Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Teshuva Can Transform the Past

[Music] anyway hello thank you thank you thank you for coming and again uh first the year tonight is dedicated fora and for Rabbi Dr Isel Rifkin Isha uh actually I knew Rabbi Rifkin for a number of years uh they lived in westart he and his wife lived in West Hartford and uh he was one of the you know an important Masia on my life as I was growing up and they live in now and person and this is dedicated by the quels uh are they they here okay but we're very grateful for that again uh for the liberation of er Israel from its enemies safe return home of all the soldiers and hostages lasting Unity of the people of Israel and for all of those whose Health has been affected by the war as well as dedicating the shear to the release of Arvin Nel Bena in Iran alzer and uh in memory of all who have been murdered since October 7 by Yakov and dvor Shore and want to welcome him from California and finally ion has launched its annual campaign to collect and distribute sadaka to the needy this coming holiday season uh the list of recipients has of course increased due to the dire situation of displaced families which is a you know a major problem I'm I'm sure that everyone here is aware of this uh even though we in the center don't necessarily experience it directly we need to be aware of the fact that literally thousands and thousands of families have been uprooted and P should just need basic survival resources and a link to contribute can be found below as well as on the website and as we know we are approaching the hadin the days of judgment andal teach us CH uh take away the decree and therefore cha of course we do and sta is especially important the whole year but especially before the rashishana and yum Kipper yum Kipper season um okay so our par this week is a very interesting para Paras a little bit of information Paras has over 70 mitzvos of the 63 Mitzvah he has over 70 it grabs a huge share it is by far uh the par with the largest number of mitzvos in it that's quite quite amazing uh I want to focus though on a few Mitzvah that are that are clumped together at the very beginning of the uh paraa uh the first is the very very difficult Mitzvah to understand about the as toar the woman that is a captive of War where the Torah gives you a ritual or essentially a Soldier somehow has permitted to have intercourse with her and we'll talk about that Vios then it refers to an unrelated law apparently that if a person has two wives because polygamy was permitted one wife that he loves one wife that he hates but the firstborn son happens to be born to the wife that he hates the Torah says even that son must get the double portion of the Bor you cannot prefer the son of the Beloved wife over the son of the hated wife and then we have another mysterious law in the Torah of a rebellious son whose parents bring him to the batin and he is actually stoned to death because of his rebelliousness now these three mitzvot apparently have no thematic connection Rashi does draw a connection just to mention the connection Rashi draws and Rashi says all of these are a consequence of that improper relationship with the captive of War meaning okay the Torah allows it again we'll we'll talk about why that's so in a minute uh but don't think you get away scotf free any child you have uh is likely to become rebellious off the DK and ultimately this woman whose Inception of a relationship was impure you will come to hate so therefore the hateful woman is none other than the ASAT to and the Ben um is the child of the ASAT and that's kind of the connection in which the Torah is allowing it with its right hand but it's also telling you better not go there because there's all sorts of negative and nasty consequences that will come from that relationship um I'm going to go backwards a little bit because I want to just share with you a fascinating interesting of the vagon and then a parenting h of an unknown source about B first the fascina observation of the Von in the par when it talks about the man has two wives a beloved wife and a hated wife so what does it say so it says if a man has two wives one is beloved one is hated and the Ben and the older child I'm sorry the older the Beloved wife and the hated wife have given birth to children for and the firstborn is to the hated wife so the ter says you cannot prefer the second one to the to the of the so the EM is the seems to be an inconsistent sequence because it says these wives gave birth to Children the aova and the snua that implies the Beloved wife gave birth first then it says the is to the right there's a bit of a contradiction right so why does it say it should say so the vill goone used this sequencing to answer a sh that he was asked first of all he says what does the tah possibly mean that you hate your wife how can you hate your wife you're not allowed to hate another Jew said people do it unfortunately we have hate all the time but you know so the answer must be as say that when we use the word this refers to a situation where a sin like adultery was committed and you're M to divorce your wife right if a woman commits adultery intentionally intentionally so the is the husband is to divorce her so here was the Shila a man divorced his woman because his wife because she had committed adultery but she was pregnant he divorced his wife when she was pregnant again that's a sad situ from him pregnant from him not from the adulterer he then married another woman a month later woman number two gave birth prematurely after 8 months woman number one gave birth after 9 months and even though she was pregnant first the child was born afterwards so the question is when a Bor has the right to PE to a double portion is the definition of b defined as first in conception or first in birth so the vagon says I'll prove to you that Pim is based on conception rather than birth because that's exactly what the PK says