The Greatest Problem We Face Today #1 - Eradicating Sinas Chinam

Shalom Torah viewers with a an idea on how to approach perhaps the greatest problem we the Jewish people face today and according to our sages which we have faced since time in memorial that's the problem of sasina Jewish selfhatred. Sages say infall on the ninth page of that uh the three great sins of idolatry, incest, murder were the sins of the first temple and cause its destruction. But the great sin of the second temple was Jewish internal hatred of one another which uh caused the destruction of the second temple. And we have of course a very strong tradition from the Torah and Nval when we fix our sins we will be redeemed. So this sin of Jewish self-hatred clearly has to be fixed for or should be fixed. That definitely speed the redemption. We are back in Israel today. So it's a big step towards redemption. Gibb scalote and more and more Jews are coming, thank God, and living there. But we're still a far away from total redemption. uh beta mikdash is far far from off the horizon and we do need a lot of uh dishaya a lot of help from heaven to uh to get to that final goal of mashiach and gula shalo. So we still have to fix uh the sins of our people and of course the great sin of Jewish self-hatred. Rashi says that when the Jews came to uh the Torah has been using they travel they camp but when it comes to house the Torah all of a sudden switches to the individual tents the Jews camp as one by the mountain says that that mountain they were one person one heart even though all the other times they were split. So that we see that when we we have at that time we have achieved total unity we get the great gift of the Torah greatest gift ever given to us or to mankind. Now um in the another source for this idea it says they camped as one camp which meant that they decided to love one another and that's how they merited to receive the Torah. So loving one another at that great level as a person loves himself or herself is the key to getting the gift of the Torah. It's the key to redemption. And also says over there, we see how great the power of repentance is that they were divided in Egypt leaving Egypt. But when they got to Sai, they repented all of that and they decided to unite and to love one another. And it worked. that shuva that repentance was accepted. That's a model for all of us. We should not give up should not say it's hopeless. We can overcome Jewish self-hatred. We can overcome division. We can become united. It can happen in an instant the way it happened at house ci. What I wanted to do today is give the first of several um several attitudes or strategies and how one can approach this issue and hopefully overcome it. And I'm I'm using the safe for shame uh which I I love very much and which I study often and even have a book calledic legacy lessons of thatic work written by Rabesh Bournestein itself and he talks about this issue of sinam Jewish divisiveness and gives various ideas and strategies which I would like to share some of them and Today at this particular share we'll talk about how to appreciate every Jew's unique goodness because he mentions a few places. One place is pious vigash and the page shinhi 3305. Now the Maharal explains that perhaps the basic reason for the enduring infighting and hatred among Jews is because culturally and nationally Jews are extremely intellectual and stubbornly ideological. Now we the Torah describes us as an amache or as a very stubborn people and being stubborn has been a blessing because many times we were outnumbered by other people's who hated us, other ideologies, other faiths. But we've been very stubborn, thank God, and committed to our beliefs in Hashem and God and the Torah as we as we have it. This plus this good part of Jewish character though sometimes turns against us because a Jew, a group of Jews will come up and invest in a certain ideology and feel that that ideology is the one and only way of of living a proper Jewish Torah life and not accept accept any other form of ideology. For example, um the argument between the original and their opponents where each side thought that the other side was completely wrong because they believe so strongly in their own side. And we can show many many such situations throughout Jewish history and unfortunately including today. Now when I have an ideology which is sincere and I believe is Torah based and maybe my friends and group believes in this very strongly and meanwhile you have a different ideology which is maybe even the exact opposite of mine and you and your religious Jewish friends believe strongly in your ideology. So does that mean that uh that two ideologies are impossible to coexist and um one ideology must destroy the other one. It's against to say that is against the Mishna which say that B Shami and Bel back in the second bet mdash towards the end of the second B mikdash had many disputes many strong disputes about great and important matters. questions of of Misa questions of whether if you do it one way and you're wrong you get a death penalty and BI says this and B says that and the Gar says that even though they had such disputes nevertheless their love for one another was open-ended and they were intermar with one another I always think that that's a very good sign that the dispute is the shame name it's truly correct if the two sides can intermar so it's an intellectual difference but doesn't turn personal so what the shamish suggests is the following instead of believing that my ideology which I really believe in is the only possible ideology realize that the other ideology the other system, the other uh way of thinking and even living has merit. Has merit. It comes from a Torah perspective. My opponent believes in the Torah of Hashem. My opponent is a God-fearing Jew. He and his group have a different view of things from where they come from. It might be their their historical background which is motivating them which is different than mine. It might be that certain personalities gravitate to one ideology and others gravitate to a different ideology. We have to realize a statement of our sages. There is no such a thing as a god-fearing Jew who doesn't have a place and a time. Maybe it's not my place and not my time, but it could be and we should believe it will be and was or is a place for someone else and for his time. If we could learn to respect and appreciate the well-meaning and sincere beliefs of our opponents coming from a good place. Even if I think they're wrong, but they're coming from a good place. And I should feel that maybe there's a place in time for their point of view rather than my point of view. I will then have the ability to respect them and then to love them as a fellow Jew who believes in Torah. It's hashem all of us will be able to use this strategy to help us achieve true and shalu. Amen. Thank you.