Tomer Devorah with Rabbi Avigdor Miller's Commentary 14 Chapter 7 Yashuv Yerachamenu God Will Ag

Shalom. We are in chapter seven of Tom Devor with Rabbi Va Miller's commentary and we're starting the new character of mercy of Hashem number seven and that is Yeshua. He will again have compassion upon us. And Rab Mosha Cordo the author of Tom Devora says, "Hashem does not behave like human beings behave. Suppose somebody caused another person distress. Later when he allows himself to be appeased, he forgives him partially. People say it's difficult to forgive. Yes, I would like to forgive him, but I find it hard. I'm not ready. or I forgive him a little bit, but I still find that in my heart I have a grudge. I have feelings of hurt. So when someone hurts you and then later asks for forgiveness, we try to forgive him, but it's not 100%. And imagine if the person didn't ask for forgiveness, then it's much harder. And a good person will still try to forgive but will say, "How do I know if he uh is not going to do the same thing again? How do I know that he's not a bad person and that I'm forgiving him, but really he doesn't care and he's going to continue hurting me and therefore maybe I shouldn't forgive him." So we say, "But you know what? It's not good to keep a grudge. It's not good to have hatred in your heart. The way you treat them, that's how Hashem treats you. So, we say, "Okay, fine. I will forgive him for my own sake, for my peace of mind, and so that Hashem forgives me. I'll forgive them." But this forgiveness is not 100% because they didn't ask for forgiveness. We're worried maybe they'll do it again. And it really hurts. So even if you say I forgive you or quietly to yourself, I forgive him. That's a big thing because most people don't even bother to request forgiveness and still you forgive. Most people sin against their fellow man. And even if they are wise enough to regret what they did, they are not wise enough and strong enough to ask for forgiveness. Further, most people don't even realize that requesting forgiveness is one of the most important obligations. Yes, you have to recognize what you did was wrong. And yes, you have to regret and you have to take upon yourself not to do it again. But one of the basic steps of tishuva is to go to the one that you hurt and say, "I apologize for hurting you. I am sorry. I regret that I behaved like that. Please forgive me." If the other person doesn't forgive you, then Hashem cannot forgive you. And therefore, even though you regret and you take upon yourself not to do it. But if you never asked for forgiveness, never requested it and never received forgiveness, then teshua is not complete. Hashem cannot forgive someone whom people still are upset at. Even if he lives at the end of the world, you must find some way of contacting the person you wronged and asking for forgiveness. And even if he is dead, you must go to his grave with a minan and ask for forgiveness. I did that once. I sent this is Rab Miller talking. I sent people to the grave of someone I had insulted years before when I was a young man. It cost me money too. That's what you have to do. But even after you have requested forgiveness, you are still not finished because he has to accept your request. This means that he's that he not only allows himself to be appeased, but he emulates Hashem to reinstate you to the status that you had before you wronged him. Partial forgiveness is just a beginning. It's enough for the requirement of forgiveness. But as far as the person against whom the sin was done, it's not enough. So if you ask for forgiveness and the person forgave you, Hashem forgives you as well. But if the person still has hurt and pain, it is your responsibility to continue asking him for forgiveness, to continue appeasing him more, to continue being nice to him and extra nice to him. Now, let's see um the difference between us and Hashem. So we said that a person finds it hard to forgive and even when he forgives it's only partial and even if he forgives him completely he does not restore the previous love that he had for him. Often husbands and wives hurt each other and then they try to forgive each other and sometimes they do forgive but the memory is still there and at the first opportunity the husband or the wife will remember what happened in the past and um the other spouse might be surprised. Why are you reacting like this? I only did a small thing. And usually it's the wife. The wife will say, "Yes, today you only did a small thing, but it is piling up on so many hurt feelings that I had since we got married and I can't forget it." And the husband says, "But we are past it already. I asked for forgiveness and you forgave me and I became a better person and I just did a small thing. I made a mistake. I apologize." And she says, "Yes, it was just a small mistake, but in my memory, it's a straw that broke the camel's back." Let's say they married for 10 years and once a month he hurts her. He says something. He is a tadic 99% of the time. 29 days of the month he is perfect. One day a month he said something he shouldn't have said. The entire day he was nice. But one moment during the day he became overwhelmed. He couldn't handle himself. And he said an insult. One moment out of 30 days full of happiness and peace. So the wife will remember that one moment and the next month another moment and like this in one year she'll remember 10 hurtful statements and in 10 years she's going to remember 100 hurtful statements. And the husband might feel that his marriage is perfect because 99.9% of the time he's treating his wife with utmost respect. And then one time he slips and it becomes 101st time that he insults her during their long marriage career. And that's it. She snaps. She says that's it. I can't live with such a guy anymore. He hurt me 101 times already. And husband says, "What do you mean? We just had our