Parashat Vayeshev and The Power of Emunah

0:04Parashat Vayeshev, the story of Yehuda and Tamar. Yehuda and Tamar have two children, one of them is Peretz, and from him comes Mashiach. From the tribe of Yehuda, from Peretz, all the way to David HaMelech, Shlomo HaMelech, and so on. But in the same exact parasha, also lies the answer. Also lies the answer that distinguishes the difference between Yehuda and the Chashmonaim. Now, no one in the world could ever tell you that the Chashmonaim were Essenes. Because after all, the only reason we're still here today is thanks to the Chashmonaim. If the Chashmonaim did not defend Am Yisrael and did not defend the Torah, and if they did not say, "Whoever is for Hashem, come with me," if Matityahu did not come and say this, guess what, Rabotai? There's no Am Yisrael. Shem Yirachem. Imagine you have millions and millions of Greeks with nuclear weapons. You have a knife, a plastic one you bought from the 99 cent store, or you found, or you got it from the Chinese food. That's what you have.

1:27What are you saying? You with the nuclear weapons? I want to beat you with my little plastic knife. Actually, I'll use the knife to eat, and then I'll beat you with nothing. You have to have some serious emunah in HaShem. If you had such emunah, you give a lecture, and everybody does teshuva. You start a whole organization: Emunah, Emunah, Emunah.com, Emunah.org, Emunah Inc, Emunah everything else. You do Emunah everything. Why? Emunah—you tell people—I beat the entire Greek army simply with Emunah. But why didn't HaKadosh Baruch Hu agree with this? Long-term, short-term He agreed, long-term He didn't agree. Short-term, you got him on the derech, good. Long-term, he won't stay on the derech with emunah alone. Why? Emunah is good. The Chashmonaim had emunah. They believed in Hashem. They said, "We're gonna fight for Hashem. We're gonna win this battle with the power of Hashem, not us." But HaKadosh Baruch Hu allowed them to be destroyed anyway. Now, you cannot say they were reshaim, mechalel Shabbat, because that's not the truth. They were tzaddikim. But you cannot deny that there's no more of them.

2:47You cannot deny the fact that they did still sin, even though they had Emunah. So I'll give you the answer. The Chashmonaim had an enormous amount of Emunah in Hashem, enough to go to war. They didn't even think about winning the war. They simply knew what was wrong. They simply knew that it is wrong to violate Shabbat. It's wrong to go against the Torah. It's wrong to be an atheist. It's wrong, and we're going to fight for it. So that Emunah got them on the right path. But the fact is that after the war was finished, they didn't want to go back to the old days. They wanted to stay. And there's a reason why. There's a reason why they failed. In the same parasha where we learn about the tribe of Yehuda, we also learn about his brother Yosef, Yosef HaTzadik. Why is Yosef called Yosef HaTzadik? The Gemara in Masechet Sotah says it's because Yosef did not waste seed, and that's why he is called Yosef HaTzadik. Anyone who does not waste seed...

4:15is called Tzadik. Yosef had an opportunity to be not only with one of the four most beautiful women that ever existed—Potiphar's wife was beautiful. Don't think that she was some troll with three heads, four arms, and things coming out of her face, making you unsure if she's even a real species. This woman was absolutely beautiful. Not only that, she was powerful too. She told Yosef, "Yosef, I'm really the head of the household. I tell my husband, Potiphar, to jump, and he already jumps before I say it. If I tell my husband to give you a raise, he'll give you a raise. If I tell my husband to just leave you alone and let me manage you all day, he'll leave you alone and let me manage you all day." If I tell my husband to give you half the money we have, he'll give it to you. But if I tell him to send you to jail, he'll do it too. If I tell him to send you into some hole in the middle of the desert, where anyone that enters doesn't come out, he'll send you there. That's the jail that Yosef went to. And this beautiful woman comes to Yosef and says, listen,

