Hope and Inspiration: Chizuk for Iron Sword by Rav Aschi Dick

thank you everybody for joining us thank you Han thank you for everybody at the OU I'd like to share an article that was written by Mark Twain many of you probably have heard this article but it's still worth hearing again okay so the title is this wonderful article was written in 1899 when anti-Semitism was widespread in the US large companies did not hire people people like Ford and Edison expressed their feelings openly so the following was written by Mark Twain in Harpers in September of 1899 allow me to read this I'm sure many of you've heard this before worth hearing again and again quote if the statistics are right the Jews constitute but 1% of the human race it suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of but he is heard of has always been heard of he is as prominent on the planet as any as any other people and his commercial and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk his contributions to the world's list of great names in literature science art music Finance medicine and abstruse learning are always out of proportion to the weakness of his members or numbers he has he has made a marvelous fight in the world in all the ages and has done it with his hands tied behind him he could be vain of himself and he could be excused for it the Egyptian the Babylonian and the Persian Rose filled the planet with sound and Splender then faded to dream stuff and passed away the Greek and the Roman followed and made a vast noise and they are gone other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time but it has burned out and they sit in Twilight now or have vanished the Jews saw them all beat them all and is now what he always was exhibiting no decadence no infirmities of age no weakening of his Parts no slowing of his energies no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind all things are mortal but the Jew all other forces pass but he remains what is the secret of his immorality immortality excuse me okay um the key line right this powerful line all things are mortal but the Jew the zor teaches us a beautiful concept God the Jewish people and the Torah and God they're all intertwined they all Express a certain singleness all things are mortal but the Jew because the Jewish people carry the torch of Hashem the Torah is the secret to our immortality one of the things that we have to remember in this dark time is that the Iranians will fade just as the other nations have faded Hamas will disappear there will come a day where there will be noas but the Jewish people will always remain and the idea is that we have to stay strong and we have to let nothing defeat us we have to allow nothing to weak ween our resolve and to give up hope a beautiful idea from the which is a beautiful idea whether you whether breast of T appeals to you or not one must never give up even if you're simple person who cannot learn or in your place where a person cannot learn there are situations in life where a person is unable to learn with the darkness becom so intense that it seems that nothing could encourage the person even in a dark and time of pure Simplicity every person has to strengthen himself according to his reality as he exists in any given moment because the source of life that we draw from is always the Torah even the greatest people that are great great minds people like ra people like the rebich great Torah figures at times they had to resort to simpleness right the simple idea where a person is not able to learn a person is not able to strengthen himself or encourage himself but even in those times a person has to sometimes resort to a certain Simplicity and just recognize that Hashem is the life force Hashem is holding us is guaranteeing our continuity even if somebody finds himself in the lowest level spiritually physically emotionally he can also come back and return he can also receive life from the Torah the main thing is to strengthen yourself in whatever way shape or form you can and then comes the famous line that everybody's familiar with he a there's no despair in the world whatsoever meaning to say that there is never a situation where a person should despair there's never a reason to Despair and he said in is okay and he really Drew Drew out those words and he says there's no despair in the world of he said with with strength and with conviction that was the idea that was the beautiful idea that would emphasize again and again and it's true that a person should never despair the Jewish people in the aftermath of the Holocaust picked themselves up and built what we see today in AR which is one of the greatest miracles in the history of mankind the yits yob emden wrote that the greatest Miracle of history is the survival of the Jewish people some people Overlook it but this is not something that Mark Twain overlooked and Mark Twain came to the truth that all things are mortal but the Jew and one of the keys to our immortality is the fact that we'll never lose hope okay that no matter what happens to us no matter what we experience on an individual level what we experience on a national and communal level we will never give hope okay and R taught us the idea even if a person finds himself in a lonly place spiritually there is still no reason whatsoever to give up hope so that's the idea that's the key to our immortality and we draw that power that belief that we should never give up and there always is hope that's something that we draw from the Torah because the Torah repeatedly re confirms