71 Bamidbar: Zeitgeist 070513

What’s said in this shiur

The opening of this shiur, in Rabbi Mashiach Kelaty’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

We're starting a new cafer safer bidbar. Cafer Bidbar in English is called numbers. Why is it called numbers? Because in the beginning of the the Sedra, which opens up the the book of Bameidbar, we are told that the Jewish people are counted by means of a census. They're not counted 1 2 3 4. We're not supposed to do that. They were counted by uh a sense uh what do you call it? Um shakalim. That's how that it was a shakalim. That's how that it was a headcount. You don't count people in terms of pointing at them and saying, you know, you're number one, you're number two. So why were they counted by names and not by numbers? So I heard one answer, a very beautiful answer, an answer which touches upon something some other uh uh things that I've talked other uh uh things that I've talked about before about the uniqueness of a Jewish person. And that is if you count a person by number, you assign a person a number, you tell them your number 613 489, whatever it is, then that already labels a person. He's already now got a number. He's not one less than that. He's not one more than that. He is that number that defines his essence. Says a Jew is not defined in a finite a Jew is not defined in a finite fashion. A Jew is infinite. Has an infinite possibility. Although his physicality is finite, his body, everything around about him, everything in this world suffers from entropy. It will eventually deteriorate. But there is one thing which will not deteriorate and that is a Jewish nama which is infinite because it's part of Hashem who is by definition infinite. Another name of another term describing Hashem is an

Jump to a moment

1. 0:41We're starting a new cafer safer bidbar. Cafer Bidbar in English is called numbers. Why is…
2. 6:26why did Hashem see fit in his infinite wisdom to give them a flag each to…
3. 12:36and you give it your all then you're going to feel not just the you gave…
4. 18:54maybe because he's not so stable but let him do something which is 9 to5 with…
5. 25:33by means of shikalin. What is a shekele? A shekele is money. Perhaps, and I'm saying…
6. 31:42take off your beard at least approach them on their level no he looks like like…
7. 37:18life. It's like now it's almost like a kazaka. I suppose that now he's considered a…
8. 43:28function you have, you should always feel that that's my job and I'm doing the same…
9. 49:48Nobody heard of not many people heard of. We all think Rafal. We think Rav uh…
10. 55:57was talking to a kid. I didn't hear what they were saying because they were inside…

Every second of this shiur plays inside Lehallel — a filtered YouTube library where each video was reviewed against one written standard before it could appear. No ads, no comments, no autoplay into anything unapproved.