Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: When Bad Things Happen to Good People

Okay everybody, thank you for coming. And for some reason we have a smaller than usual, but they appreciate all the people that uh did come. I guess people are getting ready for Yom Tov, Rosh Hashanah. I understand. And uh today's sheer is dedicated uh a refuah shleimah to Breya bat Chava and Chaim Aryeh ben Rivka, and may they have a refuah shleimah betoch shaar cholei Yisrael. And in addition, an aliyat neshama to Tzvi ben Avraham Halevi and Reuven ben Yosef Halevi uh as well as a very generous anonymous donor that we are very very grateful for. Uh in addition, um a a friend of mine, Sippy Hill, who actually lives in Gibraltar, of all of all places, uh has made a special dedication in memory of the Jewish community of Krosno, in Poland, where her family comes from. Uh this actually has a special meaning to me because Krosno is also the uh town from which my father, aleihu hashalom, uh came. And uh it was a very very vibrant Jewish community. Uh as you go through the memorial as I go through the memorial books, I see many many names that were relatives. Most of them I didn't know because they were killed in the Holocaust. Uh but a lot of my family uh does come from there. And uh it had very chashuve talmidei chachamim. It had many many Jews who may have been simple Jews, but were very very devout and God-fearing. And uh like anything else, uh the tragedy of the Holocaust continues to reverberate uh to this very very day. And we hope that the Torah that all of us learn and the mitzvot that all of us do should help uh continue to create an aliyat neshama for these 6 million kedoshim that left the world in uh such a tragic and sad way. So I thank Sippy for her support of of this uh this sheer. Uh finally, uh we want to remind people to help Yibaneh reach its goal of 100% uh reach its goal of tzedakah for the upcoming chagim. It's important to know that 100% of the funds collected go directly to those in need. And everyone knows that Yom Tov uh has a lot of uh needs, a lot of economic needs. And uh though there's a link below in the YouTube description box and on the website, and as we say in the Sanhedrin Tokef, u'tshuva u'tfilah u'tzedakah, uh teshuvah and prayer and charity together ma'avirin et roa' hagzeirah, they cancel or mitigate whatever evil decree may have been proclaimed in heaven. So tzedakah is good all the time, but especially around the Yamim Noraim, uh tzedakah has a very very important chashivus that that we need to be cognizant of. So again, uh it's a very worthy cause. Uh we are approaching, of course, uh the end of the year. And uh we are reading Parshas Ki Savo. And Parshas Ki Savo is a long parsha. Uh a lot of the parsha is dealing with the tochacha, where Moshe Rabbeinu tells us all the awful things that are going to happen to us if we don't keep Hashem's mitzvot. And this is the second place in the Torah where there's an extensive tochacha. The first one is at the end of Vayikra, in Parshas Bechukotai. And the second one is towards the end of the book of Devarim, which we read towards the end of the year, in Parshas Ki Savo. And uh the Ramban has a very interesting observation. He points out that the curses in Parshas Bechukotai correspond to the tragedies that happened in the aftermath of the destruction of the first Temple during the 70 years of the Babylonian exile. The tragedies that are described at greater length in Parshas Ki Savo are the tragedies of the galus we're still in that resulted from the destruction of the second Temple in the year 70. And indeed, if you were to read these tochachas, again, very scary, very depressing in some ways, and try to even correlate it to something like the Holocaust, you will see a lot of the Holocaust itself foreshadowed, bedafka, in the psukim in Parshas Ki Savo. Based on this, the Ramban actually uh provides an answer to a very interesting question that is asked, and that is in the tochacha in Parshas Bechukotai, at the end of all of the curses, mo- uh the Torah ends with words of nachama, that God says, "I will remember the covenant that I made with Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, and I will come back to my people." The tochacha ends with divrei nachama. By contrast, the tochacha of Moshe Rabbeinu in Parshas Ki Savo, this week's parsha, just ends It begins on a bad note and it ends on a bad note. It says, "You will be sold for slaves, and no one will even want to buy you." And that's the end of the tochacha. No words of comfort, uh nothing op- optimistic there. So why is it so that the tochacha of Vayikra ends with divrei nachama, words of comfort, and the tochacha in Ki Savo does not end with divrei nachama? According to the Ramban, we actually have an answer. And that is the churban bayis rishon, the duration of that galus was known in advance. Yirmiyahu Hanavi was told the Babylonian exile would only be 70 years. And after 70 years, there would be a redemption. Not a redemption of miracles, but at least a redemption that you can come back to Eretz Yisrael and rebuild the second Temple. So as a result, the progression is very logical. There'll be curses, there'll be punishments, there'll be galus, there'll be churban, there'll be nachama and geulah. By contrast, the duration of the second churban was not predetermined. We like to say the year 6,000 is the outer limit, but that's that's not definitive. The final geulah is not going to be automatic. The final geulah depends on the Jewish people doing teshuvah. Even though the Rambam says Hashem promises that eventually we're going to get there. And everyone's going to do teshuvah. So as a result, the Torah cannot automatically say that the galus is going to be followed by a geulah, because that depends on us. And therefore, it's left ending with a galus. Whether and when the galus will end is not automatic. It is talui on Klal Yisrael doing teshuvah. So that's one explanation. But the Zohar Hakadosh actually gives another explanation, which is quite interesting. The Zohar asks the same kasha. Why is the tochacha of Moshe ends with I'm sorry, the tochacha in Bechukotai, in Vayikra, ends with divrei