Devorim: Charlotte, Moshe Rabbeinu and Our Sole Responsibility

Dear friends, welcome to this week's virtual Dasha. This week we have the incredible privilege begin and generally we know when we begin a newish there's a certain feeling of excitement of optimism and the truth is there is with we know that the year is coming to a close before us are rapidly approaching we will celebrate the beautiful culmination and completion of the Torah but also comes with a profound heaviness. Of course on one hand paras is always read on shabis the shabas right before tishov but I think on an even deeper level something that even defines certain kundrical realities or connections which is last moments with cloud and one feels the urgency throughout this entire s moss that he is not going to shepherd his beloved flock into this next chapter of their national destiny and so there's an urgency to tell them whatever he can in the short amount of time that they have together, there's an urgency to try to convey to them all the necessary life lessons that they're going to need at some time in the future, but yet Mosha will not be there physically to whisper it into their ear. So now he has to whisper it into their heart, into their soul with the hope that they'll retain it with them as they go forward. And the par begins in a very almost raw way. These are the words that Mosha went ahead and said to points out that these are the things these are this is rebuke. This is rebuke begins with moshu pointing out all of the times over the last 40 years that we went wrong. All of the things we did wrong not effort to beat us up but an effort to remind us of our mistakes and failures so that we could do better so that we could be better going forward. And in this vein, Moshabu says this is infest of in many communities to read this PK in the haunting tune of says how can I handle by myself literally means like like the burden the load all of your fighting and it's such an overwhelming moment. You know sometimes a person could give rebuke and rebuke can be given in anger and sometimes a person can give rebuke and you wonder if the person who's giving the rebuke loves the people he is rebuking and sometimes rebuke is given with such a pure heart that through this stinging words you feel the love and you feel Mosherenu saying to us like what are what are you doing to each other why why why I'm the man who went up on the mountain 40 days, 40 nights. I didn't eat bread. I didn't drink water. I I I I was more mal than man, more angel than man. I could handle a lot of stuff. I faced down Pharaoh. I faced down. I faced down and I did all of these things. And yet none of that compared to the difficulties I've had in facing the challenges of the Jewish people. How can I go and carry by myself? the the burdens, the burdens, the load and the fighting. Here Mosha is referring unfortunately to the negative interpersonal conduct of Isra and the great sad the imam has a beautiful interpretation of this p and he says he puts the as as often theic masters are able to do he puts the punctuation a little bit differently. He says the reason the way he reads it is remember the pik reads Right now, it's an it's a question. How can I shoulder? How can I hold by myself all of your burdens, all of the fighting, all the difficulty? Says, "No, that's not how to read it." I'm going to read to you the words of the he says as follows. refers to the destruction of the right like we say like we'll read on tish above so says to us when it comes to matters of when it comes to the destruction of miktod to the rebuilding of the b mikdash to msiach to fixing all of the global problems that mankind and faces is all that stuff. God says, "I'll handle that. I'll handle that. I can handle that. The only thing I ask you to handle is take care of each other. Take care of each other. Leave Leave the running of the world to me. Leave the matters to me. Leave the rebuilding of the B Leave peace. Leave all the global issues that mankind. Leave that to me. All the stuff I God will carry your shoulder by myself. But all I ask of you, excuse me, we have one job, says who says to us. Just take care of your just take care of your take care of your baseless hatred. You just take care of the fighting. You take care of the you take care to create. And if you do that, you have a profound and overwhelming division of responsibility when it comes to matters that fall under the umbrella of global issues, issues, mankind. I got it. All the stuff your responsibility your burden what you have to take care of take care of your an overwhelming message that mosh says you think your biggest problems are your external enemies we know all of them it's not true it's never been true our greatest challenge often is what we do to each other our greatest challenges are often how we mistreat each other you know the mikdash was destroyed because the second so we often translate as baseless hatred and the truth is it's a very strange it's a very strange definition baseless hatred people hate each other for no reason there's always a reason right if I don't like someone doesn't like me there's always a there's always a reason maybe maybe it's legitimate maybe it's illegitimate reason but there's always a reason so what does it mean people just hated people what because they were angry because they were bragg so remember again when we see the word. So one of the times that complained to Moshu they said excuse me remember the fish right the fish the cucumbers the melons that they eat they sounds like they ate for free like where the Egyptian is part of it that everything says I don't understand parro wouldn't give them straw but they had all of the fish they wanted or all of the cucumbers all of the melons rather means free of responsibility. See were lamenting the fact that although technically speaking they were emancipated, they