Divine Providence in Jewish Tradition [Parsha In-Focus: Vayikra] 5784

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You are listening to Rabbi Arya, will be of torch in Houston, Texas.

This is the Parshah Review Podcast.

Welcome back everybody, welcome, welcome to the Parshah Infocus.

This week's Parshah is the beginning of the book of Leviticus, what an exceptional

Parshah, like every Parshah in the Torah, but it's a new book of the Torah.

Leviticus talks about the spirituality of the Jewish people.

If you remember, we talked about Genesis is the family of Israel, Exodus is the nation

of Israel, but Leviticus is very different.

Leviticus is talking about the trials, the tribulations, the preserving of our holy state.

Keeping ourselves holy.

So how does the book of Ayikra begin?

It begins Ayikra, which is a five-letter word of Yud Kufraish alif, but the alif is a tiny

little alif.

It's a small alif.

If you look in the Torah scroll, you'll see Ayikra with a small alif at the end.

You look in the chumish here, you'll see it as well with a small alif.

It's not the regular size of all the letters.

And the obvious question that everybody asks is why?

Why?

Why is there a small letter alif?

We know that there's nothing in the Torah that's there without a reason.

It's there for us to learn something from it.

So today we're going to focus on that letter alif, on why it is a small alif.

But if you look at the whole verse as a whole, it doesn't either make sense.

Look at the verse and let's read it together.

Ayikra, Shem al-Mosha.

And Hashem, where it says actually, and he called to Mosha,

Vayidabar, Hashem, I love, and Hashem spoke to him,

May oil moid laymore from the tent of meeting Seng.

Now, I don't know about you, but the way I would say this is that

and Hashem called Mosha from the tent of meeting Seng.

But instead, that's the thought it says.

It says, and he called to Mosha,

and Hashem spoke to him from the tent of meeting Seng.

We know there's not an extra word.

So what is really going on over here?

And then we have that small little alif.

So we know that Mosha wrote the Torah.

Mosha wrote it by the dictation from Hashem.

Hashem told Mosha what to write, and that's what Mosha wrote.

So Mosha hears what Hashem is telling him, and he says,

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Vayikra, Hashem al-Mosha, and Hashem called to Mosha.

He says, that would seem like it's arrogant.

But who am I, Mosha, a little Mosha,

to be called summoned by Hashem?

I'm a nobody.

Nobody else has summoned by Hashem, called by Hashem.

So Mosha says, you know what I'm going to do?

I'm going to change that word, not change the actual word,

but I'm going to make a small alif so it'll look Vayikra.

Vayikra means it happened to be.

They bumped into each other.

It just was a coincidence.

It was a coincidence. Vayikra, it's like Mikre,

it just happened to be, it happened stance.

I happened to be at the right place at the right time.

Mosha was so humble.

He didn't want it to look as if

being the one dictating what Hashem is writing,

that he's, oh, with pride, yeah, Hashem called on me, of course,

because I'm such a great hero.

I'm a great leader of the Jewish people,

the greatest prophet to ever live.

No, no, no, Mosha says, no.

Mosha was so humble, Vayikra, it happened to be.

It happened, we happened to bump into each other

at the tent of meeting.

And then if you read it, this is Vayikra, El Mosha.

It happened to be that they bumped into Mosha

and then it makes sense.

Vayikra, Hashem, I love it.

Hashem spoke to him.

It makes more sense.

It makes much more sense.

What are we supposed to learn from this?

Our say just tell us something fundamental.

We haven't spoken about this enough.

There's something called Hashgaha Pratit,

which means divine providence.

There is divine providence where God is engaged

with every single detail of our life.

Every single detail, nothing too big,

nothing too small for Hashem.

There's nothing, oh, Hashem doesn't really care about that.

And we're going to talk about this more

in our prayer podcast later today.

This is exactly the, we see the hand of Hashem

in every little detail.

There's no happenstance.

There is no such thing as it just happened to be.

It was a coincidence.

There ain't no coincidence.

There's no such thing as coincidence in Judaism.

In Judaism, it's there, God placed it there,

God placed you there in a specific situation.

Exactly for a reason that you may not understand,

that you may not know, that you may not even realize now,

that you may not ever appreciate.

You may not appreciate it forever.

Not realizing why Hashem put you in a specific situation.

So what's up the obligation for us to open our eyes

and see the hand of Hashem?

