Why did they push the screen up for you? Someone told you Americans were here, how do you know? I think there was probably an explosion, and in that explosion, following that explosion, after all, what is a bottle? A bottle is sand. Melted sand. What is glass made from? From melted sea sand. There was probably a tremendous explosion here, and that explosion created some sort of reality, this sort of shard, a shard of glass. That is probably what you see here. After all, no one would ever conceive of such a thing, and if someone said such a thing, they would treat him as a fool and an idiot. What, don't you see that this is part of a bottle? Don't you see the writing and the Coca Cola logo on it? Don't you see the... What, impossible, I am telling you, no, no, no. Check it, all the materials you find on this bottle, put them in a laboratory, they exist on the moon too. Why can't it be that this happened on its own? No one would ever conceive of such a thing.
And if we found a complete cup, surely no one would conceive that such a thing formed on its own. And if we found something more complex, not a cup, something a bit more complex than a cup, if we found some electronic device, if we found something in which you see wisdom in its creation, surely no one would conceive that it formed on its own. In explosions there suddenly formed some electrical circuit that created a car key remote. Alright? I am telling you about a primitive product, I am not talking about a cellphone. A car remote. What happened? Impossible. There are deposits of minerals there and also rubber and this and whatever you want, anything is possible. After all, no one would conceive of such a thing. Why? The reason is simple, when you see a planned thing, that means it has a planner. You cannot argue against this proof.
When you look at the human body, it is the most planned invention that can possibly be in creation. There cannot be such tremendous wisdom in the human body, and they still have not finished studying it. They have not yet finished studying it, the harmony that exists in the functioning of the human body. And once we spoke about this at length, just external matters, just a person looking at how he is built, in what form he is built. Our eye is inside a socket, because woe unto us if it were on the outside, what would a slight injury do to it. We have brows above our eyes, so that if we sweat, the salt does not get into our eyes. And the eye also catches dust, so there is a mechanism that cleans it every so often. In short, look at your body, see how much divine wisdom there is in it. We once spoke about fingernails, if the nail were only on the other side of the finger. Can you picture what your life would look like? All the women who put nails on top, put them underneath. Imagine how our lives would change, you would not even be able to turn a page. If we had a bit more moisture in our hands, a bit less moisture too, all the actions that are so standard today, you would not be able to do, you would pick up an object, it would stick, you would not manage to release it from your hand, it would stick to you. And so on, think how much divine wisdom, and I have not yet gotten into DNA and its complexity, and the internal organs, in what harmony they work, and the ability of the human body to repel all sorts of harmful things and all sorts of battles against all sorts of microbes from outside, we have not yet gotten into all that. Well, this is a tremendous proof that someone planned this. Where did this machine come from? What explosion created such a machine? An explosion does not create a shard of a cola bottle, so an explosion will create a human being?
Someone once asked a certain Bedouin, someone said to him, what, how, he said the Big Bang, he said to him, an explosion. So he said to him, if I saw your hand stuck in your head, and your leg coming out of your cheek, and your ear located in your knee, I would say, listen, there was surely an explosion here. But when I see you standing like this, so orderly, so beautiful, I say, what explosion? What explosion produces such things? How many explosions would you carry out to produce such a thing? Surely this is inconceivable. The Malbim says, this is the second proof. The second proof: when you see a thing that is arranged and ordered, you are forced to say that someone arranged it, and it is impossible to think of the reality without someone having arranged such an ordered thing. And after you must say that this reality is ordered by someone, it is impossible that the one who ordered it is not eternal, that He is not a being of tremendous power outside of reality. For if I see someone who created a reality, that means He is higher than the reality. That is, who is wiser, the person or the computer he created? Surely the person. The computer is a golem. There are many things that scientists today have already concluded cannot be taught to a computer. Intuition. How, you can input data into a computer, you can let it choose, select between options, but intuition, emotion, how do you input that into a computer? And so on in this vein. Translations, it will take light years until they give a computer a book and it will know how to translate it the way a human is capable of translating a book. Have you ever seen a document translated by a computer? You need a lot, a lot, a lot of guessing ability to understand what it meant to translate. After all, the word chevel I can translate in four ways. How much wisdom the computer needs to know in what sense the chevel written here was written. And also the word tzir, and also the... and many more words, I can write them in many senses. And there are words that are written only as an allegory and not in that literal meaning, but rather more in a poetic meaning and so on in this vein. To teach a computer to write is one thing, to translate is very complicated. So the one who created the computer is surely wiser than it. The one who created man, is He not wiser than man? Surely He is a separate entity, wise and exalted far more than everything you see here in creation. And as we said earlier, this also forces that He must be unique, for if not, then who created Him? So in fact I can prove to all those, all those proofs through what I see, that the world is ordered, I can arrive at all those conclusions that there is One who is eternal and that there is none besides Him.