nachama, and the tochacha in Ki Savo does not end with divrei nachama? And the Zohar gives the following answer. It's a very very interesting answer. It says that when God visits upon us difficulties, adversities, tzaros, of any kind, whether it's individual or collective, there are two different ways we could feel about it. One way we could feel is either God hates us or God has abandoned us or God doesn't care. He's indifferent to our suffering. I've been abandoned. I've been cast adrift. That is the feeling of looking at tzaros as a hester panim, a concealment of the divine. There's another way one can look at tzaros, in which I very much feel the presence of God. And I even feel the love of God. But for reasons I don't understand, he has determined I have to go through a certain process. Just as a an ill person might have to go through an amputation, a chemotherapy. But the point is that even in my pain, I feel the presence of God. Sometimes, yissurin make us feel abandoned. And sometimes in yissurin, we can still feel the loving presence of Hashem, even in all the difficulties we're going through. The tochacha in Vayikra uses the word "carry" over and over and over. And "carry" means happenstance, coincidence. And Rashi and the Rambam all explain that means if you look at the world that Hashem is not running the world, then Hashem will deal with you as if he's not here. And you will feel abandoned. You will feel bereft. You will feel God is not involved in your life. So the tzaros of Bechukotai, again, this is not going with first Temple, second Temple. This is another thought. The tzaros of Bechukotai are the tzaros of abandonment. When a person is abandoned or feels abandoned, their spirit is broken. So God has to reassure them that at the end, there'll be comfort. The tochecha of Bechukotai is mikra. The feeling, not not the reality, but the feeling of happenstance. Moshe Rabbeinu came in Ki Savo, it doesn't say, "I will leave you to mikra. I will leave you to happenstance." Rather, Hashem is the active person active entity here. God will send you this. God will send you this. God will send you this. In other words, an awareness of Hashem's presence, even in the suffering. Says the Zohar Hakadosh, when you feel the loving presence of Hashem, even in your suffering, that itself is the comfort. You don't have to sugarcoat it with a happy ending at the end. My comfort is my relationship to God, even in my darkness. So, the tochecha of Bechukotai, which is the tochecha of hester panim, concealment, requires nachama. The tochecha of Ki Savo, which is the active feeling of connection to Hashem, that can be your nachama, even in your darkness. Because you know that God is taking care of you. God is holding on to you. He'll take you through this. You're not alone. In the 23rd Psalm, Mizmor L'Dovid Hamelach, Dovid Hamelach says, right, many people say this, Shuda Shlishis, Mizmor L'Dovid is sung three times. So, it says, Shivtecha U'Mishantecha, your stick and your staff, heima yenachamuni, they will give me comfort. What is the difference between a shevet, which is a stick, and a mishenet, which is a staff? Stick and staff are synonyms. They're the same word. So, the m'forshim say, a shevet is the stick by which you get hit. I hit somebody with a shevet. Mishenet is a cane or a crutch that I lean upon to get support. So, here's the thing. Sometimes, Hashem hits us with a stick. And other times, he's actively being our support. Dovid Hamelach says, whether it's your shevet or whether it's your mishenet, if I know it's from you, Shivtecha U'Mishantecha, if it's from you, heima yenachamuni, this gives me comfort. This gives me strength. Shivtecha U'Mishantecha, heima yenachamuni. And this is why the Zohar says there's no need for any other nachama. You know, so they tell an interesting story, you know, the Baal Hatanya, the Alter Rebbe, the first Chabad Rebbe, had a son who he named after his Rebbe, right? The The Alter Rebbe's Rebbe was the Maggid of Mezritch, the Baal Shem Tov's talmid, and the Maggid of Mezritch was Rav Dov Ber, and the Alter Rebbe named his son Rav Dov Ber in memory of his Rebbe. Rav Dov Ber became Rebbe for a brief time after his father's death, and then he was succeeded by the Tzemach Tzedek, who was a grandson of the Alter Rebbe, and because the Alter Rebbe was a Rebbe for more than 30 years, and the Tzemach Tzedek was a Rebbe for more than 30 years, but the Rav Dov Ber was only a Rebbe for a short time, they call him the Mitteler Rebbe, the middle Rebbe. Now, there was between the two very long tenures. But Rav Dov Ber was an extraord extraordinary tzaddik and mekabel. He was really not kind of He was not part of the world, almost. And there's all sorts of stories that uh if a baby would be crying, the Mitteler Rebbe would never notice it, but the the Alter But the Baal Hatanya would. So, the Baal So, if the Mitteler Rebbe's children were crying, the Baal Hatanya would come down and uh take care of them. And then he would tell his son, he says that with all of your kabbalah, you can never neglect the crying child. That no matter what madrega you reach, the highest madrega is to take care of a child that is crying. In fact, I'll give you a literature version of that story. That's the Chassidic version. There is a literature version, a maiseh of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter. That Rabbi Yisrael Salanter was going to shul on Yom Kippur night for Kol Nidre, and all of a sudden he hears like a baby sobbing or crying from a house, and nobody is seems to be taking care of it. He goes into the house. He sees a baby in which the mother isn't there. She left the She The baby had been sleeping. You know, again, it was a safe In those days, neighborhoods were safer. So, she went to hear Kol Nidre, and she was going to going to come back. So, she left her child alone for a little while. Rabbi Yisrael Salanter And the child woke up. The child was afraid. Rabbi Yisrael Salanter stayed with the child all of Maariv until the mother came back. So, you also see the notion of taking care of the crying baby, uh even if that means you're not going to go to Kol Nidre or or whatever whatever whatever it it