Rav Yitzchak Breitowitz: How to be a True Zealot for the Love of G-d

Hey everybody. Hope I hope you're all well. And um unfortunately we did have to fast uh this past Sunday. So we were not yet so to the redemption. Uh but the next fast that's coming up hopefully will not be a fast. The will come and the what is called the summer commission the fast of the fifth month. That's the month of of and from Nissan Nissan ERC one Thomas of the novice Acharya tells us that all of those summers but particularly the summer commission will become a day of soon and Simcha. In fact it's very interesting. I'm trying to find them because they're not printed anywhere. They have to they're like old manuscripts. You know the keynote that we recite on Tisha B'Av lamentation poems are almost all written by one author Rabbi Elazar Hakalir who was the great great liturgical poet of the Middle Ages and side by side with keynotes he wrote a parallel series of poems called Hamas which talk about redemption and in the original Ashkenazi right which is not followed anywhere today after they finish the keynotes of the morning they would say the poems by Mincha time in the afternoon so you combined the keynotes of lamentations and suffering with all of the promises of Allah. For some reason the dropped out of the liturgy so you can't even find them. I'm looking for them going through some old very very old Miriam. Uh but it's it's kind of a very vivid reminder that Tisha B'Av is also a day of redemption a day of a day that Messiah is born. So be as we shall it should be a day of Simcha and then we won't have to fast and it's not that we'll be happy because we can eat. That's not the reason but rather the other way around. The reason we can eat is because of Messiah and and that will automatically make it a day of soon and Simcha. Uh let me just read the dedications as always we pray for the victory of men and all friends of the war. Uh the last thing you again I'm sure all of you know that in spite of the wondrous miracles that have happened to in the past a few weeks uh people are still dying besides the hostages who are still languishing. Uh men are still dying. People people died very very recently and therefore we have to pray for them diving for them as well as the lasting unity of the people of Israel uh the safe return of all the hostages a shame on for you shy Ben Ronit and the shame on for Moshe David Ben Joseph and Mendel Ben David Isaac and finally an anonymous contribution for the of all the men our hostages to return safe and totally healthy to their homes a shame protection of all of and for the of shame on in these days. Amen and may may be a shame will uh that we should be so good to this. Okay we have a very very interesting partial. There actually many many things in this partial. Part of the problem in giving a year is you know I I or most people we get enamored with beginning of the partial and that's where we kind of stick to like a magnet but in point of fact partial has many many interesting things that have nothing to do with the initial story of for example I'm not going to talk about it although maybe another time I will. It lists all the of the for all of the holidays. That's very important and there's a lot of insights on it as well. It deals with the story of the most another special thing the most the rights of daughters to inherit when there are no sons and the whole laws of all the laws of inheritance are in partial so there are many things in the narrative other than the story of us but most of us when we think about partial we think about the story of in the beginning of the partial and in order to understand the story I have to go back to the end of last week's partial partial block if you remember Balam has been disgraced. Balam was hired for an exorbitant amount of money. We're not given the exact amount and he had a job to do. His job was to curse the Jewish people and Balam's curses were very efficacious and three times every time he tried to curse them and Balam is going crazy. Builds all these altars moves them around from here to there to there to there. Nothing works. Every single curse turns into a blessing from God. Now I'm not sure what the refund policy Balam had. I mean did he have to give Balam back the money or was it a credit transaction so he didn't get paid but Balam is now disgraced. But Balam comes up with a plan B. Plan A was to curse the Jewish people. Didn't work. Plan B is smart guy Balam. He didn't really give up here. He says let me devise a plan where I could cause the Jewish people to commit the grave sin of fornication with the Moabite women and that would bring down God's wrath. Now let me elaborate on and of course Balam Balam was successful on this one because what happened was uh many many Jews had improper sexual relations with the daughters of Moab and many many people died. 24,000 people died in this plague and then it culminated in the head of the tribe of Shimon Zimri uh fornication publicly with a Midianite woman Cosby bus or and people were dropping dead all over the place and Pinhas came I'll explain some of the background here and Pinhas killed both Cosby and Zimri and this stopped God's wrath on Israel and Pinhas was rewarded by God for this act of apparent murder. Now the offers the following explanation of exactly the in a way the background of plan A versus plan B. And this is what the says. I had mentioned last week that part of why Balam was so talented was because Balam knew the exact split second of the day in which has tremendous fury and anger in the world. The tells us there's a certain split second it's the it's a guy and how long is a the amount of time it says to say the word guy so you can take a stopwatch and measure that but it's a very very small amount of time and there's intense kind of