Prayer Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

00:00 - Intro (Announcement)
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe from TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. This is the Prayer Podcast.

00:10 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Welcome back everybody to the Prayer Podcast. It's so wonderful to be here.

00:14
Previously, we talked about the introduction to prayer, we spoke about modeh ani. We spoke about reshes chachma the beginning waking up, starting our day. We spoke about the blessing of al netil ha the beginning waking up, starting our day. We spoke about the blessing of Al Netilas Yedayim, washing our hands, and now we're going to do episode four in the blessing of Asher Yitzhar.

00:37
Asher Yitzhar is a very, very important blessing, because this is a blessing that we recite every time we leave the restroom, every time we are blessed with the ability to relieve ourselves. We have this special blessing to recite and to thank Hashem. It's a very powerful blessing and, my dear friends, first we're going to read it in Hebrew and then we'll read it in English. In English, blessed are you, hashem, our God, king of the Universe, who formed man with wisdom and created within him openings and passageways, cavities and hollows. It is revealed and known before your throne of glory that if one of these cavities were ruptured or one of these openings were obstructed, it would be impossible to exist or to stand before you for even a single moment. Blessed are you, hashem, healer of all flesh, worker of wonders. My dear friends, this powerful blessing is really, really an incredible, an incredible fusion of the spiritual soul and the physical body. You see, asher Yatzer, this blessing is praising Hashem for the physical body that works so perfectly. But the next blessing that we're going to talk about next week, elokein Neshama, is talking about the spiritual soul that is infused into that body and they work in tandem. They work so perfectly together the soul, the spirit that's within us, locked inside our physical body. There's a coexistence between the physical and spiritual in our bodies. We know from this verse, from this prayer Asher Yotzar is based on Genesis 2, verse 7, where God created man. Asher Yotzar, esa Adam. God created man. Asher Yotzar Es Ha'adam, god created man. We don't believe in evolution. We didn't come from the apes or the monkeys and we didn't come any other way aside for being crafted by the hand of Hashem and boy. Human beings are a magnificent creation, an absolutely magnificent creation, the miracle of the human body, of how the body operates so perfectly.

03:53
I'll tell you that when I took my EMT course and became an EMT, I was in tears when I heard the lecture. It was an audio recording reading from the book, or this big fat book teaching us about the different organs of the body, and it was talking about the lungs and how there's something called perfusion right, and how the oxygen that we take in goes into our lungs and the blood that's deoxygenated, that has all of the carbon dioxide, goes into the lungs as well, and there's a switch where now the blood gets oxygenated and the deoxygenation, the carbon dioxide, comes out when we breathe out. And it's an unbelievable miracle. And the person reading this lecture, this audio recording, says and we don't know how this works, we have no idea how this happens. I was really moved. You imagine the humility of understanding that we don't know how the human body works? We really do not. The miracle that is imbued within each and every one of us is just so magnificent. Every single function in our body is a complete and total miracle. Mankind, we say Es Ha'adam, all of mankind God created. But we all know that all creations are a miracle, are creation of Hashem, but they're not the same. It's not the same as man, because man can elevate and attain unbelievable levels of greatness. We can think deep thoughts. We can overcome bad habits. We can improve our character.

05:55
It's very interesting that animals is called the behemah. An animal is called the behemah in Hebrew, that's two words combined together Ba-ma In. It is everything that is in it, meaning when it's born. It is born with everything already pre-installed Pre-installed. It comes as a pre-installed file, so to speak. It's all set and ready to go and that's it. It can't really change. You can't really. It's nature, is its nature, it is who it is and that's it.

06:34
Take a baby, that cat. The cat knows. It starts walking right when it's born. It walks to the end of the rooftop, it looks down this is not a good idea turns around, walks away.

06:43
What's about a baby? A baby, a minute old, can't walk, can't talk, can hardly suckle. It needs to learn everything. Everything needs to be trained, everything needs to be a process. Why? Because Adam, mankind is like Adama, like the earth. You don't just go and find rose bushes in the middle of the field. Someone had to plant it there, someone had to put it there. You don't just see vineyards growing in the middle of wasteland. Someone had to intentionally do it.

