Know Your Strength

What’s said in this shiur

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

I used to wonder, Dovid Hamelech says in Tehillim, A person's in a precious situation he doesn’t understand, he's comparable to an animal. You know, we usually speak with finesse. We try to even avoid saying the word טמא. Why did Dovid Hamelech compare us, a human, to an animal? Obviously there's a message that has to be conveyed. Did you ever wonder, An ox is one of the strongest animals. Strong like an ox, the expression goes. And the ox works day and night for a human being. It's much stronger than a human being. You learn Parshas Mishpatim, you learn Masechta Baba Kama, a שור שנגח, an ox could gore a person and kill him. Why doesn't it revolt and rebel and run away? Why is it working day and night, since time immemorial, for human beings? Think about a horse, a muscular animal, and what does it do? A person gets on it and whips it and it goes, winter and summer, mud, snow, ice. Why doesn't the horse just give one kick and the owner is gone? The answer is the animal doesn't know its strength. It doesn't know its capabilities.

Jump to a moment

1. 0:06I used to wonder, Dovid Hamelech says in Tehillim, A person's in a precious situation he…
2. 0:37You learn Parshas Mishpatim, you learn Masechta Baba Kama, a שור שנגח, an ox could gore…
3. 1:07And that's why, forever, it's the symbol of subservience, of doing what it doesn't want to…
4. 1:39Man is in his glory but he does not understand, he is compared to the animals.…
5. 2:09We never realized how יקר בעיני השם, how precious it is when a Yid is Moser…
6. 2:40Should I go there? Should I look there? And that exposed the farce, the fallacy that…

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