enough in that tiny little window but if you can get your curse into that window it'll be like an atom bomb. It's going to be effective. We spoke last week I don't want to repeat the whole thing. We spoke last week that Balam was able to know exactly that split second and he could say he could say a short curse destroy them and it would enter. Most of us are not able to know that particular time. Remember I mentioned Rabbi Mayer uh kept because it says that for that split fraction of a of a second or second or two the the red comb of the rooster turns white. So Rabbi Mayer was staring at this rooster to kind of know when he could curse his enemies and he fell asleep and the time passed and he realized that's not the right thing. So Balam however had a sense of the right second. So what did do that time? Hashem cancelled the moment of anger. The day of Balam's cursing and apparently all of it was done in one day Hashem simply cancelled the moment of anger. So Balam is pushing at this button and nothing happens. The button is disconnected. Like the offers almost a interpretation. It says in the Torah by a lucky holiday which is translated as God was angry because Balam was going to curse them but if you translate it hyper literally by a lucky does not mean God was angry it means the anger of God was angry by a car a lucky him key holiday So the says the following. The anger was angry because it was dismissed. The anger had to leave the world. So the anger for sanctified as some type of angel or some type of force the anger was angry because God did not let it operate that day. Now says the reason what is the purpose of this moment of fury? I mean why would why would it be that there's one second of the day where God's anger is great? I mean what's the purpose? God just loses his temper at a certain time every day. So the reason I say this it is that anger that creates on a subconscious level the fear of the wrath of God that can often dissuade a person from sinning. Meaning it's like it's like you know vinegar meaning if we were to get the if you were to drink like undiluted vinegar it would you know burn you. You mix it with water. So God only allows his anger to be diluted by the rest of the day so to speak. But there's enough vinegar there that I feel the sting. And that is my aura me not to commit sin. I'm going to show my level. So look how smart Balaam is. Balaam reasoned if this is a day without divine anger then this is especially a day where the Jewish people will have less inhibition to sin than they normally would have meaning let's go to plan B. Right? What's the modern term? Balaam knew how to pivot. Balaam is supposed to curse them. But he sees he's pushing the button and nothing's happening. So Balaam automatically figures it out. It got to be God canceled the anger button today. But if God canceled the anger button that means the Jewish people will be more prone to sin because they don't have that fear of God that would normally motivate them. So now is the time to go to plan B. Let's cause them to do all of these of errors which even without the special divine anger if there's momish serious of errors the college park will will have to respond. So Balaam goes to plan B. And indeed Balaam was actually correct. 24,000 people died and many more would have died had Pinhas not stepped in and done the action that that that Pinhas Pinhas did. So I want to make um well uh let's first I mean again this may be very familiar so forgive me but let's first detail the halakhic background of what Pinhas did. Uh did Pinhas act according to the halakha and what halakha was Pinhas able to invoke? So this is a very unusual rule. This is a rule that says if a Jewish man and theoretically it might even apply today but there'll be serious complications and I would not recommend this response. But if a Jewish man is publicly that's going to be a definition to do having sexual relations with a non-Jewish woman a person who is called a kanai a person who is zealous is permitted to kill the perpetrators. But that is only if he kills them to use the legal term in flagrante delicto while they are committing the act. Meaning once they're I see the guy walking in the street Pinhas could not kill Zimri acher hamaisa but in the middle of the action this is a special rule of kanai and paga now this is a very exceptional halakha because only a person who is truly zealous for the glory of God is permitted to do it. If anyone else would do it that would be murder. You see? Uh in fact the Gemara brings down that if a person asks you a shaila can I kill this person because they're they're together the halakha is you don't give them a psak. You don't say yes. Pinhas himself asked Moshe Rabbeinu look at what they're doing the head of the tribe of Shimon with this Midianite woman. Am I allowed to kill them? And Moshe said I'm not no it's not for me to say. Right? Pinhas did it on his own but in truth that was the that was the correct decision. Now publicly is an interesting question. Does what does publicly actually mean? Does publicly mean they're actually having relations in public view in which case that would be that would be not an impossible situation unfortunately in the world we live in even that is possible but that would be a comparatively rare situation or is public defined by the simple fact that people know that they're living together which would be a very common situation. But once again let me emphasize it's only to the kanai uh who's 100% the same shamayim which I will talk about in a moment and it's only while they are actively engaged uh in the behavior not when they're separated. Cuz anything that does not meet the conditions of this halakha would be murder would would be absolutely prohibited with sicha. So that's the halakhic peg for what Pinhas did. Now I