were free, but they were invested with so much more responsibility. They were they were waxing. They were they they were they were they were remembering the quote unquote freedom of Egypt because in Egypt there was no responsibility. A slave doesn't have responsibility for himself. He has to fulfill his task, his quota, but he has no responsibility towards a destiny. We remember said to complain to Moshabu when we were free from personalistic responsibility means to be free of responsibility means that I'm in a state of I'm in a state of discord with someone and I feel absolutely no responsibility to fix it. I just don't feel responsible. Just not my problem. either not my problem because I say hey it's not my fault and if it's not my fault then again what what what what does it matter to me or just someone else's problem or just I don't care enough to get involved that's is the state when there is within and I don't care enough to fix it and I don't care enough to do something about it and says the says but that's your only job your only job is to do something about it. That's your only job. You know, I'm sure many of us heard about this overwhelmingly tragic story about this little girl, Charlotte Herzburg, who was killed in a terrible accident and this beautiful initiative called Shalom for Charlotte where it turns out that it was the very close friend of Charlotte's father who who Rahman was driving the vehicle that that that accidentally inadvertently killed this precious little girl. and how this Mishbah and this community turned an overwhelming and dramatic tragedy into a call to responsibility. And please, if if you haven't signed up for the pledge, sign up for the pledge. It's just beautiful. The whole initiative is take responsibility to make shalom. Take the first step. I bet I don't have to. I wasn't the one who did it. So what we so often speak about that life is not about being right but it's about being happy and sometimes beautiful and profound happiness comes when we just choose to take responsibility. You see, we often focus on so many of the things that we don't control and we spend so much effort on the things that we don't control and we totally neglect the things we do control. And says stop like all the major stuff that's broken that in reality you and I can't fix who says I got that. I got that. We have one sacred task. The responsibility that we shoulder, the load that we shoulder is rim to take care of our this beautiful holy Herzburg family within Kali is used the most overwhelming and heartbreaking and tragic circumstance as a call to relationship responsibility for Israel. just take the first step because that's the only step runs a beautiful world and he knows exactly what he's doing and he's got it choreographed and he's got it orchestrated and he doesn't need us to insert ourselves in his affairs at least some of the time. What he needs us is to focus on the things we can change and things we can change. It's me and you. It's our relationships. It's how we interact with each other. It's how we treat each other destroy the mdash. See dear friends, it's important to understand is part of the human condition. There's always going to be discord. There's always going to be fighting. I guarantee when comes there's going to be fighting right the third I can imagine there's going to be who gets up is going to be has to wear a jacket has to wear has to wear sandals. I I have no doubt I have no doubt there's going to be there's no such thing. There's no such thing is when there's and I feel no to try to straighten it out. That's what destroys temples. That's what destroys lives. That's what destroys nations. Dear friends, It's shabis. It's the nine days. It's but a few days away from tishabuff. And we all too often resign ourselves to the fact that because we've been mourning for almost 2,000 years that we have to mourn this year also. It doesn't have to be that way. Anything and everything can change. Anything and everything will change. But nothing changes by itself. Things only change when we find the courage to change them. We've lost so much because we haven't exercised the sacred responsibility and ability to change the interpersonal dynamics within our people because we've been suffering from sin not from but from an unwillingness to fix the for thousands of years. Let's turn it around. We all have makas in our life. We all have this card in our life. We all have afraid or broken relationships in our lives. And some things you can fix, some things you can't fix, but you could always try. You could always try. The remedy to interestingly enough is not I don't know what means just love without boundaries. Love it. I don't know. The antidote to sin the antidote to the answer to is take responsibility to fix the in your life. And if each of us do this just in one little small way, if each of us takes just one little step, identify one relationship, identify one pocket of saying, you know what, I've neglected doing anything about it for so long. I'm going to do something about it. I'm going to reach out in some way, in some way, big, small, whatever it might be. Just don't upsent yourself from the responsibility to fix in your life because that's the only thing Hashem asks of us. The big things, the things Hashem's got that the responsibility that sits on our shoulders. take care of let's use these days of the nine days to address the which exists in all of our lives to do our small part in Hashem rolling up our sleeves and trying to push away some of the negativity some of the who knows the nth of is going to come because there's a day on the calendar but the nature of that day is fundamentally up to us in this of all of us rejecting and repudiating and taking the responsibility to fix the things that are broken to celebrate the nth of together with the rebuilt third bas with the mels at our home.