and reaffirms the promise that made to his nation that we will be forever that we will never pass that we will always continue to exist as the even when we are in the lands of our enemies right I not I will not reject you right I will keep you closed so therefore being part of the Jewish people right guarantees an eternal existence not only something that's Eternal but also the infinite because the Jewish people are one with Hashem one with the Torah hasem is eternal the Torah is eternal and that's the source of Our Hope and that's what we should turn to and that's what we should hold on to no matter what happens I mentioned the other week I told some of the story of my grandfather and he came out of aitz forgive me if I can maybe repeat some of the details of the story and I'd like to dwell on some of the points here as I mentioned two weeks ago my grandfather was deported from Nitra Yesa in the summer of 1944 and he came out of aitz he came out of bald he did the death march from aitz to Bald um as I mentioned two weeks ago there was a Jew from Holland and the Jew from Holland spoke up when one of the American generals was Turing bald and he said to him he says don't just walk around here and look at us do something and my grandfather was put on an intren he was weaned back to life he came back to Bratislava in Slovakia he married my grandmother my grandmother also um already collapsed on the Death March and was picked up by her sister as a Nazi was approaching in order to shoot my grandmother and they built a family and now they have over a thousand Descendants the CLA of M said that the greatest Miracle of the Holocaust is that we didn't give up that we were able to come out of the camps and rebuild according to the natural law we should have been completely broken yet somehow AEM gave us the power and the courage to rebuild and boy did we rebuild something Beyond an above anything imaginable nobody would have foreseen what we rebuild and that that's part of the immortality of the Jewish people and when my grandfather went back to the Nitro Yeshiva he wanted to find this SPM that were written by his brothers he had two brothers an older brother and a younger brother that did not survive my grandfather was the sole survivor in his family did not have any surviving siblings or parents and he knew that his older and younger brother wrote a number of books on the talmud they were young boys uh my grandfather's younger brother Pinas perished at the age of 16 and his older brother niss perished at the age of 19 and they were brilliant T Scholars that had written books on the talmud and he wanted to find what his brothers had written and everything was destroyed but he managed to uncover a small notebook and that notebook was written on the topic of t c t c is a talmudic section that appears in the tractate of kadush and other places that describes descries the legalities of a t of a condition it has to be expressed there has to be a specific constract in order for the condition to be legally binding and and he wrote a small contess a small notebook on this topic it was a wrote at the age of 16 and my grandfather looked at the date and it was dated in July of 1944 which was three weeks before my grandfather and brothers were deported to aitz my grandfather said that in July of 1944 most of Europe had already been destroyed there were almost no existing Jewish communities in Mainland Europe Nitro was the last Enclave that was still carrying on there was a Yesa there and because the rashash who was name was the he was the author of The Minar um Rabbi Vice Mandel RAB Vice Mandel had bribed the ger had bribed the Germans and managed to delay the deportation of the is in the community in Nitra so they were the last ones to be deported from aitz in fact my grandfather's brother um was still writing even though their father had already been deported and probably murdered by then in the gas Chambers yet this 16-year-old boy was writing was writing Torah Nolla and this booklet is what survived uh from the Holocaust this is the only Torah writing that survived from everything that he wrote uh in the years of his Yeshiva learning my grandfather was approached by the Yash Museum that had offered to buy this booklet my grandfather wished to keep the booklet in the family and he printed it and this right is an illustr ation of how the Torah gives us the strength it gives us the inspiration and the fortitude to carry on and not to give up and not to throw in the towel in the most difficult times it's recorded but that the Bali those that wrote the to right even hours before the they were murdered by the Crusades they were still writing uh they were still writing Torah NOA we have a parish we have a com com onar the most difficult of the six orders of the mishna tar the laws of of of spiritual Purity and impurity was written by the marami rudenberg the great RAB May of rudenberg who was the leading sage in Germany approximately 800 years ago and the parish that we have it's recorded by his students by the Tash that that was a commentary on the mission that was written when the Moran mberg was sitting in prison when he was put in jail right the government had kidnapped had taken the mamberg hostage the Jewish Community was ready to redeem him was ready to buy him out of captivity but the morami rudenberg gave the order that under no circumstances should he be redeemed out of captivity because there is a that appears in that ain't which means that we don't redeem captives people that are taken hostage for