the man has two wives the yahua and the in terms of birthing a child the Beloved wife gave birth first she gave birth after eight months and still the Tyra says the benab is the first wife because she was first in conception and therefore the derived from this that the definition of for the arusa of a double portion is based on conception rather than birth now Lisa this would be a real issue when you had polygamy when when a man could have more than one wife or a man divorced a wife and took another wife uh if you simply are monogamous so to speak you're not going to have the Shila but the truth is theoretically it could apply even in modern day fertility Technologies if you have an IVF of fertilization and a given embryo is fertilized first but that for whatever reason that's not the first one that's implanted you have the same Shila is the B the first to be born or is the B the first to be implanted the V is from theim that P of B is based on conception rather than birth now this is fascinating this is a well known div Torah that is said in the name of the Von and it's recorded inim of the Von's teaching but the great the the great Berlin who is the great ran who himself married the granddaughter of Rim ofan who is the Von's principal disciple greatest disciple actually said it is impossible that the villon says such a thing because it is a that again we won't go into the proofs but there are many many proofs that the of the establishment of B is not based on conception it is based on birth and the N actually concluded the only thing I could say is that some talmid who heard this aort misunderstood what the vagon was saying and simply recorded it inaccurately so it's very very fascinating although the our Torah is pretty explicit but it's not the Von's own words it's a talmid writing up what the vnon says the N was willing to Simply say it is wrong now obviously the N would never argue with the vagon uh in Lithuania anyway that was almost a capital crime I mean you were in big big big big trouble but he didn't argue with the vnon but he simply said the talmid misunderstood what the vnon said so that's a fascinating issue which means Hally we don't like this T we that the is based on birth rather than rather than conception now the truth of the matter is there are some interesting midrashim that actually want to make that point about Jakob and ASA uh again there are some M that basically say that and this is the idea of Yakov holding on to the to the hill that Yakov they were not they were not identical twins uh pretty obviously they were fraternal twins and uh Yakov was conceived before asov it's like two marbles in a in a tube where the first marble will be higher than the other marble and asov came out first and therefore Yakov getting the birth right was actually legitimate because Yakov was the first for conception right so some want to bring in the Yakov and the asov midash on that story but once again it's not really clear uh because the Torah does describe Yakov getting the B as deception even though it was justified deception as opposed to a halak entitlement per se so that was just a halak observation just to share with a very fascinating take on the P now we come to the rebellious son so I'm going coming in reverse order I'll go back to Yas to we come to the rebellious Sun we have a very interesting thing um the Torah does not really say what what he did the Torah does not say what he did say the man is rebellious son he does not listen to his father and mother we bring him to the bason and he gets executed so there's a whole peric in M Sedin it's a short peric but about called B that goes through the Bor and it basically basically explains a number of points that make this a very unique case number one the kid is not even Bar Mitzvah there's actually a very narrow window of opportunity when somebody can be characterized as a rebellious son it's uh 12 years old before he's 13 Etc and what does the kid do he does some very very specific stuff he steals meat and wine from his parents and he's a rebellious son and he get he can get executed now this is very very strange I mean number one he's not Bar Mitzvah yet he's not adult number two theft is bad from anybody but you know theft is not a of you don't get the death penalty for theft so why is the benur killed he stoned so the mishna says in Sanhedrin a very fascinating point the mission says in Sanhedrin that he's not killed because of what he did what he did would not have Justified any type of punishment of that magnitude he's killed because of what he will become preventative not punitive preventative nine alame sofo he is judged for what will eventually happen because K described the idea that he starts stealing and eventually this is addictive behavior and addictive behavior could ultimately culminate in murder and therefore K say the tyus philosophy is yos Zaki let him die in a relative state of Innocence a relative state of innocence and not die in a state of mortal sin it is to his benefit to die early now every year there are parents who actually make this calculation I mean they got they go either they go to jail or they're committed to a mental hospital in which know I mean fundamentalist Christians and some I mean I'm not I'm not generalizing it all but but uh in which you know they feel their daughter is not uh behaving in the right way they'll take her life and they'll say this is for the sake of God so she should die pure and chaste now the obvious reason why we consider that wrong is that I as a human being can never judge a person based on what I think they're going to do how on Earth do I know that that's impossible but the one entity that can make those judgments is of course AES only AES can judge a person based on what they will do we at best can judge a person based on what he did but is and in reality this is part of the logic behind and the eradication of the Seven Nations because people always ask the question hey what