If someone committed a misdeed before he learned it was wrong and then he learned, what is his status?
ANSWER:
That by learning, he is now in a position to regret what he did. And if he regrets, then that's considered for him as if not only it's wiped out, but his misdeeds now become mitzvos. The gemara says that. The gemara says an am ha'aretz zdonos na'aseh lo ke'zechuyos, when a person is ignorant his misdeeds become zechuyos, if he learns and regrets.
Therefore a person after he learns and he looks back and he's able to discern the errors he made and he's willing to add the element of regret, then that's a very good business because now he can earn a lot of good deeds. But you have to keep on learning, so the more you know the more you'll be able to regret, and then you'll be earning a lot of past income that you never thought you'd get.
Good Shabbos To All
This is transcribed from questions that were posed to Harav Miller by the audience at the Thursday night lectures.
To listen to the audio of this Q & A please dial: 201-676-3210
Why is Yom Kippur not before Rosh Hashana, so we will be able to enter Rosh Hashana clear of sin?
ANSWER:
Here is a man who needs an operation on his bladder, or maybe also on his ulcer, or maybe he needs an operation on a number of things. But instead, we are sending an expedition to his house with a lot of noise and a lot of people are running towards his house, trucks are making a tremendous clamor with sirens to put out the fire. This man needs a lot of operations so why waste time? The answer is, first you have to put out the fire otherwise he will never live to see the operating table. First thing is to save his life if his house on fire. So you say no! Let the fire wait, lets first make an operation on this, an operation on this, later you'll put out the fire...It won't work that way.
Therefore the first thing is Emunah in Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that's emergency, that's a fire. If you forget about Hakadosh Baruch Hu, you forget Anochi Hashem Elokecho, then what good is all the rest? What good is it to eat kosher if a man is an atheist, even though he doesn't say so but he is so? If he doesn't believe in Bereishis Boroh Elokim what good is it to go further? That's why it's put in the beginning of the Torah.
And that's why Rosh Hashana must come first, to bring us to to do teshuva in the fundamental, the foundation of everything, then we're ready to talk about the details.
Question #49
QUESTION:
How does one repent for certain sins, that he knows he will repeat?
ANSWER:That's a question that is being always asked. And the answer is as follows. If a man smokes forty cigarettes every Shabbos, and he decides he’s going to smoke only thirty nine, that's a fortunate man. That's called a Miktzas Teshuva. A little bit of Teshuva, which is the easiest thing to do, is the biggest obligation. To stop all forty, not so easy for him, but to stop the fortieth, YES. And therefore, if you can stop even a little bit of your sin, then you must do it, and it’s the biggest obligation, that's the easiest thing to do.
And so any sinner, even though he's a confirmed Chotai, if he’s able to make a resolve, at least one little bit of that sin he won't do anymore. Let’s say, he does a sin ten times a week, now he’ll do it nine times a week; he makes up his mind no more then nine times, he is a LUCKY man. If he neglects that opportunity, he’s in great sakona; Hashem is very angry at him. The tenth time was easy to avoid. And so everybody can do a Miktzas Teshuva.
That's why we say Hashivainu Avinu Lesorasecho, Hashem bring us back to your Torah, that's Teshuva we are asking for, Teshuva, for repentance. Then we say, V'Hachzirainu B'sehuva Shelaima, then we’re asking for a perfect repentance. First we are asking for a little bit of repentance, any kind of repentance, a little bit at least. Then once you ask for a finger, you ask for the whole hand, too! Then we say give us a full repentance.
Question #51
QUESTION:
What should we think when we see the fish during Tashlich?
ANSWER:
You know what I think? When you pass a fish store and see the fish in the window, there's a good time to stop and look, don't wait for Tashlich. The fish in the window come from the ocean. That fish comes together without Shadchonim, they're Porim V'rovim Bayom, they get married in the ocean and they produce offspring, and it's for one purpose, to give us more fish to eat. It's a Nes, how fish meet each other in the depths of the ocean and they're able to copulate, and produce some more fish, it's a Niflaos Haborei, you have to marvel at it.
The fish doesn't have any air and still it breathes with its lungs. It's able to take out from the water the dissolved oxygen, fish must have oxygen. They are so built that they can use oxygen dissolved in the water and it lives without lungs, except the lungfish. And so when you look at a fish, it's a special Briah, Chesed Hashem.
Fish of course is a Taanug, that's why all Jews eat fish on Shabbos, it's part of the happiness of Shabbos in order to learn the Chesed Hashem.
And so I say, you don't have to wait for Tashlich, when you pass a fish store and see big juicy fish lying there, a big carp, a big salmon, a big trout, take a half second and take a look. AAH; what a wonder it is that it happened in the middle of the ocean, they came together and produced such tasty tidbits for the people to enjoy and to appreciate the Chesed Hashem.
Good Shabbos To All
This is transcribed from questions that were posed to Harav Miller by the audience at the Thursday night lectures. To listen to the audio of this Q & A please dial: 201-676-3210
Erev Rosh Hashanah:
1. It is customary [but not mandatory] to fast until Halachik mid-day. [1:06 PM]
2. Additional Selichos are said in the morning.
3. No Tachanun is said during the morning service.
4. We do not blow the Shofar after the morning service.
5. One should nullify his / her vows before 3 people in a language that you
understand. See Artscroll Siddur pg. 762. Women can appoint their husbands as
their agents to nullify their vows for them. Other women rely on the Kol Nidrei
ceremony to nullify their vows.
6. It is customary to visit the cemetery.
7. One should spend time doing Teshuvah, giving charity, learning, and asking
forgiveness from other people. Before Rosh Hashanah actually begins, one
should resolve to strive to focus on improving a specific area on conduct during
the New Year.
8. One should preferably take a shave and haircut before Halachik Mid- day. [1:06
PM]
9. Men should immerse in the Mikveh no earlier than one hour before Halachik Midday.
[12:06 PM]
10.One should familiarize oneself with the Machzor.
11. One should wear festive clothing, but in moderation. Save new clothing for the
second night of Yom Tov.
12.It is customary to bake or purchase Challah in the form of a circle, ladder, or bird.
13.One should be careful not to display anger or even become angry during these
special days.
14.Remember that on Rosh Hashanah one is permitted to cook or bake from a preexisting
fire. You need not have all your food cooked before Yom Tov. [Which
is generally required to be done for Shabbos.] Consult with your Rabbi to learn
more of the Halachik details involved.
15.It is preferable and practical to light a 24 hour Yartzeit candle before Yom Tov, so
that you will have a pre-existing flame to use throughout the first day of Yom Tov.
This flame will be the one that you can light candles from on the second night of
Rosh Hashanah.
First Evening of Rosh Hashanah:
1. Women light candles either at the regular time of candle lighting [6:37 PM] or
from a pre-existing flame when the men come home from Shul and are ready to
eat. They make 2 blessings: One for the Mitzvah of lighting the Yom Tov candles
and the other “Shehechiyanu” blessing. [If a woman forgets to light candles at
these two times, she may light them from a pre-existing flame the entire evening.]
2. Men should daven Minchah with a Minyan and everyone should say Minchah
with extra concentration, as it is the final prayer of the year 5775.
3. The earliest time to either light candles or make Kiddush is after 5:43 PM.
2
4. 4 insertions are made in the Maariv Amidah [and for all Amidahs through Yom
Kippur], which are found in the Artscroll Machzor on pages 62, 64, 66, and 72.
One must repeat the Amidah if one forgot to insert “Hamelech Hakadosh.”
5. Special greetings are given to friends and family members after Maariv and
before Kiddush. “May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year [immediately,
for a good life and for peace].” See Artscroll Machzor pg. 90 for the Hebrew text.
This greeting should only be said on the first night. Greetings for the remainder of
Rosh Hashanah should be limited to “Shana Tova”, “Happy New Year”, “Chag
Samayach”, or “Good Yom Tov.”
6. After making the special Yom Tov Kiddush and washing our hands, we make a
Brocha over two Challahs, and cut the top Challah.
7. Challah is dipped in honey [some have the custom to dip the Challah into salt as
well].
8. Symbolic foods are eaten at the evening meal. See Artscroll Machzor pg. 96-98.
The first symbolic fruit to be eaten should be the date. You should make the
blessing “Borei Pri Ha’etz” on that fruit, keeping in mind the other fruits you will
be eating on this night. Eat a little of it, followed by the special “Yehi Ratzon”
prayer, and then finish the date. There are no other blessings made on the
symbolic foods. One does say the special “Yehi Ratzon” prayer before eating
each of the symbolic foods.
9. If one is not able to eat any of the symbolic foods, one may look at them and say
the special “Yehi Ratzon” prayer.
