Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Elul: Hashem is Rooting For Us

Okay. Hi everybody. Good to see you. Thank you for coming. Uh this year is dedicated tonight to Refuah Shleimah Baruchman Frieda and for the liberation of Eretz Yisrael from its enemies, safe return home of all of the soldiers and hostages, lasting unity of people of Am Yisrael, and for all of those whose health has been affected by the war, as well as the release of Arvin Netanel ben Sonya Tzvona in Iran. Aliyah Nishama Yitzchak Hirsch ben Eliezer. I just want to add a personal note that tonight, the 24th of Av, is my own father's yahrzeit, zichrono livracha, im yimachu zichram, livracha, David ben Moshe. And I would also like to be a co- dedicator of the shiur of the iluy iluy nishmato. Uh if I am lucky, although there shouldn't A Jew doesn't speak of luck, but if Hashem Baruchu is mezakeh us, maybe we'll have a minyan for Kaddish. If not, I'll have to go to the Kotel minyan shul or whatever and find a minyan later. Uh I have great news. Yesterday, Baruch Twersky, a gifted and dedicated student, indeed a very, very dedicated person, has written up many, many of the Bnei Shiurim in PDF format, which will be posted on the Bnei web website. Uh On in the description box below on YouTube channel. Okay, so you can see it on the description box on the YouTube channel. Uh and if you're interested in receiving them, a WhatsApp group has been formed and you can join to start receiving them. A link can be found in the YouTube description box below. Again, Boruch put in a tremendous amount of work. I do have to say that I honestly don't even have the time to review them. But as Chazal say, "Chazakah al chaveiro she'eino motzi mimeni yada'im she'eino mesukan." When a person is a chaver, he's a learned, conscientious, ba'al yir'at shamayim, we are allowed to operate on the assumption that his work is proper and that therefore I know Boruch for many, many, many years and I know that whatever he does is going to be reliable. Uh maybe my shiur is not reliable, but you will get a reliable facsimile, so to speak, of what it is that I talk about in in some type of some type of book form. Um okay. Um Tonight I want to start off, I hope not to spend most most of the time on this, with something I I very rarely do, but I was not able to finish a a thought last week and I want to just be matzliach in the thought, hopefully no more than 10 or 15 minutes, a maximum. And that is a thought about the 15th of Av, although that's kind of past, but it's still very relevant to the new season that we are approaching, the month of Elul and the Yamim Nora'im. Uh you will recall that the statement in the Mishnah that the 15th of Av was the happiest of all days of the Jewish year, along with Yom Kippur, so the Gemara gave no fewer than six reasons. I'll go over those reasons quickly in a moment, but I want to make an interesting contrast here. If we look at the fast of the 9th of Av, that is exactly 1 week earlier than the 15th of Av, the Mishnah in Maseches Ta'anit tells us there were five tragedies that happened on the 9th of Av. There were later other tragedies that happened as well, but at the time that the Mishnah was codified, there were five tragedies for which we fast on the 15th on the on the 9th of Av. Tragedy number one, which is the root of everything, was the sin of the spies. The spies came back after a journey of 40 days on the 8th of Av, they gave their negative report. And that night, the night of the 9th of Av, the Jewish people cried and sobbed and wailed, the men, and lacked faith in God's promise. And Hashem decreed, Atam b'chiya b'chiya shel chinam. You are crying for no reason at all. This will be the night that will be the eternal day of mourning and crying. Not eternal, Mashiach comes and will come simcha, but at at least until that time, a time of mourning and grieving. So, that's reason number one, the chet of the meraglim. Reason number two was the destruction of the first Temple by the Babylonians. Reason number three was 400 and uh yeah, 490 years later, the destruction of the second Temple by the Romans. Right? So, that's the third reason, churban bayit sheni. Reason number four was the crushing defeat of the Bar Kochba revolt in the year 135, which was a massacre that was even greater than the churban bayit hamikdash. And Chazal had a tradition that the fall of Betar was the 9th of Av. That's the fourth reason. And the fifth reason was after the fall of Betar, Hadrian decreed that Jerusalem would be plowed over with salt to destroy the fertility of the land. And that's was considered to be a fifth tragedy. So, here is the interesting point I want to draw your attention to. If you map out the five tragedies of the 9th of Av, and you compare them to the six simchas of the 15th of Av, and I'll I'll I'll show you the one-to-one correspond- spondence because two of them correspond to to one of the five, you will actually see that for each suffering of the 9th of Av, God kind of made it up with a corresponding source of joy. As if God is reversing the tragedies of the 9th of Av by the simchas of the 15th of Av. Let's see how this works. Tragedy number one was the chet of the meraglim where it was decreed that the whole generation of the desert would die over the course of 40 years. Well, you'll recall that the first simcha of the 15th of Av was in the 40th year of the desert. In that last 9th of Av, the last group of people did not die. 15,000 people who reached the age of 60 did not die, and they thought there was a mistake in the calendar, uh but when they saw a full moon on the 15th of Av, they understood that God gave them an amnesty and a forgiveness. So, the chet of meraglim, the