Mishpatim: I’m Not Broken

Dear friends, welcome to this week's virtual dust. This week we have the incredible privilege to read paras and this para is a treasure trove of what we call interpersonal law again gives us this whole body of law tort law damages how we treat each other and almost following on the heels of sanic revelation who gave us gave us the ten commandments really solidifying and concretizing our relationship with the divine comes paras who tells us this is how we have relationship with each other there has in a in just society, there has to be expectations and rules. There has to be again behaviors or expectations of how I'm obligated to interact with you and how you're obligated to interact with me. And if we're going to build a holy and just society saying then we need paras and therefore gives us so many kind of just compacted into one par. I want to draw your attention to one of these. This is in parab and the p chapter 22:8 and the p itself is even a little bit strange just it's strange to understand trance and what the just from the words for every sinful thing al kamar al sal for a bull a donkey a lamb a garment for any lost article that a person will say this is it both parties should come to the judge and whoever the judge is declared as guilty ultimately again will pay double we'll pay twofold to his neighbor like I said it's not immediately clear what are we talking about up here explains something amazing says she says this teaches us the concept a modu mix partial admission to illustrate this in a very simple way. Ruvane approaches Shim, right? Ruin summon Shim to to a dora to a bas and he says, "Shim, you owe me $1,000." Shim says, "I don't owe you $1,000. I only owe you $500." This is what's called in MBA makes us a partial admission. So, Rubain is not, remember, Shim is not denying the claim. Rubin's claiming $1,000. Shim says, "You I only owe you $500." Moda makes what happens when there's a partial admission. A partial admission triggers a shiva an oath for the remaining 500. So now again shim admitted 500. He has to take an oath that that he doesn't owe ruin the contested 500. This is what's called motiv makes us part. So when again when when a when a defendant does a partial admission, he has to swear regarding the rest of the amount. The nigmar has a whole logic over here because once he admitted part of the claim where kosh were concerned, maybe he really does owe the whole amount. He's trying to buy himself a little bit of time. Conversely, if Ruven were to go to Shim and say, "Shim, you owe me $1,000." And Shim were to say, "Oh, you nothing." That's called ker, he's denying the claim in its entirety. And again, in that case, there's no sh. So says over here, this this p is teaching us the concept of mod makes us partial admission. Again, Ruvane says, "Shim, you owe me $1,000." Shim admits part of the claim. That's called Modiv. It makes us partial admission. Shim now must swear that indeed he does not owe Ruain the rest, the remaining $500. Incredible. That's says something so beautiful. He says, "That's the what's the like what's the meaning? What's the spiritual meaning of this for us?" And the Reb says something amazing. He says, So there's there's a spiritual message here as well. When a person sins, when a person commits, he shouldn't think that that means that his entirety, that his totality is rooted and immersed and embedded in sin because the essence of the soul has not sinned. Because at the end of the day, even when I sin, my ultimately remains embedded with even during the act of sinning itself. What is the highlighting? They're saying something incredible. When we make a mistake and we all make mistakes, we compound that mistake by thinking that we are broken that we are damaged goods and we assume that the aira fundamentally and totally tarnishes me in in in my essence I am now a sin. I am a sinful person. I am a broken person. I am a tarnished person. And the Reb says that's not how it works. When we commit a yes, we break parts of our self. We tarnish parts of oursel. But it is also important to remember that in the midst of every single sin, there is always a part of me which remains whole. There is always a part of me which remains beautiful. There's a part of me which remains holy. The says my cannot be damaged that you have given me. It's holy. It's holy. And no matter how bad the aa is then itself is still and always will be holy. There is nothing you can do in this world that could diminish the holiness of your soul for the simple reason that as the balatanya writes that in the soul is it is a piece of you can't damage a piece of hashem. You can't tarnish a piece of Hashem. You cannot sully a piece of Hashem. That's my nishama. That's my soul. So no matter what I do, no matter how bad or disastrous the mistake and the aa may be, no matter what, there's always a piece of me that remains holy and beautifully spiritually luminescent. There's a piece of me that no matter how disastrous the mistake may be, there's a piece of me that's always whole, intact, bright and beautiful. The Reb says that's the of being modus. Modix. Listen how the Reb understands it. He says ultimately again I have to admit I have to admit