10.Some have a custom to avoid eating sour or bitter foods and nuts.
11. Remember to make the proper insertions during the Birchas Hamazon.
12.It is a custom to learn one Chapter of Mishnayos from Tractate Rosh Hashanah
after each of the Yom Tov meals.
First Day of Rosh Hashanah:
1. Men should come on time to Shul and say the Amidah with a Minyan.
2. The Shema should be recited before 10:12 AM.
3. One should optimally listen to 100 blasts of the Shofar on both days of Rosh
Hashanah. 30 are blown before Mussaf. 30 are blown during the repetition. 40
are blown at the end of the service.
4. Men are obligated to hear the Shofar. Women are technically exempt from
hearing the Shofar; however, it has become customary for women to hear at
least 30 blasts of the Shofar.
5. Children, who are old enough to silently listen to the Shofar, should be
encouraged to do so. Little children, who will disturb the service, may not be
brought to Shofar blowing.
6. It is forbidden to talk while the Shofar is being blown. One should not speak
from the time that the blessings on the Shofar are made until after hearing
the 100th and final note. Only under extenuating circumstances may one talk
after hearing the first 30 blasts.
3
Afternoon:
1. One is obligated to eat Challah and have a meal on both days of Rosh
Hashanah.
2. One should not sleep in the afternoon. [One may be lenient on the second day.]
3. It is not the custom to visit friends in the afternoon.
4. Any free time in the afternoon should be spent learning Torah or doing Teshuvah
or doing acts of kindness. It is not a time for idle chatter.
5. After Minchah, it is customary to go to Tashlich.
6. The custom in to recite Tashlich preferably at a body of running water [i.e. a river
or stream] where fish are found. If that is not possible, one can say it by any body
of water – even a well.
7. When reciting the word “Vesashlich”, it is customary to shake out the corners or
pockets of your outer garments, which are empty.
8. It is forbidden to throw any crumbs of food into the water. [or to feed the or
ducks]
9. Tashlich was not designed to be a venue for socializing. [One is permitted to
invite guests for meals and should make an effort to keep the discussions
focused on the theme and spirit of Rosh Hashanah.]
Second Evening of Rosh Hashanah:
1. One should pray the evening service after Tashlich. It is preferable to say it after
the stars come out, or at least after sunset.
2. One may not make any Yom Tov preparations for the second night, light candles,
or make Kiddush until after 7:44 PM.
3. Candle lighting and Kiddush are done in the same way as on the first night.
4. One should wear a new garment for candle lighting / the second evening meal. It
is questionable as to whether one can make a “Shehechiyanu” blessing on any
fruits. The only fruit that one, who lives in Toronto, can definitely say the
“Shehechiyanu” blessing is on pumpkins and Ontario concord grapes.
5. Some people have the custom to eat the symbolic foods and recite the special
prayers at this meal as well.
Second day of Rosh Hashanah:
1. The procedures for this day are the same as the first day. The exception being
that we do not go to Tashlich again. If it rained on the first day or you were not
able to go to Tashlich [or the first day was Shabbos], you should do so on the
second day. [If one does not have the opportunity to go to Tashlich on both days
of Yom Tov, you are permitted to do it until the seventh day of Succos – Hoshana
Rabbah.]
2. We make Havdalah after 7:42 PM by saying the blessing "Borei Pri Hagofen" &
"Hamavdil" at the conclusion of Yom Tov.
4
Rosh Hashanah: Yehi Ratzon – Symbolic Foods Text and Instructions
All of the Yehi Ratzons start out the same way:
"Yehi Ratzon Mil'fa'necha, Ad-noi El-heinu Vei'l-hai Avosainu..."
(The "-" represents the letter "o," which was purposely left out so as not to write out the
name of G-d.)
"May it be your will, Hashem our G-d and the G-d of our forefathers..."
Listed below are the various foods and the endings, which are appropriate to them:
For dates: "...She'yitamu son'ainu." "...that our enemies be consumed."
For pomegranate: "...she'nirbeh ze'chu'yos k'rimon"
"...that our merits increase like (the seeds of) a pomegranate."
For the apple in the honey: "...she'tichadesh aleinu shana tova u'm'tuka."
"...that you renew us for a good and sweet year."
For fenugreek (or carrots - as the Yiddish word for carrots - Mehren - can also mean
"to increase," this Yehi Ratzon is appropriate as well):
"...She'yir'bu ze'chuyo'sainu." "...that our merits increase."
For leek or cabbage: "...She'yikar'su son'ainu." "...that our enemies be decimated."
For beets: "...She'yistalku oy'vainu." "...that our adversaries be removed."
For gourd: "...She'yikora g'zar de'nainu v'yikaru l'fanecha zechu'yosainu."
"...that the decree of our sentence be torn up and may our merits be proclaimed before
you."
For fish: "...She'nif'reh v'nir'beh ki'dagim." "...that we be fruitful and multiply like fish."
For the head of a fish or sheep: "...She'ni'hiyeh l'rosh v'lo l'zanav."
"...that we be as the head and not as the tail."
All of these Yehi Ratzons are said on the first night of Rosh Hashanah, after Kiddush
has been made, after the blessing over the Challos (breads) has been made and the
bread has been eaten. (There are those who have the custom to eat these foods and
recite the Yehi Ratzon on the second night as well.) After the bread has been eaten, one
should take the date, make the blessing that one would normally make on fruit [“Borei
Pri Ha’etz’], and then take a bite of the date. Before one has eaten the whole date, one
should recite the Yehi Ratzon. After the date, one can then have all, none, or some of
the other foods.
Isn't it stated that one who prays with a broken heart will be heard, so we see a broken heart is advisable for prayer?
ANSWER:
You have to know that a broken heart does not mean somebody who is broken is spirit. When it states in Yeshayahu, nechei ruach, broken in spirit, it doesn't mean a dispirited man. When a man is broken in spirit, he's heading towards an institution. Here it means, he broke the spirit of stubbornness, that's the broken heart. It doesn't mean your heart is broken; he broke his desires, that's what it means and that's the trouble with translation.
Lev nishbor, lev means mind in loshon kodesh, it doesn't refer to the heart, it's the mind, it means he broke his mind, he changed his attitude, that's what it really means.
So when you come to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, you broke your arrogance, you broke your tendency to talk all the time, you decided to keep quiet from now on, that's a broken heart. It doesn't mean a broken spirit that this man now has lost his courage.
Good Shabbos To All
This is transcribed from questions that were posed to Harav Miller by the audience at the Thursday night lectures.
To listen to the audio of this Q & A please dial: 201-676-3210
How do we go about acquiring sensory perception of Yiras Hashem?
ANSWER:
A young man came to me and he said that he has difficulty with Emunah, so I put on the table an orange and an apple. It brings us back to that subject which we can never have enough of, and you should realize that… you get sensory perception in one way, by Bechina. And I said to him, "Why is it that the orange is so beautifully colored on the outside and on the underside of the peel there's no color at all?" And answer that question...There's only one answer, this demonstrates that the color is for the purpose to be seen; there's nobody in the world that can refute that proof.
And why is it that all the fruits that are brightly colored on the outside, never have a bright color on the underside, if it's a thick skinned fruit. Why is it not in a single instance do you find bright colors on the underside of the peel and is colorless on the outside? That's a knockout! Look at all the fruits in the world and see if you can find a single instance where the underside of the peel is gaily colored and the outside is dull!
So he started stammering... evolution... so it means that this is the result of accidents. Alright, so why is it then, that today, in our time, after all we have written history for thousands of years, there's not a single recorded case of a fruit that suddenly by mutation developed with a bright color on the underside of the peel and colorless on the outside? There never was such a fruit.
Why is it that all fruits, every fruit in the world is green before it's ripe and when it ripens it changes its color? Now, when you study these things - seriously, not like people idly sitting back in the lecture hall and hearing it with one ear and it goes through the other, but you concentrate on that. Put an orange and an apple on your table when you're eating, during your meal time, you have nothing else to do… Look at the orange and the apple on the table, and do this for fifty years, fifty years. Someday it's going penetrate your awareness, that's the way to get daas.
Daas means you have to repeat over and over and then finally these great fruits become meaningful. That's only one way; there are other ways to do it too.
Good Shabbos To All
This is transcribed from questions that were posed to Harav Miller by the audience at the Thursday night lectures. To listen to the audio of this Q & A please dial: 201-676-3210
Why was there so much bloodshed at the time of the destruction?
ANSWER:
It's the same question as why was there destruction? We must learn a fundamental principle; that Hakadosh Baruch Hu reacts in this world. He doesn't hide in the spiritual world and refuse to show Himself. He is constantly asserting His presence, only it's incumbent upon men to be aware of these phenomena.