type of business is this the Torah supports genocide the Torah says go and wipe out the babies of amalik go and wipe out the women and the children of the Seven Nations of Canan they're not fighting against you they're not Waging War against you what type of religion would say you kill everybody the truth is as the says there's AO here because even though at this Moment In Time the children might be cute and innocent and very nice essentially they'll grow up to be Hitlers many of you might remember I think I mentioned it before the short story by roel D DL the British the British writer about saving Baby Hitler it's kind of a thought experiment about this cute little adorable baby that's dying in the middle of the night has whooping cough and the mother summons the doctor and uh the doctor sees a mother that loves this baby and cares about this baby and cries and sobs and weeps and says this is my life please please please help and the doctor's heart is opened up you know to help this poor woman who loves the child so much and let's imagine if at that moment you had absolute Clarity that this is going to be Hitler who's going to kill 6 million Jews millions of other people as well what's the compassionate thing to do what is the r is the rim to take care of this poor little baby that's crying or is the r to kill the kid right right away without getting into the philosophical conundrums of changing the past right there are numerous science fiction stories particularly about Hitler but know going back with the time machine okay I'm I'm not getting into all of those issues but once again you see from that story that shortterm R is not necessarily true ra shortterm R and of course we experience this with withas all the time here the shortterm ra can be very very destructive indeed say if you're on those who deserve cruelty you will eventually be cruel to those who deserve ra that's how it is so the comes up with and I think it comes up with amalik and it comes up with the Seven Nations who inhabited Canan however there is an interesting contradiction to that idea that God judges me based on my future performance and not only what I've already done and that is the story of yes difficult question right uh in fact we read this the first day of rashash it's going to be the Torah reading of the first day of rashash where Sarah basically tells abam we got to get rid of Ismael he's a bad influence he's mocking Y in his service to God so Abraham expels so to speak hogar and yishmael and they wander in the desert and yishmael is dying of thirst and hug or pray well hug or prayed but actually says Hashem listen to the voice of yesma and uh the PK says they saw a well Huger saw a well which means the well was always there she didn't see it Hashem opened eyes that itself was a very important muser the blessings of Hashem are all over the place problem is we don't have eyes to see okay but be it as it may but it says for hasem listened to the voice of the young man so not hugger's prayer but isma's prayer which by the way is the source of our our trouble to this very day that yesma has a certain of prayer I don't want to elaborate on that because apparently whenever I mention this there's some Arab group that puts me on YouTube and says how I support the righteousness of the Muslim cause so I got to be really really careful about everything I say but it does say that asem listened to the prayer of yes because he's there that's a Superfluous phrase because he's there so what do kazal say that when hasem was going to save Ismael the M said to God Mar Rashana how can you save this guy his descendants are going to persecute and kill so many Jews how can you let him die he's the Hitler and Hashem said hasham I look at him now now the L of the gar is now he's a sadic I don't think the mean now he's a sadic I mean obviously if Abram sent him away he wasn't a sadic but now he's not deserving of death he's a relative Sonic and I don't judge people Hashem says based on what they're going to do I judge people based on where they are now and right now he's not deserving so the obvious question is there is a contradiction between the philosophy of Ben umora which is neon Alo andem gazer Andel which is called AER husham and by the way AER husham comes in very useful to us on the yadin because Hashem knows in the course of a year we will tend to sin and go astray but if rum our cha is sincere we are even though in the course of the year we're going to fail because aam this is who I am right now I don't mean ins Chua where at the time of your Chua you're thinking about the aaras you're going to do that's a different thing but if you if we genuinely are sincere there's a madrea called so there is a fundamental contradiction between and the idea of hasem looks at Future consequences sham is hasem looks at you now and does not take into account the future so the Emma says this is a Kasha of the mara the mara himself the great commentator raises the question um the answer he gives is actually very difficult answer uh but there are two answers that that he gives answer number one is that in the case of yesel the active persecution is not yes doing it later it's his descendants so Ben he himself self is going to engage in the murder and the violence so Hashem will look at that future by Isel it's an issue of his uh descendants so Hashem will not use the descendants of the Russ of the person uh as a factor against him but Hashem may use his own future misbehavior of course that terit doesn't help us very much on rash according to the mar you couldn't use the aam argument committing a VAR in the future okay the second ter he gives is also a difficult terit and that is he says that the Ben um has already exhibited the destructive behaviors that will culminate in murder he's already started down the path as opposed to Isel who did not yet start on that path of evil once again that itself is a difficult answer obviously Ishmael did start on a path