Rebuilding! - Rabbi Shimon Isaacson

shalom alaikum everyone hope everyone had a wonderful wonderful week and of course we are now in khodesh ello and we also read in parashat shoftim a fascinating set of halachos the torah tells us that when a person is going out to war so certain people have exemptions one of the paid persons that has an exemption someone was rakhaleev who is just faint of heart but then the tour identifies three specific cases a person who planted a new vineyard a person who built a new home and a person who's getting married and the common denominator of course is that all of these people have certain major major distractions in their lives someone that just became married of course should be focused on his relationship on building the sima resistor as we learned impossible say to someone who built a new home as yet not yet needs to make sure that home is securely his same thing with a vineyard there's a striking gemara in massachusetts sota that asks the following question wants to know okay let's say a person did not build a new home he has a home but he made some kind of improvements to the home he made some kind of home improvements so does that also and he wasn't mechanic he didn't do a hanukkah so those improvements does that also create an exemption from warfare warfare on the one hand it's not a brand new home on the other hand he did something new there's something that is he's concerned about that might distract him it's due to him and perhaps there'll also be a basis for exemption so the benefit points out and raises the following issue is it goes to we speak about a person who's born a bias so when a person builds a new home that's when he's exempt is home improvements let's say i added a new wing to my house is that called a if it is exempt from warfare if it's not a bias then he'll be obligated to continue and join claudius in that in that mukham so is a home improvement called khadesh is that considered to be new so strikingly you look through the torah the word kharsh doesn't appear many times but it does appear in parashat schmos and they were told that there was a new king a new king and he didn't know and there's a very famous mahloka's raven shmuel rashid brings over there and that is was it what does it mean one possibility is khadash mamesh it was a brand new king the old paro had died this is a brand new paro and then the torah of sites rashi cites an alternative view in that it's not a brand new pharaoh but rather it's a changed power he has adjusted his deus his philosophy whereas in the past he was kind to jewish people now he's no longer kind in other words this other manda umar says that khadesh does not have to mean brand new it could mean with a different outlook with a different viewpoint with something changed and that also would be qualified as scholars and therefore one could suggest says the banished right that maybe even and this is the question excited to nagimara may be that yes home improvements that's also called khadesh it's not brandon but it's different it's changed it's developed and therefore that's also called a sensitive scratches and that also passing the rambam would cause a person not have to go out to work that's also called radash we find ourselves in a month of focus on his scratches and looking at life differently and sometimes this month so many people myself included sometimes we don't fully take advantage of this month because we think about as we approach rosh hashanah being different his new year's resolutions and all too often we have very dramatic desires big desires fundamental change and it's hard to make that kind of fundamental change to go ahead and wipe the house out and build a brand new house that's a difficult thing to do but sometimes that's not what's required it's just a change in focus perhaps not a radical change but small changes incremental changes shifts in change that's also called radash a change in mindset that change perhaps from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset a change in attitude doesn't have to be fundamental radical to the core it doesn't have to mean wiping out the existing structure and putting up a new one perhaps a more subtle sense of change is also called change and therefore in this month of his hatches of looking at things new we learn from this parasha we learned from vayuka melakhadash it does not necessarily mean brand new it could also mean just a shift in focus a shift in direction a shift in attitude and that's also called his hardest it's also exceptionally meaningful and as we approach kodus l we approach this month of introspection of examining ourselves and seeing what we're all about perhaps that indeed is where our mind should be at not radical change but more subtle change change in direction and therefore getting the most out of this scottish l have a wonderful wonderful day