Parshas Noach: Reshaping Destiny, Free Will, and Building Your Own Ark

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It's good to be back in the studio after an incredible benazmanim, a successful trip to Virginia, multiple yontif sudos, much Torah was consumed, much meat was consumed and I hope the same rejoicing and family and happiness was all internalized and inspired you to push through the winter until the next regal of Pesach comes along.

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Winter season is here and it presents the most incredible opportunity to make something of ourselves, to spend our time engaged in important, noteworthy pursuits.

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The elongated nighttime lends itself for the perfect opportunity to add a Havrusa study partner to your schedule, makes it the perfect time to catch up on some episodes, to start something big, something different, because the Lord knows that the Jewish people could use some zechusim.

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At this dangerous time, really for the Jews, what can we do to save the world?

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We can get down to business, press record and start learning and teaching Torah, parshas, noach, chapter six Pesach, yod Aleph and Yod Peis, An incredible yesoid brought to us by the holy Beis Alevi.

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It's one of those types of articles that, when you feast your eyes upon it or put your AirPods in and listen to an audio understanding of it, it can be one of those life-altering articles.

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To an audio understanding of it.

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It can be one of those life-altering articles Va'ti shoches ha'aretz lefnei ha'eloyim va'ti malei ha'aretz chamas.

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The earth became corrupt before Hashem.

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The earth was filled with lawlessness.

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Va'ti shoches ha'aretz lefnei ha'eloyim va'ti malei ha'aretz chamas the earth was filled with lawlessness.

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The earth became corrupt before Hashem.

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The earth was filled with lawlessness.

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Hashem saw the land.

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The earth was corrupt.

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This is, of course, the story of the flood Before the monsoon, the torrent that would erase all the wickedness from the face of the land, before Noah sends out the dove and the Tower of Babel is erected.

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Before we meet Avram Avinu, we have this Mabel episode and it all begins with that.

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God saw that the plan wasn't going so well.

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The earth was corrupted and the Beis Alevi, the great Rosh Yeshiva, lived from 1820 to 1892.

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You need to know all about the Beis Alevi, the godfather of the Brisker dynasty, one of the most famous Rosh Hashanah.

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He was the great grandson of Reb Chaim Valazhener and, after his incredible and well-renowned three-volume work of halachic responses, he took that brilliant mind and the unquenchable desire for Torah that his students and his cities that he governed, and took his unmatched genius of Drush and Agoda and Halacha and applied it to Sefer, bereshish and Shmos and gave us the Besalevi on Torah.

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The Beis Alevi ala Torah.

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His remarkable brilliant eye, his awesome mastery of the entire spectrum of all of Torah is at full display and it is an essential text for our Beis HaKashgafa and Parshas.

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Noach leads the way.

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The Bais Alevi inquires with a very high-octane question the earth became corrupt before Hashem and the land, the earth, it was corrupt.

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Okay, upon this Pesach, the Bais Alevi brings one of the most famous midrashim.

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Upon this Pesach, the Bais Levi brings one of the most famous Midrashim.

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Rashi also brings it.

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Reb Hazari, reb Hashem, reb Yehuda Bar Simon Omar, that during the times of the flood, hakol Kilkelum Aseim, everyone corrupted their actions.

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Hakeleb Hayahoylech Eitzel Azeiv.

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There was interbreeding.

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The dog would consort with the wolf.

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There was mixed dancing between the chicken and the peacock.

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All flesh corrupted itself.

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Corruption they would sow wheat and they would get barley.

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They would get different crops.

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Everything was a taruvus, a shatnis, all mixed up and corrupted, because all flesh, all basar, went astray.

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The Bais HaLevi brings Masech to Sanhedrin 108, kuf Ches Amad Aleph Ki Hitches Kol Basar Ezdarka Ala Aretam Rabi Yoichanon Malameh.

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This teaches us, explains the Pesach, that domesticated animals mated with undomesticated animals, male domesticated animals with female undomesticated animals and back and forth.

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And all male animals.

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So the world's a mess.

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Mixed breeding, mixed dancing everywhere.

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And basically he asks I don't get it.

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How can it be, ki ihishchis kol basar, that animals began to interbreed?

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Animals don't have free will.

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We just finished understanding from Parshas Pereshas that what makes a person human is his ability to choose, his ability to become a Rahm-e-Mallah.

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He has a spirit that he can have Bechira and select good.

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We aren't governed by our DNA and instinct.

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We are not in a fixed pattern of behavior.

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But we get to choose our own destiny and we shall choose wisely.

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But animals, they don't have that luxury.

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Whatever their genetic makeup is, whatever their instincts are, so it will be.