of evil otherwise abam would not have would not have expelled him so I'm going to have to leave this as something for you to think about I'll think about you'll think about it we still have time before Rashana but uh for now I just want to call to your attention the very interesting tension and contradiction apparently between the Ben um situation and the AER husham of of yesma and I would also add that with alal and the Seven Nations we're apparently us the Paradigm of Nido as opposed to looking at where they are now because the baby baby amalik is not a bad kid right now but God is saying he'll become a Hitler we got to get rid of him right now okay but there's another aspect of Boro I just want to mention and that is there's an opinion in the gamarra that says this never happened there never was such a case the H requirements are are so strict and unusual that there literally was never a case where these laws were met and therefore no 12-year-old was ever put to death because of a been so now immediately after the the Tana says it never was another Rabbi says oh for sure there was I was there and I sat on his grave so appar how do you understand that m one said never happened right we like to say in all right one says one says TR in God's book both are legitimate views well you can hear in on matters of accepts either as a valid but it's very hard to have on a matter of historical record one says never happens the other says for sure it happens is there AO on that again I'll leave that for you to think about as well but one of the reasons why it's HOA it never happened like like that opinion is because the Halas are very unusual and I want to mention two unusual hakas it mentions that number one the father and the mother must have the same voice their voices must sound the same husband and wife must sound I mean because it says he doesn't listen to K Vio the voice of his father and mother it's only one word voice meaning father and mother sound exactly the same you're not going to get that that often right so that's one reason and another rule the gumar says is and again these seems to be out out of the blue just rules that you know don't make any sense to us that if the father or the mother is deaf we have there's no of so again you know just technical rules but what's the sense of it but the B mus say there's actually a very interesting symbolic meaning to these technical requirements that is here you have a kid and a kid Rebels and the kid is going off the Der and obviously the tah by indicating he gets the death penalty in theory at least is indicating that the kid is that he's responsible that he's AEM that he's guilty but in order for someone to be responsible for going off the D there had to have been a consistency when it says the father and the mother have the same voice even though hierarchically it actually means they sound the same same but allegorically it means they speak with the same voice they have the same message they share the same values they're on the same page now of course men and women are different of course father and mother are different that that's a fact of life and no one is saying father and mother interact with their children in exactly the same way in some houses some homes it'll be wait until your father comes home other houses will be wait till mommy comes home right that's right in Every Family there's one usually one is more of the disciplinarian one is not but that's a separate issue that's just a matter of style but fundamental values what is the vision you want to uh communicate what is the type of home you want to create what is the type of child you want to mold if the kid hears two different Visions if father and mother do not speak with a unified voice it's not the kids's fault there was no Clarity of message right so that's a remise to the idea that the voices have to be the same similarly to the idea of deafness if father and mother are deaf to their own message the child cannot be responsible for ignoring it you now we sometimes have know the kutar rebbi once remarked that he is waiting to see the ultimate child that is born at the end of time to which every generation was doing mes like people will often say you know I'm doing this for my children and my children grow up and they're doing it for their children and they're doing it for their children so who is the ultimate child to whom for whom everything is being done he'd like to meet that ultimate child and often parents expect their children to adere to a certain standard of behavior that the parents themselves don't live to so a father might be shmooing in and he'll momentarily stop his shmooing to tell his son stop talking DAV then go back to shoing I remember years ago I was a member of a board of education of of of a day school and uh it was a you know modern Orthodox School and parents were discussing how they could increase the learning opportunities for their children after school it already a long day not as long as here in Israel but it was you know for America was a long day like 5:00 and let's have more learning now one of the unfortunate things that rabbis pick up is that rabbis happen to know the schedules of many people and I knew for a fact that a lot of these parents that are calling for extra learning for their kids were not necessarily putting in extra learning themselves so when you ask the question how do I increase my son's desire to learn Torah the real answer or part of the answer is by learning more Tor yourself because if a child sees that the parents are not gravitating to Li Torah but the parent is giving you a lecture to learn more as footner said when you tell your son not to talk during daving when you talk during daving your son does not learn not to talk during daving your son learns that when he has a son he'll tell his son not to talk during daving that's the behavior that's going to be imitated so once again the person is not a If the parents are deaf to their own