Now, when people observe the Torah and things were going well, then Hakadosh Baruch Hu demonstrated His favor to encourage them. Therefore despite the great nations that ringed them on all sides, our forefathers maintained their independence and they lived happily; as long as they were loyal to the Torah.
But when a movement was started, in the times of the first Bais Hamikdash by Menashe, who caused a large part of the people to become depraved, in the second Bais Hamikdash by the Tzedukim and the Herodians who took over the sanctuary and used it as a nest for their wickedness, and a considerable number of the people were spoiled by them. Therefore, the time came for Hakadosh Baruch Hu to demonstrate His disfavor and we learned there-from that the wages of sin is suffering. It's always that result.
The same was before World War Two, when a great part of the Jewish people in Europe defected from the Torah, very many stopped observing the laws of the Torah, so Hakadosh Baruch Hu finally sent upon them a destruction.
That's the principle that repeats itself and which was foretold from the beginning. The Torah says that's going to happen! Therefore it's merely a fulfillment of the old prophecy that, v'im lo shim'u li vi'yosafti l'yasro eschem sheva al chatuseichem (Vayikra 26:18), and the principle has been a prophecy which has been fulfilled constantly.
Good Shabbos To All
This is transcribed from questions that were posed to Harav Miller by the audience at the Thursday night lectures. To listen to the audio of this Q & A please dial: 201-676-3210
Shabbos Chazon, August 13, we daven Mincha at 5:25 p.m. The early Mincha allows time to return home for an appropriate pre-fast Seudah Shelishis. No classic pre-Tisha B'Av rules (e.g., eating on the floor, eggs, ashes et al) apply to this meal. The meal may include any foods, including meat and wine. Finish eating before sunset (8:23), when eating becomes prohibited. Other aspects of Tisha B'Av (low chair, non-leather shoes et al) are not applicable until later in the evening, when it is considered true halachic "night"
Motza'ei Shabbos is at 9:13. Wait until 9:13 and say Baruch ha-mavdil bain kodesh le-chol before doing work or making any preparations for Motza’ei Shabbos.
Our shul delays Maariv (followed by Eichah) until 9:30 to allow people to drive to shul after Shabbos.
If you begin to walk to shul for Maariv before Motza’ei Shabbos (9:13), then wear your Shabbos clothes and shoes. If that is what you plan to do, bring Tisha B'Av shoes to shul before Shabbos, (bringing them on Shabbos for Motza’ei Shabbos use is forbidden) so that you can slip into them right after the sheliach tzibbur says the Borchu of Motza’ei Shabbos Maariv. Those who leave their homes after 9:13 and say Baruch ha-mavdil bain kodesh le-chol may switch to Tisha B'Av shoes at home, although it better to wear proper shoes until after we begin Maariv.
We do not say a Motzaei Shabbos Havdalah. The aish beracha is said, on its own, on Motzaei Shabbos. You can say this aish beracha at home after having first said Baruch ha-mavdil bain kodesh le-chol, or may listen to it when it is said in shul.
The Motza’ei Tisha B’Av Havdalah is said without fire (done the previous night) or besamim. We may even use grape juice or wine for this Motza’ei Tisha B'Av Havdalah because Havdalah is a mitzva.
Ill people, who are not fasting, should use chamar medina (beer) rather than grape juice/wine for Havdalah on Motzaei Shabbos; coffee or tea may also be used, in which case cool the coffee/tea, so that it can be drunk within the short time span required by halachah. Although the ill person says Havdalah and the aish beracha on Tisha B'Av, he omits the introductory Hinei passage and the besamim.
May the Beis ha-Mikdash be rebuilt speedily in our days.
SA, OC, 552, 10
Rema, OC, 552, 10
As per Shemiras Shabbos ke'Hilchasah, 62, footnote 88
SA, OC, 556
Mishnah Berurah, 556, 3, although see Arukh ha'Shulchan, 556, 2
See Mikra'ei Kodesh, Pesach, 2, 47
by R’ Ben Tzion Shafier
What Can You Do to Make HASHEM Angry?
““These are the journeys of the Children of Yisrael, who went forth from the land of Egypt according to their legions, under the hand of Moshe and Aharon.” — Bemidbar 33:1”
The parshah begins with a catalog of the forty-two stops that the Jewish nation made in the desert. Rashi explains this with a mashal. Imagine a king whose son was critically ill. In search of a cure, he travelled with his child to a faraway land. The journey was successful, and on their way back home, the king pointed out to his son each of the stops they had made along the way. With great joy, he said, “This is where your fever peaked. This was the place where we rested…” So, too, HASHEM recounted with great delight the various stops in the Jewish people’s travels.
The problem
This Rashi is very difficult to understand. These “stops along the way” weren’t part of the plan. In fact, they were quite the opposite.
The Jewish nation left Mitzrayim amidst great fanfare and glory. With the entire world taking note, they were to make one stop at Har Sinai to receive the Torah and then move on toward the Holy Land to occupy it forever.
That wasn’t, however, the way things turned out. Because of their sins, the entire generation was decreed to wander from place to place for forty years and then to die in the desert. And even then the lesson wasn’t learned. Time after time, they failed; time after time they sinned. HASHEM’s description of this period was, “For forty years you tested Me…” How then can Rashi say that these stops were joyfully recounted by HASHEM?
The answer to this can best be understood by asking a somewhat irreverent question.
What can you do to make HASHEM angry?
Let’s say that you decided, “That’s it. I’ve had it. I’m fed up with Hashem! I’m going to do something to get Him angry.” What could you do to make Hashem really mad? The answer is nothing.
Because we are physical beings, by definition we are confined. We exist for a given amount of time. We take up a given amount of space. We can run just so fast, walk just so far. Hashem, on the other hand, is beyond all boundaries and beyond all confines. Hashem is in all places at all times, existing before and after time. Hashem is so above all of nature that there is nothing that is beyond His powers and nothing that He can’t do. Hashem said, “It should be,” and everything — energy, matter, quarks, atoms, and molecules — came into being. Hashem is also the Maintainer of physicality. Nothing can exist without Him constantly infusing energy into it.
The reason I get angry is because I’m frustrated by my lack of power and control. But nothing is beyond Hashem; nothing is out of His control. Therefore, anger doesn’t apply to Him.
When Hashem gave free will to man, He gave us the ability to make choices — but He governs the outcome.
If man chooses evil, there are times when Hashem will allow those actions to come to fruition. But at no point, is Hashem not in control. The very notion of Hashem being angry stems from a lack of comprehending His greatness.
HASHEM acts with anger for our benefit
This seems to be the answer to the question on Rashi. HASHEM wasn’t “angry” with the generation. HASHEM took corrective actions to help them realize their mistakes. Once the end came about and the Jewish nation was ready to enter the Holy Land, HASHEM looked back over the stops with great fondness, as each one was part of the healing process.
This concept is essential for us in understanding our relationship with HASHEM. During our lives, there will be many times when we experience pain, suffering, and setbacks. However, not only doesn’t HASHEM save us from these situations, often, we see the hand of HASHEM bringing them about. From our mortal, limited perspective we tend to experience this as “HASHEM is annoyed with us — vengefully punishing us for our transgressions.” It is then that we need to be mindful that HASHEM is never angry. HASHEM has a much broader vision than we do. Like a loving parent carefully guiding his child, HASHEM directs our lives with loving kindness, bringing about situations for our benefit. Often times we don’t see it until the end, but everything that HASHEM does is for the best and is done out of love for us, His beloved creations.
This is an excerpt from the Shmuz on the Parsha book. All three volumes are available at your local sefarim store, or at www.theShmuz.com. All of the Shmuzin are available FREE of charge, at the theShmuz.com or on the Shmuz app, for Android and Iphone.
For more on this topic please listen to Shmuz #51 Bitachon and Hishtadlus – Finding the Balance
If Hashem wants us to serve Him from happiness, ivdu es Hashem besimcha, serve Hashem with happiness, so why does it say tov laleches l'beis aivel, it's better to go to a house of mourning rather than go to a house of rejoicing?
ANSWER:
I'll tell you a peirush which you wouldn't like, you never heard of it before. When do you appreciate eating most? You know when? Motsai Yom Kippur. If you think it's a minor achievement of Yom Kippur, let me contradict you. One of the major purposes of the Torah is to teach us to thank Hakadosh Baruch Hu. You can never thank unless you can compare your present situation to what it could have been otherwise. You want to be happy? Go visit a cemetery. I've said this advice for years. If you feel depressed, stand outside of a cemetery for a long time and look at the gravestones, you walk away somewhat more cheerful. You won't be sad, because you're thinking there is something worse than what you are now; that's to be underneath those stones.