07:21
Mankind, we are learning organisms. We have wisdom that we need to attain, acquire and change the way in which we operate. We grow in our intellect, not the same way as animals do. We have to thank Hashem for the complex human body that he has gifted us with. You know, I did a search this morning on Google and asked Google how many cells are in the human body. Now, obviously Google doesn't know and most of the world of medicine doesn't know, but the number, as Google said to me this morning, at current estimates is over 30 trillion cells, 30 trillion cells in our body. You know what a miracle that is. For everything to go right, for us to be able to operate and function as normal human beings, 30 trillion cells need to work right. It's also amazing. Our sages tell us.

08:32
We say God created man with wisdom, incredible wisdom. Do you know that 50% of mankind does not grow a beard? Men grow beards, women do not. How does that happen? Because Hashem instilled within mankind this incredible wisdom into our bodies. It's not random that, oh, it happens to be that the 50% was the right. 50% that has a beard, right? No, hashem knew that it would be unattractive for women to have beards. Hashem, in His wisdom, made it that women don't have beards. I know this could be a touchy subject for some about what is a man, what is a woman. We're not going to get into that. Hashem made it very clear. Hashem created man and woman. Look in Genesis, the beginning of the Torah, god created two genders, male and female. That's it, okay.

09:36
There are 248 organs, 365 sinews paralleling our spiritual organs, each one of these. By the way, there are also 248 positive, performative commandments and 365 prohibitions. Each one of our organs and sinews are corresponding to another spiritual mitzvah Uvaravo nikavim, nikavim, halulim, halulim. You know that we have hollow organs, like the nostrils, the mouth, the bladder, the bowels, the intestines, the stomach, the esophagus, and then we have solid organs like the liver, the pancreas, the gallbladder, the spleen, the kidneys. It's an amazing miracle how our body functions Some hollow, some solid, and each does its job.

10:30
Imagine if you took a balloon. A balloon is filled with air and you punctured a little hole into that balloon. What would happen to what's inside it? Boom, gone, gone. Our body is that balloon and we're infused with a spiritual, lofty, holy soul called the Neshama. You know what happens? We have pores, we have holes all over our body and the soul doesn't disappear. The soul doesn't disappear. It doesn't disappear, it doesn't right why. It's Hashem's wisdom that he has instilled into our body, into this creation. With a puncture, it would let out all the air from that balloon. Our neshama doesn't depart through our pores or through our openings.

11:24
Additionally, the foul odor doesn't exude from man because of what's in him, we know. We go to the restroom. Perhaps there can be a foul odor. We don't smell that foul odor when it's within us. Hashem, there's a wisdom here, there's a brilliance. Now it's clear to all we say it's clear to all that we could not survive. We could not survive. We could not survive without Hashem's say-so. We can't just survive. It's impossible for us to exist without the miracles of Hashem. We gave this example earlier today. We're going to give this example again.

12:11
Imagine you come out of your house in the morning and you see that your car has a huge, huge dent on the side of the car. You run inside, you go to your spouse and you say, oh, did you see what happened to my car? Look, look at this huge dent. You come outside and the dent is gone One second. You're not halluc. The dent is gone One second. You're not hallucinating, you're not imagining things. But it healed itself. You'd be like, wow, what type of car is this that it heals itself? But guess what? The human body heals itself. You get a scratch. You come back a week later it healed. How did it heal? Do you know that when someone has an infection, the body sends resources to heal that infection First, to block it off so it doesn't reach other areas?

13:05
I mentioned the story of my daughter was hospitalized. She had an appendectomy. Her appendix was removed. She's very young, she was 20 months old only. We took her to the doctor first and the doctor said it was an ear infection. Put her on antibiotics. And my wife, that motherly instinct. She says no, no, it doesn't sound right, it's not an ear infection. She says no's not, it's an ear infection. You know, mothers don't really know. And just give her the medicine. It's fine. The doctor said right.