more than their value and the reason is because otherwise people uh otherwise the enemies of the Jewish people will be incentivized to kidnap more people so therefore the tells us that we don't redeem captives which is unfortunately a very hard lesson that we learned that when we teach our enemies that they could kidnap Jewish people that they could get thousands of terrorists in in uh they we learned the lesson the hard way that sometimes it does not pay because returning a thousand terrorists for one person could incentivize them to do the same so the teaches us that we don't redeem captives for more than their value so the renberg's orders were not to redeem him out of prison but he still had a tal with the Tash wrote a work called the Tash Bates who came to the prison to learn from his rebi and it was in those circumstances that the Moran mberg was able to write an entire commentary on the S of the order of tar and time in and time again the Jewish people have held strong to the Torah and has this has given them the inspiration the fortitude to survive in the most trying times in the darkest times and as Tau us that even if somebody doesn't know how to learn even if somebody does not know how to to learn T he says even an is if he holds on to the belief that he's part of an eternal nation that he's a nation that was chosen by God that is the torchbearer of godliness and kindness and compassion in the world and that would give him strength not to despair that's also a way of connecting to the Torah so whether you know how to learn or whether you don't know how to learn every single Jew every single Jewish person has a in the Torah we say in the ding of shabas and the prayers of the we say wechem that he should give us our portion in the Torah a person should pray that even if he does not know how to learn tah right when the rabbis composed the reading of the sh it was written for every Jew it was written for the simple Jew and was written for the sophisticated Jew and as a Us in that piece that sometimes even the most sophisticated Jew the most brilliant in mind sometimes has to resort to Simplicity and strengthen the basic belief and the basic inspiration that we belong to an eternal an eternal Nation a nation that touches upon the infinite a Godly nation and to draw stength to never despair no matter what happens so um this is what survived we mentioned there's a med that tells us the is the Torah that's learned in the most trying and difficult times that's what stood by me there's a certain specialness a certain Eternal uh element to T that's learned in the most difficult times it's immeasurably more valuable if a person learns in difficult times when it's when a person is in the darkness to learn Torah in those difficult times that has imur immeasurable value there's something special about that Torah learning and it was in the case of of my grandfather's brother that was the Torah that stood with him that was the Torah that survived that was The Notebook that's still alive today written by this 16-year-old boy um whilst his father had been murdered whilst all the communities in Europe had been destroyed there was still a boy sitting in Mainland Europe in Slovakia in Nitra writing Tara Nolla so that should be a source of inspiration for us all okay and we learn in this week's parha Paras told us about the competition between Yakov and asov okay and the Torah tells us the medish tells us that Rifka was unaware that she had twins Rashi quoting the medish tells us that when Rifka in her pregnancy would pass by the house of idol worship she heard she felt a commotion she felt that the fetus inside of her was trying to get out so that concerned her she felt thought that the baby inside of her had a tendency to idol worship then when she passed by the house of Torah learning the Academy of Shame when they studied The Godly the studied godliness the she felt that the baby was trying to get out and that concerned her and as we all know she came to shame and she received the message that she had two babies inside of her that there's going to be this constant competition and she was told that when yob when Jacob Rises Asa will fall when asov Rises yob will fall and there's a famous question where was the it seems that asov was almost predestined to become Wicked right isn't there the r famously says in hila that every single Jew every single person could be as great as mosu and every single person could be as evil asan the evil uh King of the of of Isel that led the entire Jewish people on the path of idol worship so the question is where was the where was the free will it seems that ASA already from inside of his mother's womb was already predisposed to idol worship so I encourage everybody to look at a beautiful piece from Ral Yeshua was an American Born God he was the r of T and based on the re he has a beautiful essay where he goes about to explain this idea there is the according to the Reas of Sur where a person has a job in this world to subdue evil to subdue the evil inclinations the the natural tendencies that lead the person on a path of lust and arrogance and other bad characteristics and then there's the there's the job to increase goodness in the world explains the AR that had intended that K and he each take these two respective roles that he who had a more good inclination right he would increase good in the world and Cen who had a uh a more evil inclination would subdue the evil and that's how he would create godliness in the world and uh y Ken felt very discouraged and hasem