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It's great to be back. It's great to be back in Beit Miriam. What the Rebbe said is true. Unfortunately, we have very severe fires right now in Eretz Israel, as I'm sure you've heard, and you probably smell and look out the window and see. But Baruch Hashem, the back roads were open, and I was able to get here. A lot of the girls asked, "How was your Beit Nizmanim?" Baruch Hashem, Beit Nizmanim was beautiful, and it's good to be back. We have a short zman. We only have a couple of weeks left with each other. The opportunity to grow in the fourth quarter of your seminary year, as the year winds down. There's always two types of people in the final weeks of the seminary year: those that are like Counting down the days to leave, and those that are counting up the days as they can continue to grab onto these last moments, these final.
Final lessons that you have the opportunity to learn here. Let's make the most of every opportunity. When I found out that there were fires here today, I said Chaval because we don't have so much time left with each other, and to lose even one She'er is always precious, but especially at the end. Feels particularly precious. So I want to speak tonight about a topic that's perhaps not as inspiring But a very important topic, especially in today's day and age. It starts off with a seemingly mundane halacha about kashrus. The Torah has a list of birds that we're not allowed to eat. One of the birds is called a racham. Chapter 11, verse 18 in Leviticus in Vayikra says that one of the birds that we're not allowed to eat is this bird called the racham. We know that any time the Torah tells us something, there's always the Body of the halacha, and then there's the soul of the halacha. What we try to do in these shiurim is to try to discover what's the soul of any given halacha. Why does the Torah tell us every single lesson? So the question is, what is the nature of this bird that it's ushered to eat? This week's parsha is Parsha Shmini.
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What is the nature of this racham bird? The Gemara in Chulin 63b tells us something that's very startling. We would expect the nature of this bird. If the Torah tells us that a bird is asereti, what do we think the Torah is going to tell us? What do we think Chazal are going to say about the nature of this bird? It's probably a bird that's very cruel, a bird of prey. The phrase 'You are what you eat.' There was a commercial back in the day. I forget what it was a commercial for, but it started off, 'You are what you eat,' and it was this guy going, 'I'm a slice of pizza,' and I remember that commercial very well. I identified with that commercial. I was like, "Okay, I get that. I'm a slice of pizza. And then this other guy said, 'I'm a, you are what you eat,' and the guy said, 'I'm a frozen yogurt,' and I said, 'Nah, I'm a slice of pizza.' I got off the commercial in the first part, but the idea that you are what you eat is a very powerful thing to think about.
That what we ingest, what we bring inside of ourselves It makes a difference. It makes an impact. Maybe that impact is because the food itself, as we'll see, calls something up from within ourselves. Or maybe it's just the act of identifying with a cruel bird. It's an act that diminishes us as people. What is the nature of this racham? Racham, what does it sound like to us? Mercy. That's what it sounds like. It sounds like compassion. That's not exactly the type of bird that we would think is a bird that we should be trying to avoid. And in fact, that's what the Gemara in Chulin says. Amr of Yochanan. Rav Yochanan says, Lame Nikras Shmo Racham. Why was the native name of this bird Racham? Kiven Shabah Racham Bo Rachamim La Olam. Because when the Racham would come Compassion would come to the world.
And this was the rachum would usually show itself around the beginning of the rainy season. Imagine if you're a farmer back in the day, rain was your life's blood. If there's a drought, everybody died. We don't generally think about these things today, especially in Israel. It used to be in Israel. I remember when I was in Israel in the 90s, there was a drought here at that time, and there were a bunch of boys in yeshiva that were having a water fight. And I remember one of the Israeli women in the community started yelling at the boys, and she's like. Ain mayim ba'aretz We have no water in this land. You shouldn't be having a water fight right now. And as a New Yorker, I had never thought about the concept of a drought being real. Today, even in Israel, the notion of a drought is much less real to us because we have water filtration systems and Baruch Hashem we have access to water in ways that we've never had before.