message to their own message when we listen to our message then we can hope our children will listen to our message if we don't listen to our message then how can the kid be at fault one way or the other so these technical requirements actually are very important in the world of and the world of raising our children but now going backwards I want to go to the first topic of the par which is very very difficult the Torah says when you go out to war against your enemy and you see in captivity a beautiful woman that you desire again I'm speaking from the man's perspective because that's how the Torah describes it so it says you have relations with her so I first want to point out a very important point which maybe not everybody agrees with but it's a very authoritative source that you need to keep in mind uh this is the commentary toos rid rid is an abbreviation rayah dran rayah from Tran he was an Italian Reon of great great Authority and he wrote many on and the makes a very important Point contrary to what many people think a is not a legitimation of wartime rape if the woman does not consent it is forbidden God forbid to rape as to is only in a context of consensual relationship now that's very important most people don't understand the that way most people say oh it's a time of War passions are high so the Torah allows rape that would be a war crime well even in h that would be a war crime and the to ises very important very important that the whole par is talking about consensual relationship and it is not talking about coercive relationship okay that takes away some of the big ethical problems people have but still it's extremely problematical she's a not she's not Jewish for one thing so the Torah is permitting a man in time of War to have one consensual sexual encounter with a prisoner of war only one one bite at the Apple afterwards if you want to continue the relationship there's a whole ritual that you have to go through Etc uh and if you don't want to go through with that she goes free you cannot keep her as a servant your only choice is either she goes through the process and you marry her and then she has the same rights as any wife or she goes free and she cannot be a servant I see can't continually abuse her in that way but one free bite at the Apple the man gets provided of course like the to of says it's consensual and it's not coercive how could this be how could the Torah allow such a thing how could the Torah allow sexual interg with the Gentile I mean after all the Kish itself when we fornicated with the daughters of MOA that resulted in a plague 24 4,000 Jews died and they would have continued to die had not Pinas stepped up and killed zimri and kby right Zim was the head of the tribe of Shimon and kby was the midianite woman and yet the Torah allows it so the answer that Rashi gives and again if I'm not able to fully explain this it's because I cannot fully explain this Rashi says again from kazal he didn't make it up that this this is a concession to the aara passions are very very very powerful in time of War when a person is afraid of living of losing their life their emotions are at the edge and sometimes they do things that are uncontrollable and even if God were to prohibit it as he normally would they would violate it anyway soes concedes to the and then regulates it by then requiring a whole ceremony for continuation because otherwise the law would be violated without regulation and therefore makes a of concessions to theer again it's very very difficult for us but let me share with you a beautiful allegory that theim develops based on the zoh it is true of course that the PK is directly talking about a non-jewish captive of War but the or based on the zoer says that aat to is an allegory for the Journey of the soul and all of the pum can be understood in this allegorical mystical way when you go against when you go out to war against your enemy says the AR who is the greatest enemy that a human being has in their life it's the Atara that's the biggest enemy of all and we have to wage war against the eight ofur we have urges to be selfish to be egotistical to rebel against God to be lazy to Sherk our responsibilities and every single day we have that voice that's pulling us in a direction we don't want to go you got to wage war against the Atara and what does the PK say when you wage war against the Atara Hashem gives you a promise hasem Hashem will deliver the to you you will be able to win if you sincerely wage war against the AAR Hashem will give you Victory so that's the first kind of a reassuring note this is a war again we may backslide but this is a war that fundamentally we're capable of winning the message is of course don't give up the fight never feel your mive is hopeless never feel there's nowhere for you to go wage war against that yatera and God will deliver the Sara into your hands into your control again they say in the name of the vagon that when you're daving Shon and all of us have this problem our minds wanders now we're saying the words but our mind wanders into other things we have this experience that somehow I was in the the fourth Brau and all of a sudden I'm Inu I'm kind of way ahead like where did I go from there to there like where was I and presumably I said the words I actually did say the words but I have no memory of how I got from there to there it's like an alcoholic the last weekend I just don't remember how did I get to Las Vegas you know somehow somehow I'm there so the villon says the following if thear wins when you saidu you weren't focusing then you'll get him on meaning you lost this brother don't give up try to win in the next brother you didn't get this line right try to get the next line right don't make the mistake of kind of saying ah it's not worth it anymore even in learning you know it's interesting sometimes a person has a learning session in Yeshiva and the learning session didn't go very well so there's only a half an hour