Tomer Devorah with Rabbi Avigdor Miller's Commentary 21 Ch 9 VeTashlich Bimtzulot Yam Kol Chatota

Shalom. We are in chapter nine of Tom Devor. We're learning about the the trait of Hashem called he will throw all their sins into the depths of the sea. And we explained that in addition to a person also needs to go through some sort of punishment. And we explained that that is actually good for the person. It will protect him from sinning in the future. And um in addition we they we say that just like a person received a physical pleasure from the sin, so to he now has to go to the other uh side and receive some physical suffering to balance it out. But the main reason why Hashem provides us with punishment is so that it helps us not to repeat the sin in the future. So that we keep in mind the punishment and we say I don't want to go through it again. I have some fear of Hashem and I do not want to experience suffering again. Now, um, Rabbi Cordov continues, "The reason for this conduct, why Hashem throws our sins away and he doesn't even punish us. Instead, he punishes someone else. Like in the case of Po, he threw Po and his army into the sea so that we learn from other people's mistakes and other people's suffering. We if we're smart, we don't need to experience the punishment ourselves. It is enough that someone else is punished. And that is the secret of the verse. that is on Yum Kipur. We have a special goat. It's called or it's called the the goat of releasing. What do we release? We release our sins. And instead of us being punished, we send the goat to its death off the cliff. And when we observe the goat being um broken into small pieces and dying, we say, "Hashem, this is something that could have happened to me as a punishment for rebelling against the king of kings, the creator. I should have lost my life." And we say this vision of a goat being killed will stay with me for the rest of the year and I will be extra careful about any small transgression. I will guard myself because I have a visual um impression on me. And um that is the verse, the goat shall bear on him all their sins to a desert land. How does the goat have ability to take our sins and carry it away? That doesn't happen just because, but it happens with our participation. Hashem is giving us a replacement. But that replacement has to be conscious. We have to learn from the death of the goat and realize that there is punishment for our actions. And the goat then actually carries away the sins. Now Ra explains on Yum Kipur. The goat of Aazel carries away all the sins of the Jewish people to a deserted land. And when they throw the goat off the mountain and he falls to destruction, he takes the sins along with him. The Midrash explains that the goat here symbolizes a sav is called a goat in the Torah. Why? Because the name for the goat is and a sav is also called sah means hairy because goats are hairy. They have hair unlike sheep who have wool. Goats have hair and Asav was born with hair and therefore they called him a hairy man which [clears throat] means ish he is the man who is like a goat. The s is as it is written behold my brother a sav is a hairy man is s he is a man like a goat. Now, it's interesting just as an aside, um Ishmael, the brother of Hag is called um Hamore. As it says, he is going to be a man who is like a donkey. And um Asav is called a goat. He is ish sir. He is a man who is like a goat. It has deep um mystical explanations why Yeshelites are compared to a donkey and asabites are compared to a goat. Which basically means we live in a world where there are three major religions and there's a struggle between them. Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Judaism, the Jewish people are compared to sheep. Christians is are compared to a goat and um Muslims, Ishelites are compared to a donkey, whatever that means. Okay. Um Asav is go. So we're throwing the goat off the cliff and it dies and with it it carries our sins. That means that a sav that rep that that is represented by a goat is going to suffer for the sins that Yakov did. Jewish people make mistakes and who suffers? Hashem sends the suffering upon Asav and his descendants. [snorts] All their sins that the verse mentions are all the sins of the perfect Yavov as it says their sins but it can also be read as a sense of the perfect one of Yakov. Yakov is called Isham. As it is written Yakov was a perfect man. Ishtam. So Asav who is called the goat is going to carry the sins of Tom of Yakov the perfect one. Why? Why should the descendants of Asav suffer for the sins of the Jewish people? And the answer is simple. Asav caused the Jewish people to sin. For the past 2,000 years, we are under the influence of Asav. We are what's called Galut Asav. We are in the exile of Asav, which started with Romans who are the direct descendants of Asav. And then whoever took over Romans, the western culture, the western world, we are under their influence, their philosophy and their society. And therefore, most of problems that we face today are because of the wicked influence of the Asabites. That's why a sav symbolized by the goat has to pay for the harm he caused us by his wrong example. [snorts] All around us we see the wickedness of non-Jews and it's difficult to avoid their influence. So, Hashem punishes them for the harm that they cause us. But here the author is introducing another explanation that Asav was sent to cause us to repent. The punishment that Asav is getting is not only for his evil ways but it's also a merit for him. The punishment that uh the western world is experiencing and is going to experience is an atonement for them and at [snorts] the same time it's an opportunity for them to write their wrong to give the Jewish people a good example instead of doing evil and causing the Jewish people to copy. Now they're going to show us the example of how Hashem punishes the wicked