But the notion of a drought for a farmer was everybody's going to die. Imagine you're a farmer and you think about yourself. You're like, there'll be no crops for my children or my wife to eat. The cattle will starve. So rain was a very big deal. If it was a rainy season, it meant you were going to live. If it didn't rain, it meant people were going to die. So the notion of seeing this racham bird, seeing this compassionate bird. Come and then you said, "the rainy season is about to begin, and then it would rain" And then you would live. This, at first glance, would appear to be a bird that not only should be kosher; it should be like a mitzvah to eat this bird. This should be like matza of birds. We should be running after a bird like this to eat. And yet, the Torah tells us that it's forbidden to eat. Not only that The Gemara seems to tell us it's a good thing.
But if you take a look at the Ramban, if you take a look at Nachmanides, I'll read it to you inside. He says exactly what we would have expected, but it seems to go at first glance against the Gemara. He says, 'Why is this racham bird? Why is it אסור to eat?' He says, 'Kiat Torah herchikasu meisha domu mechumam lachzar lachzarioso v'shachar v'gas. The Torah said, 'Don't eat this food because this racham bird, the blood of this bird becomes heated up as a result of its cruelty.' "So the Ramban says we would expect the racham bird is a cruel bird, and not only is it a cruel bird, but you can like the phrase your blood is boiling. The racham bird is so hyped; its blood is boiling about the cruelty it's going to show. And when a person eats it, says the Ramban, it's not just.
That you've identified with its cruelty, but it has an impact on you. He said, when you eat that bird whose blood is heated up as a result of its cruelty, and that blood becomes dark and thick, it gives rise in your body to that blood becoming boiling, and it will make you into a cruel person. So the Torah warns you: do not eat this blood. I'm sorry, do not eat this bird because your blood will boil as its blood boils. You will be cruel as this bird is cruel. So now we have obviously the answer that we were looking for. The reason why the Torah tells us don't eat this bird is because it's a bad bird. But that seems to go against the Gemara that just a moment ago said this is not a cruel bird. This is a compassionate bird. So which one is it?
Is it a cruel bird like the Ramban says, which obviously makes more sense to us because otherwise why would the Torah tell us it's forbidden to eat this bird, or is it a compassionate bird, like the Gemara seems to suggest? And then we're left with the question: Well, if it's so compassionate, why is it אסור to eat? So far, so good. Clear? I want to share with you an amazing medrash, and then I'm going to share the medrash, and then we're going to take a little bit of a detour for a couple of minutes to discuss a very important topic about the nature of relationships. There's an unbelievable medrash in Kohelos Raba. The medrash in Kohelos Raba says as follows: Rashi ben Lakish says Somebody who's merciful will ultimately—I'm sorry—somebody who's merciful to the cruel will ultimately become cruel instead of merciful. Meaning, if you're merciful to cruel people It's going to have an impact on you.
And ultimately you yourself will become cruel. Where do we see this? Says the Medrash. For those of you that have been learning Nach this year, have any of you girls learned Shmuel Aleph this year or ever? For those of you that are not familiar with the story, I'll share with you the story very quickly. Shaul Hamelech had the opportunity to kill the king of Amalek, whose name was. Anybody know? Very good. His name was Agag. And Shaul Hamelech hesitated in killing him, and the Medrash says since he was merciful. To that, to the king of Agag, and he let him live just a little bit longer. Ultimately, Shaul himself became very cruel. Where do we see that Shaul Amalech became cruel? Because he had Doeg HaAdomi wipe out an entire city of Kohanim. What was the name of the city? There was a city Novir Kohanim, and Doeg HaAdomi, upon the instruction of Shaul Amalech, wiped out the entire city and all of its inhabitants. So that's a crazy thing the Medrash is saying. The Medrash is saying because he was merciful to someone who was cruel.
It made him into a cruel person, and he committed an atrocity and wiped out Nov Irakohani. How does that work? How does that happen? So I want to share with you a thought about the topic of boundaries in relationships. It's a concept that really today is an international concept, but I want to bring it down to earth and talk to us as we're starting to think about building relationships in our lives and we're starting to think about marriage. What do healthy boundaries look like? So There's there's a there's a I don't want to use too strong language, but there's a very big danger in the way that we're speaking about something that's happening in society right now. Of course, it goes without saying that we are all worthy of kindness and compassion. Goes without saying Every one of us is understandable. And in the privacy of a therapist's office, a therapist will see us with unconditional positive regard. You ever hear that phrase before? For those of you that know, there's a therapist whose name was Carl Rogers. Carl Rogers was one of the great therapists. If you ever want to see something absolutely beautiful, you can see the videos online. You can go on YouTube and see them. There's videos of Carl Rogers online.