says to Ken there's no reason to be discouraged even if a person was born with a certain evil inclination even though you have the sin waiting there crouching and there to cause a person to sin promises kind that if you're determined enough you can subdue the evil inclination inside of you so there were supposed to be four aot according to the med according to the there were actually supposed to be four forefathers even though we have three but there was actually supposed to be four and ASA was supposed to be the fourth of the forefathers there's a that says that that became the has a chariot it's obviously metaphoric but hasem has a chariot and became the fourth leg of the the fourth leg of there was a three-leg Chariot of hem and then then D was supposed to be the fourth one the fourth leg of the marov there's something common about and asov as we know as we read in this week's par that ASA was born Adon completely red right red is of of a bad nature of murder of a tendency to to do things that are wrong it's the blood inside of us metaphorically and in a certain sense physiologically too that make us do things that we shouldn't be doing so it's the red right ASA was born at mon full of red and ASA was supposed to personify that power to subdue all all evil who else was born red was also born ADI so the adomi the red nature is the common feature that appears both with David and both with as explains yesu based That was supposed to be the of was born with a very good nature and he was supposed to devote his life to Godliness and increasing goodness in the world and asov was supposed to go out into the world and subdue evil what happened is is that ASA failed in his mission he didn't do what he was charged to do and that's why yob had to take the mission of asov initially yob was supposed to be engaged only in the only in the aspect of the increasing goodness in the world and because ASV had failed his mission so therefore yov had to take on asa's Mission that's expressed in the fact that yov took the Z he took the designated wife of Asa which was Leia okay because Leia was supposed to be the part of asov in order to complete the mission of surra of defeating evil in the world and because ASV didn't do that right so Yakov took aso's partner designated partner because since he took over the mission of asov he also had to take the designated partner of Asa that is what the Reel teaches us and what happened is is that the child that was born from Rael was yose ysf was born with a very good inclination the primary child that came from Le was Judah right Judah represented the kingship his descendant D became the king of Judah and therefore Yehuda continued the mission that asov was supposed to complete later it was manifested in D and Ys right was the Rashi says that ysph was the per perfect match of yob Rashi says that everything that that son ra he saw that in in in in Ys ysep was the perfect and the garon points out that had made major failures he send to the front lines and unjustly caused his death which was a very severe violation of the will of hasem the gar does teach us that was saved by technicality that she wasn't technically an Asad dis because before going off to war the soldiers used to give divorces to their wives so if they were missing an action their wives would not be in auna their wives would not be trapped and unable to marry but nevertheless she was still designated to orya it was an understanding that when orya would come back from Battle she would take he would take uh peva so the obviously was something problematic in taking B yet the gar says Hashem forgave sh by contrast had done something which one would consider much much less much less problematic right had told sha to please wait till he arrives before bringing thean he didn't wait and then hashm already says you're going to lose the kingship that's it you're finished and the question is how come had done something which one would expect to be so much more severe he was forgiven and yet who had done something so much less serious had had the the monarchy taken away from him you find the same question also by Yosef and by Yehuda the med tells us and it's quoted by Rashi that when ysf had this test with the wife potifar image of his father appeared before him and he was told that if he sins with a wife of potifar he's going to have his name removed from the K from the breastplate of the high priest which means to say he's going to be rejected as one of the 12 tribes that means to say that ysep was told that he would not be given a second chance yet we find by contrast that um y uh uh Yehuda Yehuda had met a prostitute on the fork of the road he didn't know that it was his daughter but he had done which one would consider a much more serious a right he had taken a woman he had lived with a woman that was there at the fork of the road an act of engaging in relations with a prostitute and yet Yehuda was forgiven so we see that there was much more leeway given to Yehuda right who was the forfa who was the bear forebearer of D and yet Ys who was the forebear of sh just like his descendant CH was given a very little little we leeway he was told that nothing he would he was told that if he messed up he would be given no second chance so there's a beautiful G of VNA REO Elijah of VNA he has a commentary on the tun Zar and he's quoted also in his work or this work of his student theep the Evan SCH which is a collection of teachings from the uh from the gon of Vila and he says that is gives much more leeway and has much more