want to say something a little bit about hypocrisy and the daughters of Moab. You know the Torah says later that the Moabites and the Ammonite the descendants of Lot even if they convert to Judaism uh they are not allowed to marry into the Jewish people because they did not give us food or water when we need when we wanted to pass through their land. Now we know from Ruth that the prohibition against marrying a Moabite only applies to the males and does not apply to the females. Female Moabite converts are permitted to marry Jewish men as we see from the story of Ruth. Now why is that so? So the Talmud suggests the following idea that the men could be condemned for not offering food and water to the Israelites but you can't really blame the women because it wouldn't be tsnius for the women to offer food and water to a strange nation. So we give the Moabite women a pass because their behavior was an expression of modesty. Now wait a second here. It's a double pashet oats that the reason the Moabite women didn't give food and water was not because of tsnius because when it when it comes to fornication they're perfectly happy to do whatever they want to do. So if if they're maxed out the Jewish people with tsnius and avodah zara by the way as well then how can they invoke tsnius as a justification for their not offering food and water? Right? They invoked tsnius not to be hospitable but they don't care about tsnius when it comes to being maxed out people with giluy arayot. So here we have a proof to a statement that Alexander Pope once made uh the famous uh I think he was Scottish. I don't I don't know if he was pretty but but you know Scottish or um or British but I think Scottish where he made the point that hypocrisy which we think is always bad it actually is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. Okay you have to think about that a little bit. Meaning hypocrisy is not is not good. But if you're a hypocrite you're at least acknowledging there's a certain standard that you're supposed to live by even if that's not really the way you conduct your life. It's a tribute that vice pays to the appearance of virtue. So there's a certain mila in that which means Hakadosh Baruch Hu is machshiv good actions even if they're undertaken for bad reasons. The Moabite women not offering water was a virtuous behavior because it wouldn't be tsnius. Obviously their motives had nothing to do with tsnius. But it was the right thing. So yeah they were hypocritical in invoking tsnius but because it was the right behavior even if it's done for the wrong reasons there's a certain spiritual benefit. But there's one exception to that rule. There's one thing that you cannot do unless your motives are totally pure. And that is to be zealous for the glory of God by killing another person. As I indicated if the kavana is not totally for God it's out of anger it's out of resentment it's out of ego it's out of hubris it's not going to be a good thing that you did with the wrong motive but the whole action becomes tainted and destructive and illegitimate and evil. So let me analyze a little bit some of the language of the psukim to bring out this point. The Torah describes Pinhas as Pinchas ben Elazar ben Aaron. Hashem says, Pinchas the son of Elazar the son of Aaron he removed my anger on bene Israel because he was zealous on my behalf. And therefore, I give him a covenant of peace. Meaning peace between himself and God and peace between his ability to make peace among people. To make peace between God and bene Israel, all of these different levels of shalom. Rashi already comments on the idea that why does the Torah connect him to his grandfather? Pinchas ben Elazar ben Aaron. Just say Pinchas ben Elazar. The Torah normally does not bring in the grandfather. So, Rashi gives an explanation. That's actually very, very difficult. And that is Elazar himself Elazar, Pinchas's father had married a daughter of Yisro just like Moshe married his uncle Moshe married a daughter of Yisro. So, Elazar So, Pinchas's maternal grandfather was Yisro. Because Elazar married a daughter of Yisro. Yisro at one point in his life, I'm just quoting Rashi was an idolater. A priest of idolatry. So the shvatim when Pinchas killed the head of the tribe of Shimon, a very eminent person they said who is this guy? His mother's father used to fatten up calves for avodah zarah. His own past is tainted with idolatry. And he thinks he could have the right to kill the head of a nasi? So, therefore, Rashi says the Torah wants to emphasize don't look at Pinchas's maternal grandfather look at his paternal grandfather. That's Aaron. Don't look at the Yisro, look at the Aaron. But the Torah Rashi's interpretation is very difficult. You know, the Torah says, "Well, don't look at this one, look at this one." Well, no, I want to look at this one. I mean, that doesn't erase it. If the shvatim whatever the shvatim's claim is, if they have a claim that because you come from an idolater, you don't have the right to make this decision you're not really refuting that claim by saying, "Yeah, but look at the other one." So, Rashi is is a little difficult to understand. But the Kesav Sofer who is the great godol in his own right, who is the son of the great Chasam Sofer offers the following explanation. Not of Rashi, but just of the pasuk itself. Pinchas is a kanai. Pinchas is a zealot. But zealots can act, and we know this in our time as well. Zealots can act for all sorts of motives. Zealots can act out of anger. Zealots can act out of arrogance. Zealots can act out of a holier-than-thou attitude. In which part of how I build myself up is by tearing other people down. But to be a zealot you have to act for God's sake. Both for God's sake and because you love Am Yisrael and you don't want them to suffer. If you act out of