devastation of the 9th of Av, was countermanded by the fact that the gezeirah was battel, was nullified in the 40th year on the 15th of Av. Now, we then uh see the second tragedy of the 9th of Av was the destruction of the first Beit Hamikdash. Now, Chazal tell us that the first Beit Hamikdash was destroyed because the Jewish people were guilty of the worst sins of avodah zarah, idolatry, gilyui arayos, sexual immorality, and shfichut dam and murder. But of those big three, the the root of everything was avodah zarah because once they rejected the worship of God, that opened up everything else. So, in a sense, avodah zarah was the aveira that was go rem the churban that caused the churban bayis rishon. Well, one of the simchas of the 15th of Av, although it actually occurred before the churban, so but we're we're ignoring time, was the nullification of avodah zarah. You'll recall that one of the simchas was that the king the last king of the 10 tribes, Hoshea ben Ela, permitted people. Right, Yeravam ben Nevat, the first king of the 10 tribes, built golden calves that people should worship. And he put guards on the road that nobody could go to the Beit Hamikdash. Hoshea ben Ela removed the guards. And he gave people free access to worship Hashem. It turned out not to be such a great deal because they didn't go anyway, but that's that's their problem. But on the 15th of Av, there was the great opportunity to serve Hakadosh Baruch Hu by renouncing the avodah zarah of the calves that Yeravam ben Nevat, the first of the northern king. So, in a sense, although chronologically it's earlier, but in a spiritual sense, looking at the totality of the pattern of time, Hoshea ben Ela's removal of the guards that prevented people going to the Mikdash was an undoing of the cheit of avodah zarah that caused the churban of the bayis rishon. The third tragedy of the 9th of Av is the destruction of the bayis sheini at the hands of the Romans. Now, all of us know, as the Gmar in Yuma tells us that if the first temple was destroyed because of Avoda Zara, Gilyui Arayos, Shfichus Damim, the second temple, where most of the Jews were religious and observant, was destroyed because of hatred, polarization, dissension, Machlokes in Am Yisrael. Here, this is where you get the six. Two aspects, two different aspects of the 15th of Av represent eradications of Sin'as Chinam. And these are the two associations with marriage. First, you'll recall that even though the Halacha originally was that if a woman inherited property from her father because there were no sons, she was not allowed to marry outside of her tribe, but at the end of Yehoshua bin Nun's life, that Halacha was annulled. Our tradition was the 15th of Av, which means the ability to marry every type of Jew, no longer having rules, no longer having restrictions. It removed the polarization that existed. It removed the tribal rivalry that existed. And the second aspect was in the concubine of Givah, Pilagshu b'Givah, and the 15th of Av, Shevet Binyamin was allowed to get married again into Klal Yisrael. These are the two. This is why you got a six out of five. Now, when you remove barriers on marriage, when Jews can marry each other, we can interrelate with each other, we can interconnect with each other, that can foster love and friendship, cooperation. That's a rectification of the Sin'as Chinam. See what's going on here? Uh the tragedy of the Meraglim on the 9th of Av is counteracted by the fact that that is when the gizeira of the miraglim was annulled on the 15th of Av 40 years later. The tragedy of Avodah Zarah on the 9th of Av that caused the destruction of the first temple was countermanded by Oshea ben Ela, the last of the kings of the 10 tribes, giving people access to the Beit Hamikdash and no longer forced to worship the golden calves. The avera of sinat chinam that caused the destruction of the second temple was countermanded on the 15th of Av by lifting the marriage restrictions on women who inherited property and lifting the marriage restrictions on the tribe of Benjamin. The fourth tragedy of the 9th of Av was the absolute destruction of Betar in the aftermath of Bar Kochba. But remember, as we said last week, uh Hadrian, Adrianus, did not allow the bodies of those who were killed at Betar to even be buried. He wanted them to decompose and rot. And miraculously, God preserved those bodies. And after 3 years and a week, 15th of Av, they were Hadrian finally saw there was no point there. So, he allowed them to be buried and Chazal added a blessing in Birkhat Hamazon, the fourth blessing, Hatov Hametiv, God is good and God does good. God is good that the bodies didn't decompose and he does good that we could bury them. So, it turns out the tragedy of Betar on the 9th of Av is counteracted by the chesed of Betar that Hashem shows us on the 15th of Av. 3 years and a week later, Harugei Betar nitnu likvura. The final tragedy of the 9th of Av was the fertility of Jerusalem was destroyed by plowing it with salt. Well, you remember that the 9th of Av was the day that they celebrated the completion of the wood cutting that they needed the wood that they needed for the whole coming year. They would always finish it by the 15th of Av because after the 15th of Av uh the heat of the sun is not quite as hot and therefore the wood may get some moisture in it and they may be wormy and the like. And therefore uh the 15th of Av was a big celebration that Baruch Hashem Hashem gave us the capacity of wood to be able to serve Hashem the the rejuvenation of the agricultural potential of the land which in essence is a corrective to the destruction of that potential on the 9th of Av. So, the point is that if the 15th of Av is