would be. So, the Mitteler Rebbe was a great great great tzaddik, really above kind of not really part of the world. So, the story goes that what before he was Rebbe, when his father was still alive, one time his father went away for Shabbos, and it was the parsha of the tochecha, and the baal koreh read the tochecha, and the Mitteler Rebbe fainted out of fright. Such curses. Oy vey. He couldn't take it. He fainted. So, someone asked him afterwards, you know, "You've You've been hearing the tochecha for whatever it is, 50 years. This never happened before. Like, why did you faint this year for the first time?" He said, "Well, all the other years my father was the baal koreh. When my father read it, it didn't seem like a curse. It seemed like This is God's love, and sometimes there's discipline." He says, "When this person read it, I finally Gee, this is a curse. This is punishment." He says, "When my father read it, I saw it as the sweet gifts of Hashem, that even when they're difficult to take, there is a sweetness and any goodness in knowing that Hashem is giving me what it is that I need." So, it's an interesting point. It It really connects to the Zohar that that that when you feel the presence of Hashem, even the bitter becomes sweet. Now, again, I I absolutely understand, certainly, that this is much much easier said than done. And uh again, uh this is not to demean in any possible way the experience of acute pain and suffering that so many people go through as individuals, whether it's illness, poverty, and certainly we think about the Holocaust, you know, one does not simply pooh-pooh the reality of suffering by saying, "Oh, it's all good." Although it is true, as a matter of fact, but but nevertheless, from our perspective, our responsibility as human beings and as Jews is to offer empathy and compassion and sympathy, and not simply tell a person, "Oh, it's all for the good. What are you complaining about?" That maybe that's what I should be doing with with uh my problems, but I shouldn't be doing that with your problem. Um In fact, it's interesting that um you know, Harold Kushner, a very prominent Conservative rabbi, wrote a uh He wrote a number of books, but his first book, which was I think the best the most popular, was a very famous book uh dealing with this very question, Why do bad things happen to good people? And the book uh emanated out of the personal tragedy in his own family's life, in which his son had died, uh an adolescent died of cancer, and it was very very difficult, and uh he, as a rabbi and as a father, was trying to work through this, and he wrote a book, and you know, many people It's the best seller. Many people have read it over the years. I I want to give one example from the book and illustrate On one hand, his point is 100% correct, and on the other hand, it's also incorrect, at least in my view, at the same time. He gave the following example of how people are sometimes too self-righteous when it comes to the sufferings of others. He said there was a woman who her passion was antiques. She She loved antiques. She would go to every flea market to buy antique things, and her great dream was that at some point she'd have enough stuff to open up her own shop, her own store, in which she would sell antiques. And it took years and years because she was not a wealthy person, so she bought a table here and a desk here. And finally, the great day came. She had an inventory of antiques, and she was going to open her store, and this would have been her passion. This would have been like the most important thing in her life. And she had rented space in a shopping center, and the night before opening, there was an electrical fire in the shopping center. Now, thank God, all the stores were closed. Nobody was in the center at the time, but we quite literally her store went up in smoke, meaning all of the antiques were simply destroyed. One could imagine that she was heartbroken. This was something that she had been working for for many many years and on the verge of achieving her life's dream it was all taken away from her. So Rabbi Kushner illustrate I'm not sure if this was a true story or he made this up to to illustrate his point. Rabbi Kushner was talking about all the things her friends tried to tell her and how it was insensitive. They tried to tell her listen it's only money, it's only furniture, nobody got hurt, nobody died, nobody was in the store, you still have your husband, you still have your children, you have your grandchildren, meaning don't feel so bad about it. That's one approach they had. They were kind of minimizing it. Don't feel so bad look at all the other good stuff that you have, good things that you have. And then there was another approach that maybe God is sending you a message that you shouldn't invest so much of your life's energy in material acquisitions and focus more on your family and your children and the loving relationships you have with people. So the two approaches of the friends who were trying to help was one approach was to minimize the suffering by saying look at all the good things that you have and the second approach was to say well God is sending you a message that maybe possessions shouldn't be so important to you. So Rabbi Kushner said this is outrageous, this is insensitive, this is uncaring but here's the joke. Therefore he said it's not true and therefore he came up with his own thesis. I would go with Rabbi Kushner up to a certain point and that is I would differentiate between what we tell a person in suffering and what perhaps they should get to on their own through reflection. Meaning Rabbi Kushner is 100% correct that when somebody is suffering you don't minimize it, you don't say ah it's not so bad and you don't even say you know God has given you musar. Your job as a friend is empathy, compassion. I know how hard this is, I know how this must break your heart and I hope that eventually you come to a place where you'll be able to go on and do good things. Okay, you're not there to give a speech. On the other hand, what does the person themselves have to do with their life? They do have to ask themselves. Is there some meaning here? Is there some message