Doing therapy with his clients. It is stunning and gorgeous to watch. Because he really genuinely had what's called unconditional positive regard for his clients. He would focus on the beauty in them, and he would just see that beauty over and over again, and it was therapeutic. Just from being in his presence, people would change. That's called unconditional positive regard, and in the privacy of a therapist's office, that's a beautiful thing to have. But what happens when we start tolerating In relationships Things that should not be tolerated? What happens? Because everyone is understandable Everyone ultimately is deserving of kindness. But just because I'm deserving of kindness does not mean that I'm allowed to do whatever I want. You see, this is the danger when you raise children to believe that everything deserves compassion. So then, what do they expect? They expect, and this is wrong, that I can do anything. They expect you to be compassionate to me.
And that's not necessarily the way that life goes. For example, just as a very obviously parv light example If you show up to work and you show up late consistently And you say to your boss, "I know that you hired me to be here at nine" The reality is I have a hard time waking up in the morning. Believe me, I'm setting alarms, but I just can't wake up until 9:30 in the morning. So till I can get here, it's 10:30, 11. Believe me, I'm doing my best. On an individual level, your boss might have compassion for you. If he was your therapist, he might say, "Wow, that's really hard" I really see that you're very validating. I see that you're struggling tremendously and that you're really doing your absolute best. Also, you're fired. Right? Why? It's. Why? Why? But why? Didn't you just tell me a moment ago that I'm understandable?
But I'm also paying for you to do a job that you're not doing. And there are consequences to the way that you show up. Business is a very easy one to discuss because there's very clear boundaries. You are hired. This is the expectation of the job. This is what we're asking you to do. Relationships, especially marriage, are a contract. There's a contract that exists between a husband and a wife. When they get married, we say, for example, I'm choosing one of many examples. We say, intimacy means exclusivity. Because I'm in a relationship with you, I'm not in a relationship with anybody else. Let's say Chassvah Shalom, one of the partners in the marriage decided not to be loyal to the contract of intimacy, which means exclusivity. And let's say Chas v'Shalom, they found their way into an external relationship in that marriage. Perhaps one could find compassion for that partner that strayed But would that be appropriate?
The reason it's not appropriate—maybe on an individual level there's room for compassion, maybe in the therapist's office there's room for compassion—but when we start being compassionate to inappropriate things, when we start bringing inappropriate people into our lives, a person thinks that doesn't have an impact on them, and it's not true. What Chazal are saying here is a very profound statement about who and what we have compassion towards, and what's the impact. For example, let's speak about this on an international level, just for a second, before we bring it back down to our lives. Let's say somebody says, "I want to find compassion for the Hamas terrorists that committed those horrific acts of atrocity on October 7th." And let's say they started to make up a narrative. By the way, you will see this on social media if you choose to go on that. On those sites and watch the cesspool of humanity. You can find this. They'll say, "Well You have to understand Gaza was an open-air prison.
What do you expect people to do when they're being treated the way they're being treated? So you see what starts to happen. They start to talk about context. You can't just look at that act of atrocity that he committed in a vacuum. You have to look at the context. What they really need, these terrorists and from Hamas, is that they really need to be understood. They need some compassion. If only you could find space in your heart to love them, then maybe they wouldn't murder you. Do you hear? That's the argument that's being made today. And what it is, this is what Chazal are telling us, this is a very dangerous thing that happens as a society. Because what happens when you start to be compassionate towards a Hamas terrorist? What happens is that you're bringing that person close to you, and you, in a certain sense, while you may not justify the behavior by giving it context, what are you doing?