and the Jewish people will look at them and will learn and will be warned. Don't do bad because whatever happened to the western world is going to happen to you. And therefore the descendants of Asav will receive reward. Why? Because the Jewish people learned from their example, we saw that Hashem is just and he punishes the wicked and therefore we became righteous. [snorts] And then Hashem will say something good came out of you Asav if not through your life but at least through your death you provided a good lesson to the Jewish people. Once we repent, we have to pay a certain penalty for the sins which are then placed upon asaf. The memory of suffering for sin has to stay with us. If we just do tou but we don't suffer, we might stumble again. But instead of giving that memory based on our own suffering, Hashem is giving us that memory based on Asav's suffering. By the destruction of this goat, our sins are wiped out entirely. Rab continues, "This is a very difficult concept. If Israel sinned, should the goat need to carry their sins? Why should the poor goat suffer for our sins? This is a character trait of Hashem of mercy that when a person confesses his sin and his intention in confessing is to attain a certain degree of purification [snorts] because the sin made him dirty and defiled his soul, his nish. And the balteshua wishes to clean it to cleanse it. Just like David, King David said, "Cleanse me greatly from my sins. Even though I did toua, but I have to clean myself." We also say in our prayers, erase our sins with your great mercy. >> [snorts] >> Not only we ask Hashem to forgive us but to erase our sins. Hashem could erase our sins by accepting our tshoua and bringing upon us the full penalty for what we did. But we ask him to erase them with mercy that the penalty should be directed elsewhere. If there is earthquake somewhere, we say, "Hashem, we get the message. You don't have to send earthquake in our neighborhood. It's enough that you sent earthquake on a different continent. We will learn from it." With this prayer, we are praying that the punishments that come should be lenient. For example, we pray that the punishment should not interfere with Torah study with our mitzvot. Yes, we will suffer shalom, but let us go about our day and continue praying and continue learning and continue doing mitzvot so that even though we feel pain, but it doesn't stop us from productive life. [snorts] Sometimes a person becomes so ill that he cannot even learn or go to the synagogue to dav. We don't want that kind of suffering. That suffering takes part of our life because for those few hours or those few days we become paralyzed. We are in bed, cannot pray, we cannot learn and the quality of our life diminishes. So we say hashem we don't want that kind of suffering. Please give us suffering of love of of of love. What does it mean? Suffering of love where you suffer but you can still function well. Some measure of suffering may be necessary but not in a form that causes us to be unable to perform our purpose in life like learning Torah and doing mitzvot. So we say please erase our sins but with great compassion. You for example you can erase with an eraser that is very tough and it will scrape off part of the paper. It will damage the paper. But we want an eraser that's gentle, that will erase the sin, but the paper remains intact. This is compared to soap. You apply soap to a garment and the stain is lifted and washed away, but the garment remains intact. And that's what we say in the prayer following. erase with great compa compassion but not by means of stern punishments and severe illness. And that is the intention when you say the words, Hashem, you are righteous concerning all that came upon us. This is like saying whatever came upon us we deserved but you Hashem are righteous. You are sadik because you didn't give all that we deserved and even that which you gave us you did it in a gentle way [snorts] in your righteousness. You were lenient in giving us our punishment. That is one way that Hashem can be merciful. Give us our punishment in a gentle way while preserving our ability to do work. Another way that Hashem is merciful is that he doesn't give punishment to us. He gives the punishment to another person and we learn from it. He gives the punishment to an animal and we observe the animal suffering and we take note of it. Or he gives the punishment onto vegetation or the earth. We hear the thunder. We see lightning. We see lightning striking a tree and splitting it in half. And we say, "Wow, the power of God." we better behave. And then that tree sacrificed its trunk [snorts] for the sake of you learning to fear God. By saying this, the person who is repenting genuinely welcomes his suffering in order to be at home. When we say, "Hashem, you are righteous in everything that comes upon us. Everything that happens, it's your will and we accept it with love. We welcome the suffering because we know it's going to provide atonement." Some sins don't need any punishment. But there are some sins which are erased only through suffering or death. And that is how it should be. Immediately when a person confesses his sin, he should undergo punishment. But many times, Hashem steps in when he sees that a person wishes to repent and instead of giving him the punishment that he deserves, he diverts the punishment elsewhere. That is the second and the deeper character of mercy of Hashem. This is explained in the zohar in parat. The angel the mala called sama [snorts] has the same function as the goat of aazel. Sam comes and takes our sins and carries away the severity of our penalty. What is the function of Sam? When Hashem decrees suffering on a person who repents, he says, "I will try to divert it from you." And immediately Sam presents himself, which is his function, and he removes the punishment. So too, the goat, the carries away their