5:46All I want is for you to be with me. That's it. If you're with me, I'll make you rich, I'll make you powerful, I'll make you popular. Eventually, we'll kill off my husband too if you want. Whatever you want, everything is on my head. Whatever you want, I'll give it to you. Just be with me. And again, this is not some troll with three heads, four arms, and a tail. This is what the Gemara says: One of the four most beautiful women that ever lived comes to you and says, "I come with gifts." Today, usually, people come with baggage, not full of gifts. Usually, it's problems. She says, "Will you marry me?" I don't know. How many problems do you have? Well, you know, not so many. I only, you know, I'm overdrafting on five checking accounts and have 18 credit cards. And I'm divorced, but my husband doesn't know it yet. You know, people come with baggage today. This woman's coming to you and says, I'll give you money, I'll give you power, I'll give you everything. And on top of that, she's beautiful. But if you don't listen to me, she's threatening to make your life miserable. She's trying to manipulate and instill fear, promising rewards for compliance but dire consequences for resistance. Such situations challenge one's integrity and moral values, as we learn from Yosef HaTzadik's struggle.

6:59I will ruin your life. You will regret the day you were born. Just as I am powerful and bringing gifts, I can also bring the staff right on top of your head. You're going to go inside a hole, and that hole, whoever enters it doesn't leave. And on top of that, everyone's going to make fun of you for the rest of your life because they're going to think that you tried to be with me and this and that. She is threatening him to ruin his life, and Yosef HaTzadik says... No, I'm not going to be with you. How could somebody have such power? This is not human power. Don't think for a second this is a human being's power. Guys today, guys today, Hashem, how far we are from Yosef HaTzadik. Guys today have an idea in their head, and they already act on it. The cashier says thank you to them. Oh, yeah, she likes me. What? She likes you because she said thank you because you gave her money? What likes you? What are you talking about? She's a married woman with three kids! What likes you? No, no, she's in love with me. Guys today have such junk in their head. They act on it. No, no, she loves me. Yeah, what loves you? What are you talking about? Why? Because she said thank you? How could Yosef HaTzaddik do this?

8:29And the answer, Rabotai, will answer both how Yosef did it and how the Chashmonaim did it. And the answer is, Rabotai, when Potiphar's wife comes to Yosef, the Gemara in Masechet Yoma says that she threatens him with all types of things. She says, "I'll get them to beat you up and they'll break your back." He says, HaKadosh Baruch Hu makes the bent straight again. I'll make them take your eyes out. HaKadosh Baruch Hu makes the blind see. Anything she said to him, he had a response from the Torah. But she tells him, just be with me once. And he says to her, Rabotai, "Ve'ech e'eseh ha'ra'ah ha'gedolah hazot ve'chatati le'Elohim?"

9:31He says in chapter 39, verse number 9, "Since you are his wife, how then can I perpetrate this great evil and sin against God?" Meaning, it's not because you are going to blind me or not going to blind me. It's not because of the money or no money. It's not because you're ugly or you're beautiful. It's not because of any of those reasons. It's because if I'm with you, I'm making a sin. And that is enough for me to decide. I cannot do it. I'd rather die and live in Gehinom for eternity than make a sin against HaKadosh Baruch Hu. What do you have? What are the options? Option A: Go spend some quality time with the most beautiful woman on earth. On top of that, make a bunch of money. Additionally, you're going to be powerful forever. Moreover, you have all the things that this materialistic, Greek-influenced world tells you you should have. You could have it all in one second. For what? For being with somebody you really want to be with.