You're rationalizing it. And then what happens is that you're finding space in your own heart for those things, and eventually, what does that do to you? It turns you into a cruel person. When Shaul Hamelech was kind to the king of Amalek It had an impact on him because he saw for a moment. He looked at that Melech and he said, Agag. I should find love in my heart for every single thing And therefore he hesitated to kill him. But because he found love in his heart for cruelty, what happens? What does love do? What does compassion do? It starts to transform you. When you love something, the impact of the thing that you love is that it starts to become you. That's how marriage works. Let's bring it back down to marriage for a second. When you love your husband Why does that start to create this oneness between you?
Because what you love is what you're bringing close to yourself. When you find compassion for something, you're bringing that close to you. So when you find compassion for something that's inappropriate, for something that's evil, for something that's cruel, and you bring that into you, it has an impact on you. The same way that a person says, let's say twenty, thirty years they're married, they say Of all the people that had an impact on me At the end of the day, who had the biggest impact on me? It was my husband. It was my children. Why? Why do your husband and your children have such a tremendous impact on you? Because when you love something, you bring them into you, and who they are creates a marked change inside of you. We see very often that sometimes children Who lets say become more observant, have an impact on their family.
I know, for example, with my grandmother when she was seventy years old. She was not a Shomer Shabbos Jew until that point. She wasn't necessarily Tznius. She didn't necessarily keep kosher outside of the house. But at 70 years old, my grandmother turned around her life. Why? There's probably a bunch of reasons, but for sure one of them is that my grandmother had two daughters, and both of those daughters became frum, and both of those daughters raised a frum family. And because my grandmother loved us so much, probably naturally what happened was that it had an impact on her. When you love something, you bring it into you. What you tolerate What you allow Ultimately, it becomes a part of you. We speak a lot in today's day and age, and it's good that we do this about giving context and understanding to kids, and that's huge. That's amazing. I'm not Chassidish, but I'm about to say. I hope it does not take away from that in any way. If you have a 16-year-old girl and she's struggling in her life Adarabba, pour tremendous amounts of love on her. Give her all the kindness and compassion in the world. But I want to share with you what happens when we only do that and we don't also talk about healthy and appropriate boundaries.
If we have a school system, let's say for example, that has no rules, you can do whatever you want. And everything that the students do in that school is understandable and is treated with kindness and compassion. But we never have a line where we say no. What happens to those kids? They have no ability to say no to themselves, and they don't know what it looks like to show up to the world and to be able to hear from others. I was talking to a young woman. And she shared with me that she was dating a guy, and this guy. He's in one of these types of situations where he's older already, but he's been shown a tremendous amount of kindness and compassion, which again is beautiful for his situation. Now he's dating And he sometimes wakes up at two, three o'clock in the afternoon. He sleeps in and sometimes he'll just throw on his tefillin at the last moments before shkia and he'll daven a quick mincha.
And this girl said I'm sorry, that's not what I'm looking for in a husband. I'm looking for a husband who's going to be not only somebody who's more spiritually inspired to make sure to wake up in the morning, but also a certain type of role model for the children. And he looked at her like she was from the moon. He said, "I don't understand." Why can't you treat me with the same compassion that my rebbe is treating me? And she said, "Because that's not a relationship here. That's your rebbe being an awesome rebbe, seeing the beauty in you. That's amazing. But out here," When you leave the daladamos of your relationship with your rebbe, we enter into the world of boundaries, and there are things that are acceptable, and there are things that are not acceptable. There are lines that we should not cross, and this is the important part for you: there are lines that you should not allow others to cross.
Being a person who has boundaries is key. To building healthy relationships A lot of times what happens is, girls will end up in a marriage and they'll go like, "Yeah, I don't know, he does this, and it's really just not okay." I'm like, "Okay, it's not okay. So what? So what now?" "I don't know." I'm like, "Well Creating boundaries and saying, 'I'm sorry, this is outside of the realm of what's acceptable.' It's critical so that you don't become that person yourself. I heard of a terrible story the other day. And I'm going to change the details because the actual details are even more horrific. But let's say there was a certain spouse that was being abusive And somebody said to this wife, what are you doing in this marriage? I'm not in control of him. It's like you're not in control of him. But you are in control of yourself.