patience for somebody who is the of the of somebody who comes from the side of gives him leeway if a person has a bad inclination gives him leeway he lets him time and time and again get up again and try again and fix his ways but somebody you come from the of Y or the tells us the interprets the describes how was which the interprets mean he was a which means to say he was born he was clean of sin he was not even in his Advanced age he had not sinned in any way sh or form holds that person to a much higher responsibility who gives less leeway to the person he says so therefore asov even though he was born with a very bad inclination but he if he would have fulfilled his mission right instead of David being the fourth reg the fourth foot of the marova it would have been as would have forgiven him but the problem of asov is that he was he gave up he was Mish in his spiritual journey he wasn't determined to go through it until the end and that's why he lost his mission he didn't fulfill the mission that he was charged to do and therefore with all of his ups and all of his Downs managed to stick his mission he didn't lose his Focus he did what he was charged to do and therefore in the end was ad who was red who had a bad inclination he was able to achieve what no other man had done and if you look at the life of d d had experienced every single hardship that a person could ever experience he had lost children he had sons that rebelled against him Shalom every imaginable hardship that a person could experience had experienced it in fact the gor says that should have not Fallen with B the teaches us that when a person um subdus Hisar and he works hard enough provides a certain protection that he should not fall to Hisar as we had learned recently in the D in the end of K that and re mayor both the greatest T Scholars of Israel they had almost fallen to thear but hem said because of their great stature who said when you work hard enough to make sure that you don't fall to theara you are granted a certain Divine protection so the question is how come wasn't granted that protection so the says that had given all of his heart and soul to subdue his evil inclination he should have received a certain protction should have prevented him from following with B but the gor says that hasem let it happen so that he could be an opening that he could open the path for the balicha for those that fall in sin which means to say d as the king of Israel needed to teach every single individual how to contend with his Yahara he had to be The Guiding Light for people to struggle with children that Rebel he had to be The Guiding Light to help people contend with losing children he had to be the person to teach people how how to contend with poverty how to contend with being a fugitive every single challenge that he experienced was though he could be a guiding GL and he can teach F future Jews how to overcome the challenges of life so therefore if D the king of Israel was going to teach the future Generations how to get up after having fallen to sin how to contend and how to deal with situation where people experience spiritual downfalls D had to go through that experience himself so that he could teach others how to do that and that's what we find that the the line of monarchy that comes from Sha that comes from yose that line of monarchy didn't survive the 10 L tribes are lost but the line of monarchy that survives the line that comes from D it's the line that comes from the people that have the natural evil inclination but learn to never give up and learn to overcome and that's what continues to survive to continues to survive today just as Hashem told ysep that if he messed up he wouldn't be given another chance messed up on something which what with on on something that somebody would consider something minor but he wasn't given another chance but the Judah who had fallen with the prostitute at the fork of the road the had fallen rep ly again and again but was determined to get off they represent the Eternal of of Israel they continue to survive they continue to thrive and that's the story of the Jewish people that throughout the downfalls and despite everything that happens the Jewish people have learned to get up and to never give up hope so this is what we need to remind ourselves in this time right we're facing great enemies we're facing Kamas we're facing Iran and all sorts of other enemies but they're going to fall they're not going to exist there's going to come a time that they're going to fall just as the Babylonians had fallen just as the Persians had fallen and just as all the other nations the great Nations had Rose had risen and Fallen that's what's going to happen we the Jewish people never give up hope okay no matter what happens right even if we're not in a good place physically nationally emotionally whatever whatever situation we in we are guaranteed and the individuals that will survive and will be part of this attorney are the people that are determined to never give up okay so with that I would like to end the share and I'd like to thank everybody for joining us and may we see the light very very soon and uh end with a prayer for our soldiers that Hashem should protect them Hashem should grant them Victory and that the hostages Hashem please have them return soon that they be able to come back to their families and that all the Jewish people should have the protection and the inspiration and whatever anybody's going through we should have salvation speedily in our days thank you for joining us