Ahavat Yisrael

Today we will share one last Ahavat Yisrael thought related to Chanukah. As we mentioned, we read the Nasi'im/princes on Chanukah. One of the reasons for this is that right after the 12 Nasi'im comes Parashat Baha'alotcha , which talks about the Menorah. What's the connection between the lighting of the Menorah and the Nasi'im ? Rashi tells us, in the beginning of Baha'alotcha that Aharon HaKohen had what is called Chalishut HaDa'at. He was down. He said, “ My tribe is not connected to the 12 Nasi'im offerings? So Hashem said, “ Don't feel bad. You have something bigger than they have. And that is the miracle of Chanukah .” The question always is How is Chanukah the answer to the fact that they have the Nasi'im ? Rabbi Aaron Walkin, in his sefer Aaron Haim, page 301, answers that what bothered Aharon about the Nasi'im was their Achdut . Each one of them brought the same exact offering. No one tried to outdo the other. No one said, “ I'll do more flowers. I'll have a better wedding. I'll have a bigger party.” Everyone kept to the same exact program. They didn't try to outdo each other. There was tremendous achdut . They bought caravans together- six caravans and they chipped in, two together, to show that they weren't trying to steal the whole Mitzvah. Everything about the Nasi'im indicated Achdut . So Aharon felt bad- Where was his tribe ? And the answer was, he would get the miracle of Chanukah. Because, as we mentioned, Chanukah has in it, the aspect of Achdut/unity , as we we discussed this past week- the many hints of unity in the miracle of Chanukah. And he further brings down that it says about the Menorah that there's Kaneh Echad/one main branch which everything comes of, and that symbolizes the unity of the Jewish people. Furthermore, the Menorah cannot be made piecemeal. It has to chiseled out of one block , which was a miracle. And that one block is further symbolism of the oneness of the Menorah. So that's what it means that Aharon was told, “ Yours will last forever.” The Nesi'im's unity was a one-time thing, but Aharon HaKohen has the miracle of Chanukah, which lasts forever. And as we see, Chanukah is a time when families get together. Such is the Achdut aspect Chanukah. Have a wonderful day.

Today we will share a Hanukah related thought from the great Klausenberger Rebbe. The Rebbe points out that the miracle of Hanukah took place during the era of the second Bet Hamikdash, as we know. He says that the issue of Sinat Hinam was already brewing then, and that was part of the reason they got into trouble. Therefore, after the miracle of Hanukah, they strengthened themselves in the area of Achdut/ unity. He says there are two very interesting things about the mitzvah of the Menorah. Number one is that we do it outside. Our other Mitzvot are inside. The Seder is in the house, and Succot is inside the Succah- we don't see what's going on in anyone else's house. But the menorah is on the outside. Number two is that there are three different levels of kiyum mitzvot of Ner Hanukah There's a regular level- where you light one candle, then there's one per night, then there's one per person…different levels. We don't find that with other Mitzvot. We don't get three options of of matzot- grade A grade B or grade C. The Torah has one level of Matzot. Additionally, we don't have different levels of Megilat Esther. So what is it about Hanukah that has that three levels? He answers both questions with the same point- that since they had perfected their area of unity and they were no longer jealous of each other, it enabled that, firstly, we could put the menorah outside. When jealousy shows up, people think, “ How come he has a silver menorah and I only have copper?” But we don't have to worry about that when it comes to Hanukah. Secondly, I don't have to worry that he thinks he's better than me, because he's doing a higher level Mitzvah. So whereas people may think- “ What? He eats yashan- he thinks he's better than me? He eats chalav Yisrael, he thinks he's better than me?” we didn't have that problem with Hanukah, because again, there was no jealousy. And with this he explains a Midrash, which is based on the Pasuk from Shir Hashirim, that is difficult to understand: הַֽדּוּדָאִ֣ים נָֽתְנוּ־רֵ֗יחַ וְעַל־פְּתָחֵ֙ינוּ֙ כׇּל־מְגָדִ֔ים literally means, “The Dudaim (a certain type of flower), gave a smell, and on our doorsteps are all kind of delicious delicacies. The Midrash says that the Dudaim gave a smell refers to Reuven, because he was the one that brought the Dudaim to his mother, and he saved Yosef from the pit. And on our doorstep there are delicacies refers to the Ner Hanukah that we put outside on the doorstep. What's the connection? A lot of rabbis speak about the connection between Reuven and the Ner Hanukah.The Klausenberger Rebbe explains, beautifully, that Reuven saved Yosef. As the Gemara in Berachot 7b says, Leah pointed out, “ Look how special my son is. Esav tried to kill Yaakov, and here Reuven is helping his would-be competition, Yosef (who would be the Bechor from Rachel, over the Bechor from Leah). He's helping him; He's uniting with him; He's trying to save him.” This connects to the miracle of Hanukah, when we light outside, because we're no longer worried about jealousy on Hanukah. Again, a beautiful connection between Achdut and the miracle of Hanukah. Have a wonderful day.

Today we have another thought about Ahavat Yisrael in relation to the holiday of Hanukah, which comes from the sefer Akedat Yitzhak Al HaTorah , from one of the Hasidim. He writes that Matityahu was the Sadik HaDor, and the job of the Sadik HaDor is to unite the hearts of Jewish people. That's why Matityahu's cry was, “ Mi L'Hashem Elai/ Who is to Hashem come to me.” When he gathered together the Maccabim , he was trying to gather Jewish people together. He says that the only reason they won the war was because of their Achdut/unity, which is symbolized by the pach shemen/ vessel of oil. How so? We know that oil rises above water, but only when all the oil is united. If you blend the oil and water, the oil gets mixed into everything else, and you won't see the oil rise to the top. It's only when the oil is all together that it can rise above. That's what it means that when they Jewish people are B'Achdut/united, they go above all nations and no one can impact them. Just like a bundle of sticks- one single stick can be broken, but when you put them all together, they cannot be broken. Anytime God wants to bring beracha on the Jewish people, there needs to be a vessel to hold the Beracha, and as the Mishna says, God did not find a vessel to hold the Beracha for the Jewish people, only shalom/ peace. Shalom is what brings all of the Beracha on the Jewish people. He quotes the sefer Noam Elimelech, which says on the pasuk, ‘ they graze in the marsh ,' that it can also mean ‘ the Jewish people graze in tranquility when they're in brotherhood.' Furthermore, in the same pesukim talking about the dreams of Yosef, it says that the during the time of the Plenty , the cows were fat cows. Rashi says, it's a sign of the good years, that each one looks good to the other one, that “I don't look at you in a tight way .” When there's a famine, they're all thin and each one looks at the other one like they're thin. They can't enjoy the other person's success, because they don't have anything. But when everyone's happy with each other, thar means it's a time of success. That's the simple explanation. But he brings a deeper explanation: He says, when everybody looks good at each other; when everyone has a good eye toward each other, and there's love and brotherhood in the world, that's a sign that there will be satiation in the world- not a sign that it is currently. That good trait of looking at your friend with a good eye, not competing and not being jealous, will bring the Beracha. So when you see a time that everyone's getting along, then you know there will be beracha. We read about Yosef and the brothers reuniting all during the holiday of Hanukah because that's part of the job of Hanukah- to bring that Achdut/togetherness between the brothers. And as we said, we also read about the 12 tribes of the Nesi'im during these days, all to indicate that important brotherhood. Furthermore, the Haftara talks about the uniting of Yehuda and Yosef. B'Ezrat Hashem we will have the Achdut necessary to bring the Beracha to the world.

