Brick education
"and they perceived the G-d of Israel, and beneath His feet was like the forming of a sapphire brick and like the essence of the heavens for clarity." Exodus 24:10
This shiur is le iluy neshamat imi morati, Mila bat Zacharia . Who passed away on 24th of Shvat, 22 years ago.
Boys grow up and they start asking questions. Here is the popular question: Can G-d create a brick that he will not be able to destroy? A possible answer is a question: even if he does why would he show it you? We will answer the question later from this week's Torah portion. We will talk about brick education.
Jewish people have a history paved with bricks. Our father Abraham was thrown into the burning furnace. Not just any furnace. It was a brick oven. It was used to make the bricks for the Tower of Babel. Nimrod ("Gibor Tzaid") used technology to produce bricks and persuasion techniques to make people work on the Babel Tower Project. He was so successful at persuasion that when a brick would fall and break, the builders will sit down and cry: "Where would we find another brick like that?", but if a person would fall and die, they would not even stop working. People were expandable. Bricks were precious. Just like in Soviet Russia. Just like in Egypt. Just like in a big corporation of your choice. "All and all they were less then bricks in the wall."
In Egypt the Pharaoh used the same technology for brick production and the same persuasion techniques. The midrash says that on the first day of building the pyramids he was working alongside the Jews, and the Jews were motivated to work hard and do their best. At the end of that day he said: "Very good. Today we established the daily quota for the brick production. Keep up the good work."
Later on, when we failed to make the quota of bricks, Egyptians would take our babies and literally use them as bricks in the wall.
Fast forward to Har Sinai. HaShem lifts the mountain above our heads, we clearly see what's good for us and we say "Naase ve Nishmah". And then we bring olot and shelamim, and we see G-d of Israel, and beneath His feet was like the forming of a sapphire brick.
An image is worth a thousand words. What do you do if HaShem shows you a brick beneath His feet, knowing that you are allergic to bricks, knowing that you have history with bricks and it's a bad history? You seek comfort food to ease your traumatic experience. You chew on korban shelamim and you think: "Why a brick?"
Ramban says we were sent the same vision as Ezekiel. (But why not a chair, because we were seeing the bricks everywhere? Did we see it wrong?)
Rashi says it was an indication that HaShem was with us while we were suffering in Egypt. ( But why wasn't there a pile of bricks? We did not make one, we made many)
Rav Hirsch suggests that it was the first brick . We used to be slaves of Paraoh, making clay bricks. Now we are slaves for HaShem, making sapphire bricks . We declared "Naase ve Nishmah", and we produced the first brick. (How many more bricks will we produce in the future, What's the quota?)
I will try to answer these questions based on the etymology of the words 'Sapir' and 'Etzem'.
Sapir has the same root as Sefer and Mispar. And it means adding things together. Sefer adds ideas together. Mispar adds items together, Sapir adds crystals together. The hardness of Saphire is 9, second only to Diamond with the hardness of 10. There is no oven on earth that can produce Sapphire bricks: it's too hard. Sapphire Brick is an oxymoron.
'Etzem' is explained as an 'concentration of power'. Essence - concentration of taste, smell or meaning, but also " a Bone" the most concentrated material in human body, and "Otzma" - concentration of power.
'sapir' means combining things together and 'etzem' means concentrating things to their essence.
So when you combine "the forming of a sapphire brick with the essence of the heavens for clarity" you get your answers. Yes, it was a sapphire brick. It was produced by HaShem to show to us, because he knew we had history with many bricks, and many evil kings with many evil plans. He knew we needed a refresher on the One True King, the Divine Plan , One Unbreakable Sapphire Brick, One Pure Spiritual Essence. The quota for the sapphire bricks was : One, just like The King and The Plan. One, shared among all the Jews across all the Generations. And it does not get bigger, it gets harder and clearer, just like the Truth.
Rav Hirsh calls sefer Shemot "A book of Jewish Education". My Mother unfortunately did not get any Jewish Education. But she was so ... pure! She had an amazing intuition, great sensitivity, and she fell in love with Israel and Yerushalaim in 1 year, 1 month, 1 week and 1 day that she lived there.
After finishing ulpan she went to programming classes organized by IBM, and graduated at the top of her class. IBM wanted her to come and work for them in Tel Aviv. That would be a great career move. But she chose to work in a small office in Yerushalaim, closer to home, with less pressure, and with a smaller quota of bricks. She worked there for less than a month, and then she was no longer in remission.
My mother never lived to be 41. About a month before she died in the hospital she had a clinical death. When she woke up from a coma, the first words she said to me were: "I want you to learn". so I said: "What do you mean? I AM learning, I am student at Hebrew U, I'm studying Computer Science so I can grow up to be like you". She shook her head and repeated "I want you to Learn". Maybe she could not verbalize what she meant, or maybe she did not understand the message, but years later, hopefully, I got the message.
You can get this message by talking to your dying mother, you can get it when HaShem is holding a mounting above your head, and you can get this message by seeing a sapphire brick. And the message is this: the real money is clarity. And the only way to get clarity is by getting Jewish Education, by remembering and reminding ourselves of the One Pure Spiritual Essence. That should help you to read the book of your history and to get the uplifting message.