You didn't just by mistake meet somebody

in the supermarket.

You didn't, by mistake, just have a dream about a friend

and someone you didn't think about since 1973.

There's a reason for it.

There's no such thing as happens then.

And if you want to look, we're in middle of discussing

in our Jewish inspiration podcast,

we're doing the complete Bible crash course

and we just introduced book of Esther Part One.

Last week, tonight, God willing, we'll continue.

The book of Esther Part Two,

and we see how every single detail

was handcrafted by the Almighty.

Perfectly so that, as we'll see in chapters six through 10,

how it all comes together perfectly

to weave a fabric of redemption for the Jewish people.

Each, you see each little thread on its own

doesn't really do much.

Each little thread on its own doesn't do much.

But if you take a bunch of threads and weave it together,

then first as you can't just tear it like a single thread,

but also it becomes something beautiful together.

They all become one unit.

When you put together the thread of how a shem

needles through our life, every detail,

suddenly we see a whole tapestry,

which is gorgeous, which is a perfect picture,

which is designed handcrafted for us, handcrafted for us.

I want to give you two examples.

Number one is the book of Esther.

There's one detail, which I think is probably

the most insignificant detail, if you look at the McGillah,

but turns out to be the most miraculous one.

And that is that Mordechai discovers the two people,

the two guards of Ahashwerosh, the king,

who want to assassinate him.

And he overhears them speaking in a foreign language.

Now, how did he know that language?

He knew that language because he was a member of the Sanhedrin.

And as a member of the Sanhedrin,

you had to speak all 70 languages.

They spoke the language of Tarshish,

which is a very odd, obscure language,

which he understood because he was a member of the Sanhedrin.

And he reports it to the king's people,

and they foil the attack.

They hang these two collaborators,

and it's written in the book of Chronicles for Ahashwerosh.

And that's it, the story ends.

And the story continues with Heyman and Da-Da-Da-Da

with his whole plot to kill the Jews.

Okay, great.

But that little, it's probably only one verse,

which says that little detail, you know,

and he reported Big Son and Sarash,

who were trying to plot against the king.

Little, little microscopic detail.

But why is it there in the McGillah?

Because that same story is what saves the Jewish people.

Yes, it was also Esther.

Yes, but that one piece is later

when Ahashwerosh has a hard time sleeping

and they read his book of Chronicles,

and they'd say the story about Mordechai,

which by the way, the guards who were reading the Chronicles

to Ahashwerosh, the midrush tells us,

saw the story and they're like,

oh, let's go to the next story.

And it says that the angel came and turned the book back

to that story and they tried pushing it away again

and it goes back.

And one time after, another time after,

another time after, another time,

it keeps turning away.

And what happens?

The angels turn it back.

And King Ahashwerosh is getting frustrated.

He's saying, what's going on over here?

Just read the story.

Open up the book and read the story.

They're like, yeah, but the pages keep turning.

He says, just read what's in front of you.

And they read the story of Mordechai that saves the King's life.

And Mordechai and the King asks,

what's the reward that Mordechai got

that should be written in the book of Chronicles?

They said actually nothing.

There's already mean nothing.

We always give a reward for someone who helps the King.

He says, yeah, he asked for nothing.

He asked for nothing.

That was his request.

So we gave him nothing.

He says, yeah, but that's not proper.

So what happens a minute later,

Haman comes in, Haman comes to give this new plan

of how we're going to get rid of Mordechai

and the Jewish people and we're going to hang him

on this tall gallows that we prepared.

He doesn't even get a chance to open his mouth.

And what happens?

Ahashwerosh says, oh, my top advisor,

let me ask you a question.

What should I do for someone who's really precious to me?

Aishin, Mordechai says in his mind,

and this is what's written in the Miggilla,

Haman says in his mind, and again, yes,

this is written in our Miggilla, every word of this.

He says who can the King one or honor more than me?

Nobody.

So he starts thinking of all of the grandeur

and all of the greatness and all of the magnificent honor

that's going to be bestowed upon him.

And he goes on, imagine like if the president says,

listen, for the goodness that you've done for everything

that you've done, and I want to award you

with anything that you dream.

Like you start, okay, like where do we start?

Okay, I want my vacation home, right?

I want the new cyber truck.

And then you start thinking and imagining

all of the great things that you want

because it's an open account.

Haman does that, but it's not going to him.

He doesn't realize that.

It's going to his nemesis to Mordechai.