Moshe Rabbenu, in Shemot 33,16 says וְנִפְלִ֙ינוּ֙ אֲנִ֣י וְעַמְּךָ֔ We ( the Jewish people) should be separated from the rest of the world. And right after that, God introduces the 13 Attributes of Mercy, which is a special covenant called the Covenant of the 13 Attributes that is made specifically for the Jewish people. This is what bothered the Greeks. They were bothered by anything that made the Jewish people stand out, apart from the rest of the world. These 13 attributes are what separate us. The way we describe our keeping the 13 attributes of mercy is to ‘ Go in the ways of God .' Just like He is Rachum , we have to be be Rachum, just like He is Hanun we have to be Hanun . We must act in those ways, but why? Because of the rule that a son emulates his father. The Jewish people are called children of God, and therefore we are the ones that emulate God. We are the ones that live up to the Tzelem Elokim / image of God. The Tomar Devorah tells us that this why we have to live up to and emulate those 13 traits of God. With this, the sefer Yerach L'Moadim, from Rabbi Yerucham Olshin, the Rosh Yeshiva of Lakewood explains a custom brought down by the Magen Avraham, on Shuchan Aruch, brought down by the Mishna Berura and the Kaf HaChaim, that it's customary for young, poor children to go collect money on Hanukah. That's really where the famous Hanukah gelt comes from. Some people want to say it's a Gentile custom, but it's not. It was really for the poor. The custom might have been to just give it as gifts, but there was a concept of giving money to children. Of course, they didn't want to differentiate wealthy and poor when giving money to children. And what's the reason? It's based on Rambam in Hilchot Matanot Ani'im , chapter 10, Halacha 2, which says, all Jewish people are like brothers, like it says, you are children of God. If we're children of God, we're all brothers. And if a brother doesn't have mercy on his brother, who will have mercy on him? And who are the poor of the Jewish people looking up to? To their Jewish brethren, that are going to help them. Therefore, the Rambam says that the Mitzvah of Sedaka clearly comes from the concept of being children of God, and therefore being brothers to each other. And if the point that the Greeks were trying to obliterate was the fact that we are children of God (and therefore brothers to each other), we must go out of our way and strengthen ourselves in the trait of being brothers and children of Hashem, by specifically giving Sedaka during the holiday of Kislev. That's an important Ahavat Yisrael connection to the holiday of Hanukah. Have a wonderful day.

As we're now in the month of Kislev, we will speak a little bit about Hanukah in order to get ready. The Ben Ish Chai quotes the Arizal that when one says the berachot of the Nerot Hanukah, he says LeHadlik Ner Hanukah, unlike Shabbat when we say LeHadlik Ner Shel Shabbat . He answers with a Kabbalistic reason: Because we want to spell out the letters נחל N a H a L (using the first letters of each word L eHadlik N er H anukah) which means stream . And this stream is a two way stream- One stream stands for N afshenu H ekita L Hashem/Our souls are waiting for God's salvation . So we're hoping to God- that's a Bitachon indicator. The other stream is N otzer H essed L 'Alafim/ God protects and watches over our good deeds for 2000 generations, which are the 8 th and 9 th attributes of the 13 Attributes of God's Mercy ( El Rachum V'Hanun etc). What is the significance of this? He says that on each day of Hanukah, a different one of the 13 attributes is aroused. Day one is El , day two is Rachum , day three, Hanun…. etc . When we hit day eight, it's Notzer Hessed/God watches our kindness, and L'Alafim is trait nine. Notzer Hessed L'Alafim/God watches the kindness for 2000 generations. Even though it's two separate traits, it's really one unit. And so, with the 8th unit comes down the 9th, the 10th, 11th, the 12th, and the 13th, which is all on the eighth day of Hanukah, and it's called Zot Hanukah. That's why it's such a special day- because all 13 attributes come down. (Similarly, when we read the sefer Torah on Hanukah there are 13 different readings, so to say. There are the 12 tribes, and there's the also the tribe of the Kohanim, which is the 13th tribe, if you break it up that way. We do one Nasi/prince each day. But on the eighth day we do the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11, 12 th and 13 th , which correspond to the attributes) Our goal is to understand what exactly the connection is, between the 13 attributes and the holiday of Hanukah. And they explain as follows… In the Mishna Masechet Middot (chapter 2, mishna 3) it says that there were different boundaries and gates around the Bet Hamikdash. One of them was called the Soreg , which was only 10 hand-fists high. It didn't really serve the purpose of a real wall. But it says that there were 13 breaches made there by the Greeks when they came to the Bet Hamikdash (as we sing in Maoz Sur - they made breaches in the walls). Furthermore, it says that when we won the war, we filled in those breaches. The people would go to each breach and bow down in thanks to God that we won the war. So the question is, what exactly is the significance of these 13 breaches in this wall? Rav Gedalia Schorr z'l explains, in his Sefer Or Gedalia , that the purpose of this 10 hand-fist high wall was to designate an area where goyim were not allowed to go. (There were certain areas in the Bet Hamikdash where contaminated people couldn't go, where non-Kohanim couldn't go, and a certain point where no goyim were allowed to pass). This bothered the Greeks. They felt, with their philosophy, that they were equal to the Jews. So why couldn't they go past there? They specifically made 13 breaches in those walls, in order to, so to say, break the differentiation between Jew and goy. But there's a deeper significance- Why the number 13, why didn't they make 11 or 12 breaches? The answer is, because it corresponds to the 13 attributes of mercy that God has for the Jewish people. That's what they were trying to separate. One of the differentiating factors between the Jews and the goyim is that Hashem deals with us with these special 13 attributes of mercy. And that's what happens on Hanukah… We'll continue tomorrow with the significance of Hanukah and its connection to these 13 attributes. But the first thing we have to know is that the 13 attributes have to do with the 13 breaches that the Greeks made in the wall.

We continue with the trait of God called She'erut Nachlato, that God views the Jewish people as relatives, and it hurts God when we're in pain. The Gemara In Masechet Hagiga says When a man is in pain, what does God say? My head hurts. My arm hurts. And that's talking about sinners . So it's surely so when a Sadik is suffering. Rav Chaim Volozhin, in his Sefer Nefesh HaChaim ( Shaar ב perek יא ) says, “What does it mean, ‘My head hurts and My arm hurts?' He says, that connects to the tefilin that we wear on our head and arm..” The Gemara in Berachot 6A says just like we wear Tefilin, God, kal v'yachol wears Tefilin . It's all about connection, the connection between God and the Jewish people. Our tefilin says Hashem Echad , and God's tefilin says Mi K'Amcha Yisrael, Who is like the Jewish people , Goy Echad who is great like the Jewish people…that are connected to God like relatives. So God's Tefilin are full of praise for the Jewish people. Just like our tefilin praises Him, His Tefilin praises us. Tefilin signifies that connection. Therefore, when a man is in pain, it's as if, kal v'yachol, God's not connected. It means God's head and arm hurts. He doesn't feel the connection to the Jewish people when we're in suffering. And that's why the Benei Yisaschar says in Ma'Amar ה , of Hodesh Av, an unbelievable thought. Why is it that many people have the custom not to wear tefilin on Tisha B'Av? Because that's the day, that, as if to say, God's not wearing His tefilin either, because if we're in such suffering, obviously there's a disconnection. And therefore, we don't wear the tefilin. This concept, of looking at everyone as our relatives, is talking about a stranger. You have to treat a stranger like a relative. But it's more than that. The Gemara in Sanhedrin 76B says that someone who loves his neighbors, and Mekarev Et K'rovav/brings his relatives close to him, and he lends a poor man at a time of difficulty, on him, it says, ‘You'll call out and God will respond to you.' This is based on a pasuk in Yeshaya which is talking about what God wants on a fast day. He wants us to give to the poor. He wants to bring the poor into our homes. He wants us to cover the naked. And the words that say what God wants when He is talking about all this kindliness, is Don't ignore your flesh and blood On that, the Gemara says that you have to put extra emphasis on the relative . Sometimes we're nice to the strangers, but we don't have that same connection to our own relatives. As the saying goes, charity begins in the home. It's not enough to give that stranger money. But the Gemara says, Mekarev Et K'rovav bring your relative close. (Sanhedrin 76B explaining Yeshaya 58, which we actually read on Yom Kippur) A person may wonder- How come my prayers aren't being answered? Well, maybe because you're not being Mekarev Et K'rovav bringing your relatives close. There's a story of a rabbi who had a wife and bunch of young children. He was learning in a Kollel (and he eventually became a Rosh Yeshiva). Every day he would get there at a quarter to 10 when the Kollel started at nine o'clock. And the rabbi in charge of the Kollel said, “ Where are you?” He answered, “ Every day I leave my house, and I'm on my way to get here on time. Then I pass by a house with a widow with six children and I just can't leave. So I go h elp her get the kids ready to go off to school. And I get here to a quarter to 10.” “Oh wow! I'm sorry.” And then the young Kollel rabbi says, “ I want to correct this a little bit. It's actually my wife and her six children, but I can only help a widow? I can't help my own wife? That's the concept Mekarev Et Krovav Have a wonderful day.