hate if you act out of anger if you act out of arrogance if you act out of holier-than-thou your motives are tainted. And I once heard it expressed by someone who was quite a famous activist. He said, "In order to be an activist for klal Yisrael including getting arrested and being involved in demonstrations you have to hate what you're doing. You can't love what you're doing. You see, if I love getting arrested, I love getting my picture in the newspaper I love being the center of attention my motives are no longer for God. I have to hate what I'm doing. But I do it cuz it has to be done. Not because I get a rise, I get a kick out of putting other people down. So, here's what the Kesav Sofer says. When it says Pinchas was the son of Elazar the son of Aaron it doesn't mean as we translate it Pinchas was the son of Elazar and Elazar was the son of Aaron. That's the pashtus. Rather, it means Pinchas had two fathers. Pinchas was biologically the son of Elazar and Pinchas spiritually was the son of Aaron. Meaning he modeled his life after Aaron. What is Aaron's middah? Pirkei Avot says ovev shalom v'rodef shalom a lover of peace a pursuer of peace ovev es habriyos, one who loves all of Hashem's creations. Um'karev l'Torah. Pinchas was not a man of violence. Pinchas was not a man of righteous indignation. Pinchas was not a man of anger, even anger for the sake of God. Pinchas's natural setting was one of love. Was one of acceptance. But he sees the Jewish people dying all around him. And he sees the divine wrath. And he was motivated not of hate of Zimri. But love for Am Yisrael and love for Kodesh Baruch that his name should not be desecrated. And that is why it says ben Aaron, not because it's telling me his grandfather but it's telling me that spiritually Aaron was his father. In fact, this explains why what is the reward that Pinchas gets? I make a covenant of peace, shalom. Now, you might wonder, that's a very odd thing. Even if we say Pinchas was totally righteous but shalom is not the appropriate reward for an act of violence. You would might describe it as something else. The answer is, Pinchas acted for shalom. Pinchas acted to save the Jewish people and to sanctify God's name. He did not act out of hate. Which means acting out of hate is not a legitimate expression of zealousness for the glory of Hashem. They say b'shem Rav Chaim Soloveitchik the great Rav Chaim Soloveitchik. Can Rav Chaim has been gone for many, many years now. But very, very extremely few people I remember Rav Chaim. I mean, he died in 1918. So I don't know if there's anyone alive who can remember Rav Chaim. Uh but my own Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Ruderman, who died almost 40 years ago met Rav Chaim when he Rav Ruderman was only 9 years old. And it's very, very interesting that, you know, at 9 years old, he was already known as a brilliant Talmudic scholar, etc. So, he's taken to Rav Chaim of Brisk to get a bracha. And at some point, somebody needed to talk to Rav Chaim about a very important communal question. And as a little boy was going to leave the room, and And Rav Ruderman told me that whatever he heard from Rav Chaim as a 9-year-old still guides him to that very day in how to run his Yeshiva. So, it's almost like Rav Chaim had a ruach hakodesh. This would be something that uh that this boy should listen to as the future Rosh Yeshiva, the future godol b'Yisrael. Uh so, Rav Chaim was a very, very fascinating person. But Rav Chaim once said there are two types of zealots in the world for the glory of God. And they are analogous to the relationship of a housewife and a cat. Let's say, Yerushalayim is full of these cats, right? Let's say that you have a lot of mice in your house. So, you want to get a cat to kill the mice. So, he says the cat and the housewife have a common agenda to kill the mice. Right? So, they're on the same page. But not really. The ba'alat habayit would be much happier if there would be no mice in the first place. The cat would be sorely disappointed. He says, "There are certain kana'im who get a joy in exposing the shortcomings of others." They'll take a book, and I see this all the time, a book that somebody wrote, let's say Rav Steinman zt"l wrote, and on page 599, footnote 61, there was some statement that contradicts a line that Rav Shach said in 1947 about something. "Ah, apikorsus! We have to burn the book! Because on page 559, this footnote 61, there's something that is a little different than Rav Shach said." And there's like a shmack and a joy. The real kannoy, Rav Chaim says, does not rejoice. What? I should be happy that there's chillul Shabbos so I can throw rocks on it? Uh whatever it is. I feel pain. I feel pain for the Jews that are far from Hashem. And I want to help them. And I feel pain for Am Yisrael that is suffering because of things that are not right. And it would be my greatest desire that there wouldn't be things I got to correct. You know, Pirkei Avot says that one of the 48 qualities to uh really acquire the Torah is you love tochacha. You love rebuke. So, some people misinterpret that statement. They Well, I love tochacha. I love to point out to people what their shortcomings are. I'm an ohevet tochacha. Well, sorry to tell you that's not what it means. Ohevet tochacha doesn't mean I love to criticize. It means that I'm strong enough that I love when people can point out how I could improve. And that's a very high That is a very high madrega. That I'm you know, I'm willing to hear you know, even This is a common problem in the business world, by the way. You know, sometimes your boss will call the employee, "Tell me what I'm doing wrong. Point out, you know, all of the flaw Well, be very, very careful not to take that too seriously because uh that usually does not end very well. So, when when people