It's all going to go to Mordechai.

Everything that he wanted for himself, no, no, no, no.

The Al-Tapel Dover, and don't omit one thing,

Akhashwerosh says, the King says,

give all of that to Mordechai.

He says, Mordechai, what are you talking about?

Mordechai doesn't like this stuff.

He's a godly, a godly person.

He doesn't want physical, materialistic stuff.

He says, do everything as you said

without omitting a single thing.

And that's the beginning of the downfall of Haman.

It's a little fact.

It's a little piece of information,

but so incredibly vital to the story

of the redemption of the Jewish people.

Because otherwise, his suggestion

that evening would have been,

let's hang Mordechai and the Jews.

And then it's all over, the party's over.

But there was gonna be a distraction here.

The distraction that was handcrafted

by the Almighty placed in perfect,

in perfect position, perfect timing.

But you know who that story happens to every single day?

To each and every one of us.

We have that little story every single day.

You remember why you left your car keys there?

I had no idea, but then I realized

that I left something on the oven

when I went back to get my keys.

And it's like,

Hashem puts things

in a perfect place for us in our lives.

There's divine providence every single day.

And it's up to us whether we're gonna open our eyes

and recognize it, whether we're going to see it,

whether we're going to identify,

I'll give you one more example.

The greatest story ever told in Jewish history.

And that's the splitting of the sea.

Splitting of the sea.

What happened in the splitting of the sea?

So we know that there were three different types

of Egyptians.

There were the really, really wicked ones.

There were those who were in, in between,

and those who were a little bit more righteous,

but everyone was evil.

But there were the different levels.

Now, they all got punished with the same punishment.

But the way in which that punishment

was needed out to them was a little bit different,

depending on their righteousness, or lack thereof.

And if you look, the verses that we recite every day

in us, Yashir, in our prayer, in our verses of song,

at the end of it, we say the verses from Exodus

that talk about the Jewish people in the splitting

of the sea and the song that they sang to the Almighty.

There were three different types of punishments.

They all drowned.

But there was a different type of drowning.

All right?

It says, there were some who would sell a luko of Ferris.

Sell a luko of Ferris means that they

sank like lead and water.

What happens when you put lead and water?

Drops right down to the bottom.

Those are the righteous ones.

There were those who were punished by Yochlemo Kakash,

which is they were like wheat, like straw.

They were consumed like straw.

What happens if you put straw in water?

Washes from side to side, because it's so light.

It gets blown back and forth and back and forth.

And then there were others that were Ka'aven.

They were like a stone.

So you have three different types of punishments

for three different categories of Egyptians.

They're all getting the same punishment at the end.

They're all dead in the water, literally.

But a different type of dead in the water.

One is going to get shook up, like straw in water.

Can't find its place.

It gets blown back and forth by the waves.

It goes here, goes there, goes everywhere.

Imagine that's people.

Some that drop like lead, boom, done,

and others that are like a rock.

You know why?

Because even in punishment, there's divine providence.

Hashem has a score with each and every individual.

Why don't I get like that person?

Why don't I get like this person?

We're all asking, oh, look at them.

They married up, look at them.

They married down, look at them.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

Everybody has an account.

Everybody has an account.

We have to recognize this.

Each and every one of us, we have an account with the Almighty.

And Hashem gives us exactly what we deserve

to the good and to the not so good.

Each and every one of us,

and that's when we realize this, what does it lead us to?

Or say, just tell us, it leads us to truva.

It leads us to repentance.

When we realize that everything that we do,

that everything that we do is a response

from the Almighty to how we conduct our lives.

So what happens?

Ah, we realize one second.

I did something wrong.

I got something wrong.

Now I got to correct my ways.

I got to correct my ways and go in the right path.

You know, my great grandfather would say

that today we don't have prophecy.

So what do we have?

We have pain.

Pain is the most potent prophet ever.

It tells you a message.

My great grandfather in his book writes

that when someone hits their head, they stop their toe,

the thought should be, what did I do wrong with my head?

What did I do wrong with my toe?

What, I hurt my finger.

Well, what did I not do right with my finger?

I hurt my leg.

What did I not do right with my leg?

It's a message, Hashem is sending us a message.

If we live in a world of oblivion,

if we live in a world where, well,

do things just happen?

Bad luck, no such thing.

There's no such thing.

In Judaism, we believe that there's Hashgah,

there's divine providence for every single thing

that occurs in our lives.