here? Is there some reason why this happened? It could very well be that what the you know again we don't know because we're not prophets, we don't know and it's arrogant to pretend that we know. But at least as a possibility is it not something that somebody might consider in the long run when they're ready to move on. In other words there's a subtle failure to distinguish that in a lot of books in this genre. Just because something is not the right message at the right time and the right place doesn't inherently mean it's a false message. It just means it's not the message to be given in that particular set of circumstances. You see you can't automatically reject it. Meaning God is sending us messages all the time. Now of course it is arrogant you know and I mean again in Israel especially sometimes see this you know a bus crashes or there's a terrorist incident you oh that's because the women's usually it's always the women the women's dresses were not were not that's why it happened. Well maybe it happened because you're looking at women and criticizing them too much and Hashem was not pleased with that maybe that's why it happened. Yeah? Well what I said could be just as foolish as what they said meaning we're both we both don't know what we're talking about. So to start assigning reasons why other people get punished is is either arrogant or stupid or both. That's for sure. But that doesn't mean things don't have reasons, that doesn't mean things don't have purposes and therefore knowing that I don't know exactly why and I may be wrong I still have to ask myself are there constructive lessons that I can take from this in which I can make my life better, become closer to Hashem and and and the like. So this is the idea of trying to feel the presence of Hashem in all of these issues even in the adversities of life. But again when you come to something like the Holocaust I mean ultimately we're going to be confronted with great great difficulties. I mean I realize even the a remark that I said very casually in the beginning of my shear theoretically could be very explosive. I pointed out that many of the the the descriptions in the Torah have parallel events in the Holocaust. Now that's a factual statement and that happens to be true. Just look at the verses and look at the Holocaust. But you understand that this is actually an explosive statement that can upset many many people because the Torah is described as God's punishment to the Jewish people for violating the Torah. Am I saying that that is the Holocaust? No I'm not I'm not taking a position on that right now. I I don't want to go and go into that difficult point but but you understand that if when you apply the Torah to the history of Am Israel you're always running into that very very difficult, delicate, sensitive issue of casting some aspersion not so much on the particular victims. Obviously that the group most righteous people were among those who died but in terms of the natural I'm sorry the national phenomenon of the of the Shoah. Yeah. If Hashem tells us that bad things are going to happen and give up and tell us why they're going to happen is he not also asking us to infer the reasons for bad things that happen in our lives? Well let me put it this way. Every person has to go through a an effort. What what bothers me so much is when when other people are trying to define what the sins of other people are meaning you know look at yourself and define what what it is you can correct but you really can't look into another person. I mean that's like saying Rabbi Chaim I mean let's take one one example of of many. Rabbi Chaim Wasserman was one of the great great gedolim of the generation. He was one of the great tzaddikim of the generation and he died in the Holocaust. Now if you're going to start giving me an explanation that when a bus of of girls from a mamlachti school God forbid died it's because they were not tznius then what are you going to say why why did Rabbi Chaim Wasserman die you know? So obviously people die not only because of their aveiros there are many many cheshbonos that are involved. So what gives me the right to start saying that somebody died because of their sins. But on the other hand there's an important difference between focusing on why an individual dies versus why did God allow this as a phenomenon. Remember the Torah is not tied into individuals it's really the fate of the Jewish people and for the fate of the Jewish people you know there are factors that one could identify spiritually. In fact there's a real real controversial book by Rabbi Avigdor Miller. He didn't mind controversy but apparently this was too controversial even for him because he left instructions that the book should not be published till after his death. So even he didn't want to take the flak that the book would generate. But essentially I mean again I'm not here to endorse or or even comment on the book but essentially the book talks about the spiritual failures of the Jewish people in the years of the early decades of the 20th century which resulted in the fulfillment of the Torah. That's exactly his understanding of the Holocaust. I don't remember what it's called but if you just Google Avigdor Miller on the Holocaust the title of the book will will come up. Yeah. I mean you you could I guess theoretically also approach it from the point of view of Victor Frankl and logotherapy. Yes. Well that's very very true. That that's a very good point. When we say find meaning in our suffering that could mean look at what I need to correct in my life. That's one aspect. That's kind of looking at the past to understand why this is happening. Or ala Victor Frankl you look at it a different way, a way to bring out qualities of resilience and courage and character building and and the like which is not so much a focus on past misdeeds but a focus on the notion that God is giving you opportunities, transformative opportunities to bring out greatness that would otherwise not not exist and that is very true. There is both a uh retrospective and a prospective notion in terms of what the suffering is dealing with. Also from a simple from the simple point of view that if you're