say, "Point out all the problems, you know." They don't really They don't really mean it on the deepest level. Same Same thing in a marriage in some ways. Okay, you got to be careful about um all of these all of these things. Okay. So, that that's what Rav Chaim's point is. That too many kannoyim are like the cats. And they ought to be like the baalei batim. Okay. Now, let me tell you another vort from from one who exemplified this mida of not being happy to criticize was Rav Kook. And Rav Kook had a beautiful uh thought here. Um it's a peirush on the siddur. We know that the Amidah, we call it the Shmoneh Esrei, 18 blessings. But it actually does not have 18 blessings. The weekday Amidah has 19 brachos. Uh So, what was it? It was originally 18. But a 19th bracha was added much, much later in the time of the uh second Beis Hamikdash. Maybe even after the churban in the time of uh Yavneh. Shortly after the churban of the second Beis Hamikdash. And this is the bracha. It's not the 19th bracha, but it's in the middle. V'lamalshinim, the bracha against heretics, informers, missionaries. And that was added at a time. Now, again, historically, people still debate exactly why did it have to be written at that time. Some connect it to early Christians who were missionizing within the church. Again, the historical origin of why there was a need for what's called Birkas Haminim, the bracha against the sectarians, is you know, a fascinating discussion. But it mentions that Rabban Gamliel of Yavneh, this is after the churban Bayit Sheini, when the Sanhedrin moved to Yavneh and we have the Rabban Gamliel of Yavneh said, "We have to make a bracha against the heretics." Who will be able to write such a bracha? Who will compose it? This is all the Gemara. So, the Gemara says that they finally identified a person who is known as Shmuel Hakatan. Shmuel the small, which refers to his humility, really Shmuel the humble. And Shmuel Hakatan was is given credit of authorship of the bracha V'lamalshinim to the informers, al tehi tikvah, may there be no hope. This is the Gemara in Brachos. Shmuel Hakatan was the author of Birkas Haminim. That's the 19th. Though that became the 19th bracha, although it's positioned in the middle. So, Rav Kook asks a very simple question. What is the big difficulty here? Uh Rabban Gamliel seems to be saying, "Who is capable of writing such a bracha?" And he asked to identify one unique person. The same way the other brachos were written, this could be written. What was the nachitzus? What was the need for some special person to write this bracha? What is unique about Birkas Haminim? So, Rav Kook points out that Birkas Haminim is unique in the Amidah. Because every bracha of Shmoneh Esrei is essentially asking Hashem for something good. Give us forgiveness. Give us redemption. Give us parnassah. Give us refuah. We ask Hashem for something good. Uh gather the exiles. The only bracha that explicitly calls on God to punish and destroy is the Birkas Haminim. So, Rabban Gamliel's dilemma, this is Rav Kook's shita, is the following. When you ask Hashem to punish, you can't act out of hate. You can't act out of anger. Those prayers are not accepted by God. You have to act out of love for Bnei Yisrael. Destroy the cancer so Am Yisrael will not suffer. Or for kiddush Hashem. Destroy this so your name will not be desecrated. So, Rabban Gamliel's problem is who could write a bracha against the heretics and the missionaries and the informers who did so much damage to Am Yisrael, who wouldn't be tainted by anger and resentment? It's like saying, let's compose a World War let's compose a prayer against the Nazis. Against Hitler. Who could compose such a prayer without hatred and anger? So, Rabban Gamliel has a problem. So, the person he chooses to compose that prayer is Shmuel Hakatan. Why? Why Shmuel Hakatan? Again, this is a brilliant answer. We know very little about Shmuel Hakatan. In fact, there is no halacha, I believe, that is quoted in the Gemara in the name of Shmuel Hakatan. We do know what an extraordinarily righteous person he was. He was once sitting in a group and a bas kol, a voice from heaven, came down and said, "There is someone in this room who is as deserving as Moshe Rabbenu to receive the Torah. Who is deserving of the Shechinah resting." And everybody in the room looked at Shmuel Hakatan. They knew he was the one that the bas kol was referring to. An extraordinarily great person. It is interesting. One can actually um you know, develop a thesis about this. Often, the figures that are described in the Gemara as extremely, extremely, extremely saintly often have very few or no halachic statements that are attributed to them. Another example is Yonasan ben Uziel, who was described as the greatest of Hillel's disciples. That if a bird flew over his head, the bird got burnt up in the fire of the angels coming. Right? The greatest of Hillel's talmidim. And yet, once again, there is no halacha in the Gemara that is quoted in the name of Yonasan ben Uziel. It's almost as if Or another third example is Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa, who was so holy. He was a great worker of miracles. Remember the famous story that uh he was so poor in his household that his wife could not afford oil to light the Shabbos candles. And he told his wife to light the Shabbos candles with vinegar. And he said, "Vinegar doesn't burn." He said, "The same God who makes oil burn can make vinegar burn." And yet, in terms of halacha, almost nothing. So, it's interesting that it's almost like certain great rabbis were pigeonholed. These are the tzaddikim, but they were not necessarily the baalei halacha. So, Shmuel Hakatan as well is not recorded as one who taught us halachos. We don't know a lot about him, but one thing we do know. He is quoted in Pirkei