getting up from shiva right? So, what God is saying is for every tsara there will be a corresponding joy that kind of corrects that that tsara. And uh that's again an additional part of the perspective that I I was not able able to share with you. But, imagine the perception of Chazal, you know you had tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people that were massacred at Betar. And yet Chazal saw in the fact that we were allowed to bury them after 3 years. They saw that as a reason to feel gratitude and thanksgiving. That's a pretty high level of gratitude. You know, most of us might focus on the negative, on the tragedies. And yet Chazal squeezed out life to identify the hidden kindnesses of Hashem even in times of anger even in times of apparent rejection even in times of Hester Panim. So that was just a concluding thought uh from last week. Uh this uh week uh after Shabbat or next week uh coming up after Shabbos uh we're going to have or this Shabbos Shabbos Mevorchim. We're going to uh recite the Rosh Chodesh blessing for the month of Elul the month of Elul. Rebbe Yisrael Salanter recounted Rebbe Yisrael Salanter died I believe in the 1890s, so he's recounting something from his childhood which would have been the early decades of the 1800s. That he said when he was a child and the chazzan would announce on Shabbos Rosh Chodesh Elul yihiyeh bayom shall be on a certain day he would remember hearing crying and even fainting from the women's section. As women would literally sob and sometimes even collapse. Why was that so? Not because they were contemplating two days of Rosh Hashanah cooking or or in Chutz La'aretz at least the dreaded three-day well well on Rosh Hashanah uh we can have it even here. Three-day Yom Tov, you know, the two days of Yom Tov in Chutz La'aretz. And of course in Chutz La'aretz, right? If you If you need a If you need a reason to make aliyah, and baruch Hashem there there are many many many more important reasons. But one reason might be that when it's a three-day Yom Tov in America, it's Rosh Hashanah, it's Sukkot, and Shemini Atzeret. You know, you go crazy. Uh the men go crazy with all the eating and the women go crazy with all the cooking. So, it's a very, very tough life. Rosh Hashanah, Eretz Yisrael, you have three days of Rosh Hashanah as your max. Other than that, you're okay. Again, that's not the greatest reason to come, but you know, it's if you need if you need like, you know, superficial reasons, that might be something to do. But, that's not why they were fainting. Because Elul is the month that prepares ourselves for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Yom HaDin, the days of judgment, the days that God decides who will live, who will die. If you think about this, if you think about this, and again, I I I don't want to, you know, be overly pessimistic. The tragedies that happened on October 7th were decreed just a few weeks before Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur of 5784. This is not a game. Things happen in life. And God makes judgments on Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur. The way it's described, BaRosh Hashanah Yikatevun, on Rosh Hashanah, God writes down who will live and who will die, but it's still preliminary, it can be changed. UVaYom Kippur and on Yom Kippur, after the 10 days of repentance, God makes a final decision. Now, it's true, we we kind of still defer things. You know, God signs the judgment, but he keeps it in his desk until Hoshana Rabbah, where it's delivered. Which was just a day before October 7th. So, what we saw lunch was said that when he was a child, there was a genuine concept of what's called Amos Adon. Fearing the severity of God's judgments. How can I approach the almighty and beg for mercy? And this was so intuitively frightening to people that they would faint. They would cry. Now, we saw lunch was said already. By the time he became an adult, he noticed that was no longer happening in that way. So, he was describing a Yeredat Hadorot, a descent in the generations. But certainly, anyone that's spent time in what you might call a Litvishe Yeshiva, Elul was a very, very somber period. A very scary period. A period in which one wonders I mean, imagine the feeling. And hopefully, you'll never have this feeling, but you know, it happens. Uh You know, uh you're standing trial. You're I mean, you you you're going through a human court. And God forbid, you can go to prison. And there are religious Jews who are sometimes in that situation. Sometimes they're guilty, sometimes they're innocent, but they're still, you know, in imminent danger. How frightening that is. So, Kal Vachomer in front of Melech Malchei Hamlachim. So, one image of Elul and Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is they are Yamim of Pachad, days of fear, Days of trepidation. Days of seriousness. The Gamara says, "Why do we not recite Hallel on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur? These are holidays." And the Gamara says, "Sifrei Chaim v'Sifrei Mesim p'suchim l'fanav." The books of who will live and who will die are open. It's not a time for the unrestrained joy of Hallel. Serious time. But it's also important at the same time that there is another side to this that has to be taken into account as well. Because you see, to deny the seriousness of God's judgment would simply be false. Okay, so I can't sit here on behalf of any of us and say, "Yihi atov." Now, of course of course in in an ultimate spiritual sense, "Yihi atov." Because whatever God does is good. So, in that sense, of course, everything is tov. For sure. But in terms of how we perceive it and how we feel it, things happen. Things happened last year and