Nobody can know what he has unless by contrast. That's why we don't say Baruch Ata Hashem that You gave me eyes to see, no, we say Baruch Ata Hashem Pokeiach ivrim, who opens the eyes of the blind! Unless you see a blind man tapping his way with a white cane, you can't appreciate the happiness of sight. Unless you see a man who has no feet sitting in a wheelchair propelling himself, you don't realize how sweet it is to be able to sail down the avenue on your own two clogs. Ahh, what a delicious thing, to tramp down the street; you can tramp or saunter, or walk or run, it makes no difference, anyway it's sweet, it's living to be able to walk.
And believe me, when you walk by a man sitting in a wheelchair, slow down; he shouldn't be too jealous of you. Don't make him feel bad, slow down, if you want you can plod by. There used to be in Slabodka a man who couldn't daven well, so once he went to the amud for pesukei d'zimrah (they wouldn't let him daven shachris), when he went off, the next man was an expert chazan and when he got up he starting stammering intentionally to make the first man feel good. The first man stammered in baruch she'amar, so the second man stammered at yish'tabach to make the first man feel good. So if you walk by a man in a wheelchair, walk by slowly, act like it's also a little difficult, you have arthritis in your legs, but if you run past in your youthful joints and your youthful ankles, you're causing him anguish. Because the greatest happiness is appreciated only when you don't have it, and a man in a wheelchair knows how good it is to be able to walk.
Therefore you can't appreciate the simcha of life unless you go to a beis aivel. Now don't tell me you won't feel this emotion - as you walk out you feel mightily relieved. Inside the atmosphere is oppressive, it's sad, and so as you are there you try to act as you're participating. When you walk out and take a deep lung-full of fresh air, Baruch Hashem I'm finished with that, now onto life. I'm alive. Ohh, that's a wicked thought you think? It's not a wicked thought. So now you know a new aspect of going to the bais aivel, Ha'chai ye'tein el libo, the living man should put to his heart how good it is to be alive and to thank Hashem for it.
Good Shabbos To All
This is transcribed from questions that were posed to Harav Miller by the audience at the Thursday night lectures. To listen to the audio of this Q & A please dial: 201-676-3210
“Yisrael settled in Shittim and the people began to act promiscuously with the daughters of Moav.” — Bemidbar 25:1
Balak, the king of Moav, saw the supernatural success the Jews experienced when they left Mitzrayim, and he feared that his people would be destroyed. He hired the gentile prophet, Bila’am, to curse the Jews. HASHEM thwarted Bila’am’s efforts, and against his will, he blessed the Jewish people. Recognizing that he couldn’t curse them, he gave Balak an alternate strategy: “Their God hates promiscuity. Entrap the men in sin, and God will destroy them.” Balak sent the message out to the Moabite women, and thus began one of the lowest descents in our history. In the end, 24,000 Jewish men were involved in sin and were killed by plague.
When setting the backdrop for these events, the Torah mentions that the Jewish people camped in Shittim. This fact seems to be irrelevant. What difference does it make where they stopped? Rabbenu Bachaye explains that the city of Shittim was pivotal in these events, and it was only because the Jewish people were encamped in that area that the entire debacle unfolded. He explains that in Shittim, there was a stream of water that caused people to act immorally. This stream fed Sodom, and that was why people there became so depraved. The Torah mentions Shittim to let us know that it was because of that particular location that the Jews fell to that low level. The area was infused with a negative force.
This concept is very difficult to understand. How can a stream of water cause immorality? How can one place be more depraved than another simply because of physical attributes like a stream?
The best way to understand this is to focus on almost an opposite phenomenon.
A legend in our times
In the annals of recent Jewish history, one of the shining stars was a man named R’ Meir Schuster. He became a one-man kiruv dynamo and is credited for tens of thousands of Jews returning to Torah. At his funeral, R’ Noach Weinberg, zt”l, himself an icon in the ba’al teshuvah movement, said, “I am jealous of R’ Meir’s olam ha-ba.”
But those who knew him as a young man in yeshivah said they never would have expected it of him. He was a humble, soft-spoken, and shy person. He was not particularly charismatic, nor was he a great speaker.
R’ Schuster’s ascent to the level of legend began in 1968 when he was a young kollel student who had just moved to Israel. He and his friend Chaim Kass went to daven at the Kosel, and they noticed many people there who had no connection to Judaism. Nevertheless, these people were visibly moved simply by being there. The thought struck them both: “Why can’t someone connect with all these Jews whose neshamos are lit up by the Kosel?” But sadly, there was nothing in place to help them explore what they were missing.
All of that changed when they noticed a young man wearing a backpack, leaning against the Kosel, and crying. Chaim walked over to him and asked if he would be interested in learning more about Judaism. The young man responded that he would. For the next two weeks, R’ Meir Schuster and R’ Chaim kept returning to the Kosel to try to interest more people in exploring Judaism. By nature, R’ Schuster is particularly quiet and reserved, an introvert not naturally given to conversation, and so R’ Chaim initially did the talking. Within a couple of weeks, however, R’ Schuster began to take the lead. And for the next forty years, R’ Meir Schuster was at the Kosel, inviting young men and women to experience a Shabbos and explore their heritage. He became known as the “Man of the Wall.” And, today, thousands and thousands of ba’alei teshuvah credit their return to him.
Capturing the moment
But what was his secret? How did a shy, unassuming man accomplish so much? Certainly his sincerity and burning love for every Jew propelled him. But it was the time and the place that made it happen. Standing in Yerushalayim, the holiest city in the world, and there at its epicenter, the place of the Beis HaMikdash, a Jewish heart is aglow. The aura is pervasive and powerful. Rabbi Schuster tapped into that experience and guided people to further explore its wonder. What he did was gargantuan, but it was the Kosel that moved them.
A stream that causes immorality
This seems to be the answer to Rabbenu Bachaye. “The land of Shittim caused immorality” is literal. There was a pull to depravity in that place. HASHEM created many forces in this world; some function on a physical plane, and some on a different plane. If you electrify a piece of iron, it exerts an electromagnetic pull — a force so powerful that it can lift a full-sized SUV. So, too, HASHEM created forces that affect the spiritual world. Yerushalayim is infused with holiness; there is a presence in the air. When a person walks the streets, his soul lights up, and the pull toward ruchniyus is palpable. But just as HASHEM created specific places that effuse kedushah, He also created places that give off the opposite effect. There are places on this planet that exert a potent force that pulls a person to vice. It strengthens the hold of the body over the neshamah, and a person is drawn to do that which is sinful — not for the pleasure alone, but for the immorality of the action.
San Francisco
This concept is applicable to us, as even today, there are cities that are notorious for depravity. While we may be tempted to explain it based on sociological factors and circumstances, there is often a deeper, underlying cause. As part of keeping everything in this world in balance, HASHEM chooses some areas to be receptacles of impurity.
By being aware of different spiritual forces, and by becoming more sensitive to these pulls, we can tap into the dynamics that will propel our spiritual growth. May HASHEM speedily redeem us, and may we all live again in the most holy of all lands, our birthright, Eretz Yisrael.
This is an excerpt from the Shmuz on the Parsha book. All three volumes are available at your local sefarim store, or at www.theShmuz.com. All of the Shmuzin are available FREE of charge, at the theShmuz.com or on the Shmuz app, for Android and Iphone.
From Rosh Chodesh Av until Tisha B’Av we adopt practices of
mourning to commemorate the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash.
Home improvements and aesthetic enhancements of our yards are
avoided. We abstain from the consumption of meat -including poultryand
wine. On Shabbat, meat and wine are permitted. This applies to
any Seudat Mitzvah as well.
We do not bathe for pleasure. It is permitted to bathe in order to
remove dirt or perspiration, or for medical reasons. Bathing in warm
water is permitted on Friday in honor of Shabbat.
HASHEM opened the mouth of the she-donkey and she said to Bila'am, "what have I done to you that you have struck me these three times?" - Bamidbar 22:28. The Storyline: The story of Bila’am, the gentile prophet,
is most peculiar. It begins when
Balak, the king of Moav, recognizes
that he is in danger. The Jewish nation had
just destroyed Sichon, and Moav was next.
Out of desperation, Balak sent messengers to
Bila’am, saying, “Please, curse this nation so
that we can remain in our land.”
Bila’am was more than willing to curse the
Jews — he hated them more than Balak did,
explains Rashi. Balak only asked for help
defending himself against the Jews; Bila’am
wanted them dead. Therefore, Bila’am asked
HASHEM for permission to curse the Chosen
Nation.
