Parashat Toldot 2005

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Rabbi Zecharia Wallerstein** (0:05)
Very important parashah. I think parashah is important. Parashah where Asov and Yaakov are born, the famous bracha that Yaakov got. We're not going to get that much time to really talk about the bracha. We're going to talk a little bit about the difference between Asov and Yaakov. But before we get into that, as it is every Tuesday, something develops in my class that I need to talk about my kaburah, or today I totally got out of hand. I'll tell you what happened today in class. For the last week, I've been talking to my class, trying to talk boys to go into Yeshiva High School. There are many boys in my class for whatever reason. They want to go to public school. They want to go to Madison. Madison, which is public school here in Brooklyn, which for some reason they think they are ready to call it Yeshiva's Madison, because there's a lot of Israelis and there's a lot of Hebrites spoken in their halls. So it became Yeshiva's Madison. But it's not Yeshiva's Madison. It's a public school. I've been really having a tough fight this year with my class regarding talking to them as to going to Yeshiva. So today, I decided to go from the positive approach. So I was sitting in class, and I said, I have nine boys in my class. I said to all nine boys, I said, guys, I'm not a Mekubo and I'm not a Navi. But for some reason, I have a feeling about you guys that when you are 25 years old, every single one of you are going to be Shema Shema. A nice positive. Because a lot of them we've been talking about, obviously, Yeshiva, I don't want to be Shema Shema anywhere. My father isn't, my mother isn't. You were born that way, I'm not born that way. All these discussions that we're having, we're having back and forth. Anyway, so I made this comment for whatever Hashem put it in my head to say, I never made such a comment before in my life. What are you saying? Well, what are you saying? You're nubby. I just wanted to give them a little, that I believe in you guys. When you're 25, then all the lining are going to be Shema Shema. And the kid in the corner sitting in the back, screams out, Nobody say you're main.
No one say you're main to that brook. He's giving us a wish book. He says, Rabbi, you don't understand. We don't want to be Shema Shema. That's not a brook you're telling us. And at 25, we're going to be Shema Shema. Well, I was in a good calm mood right before he made that comment. And right after he made that comment, I went, I let loose. And I said, I don't understand. I'm giving you the biggest brook in the world. Everything's stacked against you. Not one kid in my class this year is Shema Shema. There are kids that want to be. Their parents are not letting them. And here you are. You have a Rabbi. He's trying to give you a brook that when you're 25 years old, you could be Shema Shema. But as I said, if I would have told you that when you're 25 years old, every single class, every kid in this class is going to be a millionaire, you would have said, oh, you ought to scream, Amayn, Amayn, Amayn, Yishmeh Rabba, Baruch, whatever you want to hear, Rabbi, anything you want to hear. Because I gave you a brook that when you're 25 years old, you're all going to be Shema Shema. You have a chutzpah to scream out. No one answer, Amayn. So what's going on over here? Why? Why? Why is it such a terrible thing? A Rabbi tells his kids that at 25, you're going to be, you're going to be Shema Shema, and they don't want to say Amayn. It bothers them. It's like a curse. What's going on over here? We can get a little bit of idea from this week's Parashat, the difference between Yachov and the difference between Asaph. First of all, the main problem, and everyone sitting here knows it, no matter how well you're brought up, no matter what your Shiba you go to, and no matter how your parents bring you up, what you become in life is usually due to either having good friends, that take you in the right direction, or the bad friend who takes you in the wrong direction. And it's in this week's Parasha. Everyone knows the Rashi, the famous Rashi, that when Rivka was very disturbed because she thought she only had one child, and every time she went past the Shul or Yeshiva, she felt a baby try to push to get out. And every time she went past the church or a movie theater, whatever they had in those days, she felt the baby trying to get out. And she thought it was the same baby. And the worst thing you can have is a mixed up kid who doesn't know which way he wants to go. She was very disturbed. When she went, Lidroi Shas Hashem, which is a whole different Kaburah, she went to ask in the Yeshiva Shema, the Eivah, even though there's a Ramban that says, very interesting, I saw today, that Lidroi Shas Hashem, the Ramban says, she didn't go to ask any Rav. He says, that he finds, Lema tzasi drisha etzal Hashem rach li'z falah. She didn't go to ask anyone. The Ramban says, she went to Navin. She had a problem, she didn't understand what's going on, she didn't go for a sonogram, she didn't go to the doctor, she didn't go to the Rav, she went to the corner of her room, she took out at the hill, she's in the Ramban and she's Navin. That's what you do when you don't know what to do. Everything else doesn't work. Riff your shoulders, Ramban says, Lidre says, Asher means she went to Navin. Okay, whatever. But she had this kid that was growing back and forth. So they ask a beautiful caution. I don't understand. If you went past a movie theater or whatever, a Beis Aboidah Zara, a bad place, so to say. So I understand why Asher tried to push to get out. Because inside her womb, there was no movie theater or church or Beis Aboidah Zara. But why, when Yaakov went past to Yeshiva, did he try to get out? We all know that a child in its mother's womb is learning Taira from Amala. So where's he going? Asher, I understand why you want to get out. You want to get out, go to the movies. Yaakov, what do you mean you want to go and go to Yeshiva? You want to go to Yeshiva, you're learning from Amala. No matter how good your Rabbi is. Terence is, he didn't even want to learn from Amala, as long as he had to be in the same place as Asher. You have to sit in the same room with an Asher, he'd rather get out. So it's unbelievable thought. In other words, it's the person that you're with, more important who your friend is that you're sitting with, that's joining with you when you're learning, sometimes it's better to get out of there. We learn that from over here, because otherwise it doesn't make sense. Why is he trying to get out? So the bottom line is, and I know it as a Rebbe for 25 years, bottom line is peer pressure. Most of the things we do wrong in life, because of our friends, because we don't want to look like a dope, we don't want to look different, we don't want to look like a jerk, and the girls are going to say this about me, and the boys are going to say this about me, and we don't want to be different. That's the whole problem with assimilation. We don't want to be different. Iago will even say, get me out of here. I don't want to be in the same wound with this guy. Get me out of here. Even if I'm learning to tell you with a mouth, get me out of here. So, what is a friend? Let's translate, what is a friend? Now, we all think we know who are our friends, and one of the worst things that a father, a mother, or a rabbi could ever say is, this kid is no good for you. I want to break up this friendship. That's the worst thing you could ever tell a kid, because then he hates you forever. What do you know? You've never had a friend like my friend. My friend, he'll die for me. He'll take a bullet for me. And you don't even know, you don't know what that means. Meanwhile, you're his father, and you're like, what? Wait a minute, I don't know. Your father will do anything for you. But he knows who his friends are. Now, why don't you read your story from the Avah's Chaim? It's a great satin. Maybe he had an idea a little bit about, maybe more than we understood what a friend really is. So he says like this. Pahmachat sayechat o'sheh nichmah. There was once a very rich man. And he was about to talk any year of Shemayim. And Baruch Hashem, he was married for 20 years. He had no children. And after 20 years, he finally had a child. I don't have to tell you how precious his child, his only child was to the appearance. But he was a rebelling child. And no matter how much his father spoke to him and told him to go the right way, he went the wrong way. As much as his father said, don't hang out with the wrong guys, he hung out with the wrong guys. No. So one day, he called him up, he says, I want to teach you a mission. The mission says like this. Amar amigam liya. Benayishe rabbi Yehuda anas. Amigam liya, the son of Rabbi Yehuda anas, he said this mission. He said, have you seen him? Be careful, don't get close to the government. She ain't had me cover the other middle of the circle and they only get close to you for their good.