the year before and things can happen this coming year. So, one cannot deny that the judgment of Hashem on Rosh Hashanah is a serious judgment. And we got to take it seriously. But you also have to recognize that this is a time of love and a time of reconciliation. Let's take the month of Elul itself. On one hand, Elul is preparation for the trial of our lives, quite literally. And every day of Elul, one can wake up shaking and trembling. And yet, when our Seforim try to find allusions to the month of Elul, there are a few allusions, and we'll talk about them as we go through, but the most famous allusion is a verse in Shir HaShirim, Song of Songs. Now, the Song of Songs is, of course, a very, very interesting book. It was almost banned. It was almost excluded from the canon because, if you read it literally, it's love poetry. It's It's a romantic, passionate relationship between two people who are presumably not married. And it the fact, it discusses it discusses their sexuality. Again, it's it's very discreet, and it's I'm not going to say God forbid it it does not even even on a literal level it does not approach the garbage that God forbid that that you have today. But, for Tanakh, it's pretty explicit. And therefore, there were sages that felt this was not a holy book, and it should not be included in the scriptures. But, the great defender of Shir HaShirim was none other than Rabbi Akiva. And Rabbi Akiva got it in. He was the savior of Shir HaShirim. And his argument was, Kol HaShirim Kodesh, if all of the songs of biblical poetry are holy, Shir HaShirim is Kodesh Kodashim, holy of holies, because it is a metaphor, it is a martial, it is an allegory in which the young woman is the Jewish people. And the shepherd or the king, he's described in different ways, is Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And the yearning of the woman for her beloved is the yearning of the Jewish neshama to be close to Hashem, and the yearning of the king for his beloved. Yes, Hashem wanting to redeem us. And if you look at the different scenes in Shir Hashirim, you understand this martial, you see how powerful they are. There is, for example, in Shir Hashirim where the woman is thinking of her lover, where is he, and she's been separated from him, and he comes in the middle of the night and he's knocking at the door and he says, "Open up, my beloved." And she wants to play hard to get. So, she says, "I've taken off my shoes. I've already gone to sleep." Thinking that he'll continue to ask. And when he she gets no response, she gets up and she opens the door. And he's gone. He's not there anymore, and she wanders looking for him. And she gets beaten and derided and abused and insulted. Think about this. Hashem wants to redeem us. We're not ready yet. When we're finally ready, it's not the right time. Right? The the the pathos in in in all of these missed opportunities is very powerful. But coming to the month of Elul, one of the refrains that appears more than once in the book is the woman's statement, "Ani l'dodi." I pledge myself to my beloved. Vidodili and my beloved pledges himself to me. First letter of the four words, Ani Ledodi Vidodili aleph lamed vav lamed Elul. Elul the time of love. The time of togetherness. So, you do have these two faces here on one end we're preparing for trial. On the other end, we need to know it's in the background of love, reconciliation, acceptance. Fact, the Ran, Rabbeinu Nissim, one of the great Rishonim, has an interesting commentary, and here's the following. We commonly say, and indeed it's in the machzor, that Rosh Hashanah celebrates the creation of man in the sense that God began creating the world the 25th of Elul, and the sixth day of creation, which is man's creation, is first of Tishrei. On the other hand, the fact there's a machlokes in the Gemara between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua, where Rabbi Eliezer says the world was created in Tishrei, meaning 25th of Elul and man was created aleph Tishrei, but Rabbi Yehoshua says the world was created in Nissan, meaning 25th of Adar and Adam was created the first of Nissan. Now, even Rabbi Yehoshua admits we celebrate Rosh Hashanah the first of Tishrei. So, the and that's the day of judgment. So, the Ran asks the kasha, I understand why Rosh Hashanah is the day of judgment. According to Rabbi Eliezer, because that's the day that Adam Harishon was created. So, that's the day that God determines, it's kind of our birthday, whether we deserve another year. So, like Rabbi Eliezer, it makes perfect sense why Rosh Hashanah is the day of judgment. But, like Rabbi Yehoshua, we were created in Nissan. So, why should Rosh Hashanah be the day of judgment? Why does God pick Rosh Hashanah to judge us if that is not the day of our creation? So, the Ran says, although he doesn't precisely identify why this particular day, he says that God wanted to choose a time of year which was embedded with the ideas of forgiveness. Because, remember, uh from Elul to Yom Kippur are 40 days where Moshe Rabbenu prayed for the Jewish people, and God forgave us, culminating in Yom Kippur. So, God wants to judge us in a time of year which has the koach of forgiveness and reconciliation. So, even though it may have been more logical to judge us a different time of year, we are judged in the time of rachamim and and the like. And you know, the Sefer HaChinuch also points out that the notion of annual judgment, even though it may be a little anxiety-producing, every year I got to like, you know, people who run for Congress every 2 years you got to run for uh for Congress again, or whatever whatever it would be, but in reality, it's also a chesed that God allows us to examine our