left there's only 15 minutes left so it's natural for a person to say okay today is not going good let's just call it call it a day but you know that's not really the way we should react we should kind of say you know I got 15 minutes I got five minutes left let me make the five minutes good yeah maybe I wasted you know three and a half hours I can do something for five minutes minutes that's worthwhile the alar of Kellum of sim of Kell great great tman had a Yeshiva for really high school boys it was really a Yeshiva Katana Kum they don't realize this and one of his rituals he had many different rituals to train people in character one of his rituals was that in the middle of the night the kids had to get up these were like 16 year olds 17 year olds they had to get up and learn for five minutes no more and no less no more even now when your whole learning session is only going to be five minutes you can't really be late meaning they woke him up let's say 15 minutes before and you know they gave him time to get dressed and everything else five minutes got to go to the Bas M for five minutes what's the purpose of that just to wake somebody up say learn for 5 minutes the answer is to to understand that 5 minutes are worthwhile too theas of time right don't give up so that's the first message of the PK when you wage war against your Yahara God will give you Victory then we continue the allegory you see in captivity a beautiful woman and you desire her and you want to marry her he says the following from the Z the beautiful woman is none other than your n which is beautiful it's Radiance it is the Breath of God and I see my Nish as if it's held captive and again the Tanya discusses this this metaphor generally actually it's not a metaphor it's a reality he discusses the idea of a which is So Divine and holy as being imprisoned in this body yearning to be connected to Hashem but it's imprisoned and every AA that we do imprisons it locks it up chains it up where it's not able to express itself so you look at this beautiful Nish you see it's kep AC ity you see its suffering you see its distance and you want to be reunited with your own Nish that's why the idea of Chua which means return doesn't only mean return to God of course it means that but it also means returning to yourself I want to be connected with myself my true identity who I am so I see this beautiful woman in captivity and I want to be unified with her so what do I do so let's look at the rituals the rituals that the Torah talks about is you bring her into your house you shave her hair right you shave her hair and you let her fingernails grow long again Rashi explains you want to make her unattractive so you won't want to marry in other words you'll have a hetra to marry her if you really want it but the turret tries to discourage that from happening by requiring that uh she shave her hair again this is before sat shaving hair and fingernails grow very long and she cries for her father and mother for 30 days and then if you still want her you could be with her so here's what the allegory says shaving the hair is part of a chuva process in the sense of divesting yourself from the foreign ideology right the hair comes out of the the the head so doesn't come out of the brain but it represents the ideas in your head that as part of your introspective process you got to divest yourself of the foreign ideologies and philosophies that lead a person astray get rid of them shave them away the hands grasp things the hands are represent an overc connection to materialism so when the fingernails grow long you're not able to grasp things so therefore the two steps of Shaving the hair divest yourself of foreign ideologies and values and distance yourself from The Emptiness of materialistic acquisition then it says let your Nisha cry over her father and her mother her father is Hashem her mother is the Jewish people cry over the fact that with our AOS we've created a distancing between ourselves and Hashem we've lost our father so to speak although we can get him back and we've also betrayed the Jewish people because as we said a few weeks ago call is Ravens every Jew is responsible so when I do a virus it's not just me I affect is so therefore shave the hair divest yourself of false ideologies let the fingernails grow disengage from materialism cry and mourn and grieve over the distance you are you have with asem and cry over the Betrayal we've done to am Israel and do it for a month this is the kicker this is the month of el doesn't say 30 days it says a month or 20 L is 29 days uh and therefore this is the and then and then you can marry the you can become reunited with your Nish you can become purified you can become elevated you can become reconnected to now of course this is not the simple meaning of the verse the verse is referring to a particular halic situation which is still controversial and it's hard for us to fully understand that situation but the Torah has 70 faces there are deeper meanings to everything in the Torah and the and based on the Z says that the deeper meaning of is the reunification of my being with my Inner Essence through the chuva and the introspection particularly during the month of Elo okay so this is a again get a very beautiful thought connecting ASA shaas to the chuva of the month of el but I want to raise a final question on this Rashi has a comment you know there are two types of wars that exist in the system one is called a Mitzvah a Mitzvah War a war that you are commanded to wage and the other which we cannot do today because you actually need prophetic authorization through the UR is optional Wars of expansion which we cannot do today today the only type of War we could Hally wage is Mitzvah mitzvah the ramb writes there are three cases of Mitzvah one is the to eradicate the Seven Nations of Canan the other is Amal the third which is the war we're engaged in is a war against enemies that seek to destroy the Jewish people