And believe me, I'm changing the case. It was much worse than that. You're not in control of him, but you are in control of yourself. Learning to be a person means not just learning to see the goodness in others. Self love is huge. The idea that I'm a person who's worthy of love and respect and can share love and respect with others. Who can see people with kindness and compassion? That's awesome. And I'm also a person who knows how to say That's not okay. Because if you say yes to things that are not okay That is a distorted form of compassion. If you say yes to everything, because you think, 'What do you mean? I'm just compassionate everywhere.' Well, your compassion everywhere might have a negative impact because the way that people treat you is something that you either will or won't allow. We are responsible for our own boundaries, and we cannot tell others. What do you mean? You are responsible to make these boundaries. They're your boundaries. And even in relationships, relationships require boundaries. Even in marriage, marriage requires boundaries.
The best way to think about it At least the best way I ever heard of it Was to think about marriage as You know the Olympics. You know the insignia for the Olympics, right? It's like this. So let's say this is the guy. Sorry. Let's say this is the girl. This in-between space is where the marriage is. The marriage is called the space in between. And you contribute to that space, and he contributes to that space. This is the space in between. But you are not him, and he is not you. You remain two separate people. And if chas v'shalom, somebody brings something into this space that's outside of the contract of our marriage, that's beyond the boundaries of what's acceptable. You're not being kind by being compassionate. That's not what's appropriate. If you want this space in between, if you want this marriage to be healthy.
If you want it to be safe If you want it to be sacred Then part of learning how to build this space is This is not a space where you're going to find compassion for that behavior. That's not okay. So if you are with someone and he's not in control of his anger Of course I'm sure there's a reason he's angry. I'm sure he's very upset. But that doesn't mean it's appropriate to rage all over your spouse. It's not compassionate. It's not true compassion in that moment to say It's okay. He was just really upset and he flew off the handle. He got really upset, and it was his responsibility to manage those triggers. It's your responsibility to say "That's not okay." Because that diminishes the space that we're trying to build together. You understand? Is there room for compassion in this world? Of course. On an individual level, everybody is worthy of kindness and compassion.
But once we start to participate in relationships with others, once we leave that therapist's office, once we leave that rebbe's room, and we enter into the world where we have to exist within boundaries, some behavior is just not okay. And if you allow behavior that's not okay in your life You become that bad behavior because you'll have to justify it. So it has an impact on you. The Rebbe says the 100% truth. This bird, the racham This is a cruel bird. This bird, when it sees its prey, its blood starts to boil with cruelty. That it's going to take out on another bird, and to eat that bird is to bring inside that cruelty into yourself, and your blood is going to boil with cruelty. That is not a bird to eat. What does the Gemara mean when the Gemara says this bird? It's called a bird because it's called the compassionate bird because it brings rain to the world.
But think deeply, girls. What type of compassion? Does this bird really have? It's very compassionate. It's its name. It's when you see that Racham bird coming Rain falls. But you know It's not a true compassionate bird. You know why? Because its essence is not true compassion. It can find compassion in cruelty. That's not true compassion. I had the opportunity a number of years ago. To run a social media feed, I don't do it anymore. And it's a very, very large social media feed. I think it had at the time maybe a hundred thousand followers. Something massive And it was followed even by the prime minister of Israel's office. It was a very important organization, and they did Hasbara. For you know what girls know what Hasbara means. Hasbara is when you show Israel's side of the story to the world. Remember that a lot of times you only hear the Hamas side of the story. There are important social media accounts that present Israel's side of the story. I was on the side for a couple of years, just as a side project, honestly mostly as a chesed. I was working in one of these accounts, and when you see these accounts, the amount of hate you get is wild.
So on the daily, I was being called a Zionist and all these crazy threats, and you're responsible for genocide. It was a regular thing. And one of the things that came up, and this was again a long time ago already, but one of the things that came up was they were doing a documentary on Hitler. Yimachshem And the documentary was to explain the psychology of Hitler. And to explain why, if you went through what Hitler went through as a child, you start to understand why Hitler became the way he became. This documentary was exceptionally dangerous. Because what it was, when you actually saw it—I didn't see the whole thing because I couldn't bring myself to watch the whole thing—but I saw enough clips to understand what it was: a justification. You have to understand the childhood trauma, the rejection, the abandonment, the loneliness. That's all true.