We're continuing this concept that the Jewish people are connected to God cause we're related. The pasuk in V'Etchanan 4,7 says כִּ֚י מִי־ג֣וֹי גָּד֔וֹל אֲשֶׁר־ל֥וֹ אֱלֹהִ֖ים קְרֹבִ֣ים אֵלָ֑יו כַּיהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֵ֔ינוּ בְּכׇל־קׇרְאֵ֖נוּ אֵלָֽיו Who is a great nation that God is related to? Whenever you call out to Him, He responds. Which means that because we're related, He responds to our prayers. Asks the Brisker Rav on Shemot 33,19, What do you mean? Goyim can also pray and Goyim can do teshuva, as we see in Yonah. And in Melachim א chapter eight, Shlomo Hamelech says, וְגַם֙ אֶל־הַנׇּכְרִ֔י When the goy comes, his prayer is answered. And Yeshaya 56 says, My house is the house of prayer for all nations. So we see that goyim can pray. So what does it mean that ‘O nly we are considered the ones to close to God and related to God and we can pray?' The Brisker Rav answers that the Gemara in Rosh Hashana, page 18 says, “ This power that responds to us always, is for the Tzibur /group There's a special power of a Tzibur . And when there's a Tzibur praying or doing Teshuva , it's immediately answered. That's the special power of the Tzibur. He says that only the Jewish people have the power of Tzibur . What does that mean? That means that regarding Goyim, when there are 100 people in a room, it's just 100 individuals in a room. There is no connection because they're not inherently connected. It says their souls come from Olam HaPiud/ the world of separation . However, the Jewish people come from Olam HaAchdut/The world of connection. That's why the Jewish people are symbolized by Reshut Hayachid , private property , and the goyim are Reshut HaRabim/public property. All Jewish people are in one private household. We are one big happy family, whereas the goyim are out in Times Square, with no inherent connection. They're outside. So only the Jewish people have the power of the Tzibur . And that's the power of the 13 Attributes of Mercy, where it says V'Yaavor Hashem al Panav Va'Yikrah… the Gemara says that Hashem put on a Talet like a Shaliach Tzibur , and showed them the power of the prayer. He says, whenever the Jewish people sin follow this, And I forgive them. Why does the Gemara say that God was a Shaliach Tzibur? To show that this is a power that only works with the Tzibur . That's why we can only say the 13 attributes of mercy with 10 people in the room. If you are stuck at home praying, you have to say it with proper te'amim/cantillation. You can't say it alone, because this is something that is only said by a Tzibur . And like it says about Yaakov Avinu, 60 soul (written in singular) whereas regarding Esav, it says 6 souls , because their souls are individuals. They're not connected. There's no power of a Tzibur . A Tzibur is everyone together. A pneumonic of Tzibur צבור is צ דיק ב נוני ר שע Tz addik, B enoni, R asha, all Jews are together in one Tzibur . When we come to pray on Yom Kippur, we let everyone in. We allow even the sinners to come in, because we need the power of Tzibur . And that is because of the concept of Am Kerovo , We are the ones that have the power of closeness, of relation, as one body, as one soul of the Jewish people. And we have to act like that. We have to treat every Jew like that. Because if we don't act like that, we don't arouse God acting like that as well. Have a wonderful day.

AY 331 We are all Related We're talking about trait number four of God, called L'she'erit Nachlato, which means Hashem considers the Jewish people as His relatives. And regardless of what they're doing or not doing, or what they're deserving of, He can't see their pain and has to alleviate it. How does that apply to us? Says the Tomar Devorah, That's how we have to act with our friends, because we are all connected, our souls are connected. Our bodies might not be connected, but our souls are connected. He says that's why there's a concept in Shevuot 39A, כל ישראל ערבים זה לזה We are all responsible for each other. Why? In his words, “ Every person has a piece of his friend inside of him. I have 600,000 pieces inside of me. And therefore, when I sin, I'm impacting all those other 600,000 pieces of my soul that everyone has inside of me. The reason someone else can say kiddush for me if I need to hear it is that he has a little bit of me in him, and I have a little of him in me. We're all connected, we're all related. That's why we're responsible for each other. If I see someone else sinning, I can stop him, because when he sins, it's making a hole in my boat- again, because a little bit of him is inside of me. This is an unbelievable concept. And it's not just poetic prose; this is real fact. Anytime a rabbi adds the word mamash , it means for real. That means we're not saying this in poetry. We are for real. We are really considered relatives. He says, מפני שממש יש בכל אחד חלק אחד מחבירו For real , each one of us has a portion of our friend in us, and if that's the case, I have to want the benefit of my friend, and my eyes should be good on my friend's respect, as dear as mine. Why? In his powerful words, שהרי הוא – הוא ממש ומטעם זה נצטוינו He is literally me. And that's why V'Ahavta L'Re'echa Kamocha-I have to love my friend like I love myself, because his good is my good and his loss is my loss. Therefore, I want my friend to be successful. I don't want to ever say anything negative about him. Just like God doesn't want to see our degradation, or our pain and negativity, because of the relationship. And that's how we have to treat each other. Again, when we see someone else in pain, וירע לו ממנו כאלו הוא ממש היה שרוי באותו צער או באותה טוב I have to feel like I'm in that same pain, and the opposite, if he's celebrating, I have to celebrate as well. This are unbelievable concepts that we have to really put into our consciousness. This is not just a flowery way of speaking. If we had eyes to see, we would see the connections, and the feelings that we should have, should be based on that real connection. Have a wonderful day.

We continue in the 13 attributes of mercy, as delineated by Rav Moshe Cordovero in his sefer Tomar Devorah . We are up to trait number four, L‘She'erit Nachlato . She'er means relative, like She'er Besaro , and Nachlato means an inheritance. God looks at us as if we are She'er Basar/ we are related t o Him, and Nachlato , we are His inheritance. And therefore, God says, What should I do to the Jewish people? They're My relatives. As God refers to the Jewish people in Shir Hashirim , They're My daughter and My sister, My mother. Tehilim 148, 14, calls the Jewish people relatives- ישראל עם קרובו Yisrael Am Kerovo Karovo can mean close to, and Karov is a relative. God says, We're related. And if I'm punishing My relative, it's hurting Me. What am I gaining? The pasuk in Yeshaya 63,9 says בכל צרתם לו צר In all of the Jewish people's pain, there's pain to God. Furthermore, it says in Shoftim , 10,16 ותקצר נפשו בעמל ישראל which Rashi explains as God , kal v'yachol, didn't have space in Hid soul in order to tolerate watching someone else suffer. He didn't have room for it, so to say. God didn't have the space, even though they were wrong, and even though they deserved it, God couldn't see their suffering and therefore He had to end it. This is an unbelievable concept. We spoke about Savlanut , which was the beginning of this discussion. We have to be Sovel when our friend insults us or hurts us. But when it comes to seeing the Jewish people in pain, in his words, לפי שאינו סובל צערם וקלונם, מפני שהם שארית נחלתו: God cannot tolerate, God cannot hold seeing Jewish pain and disgrace because we're related . Sometimes you just can't watch. Recently, I had to go to a doctor with a male relative, and as he was being checked, I couldn't stand in the room, and not because of any tznuit reasons. I just couldn't bear to see the wound that he was showing to the doctor. It hurt too much. So too, Hashem, kal v'yachol , can't see the pain, but God can't walk out of the room. So what does God have to do? God has to relieve the pain. That is the trait of God called L'She'erit Nachlato. A nd before we apply it, let's just reiterate this concept. In a pasuk in Devarim, 4,7 it says, כִּ֚י מִי־ג֣וֹי גָּד֔וֹל אֲשֶׁר־ל֥וֹ אֱלֹקים קְרֹבִ֣ים אֵלָ֑יו Who is great like the Jewish people, like God, Who is (not close to us, says the midrash, but) related to us . And the Yerushalmi in Masechet Rosh Hashana says, People like to recognize their wealthy, prestigious relatives, not their poor unknown relatives. But Hashem doesn't work that way. He says, Am Kerovo . I don't care where the Jewish people are holding, they're My relatives. They're my close kin . And that's the way we have to deal with all Jewish people. B'Ezrat Hashem, we will apply this to the Jewish people, and develop this concept more at length. Have a wonderful day.

