19- Rambam's Shmona Prakim 8th Perek Bechira Part 2 HaRav Yitzchak Breitowitz Jewish Understanding

mentioned yesterday the very important makshava from the mabit other sources that hashem does not judge us by the objective level of our accomplishments but he judges us by what percentage of our co-hosts did we give to his aveda and that is what the rambam means rabbi khan and says when he says every person can be like moshe robino moshiro banu's cocos were much much greater than any other person but he gave a hundred percent we could try through our bahira to give a hundred percent now the reason why this is so important to bakira is that it does indicate that bakira does not mean everybody has the koak to be the same meaning by definition people do have different abilities people do have different limitations people uh people do have different strengths now it's true that with siata de shmaya anything can happen it's true that even the person who does not have such a good head can if he works hard can become a great guy but but derek cloud there are going to be limitations meaning there's a natural genius and then there are people who are a bit slower et cetera but that's not a contradiction to bachira because once you understand that bashira doesn't mean i can be you know anybody in the world but it means i can take what i am and make it 100 to hashem so everybody has that bakira but it doesn't mean to be the same person okay that's an important idea it doesn't mean that if you're not uh refrain kenepsky it's because you didn't work hard enough maybe that is the reason because maybe you could have become raphael kenesky had you worked hard enough maybe or maybe not it's hard to know uh because maybe even if a person worked as hard as they could work their tough kid and their neshama was not to be that it was to be something else but that's not a kisarin because hashem is not judging you based on that somebody else that you weren't supposed to be it's based on who you were supposed to be in fact this they give a muscle i don't know if there's a macaron for it it sounds a little too modern so i don't think it's a classical macar but the muscle they like to give is what is gehenum gehenna means you go to the movies you watch a movie right johanna's america you watch two movies two movies at the same time one movie is the life you led and the other the movie is the life you could have led had you uh led to your potential and gehenna is the feeling you have when you compare the two movies the movie of what i was and the movie of what i could have been just say scandal right that's the gahanna when a person realizes all of the potential that they could have had so again though that's the point but here it does not mean every person can be with him konefski every person can be you know moshe rabeno in that literal sense but rather it means lefie or madrega you can be a hundred percent person just as they were 100 person or close to it whatever whatever it would be so that's an important decuda that already tells me bakira is not like as all as encompassing as you would imagine because we do have limits although we almost i mean we almost never reach our limits that's true but we do have limits we have uh strengths we have weaknesses and all of that is factored in to how i utilize my bachera in a wise way so one limitation on bakira can be natural abilities natural weaknesses natural strengths another limitation on bahira can be the circumstances of life that you find yourself in right the people are different people are born into different circumstances some people are born into circumstances where a certain aspect of awaiting hashem is easier for them they're born into a from family for example other people might be born into circumstances where finding a kaddish boracay might be very difficult some people are born into a family where emotionally they get all of the support that they need and god forbid other people are born into a family where there's abuse now you can't say each of them has the bashira to be the same person because we are formed by circumstances so this brings to mind a fundamental concept that rev destler introduces and that's called nakudas means there's always a choice that is kind of a fulcrum or a tipping point that can differ from every individual hashem does not expect the same choice to be made by different people at different points and points in their life so let's say for example you are a drug addict in the gutter uh vomiting because of uh cocaine or whatever i'm not so familiar with all the addictions but whatever either cocaine or alcoholic or whatever it is you're in a real disgusting low point now the rambam says no matter what you are you have the right to choose now what does hashem expect me to choose at that moment does he expect me to choose is he going to ask me let's assume the guy for me the guy dies of the drug of the overdose is god going to say why did you not choose to go to colonel at that moment you could have chosen to go and told them it says that's not where he was that was not his situation so if destler says yes there's always a choice to be made but it's not always the choice that you're not yet on that madrega your choice was to go to rehab your choice was to call somebody to take you to the hospital your choice was to do something outside of and for that hashem can hold you accountable for not making that choice hashem is not going to hold you accountable for not being in kovale right you were not on the madrega to possibly make that choice so the idea of nakuta sabahira means there will always be a fulcrum point where you can go either way now this works for good things too for example let's assume you were either born from or you you've been from for a long time right and you walk by a non-kosher mcdonald's now realistically speaking i mean if you're moderately committed to kosheros and you've done it for a long time you don't have any scion gee i really want to go in i mean you might say you might say i want to go into the mcdonald's that's the gazelle that we learned the person should say i want it but i'm not going to do it i'm