alive and the other person died you saved the other person the grief of your death. Yes. Yeah well you know that's an interesting issue. Sometimes most of the time husbands and wives don't have this discussion but but I'm, you know, it goes into different people's minds which one of us should die first, right? Because sometimes the notion of being the survivor might actually be the harder harder position to be. And therefore, being the survivor is sparing the other person of the pain of being the survivor. Now, with Queen Elizabeth, basically, I mean, many many have said that Queen Elizabeth essentially, I mean, obviously, she was old. And she would die eventually, but there had been a pretty rapid decline. She was unusually robust health for like all of these years, well into her 90s. But there was just a sharp decline just over the past few months. And you know, many connected to the loss of Philip. That the idea was that Philip was her rock, was her foundation. Uh people don't appreciate how difficult Philip's role was because he was a very proud man, and in some senses, he had to nullify himself to her, although she went in the other way and gave him a lot of honor as well. And when she lost her rock everything went downhill after that point, you know, as she couldn't she really couldn't survive that much. Uh or at least flourish without him around. So, so you are you are correct on that. So, with this these comments on the Tokha I want to go back to actually the beginning of the parsha. The beginning of the parsha talks about a mitzvah, a very beautiful mitzvah that we do not do today. And this is a mitzvah that only applied in Israel, and it only applies when there's a base of mikdash. That's why we don't do it today. And that is the ceremony of the first fruits. Uh the bikurim uh that are brought to you shall I am. Now, the word first fruits is a little misleading because it's really the first of the seven species, the shiva saminim, which includes wheat and barley as well as grapes and figs and olives and the like. And when a farmer goes into his field and he sees the fruits ripening at the very beginning, he ties a string around some of the first fruits, so he'll know which ones they are, and eventually, he puts them in a basket and he brings them to you shall I am. And he comes to the base of mikdash and he declares that I have come to the land that God has given to my forefathers, and he mentions my father my grandfather Jacob, the Aramean, originally from Syria uh came to mitzrayim. And these these are the verses, by the way, you'll remember that are the foundation of the Haggadah of Pesach. The Haggadah of Pesach are the verses that we recite when we bring the bikurim. And behold, because it then ends with a verse that's not in the Haggadah. The little historical thing that God took us out of mitzrayim and God brought us to the land. That would that's in the Haggadah, but then it says, "I am now bringing the first fruits to express my gratitude to the Almighty." And the basket is put down in front of the altar. But it's interesting, they're not a korban. The bikurim are then given to the cohen. Any cohen you want who can eat them in you shall I am. In other words, it's interesting. The bikurim are brought to the base of mikdash but they are not a sacrifice and they are not consumed in the base of mikdash. The cohen takes them out of the temple and eats them in you shall I am. This is the mitzvah of bikurim. Now, people make a mistake because Shavuos is called the day of bikurim, but the truth of the matter is, you don't have to bring bikurim on Shavuos. Shavuos is the beginning of the bikurim season. In point of fact, the bikurim season lasts the entire summer. And different groups would come at different times. And the Mishnah, there's a whole tractate on this in the Mishnah. It's called the Masakhes Bikurim. Many people study it on Shavuos. And in Masakhes Bikurim, there's a whole pageantry that that very often, individuals would would not come by themselves. They would come with their town. Like, you know, today is Tsfat is coming to you shall I am, right? The Anshei Tsfat. And it would be a pageantry. And it says the artisans of you shall I am, the blacksmiths and the carpenters who were working, when these people would come, they would stand up and say, "Boachem l'shalom, Anshei Tsfat, Anshei Yericho." Whatever the city was. Which is a proof, by the way, that bikurim were brought during the week because it talks about the artisans were were working and the like. In fact, it's interesting, Rav Soloveitchik writes uh an interesting thing. You know, there is a minhag that you see at a at a wedding that when the chasan is walking down the aisle people stand up if they were sitting. And when the kallah walks down, they stand up. Uh the truth is, it's more of a recent minhag, actually. In other words, 50 years ago, it wasn't done that much. But I don't know, in modern times, it seems to be a minhag that's taken a taken hold with people. That we stand in honor of the chasan and the kallah. Now, if you ask most people why is there a minhag to stand in honor of the chasan and the kallah, they'll say, "Well, chasan domeh l'melech. A chasan is like a king. And by extension, the kallah is like a queen. So, we stand up to honor the king or the queen." But you know, there's a kasha on that. He's not married yet. When the chasan is walking down the aisle, he's not a melech yet. He's Prince of Wales, right? He's only And right? Uh not yet king. So, why am I standing? So, Rav Soloveitchik said a whole different chat. Very very interesting chat. He said, "When a person comes to do a mitzvah, a special mitzvah, we honor people who are coming to do a special mitzvah by standing in their honor. And the proof is by bikurim. The blacksmiths stand up for the people who are coming to bring bikurim. And since the chasan is coming to fulfill the mitzvah of marriage we stand up just like the Anshei Yerushalayim stood up for the people of Tsfat or Bnei Brak or whatever it is. Now, the truth is, I I I I don't fully understand that. I mean, the concept I stand up for somebody doing a mitzvah, I mean you you come to shul and you're going to put