We continue going through the sefer Tomar Devorah, which talks about God's Thirteen attributes of mercy and how we are supposed to emulate them. We are up to the third Middah, which is called the V'Over Al Pesha / He passes over sin. . “ This is a great attribute, ” says the Tomar Devorah, “ because God's forgiveness is not through a messenger. God Himself forgives ," as it says Ki Imcha Haselicha/With You, is forgiveness. And what is the Selicha ? God washes away the dirt of the sin… and he quotes two Pesukim: Yeshaya 4,4, אם רחץ ה׳ את צאת בנות ציון “If God will clean and wash the excrement of the daughters of Sion,” and Yehezkiel 36, 25 says, וזרקתי עליכם מים טהורים I will sprinkle upon you purifying waters. And that's what Over Al Pesha means, that God Himself cleanses the sin. When a person sins, it creates negative forces. It creates dirt, smells, odors. It's not something that we can pick up on, but actually, in Parashat Toldot, when Esav came in to Yitzhak, it says he smelled the smell of Gehinom that came in with him. And when Yaakov walks in, he smells the smell of Gan Eden on him. This is because our sins and our Mitzvot produce different forces, different energies. In the Sephardic prayers on Rosh Hashanah, it says, “ My sins, if my friends would smell them, they would run and stay far away.” Sins smell. And not only doesn't God walk away from us, but He, so to say, changes the diapers, which is something that only a mother does. Rav Yitzhak Blazer gives the mashal that if a stranger saw a child that was all soiled, he'd walk out to the other room. He wouldn't want anything to do with him. Only a mother comes in with love and a hug. Ignoring the smell, she cleans the child in the most delicate of fashions, until he comes out sparkle and clean. And that is , kal v'yachol, what Hashem does for us. He cleans up our mess. Now, what does that have to do with us? Says the Tomar Devorah, That's the way man has to act. He shouldn't say, ‘I have to fix what he messed up?' No. A person has to say, ‘if God Himself cleans up our mess, we have to clean up the other person's mess.' That means, practically speaking, that if somebody causes a problem in a business, in a school, etc, you are now going to go and fix up their mess. That takes a tremendous amount of self-control. And sometimes it's a situation of I told you so. You many find yourself in a situation where you tried to avoid the problem, but the person didn't listen to you and created a mess. But you are not just going to let them sit there and suffer. You're going to pull them out of their mess. Raising children definitely gives many good opportunities for this Middah. This is one of God's attributes, and the more that we arouse our merciful attributes, the more God arouses His towards us. Have a wonderful day.

We've been talking about the concept of כל העושה עבירה קונה לו קטגור אחד Whoever does a sin buys (or creates) a negative force. But since we don't like to end on a negative, let's flip to the positive side of this: When a person does a mitzvah, he creates a positive force. As the Mishna says, he gets a defense attorney. As we say in our prayers, “ There should stand up, a defense attorney for us .” An angel that's a defense attorney is created from our Mitzvot. The Sefer Ya'avetz, from one of the great rabbis that survived the Spanish Inquisition, says Listen to the the story of Masechet Chagiga: There was a man that only knew one tractate- Chagiga, and he reviewed and reviewed it anytime he had an opportunity, his entire life. He never stopped. When he passed away, he was not near his family. So God sent an angel that looked like a lady, and this lady was crying, “ My husband, my husband .” Everyone gathered around as the lady cried so bitterly, and said, “ My husband respected me. He never forsook me my whole life. He treated me properly…bury him with great respect.” They asked her what her name was and she said, “ Chagiga .” An interesting name. They did some research and found out that this was not his wife. They found out that he had been learning Masechet Chagiga his entire life. This man had created an angel from all his Torah learning. And he says, that's what it means that הָעוֹשֶׂה מִצְוָה אַחַת, קוֹנֶה לוֹ פְרַקְלִיט אֶחָד. He who does one Mitzvah, acquires one advocate. The Maharsha points out that the pasuk says, “ Someone who comes to do good, to purify himself, they help him.” He says it should say God helps him. Who is they ? And he explains that when a person thinks of doing a good deed, that in itself creates positive angels. In plural- 2 angels. It says, “ They help him.” How? They help him to continue the act fully. And that is the positive side of our ability to create forces-it may not be directly connected to Ahavat Yisrael, but it's an important lesson, nevertheless. We should not just focus on the negative angels we create with our Averot , but focus on the positive angels we create with our mitzvot. Have a wonderful day.

We continue in the Sefer Tomar Devorah, discussing the traits of God that we have to emulate. Trait number one was God's level of tolerance and patience, which we call Savlanut . Trait number two is called Noseh Avon , which literally means to carry a sin. The term first shows up when Kayin tells God, “ Is my sin too great to carry?” Simply, it's poetic, But the Tomar Devorah explains that when a person sins, he creates a negative force, like the Mishna in Avot 4,13 says, One who sins (buys or) creates a prosecuting angel. As we have discussed, nothing in this world can remain alive without Somebody , namely God, keeping it alive. So that prosecuting angel goes in front of God and says, “ So-and-so created me, and I need to be sustained. ” Really, God should say, “ I'm not sustaining a negative force that I didn't create. Go to the one that created you, and he will give you sustenance.” Depending on the level of sin, the sustenance of the negative angel might be the person's arm, leg or whatever is required in order to satisfy this negative angel's need. But God doesn't do that. Rather, He carries and tolerates the sin, like He does with the rest of the world. He feeds the sin. Angels live off of heavenly food, and this angel that was created by our sin is fed by God. We created him. We created a negative angel, and yet God feeds him. For how long depends on one of three things. He says, -When a person does teshuva, that causes the negative force to disappear, -or the man will suffer in this world -or he will suffer in the next world. We don't want either of those options. We prefer Teshuva. But until that happens, it could be years that God is sustaining this angel. That's what Kayin meant when he said, “ Is my sin too great to carry ?” and the Midrash Tanhuma says on that, “ You're able to carry (sustain) the whole world and my sin is too heavy? You can't take care of it?” What a tremendous amount of tolerance, to continue to sustain the negative force that the person created. So what is the application to man? If someone wronged you, and the person's negativity is still there, nonetheless you continue to allow him to, and sustain him, even though he is working against you. For example, if a worker was stealing from you, and you still payed his paycheck. Of course, that's an extreme example. We will continue to discuss this, but essentially, being Noseh Avon is when someone is doing something negative, and even though he continues to do negative things, you carry him. We might not do this with our workers, but we do it with our children. We will continue to carry a child and sustain him, even when he's acting in a way that we don't agree with. And that's really a trait of God. Have a wonderful day.

We've been discussing the Middah of Savlanut , which means to tolerate or be patient . Another term for this trait is Ma'avir Al Midotav , which literally means someone who lets his Middot “pass.” Rashi describes it, in Masechet Rosh Hashana 17A, as Not being exacting, not being measure for measure to those that pain him. He lets his middot go, and he just keeps going. He just moves on. And if that is the way the person acts, then God's justice isn't exacting with him, it just keeps moving as well. So Maavir Al Midotav means to move on. You just move on. You don't get stuck. And what's reward for it? Number one is that his sins are forgiven. But there's another reward: The Gemara in Masechet Chagiga 5A, discusses a person that, for some reason, dies before his time, as the pasuk says, “ Sometimes people go before their times.” The Gemara asks, what do we do with those extra years? And it says, If there is a Talmid Hacham/Torah scholar who is Maavir B'Mileh, (which Rashi says means Maavir B'Midotav ), they give those extra years to him. Unbelievable! Based on this, I saw commentary from the Maharam Shick (a student of the Chatam Sofer) that says that in the Torah, Pinhas is described with his whole lineage- Pinhas ben Elazar, ben Aharon HaKohen. Why do we give this whole lineage? It says, because the tribes were disgracing him, “ Oh, his father, his grandfather, fashioned idols for Avoda Zara…who does he think is?” Everyone was disgracing him, and yet he didn't respond. Here's a man that did the greatest act and saved the world. And yet everyone taunted him. What did he get? Et Briti Shalom . He got the Covenant of Peace, which the Seforno says is Peace from the Angel of Death. That's why Pinhas became Eliyahu, and he'll live forever. Why was that his reward? The explanation is unbelievable – All of those 24,000 people died before their time because they sinned. They had been allotted a certain amount of years and died early. So what happened with all of those years they lost? We can estimate that was about 20 years x 24,000 lives, That's tens of thousands of years! Pinhas, the one who was disgraced and didn't say anything, got all of their years, and that's why he'll live forever. Unbelievable! What a tremendous incentive to be Ma'avir Al Midotav! Have a wonderful day.

