi Neil Gilman, I guess you've heard of Neil, of course, about rabbis, so he says something amazing, I think, we were trying to believe in God, but the God we experience is a God who needs humanity to achieve God's own purposes, this is a God who is frustrated, who dreams for humanity and the world, who is rebuffed, but returns again and again with infinite yearning, pleading for our help to achieve God's purposes and our own as well, that may well be God's most striking tribute to us, we are agents of God, and God needs us, God is all powerful, but his ways are worked and his miracles are worked through us, through you and I, and I think this is a, what about this idea, Alicia, I think it's a powerful idea, that religious people often say Im Yitzha Hashem, if God wills it, but let's give him a bit of a hand. Yeah, yeah, yeah, well, I know we don't have a lot of time, but I'm, my personal theology is becoming more and more so over the years, is that all is God and there's nothing but God, and I often just, as a practice, a spiritual practice, and I'm taking a chance here of putting it out there, because we don't have a lot of time, and I don't have a lot of time to explain it, and it may, and it requires some explanation, but I'll say it anyway, thank God with podcasts no one can stone you, I very often, as a spiritual practice, I look around, and I'm driving the car, so I will say to myself, as a spiritual practice, God is driving now, and then I have a thought, oh, God is thinking now, now it might sound like I am God, absolutely not, absolutely not, there's no I, there's only God, God is driving, God is thinking, God is fighting, but all is God, God is now in traffic, I don't like traffic, I get very agitated in traffic, and that's when I use this practice extensively, and I say to myself, God right now, God is trafficking right now, God is slowing down right now, God is standing, there's always an I-N-G, there's always a verb, God is being, God is, and the more you say it, it's not about saying it once, it's a meditative process, you say it and you repeat it, and you realize that all of a sudden the I disappears, and all there is, is God, and I find that as a great way of allowing God more room to be in our lives, we kind of get in the way, now it's not we get in the way, it's to follow this idea to the end, and God is now getting in the way, and that opens things up as well, so I think where I'd like to maybe bring this idea with, because it's kind of left a little bit open, is I'm not as, not totally in agreement with us helping God, because I'm not so sure there really is us, there's only God, and so that's why, if God wills it, if God wants, God always has God's way. Brilliant, that's I think an extension of Gilman's idea, taking it to a logical conclusion. On a slightly different area, Alicia, I'd like to mention something kind of ignored in this Parsha. We are told, there are a lot of mitzvot in Parshat Reh, we are told, Al tit go didu. Al tit go didu is translated usually, don't mutilate yourself. I mean, there are Shia Muslims who on a shura mutilate themselves, although many Shia authorities are opposed to it, but it's done quite often. But the rabbis make an interesting interpretation, they retranslate tit go didu from the root agudah, which is collection, and the rabbis say, or sages say, lo tit go didu is an exhortation meaning, do not divide up into rival factions. Boy, is this relevant now, because it seems the whole country has divided up into rival factions. If only we could read this Parsha and read these two words, lo tit go didu, not divide up into rival factions, but talk to one another, and in some ways, somehow find agreement. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so, since you brought this up, I want to connect it to the earlier idea of, if we could see that this whole huge debate right now in Israel, and America has its own debates, and every country has its own debates, but if I look at the debates in Israel, if I'm willing to see that every side of this debate is godly, godly not in the sense that it's good, not necessarily good. In Judaism, we don't have the Christ and Antichrist, we don't have, oh God is only good, and all that's bad is not God. If God is indeed everything, so when I can remind myself that those in the Knesset that I oppose, those in the Knesset that I oppose, they are doing God as well. They too are doing God. It's all God. It's all God. If God indeed said everything on Mount Sinai, then that means everything. There's not something, well He said everything, except for, no, no, everything. And if all is God, as our sages have taught, then let's take that seriously. And then, lo tid go'du, don't divide up into warring factions, makes perfect sense, because you're denying God's oneness when you are dividing into factions. But we have to agree that God is not just in agreement with me, God is in agreement with my rival too. And that's difficult for the ego to stomach. Absolutely, and it's so hard, Elisha, in the current atmosphere of things, to get people on either side even to think of accepting that principle, that maybe the other side has some truth, maybe they're part of God's work as well. So Elisha, when I was an active teacher, I would, and still when I do workshops, I always ask my audience, my participants, what's your take home? What will you take home from our discussion? So that I haven't wasted your time. When the Chinese come to Israel and they want to learn about innovation, what are you taking home back to China? And I'd like to ask that about Parshat Pre'eh as well. What is my personal take home? My personal take home is this notion of Simcha, that Judaism is a religion of Simcha. It's not a religion of burdens. It's a religion of finding the joy in the ethical practices that we're taught. And Elisha, I think that Hasidism, this is an idea that they've brought to us, because the Hasidim practice it. They practice their religion with great joy, often through music. I remember in Princeton we started an eating club and those of us who ate kosher, at that time there was no Princeton eating club that was kosher until Herman Wook's son went to Princeton and then Wook bought an eating club and made it kosher. It was a huge success. We did this with a little house and on Yom Kippur we had tefillah, but we didn't have a minyan. So we invited Chabad from Eastern Parkway and they sent a team and the tunes, the songs I remember, the joy of the worship, I never forget and that's 60 years ago, 55 years ago. But at the end of it, the Chabadnikim had their meal after the fast and there was a plate of tomatoes on the table and we put a plate of tomatoes on the table and one of the Hasidim, the Chabadnikim, came by and sort of looked at it and I said, what are you seeing? Would you like some tomatoes? He said, no, I'm just looking at the beauty of this plate of tomatoes. An ordinary plate of tomatoes, we don't even look at it. We just stuff it in our mouths and this Chabadnik Hasid was finding simcha, joy in God's beauty of making this tomato, which is a fruit actually, not a vegetable. What a gift that is if we could learn from Parshat Re'eh to find simcha and joy and beauty and all the beautiful things around us in this amazingly beautiful world. Amen, amen, amen, amen. That's beautiful. So on this joyful note, on this note of simcha, we wish everyone Shabbat Shalom, Shabbat of simcha, Shabbat of joy, Shabbat of observing, of seeing, of listening, of hearing, of discovering, of discovering all that you already know and rediscovering what you already know because simcha is within you. If everything is there, so is simcha. It's just there. It's not out in the world. It's within. It just needs to be discovered and rediscovered. Exactly. Thank you, Elisha. Thank you. Shabbat Shalom everyone and we'd love to hear from you. Shabbat Shalom.
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