not talking about that but the actual struggle gee i'm gonna go in or no i'm gonna hold myself back realistically that's already a one battle you've won that battle and god is not necessarily gonna reward you right i'm not gonna get rewarded today because i didn't have a ham sandwich now maybe i will because there is a concept that if i once had to make a choice and i made the choice i might get rewarded for everything but but derek clown there are issues that you've already won you're already victorious right again that doesn't mean you don't have the desire and for character it might be desirable to have the desire that was the hazal but you don't you know you're not going to transgress it now you're beyond it you're just not going to transgress that so those are the issues you can already put in the asset column now on the other side of the coin there are issues in which you're not yet ready to make the choice meaning there are certain of eros that might be so overpowering for you that you're not yet spiritually ready to make the choice so some areas are already in the victory column and some areas are already in the defeat code but there's gonna be a middle range in which you could go either way that's the fulcrum that's the tipping point and then hashem expects you to make the right choice right that's called the nakudas and the makura sabahira changes as you go through life and it changes from person to person and from circumstance to circumstance and this actually answers the interesting question of fairness that people would raise i gave you an example a few minutes ago about one person is born into a from loving supportive family and they're raised with mitzvos and they have emotional support and another person is raised let's say not only non-religious but also abusive and selfish and the question is how could hashem expect both people to turn out the same way how could hashem actually say to the person born in that environment you know you're in trouble because you made the wrong choices and the other person oh you're so great because you made the right choices the key to it is that everybody has a nakuda sabahira meaning to say the one that's born in a from family may not get rewarded so much because he kept shabbos or he kept kosher you see if the idea would be you know the guy in the front family is going to get all this reward for keeping shabbos and the other guy is you know not going to get rewarded for they say well that's not fair hashem put them in a different environment but if you understand that's what tesla is saying the guy who keeps shabbos because that was easy for him again it's still a mitzvah but his main reward is not going to be for that it'll be for the issues he's struggling with and conversely the guy in the abusive environment is going to get rewarded for the issues he's struggling with then everybody has their challenge everybody does have their challenge because the guy in the firm environment has to build on what's already has given and then you know whatever the struggle is la shanhara uh whatever it is abbas israel they'll always be a struggle there are enough struggles in the world that no matter what your advantage is there will be a point of challenge like it's like weightlifting right you got to go beyond you know your comfort level so a guy starts off so 10 pounds you know is good exercise but at some point 10 pounds is nothing right so you got to do more right so that's the point the people who start off with what you might call an easy spiritual life that just means that's not their challenge but god says you gotta identify your challenge and struggle with it okay that's a very helpful idea because that kind of explains the idea that people in different types of environments do have different challenges that hashem is expecting them to try to meet so the guy who is in uh in the street vomiting uh because of alcoholism his choice is to try to go to a treatment center and not be an alcoholic but for a person who's not an alcoholic you're not going to get rewarded because you didn't become an alcoholic that wasn't your struggle that wasn't journey science you have a different type of messiah right so this is what rob destler terms as the kudasah and you understand that if you're going in a proper direction your nuku dasa bahir is going to change to higher and higher and higher struggles and god forbid if you're going in the opposite direction your nucleus of may be adjusted downwards but at any given moment in time god is expecting you to make the right choice vis-a-vis the particulars of the experience that you're in again this is uh well destler has so many beautiful ideas but this this may be one of the most powerful ideas uh in the mix of meleo that and again i have to admit it doesn't really fit the language of the rambam that well the rambam seems to make looking for sure almost doesn't all or nothing meaning the guy in the gutter could have made the decision right now to be like moshe that's the mashmose of the lush of the rambam but drovdester says realistically that's not what akaneshparko expects of you at any given time expects that you will make the choice that you're capable of making given the circumstances that you're in at that particular moment of your of your life okay so that's one thing to know about about bahira another question about which the rambam does not address at all in the shemina prague but it's a very important idea clearly my bahira affects my life and it affects my relationship with hashem and that's exactly what bahira means hakobi deshamayam everything is in the hands of heaven except my decision to serve hashem my decision to serve hashem is me i make that decision hashem does not make that decision but obviously based on my decisions hashem's interaction with me will be based on what i decide meaning i decide to serve him he will relate to me in a certain way i decide to reject him he'll relate to me in a different way in other words my bachera actually controls hashem's interactions with me because since i am the one who makes decisions about me depending on who i am is how hashem will deal with me in