Now let us explain the pesukim. This is what he says here: "Who is like Me, let him proclaim." Whoever claims to be a god like Me, I will ask him, first, "and let him declare it to Me, since I appointed the ancient people." Let him tell Me, from what you see and what is clear to you, from My appointing the ancient people, from the existence of the world and the nation within it, it is necessary that there is no other power besides Him, may He be blessed, for after all, someone created this ancient people, someone created this world. And as we said according to the first proof, the philosophical proof, it is necessary that if we see reality here, then surely there is a unifying power that created this reality, for everything that exists here in the world is not necessary, so there must be someone necessary who created reality, someone who is a Necessary Existent. This is "and let him declare it to Me, since I appointed the ancient people," for from the very fact that you see there exists a reality of a world's existence, this says that there is some power that created all this. And a second thing, "and let him arrange it for Me, since I appointed the ancient people." Note, the Malbim says, we have here "and let him declare it to Me, since I appointed the ancient people" and "let him arrange it for Me, since I appointed the ancient people." Ya'archah, the Malbim says, the meaning is from the expression of an arranged thing. You see how this world is arranged. What is arranged? Ordered. Shulchan Aruch. An ordered table. Here, "and let him arrange it for Me," do you not see that the world here is ordered? Do you not see that there is existence and a clear reality to the world? And this is what I spoke about, this is only regarding man, and I have not even spoken about a fraction of it. But scientists say the same thing about creation too. If the sun were a bit closer to us, life would not be possible here. I am not talking to you about closer by hundreds of thousands of kilometers, by a few kilometers closer to us, there would be terrible heat here and within a few dozen years the whole world would dry up. There would be, there would be no existence for the world. And if it were a bit farther away, then the poles would simply cover the entire... the entire earth. We would all be living within a reality of ice, within a few years the world would simply... the world returns to chaos. And so on, in each arrangement of the stars. After all, the earth's gravity is determined according to the value of its distance from other stars. And if it were a reality that we were closer to other stars, the planets, then gravity would be disrupted. On the moon there is gravity a sixth of what there is here. This reality causes that a person cannot do anything, he walks, starts to float. You say, someone ate, if you put a cup of tea here, yes, could you put a cup of tea here if there were no gravity? Think also, if gravity were heavier than what we have, a person would not be able to stand up. You see, he would not be able to stand up, because gravity, after all what is gravity? It is the magnetism of the earth. If the earth were more magnetic, we would not be able to raise ourselves, because this magnet would stick us to it like a Knesset member to his seat. Do you understand? So in fact, what you see, that there is ultimately the power to rise and act and function, is because the Holy One, blessed be He, created a precise dosage of gravity in the earth. And so on regarding carbon dioxide, what, what is the amount. If the air here were a bit thinner, we would not be able to survive, like people who climb mountains, breathing would not be possible. And if it were less, then the same thing. And in short, the photosynthesis done by the trees that convert back the... the carbon dioxide and give it to people so that man can breathe again, green lungs, someone planned all of this reality, it is not just like that, it is not an explosion that brought about all this reality. And so, "and let him arrange it for Me," says the Holy One, blessed be He, well, I want to see who will tell Me that this arranged and ordered world made itself, that all this planning happened on its own without some higher power.