We've been talking about Hashem's tremendous patience and tolerance, and how even though we sin, God continues to bestow His bounty and blessings upon us. The Hovot Halevavot, in his Shaar Cheshbon HaNefesh section (chapter 3, 6th calculation), says, “ If any of our limbs would not do what they're supposed to do, for example, if the ones that are supposed to be moving would stop, or the ones that are supposed to be stopped would move ( Like we say in Asher Yatzar, if one of them opens, that is supposed to be closed or closes that's supposed to be open), we would lose our ability to live, and yet the limbs keep going. He says, Really when a person doesn't follow God, then the limbs shouldn't follow him. If he's not listening to His creator, why should his limbs listen to him? He gives a mashal of a king who commanded some of his servants to carry one of his ministers across a river. He instructed his servants to be very careful as they crossed the river, that the minister shouldn't get hurt or fall. And while the servants were carrying the minister, the minister also had a responsibility. He had to take a flag and wave it back and forth as they went across the river. The servants followed their part of the deal, they carried the minister across the river very carefully. But the minister was asleep the entire time. He did not do his job. He did not wave the flag. So one of the servants said, Dear minister, you are ignoring the king's command. Why aren't you concerned that we'll do the same thing and also ignore the king's command? His command was that we should watch over you. And just like you're not following, we won't follow. And if we don't follow, you're going to fall into this big river and die a horrible death. Do Teshuva and repent immediately and ask God for forgiveness. And just like we're not ignoring the king's command, neither should you . Says the Hovot Halevavot, that's what's going on with us. Our limbs continue to follow the rules and regulations, our stomachs digests the food, our eyes see, our ears hear...and so on and so forth. They're following their command. Yet we might not be doing what God told us to do with our eyes. We might not be doing what God told us to do with our ears. We might not be doing what God told us to do with our throats and tongues and so on… That is the tremendous patience that God has, that ultimately He is the one that controls the servants. The servants don't have a mind of their own, the limbs don't have a mind of their own, and yet they continue to follow their command, even though we don't necessarily follow ours. Again, all of this is to teach us how much patience God has, and how we should emulate God's patience.

We are now going through the sefer Tomar Devorah , which talks about God's 13 Attributes, as mentioned by Micha. The first is called Mi El Kamocha/Who is a God like You, the point being that God has tremendous tolerance and patience for His creations. Even though they act in a rebellious way against him, God continues to shower His kindness upon them. We will give some examples of what God does, in order for us to learn to emulate Him. In Beresheet (3,21) it says that after Adam and Chava sinned and realized they were naked, God made for them leather garments, וילבישם V'Yalbishem/And He clothed them with them. It doesn't say He made clothing L'lbosh/ for them to wear , like is used in Bereshit 28, 20, where Yaakov Avinu asks for Beged Lilbosh/ clothing to wear , but rather it says clothing that He actually clothed them in. Hashem made them clothing and clothed them. What is this pasuk trying to say? Rabbenu Bachye explains that God wanted to show not just that He created clothing for them after they sinned against Him- Because God should technically say, Hey, you realized you're naked? You made yourself feel naked! Figure it out yourselves- But No, God went and created clothing, and He did not just create the clothing and put it on the rack- VYalbishem . He actually put the clothing on them, so to say. It was also, as Rabbenu Bachye says, להורות על אהבתו וחמלתו על יצוריו To show God's love and compassion for His creations, שאף על פי שחטאו לא זז מחבבן והוא בעצמו השתדל בתיקונם And even though they sinned He did not stop from showing them endearment. And He Himself, tried to fix the problem that they created. God could have had someone else do it. He goes on to say that this too is the way God acted with Adam HaRishon's future generations, in the desert, as we mentioned last week. Even after they sinned the sin of the golden calf, God continued to bring the Manna down, and did not stop showing His endearment to them. Furthermore, he says that at the splitting of the sea, the Jewish people went into the sea with an idol! There was an idol called Pessel Micha, as it says in Zechariah 10,11, ועבר בים צרה זה פסל מיכה. צרה זו עבודה זרה In the ocean, passed a Tsara, which literally means a co-wife , which means competition for God. The Midrash explains that it refers to Pessel Micha. And yet God split the sea. And to this point, Daniel said (9,7) לך ה' הצדקה ולנו בושת הפנים: You God, have the act of charity, And we are embarrassed. We are embarrassed because God continues to shower His blessings on us, even when we sin. And again, the main point is to emulate God, and see how we can relate that to people that have wronged us, and continue to act benevolently to them.

We continue to talk about God's tremendous tolerance, patience and acceptance of disgrace. We go back to the pasuk in Nehemiah (chapter 9), where he is giving a speech to the Jewish people and he says the words ואתה מחיה את כלם God gives life to all, and it continues on, as we know in our prayers, with: You are the one that chose Avram and took him out of Ur Kasdim and gave him the name Avraham, made a Brit with him.. and so on. until it says, You split the sea and the enemies were thrown into the deeps like a rock in the waters . That's the end of what we say in our prayers, but the pasuk continues -perek ט pasuk יב - And You guided them with the cloud and a fire at night and You came down on Har Sinai, You gave them the Torah and You gave them Shabbat and You gave them manna from the heavens. and You gave them water from the rock and they didn't want to listen. They did not remember the miracles that You did. They were stiff necked and they wanted to go back to Mitzrayim. But you, God, are a God of mercy, a God that forgives, a God that's Erech Apayim that has patience and takes a long time to get angry, V'Rav Hessed, VLo Azavtam/ and You did not forsake them even though they sinned against You. And now for our powerful pasuk: אַ֗ף כִּֽי־עָשׂ֤וּ לָהֶם֙ עֵ֣גֶל מַסֵּכָ֔ה וַיֹּ֣אמְר֔וּ זֶ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ אֲשֶׁ֥ר הֶעֶלְךָ֖ מִמִּצְרָ֑יִם וַֽיַּעֲשׂ֔וּ נֶאָצ֖וֹת גְּדֹלֽוֹת Even though they made a golden calf, and they said, “This is your God that took you out of Egypt” And yet, with Your great mercy, You did not forsake them in the Midbar. You could have just turned off the a.c. The cloud did not stop from guarding them, and the cloud of fire did not stop at night. Unbelievable! God continued to direct them in the desert, even though they were sinning at that very moment! That is the tremendous level of disgrace that God takes. Rashi in Yehezkiel ( 16, 19) says, The day the Egel was made, the manna came down, and they actually put the manna in front of the golden calf! And even so, God gave them manna the next day Can you believe that? The manna was going to the Egel , and God continued ton give them the manna. Unfathomable! This is how far God's tolerance and patience goes. Not humanly comprehendible. And yet we have to try our best to emulate that…

Today's class is dedicated in memory of my uncle, Albert D. Sutton, Avraham Ben Emma a'h May this class should be an Ilui Nesham for him. We're discussing the trait of God, that He has tremendous tolerance because He's constantly being disgraced. In his Sefer Shaar Hayirah, on the topic of fear (10th chapter), the Reshit Hochma, (a student of Rav Moshe Cordevero, author of the Tomar Devorah), says that a pious man once said, Don't rebel against your master when he is watching you . The only problem is, God is always watching us- so never rebel. And he says that every breath that we take is really a breath of God. As the pasuk says in Devarim 8,3 כִּ֛י עַל־כׇּל־מוֹצָ֥א פִֽי־יְהֹוָ֖ה יִחְיֶ֥ה הָאָדָֽם׃ Man lives from what emanates from the mouth of God. That means that every second we're living not off the food that we eat, not off the drinks that we drink, but from the fact that God is putting energy into us. That was the lesson of the manna . God is the One that's giving us energy, not anything that we eat or drink. And if that's the case, he says, all of our breathing should be for God. That's what David Hamelech's final words in Tehilim meant: Kol Ha Neshama TeHallel Ya/ All souls should praise God. The Midrash Raba says that Neshama can be read as Neshima - as in: For every breath we have to thank God. Because every breath that we take is a breath of God. That's the biggest sign of how frail and feeble we are. We are fragile. If we don't breathe for a certain amount of time, we can't survive. But who's putting the oxygen into us? God is breathing oxygen into us. And he goes on and quotes his Rabbi that God is called the God that's disgraced, for the reason we discussed previously, that God is giving us the energy and we sin with the energy He gives us. He gives a mashal of a king that gives his servant money to buy bread in order to live on. But instead of buying bread, the servant uses the money to buy a stick, and then he hits his master with the stick- the stick that he bought with the money that the master gave him! Is there any servant worse than that? That's God. He gives us our life. He gives us our breath. He gives us our energy to use for ourselves to serve Him and ultimately be rewarded. And instead, we buy a stick with it, and hit Him and work against Him. And yet, with all that being said, God continues to ignore, to have patience and tolerance, and continues to benefit us. And of course, the ultimate lesson is going be that we, who are not a God, who didn't give anybody anything much, should have a level of patience towards those that torment us or go against us.