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How could it possibly be that an animal could choose a wolf to mate with a dog, a rooster with a chicken?

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They don't have Bechira.

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How could something that was not a part of their makeup in the way that Hashem set up the world now begin to happen?

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It's not in the playbook and it's frankly impossible.

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A powerful question.

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And for the base, how leave you the great Joseph dove there?

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Salovegic answers, because this is the way that Hashem arranged the world that when man acts in a certain way, he creates within himself certain impulses, he can make a bad habit become rooted in himself in a way that he can subdue, submerge certain normal free will tendencies that a human has.

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Through enough repeating of some poor behavior, you can change.

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Your impulses become more pulled towards the negative.

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Say Lushen Hara enough times, becomes a new craving, a new DNA, a new instinct to now go ahead and speak more Lashon Hara, choose not to care about what you put in your body and the consuming of non-kosher food, and eventually your instinct, your pattern of behavior becomes more swayed in that direction.

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The base of levy shows us from hoshea that your habits do not let you turn back to your God.

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Because of the lecherous impulse within you, you pay no heed to Hashem because you have a ruach, zenunim b'kirpam.

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You're stuck, your hands are tied in a straitjacket.

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Because of your previous and habitual sinning You've made yourself animal-like in that you've lost a bit of your DNA and lost a bit of your Bechira.

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So you're stuck that you now pay no heed to God and for repentance to happen you have to work that much harder to eradicate the poor previous behavior and now new habits.

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The base LAV then drops the bomb that how a person acts, how a person chooses to use his Bechira.

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The Almighty set up the world.

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That how you act alters the genetic makeup of the animals.

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You change Teva of the entire Berea.

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The world is Nimsh.

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Man will corrupt his ways.

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Man's impulses are sinful.

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That promotes the same reaction inside of the instincts of the wild animals and the cats and the dogs.

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Man literally has the world at his fingertips to influence the habits, the DNA, the instincts, the inatypically fixed pattern of behavior that animals follow.

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It now becomes changed based on how you act.

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As the Besalevi, you stand literally Birumo Shel Olam.

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Based on how you act as the Bais Alevi, you stand literally as the dictator over the animals.

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The Bais Alevi continues.

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If that's not enough, here's another nuclear or let's stay away from anything that has to do with that sort of reference but another incredible bomb.

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The base of the lady tells us that a hermit, somebody who's sitting alone inside of his basement, a recluse away from society and people, but sins privately or sanctifies God's name privately, he too still affects the world.

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It isn't about just acting in public, but even in the private sphere.

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The world is nimshech achar pu'ulosav and you change the temperament and impulses of the animals.

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This is how God arranged the world and set it up to run.

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But wait, there's more If you buy now, listen to this.

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The base of Levi says even the inanimate objects, those items not endowed with breath, with life, with spirit, those rocks and couches and basketballs that lack consciousness, power of motion and any sort of living, breathing life, they too become changed in their DNA based on how you act.

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I brought you to the land to enjoy its fruits and its bounty, but you came that titame es artsy and you defiled my land.

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You made my possessions abhorrent.

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Ve'nachalosi, samtan, l'tzei, eva.

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You made the world, you made the karka, you made the sand, the dirt, all now tainted, and built within it a new DNA of lust, of sinful tendency to not want to follow orders.

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The Mesa Levi tells us that you can even feel it, although we may not be able to understand it, or just walk into or drive into.

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Let's give this idea analogy, metaphor drive to Manhattan if you dare, and just see how immediately you become a New Yorker and feel the need to honk more.

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You want to cut people off and drive like a yellow taxi cab because there's a certain innate feeling in the air.

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I hope to never set foot in Sin City, las Vegas.

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But I can imagine those that go there can feel this firsthand that the land, the air it stinks like sin and they feel a certain DNA and impulse to sin.

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And so does the desert surrounding Nevada and Las Vegas and the couches inside of the casinos, wired to sin because of man's poor choices and how man elected to use his free will.

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An incredible, incredible einfall, an idea.

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You have to hear his golden words.

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Just like you change the lower world, even if you don't do it out in the open, that you would cause others that see you to learn from your horrible sins.

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But even if you're just you and yourself, through this you have now raised up the power of sin and lustfulness.

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Until now.

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It becomes rooted deep inside of the DNA and the nature, the instinct, because the way is the world is.

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It now becomes more drawn after that because it follows how you act.

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The Basel Levy uses this idea to seamlessly prove it and weave it into so many sources.