Now he brings them a third proof, says the Malbim. From the time of the past, the present and the future. Here you see that reality proceeds according to a certain order, you see history, how it is planned, you see the deeds of human beings, how they act in creation and how consequently they have reward and punishment, how the Holy One, blessed be He, exacts payment from Israel when they stray from the path, there is exile, there is... there is order to creation. You see the fathers of the world, how from them descend the twelve tribes and from them descend the six hundred thousand of Israel. You see creation, the world proceeds toward a certain purpose. You see the progress of the world. The very world and its order in terms of the generations and in terms of what was, is, and will be, this too proves that there is some higher power that arranges all of this. And this is what he says at the conclusion of the... "since I appointed the ancient people, and the things that are coming and that will come, let them declare to them." What is "and the things that are coming and that will come"? The Malbim explains, otiyot is from the expression ata. What is ata? It came. Where is that written? Not ata... "the watchman said, morning comes," right, and also night. That is a pasuk, yes, morning comes. Ata means it came. Now, and also the additional expression written here, "and that will come," its meaning is also coming. So what is the difference between "tell me what came" and "what is coming"? Both things mean, inform me about the future. The Malbim explains that ata is the coming that comes now in an absolute coming. And ba is a non absolute coming. Regarding the present that has already arrived, he says ata. Here, this already came, here you see, this is an absolute coming, you see, here look, you see this thing exists. In contrast, ba is regarding things that are destined to be, so with this it is hard for me to prove it to you because you have not yet seen it. Rather what, I can rely on the fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, announced things that are destined to be and some of them already came. This is a decisive proof, for here they came. But to say something about something that has not yet come, here you already need faith, that just as what Hashem said until now, here it came, so too will come what Hashem said about what is destined to be. And therefore he says, this is another proof that can be proven, otiyot, what already came, and that which will come, still in the future, let them declare to them. So if you see the world so ordered and the Holy One, blessed be He, announces in advance, telling from the beginning the end, this shows that there is no other power besides Him.
"Do not fear and do not be afraid, have I not from then let you hear and told you, and you are My witnesses, is there a god besides Me, and there is no Rock, I know of none." Do not fear and do not be afraid. Rashi says, it has no parallel in Scripture. Does anyone by the way remember the expression tirhu? It is familiar to us, we are in the Days of Awe. Does anyone remember? Not tirhu exactly, but similarly, one of the conjugations of the word tirhu. Me'ayenei rohim. Does anyone remember? It appears in the confession. I believe of Rav Nissim Gaon or of... there is the expression rohim. Follow after it on Yom Kippur, you will find the expression, remember that we studied it. Rohim. So now see the source of this expression. What is the source? Do not fear and do not tirhu. First of all Rashi says it has no parallel in Scripture. We have not found another place where tirhu is written. And its solution is according to the context, like al tehatu, from making My name known among the gentiles. So we once said that they have two ways to translate expressions. This is how all the early commentators would interpret and translate what is written in Tanach. One way is by way of concordance. Meaning, I find this word here, I find it in another place, in another place I know what the meaning is, so I understand that here it is a conjugation of that word and I conclude that here too it has the same meaning. This is when this word appears in other places. But the problem begins when the word has no other occurrences. Many times in these cases they try to liken them to other words, and then not everyone agrees, whether it is really similar to the word, whether it is not the same word, whether it is really similar to the word, whether it is from the same root, whether it is a new word. Another way they try to explain is his interpretation according to the context. Meaning, I have no source, I cannot learn it from anywhere, but let us read what is written, I will try to fit it into the sentence and accordingly I will understand what he is talking about. So if he says do not fear and do not tirhu, then it sounds to me, it rings to me like do not fear and do not be afraid. So therefore Rashi says, it has no parallel, meaning we have not found a similar source anywhere in Tanach, and its solution is according to the context, and therefore I must solve and explain the word according to the context, like al tehatu. Al tirhu means like al tira'u, do not be broken. Al tehatu, from making My name known among the gentiles. From Rashi it is implied more that it is not like al tira'u but rather al tehatu. What does al tehatu mean? What is asuy lelo chat? No. Because before whom did they nichtu. What is nichat? Broken. Broken, broken, asuy lelo chat means unbreakable. This means do not fear and do not be broken, meaning do not fear and do not break. Chat is always from the expression "the bow of the mighty is broken (chatim)." What is chatim? Their bow was broken. Chat is from the expression of breaking. So Rashi explains, do not fear and do not tirhu, like the meaning al tehatu, do not be broken from making My name known among the gentiles. Do not worry that you will have some fear and dread of speaking before the gentiles and publicizing the name of Hashem, may He be blessed. Have I not from then let you hear and told you, and you are My witnesses. What is "from then let you hear"? From then, from Mount Sinai, and I told, for there I revealed Myself, that there is no god besides Me, for He opened for them the seven heavens, opened for them the seven chambers, showed them that there is none besides Him. And who can testify to this? Israel. This is what he says, and you are My witnesses. Is there a god besides Me? For you yourselves saw that there is no god besides Me, there is no other power besides Hashem, may He be blessed. And there is no Rock, I know of none.