that there is part of me not that's broken. I know that. But I have to admit to myself that there's a part of me that's whole and that's spiritually luminescent. You see, we have to try to escape the mentality that when I sin now broken because is essentially highlighting and and we we live through this is so often after we commit an aa which we all do and we do it often and we do it really well and we do it with and his loav and passion and excitement. We often compound the aera afterwards by then looking at ourselves as broken people. And what happens when you look at yourself as a broken person? Often without even realizing it, we give up hope of rehabilitating ourselves. Rabbi Nakman writes that the greatest challenge that man encounters is not sin because we all sin. The greatest challenge of Aman says is yosh is despair is giving up because in the aftermath of sin I think now I'm a broken person and if I'm a broken person there's no hope for me there's no rehabilitation for me so I might as well just throw in the towel so not only do I sin but I compound the sin by experiencing a sense of spiritual despair that no matter what I do I can't turn it around and says so don't do that be motivas in the aftermath of sin admit Admit to yourself that there is some part of you not that's broken. I know that. But in the aftermath of sin, admit to yourself, that there's a part of me that's good. There's a part of me that's holy. That my sh even when I'm actively sinning, my sh still remains connected to admit that to yourself. Tell that to yourself. Remind yourself of that. Because if you could do that, then I can rehabilitate myself in the aftermath of sin. You know, say why? Why? Why why is it why is it that chuva is possible right? What you ever think about this we always say chva is possible you could do chuva for anything and in fact this right says that that there are certain aas for which you can't do chuva the swarm right even for those you have to do chva does that make sense certain things you can't do chiva for yeah unless you do unless you do still try hard with those also why is chuva possible chva is possible because I believe that at the end of the day no matter how disastrous the mistake may be there's a piece of me that's good there's a piece of me that's holy there's a piece of me that's untarnished that my shama even when I'm singing when even when I'm sinning is actively connected to that's modus that's modus not admit that part of you is broken not admit that part of you is compromised mod admit beix us that part of me is holy that part of me is good, that part of me is connected and if you believe that then you can rehabilitate yourself. The Reb says in fact what's have an oath. Right? Remember again what do we say before says to Shim and Shim owe me $1,000. Sh says I only owe you 500. So what does Shim have to do? Shim has to take an oath on the remaining the disputed the disputed half disputed $500. The Reb says once you admit to yourself that at the end of the day there is a part of me that is holy and unsullied and spiritually luminescent I'm obligated to take an oath. What's the oath? The oath is the oath to myself. I can do better. I can be better. I can pick myself up. Why? Because I'm not damaged goods. because I'm not fully broken. Yes, there are parts of me that are broken. That's not a shila. There are parts of me that are in a state of disrepair. There are things that need to get resolved and things that need to get worked through, but that is not me in my totality. I am mo I admit that in part I am still whole. I am still spiritually strong. I am still spiritually luminescent. I am still connected to and therefore again I have to take a shu I swear to myself I'm going to pick myself back up. I'm going to put myself back together. I'm going to move myself forward and I'm not going to allow myself to fall into the clutches of yosh to fall into the clutches of despair. This says the is the sacred obligation we have. So in one simple parasit teaches us yes a very important in terms of interpersonal law that again if you admit part of a claim you have to swear regarding the half the other half but it teaches us perhaps one of the most important lessons in our even when we mess up and even when we make wrong turns and terrible and horrible decisions and we feel like we have just totally shattered our ability to advance ourselves in a positive way in life. Remember, admit to yourself that you are still holy. Admit to yourself that there is a piece of you that is still untarnished. Admit to yourself that you can and will do better. And after the admission, do it. Take Yeshua. Swear. I swear. I swear to myself, I'm not swearing to God. I'm swearing to myself. I'm gonna pick myself back up. I'm gonna put myself back together because there's holiness. There is goodness. There is beauty inside of me that's still there no matter how many broken pieces there may be. And with that untarnished, untainted, unsullied spiritual beauty, with that piece of my nishama that was connected to God even in the midst of my sin, I swear to myself to do better. I pledge to myself to do better going forward. Wishing everyone a good night of Shabas and a beautiful Shabas kish.