anniversary and we love each other and I gave you so many gifts. You're supposed to forget everything." And she says, "I cannot forget." That is a human being and that is normal and we have to be aware of it. And therefore, we should never press each other's buttons because we never know what will be that straw that will break the camel's back. Because even though our close ones try to forgive us, but they don't forget, they do not restore the previous love that they had for us. And Rab Miller gives an example. Let us say that somebody was friendly to you for years, but he once insulted you. Finally, he has the good sense to come and say, "I'm sorry. Let's be friends again." You say, "Yes, certainly." But if in your heart you still feel a bitterness toward him, then you are lacking in this quality of Hashem, when you forgive him, take him back with an attitude of love for him like you had before. Very difficult to do. You have to forgive and then you have to forget and bring back the good feeling, the good attitude toward him as if the insult never happened. You only remember the good. And now imagine if a person sinned against Hashem and later repented what happens. Hashem forgives us. And not only that, he doesn't merely wipe out the wrong that the person had done. His favor in the eyes of Hashem is greater than it was before. Not only Hashem restores his love for us after we sin, but he makes sure to make it even better. Why is that? Because the Talmud in says in the place where stand perfect cannot stand. A person who made a mistake and repented and came back to Hashem, Hashem loves him even more than someone who never sinned. And there are a few reasons for it. One of them is a person who sinned he tasted the forbidden pleasure and he is willing to give it up for God. That means he is um doing certain level of sacrifice on his part that is greater than a complete sadic who never tasted the forbidden pleasure and he might not know what he's giving up. That's one explanation. Another explanation is because a person who sinned, he has emotions in him, regret, shame, feeling that he's missing God's love. And these emotions drive him to come even closer to Hashem. And therefore, the love between him and Hashem is going to be strengthened. This is similar to a husband and wife. uh if they never got into a fight. So they're respectful to each other but there may be certain distance between them. There's so much respect that I'm I'm I'm in certain awe of my spouse and I would never think to say anything wrong to him or her. But that causes us to be a little bit distant. But if I overcome that barrier and I become extra friendly with my spouse, that comes with a danger that I might hurt them, become too familiar and treat them with less respect and they might get insulted. Then when I realize my mistake, I regret it and I feel shame and I want to restore the connection. So I come back and I reconnect and I become even closer to my spouse than I was before. And so breaking that barrier of distance and then repairing the hurt causes us to actually become closer to each other. So the love between Hashem and the person who sinned but came back is stronger than love between Hashem and a person who never sinned. Ordinarily Raba Miller says we have a barrier against sin. There's certain fear until the first time the person sins. When a man has sinned and broken down the barriers between him and sin, the fence remains down even though he later does toua. Why? Because you know that you can do it. You know that you can break the rule and get away with it. And therefore, it becomes harder to control yourself because you already know the path to the forbidden place. to remain a baleshuva to remain righteous becomes more difficult because the path is there you know where it is I can go there anytime I want god forbid it's harder to stay away and therefore the reward for keeping my distance from sin is greater to remain righteous is more difficult to be sadic to be righteous to from the beginning because the baleshua tasted sin. Therefore, if a person sins and then does toua, he becomes greater in the eyes of Hashem because now it's harder. Hashem appreciates him more because he has more difficulty being on the same level as in this context. Place means level. Madrega a certain level of achievement. Which means the level of achievement of someone who sinned and came back is higher than someone who was just climbing step by step and he's still there. Someone who climbed up and then fell. Now when he climbs up it's harder. And therefore even though they are on the same level with it sadic the person who send and climb back is considered greater. And therefore if there is a sadic on a certain madria and a balteshua who has achieved the same madria the beshuva is more important than that sadik. That sadic, that righteous man never broke through any self-control restrictions. So it's easier for him to remain the sadic he always was. When you have a habit of doing good, it's easier to stay on that path. You have a certain inertia. I woke up early 5 days ago. I woke up early ever since. I woke up early today and most likely I'll wake up early tomorrow as well. I go to the same minan. I say birkaton after I eat. I put on tilin every morning. I keep Shabbat. Everything is set up the plat and the timers and I'm off from work. Everything is easy. Everything is flowing smoothly. Someone who stumbled, fell down, sinned. He has to repair everything and he has to reestablish his habits and that is hard. The sinner already broke through his restrictions of self-control. So it's more difficult for him to remain on the level of although both are equal in other respects in one aspect the balteshou is greater. Therefore when we say in the place where balshua stand perfect sadikim cannot stand it refers to sadik and balshuva who are otherwise on the same madrega. Okay. Now, Rabbi