There is no Rock, I know of none. Tzur is also a name for God, meaning strong, katzur. "I know of none," it could have been explained "I know of none" meaning that I do not recognize Him, I do not know Him. But that is not the plain meaning that Rashi explains. Rashi explains according to the Targum: "and there is no mighty one, a god, except that from before Me his might is given to him." There is no power in the world except only a power that received its power from Me. There is no Rock, I know of none, meaning there is nothing possessing a rock, possessing power in the world, whose power did not come through Me, from Me. This is the meaning of "I know of none." The meaning is that I do not know it, meaning from the expression of receiving its power from Me. Like "and it was extinguished, in the name," "I knew of your going," "I knew you in the wilderness." And so, there is no power in creation about which you can say that reality exists because of it, but rather only because of Hashem, may He be blessed. The Malbim explains that here he continues and confronts those conceptions we spoke about earlier, with the heretics, with those who say that the Holy One, blessed be He, has limited power and there is another besides Him and that He is not eternal. The Holy One, blessed be He, says to them, in the opinion of the deniers, meaning the heretics, they say that I cannot perform wonders, I cannot overturn the systems of nature, My power is limited. But He says to them, you, do not fear and do not tirhu. Al tirhu, the Malbim explains from the root rahah. It interchanges with ra'ah, and ra'ah not in the sense of evil but in the sense of a thought (ra'ayon). The meaning is that thoughts should not arise that cause you worry. This is the meaning of "and do not tirhu." Tirhu from the expression of thoughts arising in one's heart. Have I not from then let you hear and told you. When I let you hear at the standing at Mount Sinai, then I showed you, as we explained according to Rashi, that there is none besides Him. And you yourselves can testify about the individual providence that I have with you. For after all, according to the heretics, Hashem has no power to watch over, Hashem has no power to act in creation. And therefore they said that the Holy One, blessed be He, even if He created the world, is not interested in it. He created and does not care about what happens here. This is heresy to Judaism, for Judaism says that Hashem created the world and at every single moment watches over the world, sustains it and takes care to give every creature according to its need. So you are witnesses about the individual providence and about the wonders I did with you until now. So first, you can testify to this, is there a god besides Me? Those who used to say that there is a second beside Me, there is another god, is there a god besides Me? For you, you saw when I opened the seven chambers below and above as we said, you saw that there is none besides Him. Second thing, there is no Rock, I know of none. The opposite of what they said, that Hashem is not first and not last, that He entered creation at some stage, He says, for there is no Rock I know of none, there will not be before Me or after Me some power that I did not know, as we explained, meaning that did not come from My power. So with this He refuted the claims of those heretics.
Now he will move on to the claims of those who stand opposed. Of whom? Of those who say there is power in the image, in the idol, not those who, as we said, deny the existence of Hashem, but who go and make a god from the image and worship it. "Those who form an idol are all chaos, and their cherished things are of no use, and they are their own witnesses, they do not see and do not know, so that they will be shamed." Those who form an idol are all chaos, and their cherished things are of no use. Rashi explains, and they are their own witnesses. Who are their witnesses? These are the idols. They testify to the shame of their worshippers. That is, when you worship an idol and there is no response, then you wait until you are ashamed, and ultimately you also have shame from it, for through this you show, as it were, in whom you placed your trust. Here look how much you cried out to it, how much you prayed, here look, it gave you nothing. And they, we see that they are their witnesses, they do not see. The idols testify to the shame, yes, they do not see and do not know, so that they will be shamed. That they testify to the shame, for we see that they do not see and do not know and nevertheless they worship. And this is so that they will be shamed, so that those who worship them will be ashamed. Look what you worshipped, whom you took as a god, one who does not even have the power to help himself. The Radak explains, those who form an idol are the craftsmen who make and form the idol. All chaos, their deeds are chaos, they are vanity. And the idols that are their cherished things, what are their cherished things? The meaning is what they love and cherish for themselves. The idols will be of no use to them. So why do they cherish them? Why do you love someone so much from whom you have no benefit? And they are their own witnesses. And if you ask, how do you know that it will not help? He says, they are their own witnesses. These are the idols, they themselves testify that they will be of no use. For they do not see and do not know. So if you see that this idol is a golem, does not