lives in small increments. Imagine if you were judged every 10 years. Every 20 years. So, you'd go through many years thinking, "Ah, no problem. I can just go through my life." How do you fix the accumulated mistakes of so many years? But, it's a year. A year I can look at. I can evaluate. And therefore, the important thing is I mean I I already mentioned uh the Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards. I won't I won't go over his musser shmoozer again. Uh sinners in the hands of in the eyes or hands of an angry God. Um but Hashem is the other way around. Hashem is not rooting rooting for us to fail. Hashem is hoping in our success. Hashem is yearning for our success. If we reach out to him, he will meet us more than halfway. Pischu li k'chudo shel machat. Hakadosh Baruchu says, "Open a hole for me the size of an eye of a needle." Tiny little eye of a needle. Anee eftach lachem. I will open up like the doors of the Beis Hamikdash. So, you got to approach these days as days of awe and as days of seriousness. But, also days of great great potential, great love, great accessibility. In fact, the Chazal from the Alter Rebbe really have a very very famous moshel. And if you have anything to do with Chabad, you've heard this martial a gazillion times that the month of Elul is described as Hamelach Basada. Everybody has probably heard this martial. But the idea is that the whole year the king is in his palace. And if you want to see him, you got to make an appointment. And you got to go through intermediary intermediaries. It's not always so easy to get the Melech's attention. But one time a year kings would sometimes go out among the countryside. And anybody who wanted to approach them was able to approach them. There were no secretaries. There were no guards. Again, in modern times we don't really have that anymore, but there was, you know, go back. I mean, people uh I remember reading even in the United States like um you know, in the 1880s, whatever. Although we Lincoln had already been assassinated and Garfield as well, but presidents would just wander among the people. What whatever it would be. Elul is called Hamelach Basada. And you know, every morning we say Modeh Ani. We thank Hashem for giving us back our life our lives. And we end the sentence with Rabba Emunasecha. Your faith is great. Now, the truth is Rabba Emunasecha is actually a fragment of a pasuk in Eicha. It's actually in Eicha. Rabba Emunasecha. Now, the normal way we translate Emuna is faith. Now, faith we think is something I have in God. I have faith in God. So, grammatically we shouldn't say Rabba Emunasecha, your faith is great. We should say Rabba Emunatee my faith is great. Now, now I do have to say from a strictly grammatical standpoint this may not be such a big question because in reality Emunah in Tanakh does not mean faith. Emunah in Tanakh means faithfulness dependability reliability trustworthiness. So, when we say your Emunah is great speaking to Hashem we don't mean your faith is great. But, we mean we can depend on you. In God we trust. But, the use of Emunah not as faithfulness but faith is a later usage that Chazal use. So, someone who interpret the verse Rabba Emunasecha means your faith is great. So, what does it mean? God's faith is great. It should be my faith in God. The answer is it's God's faith in us. Very important. We lose faith in ourselves. But, Hashem has faith in us. Every time you awake in the morning and you would check you check the obituaries and you're not in there, thank God. That means God believes in you. God trusts you. God says you have what to do in the world. You have what to accomplish in the world. So, I might be depressed because of my low self-esteem. I might be be depressed because people don't appreciate me. But Hashem is whispering in your ears. I believe in you. In a sense, that's an antidote to not being bothered by what other people say. Because if God didn't believe in you, he wouldn't give you life for this new day. Right? A new day is God affirming that my life has meaning. My life has purpose. And therefore, I got to try to realize that purpose. So, this is really kind of the two faces of Yom Kippur because for many, many people, this time of year is a difficult time of year. Because, you know, there's a lot of talk about guilt and a lot of talk about sin and a lot of talk about all the things we need to correct. And unfortunately, I can't eliminate that from the equation because that is part of our avodah for sure. So, we can't we can't just ignore it. But at the same time, we have to have a simultaneous awareness that God is on our side. He's rooting for us. He will help us if we meet him halfway or less than half even less than halfway. We take a step and I need a dodi. If I pledge my love to Hashem, he will pledge his love to me. Give me strength. So, you have to look at this as an opportunity. Not a time for self-loathing, but an opportunity to make things good, to make things better. You know, um, famous statement of Nachman of Breslov, I think I mentioned this before, that, um, that, uh, one one time I was visiting, uh, my my son in Baltimore, and, uh, he had a puppy at the time, and I had left, uh, a jacket on a chair, and you know, puppies like to chew things. So, the thing had been out of the pocket had been chewed through, whatever it would be. So, in the States, you know, you you you tailors don't fix it don't really fix anything, you know, they say get a new one, you know, that's the that's the philosophy that, you know, you don't fix things, you just throw them out and get something new. But, I figured I'd go to Mea Shearim, Mea Shearim, you know, poor place, uh, they're used to fixing things, mending