But if somebody kills six million people, if somebody's responsible for a world war, there is no justification in the world for something like that. There is no compassion that we should find for the Hitlers of the world. Our responsibility in these formative years is to be able to say, of course, our posture towards the world. I want to be clear, because I can't say it enough times. Our posture towards the world on an individual level is that our arms are open. We are spaces of love and light and connection. If somebody is sitting with us on a one-on-one basis The compassion that we can find for them is endless. In that room, when they're working on themselves and they say, "I did this horrific thing," we can find true compassion for that person so they can have the safety to work on themselves. I have a friend who ran the domestic violence unit of a clinic here in the neighborhood, actually in Harnow.
And he ran the domestic violence unit. He said running the domestic violence unit is the hardest job in the entire clinic because not only are you working with people who are abused, you're also working with the abusers. And if you have this Rajarian approach that you're trying to have unconditional positive regard for the people that are sitting across from you, how do you find unconditional positive regard for people that have really hurt other people, physically, emotionally, psychologically? How do you find unconditional positive regard for those people? This guy who was running the DV unit happens to be a super talented therapist. He said it is unbelievably hard to sit in that chair and not sit in judgment of that person. But if I'm sitting in judgment of that person in that space, they're not going to be able to get any therapeutic work done. But he said, and this was the kicker He said, but after I find that unconditional positive regard, and after I can see their humanity, and after I can give them that compassion.
There also has to be a boundary that what you did is absolutely not okay, and it can never happen. And that's a very, very. Fine needle to thread. I don't know personally exactly how to do it, and I for sure have erred on both sides of the equation. Why am I bringing this up to you? As I said from the beginning, this is not going to be the most inspirational share that I ever give you. I'm sure there are others I think that are probably more profound. But I think one of the conversations that we need to start having Not just with girls your age, but obviously with your age, it's a good place to start. Is as you take these next steps of your life And you know when you're in seminary, sort of everything is roses and everything is good here in Birmingham, and honestly everything is great here in Birmingham. Not just good, it's better than good. And you know, it was so nice to walk back in and see so many happy faces. I don't know if you realize this, dinner was late tonight. First of all, in seminaries when dinner is not on time, that's already like girls are freaking out. It happened to be that Shapiozi didn't realize he thought it was 6:30 when it was actually 6:45, and so the food came out late. But I just came into the Cheder Ochel.
And I just watched everybody sitting and talking, happy and smiling. It was wonderful to see. It's really a very special place here. There's a real sense of family. There's a real sense of home. And the next steps of your life, as you build your own home, become a bit more complicated. Because how you show up to relationships. It makes a very big difference in your life. If you're a person who allows anything to happen to them If you don't know how to say no to things Then that's potentially a really bad way to start off in a relationship. And I think the conversation that we need to start having, and I hope that this just nudges the conversation in the right direction. I'm sure you girls will talk a bit more about it later. So what are the boundaries? How do I say no to people? Because when I say no to people with integrity, I can say yes to them with integrity. Remember that healthy boundaries invite people to participate in relationships with us.
Having boundaries and saying this is not okay is a way of telling people this space is an awesome place to be, but these are the rules of engagement. This is what it looks like for me to be safe in this relationship, and therefore you're welcome to be here according to these rules. People think boundaries are about pushing people away. Mechitzas are about inviting people in. When we have mechitzas in shuls, some people say, 'Why do you need to have a mechitza? You're just trying to keep the women off to the side.' No, we have mechitzas so that there are appropriate boundaries. So that women can come into shuls. Good mechitzas bring people in. Bezrat Hashem, you girls will be zocher over the course of the next couple of years of your life to build yourself into people of strong, healthy boundaries. People who can have absolute compassion for people, but also know not all the time. We can't be compassionate to those that are cruel, because ultimately we will become cruel ourselves. The racham bird is a compassionate bird, but it is a cruel bird. It's compassionate even when it's cruel. It justifies its cruel behavior to itself. That is not a bird that we should be eating. Girls have a wonderful Shabbos.
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