We've been speaking about the concept of tolerance , to be Sovel . As we mentioned from Rav Wolbe, a lot of this comes from the beautiful sefer Tomar Devorah, by Rav Moshe Cordevero, on the 13 attributes of mercy, based on the pasuk in Micha , Mi El Kamocha. The Pele Yoetz, under the topic of Devekut , says that a person should read the Tomar Devorah once a month, and try his best to live up to these Middot of Hashem. In Arot Elim, another sefer by the Pele Yoetz, he includes a shorter version of these 13 attributes, in order for one to review constantly. Furthermore, Rav Yitzhak Blazer, the great student of Rav Yisrael Salantar, also known as Rav Yitzhak of Peterburg, made a list of kabalot , as many great rabbis do, and on his list of things to work on was to work on his Ahavat Habriot/ loving your fellow people, and he too said that the way to act on this is to constantly review the sefer Tomar Devorah . So if that's the case, we are going to try to do that; to work on the 13 Attributes of Mercy as they show up in the sefer Tomar Devorah. The first thing Rav Cordevero writes (in what we'll call the introduction), is that a person is supposed to emulate his Creator, as it says when man was created, “ Let us make man, with our form and our image.” That means, in a sense (and of course it doesn't really mean this), man is created in the image of God. We can imagine a man up there in the heavens, and there are certain, traits that are symbolized by that. Of course, God is not anything physical or human, but we are , in some way, in our form and our image, like God. But he says that it's not enough to, so to say, look like. The main thing, he says, is to act like, and that's the job of this pasuk , Mi El Kamocha; to act like God, not just to have the potential that we were, so to say, created in His image. We have to act in that image. We have mentioned this recently, but we're now going to go into it in depth. The first Middah is called Mi El Kamocha / who is like You. This means that Hashem is what he calls Melech Ne'elav, a King that's disgraced, Sovel Elbon/God tolerates disgrace, to a point that's not fathomable. And he makes two points: 1-nothing is ever hidden from God's supervision, without a doubt. 2-there isn't a second that man is not being sustained from the sustenance that God gives him. And therefore, it never happened that man sinned, and at the moment he was sin, God was not giving the ability to sin against Him. God tolerates this and continues to give His bounty and allow the person to move and function. It's not that God can't stop it at any second, because He can, as we see from the story of Yeravam, who had a sudden stroke. God should technically say, “If you're sinning, sin with your power, not with Mine.” Yet God continues to give His bounty, which is not fathomable. That's why God is called me Mi El Kamocha . The term El means both Baal Hessed and powerful . That means God gives Hessed, and He can take it back, but He doesn't. Before we go further into how a human being is supposed to act, we will expound upon the point of God constantly pumping energy into creation. It's the pasuk in Nehemiah, perek ט that we say every single day. אַתָּה־ה֣וּא ה׳ לְבַדֶּ֒ךָ֒ (את) [אַתָּ֣ה] עָשִׂ֡יתָ אֶֽת־הַשָּׁמַ֩יִם֩ שְׁמֵ֨י הַשָּׁמַ֜יִם וְכׇל־צְבָאָ֗ם הָאָ֜רֶץ וְכׇל־אֲשֶׁ֤ר עָלֶ֙יהָ֙ הַיַּמִּים֙ וְכׇל־אֲשֶׁ֣ר בָּהֶ֔ם You made the heavens and the heavens above the heavens, and all the hosts, the earth and everything that's upon it (lions and tigers, bears), the oceans, and everything that's inside of them ( all the deep sea creatures). And now for the four magical words: וְאַתָּ֖ה מְחַיֶּ֣ה אֶת־כֻּלָּ֑ם And You constantly give life to all of them. וּצְבָ֥א הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם לְךָ֥ מִשְׁתַּחֲוִֽים׃ And that's why the heavenly beings bow to You . Because they know how much You are responsible for creation. In another sefer, Pardes Rimonim, written by Rabbi Cordevero (6 th gate, 8th chapter), he says, that this is the meaning of וּבְטוּבוֹ מְחַדֵּשׁ בְּכָל־יוֹם תָּמִיד מַעֲשֵׂה בְרֵאשִׁית God is constantly renewing creation. Because every day, God is pumping energy in for that day. And if God would not decide to rejuvenate creation, everything would stop. Before we go on to how human beings should be tolerant, we're going to further study God's level of tolerance.

We've been talking about the trait of Savlanut/ tolerance . Rav Wolbe, in his sefer Alei Shur ( vol 2 page 216), says that first a person has to condition himself to get the idea of tolerating others. But he says, a person also has to learn how to tolerate himself. What does that mean? Sometime a person is trying to work on a trait, such as tolerating people. He decided, “ Hey, that's a great thing to work on. I really need to work on tolerance. I don't have tolerance for people,” and he's been working on that for the past few days. He is going to see that he is not as strong as he thought he was. You really can't beat this bad trait so quickly. So you might forget about it. You might not be so stable and you'll get Yetzer Hara attacks. So now what? He quotes a midrash, which is also quoted by Rabbenu Yona in Shaar Teshuva ( Shaar 2, אות כו ), explaining the mishna in Pirkei Avot: וּכְשֶׁאֲנִי לְעַצְמִי מָה אֲנִי, כְּשֶׁאֲנִי לִי לְהִשְׁתַּדֵּל לְתַקֵּן נַפְשִׁי בְּכָל כֹּחִי, וַאֲנִי הוֹגֶה בַּחָכְמָה בְּכָל עֵת, מָה אֲנִי, כִּי הַשָּגַת הָאָדָם קְצָרָה וְדַלָּה, וְעִם הַטֹּרַח וְהַתִּקּוּן יַשִּיג מְעַט מִן הַמַּעֲלוֹת. רְאֵה מִי אֲנִי וּמֶה חַיַּי כְּשֶׁאֲנִי לְעַצְמִי לְהִשְׁתַּדֵּל When am I for myself, what am I? Even when a person tries to fix himself, with all his strength, and is constantly working on myself, still he says, What am I? Because of my abilities are limited. With all the hard work I put in, I'm only going to produce a few good qualities. He gives a mashal of a very low grade field. Even with all the hard work you put in, and all that you do to try to fix it, it's still only going to produce a very small crop. But if you don't work on it, then it's only going to produce weeds and thorns and thistles. And he says from Avot D'Rebe Natan perek טז on the Pasuk in Tehilim (103,14), where David Hamelech says כִּי הוּא יָדַע יִצְרֵנוּ God knows our Yetzer Hara, that it's comparable to a king that gives a field to his servants and tells them to guard and watch it, and bring 30 pounds a year. And they work hard but they can only bring five pounds. The king asks,” What's going on? What'd you do? I asked you for 30 pounds!” And they say, “ Our master, the king, the field that you gave us is a very low grade. We tried our hardest, and with all our hard work, this is all we produced.” This is an important concept, says Rav Wolbe This field you gave us, it's low grade. And therefore, he says, “ Woe to someone that doesn't have tolerance with himself, who is very quick to despair from service of God entirely,” someone who says, “ Forget it. I tried to work on tolerance for two weeks and it's not working.” Even if he doesn't despair, when he pushes through, he's going to be depressed. And there's nothing that ruins service of God more than being down and depressed. He says, Human nature, is that when we start serving Hashem, we want fast results, instant gratification. We think, “I heard that you're supposed to pray with kavana, so I'll just try, and Boom! I'm going to be able to pray all my prayers with kavana from beginning to end. And one by one, I'm going to go through Mesilat Yesharim and knock off every Middah. If I just stick to it by the end of the year I'll be a Gadol Hador.” Then, how despaired and frustrated we become when we don't see it happening. So we have to realize this important rule- that in everything that we're trying to do, slow and steady wins the race. You can't overload, you can't exaggerate. As the Gemara in Kedushin (17A) says, If you try to grab a lot you're not going grab anything. And if you try to get a little bit, you can get that little bit. And even with that little bit that we can do, we're going to stumble and mess up. But don't despair. Keep pushing forward. Now, at the same time, there is a catch: Don't now be overly tolerant with yourself and just accept the situation and become apathetic to change. Don't say, “ Okay, that's it. I got a garbage field. I'm not working. I'm just going to sit down and throw in the towel.” No, I have to keep working steadily at it and fall and get up. As Mishleh says, (24,16) The Sadik falls seven times and he gets up . And if we stick to it, eventually we will be successful. That is this important rule called Tolerance with yourself. Have a great day.

