Do You Believe In HaShem? Parashat Terumah

0:03Uh, as Parashat Terumah is famous for teaching us about how to manage money, if you look at the Torah, you see some unusual things that perhaps can confuse you. Then you go to the sages, and they confuse you even more. So of course, we need the help of Shlomo HaMelech and the Chovot HaLevavot and the Ibn Ezra and some of the other great sages in the Gemara to give us a hand, to help us understand how to manage money. Where in the beginning of the parasha, parashat Terumah, We see that the phrase "take for me a portion" literally means to take for me a donation. Now, if you are speaking properly, you would say "give me a donation," not "take from me a donation." Of course, the sages teach that when you give...

1:16For the sake of Torah, you're really taking because Hashem rewards you. But what can we do when most people, even some who actually give, don't truly believe that? How do we know? Well, the sages elevate the discussion. In the Gemara in Masechet Berachot, the holy Jewish sages teach us one of the most profound ideas that... testifies whether a person truly believes in HaKadosh Baruch Hu or not. As the Gemara says, if you see your financials dwindling, your bank account goes lower, maybe you had a savings account, a stock portfolio, Bitcoin, or whatever you had. Perhaps you invested in some stock that went up 50% and then it went down 50%.

2:18Your finances have gone down. You notice your financials decreasing. Give more donations. Wait, hold on a second. Logically, mathematically, scientifically, and in any other way, this doesn't make any sense. On one hand, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, take from Me a donation, not give Me a donation. And then the sages confuse us even more and tell us: You're losing money, you're having some troubles with your finances, where your bank account is starting to worry you. Give some more donations. Wait, don't you mean maybe collect donations? Perhaps you haven't reached that dire situation where you need to collect donations. But certainly, giving donations – wouldn't that make the bank account go even lower? The bank account is almost on life support. You're telling me to give more. Isn't that the opposite? Ah, yeah, the holy Torah is here to teach us. It's here to teach us, but I believe it's here to teach us. Now, of course, the holy Torah teaches other things. In this parsha, it teaches other things.

3:41We have the menorah that we're introduced to, the holy menorah, the beautiful menorah, where the Chachamim have a machloket on how it looked, whether it was based on Rashi or the Rambam, whether it was standing on three legs or it had a box-like bottom, which is what Onkelos said—it had a box-like bottom. Don't worry yourself too much. Many hachamim say it was both. How could it be both? Because anyone that followed the extraordinary series of, or the ba'al, followed or read the book about the claim. the different tools of the Beit HaMikdash and the historical and archaeological findings and discoveries. A lot of different conspiracies are involved in all of it. You would have learned that many of the Chachamim actually say that there were multiple Menorot, meaning that there wasn't just one Menorah. There were multiple replicas made and

4:56the time of the Beit HaMikdash and therefore it could have very well been both cases. In fact, one of the things that shows that there is one opinion is an archaeological proof that you can see in Italy. Over there, they still have it on the wall, from when after they destroyed the Beit HaMikdash, yemach shemam. They actually celebrated by making monuments, and on the monument, they have, in essence, sculptures—types of art showing the Jewish people carrying the menorah. The menorah is, in essence, agreeing with the shape of the box-like base. But in other places, we see that it's the other. So not to worry, both could be right, both most likely are right, meaning that since there were multiple menorot, then you could have actually seen both of them in the Beit HaMikdash. But we learn about this menorah; we learn about all of the different tools of the Mishkan, which was the Beit HaMikdash of the desert.

6:10Really, it's the holiest of all three. It's the only one that did not get destroyed, as the Gemara in Masechet Yoma teaches us that after they stopped using it, it was buried and hidden. And when Mashiach comes, it will be unveiled, whether it will be used again or not. I don't think so, because we'll have the third Beit HaMikdash, but certainly some of the things that we will see at that time will be extraordinary. And we learn all of these wonderful things, but in between, in between the lines, especially if we start reviewing some of the details of the previous weeks, we discover perhaps an unknown god. Why do I say an unknown god? Because it's the god of money that many people don't believe in. because it's the god of money that many people don't believe in. Now, you would say in today's world when every second YouTuber tells you that he has become a millionaire by making some type of application or some type of self-help program, or whatever they're doing in investments in real estate.

7:34Everyone's a millionaire. Everyone is just literally so focused on chasing money that they've turned the saying on the dollar bill, "In God We Trust," into pretty much thinking that the dollar is God. But that's not the God of money that I'm talking about. Shalom.