Tomer Devorah with Rabbi Avigdor Miller 28 Ch 13 Mimei Kedem From the Days of Old Our Last Chan

Shalom. We are in the last trait of mercy of Hashem. The 13th attribute of mercy called mime from the days of old. This is a mid which with which Hashem conducts himself with Israel, with the Jewish people. when the marriage of the forefathers has worn off. As we mentioned in the last class, there are some people who have their own merit. And then there are some people who don't have a merit, but they have the merit of their forefathers. Everyone has the merit of their forefathers because we're all descendants of the same grandparents. And there will come a time could be we're already in that time when the merit of the forefathers is no longer and then Hashem still finds more mercy to give to the Jewish people. Rabiler explains the author continues discussing the trait of Hashem's love for the forefathers. This mida operates only for the Jewish people. There are two reasons why Hashem loves us. First, he intrinsically loves the Jewish people because we are part of him. because we show our commitment to him, because we love him. And the second reason is because of his love for our forefathers. So when we ourselves are not worthy, we have our forefathers to rely on. And even we ourselves, even if we are not worthy, there is still something between us and Hashem. An intrinsic love that without any action on our side, Hashem still loves us. among Israel among us there are there are always people who are worthy of Hashem's love as we say we say that righteous people they support the world if there were no righteous people the world would stop and that is because overall the mistakes that people make presses down on the scale and um the amount of um merits is less than the amount of sins. Just like we mentioned in the past, there was an argument between the school of Hel and the school of Shamai. Whether it is worth it that the human being was created or not. Was it worth it for God to create human beings? And after analyzing this question for three years, they decided no. It wasn't worth it because the um the winning side is the sinners. People who don't care about righteousness, people who don't care about the truth, people who don't recognize God. All these people are the winners. There are many more of them. Not 51% against 49 on the side of truth, but it's more like 99% of those that just want to have good time, those who want to take advantage of others, those that do not care for truth at all. And there might be only 1% who truly recognize God and serve him and want to do what's good. The observant Jews plus a few of the what we call the righteous ones among the Gentiles. If we combine all of them, we may barely scratch together uh 1% So both schools of Shamay and Hel agreed that it was not worth it for God to create man on earth because majority of them are sinning. So then the question arises so why did God create the world? He knew the outcome. He understood the statistics and he knew in advance what are the chances of most people of being righteous and he still decided to create the world. Why? And they answered it's for those who will take advantage of their life and be good. Yes. For majority of people, it's uh a failure. It would it would have been better for them not to be born. However, for those few that will benefit from the world, that will increase their merits and will improve their standing in the next world. They're in the shama when it came into this world was in a high place close to God. Then it was brought down to be tested and perhaps it will be able to rise even higher next time it goes to the spiritual world. Most people fail and they lower their spiritual status forever and ever. But those few individuals, they raised their status, connected closer to God, brought themselves higher. Hashem says it was worth it to create the entire universe with billions and billions of people for those few individuals. Even if there were there was only one human being who through the creation of the world 6,000 years of history brought himself closer to God. One man out of billions, it would have been worth it. Why? Because we see that humans are just a tiny fraction of the entire universe. And God still created the entire universe. What was that for? because there will be a human being connecting to me. And so too, Hashem created so many living things, amieba, bacteria, viruses, all the way to insects and fish and birds and animals for what? They don't have connection to God because they will help one human being to come. And so too we have billions of humans for what? They all fail. No, they create the framework and support system for that one individual. Hashem, we have more than one individual. We have thousands and thousands and tens and hundreds of thousands of righteous human beings on earth. And therefore for people in general statistics are against them. Chances are that they will fail most of them. But for Hashem it was still worth it to create the world for those few righteous individuals. So Raba Miller says among amI is there are always people who are worthy of Hashem's love. However, certain people or even certain communities have already lost a great deal of merit. certain countries, certain neighborhoods became secularized, modernized, and they unfortunately lost the test. They failed and therefore they do not deserve any more special consideration. However, Hashem deals with the children favorably because of the merit of the fathers. And we may ask if people rebelled against God, why are they still alive? And the answer is because Hashem is still giving them a chance in the merit of our forefathers that perhaps they will come back. They will reconsider, they will do touva and if not they perhaps their children will come back or their grandchildren or in the case of the former Soviet Union very often it was the great grandchildren that came back and Hashem says I'm going to be patient for the parents who went against God for their children and grandchildren until great grandchildren maybe will come back and in the meantime for all those links in the chain how will they survive? They will run on the merit of our forefathers. But there is a limit to how long that merit will continue. The author tells us that even when the merit of the fathers stops, all hope is not yet lost. There is still this mid this trait of mercy of Hashem called mimed from the days of old. Now, Rabbi Cordov continues, "What should Hashem do if they have used up all merit of their fathers and they are no longer worthy on their own merit? There's no merit on their own. There is no more merit from the forefathers." It is written that is what we say on trying to awaken that character trait of Hashem and say Hashem we don't have merits Hashem maybe the merit of our forefathers is lost but Hashem please remember for us the loving kindness of our youth the love of our bridal days. This is the verse in Yerao that says that Hashem himself tells the Jewish people, I will remember for you the loving kindness of your youth and the love of your bridal days. What does it mean? It's a mashal. It's a parable. Imagine a man whose wife has grown old. They're already 40 years married. She has lost her previous fair beautiful appearance and maybe there have been some quarrelsome incidents between them. Nevertheless, he