defensive Wars that's called Mitzvah and maybe for another time we'll discuss uh the exemption if there is an exemption for Yeshiva students from Mitzvah it's all very it's not not a simple not a simple situation but that's called Mitzvah now a second category of war is called now that may sound funny actually means an optional war of aggressive expansion Israel decides to invade Kuwait now that immediately kind of sounds doesn't sound good you mean h allows aggressive Wars that are not undertaken for defense well actually yes but but the rules there are very very strict you have to have a you have to have a Sanhedrin and and this is really the most important thing the UR the com godles breastplate that communicates prophetic messages from God has to give you permission which means in other words you can invade Kuwait if aesu told you you could invade Kuwait if Hashem doesn't tell you you can invade Kuwait you can't unless it's a defensive type of operation which means practically is a virtual non-existent category we don't have prophecy today so it's not possible the only an Amic is extinct at least genealogically extinct the seven nations are extinct so as a result the only residual category of war that is Hally legitimate B manaz is mad's uh defense which of course unfortunately uh the state of Israel has faced repeatedly and over the past year we're actually coming can you imagine I mean obviously October 7 was a shock but we're approaching a year a year of this m and the truth of the matter is there's no particular end we hope a new year will bring new braa it's very important on Rashana everything is readjusted a new so things can change turn on a dime but beem we hope that that will be the truth is I hope the war will end before before but in the new year should be a year of of okay mitvah verus okay Rashi comments from the cfre which type of war is AET yat to talking about is aat toar talking about a Mitzvah war or is it talking about an optional War when it such a thing could be authorized so Rashi says it's actually talking about an optional War because in a Mitzvah War at least the for war that you're waging against amalik and the Seven Nations there are no captives you have to kill everybody and since the Torah is talking about a situation where there are captives of war that could only be it could not be Mitzvah because Mitzvah you don't have the shis sh you have captured captives of War so here's the thing if that's the case there seems to be a disconnect an inconsistency a contradiction between theat of the Pas and the allegory the t is talking about optional Wars now the and the Z reads the whole par ofat as the war against theara so here's my question if I were to ask you is the war against the Atara a midal war or is the war against the Atara an optional War our answer would certainly be the war against the ater Hara is the greatest Mitzvah there could possibly be that's my life so here's the problem if the Tyra in the par of ASAS to is trying on a deeper level to teach me about fighting the ater Hara why does it situate that lesson in a par that's talking about optional Wars if the m is certainly a for war in other words it's in the wrong place at that point once you tell me oh this is talking about an optional war and then you tell me oh it also talks about the war against Thea that doesn't fit somehow the T should have communicated this message when it talks about amalik of the Seven Nations it could have put in killing the amalik of Yara could have done that it's in the wrong place in other words so the answer is actually a very deep answer the answer is the T is teaching me that even though the war against the Atara is a Mitzvah War you have to fight it the way you fight an optional war and not the way you fight a Mitzvah War you fight the like a mil and not like how so let's examine again the Paradigm know the difference between the two is total obliteration of the enemy amalik must be wiped out the Seven Nations of Canan must be wiped out you don't destroy the enemy you capture the enemy K being mames perhaps or The Zo the Zar being mames that your Chua process does not involve obliteration it involves capture and transformation let me give you a concrete example R salek who has a beautiful book uh some that RAB pelia made of adapting his Shor talks about two different modalities of doing Chua let's imagine a person has many many years they were off the Der and it may not even have been their fault they were living lives very distant from Hashem and then when they're 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 they finally turn toes how do they view those past years good my life is on the right path right now but what about those 20 or 30 years so one psychological way of viewing it is you simply say that's dead time those were the years of nothingness that's called the chuva of amputation you simply cut off those ears they don't exist anymore I'm a new person those years are gone I simply amputate them my life began when I was 30 sometimes that is necessary sometimes there's such toxicity such negativity such evil in terms of being connected with people that all you can do is amputate in the same way there sometimes has to be a medical amputation there sometimes has to be a spiritual amputation but in reality amputation is a last resort not a first Resort number one when you try to amputate there is what we call phantom pain you haven't really gotten rid of it I just like when you try to delete complex computer programs or emails as many criminals have discovered you can't really get rid of everything although it's funny when I need to retrieve something deleted it's enormously difficult but somehow when I don't want it to be retrieved somehow they find ways to to retrieve it or or what whatever it is and number two when your chuva is amputation you're left with zero meaning I've gotten rid of the sins good I've distanced myself from those sins God has forgiven those