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The base of Levi uses this idea to seamlessly prove it and weave it into so many sources because with this new understanding we become a little bit more on the leash of certain sins that we may not know about Aqabu b'mahal al-loymer, stakil b'shlesh, edvarim v'yata, boli de'aveira, pirkay avos, perik gimel, pasik alef, that you should know.

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L'fneimi ata osid liten din v'chezben.

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In front of who you are going to give a din and a chezben?

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There is an accounting before God and then there's a reckoning before God, the Beis Alev.

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He tells us.

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It's clear as day, because now that we each have our own account accounting, of course we must pay for what we do, did or will do.

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But the cheshbin, that's how much you have influenced others.

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The hejbin is the weighing of the reckoning of how much you influenced, for the good or the negative, those that surround you.

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It is such a deeply poignant, powerful high octane, those that surround you.

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It is such a deeply poignant, powerful high octane and rather imposing idea.

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The first thing that we must take from here is just the power that you hold, that humans hold, that you hold and the people of the flood, the Dora Mabel.

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They squandered the power and used it against the world.

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How is it that it could be that wolves and dogs, animals and people, chickens and roosters will go mix dancing?

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Because when people choose to engage in lewd practices, engage in lustful, sinful behavior to such an extent that the whole world, the ground itself that cararka alayn, becomes toxic and it must be erased.

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The answer what did the righteous one do?

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One do?

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What can we do in this toxic environment that we live in, in a world where there are many engaging in some treacherous, sinful and lustful behavior, whether it be mostly Gentile but, god forbid, maybe even some Jews?

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How do we protect ourselves from the toxic virus that can infect even the stones?

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Mishlei, yod, tes, yod, migdal, oyshem, ashem, infect even the stones.

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The name of the Almighty is a tower of strength to which the righteous man runs and is safe.

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So at the Medrash, parshah Shlach and Bereshish Rabbba, right here on site, to who is this referring to?

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Who is the righteous man that runs to safety?

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That is Noah, just like it says, furthermore, in Mishlei 10.25.

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But when the storm passes, the wicked are gone, but the righteous are an everlasting fountain.

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Zeh noach by Yishalik.

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Like him, god went with noach.

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The wicked were overturned, that is the generation of the flood, but the house of the righteous will stand.

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This is noach, these are the offspring of noach, this is all Noah.

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He was the one who continued to propagate, promulgate the world, continued the human legacy Because he ran and built a Teva.

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He ran to the tower of Hashem.

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He built himself an ark and that's where the righteous man runs to safety.

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Our lesson here this week on the Weekly Parsha podcast is to make sure that we have a proper teva in order from the negative influences.

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It is to run to the mountain of Hashem when we're surrounded by the outer influences.

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When things like social media and TikTok and Instagram become now penetrating into the very homes of the Jewish youth, it's to make sure that proper filters are installed to make sure that the home is airtight and sealed from any sort of inappropriate magazine, to make sure that any sort of lustful, immoral, toxic virus that may infect the outer world does not creep into the gates of our homes.

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For kichizak b'richeshe'orayich b'rach, boinayich b'kirbeich.

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When one does this, when you make the bars of your gate strong, you will have blessed children.

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When you make for yourself a teva, just like Noach did, and you immerse yourself in the protective fences and the walls, the impenetrable steel and iron walls that keep out the toxic virus out there, by spending time in a teva like a shul, like a study hall, when you submerge yourself in a yeshiva, when you submerge yourself in the proper holy places.

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That's how migdal oyshem Hashem, that you run to the tower of strength.

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What can we do to stay safe out there?

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You build yourself an ark.

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If you want to be great, you try to go even further than Noah and act like Avram Avinu and get others to come inside of your holy ark.

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Encourage others to build their walls, because the Beis Alevi has given us this scary reality that the world follows how people act.

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We should choose to take the power into our hands and make the rocks holy and make couches holy and make our phones, our stamps, our keyboards, our water bottles holy, and to protect ourselves from the virus that, at the times of the flood, infected even the animals and the inanimate domain objects.

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Build for yourself a Teva, inanimate domeim objects.

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Build for yourself a teva.

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Make sure that the influences definitely do not get to you and you're on guard, but even doubly as important as to protect your youth, beirach, boinayich, be'kirbeich, and then your children will be blessed with the strengthening of your gates.

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So stay safe out there.

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Remember that Bais Halevi's advice, or his essay, the article on the reality of how man influences the entire world around him with the way that he acts and then follow the lead of the great Noach, who is Tamim Hayah B'day-Raisov.

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Stay safe out there.

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It can be a dangerous world.

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Build yourself a Teva, a holy ark.

Parshas Noach: Reshaping Destiny, Free Will, and Building Your Own Ark

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