on your I'm davening I'm sitting down and I'm davening already. You show up to shul to put on your tefillin. I mean, do I have to stand up? I mean, what is the concept of I have to stand up when somebody comes to do a mitzvah? I mean, uh there's a million mitzvahs people are doing that I don't stand up for. So, I I don't really have the geder of when you stand up when somebody's coming for a mitzvah and when not. But it does say it by bikurim and the like. Okay. Now, it mentions that rich people would bring their bikurim in baskets of gold and silver. The kohanim would take the fruit and give them back the basket. Just gold and silver basket. Poor people brought the bikurim in wicker baskets. And the wicker basket was so cheap that they were embarrassed to ask for it back, so they lost the basket. And here the Talmud remarks, "From here we see poor people get poorer." Meaning, you're so poor, you have a wicker basket, you lose the basket. By the way, there was a famous I remember when I was in law school a long time ago. So, there was actually very famous study in the United States by the Federal Trade Commission which actually showed that prices for basic groceries in chain supermarkets were higher in poor neighborhoods. Let's say a loaf of bread, right? You want to buy a plain loaf of white bread. It was higher in a store located in a slum than it was in a upper level suburb. And there reasons for that. You know, more crime crime is the main thing. Higher crime, higher insurance. The cost of But it actually meant a poor person paid more than a rich person. Now, the rich person paid more for caviar, but that's because the poor person didn't buy caviar. But for basic needs, the prices for the poor were higher than the prices for the for the rich. Quite amazing. But that confirms what Chazal say, people who are poor will tend to be poorer, as it were. Uh and the raya is the proof is from bikurim. Okay. So, now the Tosafos Yom Tov one of the great commentators on the Mishnah asks a good kasha. We find in Moed Katan, Masakhes Moed Katan, that deals with chol hamoed as well as mourning, funerals. We find that originally Jewish funerals were very fancy. Meaning, if you could afford a gold coffin, you had a gold coffin. If you wanted to wear a tuxedo, you could wear a tuxedo. What was happening is that people who were poor were very humiliated because rich people had fancy caskets and poor people couldn't afford it. And the family was ashamed. The family was humiliated. So, the great Rabban Gamaliel, who was the head of the Sanhedrin said that when he dies, even though he had he was very wealthy when he dies he wanted to be buried in a plain wooden box in plain white clothing in order to be no different than the poorest of the poor. And from that time on, it became part of the minhag of Klal Yisrael that we bury everybody in a plain box with plain white clothes. Nothing fancy. Why? Shalo l'vayeish es mi she'ein lo. Not to embarrass people who can't afford. Now, I'll tell you what's so interesting. Well, I have two points about that. Point number one is that even though the whole purpose of this takana was to make funerals inexpensive and easily affordable even by the poor, unfortunately, that happens not to be the case today. Now, eretz Yisrael is different, but eretz Yisrael you you can get a free basic levaya. But in chutz la'aretz, even a no-frills Orthodox levaya is around $7,000, which can be a major major source of expense for many many families. So, it's amazing that there is no such thing as a cheap funeral. In fact, with sarinu hagadol, the rising pop- popularity of cremation, which is absolutely against Jewish law, and it's a real tragedy, but cremation not among the Orthodox, obviously, but but among non-Orthodox Jews, cremation is on the rise. Part of it is, frankly, and and they'll say it, part of it is the difference in cost. A regular funeral, even with a simple casket, is $7,000. A cremation is around $1,500. So, there is a big difference in cost, and that's a real real tragedy that cremation is growing in use. Obviously, if God forbid someone was involuntarily cremated, as the victims of the Holocaust, of course, you know, they go to olam haba, and everything will happen. But if one voluntarily cremates, now there may be some very very negative consequences. In fact, I tell people people are sometimes shocked. Sometimes you get the story, "I swore to my mother on her deathbed that I would have her body cremated. And I swore I would do it. How can I violate an oath I made to my dying mother on her deathbed?" Well, the answer is halachically, "Violate the oath, and your mother in shamayim will be happy that you violated the oath. This is not a betrayal. You're doing her the greatest greatest kindness." So, that's one thing, no such thing as a cheap funeral. But a second point is, and this is an ingenious marketing ploy. Around 40 years ago, there was a funeral home, maybe 50 50 years ago, a funeral home in New York that wanted to market very high-end coffins, bronze coffins with handlebars, you know, metal bars. Jewish Jewish Jewish. Now, they knew this was against halacha. But what did they say? They said, "You know, we go back to the original way the sages did funerals. You know, the simple funeral is a later innovation and a deviation from Jewish practice. So, if you want to do authentic Jewish practice, do it like us." Now, that that is absolutely I mean, it's a little little devilish and and deceiving, but it's making an interesting point that the original practice was if you could afford it, you made it fancy. It was Rabban Gamaliel, you know, the first Reform Jew or whatever it is who who knocked it down. Okay. But be it as it may, we do see that Chazal had a major concern not to embarrass people who can't afford it. So, the Tosefta asks the kasha, "Why by bikurim didn't we make a similar enactment? By bikurim, the rich people bring it in a fancy It's a bikurim was a very public ceremony. People are around watching this. Rich people bring fancy baskets, and poor people bring poor, you know, wicker baskets. The poor people feel embarrassed. They feel humiliated. Why can't we make a takana similar to Rabban Gamaliel