HASHEM said to Bila’am, “You may go,
but do not say anything I don’t tell you to
say.” Bila’am then set off with his donkey
on a journey to curse the Jews. Along the
way, the donkey was stopped by a malach,
and Bila’am beat it. The donkey continued.
Again a malach stopped it, and again
Bila’am beat it. Finally, the donkey opened
its mouth and spoke. An overt miracle.
The Seforno explains that Hashem brought
about this miracle so that Bila’am should
realize his mistake and do teshuvah. Even
though Hashem doesn’t normally create obvious
miracles, He nevertheless did so here
because He didn’t want a man as important
as Bila’am to be lost.
³ PUTTING THIS INTO
PERSPECTIVE
This Seforno is difficult to understand. Can
we imagine anyone more evil than Bila’am?
He was gifted with the status of a navi,
thereby granted a fantastic power: the ability
to bless or curse. His words were potent.
He was now going to use his power to annihilate
a people. His intentions were to wipe
out the Jews — every man, woman, and
child. And he would have succeeded had
HASHEM not stopped him. This is a man
on the level of an Adolph Hitler.
Why would Hashem allow such a man to
do teshuvah? And even more, why would
HASHEM change nature to save such a
lowlife?
To answer this question, we need a different
perspective.
³ WHAT DID YOU DO TO BE
WORTHY OF BEING CREATED?
The Chovos HaLevavos says that a person
should ask himself the following question:
before I was created, what did I do that
made me worthy of being created? I recognize
that I didn’t exist and that HASHEM
made me. It must be that HASHEM felt
that it was worthy to bring me into being.
What is it that I did that made me worthy
of being created?
The answer is nothing. Because before you
were created, you weren’t. And that is the
point. There is nothing you did to make it
fit for HASHEM to create you. He created
you only out of His loving kindness.
HASHEM is the Benefactor. HASHEM
wishes to give. Generous and magnanimous,
HASHEM wishes to shower His good upon
others. Not because they deserve it, and not
because they merit it, but because that is the
nature of HASHEM: to bestow as much
blessing as He can. HASHEM created everything
— the stars, the sun, the moon, the
oceans, and the rivers — to give to man.
Man, however, has to earn that good. To do so,
he must perfect himself. HASHEM is the source
of all perfection. HASHEM put man into this
world charged with the mission of making himself
as much like HASHEM as humanly possible.
When man is finished his job here, he
enjoys closeness to HASHEM in accordance to
the amount that he perfected himself here.
That, however, is the inherent obstacle.
HASHEM is beyond time, beyond space,
and beyond any limitation. By definition,
HASHEM is beyond human understanding.
HASHEM wants man to emulate Him
— but that is impossible.
To allow for this, HASHEM manifests
Himself cloaked in character traits. Those
traits guide HASHEM’s interaction with
the world. Now, based on how HASHEM
acts, man can see Him.
³ JUSTICE VERSUS MERCY
HASHEM originally thought to create the
word with din (justice) as the guiding attribute.
However, din demands total accountability.
Din demands absolute responsibility.
And din demands immediate consequences.
You are liable for what you did. No excuses.
No mitigating circumstances. You brought
this about, this is the result.
If din were the operating attribute, no human
could exist. Man will err; man will slip.
Therefore, HASHEM created the world
with rachamim (mercy) as the predominant
force. Now, our actions are viewed through
the lens of understanding. Mitigating circumstances
are taken into consideration,
and time is granted. Time to recognize our
errors. Time to correct our ways.
Therefore, HASHEM manifests Himself in
the almost human character trait of mercy
— the key word being almost. HASHEM is
not human. And HASHEM is not restricted.
When HASHEM wears an attribute, it
is endless and boundless. When Hashem
wears the attribute of mercy, it has no limit.
³ THE EXTENT OF
HASHEM’S MERCY
This seems to be the answer to Bila’am.
Granted he was wicked, and granted he set
out to use his gifts for evil, but HASHEM
still wished for his good. HASHEM still
loved him. Despite everything he was planning
to do, HASHEM didn’t want him destroyed.
And so, HASHEM tried guiding
him to teshuvah even if that meant changing
nature and making a donkey speak.
There is a vital lesson for us in these words.
Bila’am was a gentile — a gentile who
turned to wicked ways. Yet HASHEM still
waited for his teshuvah. How much more
so for us, the children of Avraham, Yitzchak
and Yaakov? We are HASHEM’s nation. We
are His beloved. HASHEM waits with open
arms, saying, “Return, My
children. Return.”
Is it important to save money for retirement or your children?
ANSWER:
It's permissible to do, however! To save for your children, it depends. If you save without sacrificing the purpose of your life, that's alright; but people who give away the time that they should devote for their own betterment, they give that to their children, then it's a hundred percent waste. Because your child, when he comes into the world, he brings along an allowance that he takes with him from heaven, everybody is born with an allowance. My parents didn't set me up in business, didn't leave me any money: Baruch Hashem I never had to borrow any money all my life.
If you won't save up for your children, you'll take off your evenings to study Torah, you'll do tzedoka, you'll give money to charity; don't try to leave wealth for your children. Of course, if you want to leave them Torah wealth and it costs money to send them to Yeshivas, it costs money to keep even your married children in Kollel, that's yours! Whatever you do for them is for you, that's an investment on your own. But even that, suppose you're capable of sitting in the Kollel but your son would like you to keep on slaving to keep him in the Kollel? So you tell him, if you wish you can do it for me, I'll let you slave and support me in the Kollel.
Why not? A father has the right to be in the Kollel, sometimes the father has a better head than the son has. The Gemara says, hu lilmod ubno lilmod hu kodem, it's a question who should learn he or his son, he's first. So you don't give away your soul for your children. But – if you can do it without any big sacrifices of your time, to leave a little bit for them, nothing wrong.
Good Shabbos To All
This is transcribed from questions that were posed to Harav Miller by the audience at the Thursday night lectures.
To listen to the audio of this Q & A please dial: 201-676-3210
HASHEM said to Moshe, “Do not fear him, for into your hands have I given him, his entire people, and his land; you shall do to him as you did to Sichon, king of Amori, who dwells in Cheshbon.” — Bemidbar 21:34
The Jewish nation had just defeated the Emorim and were preparing to conquer Bashan. Og, the king of Bashan, led his army out to meet the Jews in battle. Og was a giant of a man and was feared amongst the nations and Moshe Rabbeinu was reluctant to attack. HASHEM reassured him, saying, “Do not fear him.”
Rashi explains that Moshe was not afraid of Og because of his physical stature, but because of his personal merit. Many years earlier, in the time of Avraham Avinu, a coalition of five kings ruled the world. Four competing kings joined forces and waged war against these five kings and were victorious. During one of the battles, they captured Sedom, where Avraham’s nephew Lot had been living. Og survived that battle and ran to Avraham to tell him that Lot was being held captive. Because Og did this favor for Avraham, Moshe was afraid that the merit of that act would allow Og to beat the Jews in battle.
This Rashi is very difficult to understand, as the Midrash also explains Og’s motivation. Sarah Imeinu was one of the four most beautiful women who ever lived. For many years, Og had his eye on Sarah. The problem was that she was a married woman. With the capture of Lot, Og saw his moment. His plan was simple. He would tell Avraham that his nephew had been captured. Avraham, the altruistic tzaddik, would go to save his nephew. The four kings, the most powerful force on earth, would never allow a captive to go free. Avraham would enter into battle with them and be killed. And along would come the gallant Og to save Sarah from her widowhood. With this plan in mind, Og arrived to tell Avraham the news.
Og wasn’t engaged in redeeming a captive; he was manipulating events to cause the death of an innocent man in hopes of taking his wife. Why would Moshe be afraid of the merit of such an act? That act wasn’t a mitzvah. If anything, it was a sin.
The answer to this can best be understood with a mashal.
What’s your GPA?
Imagine that a recent college graduate applies for a job, and the interviewer asks him about his academic record. “So tell me, how did you do in school?” “Well, my first semester, I got an A in Chemistry, a B in Accounting, and a B+ in Economics. The next semester, I got…” “Okay, okay,” the interviewer says. “You don’t need to give me every detail. Just tell me your overall grade point average”
The employer doesn’t want to know the minutiae. He’s just looking for an overview. He wants to know in general terms whether or not this fellow is intelligent and hard-working. To find out, he asks for the cumulative average.
One of the reasons we don’t fear being judged at the end of our lives is that we assume that the judgment will be like a GPA, an average of everything that we’ve done. “I’m not afraid because, on balance, I was a good guy. I’m not saying I was a tzaddik. I’m not saying I was perfect. But I did a lot of good things, accomplished plenty. Granted, I could have done more. Certainly there were some things I should not have done. But overall, I’m okay.”
