Leaving the Past Behind | Rabbi Binyomin Weinrib

Many years ago, a friend of mine told me that he had spent a Tu Bishvat in Mezhbizh, Ukraine with Reb Itche Meir Morgenstern. And he remembered very clearly, that this Tzaddik, by the Seudas Tu Bishvat, took an olive, one of the שבעת המינים, and the olive was covered in olive oil, and he started wiping off all of the olive oil. And we know that Chazal tell us that the olives are קשה לשכחה, eating olives can cause a person to forget, and olive oil is good for זכרון, is good to allow a person to remember their learning. And the Tzaddik, Reb Itche Meir, was taking the olive and he was making sure to wipe off all drops of olive oil off of this olive before eating it. And he explained to all of his Chasidim that were sitting there: A Yid needs to know that it's crucial in Avodas Hashem to be able to forget. That a person needs to be able to put his past behind him at times, to be able to say that: Yeah, the Aveiros that I've done, the challenges that I've had, that I haven't overcome, I'm able to put it behind me. I'm able to say I can forget about what has been and I can focus on the future. And a Yid needs to be Mechazek himself, to strengthen himself constantly by saying: I'm going to focus on היום, I'm going to focus on today, I'm going to focus on the future, and I'm going to put all of my failings, all of my challenges that I wasn't able to overcome, I'm going to put them in the distant past and I'm going to be able to move on. We know that Yosef HaTzaddik, who's the ultimate symbolism of the world of Kedusha, names his first child Menashe. He names his first child Menashe, because the Ribono shel Olam allowed him to forget all of the challenges that he had. Yosef is not just naming his own child Menashe to remember the fact that Hashem allowed him to forget his own challenges, but Yosef HaTzaddik is telling us that if we want to grow in our world called Mitzrayim, if we want to make sure that we're able to overcome the challenges that are in the world of Mitzrayim, the way to do it is and the first step to do it is with the world called Menashe. Only once we have him a Menashe, only once we're able to put all of our failures in the past, then we can work on that world, which is called Efraim. The world of success, the world of greatness, the world of being able to achieve those accomplishments that we'd like to do in the world of Kedusha. And therefore, the first step is, let's put all of our failures in the past. Let's forget about them for the time being. Let's be able to move on towards a world of success. And in that way, we'll be able to go from the world of Menashe to the world of Efraim.