sins. Why? Because Hashem gives who is in the same category as the sah as the goat the right to collect all the sins and carry them away and Israel are purified. That's the function of this angel of this mala. He comes to carry away the punishment that should have come upon the sinner even after him repenting. He is sent for the purpose of alleviating the punishment and sometimes relieving the sinner of any punishment at all. If there were not some place where the sins could be done dumped, they would remain with Ben. If there was no way to take away the punishment, the punishment would accumulate and it would eventually have to come upon the people. Despite their tishuva, they wouldn't be completely purified. But since there is the angel or the goat of aazer, the sins are carried away and they are able to purify themselves. This seems to be a form of mysticism. But if you look in the original sources, you'll find a number of places where this idea is quite clearly stated. In addition to the symbolism of the goat of aazer, we also find in sephr devarim in the book of deuteronomy, hashem shall put all these curses upon your enemies and upon those who hate you and pursue you. Why is Hashem putting curses that should originally come to us? He's putting it on our enemies [snorts] because the Jewish people did tou and they arouse Hashem's mercy. But these punishments have to come anyway. So, Hashem takes them and gives them to other people who deserve it. For example, we find the verse mentioned um above in Yeshaya. I have made Egypt as your atonement and Kush and Sva instead of you. Also [snorts] in Mitim when the plague of Makad Behar afflicted the firstborn of Egypt, the Ben Israel were relieved that it didn't befall the firstborn of the Jewish people as well. The firstborn males fast on the day before Pes. Why? because they could have and should have been killed during the plague of the firstborn as well because they also did some of the sins in Egypt just like Egyptians and it was Hashem's mercy that he saved the Jewish firstborn and he only killed the Egyptian firstborn. Why should Makad behot have afflicted the firstborn of Israel? To us, it seems superflous to thank Hashem for it. Of course, the the Egyptians should have been punished and of course, Jewish people should have been saved, but we learn not like that. We must we must thank Hashem because it's something that should have happened. Nobody is perfect. There's always some form of imperfection in everybody. and therefore some retribution should have been visited upon the Jewish people as well. However, instead of punishing them, Hashem brought the plague only upon the firstborn of Egypt. So, we see that the mystical procedure has parallels in a number of places. It's not only in Shamay. We see it's true in real life. It happened long time back in history and it repeated itself many times and it's happening even today. Hashem is patiently waiting for our teshua. And when we repent, he happily takes the package of punishment that was supposed to come to us and he gives it to someone else hoping that we will learn the lesson. >> [snorts] >> and all the suffering that was supposed to come upon them because of their sins will come instead upon Sam. But don't worry about him. He is a mala created for that purpose. Don't have pity on him. [snorts] He's happily doing Hashem's will. What is the reason? Hashem decreed that anyone or anything in the world that carries away the sins of Am Israel has to be nullified out of existence. Knocking the goat off the mountain so he falls and is smashed to pieces is a symbol that the sins are now destroyed. But don't worry about the goat. The goat will be rewarded for doing such an amazing job. Likewise, the sins are also destroyed when they are placed upon sel. Now, the author explains another parallel in the Torah. Rab Corda says this is the reason that if somebody committed the sin of having a relationship with an animal, you kill the sinner and you kill the animal too. Why should you kill the animal? The animal doesn't have any sense. It's passive. It's not guilty. But since the animal is now a symbol of the sin, we kill the animal and thereby the sin is destroyed. Because otherwise people will see the animal and they will be reminded this is the animal that so and so sinned with and it will arouse that sin and the sin will come up in in front of Hashem and the person will be punished again. And therefore we destroy the animal. We erase any memory of the sin. How exactly that works is secrets of Torah. But Hashem has a system that the object by which the sin was achieved has to be destroyed. Likewise, the stone is used for the mitzvah of killing a person through stoning. Sometimes stoning is carried out by putting a very heavy stone on the person until he is crushed. After the person is dead, that stone has to be destroyed. We buried. It should not be allowed to exist because the existence of that stone reminds us of the sin of the person who was killed. Burying the stone takes away with finality the sin of the person who was put to death by it. He needs that to complete his purification. And likewise the sword by which some people are put to death after they are dead that sword must be buried to nullify their existence and their influence upon their uh after their punishment was carried out. After being put to death, there is still one more step to purify the sinner of his sin and that is to destroy or to remove from existence the object by which he was put to death. Hashem next time we will continue. Um in the meantime we should concentrate on this idea that everything Hashem does is for our benefit. Even our punishment is for our benefit and the way Hashem gives us the punishment is gentle or he gives the punishment to others and we learn from it and thereby our sins are removed. We should all have a wonderful day and a wonderful month ahead. order.