13:37
So a few days later my wife calls the office again. She says listen, she's not eating, she's not drinking, she's not sleeping normally, she's uncomfortable, her stomach is bothering her. What's going on? No, it's probably just the antibiotics can be rough on the stomach sometimes. You know my wife's like no, no, no, I don't think it's an ear infection.

13:54
We come back in and the doctor checks the ears and says, yeah, it's a little bit better, but it's probably just the antibiotics and you know we'll give you a different antibiotic. My wife is like, please, I'm telling you, I think there's something else. They send us up the road. We get x-rays. Everything comes back clear that night.

14:14
Zahava wakes me up in the middle of the night and she's like something is wrong. We need to go to the hospital. We go to the hospital and, sure enough, they do an ultrasound and they say she has a completely ruptured appendix, with abscess, which is infection in the internals. And it's like, wow, what are we going to do? It turns out listen to the miracle here that the mistaken medicine that they gave, the antibiotics, ended up fighting and protecting that infection and containing it to stay right there and not to spread to other areas. An unbelievable thing, what we don't realize. So we say, oh, doctors make mistakes, hashem doesn't, and Hashem was sending the heal, the protection, before he sent the.

15:05
It's an amazing thing how the human body works. You get a bump, you fall and suddenly you're swollen. What is that swelling? That's the body sending resources to help heal the weak part of the body.

15:22
I remember that I was once in Israel playing baseball on a grass field and I was rounding second base and I slipped and fractured my shoulder, my left shoulder, and I had to go in and use what are you going to do? You can't cast the left shoulder. Yeah, you can't cast any shoulder unless you cast the whole body. You're like what are you going to do? Like you can't do that. Either way, I learned to appreciate how important and I'm a righty how important my left hand is. You don't realize how much you use your left hand to contrast the right hand or to hold things.

15:55
Try to cut hollow just with one hand. Good luck Doesn't work. Try to take a shower with only one hand. It's very difficult, especially if you're used to and you're accustomed to using the great gift of two hands. But the body has something which is really amazing. It's called homeostasis. Homeostasis, as defined by Google, is a self-regulating process by which biological systems maintain stability while adjusting to changing external conditions. Meaning while adjusting to changing external conditions. Meaning when your body realizes that you're catching a cold, he starts sending resources to keep you balanced, to keep you leveled. You need more resources here, more resources there. Your body is constantly trying to keep a homeostasis, to keep your body leveled and balanced so that you're not sick, so nothing goes out of whack.

16:58
We gave an example that MLB and all of these sports, we're all spectators here. But those who we ever wonder, like why is he taking that pitcher out of the game? He was pitching fine till now. Why did they take out the quarterback and why did they call that play? Well, they use a lot of statistics and they use a lot of probability and they know, based on these algorithms and these systems, that it's likely that this hitter will hit a home run now or whatever, and they try to. That's how they play a lot with those probabilities. With our bodies, we don't have the ability to play guessing games. Everything must go right. All 30 trillion cells need to work right.

17:51
Sheim yipaseach echad mehem, oy yisaseim echad mehem. If any of them were to be ruptured or if any of them would be obstructed, it would be impossible to survive before you for even one moment. A baby in utero an incredible thing. A baby in utero. Its mouth is shut and its navel is open. It takes in all its nutrients through the navel, but its mouth is sealed shut. What happens? The minute it's born. The navel closes and the mouth opens. It's such an incredible miracle. Everything is reversed.

18:32
Do you remember a day when you were sick, how fragile you were? They say that nobody can understand a woman who has a baby without an epidural, except for a man who catches a cold. They fall apart. A man catches a cold, they fall apart. The whole world is like you know. But remember the day that you were sick? How fragile were we? Suddenly, it's so difficult for us to see. Light is bothering us, noise, different things. We become irrational. Sometimes Just a little bit of out of sequence, one little thing goes off. So I don't think the whole system goes wacko. You know, the 787 Dreamliner costs $239, the Boeing $239 million, a quarter of a billion dollars. Yet the knobs that they used to control this machine cost about $50. $50. It's unbelievable Such an expensive machine and those knobs that they use in that room, just the knobs, the little plastic knobs, the little plastic things that they're using.