fact this is the famous review by tefila right you asked hashem for this and that so the question is are you changing hashem's mind if hashem decided that you don't deserve something then why are asking i mean what do you do how can you convince hashem he changes his mind so if yes if elbow says tefila does not change hashem's mind to feel it changes you i'm a different person when i realize everything comes from hashem once i'm changed hashem's relationship to me when i was x is not the same as his relationship to me when i'm y x and y are two different entities so hashem doesn't change but as i change hashem's connection to me is going to change but that's not an inconsistency in the creator it's a different object right hashem relates to a table in a different way than it relates to a chair i mean even on that level right they're different i'm a different person so this broker relates to me in a different way so tefillah is not about changing hashem te fela in an ideal sense of why we should be zaika is about changing changing us so one thing for sure is that bakira changes me and by changing me it changes how hashem relates to me okay that's that's a dover plushie now i did talk discuss friday night but let's forgive me for repeating a little bit so the interesting question is this can you davin that somebody should do chuva can i dive in that a person who's not religious the person who doesn't keep the torah may be a person who's an atheist should believe in hashem and believe in the torah and do mitzvos this can sometimes be a situation about a person's own relative you can dive in for your parents or dive for your brother or sister is there such a thing as tefila that somebody could do chuva so the emphasis i guess the embassies there seems to be a fairish gemara that says that you can do that uh this is uh ignoring brachos by robbie mayer reby mayer was one of the great tanayam and he had enemies that he wanted to curse remember in one story uh he he wanted to wait for the time of billam that bilam knew when hashem is angry at the world and that's when the comb of a rooster turns from red to white for a fraction of a second reby mayer tied her rooster to the bed and stared at it and he fell asleep so he missed the moment although i never understood i mean even if you blink you could miss the moment so i'm not sure why he thought he could get the moment even if he'd be awake but at some point he wanted to curse them on his own and kill them get rid of them so what did breuer brewier was his very learned wife and she said to him you're making a mistake david malek says in borhinopshi to hillary that means let sins vanish from the world and then there will be no longer any evildoers because there'll be no sin it does not say ye tamu cho to him it does not say let sinners vanish it says let sins vanish so breuria says we don't pray for the death of resha'im we pray this is a gemaran breakfast we pray that the rishayam should do chuva and then there's no longer vicious so she said to rabbi mayor if you have reshayam that are creating saris you don't pray that they die you should pray that they do chuba this is the marian bragas so the gemaran broncos seems to say beferish that you can pray that somebody does juba but the emma says the marsha in the hiddushaya goddess actually asks akasha marsha asked akasha how can you pray that somebody does chuva the decision to do shubha is not something that hashem decrees hashem doesn't decree that you'll be at sadhakara russia hakobi deshanayam hashem left the decision of chuba to the person so how can i pray that someone does shiva if i'm praying that some of yeshua i'm praying that hashem should change or influence their choice when it's really their choice now the martial then the vorance he anticipates another question well you may ask akasha on me how can i say you can't pray that someone does shiva don't we do that in the shamona esray three times a day when we say hashi venu avinu the sorosaka what is that prayer return us hashem to your torah no restore us to you with a complete sugar so for character we do pray that hashem should make us do chuva so then marshall says the following when you pray for yourself to do chuva that's legitimate because you're already telling hashem i want to do shiva but maybe i'm not strong enough so then we have another rule the way that i want to go hashem will take me so if i pray i want to do chiva hashem will help me do true but that applies when i'm praying for me although it's a little share because the prayer is lush and rabbit but when i pray about somebody who doesn't want to do juva there they don't want to do truman they're not interested i'm asking hashem to interfere with their bachelor so the marshal actually says you can't do it aye so now we're left with the kasha so how do we understand breoria what's breya's taina pray that they should do chuba the marshall says you can't pray that somebody else does juva if they don't want to so the marshal says an interesting idea you can't pray that somebody does truva it's up to them but you can pray that hashem put into their lives the people and the experiences that have a greater probability of inspiring them because this is also an imponderable question that's a very interesting question people who come to chuva or even people who were born from but but who become great people often had experiences in their lives that brought them to a certain place you had a certain rebbe in fifth grade or you met somebody you know and jle or or whatever it would be or on a college campus they changed your life if you wouldn't have met them there wouldn't have been a change and really it's it this is a question that's quite perplexing like why do some people get that and some people don't get that now granted you can have two people who are exposed to the same thing and one responds and one doesn't and that's a credit to their behavior i got that so i'm not asking why are some people inspired and some people not inspired that is bakira but what i'm asking is and i'm genuinely asking you why do some people get the experience that causes them to be inspired and