Rabbi Benjamin Yudin Discusses Parshas Vaeschanan and Shabbos Nachamu (5786)

Good morning. Good shabas everybody. Whoa. This shabas we have the privilege of reading paras for esan. For eshanan contains no less than 12 mitzvos. It has eight positive mitzvos and four restrictions. Now first of all let's compare this week to last week. Last week was Shabas Kazon, the Shabas right before Tishbug. And there were only two mitzvos. And both of those mitzvah were communal mitzvos, meaning talking to the Jewish community that they are to appoint knowledgeable judges and judges who are not afraid to passen to judge the corrupt way. They will not be afraid of the litigants. That's it this week. Just take a look at the Jewish people. The resiliency, the ability to go from Thursday a tishabove to Friday an Arab shabis and an Arab shabisu. Now in these this para of for esan I would like to suggest that the Torah itself is our source of within these mitzvos you have God is one you have the love of God. How could I tell anybody to love anything? Are not or is not love a very personal thing? You love this and you love that? The answer is right before we say the shah. What do we say in the morning to Hashem? Oh, am Hashem loves us. Ah, once Hashem loves us, it's easy for us to reciprocate is we are to love him as he quote loves us. We have the mitzvah of which is that we are to teach Torah to our children. We have the mitzvah of Israel, Shakris, and Arvis. We have the of Shelad and the and the shall ro. You have the muza, the mitzvah of muza, going into our homes, coming out of our homes, and the mitzvah prohibition of the prohibition against intermarriage. Compare these mitzvos to last week's two mitzvos referring only to the judges. Why am I stressing that? Because the Torah that we're going to read this shabus and that which gives this shabas its name. Shabasu is under this meaning that the children of Israel, my people should be comforted. But that's not the exact translation of Rashi. That's not the exact translation of the Malb. Both of them learn interestingly in speaking as the Torah did last week to the judges. Now the Nvi is continuing and saying to the judges ami it's your responsibility. It's your obligation. The leaders have to be the one to literally lead the way in consoling the people in reminding the people. Now just Wednesday night we read the five chapters of a in the first chapter of a verse 15 says mo among the explanations of that is literally Hashem designated this as a eating as a holiday. Oh my goodness, who would have the to callish a holiday? But let's talk for a minute about Pesak. Oh my goodness, I forgot what night was the first seder. And the answer is what is the night of tishab this year? It was Wednesday night. Guess what? The first cedar was on a Wednesday night. Now, let's go further. Think about it. There is a mitzvah to remember the Exodus from Egypt every day. How do we do this? We say at the end of the third paragraph of the a reminder, I am your God who took you out of Egypt. Period. We say this every day. Now, what gives us the inertia energy to say this every day? Well, the yonto of pes. What does that mean? We start preparing for pesak at least a month in advance. We stop eating a matzah a month in advance and we search and we clean and we prepare and we spend hours at a ped. All this preparation helps us that when we say it every night, every morning, we can relate to the yto of pes. And because we had so much of this lesson provided for us on Pes, I can say one verse every day, every morning, every night to fulfill the mitzvah of remembering. Similarly, watch the same night's another holiday. A holiday of tishov. What kind of a holiday? A holiday not of kirv of closeness to hashem but of ri a holiday of distance. Meaning that we have started with what is known as a three weeks. And Ashkanazim have not been getting married for 3 weeks. And we come to the nine days when in the nine days we have not eaten meat. We have not drunk wine. The idea is no weddings, no celebrations as we build up to tisha. All this my friends is concretized every day as we complete the every ends with the words who migdash if I gave everybody a piece of paper and a crayon and said please draw me a picture of the ba most of us can't Most of us are not old enough to say I remember what a ba mikdash looks like. But we need to undergo a holiday of tishaba of and let me explain this holiday a little more clearly. I'd like you to take out the book of Mish, book of proverbs. I'd like to turn to the third verse in the I'm sorry, the 12th verse. Thank you. The 12th verse in the third chapter of Mish. And what does the wise King Solomon say? King Hashem. Whoa. Hashem admonishes, chastises. Hashem well gets us into shape who the one he loves. In other words, we just experienced tough love, but it's still love. Listen to the second half. Like a father who mllifies his child. A father puts the child on the right path. Sometimes the father has to give a patch to the child and this patch is one that we know was given with love and that's how we are to look upon as difficult as it is for us the holiday of and therefore what we are celebrating this shabas is not only the resiliency, the ability of the Jew to get up from sitting on the floor, get up from not saying good morning, get up from not studying most parts of Torah to literally the judges, the leaders, the rabbis are being admonished. Teach the people to have faith that hopefully this was the last time that we fasted on tishaba. We're going to celebrate a as the zakaria promises us that it's going to be a happy day in the future. I just want to conclude by saying the following. We're all familiar with the three weeks. Okay. Now I'd like you to be familiar with the three ha tora before tishaba a called schlloa to puranisa which means three of tragedy and we read painfully that the bas mikdash would be destroyed. Starting this shabas we have we have seven not three of negative seven of positive. Whoa. Wow. Come on. Aen and we've thank God begun to see this in our days that Erit Israel that for all the years was a midbar it's in the process of becoming an Aiden literally a paradise who so there is once again three and seven is 10us And there are two more two more of chuva. Again you see that there is a direction here. The direction is we experience and understand somewhat to the best of our ability what the tragedy is all about. It's to make us better people. as the novi schlommo in the third chapter of Proverbs verse 12 tells us three of tragedy, seven of consolation and two ultimately bringing us to Shoua Israel getting really close to Hashem. Our calendar is indeed remarkable. We are a remarkable people and I wish everyone a Shabbat shalom to appreciate how privileged we are to relive Jewish history. Shabbat shalom to all.