We continue to discuss the topic of Savlanut , which we translated literally as to carry, to tolerate and to be patient with situation s that not to our liking. The Gemara in Masechet Shabbat brings the following braita: Those that are disgraced and don't disgrace back, that hear their disgrace and don't respond, that serve God out of love and are happy with yisurim/suffering. So these are three areas of tolerance; being tolerant of insults, or disgrace or tolerating suffering. And on them, it says the pasuk in Shoftim - And those that love God, it will big will be like the sun in its full shining. We mentioned in the past that the sun is the fullest expression of energy, yet here the person is seemingly not doing anything, he's being quiet, but that quiet has the greatest of energy. Rabbenu Bachye in Parashat Vayikra (perek א pasuk ב ) explains as follows: He says that, as we know, the sun and moon were originally equal. Then the moon complained and said we can't have two equal kings. So what did God do? God made the moon smaller and the sun bigger. Rabbenu Bachye says that we see from this that the sun didn't respond, and because the sun was quiet while the moon was disgracing, it, the sun was rewarded and the sun shined. Therefore we say of the people that keep quiet, God will reward them with shining. The Chida says something very interesting ( Vayikra 10,13). He quotes from the Mesorah, which is an early Midrash that lists certain times that words show up on a rare occasion, always a theme. The word under discussion is Vayidom , which means to be quiet . The word Vayidom only shows up twice in Tanach - once in Vayidom Aharon, and another in Vayidom HaShemesh. Vayidom Aharon is when, lo alenu, Aharon loses his two sons on the opening day of the Bet HaMikdash, and he's quiet. He doesn't say anything. He just, so to say, tolerates that difficult situation. And Vayidom HaShemesh/ the sun was silent when Yehoshua stopped the sun. Why does it say the sun was silent? Because the sun, just by following its regular orbit, sings praise to God, is praising God. When it stops, the praise stops. So the sun is silent from its praise, so to say. That's the simple explanation. But the Chida has a deeper explanation, and says that the commonality between the two is that just like the sun was silent way back when, in creation, the moon asked how there could be two equal kings (the moon wanted to be in charge, but the sun was quiet), and because of that, the sun ended up shining, so too for Aharon. When he had this great challenge in life, in the words of the Chida, “ Due to his great piousness and humility, he didn't have anything to say. He was just quiet. ” And therefore, Aharon HaKohen ended up shining like the sun. Aharon HaKohen was shining because of the fact that he, like the sun, was Sovel/ tolerant, patient and held onto his difficult feelings. He was tolerant, patient, and held on. We add one more piece, from the Kurazi, written by Rav Yehuda Halevi as a conversation between the king of the Kuzars and a rabbi. In it, the rabbi says that Hashem says, “ I'm proud of the Jewish people.” And the king says, “ How could that be? How could God be proud of people? That doesn't sound right.” And the rabbi explains, “ If someone said, ‘God is proud of the sun,' would that bother you?” And he says, “ No, that makes sense. Look what the sun does. Look how powerful the sun is. The whole world is living from the sun, the plants…everything needs the sun. Of course God should be proud of the sun.” So the rabbi says that the human beings that are spreading the word of God, the human beings that are acting in greatness, they're greater than the sun. And if God can be proud, so to say, of the sun, he should surely be proud of people. After the Rambam quotes this Gemara in the laws of De'ot, perek ה , he says that a person should be from the people that are insulted and and not respond, etc. And he says on them, the pasuk says, “ You are the Jewish people that I'm proud of. ” So God is proud of the Jews. When is he proud of us? He's proud of us when we're quiet and we tolerate. Have a wonderful day.

We've been talking about tolerating this week, and Rav Wolbe talks about how to view somebody who is suffering with physical or emotional distress. He brings the Gemara in Masechet Shabbat 88B that discusses.. those are disgraced and don't disgrace others , people that hear the disgrace and don't respond.. As two examples of people that tolerate. This term is used in connection with humble people like Moshe Rabbenu, that were disgraced and didn't respond. It says, On God, he's disgraced . But then it says, Someone that serves God with love, and he's happy even when he's suffering. The pasuk says on him, they shine like the sun, shining like the sun that's fully kinetic; it's not potential at all. It's being brought out totally. One might think, he says, that shining like the sun would be said about someone who's a super do-er, someone that's fully active, someone like the Energizer battery that doesn't stop, that just like keeps on moving. Yet, it's this fellow, that's tolerating, whether it's the man tolerating disgrace and insults, or the man that's tolerating yissurim, on whom he says that these are the strongest men of all. Furthermore, the Gemara in Chulin 89A says, The world stands on somebody that's able to muzzle their mouth at a time of argument. So again, that's being Sovel something, to hold it inside. He says, We look at somebody who's suffering ( suffering as in physical and emotional pain) There are people that are, Lo Alenu , depressed, suffering with bipolar or all kinds of emotional illnesses, and they're regular people. They're not crazy. They're people that are suffering with mental illness. And we look at them as, in the Arabic terminology, hazit, or Yiddish, as nebach . You don't look at them as the strong men. But in Rav Wolbe's words, It's possible that man that can tolerate is greater than the greatest activist. He says, God should save us from suffering. But we have to know that the one that's holding (he uses the word holding rather than tolerating), the pain, and holding with happiness is not broken . He is a Gadol of Gedolim. The man that's lying in bed is not doing anything. But he might be on a higher level than the most wealthy in actions. David Hamelech says in Tehilim 119, 71, טֽוֹב־לִ֥י כִֽי־עֻנֵּ֑יתִי It was good for me that I was suffering, Rashi says It was good in my eyes, Sovel yissurim . In modern Hebrew the the word Sovel has loosely become to suffer (Google translates the words Sovel Yissurim as Suffers agony) but it really means, as we said before, the ability to carry the load of yissurim, tolerate or more correctly, to hold the load of suffering. The greatest of the great are Sovel Yissurim . The Gemara in Sanhedrin says Mashiach is sitting at the gates of Rome, being Sovel our sins. And the Tiferet Yonatan in Bamidbar (chapter 3, pasuk 5) says that Paroah's reason for not causing the Levyim to be under the heavy load was that he wanted to make sure the Mashiach wouldn't come. The Savior wouldn't come from the Levyim if they were not suffering. And in the words of the Tiferet Yonatan, If he's not holding or suffering the yissurim of the Jewish people, he's not fit to be Mashiach. The ultimate greatest man, the Mashiach, is the man who is Sovel Yissurim . So therefore, when we, or others, are being Sovel Yissurim , has v'shalom , we should understand that it's no simple matter. It's the sun at its brightest. It's the strongest and greatest level, to be a true Sovel . Have a wonderful day and a Shabbat Shalom.