The Mesillas Yesharim (Chapter 4) explains that in the World to Come, the judgment isn’t “on balance.” Every act is judged separately. For every act that was meritorious, I will be rewarded. For every act that I should not have committed, I will be punished. But one doesn’t cancel out the other. My mitzvos don’t wipe away my aveiros, and my sins don’t eliminate my mitzvos. Each one is weighed and measured, and rewarded or punished independently. Furthermore, just as each action is weighed separately, so to is each part of the action. If I volunteered to drive an elderly man to a doctor’s appointment, on one hand it is a great act. I took off an entire afternoon to help a fellow Jew. For that, I will be rewarded. But what if while driving, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of arrogance thinking, “Look at me. How many people are as good as I am? Come on, how many people selflessly, without any drive for honor, help an old man? Not many…”
So is this a mitzvah or an aveirah? The answer is both. The outer act was great. But the inner condition was flawed. For the act, I will be rewarded. The self-inflation, however, damaged me, and for that I need atonement. Each part weighs into the verdict.
This judgment is very different than the way we assess things in this world. When we judge others, we focus on their intention. Was he trying to help me or to harm me? Is he a friend or foe? HASHEM’s ruling, however, is infinitely more exacting. There are many dimensions to each act, and many factors to be considered. What were your motives? How pure were they? Where were you coming from? Was this easy for you or difficult? Each act is judged separately, and each part of the act is broken down as well.
Was the act a mitzvah or a sin?
This seems to be the answer to Og. Og was plotting an act of murder. But he was instrumental in saving Avraham’s nephew. While his intention was evil, the act had merit; it helped a tzaddik. The precision of judgment is so great that nothing is overlooked. In most situations, an act like this, which was so devoid of purity, would have little weight. But this was the great Avraham that he had assisted. A favor to such a man, albeit a favor extremely damaged, has considerable merit. Moshe was afraid because the Jewish nation was entering into war, and war is a time of danger. In a time of danger, the sins of the people might be revisited, and the fate of the nation might be re-examined to determine whether they deserved a miraculous victory. In such a calculation, Og’s merit might tip the scale.
This concept is very illustrating. By seeing the extent of judgment, we come to understand the greatness of man. We recognize how significant our actions are and how great an impact they have on us and on the world.
This is an excerpt from the Shmuz on the Parsha book. All three volumes are available at your local sefarim store, or at www.theShmuz.com. All of the Shmuzin are available FREE of charge, at the theShmuz.com or on the Shmuz app, for Android and Iphone.
“And Korach, son of Yizhar, son of Kehas, son of Levi, and Dasan and Aviram, sons of Eliav, together with Ohn, son of Peles, sons of Reuvain.” – Bamidbar 16:1
Korach was not chosen for a position as head of his shevet. He felt entitled to it, and his jealousy drove him to rebel against Moshe and HASHEM. Recognizing that he couldn’t stand alone, he gathered two hundred and fifty leaders of the nation, and they swore their allegiance to Korach and his cause. The plan was to depose Moshe as leader of the Jewish people, and in his stead appoint Korach. In the end, their rebellion failed, and every man, woman, and child was swallowed by the ground.
Of this group, only one man survived: Ohn, son of Peles. The Medrash explains that it was his wife who saved him. She said to him, “What do you gain from all of this? If Moshe wins, you are but a lackey. And if Korach wins you are still but a lackey.”
Her logic penetrated his heart. “You are right,” he said, “but what can I do? I took an oath to remain loyal to the group. They will come tomorrow to get me, and I will be forced to join them.”
His wife said, “Listen to my advice. I will stand outside our tent and uncover my hair. These are all holy men. When they see a woman not properly attired, they will run away.”
She then gave him enough wine to drink till he fell asleep drunk, and she tied him to the bed. Early the next morning, she went outside, uncovered her hair, and waited. When the first members of Korach’s party came to bring Ohn to the demonstration, they saw a woman with her hair uncovered outside his tent. They immediately walked away. She remained there throughout the day. No man dared come to the tent. Then the time came for the standoff. When Korach’s men were standing together, they were swallowed up alive, but Ohn was not amongst them. This is a fulfillment of the verse, “A wise woman builds her house…” (Dos Zakainim)
How Could They Have Been So Foolish?
This Dos Zakainim is very difficult to understand. Korach’s group were men of great piety. The Torah calls them “leaders of the nation, men of reputation.” And here we see an example of how careful they were in regards to mitzvah observance. Even though Ohn played a pivotal role in their cause, the mere sight of a woman with her hair uncovered made them run away. So how could these great people do something so egregious as to rebel against HASHEM and His chosen representative?
The answer to this question can best be understood when we focus on the impossibility of free will.
When HASHEM took the neshama and put it into this world, it was to give man the opportunity to make himself into what he will be for eternity. The essence of our purpose here is to choose what is right and proper and to turn away from what is wrong and evil.
The problem, however, is that those options are set far apart and leave little choice. No thinking person would deliberately choose for himself a path of destruction. Every mitzvah helps us grow. Every sin damages us. HASHEM warned us to do this and not to do that because it is good for us and will benefit us for eternity. So how does man have free will? He will choose good and only good — because it’s so clearly in his best interest.
To allow for free will, HASHEM put the brilliant neshama into a body that clouds its vision and darkens its sight. The desires and inclinations of the body don’t remain separate from me. They are mixed into my very essence and play out in my conscious mind. When I open my eyes in the morning, it isn’t my body that wants to just lie there unmoving – I am lazy. At lunch, it isn’t my stomach that cries out for food – I am hungry. I am both the brilliant neshama and the base animal instinct. And so, I want to live a life of meaning, and I want to live completely for the moment. I want to be good, proper and noble, and I just don’t care. I want this and I want that. Which one is the real me? The answer is both. And I am constantly changing, constantly in flux. Because these desires come from within me, they also distort my vision. When I desire something, my vision can become so blinded that I can hotly pursue something damaging to me, and not only fail to see the danger involved, but even begin to see it as an ultimate good.
The Darkness of Physicality
The Mesillos Yesharim (Perek 4) explains this with a parable.
Imagine a man walking at night on an unlit country road. Because of the darkness, he is danger of tripping. There are, however, two types of hazards he faces. The first is that he won’t see the pit in front of him, and he will fall in without even realizing the peril. The second danger, however, is more severe. The darkness can fool him so that he sees an object, but mistakes it for something else. He may look at a pillar in the distance and see it as a man. Or he might see a man and mistake him for a pillar. This menace is more severe because even if he were to alert to the risk, he would ignore the warning signs because he sees with his own eyes that there is no danger.
Physicality is like the darkness of night. It blinds a person and doesn’t allow him to see the danger in front of him. There are two types of mistakes that it causes. The first is that it doesn’t allow him to see the hazard. He will continue on a path of life that is self-destructive, and he won’t even recognize where he is headed until he is too far down the road to change course. The second mistake, however, is far more dangerous. It is when man is so fooled by the darkness of physicality that he sees the good as if it were bad and the bad as if it were good. At this point, warning a man about the danger is useless. He sees it, but views it as something virtuous. And so, he will clutch to evil against all warnings and against all wisdom because in his blindness, it appears as good.
Korach and His Congregation
This seems to be the answer to Korach and his people. They were Torah scholars, and they were holy Jews. And yet, they were blind. Korach was blinded by jealousy. He then presented arguments and proofs to the two hundred and fifty men that Moshe was making up his own set of rules. He was dynamic and convincing. Once the group accepted Korach’s version of reality, they held fast to it. And then even the threat of a gruesome death didn’t faze them. It wasn’t that they didn’t see the danger. They did. But they saw it as scare tactic, a way of getting them to abandon that which they knew was right. So it didn’t matter how pious they were; they were now on a new holy mission to depose the power-hungry Moshe. And sometimes the truth is even worth dying for. The problem was that they had accepted falsehood as truth.
This concept is very applicable to us as we too are human, and we too must be ever aware of the danger of ideologies that justify that which is evil and self-destructive. The difficulty is that when we are caught up in them, we don’t recognize them for what they are.
A person’s convictions can drive him to greatness or bring him to the abyss — the only distinction being whether or not those convictions are correct. HASHEM wants us to succeed, and in every generation He provides Torah leaders to guide us. The only way that a person can know whether his ideologies are right is by consulting with the accepted Torah leaders of his time. When a person puts away his agenda and his bias and asks guidance on the Torah approach, HASHEM directs him to the truth.
How can we understand Doson v'Aaviram, who were always so it seems at odds with Moshe Rabeinu?