things. And, uh, I was I was almost certain there was no way this could this could be fixed. But, you know, I was almost embarrassed. And I said, "Yeah, you know, can you fix this?" And the person said, "Yeah, sure. Not a no problem." And I said, "Wow, that's pretty amazing. Like, you know, most places would never even fix it." So, he said, "But, actually it's a quote from Nachman of Breslov, but but he said, Masha Shar Lakalkel of Shar Takin. What you can ruin, if you can ruin it, you can fix it." Yeah. Words of wisdom. Uh, these, again, as I say, I think Nachman of Breslov said it, but maybe he got it from the tailor, you know, who knows? That which you can ruin, you can also repair. And really, that's the ultimate message we have to take it. In fact, interesting, you know, that I went and we have, uh, the tailor remark, but they say just there we have as an aside, they say Rabbi Yisrael Salanter was very inspired as a young a boy, uh, he was walking the streets of Vilna, and he saw a tailor, again another either a tailor or a shoemaker, I'm not sure which one, in which this is before there were electric lights and everything was by candlelight. And it was getting very dark and the shoemaker really couldn't see or the tailor couldn't really see, but he was like squinting and trying to fix the garment or fix the pair of shoes. And when we saw Salanter asked him, "How are you able to work when it's so dark?" So he said in Yiddish, "As long as the candle is burning, there's still work to do." And when we saw Salanter as a child said, "You know, the neshama of a person is a candle. So as long as the neshama is burning, as long as I have life, there's work to do." I mean, even Tim Walls at the Democratic Convention told us a little bit of a mussar light when he was talking about I mean, not that this isn't an important goal per se. Got to go out and campaign, you know, he said, "Plenty of time to sleep when you're dead." It's a little little bit of a mussar thought in the middle of the Democratic Convention, but indeed we have we have such a we have such an idea. You're alive, this is the time to do things. And you still have these opportunities. And therefore, let's look at Elul as the month of opportunity. Not the month of guilt, but the month of opportunity. The month to make things better. Better in our relationship with Hashem, better in our relationship with each other, better in our shalom bayit, better in our connection to our children, whatever it would be, make things better. And then you enter the Yamim Hadin with the sense that I've tried and Hashem does not expect me to be perfect. And Hashem does not demand that I be perfect. But he demands that I try to be better. And if I really try, then Beze Hashem, Amzocha, I merit the Rachamim of Hashem. So, it's well known that uh the parsha of the week normally corresponds to the rhythms of the Jewish calendar. Meaning, Parshas Re'eh that we're going to be reading about always occurs either on the Shabbos before Rosh Chodesh Elul or if Rosh Chodesh Elul is on Shabbos, the Shabbos of Rosh Chodesh Elul. Right? So, Parshas Re'eh you would expect would be connected to the themes of Elul and Rosh Hashanah. And indeed, there are a number of allusions in the parsha itself to this connection. In the beginning, Moshe Rabbeinu, this is the last month of Moshe Rabbeinu's life, uh and Moshe Rabbeinu was saying, "God has given you a blessing and a curse." etc. So, let me just point out a few things. Some of these the Kli Yakar talks about. I know Rabbi Posner gives a shiur on Kli Yakar. Others other meforshim talk about. Uh but let's take a few points. First, look at what Moshe Rabbeinu says. He says, "Re'eh Actually, he's speaking in the name of God. Re'eh anochi nosein lifneichem hayom bracha u'klala. Behold, I am placing before you today a blessing and a curse. Es habracha, the blessing is asher tishme'un el mitzvos Hashem, that you will listen to the laws of God to follow His ways. Haklala, the curse will happen if you don't listen. Right? Blessing, curse. Later in the Torah it's described slightly differently. Life and death. I mean, not note that it's it's a it's a bit of a different description. In Parshas Re'eh it's described as bracha versus klala. In Parshas Nitzavim it is described as chayim versus mavet. We're we're not going to go into why the different language is employed, but just be aware of that. So, observation number one is you'll note that the bracha description is not quite symmetrical with the klala description. The klala description is actually straightforward because it uses the word if, the preposition if. The curse will befall you if you don't keep the commandments of God. That makes sense. The curse will befall you if, im. With respect to the bracha, it does not say habracha im tishmun. It says the bracha is asher tishmun. In other words, the keeping of the commandments is not stated to be the condition of the blessing. It is stated to actually be the blessing itself. You see what I'm saying? It's a little hard to see without seeing the actual language of the pasuk. The asher versus the im. And the insight here is based on something the Rambam writes in the laws of teshuvah. The Rambam actually writes that we don't really get rewarded for mitzvot in this world. The only reward we get for mitzvot in this world is olam haba. So, the question becomes, so what does the Torah mean when the Torah says if you keep mitzvot, you'll have rain and you'll have prosperity? He says, that's not reward. What God is promising you is if you keep the mitzvot, he will give you more opportunities to keep more mitzvot by giving you the health and the prosperity you need. Meaning, the only bracha we really get