Vayeitzei-2015

· 28:12 – “Yaakov dreamed and behold a ladder was set up on the earth, and the top of it reached toward Shamayim; and angels of Hashem were ascending and descending on it.”

· Questions:

o What is Shamayim?

o What does the ladder between earth and Shamayim symbolize?

· Some answers from Chachamim:

· Ibn Ezra -

o The ladder symbolizes link between the earthly and Heavenly spheres.

· R. Yohoshua ben Yehuda –

o Our prayer ascends the ladder,

o Salvation descends from Heaven.

· Ramban –

o We climb the ladder to attain knowledge of Hashem,

o We then descend to apply the knowledge for teaching people.

· Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch  -

o Everything on earth is called upon to rise towards a lofty, Heaven-set goal. 

o Man’s fate is not decided in the physical world.

o Holy beings go up the ladder and look at the ideal image of man as he should be, and then descend and compare it to the image of man as he actually is.

o Only by the power of spiritual influence can one man and one nation be a source of blessing for the entire human race.

· But the basic question remains – what is Shamayim?

· Since the scientific revolution starting around 1750, we’ve lived in an age of skepticism.

· Everything is held in doubt until it is proven and verified.

· This has posed a challenge to religion, because science has not proven or disproved the existence of Shamayim.

· Gittin 56b, Titus stabbed the paroches in the Kodosh Kedoshim, and blood came out - from all the past sprinklings, and he claimed that he had killed the Almighty

· Nikita Khrushchev, during an anti-religion campaign, said that there is no G-d, because Uri Gargarin, the first man in space, told him that he didn’t see G-d in space

· .

· It may be that there are 2 worlds – the physical and the spiritual.

· And up until now, science has only been able to measure and detect the physical world.

· That gets back to our 2 questions:

o What is the spiritual world? (and if you can ask – where is the spiritual world?

o And is there a connection – a ladder - between the physical and spiritual world?

o We are physical beings. How do we interact with the spiritual world – with Shamayim?

· Here are some examples in the Chumash & Gemorah that deal with this.

Sukkos 5a – Can earth & Shamayim touch each other?

· R. Yosie said, the Shechinah never descended to earth, nor did Moshe or Eliyahu ever ascend to Heaven, as it is written, ‘The heavens are the heavens of Hashem, but the earth He has given to the sons of men’.

· But didn’t the Shechinah descend to earth? It says, And Hashem came down upon Mount Sinai? Answer: That was above ten tfochim from the top of the mountain. .

· But isn’t it written, And Moshe went up to Hashem — Answer: That was to a level lower than ten tfachim from Shamayim.

· But isn’t it written, And Eliyahu went up by a whirlwind into Shamayim.? Answer: That was to a level lower than ten tfachim.

· But it is written, Eliyahu seized hold of the Hashem’s throne

· Answer: The throne was lowered until it was lower than ten tfachim below Shamayim and then he seized hold of it.

· Conclusion: The earth and Shamayim are two separate realms, and each can’t intrude on each other’s space, though they can come close.

When it doesn’t rain

· Rain, that is needed to grow food, is dependent on our doing Mitzvot and our level of Tshuva

· Bchuchosai – Vayikra 26:3 – If you follow My statutes and keep My commandments and you will fulfill them, I will provide your rains in their proper time.

· Shema – Devarim 11:13 -  And it shall come to pass if you listen to the commandments that I command you today to love the Lord your God and to serve Him with all your heart and all your soul, That I will give rain to your land, the early and the late rains, that you may gather in your grain, your wine and your oil.

· Messechet Taanis – if it doesn’t rain, series of 13 fasts, bring Sefer Torah to town square and everyone is encouraged to do Tshuva.

Fire from Shamayim devouring Korbonos

· Parsha Shemini – Vayikra 9:22 –Moshe and Aaron blessed the people, and the glory of Hashem appeared to all the people.  And fire went forth from before Hashem and consumed the burnt offering and the fats upon the altar, and all the people saw, sang praises, and fell upon their faces.

· Eliyahu on Har Carmel, when it hadn’t rained for 3 years – Melachem 1 – Chapter 18:36 – And Eliyahu Hanavi said… Answer me, Hashem, answer me, so that this people will know that You are Hashem... And the fire of Hashem fell and consumed the burnt offerings… And all the people saw and fell on their faces, and they said, "Hashem is Elokim, Hashem is Elokim" And Eliyahu said to Achav, "Go up, eat and drink, for now you will hear the rumbling sound of the rain.

Mazikim (damaging angels)

· Brachos 6a– Abba Binyamin says, If the eye had the power to see them, no creature could endure the mazikim. Abaye says: They are more numerous than we are and they surround us like the ridge round a field. R. Huna says: Every one of us has a 1000 on his left hand and 10,000 on his right hand

· Baba Basra - If you have a house with no one living in it, according to one opinion, it’s good to let someone live there for free, because mazikin hurt the house when no one is living there.