10:53It's not that he thinks she's unattractive, or that there's no attraction; his heart already belongs to someone else. No, no, no, no, no. The Gemara in Masechet Sotah says he actually wanted to be with her and was physically attracted to her. It was at the last second, just as he was about to succumb, that the image of his father, Yaakov, appeared and told him... Right now there's 12 tribes. All of you will serve in the Beit HaMikdash. Your names will be remembered forever because they're going to be on the choshen of the Kohen Gadol. Your names are going to be inscribed. If you touch this woman, your name is wiped out forever. And the Gemara in Masechet Yoma says, when Yosef told her, 'Listen, it's not the money, it's not the power, it's not the attraction, it's not all of that. It's that I know that if I'm with you for one second, Make a sin against God. What does it mean? I make a sin against God. Everybody sins. Why is Yosef so fanatic? He says if I sin with a woman that Hashem says no, I’m going to be tied to you forever. The Gemara says my neshama will be connected to yours forever. It will never leave.

12:23I'm gonna be connected to you in Gehinnom. I'm gonna be connected to you in Kaf HaKela. I'm never gonna leave. You're always gonna be attached to me. There's no getting out of this. It's not one time and I'm finished. Bye-bye, I had fun while it lasted. If we act, if we make this act one time, I'm finished. In HaKadosh Baruch Hu's world, there's no such thing as one sin, a million sins. Oh, he's worse than this one. You make a sin! You make a sin against HaKadosh Baruch Hu! Are you out of your mind, Yosef says? You want me to make a sin against HaKadosh Baruch Hu? Are you crazy, lady? The Chashmonaim, the Tzaddikim, when they were in the Beit Midrash, they knew, and they had emunah in HaKadosh Baruch Hu, they knew enough to defend the Torah.

13:23But after spending so much time in war, apparently their Torah went into their subconscious. Their Torah went into the back of their memory, where they forgot that Emunah by itself is not enough. You have to have Yirat Shamayim. You have to be afraid to commit a sin against HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Emunah is not enough. Why? Because even if you have emunah, if Potiphar's wife shows up, my friend, you're gonna become her best friend. You're gonna become a puppy if you want. Without yirat Shamayim, your emunah will go in the garbage. And that's why HaKadosh Baruch Hu said to the Chashmonaim, you did good when you played your role. Once you didn't want to play your role anymore, There's no use for you anymore. Today, many, many people like to talk about Emunah, and that's wonderful. It's important for us to have Emunah to survive the day, to survive the troubles, to survive the turmoil, to survive the upside-down world.

14:38But if we're not worried about chatati laHashem, we're not worried about making sins against HaKadosh Baruch Hu, we're not going to survive the war. This is the reason why for 2,000 years we're celebrating Chanukah because of the spirituality. Because the materialism aspect of it, we're losing every day. You tell a guy, listen, if I pay $10,000, you drive on Shabbat? Most people say, $20,000, I'll drive. Increase it a little bit. I'll drive, everybody's got a price. I'm not talking about the guy who needs to judge for free, drive for Uber for $15. He works the whole day like a slave, losing his Olam Haba. Why? Because he's going to make an extra hundred bucks working on Shabbat. Hashem yishmor aleinu. I'm talking about the people that keep Shabbat. You tell the guy to keep Shabbat, listen... 25,000, 100,000, 200,000, 500,000, a million dollars—you drive on Shabbat. They'll start asking if you pay cash or Bitcoin. Why? Because we're not afraid of sinning. Many people have Emunah, but it's an Emunah Shefalah—it's an Emunah that's damaged.

16:07It's Emunah that's missing Yirat Shamayim. It's critical for us to have Emunah because, unfortunately, there are many, many tests all of us endure every day. The difference between the mentality of a Jew that's kosher and a Jew that's almost like a Greek is that Yirat Shamayim. We are meant to be a light unto the nations, not to follow their misguided practices. Remember, every Jew has to remember that he's a Jew and she's a Jew. We don't celebrate non-Jewish holidays, even if they seem harmless. It's a zilzul, a disrespect to the Torah. unto the nations not to follow their misguided practices. Remember, every Jew has to remember that he's a Jew and she's a Jew. We don't celebrate non-Jewish holidays, even if they seem harmless. It's a zilzul, disrespect to the Torah. This adherence to Halacha is crucial in maintaining our distinct Jewish identity.