see, does not know, does not understand, does not hear. So as we said, it cannot help itself, so will it help you? So in fact what is my proof that it does not help? For here you see that there is no power in it. You speak and it does not act. So that they will be shamed, as we said, that in this they will have shame from worshipping them. There is another explanation, says the Radak, what is "and they are their own witnesses"? The meaning is that they testify about themselves that they have no power. How? Burn the idol, break the idol. Can it defend itself? For itself, it cannot protect itself, will it protect you? So this is "and they are their own witnesses." They, from themselves there is proof of their nothingness, their powerlessness, that they have no power to influence. If it cannot guard itself for itself. As Gideon's father said there, for after all Gideon's father fattened a bull for seven years for idolatry. And at a certain point his son, Gideon, rose up and what did he do? He slaughtered it, offered it as a burnt offering to Hashem, right, took down the asherah. And consequently they came, wanted to carry out judgments against him. Right, they wanted to kill him. What did Gideon's father say to them? He said to them, what, do you have a quarrel with him? For truly he grievously harmed the Baal, but I think we should give the Baal the credit, let him exact payment from him. He truly harmed him grievously, let him harm him as he should. Let Baal contend, let Baal contend with him. Do you understand? So what, are you going to carry out judgments on behalf of the Baal? Let the Baal deal with him. Do you understand? And they are still waiting for the Baal to arise, yes, to awaken like a drunk from wine to demand his honor. Well, amazingly they accepted this argument, yes, but well, this shows how attached they were to the Baal, or that they did not want to say something else, because then they would say something else, then you are a heretic to the Baal. So they said yes, yes, let us let the Baal deal with him.
The Malbim explains, those who form an idol are all chaos. Now the Malbim says, as we said, he is arguing with the second faction, those who deny Hashem's providence, and out of this they were star worshippers, they were idol worshippers. About them he says, among them there were three sects. There was one sect that attributed divinity to the idol itself. They thought that it truly has power in it, that it has an honored form. He says about them, those who form an idol are all chaos. Those who formed, those who breathed into it, as it were, a divine form, he says they are chaos, their deeds. These are the most foolish. Whoever truly thinks that in this block of wood there is power, he is truly chaos, it is vanity, it is complete foolishness that cannot be conceived. The second sect, they believed, and this is the majority, they believed that truly the idol in itself has no power. Only what? The idol is a vessel. A vessel that constitutes a preparation for the influence of spiritual powers. And this was the mistake of Israel with the calf, and this is the mistake of those who would make what are called talismans, they would make all sorts of faces of, of, that they would take from human skulls in order to draw down higher powers upon them. That is, he understands that there are higher powers, like demons, spirits and the like, or divine powers that he attributed to the stars, and this power would rest upon that physical thing that I made. Well, here it is already something even more plausible, for indeed this is how the calf began to say "I am Hashem your God," out of a higher spiritual power that was influenced into it. So about them they, as it were, understood that who, who wants this idol? The star. I worship the star, and the star out of its desire for me, out of loving this idol, that the idol is in the likeness of the star or in praise of the star, so the star influences the idol. And from this power it is influenced upon me. This is the second sect. They did not worship the idol itself, but rather it as a means through which I would obtain benefit from the star. So he says, and their cherished things are of no use. You think that the stars cherish the form you made and it loves it and consequently it influences it? He says to them, they are of no use. They will obtain no benefit from this. And they are their own witnesses. In contrast to what we said, who testifies to the unity of Hashem? Who testifies to Hashem's power? We said Israel, you saw the standing at Mount Sinai. There, they are their own witnesses. The idol worshippers, the worshippers of the graven images, they are witnesses about their idols that they do not see and do not know, so that they will be shamed. They see nothing to watch over those who worship them, they do not know, they have in fact no knowledge of what happens with anyone outside them or even about themselves, so that they will be shamed. And through this their witnesses will be shamed, they who worship them, that here look what you worshipped, you went and worshipped a form that you thought to draw down higher powers upon, and those higher powers did not know and did not see at all everything that happens with you, and not their cherished things, those images you made, the higher powers, the stars, and the spiritual influences, they do not cherish that image you made, and so they have no interest and no stake in benefiting you on account of that image.