A Torah State Of Mind

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Lech Lecha - Looking for You
Why doesn't Hashem just prove Himself with open miracles? Rabbi Shlomo Farhi on Lech Lecha, Avraham's journey, and what it means for every journey of faith.

France is burning. And Rabbi Shlomo Farhi says he isn't surprised at all.

Within hours of the looting, burning and mobs filling the streets of Paris, Rabbi Shlomo Farhi opens Parashat Lech Lecha with a question: when is it time to leave, and when is it time to fix the place you're standing in? Avraham is told "Lech Lecha" by Hashem. But in the very same parsha, "there was a famine in the land" and Avraham reads the writing on the wall and leaves on his own. A man in the shiur was born on October 15, 1942, the very day the Nazis wiped out his mother's city of Brisk. She had read the signs and escaped.

The irony, Rabbi Farhi says, is that we read that same morning about a world destroyed over petty theft and looking the other way, and then watched exactly that play out in one of the most famous cities on earth. When governments reward criminal behavior and turn the victims into the criminals, you've told people it's okay. But his message is not "run." Only a prophet can say that. It's the hotel room with the toilet nobody flushed: you've asked for a new room, so why sit in the stench for the 20 minutes you're still there? Flush it. Vote. Demand the rule of law back. Be the school that said no to smartphones. Be the families who cap the simcha spending so everyone else can breathe.

By the end, Rabbi Farhi hands the room a gift: "I gave you back your own No." Either we watch it burn like the generation of Noach, we build a teiva and set our own terms inside it, or, when nothing else is left, we go somewhere else and build.

CHAPTERS
0:00 Welcome and dedications
1:06 France is burning
2:25 Lech Lecha: forced out, or choosing to leave
3:47 Born the day his city died
4:47 From petty theft to anarchy
10:08 Would you flush the toilet?
14:29 Strategic capitulation
21:54 A challenge to our community
30:06 Burn, build a teiva, or leave
33:09 The gift: the word "No"

What is one thing you've accepted as "just the way it is" that you could actually change? Tell us in the comments.

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Who eats first, you or your animals? The Torah gives two different answers, and Rabbi Shlomo Farhi says the difference changes how you see your whole life.

When Hashem tells Noach to bring food into the teiva, the pasuk says "it will be for you and for them to eat." You first, then the animals. But in the Shema we say the opposite: Hashem gives grass to your animals, and only then "you will eat and be satisfied." In fact, the halacha is that you have to feed your animals before you sit down to eat. So why is Noach's order backwards? Rabbi Farhi brings the Gemara's startling answer: "Man and beast Hashem will save" means man is saved in the merit of the animal. The animal is doing exactly what it was created to do, and if its owner isn't saved, Bessie the cow pays the price. In the teiva it was the reverse: the animals were only saved to repopulate the earth, while Noach was saved as a tzaddik. There, the animals lived in his merit, so he ate first.

That's the point, Rabbi Farhi says: we're mistaken about why we get what we get. You think the blessing came because you worked hard, or gave tzedakah last week. Maybe your whole parnassah is in the merit of your wife, your children, or a mother who hasn't stopped davening for you. So, now what? Widen your circles. He tells the story of a man who gets a call from a king: "My son is coming to live with you for four years." No room? The king buys a house. Not enough food? A private chef. Every child is the son of a King, and comes with what he needs. If you can be blessed for a cow, you can be blessed for a holy Jewish child. And every real friend who would be pained to see you fall is another layer of protection over you. The only price is being invested in them.

Finally: why didn't Hashem just grow mushrooms all over the teiva? Because Noach had to earn his keep. The mitzvah of feeding the animals was his merit, and what Noach did for animals, the Torah asks us to do for people: show up, prepare for their needs, and be there in their hour of need.

CHAPTERS
0:00 Welcome and dedications
1:22 "For you and for them": a strange order
5:25 Who eats first? Noach vs. the Shema
9:44 Saved in the merit of your cow
11:40 Which animals got into the teiva
15:25 Why you get what you get
18:56 Widen your circles
19:34 The king's son moves in
23:20 Why no mushrooms in the teiva
25:10 What Noach did for animals, we do for people

Who in your life might be the reason for your blessings? Tell us in the comments.

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Noach - It's Only A Little
Why is stealing $1 worse than stealing $100? The generation of the flood wasn't wiped out for grand larceny. It was something smaller and far more common. Rabbi Shlomo Farhi on why the tiniest theft can sink a whole world, and a watch story you won't forget.