ANSWER:
You must understand that Doson v'Aviram stood at Har Sinai and they shouted na'aseh v'nishma with all their heart like everybody else did, and don't be deceived in that. Doson v'Avirom had they been here today they would have been not among the highest of our Rabbinical authorities, they would have been glorious Rosh Hayeshiva;, they were great men. They were put through a terrible test: You know a great man can live in his own Yeshiva and he can flourish, he can be very righteous, because he's not put to the test of being inferior to somebody else.
Imagine you built up a big Yeshiva and you're saying glorious shiurim, then a Jew moved into your neighborhood and he started davening in your Yeshiva and you discover that he can say better shiurim than you can. No Rov should be faced with such an ordeal. It would be wise to take him in a corner and say, you know you're so good that you should daven someplace else. But suppose you can't do it, Doson v'Aviram couldn't tell Moshe Rabeinu to go.
Moshe Rabeinu was away forty years in Midyan, during that time who was the father of the nation? Doson v'Aviram and others were leading the nation! They were the ziknei Yisroel! All of a sudden an upstart comes back from nowhere, from Midyan, he was lost for forty years, he was eighty years old, they were also old and he's telling them what to do.
Of course he's telling them b'shem Hashem, and they believed him, but it hurt them to no end. Had we been in their shoes I'm afraid what would have happened to us. I'm afraid we wouldn't have remained above ground. Therefore it was a terrible nisayon.
Good Shabbos To All
This is transcribed from questions that were posed to Harav Miller by the audience at the Thursday night lectures. To listen to the audio of this Q & A please dial: 201-676-3210
One of the most powerful addresses I ever heard was given by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, on this week’s parsha: the story of the spies. For me, it was nothing less than life-changing.
He asked the obvious questions. How could ten of the spies have come back with a demoralising, defeatist report? How could they say, we cannot win, the people are stronger than us, their cities are well fortified, they are giants and we are grasshoppers?
They had seen with their own eyes how God had sent a series of plagues that brought Egypt, the strongest and longest-lived of all the empires of the ancient world, to its knees. They had seen the Egyptian army with its cutting-edge military technology, the horse-drawn chariot, drown in the Reed Sea while the Israelites passed through it on dry land. Egypt was far stronger than the Canaanites, Perrizites, Jebusites and other minor kingdoms that they would have to confront in conquering the land. Nor was this an ancient memory. It had happened not much more than a year before.
What is more, they already knew that, far from being giants confronting grasshoppers, the people of the land were terrified of the Israelites. They had said so themselves in the course of singing the Song at the Sea:
The peoples have heard; they tremble;
Pangs have seized the inhabitants of Philistia.
Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed;
Trembling seizes the leaders of Moab;
All the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away.
Terror and dread fall upon them;
Because of the greatness of your arm, they are still as a stone (Ex. 15:14-16)
The people of the land were afraid of the Israelites. Why then were the spies afraid of them?
What is more, continued the Rebbe, the spies were not people plucked at random from among the population. The Torah states that they were “all of them men who were heads of the people of Israel.” They were leaders. They were not people given lightly to fear.
The questions are straightforward, but the answer the Rebbe gave was utterly unexpected. The spies were not afraid of failure, he said. They were afraid of success.
What was their situation now? They were eating manna from heaven. They were drinking water from a miraculous well. They were surrounded by Clouds of Glory. They were camped around the Sanctuary. They were in continuous contact with the Shekhinah. Never had a people lived so close to God.
What would be their situation if they entered the land? They would have to fight battles, maintain an army, create an economy, farm the land, worry about whether there would be enough rain to produce a crop, and all the other thousand distractions that come from living in the world. What would happen to their closeness to God? They would be preoccupied with mundane and material pursuits. Here they could spend their entire lives learning Torah, lit by the radiance of the Divine. There they would be no more than one more nation in a world of nations, with the same kind of economic, social and political problems that every nation has to deal with.
The spies were not afraid of failure. They were afraid of success. Their mistake was the mistake of very holy men. They wanted to spend their lives in the closest possible proximity to God. What they did not understand was that God seeks, in the Hasidic phrase, “a dwelling in the lower worlds”. One of the great differences between Judaism and other religions is that while others seek to lift people to heaven, Judaism seeks to bring heaven down to earth.
Much of Torah is about things not conventionally seen as religious at all: labour relations, agriculture, welfare provisions, loans and debts, land ownership and so on. It is not difficult to have an intense religious experience in the desert, or in a monastic retreat, or in an ashram. Most religions have holy places and holy people who live far removed from the stresses and strains of everyday life. There was one such Jewish sect in Qumran, known to us through the Dead Sea Scrolls, and there were certainly others. About this there is nothing unusual at all.
But that is not the Jewish project, the Jewish mission. God wanted the Israelites to create a model society where human beings were not treated as slaves, where rulers were not worshipped as demigods, where human dignity was respected, where law was impartially administered to rich and poor alike, where no one was destitute, no one was abandoned to isolation, no one was above the law and no realm of life was a morality-free zone. That requires a society, and a society needs a land. It requires an economy, an army, fields and flocks, labour and enterprise. All these, in Judaism, become ways of bringing the Shekhinah into the shared spaces of our collective life.
The spies feared success, not failure. It was the mistake of deeply religious men. But it was a mistake.
That is the spiritual challenge of the greatest event in two thousand years of Jewish history: the return of Jews to the land and state of Israel. Perhaps never before and never since has there been a political movement accompanied by so many dreams as Zionism. For some it was the fulfillment of prophetic visions, for others the secular achievement of people who had decided to take history into their own hands. Some saw it as a Tolstoy-like reconnection with land and soil, others a Nietzschean assertion of will and power. Some saw it as a refuge from European antisemitism, others as the first flowering of messianic redemption. Every Zionist thinker had his or her version of utopia, and to a remarkable degree they all came to pass.
But Israel always was something simpler and more basic. Jews have known virtually every fate and circumstance between tragedy and triumph in the almost four thousand years of their history, and they have lived in almost every land on earth. But in all that time there only ever was one place where they could do what they were called on to do from the dawn of their history: to build their own society in accord with their highest ideals, a society that would be different from their neighbours and become a role model of how a society, an economy, an educational system and the administration of welfare could become vehicles for bringing the Divine presence down to earth.
It is not difficult to find God in the wilderness, if you do not eat from the labour of your hands and if you rely on God to fight your battles for you. Ten of the spies, according to the Rebbe, sought to live that way forever. But that, suggested the Rebbe, is not what God wants from us. He wants us to engage with the world. He wants us to heal the sick, feed the hungry, fight injustice with all the power of law, and combat ignorance with universal education. He wants us to show what it is to love the neighbour and the stranger, and say, with Rabbi Akiva, “Beloved is humanity because we are each created in God’s image.”
Jewish spirituality lives in the midst of life itself, the life of society and its institutions. To create it we have to battle with two kinds of fear: fear of failure, and fear of success. Fear of failure is common; fear of success is rarer but no less debilitating. Both come from the reluctance to take risks. Faith is the courage to take risks. It is not certainty; it is the ability to live with uncertainty. It is the ability to hear God saying to us as He said to Abraham, “Walk on ahead of Me” (Gen. 17:1).
The Rebbe lived what he taught. He sent emissaries out to virtually every place on earth where there were Jews. In so doing, he transformed Jewish life. He knew he was asking his followers to take risks, by going to places where the whole environment would be challenging in many ways, but he had faith in them and in God and in the Jewish mission whose place is in the public square where we share our faith with others and do so in deeply practical ways.
It is challenging to leave the desert and go out into the world with all its trials and temptations, but that is where God wants us to be, bringing His spirit to the way we run an economy, a welfare system, a judiciary, a health service and an army, healing some of the wounds of the world and bringing, to places often shrouded in darkness, fragments of Divine light.
ANSWER:
I'll ask you another question. Why are the seeds of the apple on the inside? On the outside at least it's an object lesson. Before you eat the strawberry, take a look at it; you see a marvel. You see that the purpose of the strawberry is to attract you to eat it, with the beautiful red color.
And so, in the good old days before they had canalization, bathrooms, when a man wanted to relieve himself he went back on the field and he returned to the field all the important minerals that he had ingested. Instead of sending it out today by canalization, to the ocean where it's worthless, and he also deposited the strawberry seeds in the field. That's why today you find strawberries growing alongside fences, because birds who eat strawberries, when they perch on the fence they drop a little fertilizer with some strawberries in it and that's why wild strawberries grow near fences.
And so the benefit of the gymnosperm is to demonstrate to people the beauty of the plan, that the species must be propagated. Now the seeds on the inside however are just as valuable, because when you eat the apple and you come close to the ovary, you are confronted with plastic shields that don't permit you to go any further. So what do you do? You take the entire core and you throw it away someplace, or you spit out the seeds, and then the plan begins to work.