other people just didn't get that experience like why did i get to meet you know the fifth grade rebbe and my friend didn't get to meet that fifth grade remy when he might have been inspired the same way that's a bit of an imponderable some people say that's connected to such others an amazing thing that you may have had a great great great great grandmother who prayed with tears that her descendants should be shown her mitzvahs and generations later hashem will cause the great-great-grandson to meet somebody that inspires them and the person who never doesn't have that inspiration or didn't get that inspiration maybe they didn't have a great great great grandmother praying for them it's a little scary for some reason some of the mentors don't like that for it so we don't say it anywhere in the mentor's mission i don't really know what their problem is but whatever you kind of learn sometimes you just don't say certain things i don't know okay all right but anyway uh but it isn't imponderable i mean it is something to really think about why do some people get the breaks and some people don't but without answering that question because it is a hard question actually the point is this this is what the martial says i can't pray that rouvene does true that's up to him and god is not going to make him do chiva but i can pray just like the great grandmother that ruvain should meet the people and have the experiences that are likely to inspire him that you can pray for but then bottom line is it's going to be up to him it is going to be up to him but let him be in an environment where he meets the right people and sees the right things and rook hashem i think anyone that has been on the journey of being a baltimore in whatever way uh or even people you know born from a bit but they sometimes go off the dirt and they need frieza there's often going to be some special thing that happened to them that put them on the on the derek put them under their head so that's what the martial says and that's that's a good that's a very good terrorist that you know you don't pray that somebody does chuva but you pray that put in their life those experiences that will help them but you know actually says a real big hadith says you can pray that god makes somebody do children you can do it ah you're going to ask me that contradicts the principle of bachira says tefila is so powerful that feeler can override meaning i can actually pray that somebody decides to be a good person which is an amazing insight into the power of prayer prayer is an override of every law in the spiritual universe including i mean the hera in the spiritual universe is as fundamental as gravity right so essentially when you're saying fela can override bakira that's the same thing as saying feel it can override gravity although i'm not aware of people overriding gravity but that's a very big deal fela can override this spiritual law that is called bahira and as a result according to the khazanesh you can pray that your brother your sister your parents whatever it is a friend dude shiva and hashem should put into their heart to do you so we have two different overlapping mahakam according to the marsha you cannot pray that somebody directly does truva but you can pray that hashem should put experiences in their lives that will bring them to this according to the khasinesh you can even pray directly that a person does i i don't know if we have a halal absolute on this but these are two different views in hashgaffer regarding the fila they do bring a riot to the chanzanesh again i had said this a few weeks ago let me just repeat it here from the din of your mik once right we read in last week's parsha at the end of seifer bamidbar about the cities of refuge about the r.a miklot goes to the city of refuge to be protected from the gail haddam and he remains there very strange uh sentence until the cohen godot dies which could be long or could be short going gutter could die a day later he goes free uh the kamen god will could die 50 years later he remains in the year nikola for 50 years and indeed if he dies before the culling gundle he is buried in the uremiclet not to be exhumed until the cohen got all dies now because the wrote sacks freedom depended on the death of the cohen donald trump the right stream in the rv miklot had a built-in incentive to pray for the cohen goddess demise or maybe worse they could hire a hitman but but the mission says they would pray so as a result it mentions that the mothers of the kohanim gedolim would bring food packages gifts to the rhodesians and the remikrats in order that the rhodesian would not pray that the cohen guttal would die it was a bribe basically they would bribe them that they shouldn't pray that the cohen god all would would die so the gemara and marcos asks akasha if the mothers had to give a bribe in order to prevent the cohen guttal from dying so the the implication would be that if they would pray that the cohen guttal would die their prayer would be effective right the mothers are afraid of that prayer implying that the prayer would be effective why would it be effective if i pray that somebody dies they're going to die if they're not deserving of death why should my prayer be effective so the gemara says because the coming gutter is deserving of death and that makes them vulnerable to their prayer and the reason is because as spiritual leader of the generation he should have prayed that these calamities not take place i mean the accidental homicides so it's a prayer and a prayer meaning his failure to pray that these accidents shouldn't occur makes him high of miso and because he's high of misa he's vulnerable to the wrote shim's prayer and that's why the mothers had to bribe so what makes the cohen guttel high of misa he could have prayed that these calamities these accidental homicides don't occur now here's the problem with that and this will actually be a riot of the khasinesh eniere miklot is not meset anir mclath is not referring to intentional murders it has to be accidental that's called the showgig but showgig itself has different varieties if something was truly an unavoidable