And therefore it's important for us to look

into what happens every single day

and see the hand of Hashem.

Because when you see the hand of Hashem,

we will aspire constantly

to have a greater relationship with Hashem.

Moshe recognized this.

And he wrote to the Yikra Hashem al-Moshe,

Hashem called to Moshe.

He wanted it to be that it was just like it happened to be

because he didn't want to be arrogant,

but it still says the right thing, God called him.

You can make believe all day that it's a happenstance,

but it's not.

Hashem puts you there in that place at that moment,

at that time, because you're the one, God wants there.

For you, my dear friends,

I think this is such a vital lesson

for every single day of our lives,

to talk about this with ourselves, with our spouses,

with our children, with our grandchildren,

to remind ourselves every single day

that Hashem is active in everything that goes on.

Hashem doesn't sleep, Hashem doesn't slumber,

Hashem doesn't take a vacation.

Hashem is active just like the sun rises every day.

The sun doesn't, imagine what would happen,

the chaos that would happen in the world,

if the sun one morning decided.

You know, what time is sunrise today?

6.53, I'm gonna be a few minutes late

because I'm on a coffee break then, right?

I have lunch break, and I'm just gonna be, you know,

7.25, I'm gonna decide to rise, that doesn't work.

Hashem's world is order.

Hashem's world is just, is structured.

Hashem's world is kind.

My dear friends, have an amazing shoppers

and always know that Hashem is with us every single day.

One minute of the day.

Good job.

Just to clarify, what's the difference between,

it's a great question.

What's the difference between a stone and lead?

So if you look at the verse, the verse says,

Kimmo Evan Bemayemazim like a stone

into turbulent water.

The stone doesn't go down like lead.

Lead, boom, direct, direct hit.

It drops right down to the bottom of the water.

Stone can be pushed away, especially when it's turbulent water.

And then of course, we have the third category,

which is the straw, which gets blown around.

And each one of these represent again,

the different levels of wickedness

that the Egyptians were getting repaid for by the Almighty.

By the way, if you go down to the bottom of the sea of reads,

you know what you'll see there?

You'll see the chariots.

It's still there because the verse says,

the verse says it will be there till this very day.

And divers have gone down and there's a museum,

the Jewish Heritage Museum in New York

has an actual chariot that paid over a million dollars

for the wheel that was brought from the Dead Sea.

Not from the Dead Sea, from the sea of reads,

where the sea was split.

That divers go down there

and they took out one of those chariots.

It's an incredible, incredible thing

to have an actual proof of the truth,

the authenticity of the Torah.

It's amazing.

Great question.

Thank you, Rabbi.

I understand there's a fundraiser going on.

Why would listeners want to donate to torch

versus other organizations?

So a very, very good question, very valid question.

I want to tell you something like this, okay?

Torch is here for one reason.

Torch is here to share the word of Torah with the world.

Any one of you listeners out there listening on a podcast,

listening in a video, last year alone,

our videos grew, our video exposure grew 295%.

If I told you that there was an investment

in the stock market that is going to grow 295%,

everyone would invest.

I am telling you, my dear listeners,

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Our podcast, there are many podcasts that grew

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This is a great investment.

I really believe so.

I really feel this in my bones.

I know myself that I keep a very meticulous log

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Last year in 2025, we published 1,092 videos.

I don't know about you, but I think that's a lot of videos.

Bor Hashem.

To me, it's an exceptional privilege

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Right, what would happen to the temple?

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I'm ready to do the same.

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Givetorch.net.

Givetorch.net.

Thank you, Mark.

I appreciate your question.

Now, I want to talk about giving to torch, okay?

We are so blessed that God has given us.

And it's not just for us, it's for the whole world.

As a matter of fact, our choice being chosen

is to be a light to the nations,

bring Torah to everyone, okay?

They don't have to all do the commandments.

But this is, as you have often said,

the owner's manual for living.

And for those of us who grew up at a time

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Now, there's a little bit here, a little bit there.

I am so grateful that I get to come here four times a week.

But more importantly, as a good friend of mine once said,

if you could learn everything from a video or a book,

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And here at Torch, not only can you come and participate,

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we take people on Zoom who ask questions.

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So studying Torch is like trying to eat an elephant.

You do it one bite at a time.

How do you learn Torah one bite at a time?

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You go to some places every single week.

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Thank you for letting me speak.

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