We should merit to Learn more and bring more clarity to our life, and with it, the ultimate redemption.
This shiur is le iluy neshamat imi morati, Mila bat Zacharia . Who passed away on 24th of Shvat, 22 years ago.
Boys grow up and they start asking questions. Here is the popular question: Can G-d create a brick that he will not be able to destroy? A possible answer is a question: even if he does why would he show it you? We will answer the question later from this week's Torah portion. We will talk about brick education.
Jewish people have a history paved with bricks. Our father Abraham was thrown into the burning furnace. Not just any furnace. It was a brick oven. It was used to make the bricks for the Tower of Babel. Nimrod ("Gibor Tzaid") used technology to produce bricks and persuasion techniques to make people work on the Babel Tower Project. He was so successful at persuasion that when a brick would fall and break, the builders will sit down and cry: "Where would we find another brick like that?", but if a person would fall and die, they would not even stop working. People were expandable. Bricks were precious. Just like in Soviet Russia. Just like in Egypt. Just like in a big corporation of your choice. "All and all they were less then bricks in the wall."
In Egypt the Pharaoh used the same technology for brick production and the same persuasion techniques. The midrash says that on the first day of building the pyramids he was working alongside the Jews, and the Jews were motivated to work hard and do their best. At the end of that day he said: "Very good. Today we established the daily quota for the brick production. Keep up the good work."
Later on, when we failed to make the quota of bricks, Egyptians would take our babies and literally use them as bricks in the wall.
Fast forward to Har Sinai. HaShem lifts the mountain above our heads, we clearly see what's good for us and we say "Naase ve Nishmah". And then we bring olot and shelamim, and we see G-d of Israel, and beneath His feet was like the forming of a sapphire brick.
An image is worth a thousand words. What do you do if HaShem shows you a brick beneath His feet, knowing that you are allergic to bricks, knowing that you have history with bricks and it's a bad history? You seek comfort food to ease your traumatic experience. You chew on korban shelamim and you think: "Why a brick?"
Ramban says we were sent the same vision as Ezekiel. (But why not a chair, because we were seeing the bricks everywhere? Did we see it wrong?)
Rashi says it was an indication that HaShem was with us while we were suffering in Egypt. ( But why wasn't there a pile of bricks? We did not make one, we made many)
Rav Hirsch suggests that it was the first brick . We used to be slaves of Paraoh, making clay bricks. Now we are slaves for HaShem, making sapphire bricks . We declared "Naase ve Nishmah", and we produced the first brick. (How many more bricks will we produce in the future, What's the quota?)
I will try to answer these questions based on the etymology of the words 'Sapir' and 'Etzem'.
Sapir has the same root as Sefer and Mispar. And it means adding things together. Sefer adds ideas together. Mispar adds items together, Sapir adds crystals together. The hardness of Saphire is 9, second only to Diamond with the hardness of 10. There is no oven on earth that can produce Sapphire bricks: it's too hard. Sapphire Brick is an oxymoron.
'Etzem' is explained as an 'concentration of power'. Essence - concentration of taste, smell or meaning, but also " a Bone" the most concentrated material in human body, and "Otzma" - concentration of power.
'sapir' means combining things together and 'etzem' means concentrating things to their essence.
So when you combine "the forming of a sapphire brick with the essence of the heavens for clarity" you get your answers. Yes, it was a sapphire brick. It was produced by HaShem to show to us, because he knew we had history with many bricks, and many evil kings with many evil plans. He knew we needed a refresher on the One True King, the Divine Plan , One Unbreakable Sapphire Brick, One Pure Spiritual Essence. The quota for the sapphire bricks was : One, just like The King and The Plan. One, shared among all the Jews across all the Generations. And it does not get bigger, it gets harder and clearer, just like the Truth.
Rav Hirsh calls sefer Shemot "A book of Jewish Education". My Mother unfortunately did not get any Jewish Education. But she was so ... pure! She had an amazing intuition, great sensitivity, and she fell in love with Israel and Yerushalaim in 1 year, 1 month, 1 week and 1 day that she lived there.
After finishing ulpan she went to programming classes organized by IBM, and graduated at the top of her class. IBM wanted her to come and work for them in Tel Aviv. That would be a great career move. But she chose to work in a small office in Yerushalaim, closer to home, with less pressure, and with a smaller quota of bricks. She worked there for less than a month, and then she was no longer in remission.
My mother never lived to be 41. About a month before she died in the hospital she had a clinical death. When she woke up from a coma, the first words she said to me were: "I want you to learn". so I said: "What do you mean? I AM learning, I am student at Hebrew U, I'm studying Computer Science so I can grow up to be like you". She shook her head and repeated "I want you to Learn". Maybe she could not verbalize what she meant, or maybe she did not understand the message, but years later, hopefully, I got the message.
You can get this message by talking to your dying mother, you can get it when HaShem is holding a mounting above your head, and you can get this message by seeing a sapphire brick. And the message is this: the real money is clarity. And the only way to get clarity is by getting Jewish Education, by remembering and reminding ourselves of the One Pure Spiritual Essence. That should help you to read the book of your history and to get the uplifting message.
We should merit to Learn more and bring more clarity to our life, and with it, the ultimate redemption.