The Secret That Hitler Never Understood | Rav Asher Weiss on Parshas Vayeira

What’s said in this shiur

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

Avraham Avinu said, "Va'anachnu afar va'efer." And I am dust and ashes. Simply understood, this is the humility of Avraham Avinu. Standing at the entrance to the gas chambers in Auschwitz, alongside his father, a Holocaust survivor, my Rebbi, Rabbi Shmuel Weiss, shared the following. In prayer we say, "V'nafshi ke'afar lakol tihiye." And let my soul be like dust to all. Taitz says explains that we're praying just like dust cannot be destroyed, so too our descendants should not be destroyed. The Maharsha adds that he heard that the meaning of the prayer is, "Just like dust, everyone tramples on it, but at the end it tramples those that trample on it. So too to our enemies that cause us pain, let them be trampled on, let them be buried 6 ft under, while we continue to

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1. 0:00Avraham Avinu said, "Va'anachnu afar va'efer." And I am dust and ashes. Simply understood, this is…
2. 0:30Taitz says explains that we're praying just like dust cannot be destroyed, so too our descendants…
3. 1:01live." Our sages tell us that when God decreed death on the world, there was one…
4. 1:33"Avraham Avinu's words weren't just words of humility. Rather, they were a prophecy explaining the secret…
5. 2:05endure, while we survive. And even when they burn us to ashes, they try destroying us,…
6. 2:37as witnessed by his father standing alongside him. And that is the secret that Avraham Avinu…
7. 3:07destroying us are buried under those dust, while we, the Jewish nation, continue miraculously with our…

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