accident a building collapsed whatever it would be you don't go to the urbikland if i killed somebody by a totally unavoidable accident a person is driving a car and all of a sudden his brakes stop working if god forbid he kills somebody and he was not negligent in checking out the car he does not go to the ear middleweight he only goes to the year mikblood if he was careless if he was negligent he didn't stop at a red light he didn't look both ways at a stop sign he threw stuff out of his window he threw heavy stuff out of his window and he didn't look about who was walking over in other words in legal terms we would call that manslaughter right what is manslaughter manslaughter is a crime is homicide you killed a person without intent but there was carelessness there was negligence there was not paying attention that is what a showgig is shogin that manslaughter actually is a very very good uh translation of what is ritika bashogik it would more or less i mean obviously the definition is not going to be exactly the same but it's more or less akin to the secular concept of manslaughter now if that's the case if people are getting killed bashogg that's because there are roads come out there who are callous who are indifference who are reckless who are negligent who are careless so how can i pray as a i'm a cohen god how can i pray that these things shouldn't occur am i praying that the people who don't will stop a stop sign should stop at the stop sign isn't that in an interference with their bashira too see it's the same thing so you see from that then that you could be miss paulo that careless people should be less careless you could be miss pillow that people who don't stop at stop signs should stop at stop signs people who don't look both ways at intersections should look at both ways and intercessions i that's bakhira so the khasanesh's answer would be tefila in this case the cohen gundlestila can override now you may ask how would the martial learn that text right the marshal says you can't hashem will not change people's choices so the answer would be this the martial would have to tweak it a little differently the marshall would say i can't pray that you'll stop at a stop sign but i can pray that when you don't stop at a stop sign there'll be no kid in the intersection in other words you're not praying to change the behavior of the reckless guy you're just praying that there'll be nobody in harm's way when he makes his reckless decisions so you see so it's very very fascinating there are two different ways of learning what the cohen guttal is supposed to pray about according to the marsh according to the khasinesh the cohen guttal prays that people who are callous and indifferent to life will be more careful and conscientious and that goes with the idea that fila can change bakira according to the marsha you can't really pray that people who are careless that's their decision and hashem is not going to interfere with their decision but you can pray that there'll be nobody in harm's way when that happens i said they'll be in mark locust what the cohen goddess should have prayed for yeah why aren't the mothers well keep in mind uh they're not praying they're bribing why can't they get the same benefit by uh yeah that's a good point but it could be maybe they're also diamonds but you also need a studless meaning like anything else you know you pray for parnassa but you're still making us so on those in him that is you still have to make some mistakes by the way people ask the question uh if i want to if rosetta wants to pray that the coming guttal dies is he going to be bribed with some chocolate chip cookies i mean is that going to is that going to change it so then before some say listen the wrotseat is still going to dive in the cohen guttal dies but it's not going to be with 100 covenant meaning it's not that i'm not gonna dive in because you brought me a cake but i'm gonna feel a little guilty you know this sweet old woman you know brought me a nice cake so even when i dive into her son dies it's not going to be with the same hislabis and that's going to make a difference already that's going to knock it down a little bit yeah one question during this why did he have to pay time death it's not like during chinese sometimes it was like a term like you would switch people around they wouldn't always just die maybe i'm wrong yeah yeah well well the problem is resignation might not work i mean that's the problem i mean um i mean the tyrus says death is the thing that releases him so resignation might even make it worse he may be stuck till the second guy dies so that's not going to help in terms of minion well remember one thing to remember the rv mcgrath were not prisons although they're the closest we have to prisons they were levite cities they were cities that were populated by levine so there were shoals there were mignon and the koenig i wrote saya has access to the entire city so edward said went to show uh right so there was no reason why he wouldn't go to shul because levam uh levine lived there and libya had mignon and everything else in fact buffalo has a very good point that the closest thing we have to a prison system is the year micklin and what do you do you put a rhodes in an environment where he's with sardican and holy people because that will teach him to be makship life as opposed to a prison system right you take some guy who committed a minor offense with a marijuana cigarette and you put him in a ceviva what is this who are your kavehrim in prison murderers rapists child's molesters everything else so what's going to happen uh you'll become one of them i mean that's why the recidivism rate of prison like you know you went to prison for a small thing the likelihood is you will go back again and again and again and again for much more serious things r a miklet is a lemur that if somebody misbehaves and somebody needs to be confined ubadafka put them in a righteous environment rather than put them in an environment with people that are reshowing them so in a sense the year mklit can teach you a little bit about incarceration uh policy as well okay take care