Why is it made so, why shouldn't the seeds be soft and edible, and they should be unprotected by an ovary of plastic shields? The answer is, why is it that all the seeds are protected?
It's a marvel, wherever we look. If you eat a peach, the peach is delicious, it's attractive, it's soft, juicy and sweet, until you come to the stone inside. Don't try to bite it because it means a visit to the dentist, you can't open it up so you throw it away. Sometimes even a hammer won't help...You throw it away, it falls upon the dirt and lo and behold the stone opens up by itself. What you couldn't do with a hammer is accomplished by some bacteria in the soil, because there's a certain paste between the two parts of that cell that protect the seed inside. It's a marvel! An accident of evolution! Just the right paste was developed. Had it been a cement that we use, the pit would fall in the ground and would remain unopened forever, but Hakadosh Baruch Hu's paste responds to the action of the bacteria and it opens up by itself. That's the miracle of the pits.
Therefore when we study seeds, we come to the understanding that seeds are given to the world more than for the benefit of reproduction, the greatest benefit of a seed is to make people aware of plan and purpose.
Good Shabbos To All
This email is transcribed from questions that were posed to Harav Miller by the audience at the Thursday night lectures.
To listen to the audio of this Q & A please dial: 201-676-3210
There have been times when one passage in today’s parsha was for me little less than life-saving. No leadership position is easy. Leading Jews is harder still. And spiritual leadership can be hardest of them all. Leaders have a public face that is usually calm, upbeat, optimistic and relaxed. But behind the façade we can all experience storms of emotion as we realise how deep are the divisions between people, how intractable are the problems we face, and how thin the ice on which we stand. Perhaps we all experience such moments at some point in our lives, when we know where we are and where we want to be, but simply cannot see a route from here to there. That is the prelude to despair.
Whenever I felt that way I would turn to the searing moment in our parsha when Moses reached his lowest ebb. The precipitating cause was seemingly slight. The people were engaged in their favourite activity: complaining about the food. With self-deceptive nostalgia, they spoke about the fish they ate in Egypt, and the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. Gone is their memory of slavery. All they can recall is the cuisine. At this, understandably, God was very angry (Num. 11:10). But Moses was more than angry. He suffered a complete emotional breakdown. He said this to God:
“Why have You brought this evil on your servant? Why have I failed to find favour in Your eyes, that You have placed the burden of this whole people on me? Did I conceive this whole people? Did I give birth to it, that You should say to me, Carry it in your lap as a nurse carries a baby? … Where can I find meat to give to this whole people when they cry to me saying, Give us meat to eat? I cannot carry this whole people on my own. It is too heavy for me. If this is what You are doing to me, then, if I have found favour in Your eyes, kill me now, and let me not look upon this my evil.” (Num. 11:11-15)
This for me is the benchmark of despair. Whenever I felt unable to carry on, I would read this passage and think, “If I haven’t yet reached this point, I’m OK.” Somehow the knowledge that the greatest Jewish leader of all time had experienced this depth of darkness was empowering. It said that the feeling of failure does not necessarily mean that you have failed. All it means is that you have not yet succeeded. Still less does it mean that you are a failure. To the contrary, failure comes to those who take risks; and the willingness to take risks is absolutely necessary if you seek, in however small a way, to change the world for the better.
What is striking about Tanakh is the way it documents these dark nights of the soul in the lives of some of the greatest heroes of the spirit. Moses was not the only prophet to pray to die. Three others did so: Elijah (1 Kings 19:4), Jeremiah (Jer. 20:7-18) and Jonah (Jon. 4:3).2 The Psalms, especially those attributed to King David, are shot through with moments of despair: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Ps. 22:2). “From the depths I cry to You” (Ps. 130:1). “I am a helpless man abandoned among the dead … You have laid me in the lowest pit, in the dark, in the depths” (Ps. 88:5-7).
What Tanakh telling us in these stories is profoundly liberating. Judaism is not a recipe for blandness or bliss. It is not a guarantee that you will be spared heartache and pain. It is not what the Stoics sought, apatheia, a life undisturbed by passion. Nor is it a path to nirvana, stilling the fires of feeling by extinguishing the self. These things have a spiritual beauty of their own, and their counterparts can be found in the more mystical strands of Judaism. But they are not the world of the heroes and heroines of Tanakh.
Why so? Because Judaism is a faith for those who seek to change the world. That is unusual in the history of faith. Most religions are about accepting the world the way it is. Judaism is a protest against the world that is in the name of the world that ought to be. To be a Jew is to seek to make a difference, to change lives for the better, to heal some of the scars of our fractured world. But people don’t like change. That’s why Moses, David, Elijah and Jeremiah found life so hard.
We can say precisely what brought Moses to despair. He had faced a similar challenge before. Back in the book of Exodus the people had made the same complaint: “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this desert to starve this whole assembly to death” (Ex. 16:3). Moses, on that occasion, experienced no crisis. The people were hungry and needed food. That was a legitimate request.
Since then, though, they had experienced the twin peaks of the revelation at Mount Sinai and the construction of the Tabernacle. They had come closer to God than any nation had ever done before. Nor were they starving. Their complaint was not that they had no food. They had the manna. Their complaint was that it was boring: “Now we have lost our appetite (literally, “our soul is dried up”); we never see anything but this manna!” (Ex. 11:6). They had reached the spiritual heights but they remained the same recalcitrant, ungrateful, small-minded people they had been before.2
That was what made Moses feel that his entire mission had failed and would continue to fail. His mission was to help the Israelites create a society that would be the opposite of Egypt, that would liberate instead of oppress, dignify, not enslave. But the people had not changed. Worse: they had taken refuge in the most absurd nostalgia for the Egypt they had left: memories of fish, cucumbers, garlic and the rest. Moses had discovered it was easier to take the Israelites out of Egypt than to take Egypt out of the Israelites. If the people had not changed by now, it was a reasonable assumption that they never would. Moses was staring at his own defeat. There was no point in carrying on.
God then comforted him. First He told him to gather seventy elders to share with him the burdens of leadership, then He told him not to worry about the food. The people would soon have meat in plenty. It came in the form of a huge avalanche of quails.
What is most striking about this story is that thereafter Moses appears to be a changed man. Told by Joshua that there might be a challenge to his leadership, he replies: “Are you jealous on my behalf? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his spirit on them” (Num. 11:29). In the next chapter, when his own brother and sister begin to criticise him, he reacts with total calm. When God punishes Miriam, Moses prays on her behalf. It is specifically at this point in the long biblical account of Moses’ life that the Torah says, “The man Moses was very humble, more so than any other man on earth” (Num. 12:3).
The Torah is giving us a remarkable account of the psychodynamics of emotional crisis. The first thing it is telling us is that it is important, in the midst of despair, not to be alone. God performs the role of comforter. It is He who lifts Moses from the pit of despair. He speaks directly to Moses’ concerns. He tells him he will not have to lead alone in the future. There will be others to help him. Then He tells him not to be anxious about the people’s complaint. They would soon have so much meat that it would make them ill, and they would not complain about the food again.
The essential principle here is what the sages meant when they said, “A prisoner cannot release himself from prison.” It needs someone else to lift you from depression. That is why Judaism is so insistent on not leaving people alone at times of maximum vulnerability. Hence the principles of visiting the sick, comforting mourners, including the lonely (“the stranger, the orphan and the widow”) in festive celebrations, and offering hospitality – an act said to be “greater than receiving the Shekhinah.” Precisely because depression isolates you from others, remaining alone intensifies the despair. What the seventy elders actually did to help Moses is unclear. But simply being there with him was part of the cure.
The other thing it is telling us is that surviving despair is a character-transforming experience. It is when your self-esteem is ground to dust that you suddenly realise that life is not about you. It is about others, and ideals, and a sense of mission or vocation. What matters is the cause, not the person. That is what true humility is about. As C. S. Lewis wisely said: humility is not about thinking less of yourself. It is about thinking of yourself less.
When you have arrived at this point, even if you have done so through the most bruising experiences, you become stronger than you ever believed possible. You have learned not to put your self-image on the line. You have learned not to think in terms of self-image at all. That is what Rabbi Yohanan meant when he said, “Greatness is humility.” Greatness is a life turned outward, so that other people’s suffering matters to you more than your own. The mark of greatness is the combination of strength and gentleness that is among the most healing forces in human life.
Moses believed he was a failure. That is worth remembering every time we think we are failures. His journey from despair to self-effacing strength is one of the great psychological narratives in the Torah, a timeless tutorial in hope.
Important Numbers