in the world is the opportunity to serve God in a better way. So, the Rambam doesn't bring this pasuk as a proof, but I think it fits absolutely beautifully. The blessing is your enhanced ability to do mitzvot. So, that will include health, that will include money, that will include everything you need, but that's not ultimate reward. Right? So, the phrase that we should all have tell you when you give them stuck up tizku l'mitzvot. May you merit doing mitzvot. It's actually very beautiful bracha. May God give you the blessings so you can do more and more mitzvot. Right? So, that's observation number one. That the blessings of material prosperity that we get are means so we can do more mitzvot. Now, issue number two the Kli Yakar identifies is the grammatical anomaly of the switch from singular to plural. Re'eh. Re'eh is lashon yachid. You, individual, see, contemplate anochi nosein chem I am giving before you. Now, in English, you wouldn't know the difference, but lifnei chem is rabbim. So, it should either say Raul I Anokhi nosain lifnei chem or re'eh Anokhi nosain lifanecha. Cuz you can refer to the nation as a singular. But what is the idea of switching from individual to plural? And the Kli Yakar is mazbir. That Moshe Rabbeinu is actually discussing b'kitzur a mitzvah that is going to be fulfilled when they cross the Yarden. In which six tribes are going to be on Mount Gerizim and six tribes on Mount Ebal, and Kohanim and the Levi'im are in the middle, and they will pronounce blessings facing Mount Gerizim and curses facing Mount Ebal. And Moshe Rabbeinu was actually discussing that mitzvah here in more detail than it appears in Parshat Ki Tavo, and it's actually carried out in the book of Yehoshua after Moshe Rabbeinu dies. Uh and this is called a brit. This is a a a new covenant with Am Yisrael in addition to the covenant of Sinai and Moab they're doing now. And Rashi explains from the Gemara that what was nischadesh in Mount Gerizim and Har Ebal that Moshe's alluding to is the principle of Kol Yisrael areivin ze lazeh. Meaning at Sinai I was responsible for my own mitzvahs, my own aveiras. I sin, I'm responsible. I do mitzvahs, I get reward. You sin, you're responsible. You do mitzvahs, you get reward. But at Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, when we crossed the Jordan, we each became responsible for each other. What I do impacts on you, what you do impacts on me. The Kli Yakar says, "That's the significance of moving." Re'eh, you, Mr., Mrs., Miss, you're an individual. You think you live your life? And, you know, if you want to go to hell, you'll go to hell. You want to go to heaven, you'll go to heaven. Why is it anybody's business? This is my decision. No, Re'eh, you, the individual, know that the blessing and the curse will affect everybody. Your decisions will create a certain atmosphere in which all of us are affected by what each of us do. Our neshamos are united. We are one people, we are one soul. And therefore, as the Talmud Yerushalmi graphically says, it's like a person on a boat, and the boat springs a leak. There's a hole under my seat, the water's coming in, and they want to patch up the hole. And I say, "Get out of here. This is my seat. What are you bothering me? If I want water to come in, it's my business." It's not my business. The hole under your seat is going to sink the whole ship. Kol Yisrael arevin zeh lazeh. You know, this has This is not just a mussar thought. This has practical halachic ramifications. If I made kiddush already, and I'm eating, and you come to my house as a guest, and you didn't make kiddush yet. I could ask you to make it yourself, but let's say you don't want to make it yourself. I can make Kiddush again for you. Even though I heard Kiddush already. I made Kiddush already. Because since every Jew is responsible for every other Jew. If there's one Jew in the world that has not heard Kiddush, my mitzvah is not complete. So, I can do it once. I can do it twice. I can do it 10 times. I can do it 100 times. Call Israel are even zealous. So, we have to know. You know, sometimes people don't get involved uh in their communities because they say, "I really don't need it. I'm doing fine." Maybe that's true and maybe it's not. But, the interesting question we have to ask ourselves is, even if I don't need the community, maybe the community needs me. Right? John F. Kennedy. Uh I know RFK Jr.'s in the news this week. He's switching over. Betrayal, you know, whatever it would be. But, it says, "Ask not right what your community can do for you. Ask what you can do for your community." Right? That's also a hashpa'ah. Right? I may not need you, but maybe you need me. Doesn't that create some sense of obligation? And like, so that's the clear occur's understanding of why it goes from Yachid to Rabbim. Because the message to the Yachid is, "Your decisions impact on the whole community." A third point is, you'll notice that God seems to indicate there's only two choices. You have two roads. The path of blessing and the path of path of curse. Or as we see it later, the path of life and the path of death. What about the path of neutral? One might think, "Okay, uh I do mitzvahs. That's wonderful. I do aveiros. That's bad. But there's a lot of neutral stuff. You know, uh should I have Cheerios for breakfast or cornflakes for breakfast?" You know, one would not assume automatically it makes a difference in that way. But the Hava Nagila says in the deepest level, there is no such thing as neutrality in life. Every single decision we make, we have to ask ourselves, "Will this bring me closer to Hashem? Or will it help me become closer to Hashem?" If it'll bring me closer to God, it's a good decision. If it