sins but forgiving the sin doesn't create anything positive in your bank account all I have is empty time wasted time in fact one could even ask to God it's unfair you put me in an environment where number of years I didn't have those opportunities that's just not fair but there's another modality of chuva which is very very different it is not the modality of cutting off my past but I draw on that very past as the foundation for how I serve God and had I not had that even even dysfunctional past I would not be in the position that I'm in simple example the drug addict so he kicked the habit now he's good one way of looking at it is I forget about that part of my life and I go on and that's wonderful but that does mean he's stuck with 20 years of zero but what if he becomes let's say a drug and alcohol addiction counselor do you see the difference there there what's going on is not forgetting about his past it's using his past as the unique source of his strength had he not been a drug addict he wouldn't have been able to have the empathy and the understanding to help people so I look at my past and I say that is what I will derive my strength in that is not the Chua of eradication that is not the chuva of mitvah where you destroy the enemy that's the Chua where you recapture the enemy and you make him your servant psychologists call that reframing which means Chua does not only change my future Chua can redefine the meaning of my past and this is very important because many many people when they become balich chuba they may have pressures to kind of forget about that prior life that can cause depression that can cause sadness that can actually cause phantom pain in a lot of ways but if the avod is a little different don't forget about that prior life use that prior life and that actually answers the Injustice question people say how come some the shamos get to be born in families that have been from for you know 300 years and I'm born in South Dakota or Montana there were no Orthodox shows there was nobody there God gave me a bad deal but the answer is God didn't give you a bad deal God gives you a bad deal if you think your aod is to kind of be like the May asaran person and then you're going to say I never had the chance but the secret is if the mayaram person has something I'll never have the person who was born in South Dakota has something the mayaram person didn't have there was a reason why Hashem put you in South Dakota there's a reason why you grew up into Montana and therefore your Chua is not about forgetting about it your Chua is drawing upon it and that's why chuba is in the par of not I just want I'm run running a little late to I I just want to end with the idea let many of you know the rashash of Mir the great one rashu was ni of nle who died tragically he was very ill for many years but he died when we did not expect him to die and he has a famous story that's well known in the Yeshiva World he grew up in a Orthodox family he was not a balua in anyway but he grew up in an orthodox family but it was a more modern environment he went to a co-ed high school he was on the basketball team the debating team girlfriends all of those things then he came to Mir and he became you know the great rashash the great GLE and the like so I remember when he died suddenly and I went to the levah so all of the speakers emphasized this is what they saw the lesson of his life was you see a person who grow up in such a decrepit degenerate environment of evil empty materialism and TAA and his greatness was he escaped that environment he transcended that environment he was able to go beyond that environment well having come from somewhat of a similar environment I was actually a little offended a little bit you know hey you know I don't remember you know growing up in Harford Connecticut in a coed school as like you know the worst possible thing that ever happened and I'll tell you something the greatness of R nence Fe part of his greatness was not only his escaping the environment but his reclaiming the environment you know one of his great abilities was that there would be kids from coed schools modern Orthodox schools who would come to Israel never exposed to intensive Torah study and they would come to him and rosh of Mir Long Black Coat long beard they they they figure they have no connection to his world at all and all of a sudden he starts talking about jump shots and all sorts of basketball terms that I I don't know myself and the kids were so amazed like you know all of this and he was able to communicate that he was part of that world and he understood what the kids were going through he didn't deny that origin he took the positive fact features from that origin and he used it to connect with people who otherwise you know there were many gum who never I mean they never had those challenges like there was a g they once asked to give you an example of you know the different world that many come from they asked a certain G are you allowed to play basketball on chabas if there's an aif so the G said what's basketball kador he you know basketball you take a ball and you throw it through a basket and goes through so the person said I don't understand why can't you put it in the basket before chabas you know again these are great these are truly truly great people but they don't you know they don't get it again I'm I'm not saying this at criticism but in other words this was not their world and sometimes to connect to people who come from a certain world you have to share that world the point I'm making is that the greatness of n was not that he repudiated his environment but he captured it and he used it and this I would suggest is the parad is but you got to fight it like a the of amputation is inferior to the chuva of capturing it and using it so I hope that all of us can be to take every feature of our past and use it as a source of our strength and a source of our uniqueness so good [Music] de [Music]