that when it comes to bikurim, everybody brings wicker baskets, we don't allow distinctions of rich and poor?" So, I mean, I'll give you another example of where this come up. On the 15th of Av, right, the women would dance around and looking for their mates, right? Husbands would Men would choose their wives. It mentions that all of the women had to wear borrowed white garments in order not to create discriminations based on income, good fashions, and et cetera. Right? So, we are concerned about this. So, the Tosefta Tosefta's answer is a relatively simple answer. The Tosefta's answer is, "Well, it's true that we're embarrassing people who can't afford it, but since this is a ceremony that's glorifying Hashem's Temple, so for the glorification of the Temple, we want it to be as beautiful as we can. So, even if that means the poor people are embarrassed, so be it. It's lekovod Beit Hamikdash, which is ultimately kavod of God, and therefore we we do it." This is the Tosefta's answer. But some want to suggest a deeper answer, which will tie in to what we're talking about in connection with the tochacha. There's a famous mishna in maseches Berachos, the last mishna in maseches Berachos, where Rabbi Meir says, "Chayav adam levarech al hara'ah kederech shemevarech al hatova." A person must make a bracha on evil tidings, bad tidings, the same way they make a bracha on good tidings. Now, the Gemara explains right away, "We don't mean the same bracha. On tragedies, I make dayan emes, God is the true judge. On good news, I say shehecheyanu or hatov hametiv, different brachas for good news. I don't say the same bracha. But I have to have the same attitude of simcha." Now, here too, even that needs some explanation. That doesn't mean the simcha that I feel when good things happen is the same simcha I feel when tragedy happens. I mean, I'm supposed to dance on the table when I have a bereavement? Obviously not. There is a time to suffer, a time to grieve, a time to openly rejoice. But simcha here is connected to what I mentioned from the Zohar, is an internal idea that even though this is hard, and even though this is tough, and even though I'm heartbroken, I understand that there's a higher purpose, a higher meaning, atonement, Victor Frankl, whatever it would be, and that can give me a sense of joy in the mission that I have. Right? So, this is Reb Meir's very important idea that you have to be mekabel even the difficulties of life with simcha. Now, that's the mishna. The mishna Rabbi Meir does not give us a source. Rabbi Meir just makes the statement. The Gemara then quotes a braisa, which actually Rabbi Meir gives the source, and the source is, "Vesamachta bechol hatov asher Hashem Elokecha na'aseh lach." You shall rejoice, simcha, in all of the good that Hashem Elokecha gives you. Hashem is the Yud Kay Vav Kay. That's the name of God that connotes mercy. Elokecha is Elokim. That's the name of God that connotes judgment, retribution, punishment. So, what's the pasuk saying? You have to have simcha whether you're getting something from the Yud Kay Vav Kay, which is looks like rachamim, or you're getting something from the Elokim, which is the midat hadin. That is the source of Rabbi Meir's idea that you have to have simcha both for the good and for the bad. The drasha linguistically makes perfect sense, because that's why it says Hashem Elokecha, rachamim and din. But the strange thing that the Gemara does not address is, "Where is that pasuk from? Where does that pasuk appear?" It appears in the parsha of bikurim. The parsha of bikurim is the place that teaches me I got to accept the bad bad and the good with equanimity and simcha. Why on earth would bikurim be the place where that lesson comes up? Bikurim is apparently a happy occasion, a joyous occasion. I mean, maybe this drasha should have appeared with the death of Nadav and Avihu, or you know, some tragedy that you still have to be mekabel the simcha. But why put it in the case of bikurim? And the answer is because in a very gentle and subtle way, bikurim has a certain element of gentle tragedy, or the tragedy may be too strong of a term, but there's a little bit of a pinch that bikurim gives you. Chazal have a saying in Bava Metzia, "Adam roshe kav shelo yoser mikavim shel chavero." A person loves even the little bit that he earned from his own labor. A kav is a small measure of grain. More than nine kav you get from somebody else. The fruits, quite literally, of one's labor are very very sweet to them. That's why business will often a restaurant or whatever it is will frame the first dollar or the first whatever whatever of shekel or whatever it would be because this is the money I got from my labor, from my work. So a farmer who after all of the months of cultivating of of planting and watering and fertilizing and doing all of the different jobs that you have to do for gardening or producing grain or fruit finally sees the first of his labor. That is so precious to him. And what does God say? You have to give it up. Now granted, in that context it's a happy ceremony. It's not a grieving ceremony. But metaphorically it can send a message maybe almost a subconscious message that sometimes in life the things that are most precious to us are sometimes going to be taken away. We sometimes have to give them up. We sometimes in submission to God don't hold on to what we care about so deeply. And God is telling us even when that happens there needs to be an inner simcha. Now bikurim is an easy place to internalize that lesson because at that point you're not going through the agony of any actual loss. So you're open and receptive to hear that message which you might not be in the moment of tragedy. So God gives you the lesson at a time when you're able to absorb it in the hope that if the time that you need to apply it ever happens you'll have that lesson in your mind. Take it from the first. That's what is most dear to you. Most dear to you. So it turns out that although bikurim is unquestionably a happy festive event it has an undertone of reminding me that sometimes in life you give up something but you still know that it's for a higher purpose and the like. So bikurim is about finding