20:05
We have to understand that our soul is a lofty soul. Our soul is a really expensive device because this is what we call chalek elokam imal. It's a godly device. It's part of, so to speak, god doesn't have pieces, but it's a part of God, our soul. And what's it? Encased in A flimsy body, a little body. We have a responsibility, we have an obligation.

20:37
The Torah requires us that you shall protect your soul. What does that mean? Protect your body that encases your soul. That means we need to do the exercise that's necessary, we need to eat healthy as necessary. We need to do what's necessary to maintain a healthy body, because if something goes wrong, we cannot survive a healthy body. Because if something goes wrong, we cannot survive before you for even one moment.

21:10
And there are some opinions who say that we don't add those last three words of even one moment, because if your kidneys fail, if your liver fails, you can still live for a little bit. So some opinions hold that we should not add those three words. I personally feel very, very closely connected with those three words, because I feel that everything we have is a miracle and God can turn it off in a second. And if, in one second, god decides that someone's heart stops even one instant, it's all over. Someone doesn't get proper oxygen to their brain, it's over. So our custom is to say even for one moment.

21:58
We can't survive without a perfect body functioning. We must learn to nourish the physical body, while we still have a soul within us. We have a soul, a very, very precious soul. Where is it being housed? In our physical body? We are a fusion of these two worlds, a physical world and a spiritual world that are encased together. It's a responsibility, by the way, it says that in the world to come, what's going to be In the time of resurrection, the body and the soul are going to be reunited. Why? Because who should get the reward? The soul, well, the body says very nice, mr Soul, you did so many mitzvahs, but who woke up and got out of bed to go do those mitzvahs? Who is the one who worked hard, late at night, being all tired and everything, so that you can give that charity? It's not just you, mr Soul, it's also me, mr Body, and therefore the body and the soul are reunited to receive that reward.

23:16
It's a very important thing. Our spiritual capabilities are dependent on our physical well-being and we have to do everything we can to ensure that we are healthy. The body and the soul have a partnership. It's not only a physical partnership here in this world, but also in our daily activities, but also we have to realize the responsibility, that the things we do. You give charity. It's not just a physical act. You're giving with your hand, it's a spiritual act. You're praying. It's not only a spiritual act, it's a physical act. You know, the Talmud tells us that prayer is a service of the heart, so it's an internal service.

24:02
No, that's why, if you ever see in shul, people shuckle, people shake back and forth, why Kol atzmo say to marna Hashem, miko mocha, that all of my bones shall say Hashem, who is like you, that means we have to involve our body in our prayer as well. When we say Kaddosh, kaddosh, kaddosh, we get on our tippy toes, our whole body jumps, because it's not just our spiritual senses that are connecting with the Almighty, we're involving our physical senses. And then we conclude the blessing of Baruch HaTah Hashem, blessed are you. Hashem. Rophei Chol Basar, god heals all flesh, umafli flesh, and does incredible wonders. The Talmud says that a bowel movement is like the pleasure of the world to come, that our body can sustain itself and can function properly, that we get rid of the sewage and we're able to preserve a cleanly body, that we're able to be clean.

25:16
Now, if you were to take the best surgeon from 100 years ago, from 1924, and brought him into a modern 2024 surgery operating room. He wouldn't know what to do. Look at the best doctor in 1924, the best doctor from the best university, from the best training. He wouldn't know what to do in a 2024 operating room. You think we know about medicine today. I've asked, I've asked doctors, eye doctors, I've asked endocrinologists, I've asked ENTs. I've asked many doctors, skin doctors, dermatologists. I said tell me how much do you really understand in medicine? Psychologists, tell me how much do you really understand in medicine.

26:04
And those who are truthful and honest will say we don't really know anything. We think we know. We're playing around, playing God, so to speak. We know what we're doing. We really don't know what we're doing. I know it's not comforting knowing we go to a doctor thinking they know what they're doing, but the truth is that the brilliance we haven't even touched, I believe, not even 1% of the brilliance of the human body, not even 1%. I don't think we've touched on To understand how a cell works. We're doing unbelievable research. We're trying to find, but even look.