Avot. Shmuel Hakatan hu haya omer. Now, when Pirkei Avot says doesn't just say amar, but hu haya omer, that means he said this all the time. This was something he always said. And it then goes on and tells me what he always said. And strangely, what he always said are not even his own words. They are the words of Hamelech in the book of Mishlei. Shmuel Hakatan haya omer. >> Do not rejoice upon the downfall of your enemy. So, says Rav Kook, Rabban Gamliel said, if we need somebody to call upon the wrath of God to destroy evil doers, he has to have the philosophy of Shmuel HaKatan, where you don't personally rejoice in the sufferings of others, even bad people. Your motive is to seek protection for the Jewish people and the sanctification of God's name. Now, I know particularly uh in the time that we've been through I know this may be a little controversial and I expect I'll get uh what I refer to as hate mail over this night. I don't want to elaborate on this point uh because some will argue that the fall of your enemy only refers to uh private grievances. And yet and yet, let me remind you that the Midrash uses this uh when the Malachei HaSharet wanted to sing songs of praise to God as the Egyptians were drowning, and Hashem responded with the words that are later in this pasuk, do not rejoice upon the downfall of your enemies. Okay, uh be that as it may, um don't blame me, this is Rav Kook's thought, that only Shmuel HaKatan's attitude would have been appropriate to call down the retribution of God. So, one has to be very careful. Uh Pinchas did what he had to do, and Pinchas was rewarded for it. And Pinchas was blessed for it. But if you want to do like Pinchas, and of course I'm referring not to killing necessarily, but even things short of that, you want to be a zealot for the sake of God, one has to act out of love, not out of anger, not out of hate. And one's motives have to be pure, not for self-aggrandizement, not for gaiva. And otherwise, the whole endeavor becomes very, very possible. Today, we have a lot of people who want to be kana'im, they want to be zealous for the glory of God. But sometimes it turns out that zealousness for the glory of God turns out to be a desecration of God's name. One has to think very carefully about this. So, now I just want to mention be kitzur, maybe four interrelated reasons why zealousness is a very, very dangerous characteristic. Sometimes necessary, sometimes very necessary, but very dangerous. First, it even affected Pinchas in a negative way. Even though Pinchas was the most pure zealot for the glory of God that you could imagine, it had deleterious effects even on Pinchas. Where do I get that? Chazal tell us that Pinchas eventually, whatever this means exactly, morphed into Eliyahu HaNavi. He didn't die, he became known as Eliyahu HaNavi. And Eliyahu HaNavi in turn didn't die, he was taken up to Shamayim. Pinchas and Eliyahu are considered to be the same people, whether that means directly, whether it means reincarnation, you can argue about that. But Pinchas is Eliyahu HaNavi. Eliyahu HaNavi, of course, is the great prophet of Hashem, and he is the announcer of Mashiach. But you know, Eliyahu HaNavi was fired by God. Although it's not described as being fired, but in point of fact, he was fired. What happened? Eliyahu HaNavi lived in a very dangerous time for him. Ahav was the king of the 10 tribes, Ahav and his wife Izevel. A very, very perfect shidduch, he had the evil guy with evil woman, kind of, you know, very compatible in their personalities. Although Izevel was probably worse than Ahav. Uh you know, put a death sentence on Eliyahu HaNavi's head, and he saturated Eretz Yisrael with idolatry and with murder, with gilyui arayot. And Eliyahu HaNavi created a great miracle in Mount Carmel in Haifa, where the 400 prophets of the ba'al assembled to bring sacrifices to the Canaanite god ba'al. Eliyahu HaNavi built one mizbeach for Hashem, and they're all crying out, crying out to their respective gods to answer them. And finally, fire comes down from Shamayim and consumes Eliyahu HaNavi's korban. And all of the Jewish people who were over the avodah zarah, they bow down, and they cry out exactly what we say at the end of Yom Kippur, Hashem hu haElohim. This was a magnificent mass teshuvah, a total transformation of the people because of this great miracle at Mount Carmel. How long did that great teshuvah last? One day. Next day, Izevel sends a message to Eliyahu and says, "By the way, that fatwa, that death sentence on you hasn't really been revoked. Yeah, we had a little break yesterday. We're back to normal business. Business as normal, avodah zarah, and we're going to kill you." At this point, Eliyahu HaNavi is kind of broken because he really gave it his best shot. I mean, he did a supernatural, great, divine miracle, and it didn't really change anything. And he wanders for 40 days and 40 nights, and he reaches Har Sinai. He reaches Har Sinai. And Hashem speaks to him, it's a very dramatic scene. There is an earthquake, but Hashem is not in the earthquake, and there is a fire, and Hashem is not in the fire. But there's a still, quiet voice, as if to say, "Don't think you're going to change people by drama. You change people by quiet, sweet, gentle teaching." And Eliyahu HaNavi breaks down, he frankly says, "These people are rebellious. I have been zealous." He uses the word kana'i, the same lashon as Pinchas. Kana o kin'eiti laHashem, I have been zealous for the glory of God. I have stood up for you, but they break your altars, and they worship other gods, and they reject your Torah. They're just no good." Hashem does not directly answer Eliyahu, other than to tell him, "Go and anoint your successor. There's a man, Elisha. Go find him." Meaning, you're fired. Let's go get somebody else. And the Rambam