Know When to Say No | Rabbi YY Jacobson

This is a Vort I heard from the Lubavitcher Rebbe. The Gemara says in Shabbos, everybody knows this story, Shabbos 31, that a gentile came to Shamai and he said: I want to learn the whole Torah, standing on one foot. דחפו באמת הבניין, Shamai pushes him away with his stick, and he goes to Hillel and Hillel says, No problem. I'll give you the whole of Judaism in 5 seconds. What you dislike to be done to you, don't do to somebody else. מה דעלך סני לחברך לא תעביד. That's the whole Torah, everything else is commentary, now go study the commentary. And the Rebbe asked a gevaldiger question. Shamai himself says in Pirkei Avos 1: Welcome everybody with a pleasant countenance, with warmth, with decency. Even if Shamai felt that this guy was insincere, and you can't learn all of Judaism while standing on one foot. And you don't go to Harvard University and say: Teach me everything there is to know about medicine, while I'm standing on one foot. So Shamai could say: Listen, my dear friend, Yiddishkeit is serious, Torah is deep. We've been studying it for thousands of years. I can't teach it to you in 10 seconds. What's this דחפו באמת הבניין? And the Rebbe smiled and he said: Since Shamai told us that we have to be מקבל everybody בסבר פנים יפות, so we also have to be מקבל Shamai בסבר פנים יפות. And we have to ask ourselves maybe there's something deeper. And then he said: Perhaps Shamai was not just rejecting him, but Shamai was actually teaching him one of the most important things he would need to know if he wants to become a Jew. Because the two fundamentals of Yiddishkeit are The first two commandments, the only ones we heard directly from Hashem, those are the sources of Mitzvos עשה and Mitzvos לא תעשה, סור מרע ועשה טוב. The foundation of Yiddishkeit is the ability to be able to say Yes, but before that comes the ability to be able to say No. Every Yes requires a No. If you're saying Yes to your beloved one, it means you're saying No to everything that will take you away from that relationship. If you're saying Yes to a healthy life with nutrition and exercise, it means saying No to all those foods and behaviors that are going to be toxic for you. There's no real Yes without a No. There's no relationship without rejection. Shamai was the embodiment of גבורה. Hillel was the embodiment of חסד. Shamai taught him the first thing about Yiddishkeit: דחפו באמת הבניין. You have to be able to have a measuring stick. You have to be able to have a stick that tells you, Does this fit into my life or does this not fit into my life? Is this going to create a בניין? Is this going to create something productive? Is this going to build me up as a human being, as a Jew? Or is this going to destroy me and demolish me as a Jew? Shamai was teaching him: You want to be a Jew? Let me tell you the first foundation. He didn't even have to say it in words, דחפו באמת הבניין. You're going to have to be able to have the courage and the resolve and the consistency and the fortitude and the confidence to be able to reject all that which has to be rejected. Now he was fertile to be able to come to Hillel, and Hillel already knew that he got the foundation of סור מרע, so Hillel could teach him the secret of love, מה דעלך סני לחברך לא תעביד. Remember, in life we are ambassadors of love, but you have to have an אמת הבניין. We all need that stick of Shamai to be able at a moment's call to say, This does not belong in my life. I am greater than it.