20. Do Mitzvos Fly Coach?

Good morning, everyone. בוקר טוב. שלום עליכם to my fellow כהן. רב חיים is back with us. So happy. And also we want to wish a big מזל טוב to the Goldman family on Zvun's בר מצווה. מזל טוב, מזל טוב, מזל טוב. And I also just want to say a big יישר כוח to everyone in here. Another week of five מניינים a day. It's it's beyond this world. It's it's a huge thing. יישר כוח to everyone that's been coming to all the מניינים that we're doing here now. אשרכם באמת. And let's keep on going stronger and stronger, בעזרת השם. אמן.You've heard me say the following thing a number of times, but it's a perfect introduction to what we're moving into right now. This could be seen as one of the dumbest stories you ever heard, or if you have an open heart, you may see this is like, this is like a חסידישע tale that happened with a good friend of mine who was one of my roommates at a certain point that was traveling abroad, and he happened to be sitting on a plane. This was in, I don't think it's around, Continental Airlines? עליו השלום. You're right? Continental? Continental, עליו השלום. It became United. So this is a story about a friend of mine who is a very sincere and authentic בעל תשובה who must have learned in שיעור the מצוות התלויות בארץ. And when it came to the following רמב"ן, perhaps there may have been a misunderstanding, but open your heart for this.He's on the plane, and he's sitting next, and he sits next to this this person, and they're leaving Israel to go to New York. Now, my friend by now is a בעל תשובה. He was learning in a בעל תשובה ישיבה. He has a big beard, long פאות, and he was really real about everything he did, ממש. So he's on the plane, he's sitting next to that person, they start שמועסן. And after a few minutes, the person said, my my friend said to this person, where are you from? He said, I live in רעננה. Oh, רעננה. My friend שלמה, his his family's from there, his parents are there. Oh, Katz, yeah, of course, I'm good friends with his parents. Okay. This guy's name was David. How do I know this story? Because later on, my my parents told me, listen, you're not going to believe this. Our friend David was traveling to America with one of your friends, and you remember the story, and they come out about an hour after takeoff and they give out the food. And your son's friend was sitting there, he had beard and פאות, and they brought him like the chicken parmesan, and he was chowing away. Not a kosher meal. Not a kosher meal, right? The chicken parmesan, right? And I was sitting there with my kosher meal, and we were looking at each other, he just kept on talking to me as if like nothing happened. Now what's what's going, what's the עניין here? Is that when he learned about מצוות, and he was really being sincere about it, the way he learned it out was that, according to a way of understanding the רמב"ן, that what? מצוות in חוץ לארץ are just a preparation for when you're supposed to keep them in ארץ ישראל. But if I already live in ארץ ישראל and I'm just going to visit my family, then I'm out of the, you know, I'm out of the airspace, I'm not in the land. So it wasn't, he wasn't even doing דווקא. Maybe he would have eaten because it didn't even matter. In a פנימיות'דיק way, like a חסיד has to look at a story like that and say this guy's the holiest guy that ever lived, but he's also a משוגענער, right? I mean, there's also why? Because it's not at all the way we hold like. And I want to explain what have we been doing the last few days of learning all the borders? We've been learning, we've been going through each border, right? Trying to understand exactly where the line is according to all the opinions in order to figure out how to מקיים the following פסוק, how to keep the following פסוק.But it says in the Torah, כי אתם עוברים את הירדן לבוא לרשת את הארץ אשר השם אלוקיכם נותן לכם. You're about to cross the Jordan to come and conquer and inherit the land that God gave you. וירשתם אותה וישבתם בה. You're going to inherit it and you're going to dwell in it. ושמרתם לעשות את כל החוקים ואת המשפטים אשר אני נותן לפניכם היום. And you're going to keep all the Torah that I gave you. אלה החוקים והמשפטים אשר תשמרון לעשות בארץ. This is all the Torah that you're going to keep, you're going to be keeping in the land that השם gave you. אשר נתן השם אלוקי אבותיך לך לרשתה כל הימים אשר אתם חיים על האדמה. So it seems from here that the חוב of מצוה is where? Here, נכון? But we also says, ישמרנו לכם פן יפתה לבבכם וסרתם ועבדתם אלוהים אחרים והשתחויתם להם, וחרה אף השם בכם. You're up to no good, you're not listening to the word of God, and eventually, ואבדתם מהרה מעל הארץ הטובה אשר השם נותן לכם. You're going to be thrown out of here, right? So then what would you think the Torah should have said? ואז תחכו לקיים את כל המצוות אשר אנוכי מצווה אתכם עד שתחזרו לביתכם. That's not what the Torah says. It says, ושמתם את דברי אלה על לבבכם ועל נפשכם, וקשרתם אותם לאות על ידכם והיו לטוטפות בין עיניכם. Meaning the continuation of, you gotta, you know, you keep דווקא there, you keep on keeping the Torah, everything that was ever given, doesn't mean that you're exempt from it once you're out of the land. You have to keep on doing it wherever you are in the world. What we're going to be going into next week is the מצוות that really are only kept in the land. And we're not just talking about תרומות ומעשרות. It's not just that. But it's talking about other מצוות as well, but also the way we keep מצוות in ארץ הקודש. So the consciousness of the week of this day and leading into next week is we came here to not, we didn't come here to, this whole עניין was not to establish a national homeland for the Jewish people. We came here to keep תורה ומצוות the way that initially that was the master plan of why you're crossing the Jordan, going into ארץ ישראל to keep תורה ומצוות. Unfortunately, over the years, we were chucked out, came back, and we're still kind of figuring that out. But the way that we keep תורה now that we're back has got to be in a much higher, elated level than however we were keeping it before we were back in ארץ ישראל. Huh? Spiritual maturity. You like that? With spiritual maturity. With spiritual maturity. And we're going to be seeing next week basically what we haven't been doing yet. And I'm not just talking about שמיטה, because look what happened with one מצוה of שמיטה. With one מצוה of שמיטה when we came back, look at what's going on between two opposing opinions with היתר מכירה, וכולי. It's much more than that. There's a way, there's a way to understand why we're back here, how to keep the תורה ומצוות, which specific מצוות we're back to do, and which we privilege that none of this should be theoretical, בעזרת השם יתברך. Let's have a beautiful שבת. You're all invited to come join us for breakfast and learning in the next room.