Cordov continues, "The reason is given in a chapter of Gimar called Habon in regarding the sha shape of the letter H. As we know the letter H is composed of two letters, a dalid which is like this and a little ude um on the side. So hay has a roof and a full leg and a partial leg. That leg is not connected to the roof. Now the gam says that the world was created with the letter hate. The physical world is created with the letter H. And some explain that it means three dimensions of the world. You have um one dimension, the second dimension and separately the little U is telling you about the third dimension like the coordinate. So letter H represents the physical world and the gamar asks why was the world created with a letter hey and that is because letter hey represents the process of being righteous the process of god forbid sinning and the process of doing tshoua One letter is describing to us what is the way to live in the physical world. How is that? The gam asks why is the letter hey made openended on the bottom? Again you have the roof, you have one side and you have a little leg on the side but the bottom is empty. Why? Because anyone who wants to go out from his world can go out. If you want to lose the world, there's an easy way. You just drop down. In order to live in this world, you have to put in effort. You have to get up. You have to overcome gravity. You have to pick yourself up and keep yourself up. If you give up, you're going to fall down immediately. If you are not careful keeping yourself away from sin, you will fall down right away. Now, Rab Miller explains and als in a courtyard usually has three walls and an entrance. The fourth wall is open. So, so that you can enter easily and exit easily. A house has a door. A porch doesn't have a door. You can come in and you can come out. Why is the world compared to a hay? The shape of our opportunities in life are like a letter H. The bottom is entirely open symbolizing the opportunity to easily fall out, to easily fail. Temptations are always present and no one is ever free from the ordeal of tests and therefore the bottom is wide open. There is no safe place to climb up and to rest and the wind is not going to pull you down. The bottom is open leading to Gina. Of course that sadikim remain inside despite all the tests they face. But suppose someone yielded and sinned. He has fallen out of the hate. When he decides that he wants to repent, what does he do? He can't come back through the same wide space through which he fell. Just like we explained, if you fell through that path already going back up, the path is open. You're already used to it. You're going to fall down again. Now you have to find yourself a different path. Rather, he has to come back a difficult way via that little entrance under the roof of the H through which he has to squeeze himself with effort. If the world was in the shape of a letter which has a roof and two full legs, then the way you fall out, that's the only way to come back. But that's very dangerous because you're going to fall down again and there is no alternative. So, Hashem created the world with a letter H to create as it says uh that Hashem dug a tunnel under his throne of glory to create a path a hidden secret path for those that want to repent. Even though the malahim and the forces of nature and habit will not allow a person to improve rather there's only one way bad company bad habits and death but Hashem says I'm going to give an opportunity opportunity against all forces against all habits against all addictions against even the angels a hidden path that leads you to the top. You can go straight to the top and enter enter the highest connection with God. Now, Rabbi Cordova continues, "This means the world was created with a hay and Hashem created the world open at the bottom. The opening is the opening to sin is wide. There is no side without temptation. Yet and ruination is like an open courtyard. Wherever you will try to hide, climb up the walls to the ceiling, grab onto the side walls. The fact that is the bottom is open and you're not protected against the yet and its temptations. The world is a world of tests. There is no such thing as leaning back and feeling secure in this world. It's open-ended. There's constant exposure to the um common comparison is a downward elevator escalator. The escalator is constantly running down. And if you stand on it and you relax for a moment, you will be lower than you were before. And if you stay there for too long, you will be at the in the basement. Uh the only way to overcome is to continuously strive to become greater and greater. Like a courtyard, it doesn't have real boundaries. Rather, there is a great opening below. For all those who wish to leave their world, there are many openings, many opportunities. Just like anybody inside the hay can fall out through the b the open bottom. Likewise, the world has all kinds of exits. If people want to go out from this world to ruin themselves, whether in Torah attitudes character traits, forbidden desires. It's possible to get lost quickly and easily. Wherever you turn, you will find opportunities to sin and become lost outside. Even if you live in the best neighborhood, it's best to live in a good neighborhood among Sadikim. But Korak also lived among Sadikim and he was still lost. Which means even in the best neighborhood, it's not perfect. It's still part of this physical world. Under the roof of the hay, there is a little opening. What is that for? It's for someone who wants to return into Shuva. They can climb up through that little opening. Above there is a little opening. That little opening is not easy to climb into. But anybody who wants to exert himself with difficulty and climb in and repent, his repentance will be accepted. We will continue tomorrow with this chapter. In the meantime, thank you for joining and have a great day.