Size of Aron Kodesh

· Megilla 10b - R. Levi said: We have a tradition that the Aron Kodesh took up no room. The Kodosh Kodoshim was 20 amos long and 20 amos wide. The wing of the one cherub was ten amos and the wing of the other cherub was ten amos, and the Aron was between their wings. Where then was the ark itself? It must be that it stood by a miracle without occupying any room.

Bais Hamikdosh can be built in a flash

· Taanis 17a, and Sanhendrin 22b – Rebbe says that Kohanim should never drink wine, in the case that the Bais Hamikdosh be built suddenly, and they will have to do the avodah, but we are lenient. 

· Nidah 6b - As ‘Ulla said, ‘The Jews in the Gallil keep their wine and oil Tahar’; Rashi: In their hope and expectation that the Temple might at any moment be rebuilt.        

· Sukkah 41 – Nowadays the new grain (Chodosh) should be permitted first thing in the morning of the 16^th of Nissin But since the Beis HaMikdash may be built at any moment, thus requiring the Korban Omer to be brought before using the new grain, we don’t bring  from new grain that entire day.

· Yehuda Glick, always said before he spoke at a gathering, I have to leave my cell phone on, in case I’m called that the Bais Hamikdosh has been rebuilt.

Consciousness

· Only a Kli, finished object, can become Tomay. If  you have a piece of leather that you want to make shoes out of, if a sheretz touched it, it would remain Tahar. But if you think to yourself, I’m going to use that as a carpet, it becomes a Kli, and then if a sheretz touched it, it would become Tomay.  Just our thought changes its status.

· If there are 2 doors in a house, and a mase in the house – and there are kelim over the doorways of each door – if you decide you want to bring the mase out of one door, then immediately the Kelim over that door become tomay.

· Moed Katan  21b – The reason that the first three days of Shivah are treated more severely than the rest of the shivah is that the soul of the deceased continues to hover over the dead body for the first 3 days, thinking to return to it; after 3 days, when the body’s features have begun to change, it finally departs (Yerushalmi, cited by Ramban and Rosh, see Teshuvos Chasam Sofer, Yoreh Deah 346:5)

Suggestion: possibly the best evidence of the spiritual world is our own consciousness

· No psychologist or scientist has ever proposed a theory that attempts to explain what Consciousness is.

· Roger Penrose from Cambridge, in “The Emperor's New Mind” (1989), says that the known laws of physics are inadequate to explain the phenomenon of consciousness.

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· Dual Slit experiment – Electrons are shot through two parallel slits.  Even though electrons are physical, they create an interference pattern as if they are waves.

· However, if they are observed before they enter the slits, they always behave like particles, and they don’t exhibit the interference patterns. Once they are observed, they change acting from waves to particles.  No one has ever been able to explain this phenomena.

· Richard Feynman, one of the greatest theoretical physicists, called it "a phenomenon which is impossible …to explain in any classical way, and which has in it the heart of quantum mechanics. In reality, it contains the only mystery of quantum mechanics.”

· Raymond Moody in his 1975 book Life After Life described the Near Death experience, where the person physically has died, but they retain consciousness. A Gallup poll says that 8 million Americans claim to have had a Near Death Experience.

· They have a tunnel experience, moving up through a passageway or staircase, (NOTE: LADDER) and then a rapid movement towards and or sudden immersion in a powerful light, and an intense feeling of unconditional love and acceptance, receiving a life review, seeing one’s life flash before one’s eyes.

· Perhaps we all have within us a ladder to Shamayim, and it’s our consciousness.

Dealing with the spiritual world can be difficult, tricky, and even dangerous.

· Chagigah 14 – four entered the Pardes, some aspect of the spiritual world, one went crazy, one died, one went off the Derech, and only Rabbi Akiva came back whole.

· Too much an emphasis on the physical means missing the importance of the spiritual.

· The Enlightenment moved much closer to the physical, away from the spiritual, distrusting the excesses of the Church that gave a bad name to the spiritual

· To some extent, they threw the baby out with the bathwater.

· Focusing too much on the spiritual also has negative consequences.

· Challenge of religion is how to integrate spiritual and physical.

· Islam had a golden age lasting from 750 to 1250 – 500 years - starting with the Abbasid Dynasty - in which they excelled in science and math, then afterward veered towards more fundamentalism, more and more focused exclusively on the spiritual.

· As a result –

o Between 1980 and 2000, Korea granted 16,328 patents, while nine Arab countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the U.A.E., granted a combined total of only 370, many of them registered by foreigners.

o In a sample year 1989 the United States published 10,481 scientific papers that were frequently cited, while the entire Arab world published only four.

o Of 575 Nobel Prizes for Chemistry, Physics, and Medicine. 140 were to Jews and only 2 to scientists from Muslim countries.

· The spiritual realm undoubtedly exists

· Religion and our consciousness can function like the ladder in Yaakov’s dream, serving as a link between the physical and the spiritual realms.

· Great example is Shabbos - spiritual day of intense Kedushah. yet we called upon to  physically enjoy ourselves with delicious and social meals and relationship with our spouse.

· Our challenge is to find the right balance between the physical and the spiritual, so we can perfect the physical world by infusing it with the grandeur of the spiritual.