will not bring me closer to God, it'll be a bad decision that will distance me. Now now again, when you first hear this type of thought, uh you get a little a person might get a little anxious as if to say, "So, which means I can never go out for ice cream. I can never go on vacation because it's not a spiritual thing." So, the Emes says that's not true. Because the Rambam already writes, "If a person by contemplating beauty or by taking a break gets more relaxed, gets rid of anxiety, and they say, 'In this way I'll be able to serve God better.' That becomes a vote of Hashem. So, even within this framework, you can have vacations, you can play basketball, you can jog, you can swim. Okay, we're not saying the only thing you can do is learn or die man. But, it all depends on what your ultimate motivations are. So, I'm swimming, I'm jogging, I'm visiting the Grand Canyon. I'm going up north. Hopefully it'll be safe as we say Hashem. I'm doing so to of number one appreciate the magnificence of God's creation and have gratitude to Hashem. I'm doing so to get rid of some of my anxiety, some of my tensions so I could serve Hashem with joy. So, the Rambam says, if you have that as a conscious thought in your mind then even your sleeping and your eating and your jogging and your swimming and your traveling also becomes part of Avodat Hashem. And that's the meaning of the pasuk in Mishlei B'chol d'rach'cha da'ehu. Know Hashem in all of your endeavors. And the Rambam considers this to be a very important pasuk. B'chol d'rach'cha. Don't only know Hashem in the overtly spiritual things in life but know Hashem in everything. And this is what the Vilna Gaon says. The Vilna Gaon writes in Mishlei if a person is not consciously involved in improving they automatically go down. You can't just stay the same. I don't know if you ever did this. I used to do it. Uh I haven't done it lately. If you have an escalator uh going down so try to go up a down escalator. Right? See if you can go if you're faster than it's going up. Now, obviously, if you stand still on an escalator going down, you're going to go down. Life is like a down escalator. You just stand still, you'll lose ground. You got to consciously try to go up. That's the idea. There's the blessing and there's the curse. There's no neutral in life. You can't be Switzerland when it comes to our voters Hashem. You can't just go with neutrality. And the final point I want to make is the word hayom. Behold, I am placing before you today today the blessing and the curse. The word today, what day is today? Today is whatever day you're reading that verse. So, if if you read it yesterday, yesterday was today. If I read it today, today is today. And when I read it tomorrow, tomorrow will be today. Meaning, it's talking to you whenever you read it. This is a very important lesson. You know, you know the old t-shirt saying, uh today is the first day of the rest of your life. Very true sen- statement. Rabbeinu Yonah writes, Rabbeinu Yonah, one of the great Rishonim who wrote one of the immortal books on the process of repentance, called Shaarei Teshuvah. So, he actually wrote an abridgement of that book that that many machzorim have, including the ArtScroll machzor, called Yesodei Teshuvah, the foundation of teshuvah. So, it's interesting, I don't think he says this in the big book, but he actually says this in the summary. That the first step to doing chuva is not to think about the past. Meaning, it's true that at some point in our chuva we got to think about our past and have remorse and have regret. But you don't start with that process. Because if you start with that process, you get so depressed that you're not able to go on. Rather, you have to imagine that this is the first day of your life. And therefore, you're not encumbered by that baggage. You're a free agent. What you are today is not governed by what you were yesterday. What you can become tomorrow is not limited by what you are today. Hayom every day is new. Every day new life. In fact, I think the Rebbe even says, you know, people ask the question, I'm not sure if it's a complete answer, but people ask the question, "Why did God create the need for sleep?" It is a very good question. We know, given the reality of the human body, we know we need sleep. But God could have made us in a different way. I mean, a person spends so so large a percentage of their life sleeping. Okay, most people don't sleep 8 hours a day, but if you go to the Rambam, 8 hours a night, which the Rambam never got, but the Rambam advocates that. That's 1/3 of life. So, you sleep 6 hours, sleep 5 hours. It's still a very very very significant percentage of your life in which you're not doing anything. What's the purpose? Why didn't God create a a a physiology that didn't need sleep? So, the Rebbe said, again, I'm I'm I'm I'm not sure if it's a complete answer, but the Rebbe said that sleep gives me a sense when I wake up that I may newly created person. Meaning if I would be up all the time, I would always be carrying around the burdens of my past. Sleep creates the notion of Briah Hadasha. I'm new. It's a new day. And what I am today doesn't have to be subject to what I was yesterday. And therefore sleep is necessary for that sense of renewal. That's a very important aspect of the Chuvah process. Right? So these are a few different Remazim, a few different allusions in Parshas Re'eh to the Avodah of Elul. I want to wish everybody a Chodesh Tov U'Mevorach. Uh may all of us feel the love of Ani Ledodi Vedodi Li and enter the Yamim HaNoraim with the requisite seriousness and commitment, but also feeling Hashem's love and feeling the joy in serving Hashem and trying to make our lives better. Amen.