26:41
The most common medication today is Motrin, advil, tylenol, acetaminophen or right. Look at the label, look at what it says, look what the risks are careful, because you might become blind, you might become deaf, you might die, you might kill yourself, you might all of the things that might happen. You might lose your kidney, you might damage your liver, you might this. Why, if it's so simple, we have medicine, understood you shouldn't have a single side effect. But we don't. It's trial and error. We tried it and 98% of people took away their headaches. So we assume that it works on you. If it doesn't just be careful for your liver, I mean we really don't understand.

27:28
I'd like to end off with a story that is written in Samuel 1, chapter 4, verse 5, and continues all the way to chapter 7, verse 21. Absolutely remarkable story that is written about what happened after Eli HaKohen the great Kohen died. The Philistines thought that they had an opportunity to attack the Jewish people, and they had won opportunity to attack the Jewish people and they had won a victory against the Jewish people, in which the Aron HaKodesh, the great ark, was captured and kept in the Philistines' possession for seven months. While the Aron HaKodesh was in their possession, the Almighty afflicted the Philistines with a plague of the swelling of the lower bowel, resulting in hemorrhoids protruding from their bodies, the tissue of which subsequently decayed. While they were asleep, mice would come and gnaw at the decaying matter.

28:32
This is all written in our Torah, in our prophets, the Philistines recognizing that this widespread epidemic was a result of their having taken the Ark, the Holy Ark, from the Jewish people, they decided to return it, together with an appeasement offering to the Jewish God. This gift was so strange that, were it not in Tanakh, it would be extremely distasteful to describe. It consists of five golden molds of hemorrhoids and five golden mice corresponding to the five molds of hemorrhoids. These offerings were placed in the ark next to the Aron HaKodesh and returned to the Jewish people. Astonishingly, these gifts were not only accepted by the Jewish people, but were permanently placed next to the Aron HaKodesh, next to the Ark in the Kodesh HaKodeshim, in the Holy of Holies. In fact, the Talmud in Yoma 52b says that this box containing its objects will be returned in the future to the Jewish people in our third temple, together with the other temple vessels.

29:54
According to one opinion, the original sapphire tablets from Moshe, written by Moshe, was placed on top of the box, being replaced by those gifts from the Philistines, our holy object, our Sefer Torah, dedicated by the Almighty and written by Moshe. The source of the entire written Torah, which was kept in the holiest place, the Kodesh HaKadoshim, the Holy of Holies, rested on top of the box which contained these base objects. This unlikely combination of objects was permanently placed in the Kodesh HaKadoshim, the Holy of Holies, as an illustration of the makeup of human being, a combination of pure spirituality, the neshama, bound together with the mundane physical body, which will eventually decay and rot. So, in the Holy of Holies, lefnechi sechi vodecha, like we say in this prayer, what do we have? We have this beautiful fusion of the physical and the spiritual. It's teaching us that our lives cannot be physically indulging lives. It cannot be committed to just physicality. It needs to be.

31:16
By the way, this was brought from Rabbi Schwab on prayer. When I was preparing, I saw this. I said I have to read this. It's unbelievable. You wouldn't believe me if I told you this.

31:26
This prayer is the prayer that we recite every single time we relieve ourselves. We come out of the bathroom, we wash our hands and we recite this incredible blessing. And you know what the reward is for this. Our sages tell us that the proper recitation of Asher Yatzar is a huge blessing, a huge omen for one to have incredibly good health. You want good health. Focus on this prayer. Focus on this prayer to have proper intention, to have proper focus. Don't just read the words. Practice. Learn the words in English, learn the words in Hebrew. Make it part of your life, because the more we're able to appreciate the gifts from the Almighty, the more Hashem will continue to bestow the goodness upon us. My dear friends, hashem should bless each and every one of us with unbelievable health, with unbelievable health, with unbelievable success and unbelievable abilities to infuse our physical, mundane lives with tremendous spirituality and holiness so that together, the body, the soul, can be troopers, servants, proper servants of Hashem every single day of our lives. Amen.