joy in the reality of your life even if it's not everything you wanted it to be. So now we can understand the following idea. Let's go back to the Tosefta Keshin. The Tosefta has the Keshin. Why by bikurim do we allow discriminations of rich and poor? Rich people bring fancy baskets. Poor people bring wicker baskets. Shouldn't we be concerned with people not being embarrassed, not being ashamed? But here's the thing. If one of the lessons of bikurim is to find joy in your life whether it's easy or difficult then you know, if we were to say, "Oh, let's abolish the the distinctions between rich and poor because we don't want poor people to be embarrassed." That would imply there was something to be embarrassed about. But bikurim is all about accepting your life with joy. The poor person is not ashamed. The poor person is not embarrassed. The rich person does not have to be ashamed that God blessed him with wealth. There was a reason for that. And the poor person does not have to be ashamed that he is afflicted with poverty for whatever the reason is. Every human being stands with equal dignity before God. And bikurim is about looking at your life, accepting your life accepting even the adversity with simcha. So we're then going to say, "Oh yeah, you're poor, uh you know, we have to protect you from feeling bad about that." No. Bikurim is about honestly confronting who you are and what you are accepting it rejoicing in it and seeing it as good in whatever manifestation it is. And that's why bedafka by bikurim which is the whole machor of chiyuv adam l'varech al hara'ah k'derech shem'varech al hatovah, we don't try to cover up distinctions in rich and poor because each person has to see the goodness in the life that God gave them. You know, what's interesting there's a parable and it's not a Jewish parable. It originated from the special education community. But it's a famous parable and it's been used by rabbis and priests. So you know, you know how it is. We we steal m'shalim and we we either make it Jewish, make it Christian, whatever you want. But this is actually secular parable. And uh this was a classic speech of a woman who was the mother of a Down syndrome child. And she was talking about her struggles and she was talking about the fact that when you get married and you know, become pregnant, so you have a certain dream about the type of child that you want. And then you get a different type of child. So she gave a mashal. And you may have heard this about a woman who was really really her dream was to travel to Italy. And she didn't have money and it took years and years and years and years until she raised the money and she went by boat. And somehow there was a mistake and the boat went to Holland instead of Italy. And she was heartbroken. She could not even afford going from Holland to Italy. And she was embitered and she was heartbroken because all of her dreams were for Italy. And instead she winds up in Holland. But Holland has its charms as well. Whether it's the windmills or the whatever it is, the dikes, all the different things. But she never saw the beauty of Holland. She never saw the beauty of what she was given because she was so fixated on what she didn't get. It's a beautiful mashal the woman is describing. You know, she had a dream of a bright child who would excel in school and you know, be academically very very gifted and talented. And she had a child that is not capable of that much academically. So she got stuck in Holland instead of Italy. But you know, Holland is very beautiful. And you got to open your eyes to appreciate the beauty of Holland if you didn't get Italy. And maybe Holland is nicer than Italy. So she was this was her beautiful beautiful mashal of having a special needs child. But that's somewhat of what's going on here as well. Poor, rich there's a gift in everything Hashem gives you. But I just want to I just want to end with one little thing that strangely enough we do find a concern for embarrassment even by bikurim in the following way. You know, when you bring your bikurim you're supposed to make a recitation, right? The four verses of recitation. So it mentions originally if you knew how to read you did it yourself. If you didn't know how to read, the cohen would say it and you'd repeat after the cohen. It then mentions however not to embarrass illiterate people it became a uniform practice for the cohen to read for everybody. Uh that is even if you were literate, you would repeat after the cohen. I when it comes to the gold and the silver, we're not concerned with embarrassment. Here we're concerned with embarrassment. The answer is there are some things you ought to be ashamed of. That's exactly the point. Meaning you're poor, nothing to be ashamed of. There's nothing dishonorable in being poor. You're illiterate when you had a chance to learn uh how to read? Yeah, be embarrassed. But but but look but look at the genius here. We actually don't want to embarrass the person. If he wanted to embarrass the person we would you know, MAKE THIS DIFFERENCE. WE DON'T WANT to embarrass the person. But look look look at the pedagogical genius there. We don't want to embarrass the person. But by making an effort not to embarrass the person, the person will realize, "Oh, is this something I should be embarrassed about?" So it's a brilliant point of conveying the lesson that you should be ashamed without actually humiliating you. Right? It's a brilliant kind of double reverse reverse psychology. That the person should know that yeah, if I could learn Torah and I don't learn Torah, that's something to be embarrassed about. That's kind of the lessons of bikurim and ultimately it connects to the Zohar that I mentioned that when you feel the presence of Hashem, even the difficulties of life are seen as gifts in various ways. So, no one gets the life that they want in 100% level. That's the nature of human existence. Um what do they say? If you don't get the life that you love, Love the life you love the life that you get. Again, that's a secular saying, but that's quite a brilliant remark. Love the life that you get. And that's a tremendous message as we go into the new year. So, be well and thank you.