says that when a Jewish leader loses faith in the goodness of his people, he can no longer be a Jewish leader. In fact, going back to Moshe Rabbenu, the Rambam says that's sort of why Moshe Rabbenu died in the desert. Because at that point, he had lost faith in Am Yisrael. He thought they were no good anymore. Now, one might suggest that when you're a kana'i, and you become trained to look at the negatives, even if your motives, as Pinchas's were, are totally godly and pure and holy, when you're accustomed to see blemishes, you become less able to see the goodness that exists in others. Um at the risk of being a little bit not not snee'ah, I would never say this in our seminary, but I'll say it here, a little little more liberal. Mark Twain, at the end of one of his books, describes uh he describes a ballet dancer, and he described Well, well, Mark Twain was uh was a uh riverboat pi- pilot. He's He He wrote He ran a boat on the Mississippi River. His name was Samuel Clemens. Mark Twain is was a call of riverboat pilots, where you mark certain things at certain points. And Mark Twain was describing the fact that because when he's a pilot, you know, you look at a river, and from a non-professional standpoint, you see a beautiful body of water shimmering in the sun. But when you're a pilot, all you see are the hidden dangers. A tree uh no some tree there, a rock there, an eddy there, a current there, an undertow there. And you become so sensitive to see all of the flaws and all of the problems that you can no longer appreciate the beauty because every beautiful phenomenon might be a sign of danger. And he gave the analogy of a doctor watching a ballet dancer. So, you can watch a ballet dancer and you see grace, you see fluidity of movement, you see something very, very beautiful. Putting his eyes to me, he says, "A man or woman, whatever it is." Now, let's assume you're a doctor, you're an orthopedic surgeon, whatever it is. So, the doctor "Oh, no, I see the stretching of the tendon and the ripping of the muscle fibers." In other words, you're so used to seeing all the problems that you're no longer attuned to the inner beauty. And Mark Twain was very sad in some ways that he lost the sense of the beauty of the Mississippi River that he had as a child because he had to be so attuned to seeing the dangers. Well, the kana'i faces the same thing. If you spend your life looking at all the bad things, even if you have to correct them, almost by definition, you become less able to see the good things. And I would suggest perhaps that that might have led to Eliyahu Hanavi's kana'ut. By the way, he was His punishment for that was that when he said the Jewish people are not faithful, Hakadosh Baruch Hu said to him, "Well, almost every Jew keeps a Pesach seder and almost every Jew gives his son a bris. So, you are condemned to go to every seder and every bris for eternity because to show that they are faithful on some level to the bris of of Hashem." So, that's one problem with kana'ut is it can blind you from seeing the the the the the intrinsic goodness in Am Yisrael. And that's a tragic loss when you can't see that positivity, you can't see you cannot see the pintel Yid. There is another aspect of kana'ut. Uh and that is kana'ut is often a distraction from looking inward. It's an excuse not to look into ourselves as to what we need to correct. When I'm always focused on Mashiach didn't come because of them, whoever your them is, you never have to engage in the process of is there anything I need to correct? So, kana'ut has a very big danger that you're so focused on other people's problems or aveirot, whatever, you don't think about yourselves. And in reality, we shouldn't be so eager to notice. I mean, I, you know, some people are better at it than than others. I mean, I I don't know if it's a mailer or whatever. Maybe it may be a drawback, but I can say that I have I have kind of this thing that when I don't have to have an active role in something, I'm at a wedding or something, and whatever it is, I I I literally shut off. Meaning meaning not a single thing registers. I'm home. This wasn't right or that wasn't right or that wasn't right. And then people are asking me, "Did you see that? Did you see that?" I said, "Well, I didn't notice it." Kind of a I don't know. Again, some people say that's bad, so I'm not I'm not saying it's a good mailer, but the reason is that we really should stop noticing people so much. Well, I don't know. And I don't have to pay so much attention to what other people are doing. In fact, I heard a maiseh once about a rosh yeshiva who was mesader kiddushin. And I think the kallah's mother was not dressed so tzniusdik. So, there are halachot that if you're literally facing the woman that's not dressed properly, you're not supposed to say the brachot, etc. So, but the rosh yeshiva said all the brachot and the like, and the person went over to the rosh yeshiva and said, "You know, rosh yeshiva, did you know, the woman that was right in front of you was not dressed tzniusdik?" So, the rosh yeshiva said, "I'm sorry, I just I just didn't notice it, you know." Man, that's that's not a bad answer. Okay. Uh the third consequence is a very interesting one. Also a little controversial, but it's Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz says a long shmuess. Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz says, "Just as there are physical laws of nature, right? There are physical gravity, whatever, obey. There are certain spiritual laws of nature. And one of the spiritual laws of nature is that when you cause pain to another person, even when the pain is justifiable and appropriate, there will be a reciprocal response in which you're going to get burnt by the pain that you cause another. And the fact that you had a good excuse or a good reason is not going to be a defense necessarily because it's a law of nature. An analogy would be if there's a fire, um I'm going to get burnt and it makes no difference. If I jump into the fire, I'm going to get burnt. It makes no difference if I jumped into the fire because I'm a crazy pyromaniac who likes fires or or a masochist or I jump into the fire to save a baby. The fact that my motives were pure does not immunize me from the fact that fire burns. So, Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz says, "Causing pain to anybody does have that reciprocal effect." And he brings the raya that the Gemara says that when Mordechai hears about Haman's decree, so this says in Megillas Esther, "Vayizak tz'akah gedolah u'marah." Mordechai cried a loud and bitter cry. Chazal point out that virtually those identical words were the words that Esav are describing Esav's cry when Yaakov took the brachot from Esav. And therefore, it says, "Because of the pain that Yaakov causes Esav, Esav's descendant via Amalek, which is Haman, causes the identical pain to the descendant of Yaakov, which is Mordechai." But the chiyuv that doesn't make sense because Yaakov didn't commit a sin. Yaakov did what had to be done. Yaakov is nowhere criticized for taking the brachot. So, I mean, we discussed the justification for that in parshas toldos. Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz says, "Makes no difference. Even if your action is morally justified, it can result in severe not punishment, but pain. That's the law of nature. Now, sometimes you have to be willing to take that pain. You have to be willing because it's a higher good. Like I jump into the fire to save the baby. But beware, be aware that it is not a cost-free proposition. And I think if people would realize that, they would think a little twice about taking on the role of the zealot. And the final problem with kana'ut is that when you think you're acting for the sake of heaven, those are bedavka the sins that are the hardest to do teshuvah from for because you don't have an awareness that it's even sinful. Uh it's self-righteousness, which could be the greatest sin of all. Our own my own rosh yeshiva, Rav Shmuel Auerbach, not the shailos u'tshuvos Rav just died a few months ago and we're still very much suffering his loss. So, I'm glad that I have an occasion to mention a a vort that he told me. We say in Tachanun, the very end of Tachanun, "Ozreinu Elokei Yisheinu." Help us, the God of our salvation. "U'chaper al chatoteinu l'ma'an sh'mecha." Atone for our sins for your name's sake. So, most people trans The standard translation says, "Give us atonement even though we're not deserving, give us atonement for your name's sake." He says it's modifying the sin. "Give us atonement for the sins that we committed in your name." The sins we committed in your name are the sins that we don't even think are aveirot, but they could be very, very serious ones. We are in the three weeks. Uh the three weeks, we think about the churban Beis Hamikdash. We know that the Beis Hamikdash, the second Temple, was destroyed because of the hatred and polarization that existed amongst the Jewish people. And it's our job, the whole year really, the whole year, but specifically now, to try to rebuild the Beis Hamikdash. But we don't rebuild the Beis Hamikdash, at least right now, by tearing down the mosque and and and doing physical construction. We're not ready for that yet. But the one thing we do do is we try to correct the reasons for the churban of the base of mixture and then we become we become deserving of the building of the base of mixture. So, this is the time of building bridges of unity of not condemning not looking down of trying to reach people. But, Kyle de Mama Dhaka with the quiet small gentle voice with kindness with rahamim not with denunciations, not with harsh words. How much more could be accomplished by love than by condemnation? Unfortunately our religious society is beset with the vocabulary of condemnation in every possible way. Amalek, Aravah, all of these terms are um picorus, whatever it is. All of these terms are thrown around indiscriminately. Even technically they're not correctly applied. Meaning these words have technical definitions and uh people don't pay attention to that. But, nevertheless it just keeps the goal is longer and longer and longer. When someone writes an article talking about the Aravah and how this category of Jew are the reason we don't have Messiah. Now, that's not that's not the way to talk. That's not the way to talk. I mean, what is the big What is the big purpose of pointing out how other Jews are responsible for why there's no Messiah? Has this person already perfected themselves to make them In other words, I'd like to say, Messiah would come based on me because I've I'm totally fine. So, it got to be somebody else. Well, okay. When you reach that level, then you can talk about others and I'll tell you when you reach that level, you won't want to talk about others. So, it's a hypothetical that is not going to happen because people who reach the few people who may reach that Madrega tend not to talk that way. Bishalom, bishalom. So, again I I realize the circularity of my criticizing other people for being critical. I I I I get it, you know, because I I might be doing some of the very same behavior that I'm being critical of. So, I'll criticize myself as well that I should also focus on the hisronos that I need to correct and and all of us should look at that way. And the one thing I'll tell you for sure is if each and every one of us focuses on what we can correct within our lives and enough of us do that then yeah, the base of mixture will come without having to point out the flaws of other people. So, have a good Shabbos, good week and take care.