insists on remembering her not the way she is now, but the way she was when he married her. And that's a the the trick to successful marriage and successful relationship to always remember the good whenever it happened. The good may have happened madam from long time ago but I still remember it from the youth from the bridal days. He remembers her her beauty, her graciousness, her gracefulness, and he remembers how well she treated him when they were dating and when they were engaged and when they just got married and how much he was attached to her in those days. Therefore, all his life he continues whenever necessary to bring back and to recall the picture of her youthful days. This is what Hashem said to our nation. I remember for you the love of your bridal days. What is he talking about? The verse continues, "You went out of Egypt after me into a wilderness, into a land that was not sown, not planted." Hashem said, "When you came out of Egypt, I showed you wilderness and you didn't ask any questions. You didn't worry about how you would support yourselves. You threw your lot in with me and loyally followed me." The Jewish people relied on Hashem and were willing to go into the desert, that's the fire, into the water of the the sea. They went through fire and water for God. People don't realize what an act of great heroism it was when Am Israel agreed to leave Egypt. They could have remained there and parro would have been afraid to abuse them any longer. They could have said, "Hashem, leave us alone. We like it here. Our enemies are destroyed. They gave us their money. They stopped enslaving us. They're afraid of us. We're going to overtake Egypt. We're going to put our own people on all the major posts. That's what usually happens when a smaller nation rebelss against the bigger nation, overpowers them, subdues them, puts all the their own people in high posts, then it's good. Let us stay like that. We are going to enslave Egyptians now. The Egyptians had suffered so much that they respected and feared amy would have consented to even remain enslaved in Egypt rather than to go out into the wilderness. He says that even if they would not overpower the Egyptians and install themselves as the main culture, even if they would remain minor minority, still it would have been safer for them to stay in Egypt than to go into the wilderness. We don't realize what wilderness is, but try traveling to um a wild place, leave your car behind and start walking. Don't take a a backpack. Just start walking and take some children along. Walk a mile, two miles, become tired. Your children will be tired. And now say, "Am I willing to continue walking for another few days without a compass?" And that's how it was. No GPS, no uh security. Hashem says, "What you did for me, I consider kindness." Jewish people did kindness with God. They gave him something that he could not have himself. They gave him trust, loyalty, commitment. They followed Moshe and Hashem into the wilderness wilderness. Oh, Hashem said, "I'm not going to forget that for the rest of your history. I'm going to remember that you followed me into the wilderness. Hashem actually remembers the days of old. We, the Jewish nation, have one secret weapon. Besides our forefathers and besides our current merits, we have something that all of us did as a nation when we agreed to follow Hashem into the wilderness. He doesn't merely keep it in mind as one of the considerations. He views them as if they were still in the days of old. We know that for Hashem there is no time constriction. He is in the present, in the future, and in the past all at once. And the events of the past are still happening for Hashem right now. So he sees right now that the Jewish people are trusting him. And that means if Hashem, this is the truth, it really is the truth. Every Jew has within him trust, belief in Hashem. inner strength. The core of a Jew is strong and Hashem sees it and Hashem does not give up on any Jew. Hashem loves them with the love that was there at the beginning because now is also beginning and because of that he has compassion on Israel even if they are not worthy. That means right now is only a moment in history. And even if right now we're not worthy, but right now is not everything. Right now is just one part. And if yesterday we did something good, it stays with us forever. And Hashem views it as right now. So Hashem compares now with everything else. And he says,"I see some good in them where I don't see any good. Not today, not yesterday, not the day before. I see good in a far distant past. But for me, Hashem says it's as if it is right here with us." Of course, among the people of Israel, there always are people who are worthy, but there are others who live only on the merit of these 13 principles of mercy. Continuing the previous mashal, so we have a husband and a wife. They live together for decades. And the wife is no longer beautiful. She is not as gentle and accommodating as she was at the beginning. They went through some tough times, some fighting, some put downs. Nevertheless, her husband insists on looking at her now as if she did not change at all. Of course that requires effort but that effort is an imitation of Hashem. Hashem looks at Ami Israel with the same strong affection that he had for them at the moment they left Egypt. He so to speak awakens within him within his mind the emotions that would have been bestowed at the time when they left Egypt. We cannot explain these things because Hashem is not a human being. But we act as if all these attitudes were experienced by him. [clears throat] Which means when we say that Hashem experienced certain human characteristics, it is just for us to understand what was going on. That's not actually what Hashem was experiencing because he is unchanging, unbiased. Nothing happens to him that happens in a physical body. However, we still use these expressions for us to understand. Um, we explain as if these attitudes were experienced by him and he renews in his mind exactly the same attitude he had then. And so, Hashem uses his ability to see the entire history. We call it memory. But for Hashem, it is not memory. For Hashem, it is live view. And we are expected to behave the same. Of course, it is difficult for us to imitate because we have memory loss and we have reasons to see how different people become. For us, current reality, the now is stronger than the past and we have to overcome it and bring back the memories. dig deep inside our mind and uncover all the good things that our wife or other people did for us and awaken those feelings of gratitude. Feelings that maybe never existed because we took it for granted in the past. But we have to bring it to our to the forefront of our mind and awaken feelings of gratitude of appreciation of admiration for our spouse or other people. A wife who wants to fulfill this trait exerts herself to view her husband as if he were a young groom. Hatan who is still accommodating and loving with all the good qualities he had at that time. It takes great effort but we'll see we'll soon see that this investment is very rewarding. It pays for the person himself to activate this mida bazat. Next week we will continue in this chapter and next week we will finish this book in time for Rosh Shah. In the meantime, have a great day and Shabbat shalom.