This week has been dedicated to the topic of Sevel/ tolerating. Rav Wolbe, in his sefer, Aleh Shor, says that we need to dedicate a special focus on Savlanut - tolerating situations or people- when it comes to our family. Because the more contact you have with somebody, the more you need to train yourself in tolerance. Your family is not like a friend that you meet from time to time, that occasionally might arouse some kind of uncomfortable feelings or frustrations. A family, and a household is constant. It's not just a good friend or a good neighbor. So how do we do that? He says that the focus of a person's marriage has to be developing this trait of tolerating , but not just tolerating an occasional line or whatever it may be. It means tolerating this person, carrying them through life. Rav Wolbe says that when a chatan would ask him what his focus should be on the day of his wedding, while standing under the chuppah , Rav Wolbe would say, “ You know what you should think? Think of carrying the yoke of a wife till 120, in all situations. And never take that yoke off.” He said that he bases this on a pasuk in Eicha (chapter 3, pasuk 27) ט֣וֹב לַגֶּ֔בֶר כִּֽי־יִשָּׂ֥א עֹ֖ל בִּנְעוּרָֽיו׃ It's good for a man to carry a yoke when he is young. And the Midrash Raba there says, Ol Isha/, the yoke of a wife. That means marriage. And it goes both ways. Each one is carrying the other one. And he says, That's why, in Hebrew, we call marriage Noseh Isha , Nisuin Literally, it means Carrying a Wife, because marriage means carrying one another throughout life, through every situation. This person is different than you. That's just the way it is. You're going to find different things (he's talking to men here), Your wife is late. She likes to talk a lot. She's lazy . It's hard for her to say goodbye at weddings …. (One of the challenges of separate weddings is that you can't find your wife. There are always men waiting outside for their wives. That's the way it is. You make up to meet with with your wife at nine o'clock but there's no time…) That's the way ladies are. Men are from Mars and women are from Venus. So the Martian has to carry the Venetian, and the Venetian has to carry the Martian. They're just different. And if you don't have that understanding, you're in big trouble. As we mentioned from Rabbi Ades, when a person walks into their home, it's an opportunity. It's an opportunity because it's a challenge. What's the challenge? The challenge is that people are just different. Men and women- every man and woman are different. And he says, people might have a challenge in their marriage and think, “ If only I could switch that other person,” but he says, This is not about one person or the other. This is universal. People are different and people have to carry each other. And the way to do that is a pasuk Mishleh 10,12, וְעַ֥ל כׇּל־פְּ֝שָׁעִ֗ים תְּכַסֶּ֥ה אַהֲבָֽה On all blemishes or lackings, cover with love. Before a wedding, women put on makeup, base and all the layers on top, to covers things up. Well, there's a makeup and base for a marriage. It's called Love . וְעַ֥ל כׇּל־פְּ֝שָׁעִ֗ים תְּכַסֶּ֥ה אַהֲבָֽה׃ You have to cover it all up , And you have to know that this person is for you. That is the way to have a successful marriage. He says, “ It's impossible that they won't be revealed- extreme counter forces, polar opposites, in traits, and how to deal with things.” There are different ways of dealing through life. Do you have a set bedtime or don't you have a bed set bedtime? How do you discipline? Do you discipline? What do you do? There are endless differences. How long should a meal take? Some people like to sit at a Friday night meal for four hours. Some people want be there for one or two hours. That's why there are so many fights about going to the in-laws. Everyone does things differently. Well, that's part of marriage. You're carrying your wife and you're carrying your in-laws. Carry means to tolerate . Tolerate doesn't mean ouch . We aren't talking about the guy that's lifting weights and collapses under them. We are talking about the guy who's lifting the weights, just standing there with a smile on his face. He's able to carry the load. This is what Shalom Bayit it is based on. His words are Kol Shalom Bayit Mushtetet, which means foundation, and it's all about tolerance and patience. If you don't have patience and you don't have tolerance, you've got a big problem. So that's what we're working on. Have a wonderful day.

We are talking about the trait of Sevel , which is important for good middot/character traits. We have also discussed that it's important for menuchat hanefesh/serenity . But when we talk about the term Menuchat Hanefesh , it's not just about the concept of the peace of mind. There's a term choli hanefesh/ referring to someone whose soul is sick, which is a term for mental illness. And Menuchat Hanefesh is the ultimate mental wellness. So let us discuss the concept of tolerating , as it refers to mental illness, and how this trait of Sevel will help us. One of the most common mental challenges of our time is anxiety. If I call someone close and dear to me on their cell phone three times, and they don't answer, anxiety creeps in and I start to worry. What happened?? Were they kidnapped? Were they in a car accident? Who knows what happened Has V'Shalom…they didn't answer their phone three times! That's anxiety. But anxiety is a human phenomena that God put into us for a good reason - so that we should be concerned in dangerous situations. Otherwise, we'd just run into the street. So we need anxiety. The problem is when it gets blown out of proportion, when a little pussy cat looks like a tiger. And many people now have anxiety disorders. What exactly is going on? Anxiety comes from the inability to tolerate uncertainty- the uncertainty is there, but can we tolerate it? And we stress the word tolerate . You have that anxious feeling, but can you just hold it? There are two approaches to anxiety in therapy. One, more well known, is called CBT, Cognitive Behavior Therapy. The other, a little bit less known, is called ACT, which means Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. The difference, in one sentence, is that CBT works by helping you identify and change negative or destructive thoughts, whereas ACT holds that pain and discomfort are a fact of life, which means acceptance of the fact that there is a certain feeling of uncertainty involved. I'm not even going talk about it. I'm not going deal with it. I'm just going to say it's okay to have that anxious thought.. It goes even further to the extreme that none of us has ever experienced, but I heard from a psychiatrist that people have what's called psychosis , which means they're suffering from delusions or uncomfortable thoughts. They're aware of these thoughts, but more than the thought itself being a problem is the inability to tolerate the thought. One of the therapy techniques is to tell the person, It's okay. You're going have this feeling that the floor is shaking under you, or that you're hearing voices, but it's okay to hear voices, just accept it. Baruch Hashem most people don't have to deal with that, so we won't focus on that. Then there's depression. Being depressed means having feelings of sadness. And what gets you more than the sad feeling is the inability to tolerate the sad feeling. Another pertinent term, created by psychologist Albert Ellis, is Low Frustration Tolerance or LFT . Someone with LFT is unable to tolerate unpleasant feelings or stressful situations. Ellis' theory is that this is one of the main aspects of emotional unhealthiness, because we tend to seek instant gratification to avoid pain. But ignoring the fact and evading the situation now will just make it more problematic later. We all want avoid stressful situations. He theorizes that this is the main cause of procrastination. When people put things off, it's because they want to avoid a difficult situation that gives them discomfort. So we want to push off anything that is not comfortable, because we can't tolerate it. That means we'll push off dealing constructively with the problem. Sometimes it means ending an unpleasant relationship, improving unhealthy lifestyles, moving on from dissatisfying jobs. All these things take going through an uncomfortable situation. People that suffer from ADD, may feel road rage. Or they can't wait on a line. But what's really going on is that for them, it's extremely uncomfortable. Another example is when our kids are bored. What do we try to do? We try to get the kids un-bored, but one of the training approaches says it's okay to be bored. Just hold on, and tolerate boredom. Finally, we have our favorite study, the Marshmallow Test, in which a psychiatrist took 50 children of ages four to five, put them in a room, and told each child that they could either have one marshmallow now, or, if they chose to wait 60 seconds, they could get two marshmallows later. And you watch the kids on video during those 60 seconds… some children popped the marshmallow in their mouth right away. Some kids licked it, or touched it. Other kids sat on their hands to try not to eat it. Some kids walked around the room The children were revisited 15 years later, and the study found that the children who had the self-control to wait for two marshmallows when they were young were found to have scored higher on their SATs, and were accepted into colleges more frequently. The children that couldn't wait and stuffed the first marshmallow in their mouth were in drug rehab or had other types of problems. And what's the basic principle? The children that could wait, were able to tolerate that uncomfortable feeling of wanting to eat a marshmallow and not having it- that's what self-control is all about; Tolerating the uncomfortable feeling. So this is really Kol HaTorah Kulah on one foot- the ability to tolerate uncomfortable situations.

We are continuing with the theme of being Sovel / Tolerating x. We quoted the Elder of Kelm who said that the trait of Sovel is the source of all good character traits (as we discussed in the past two lessons) and it's the source of menucha / serenity and peace . How so? A pasuk in Bereshit says, יִשָּׂשׂכָר חֲמֹר גָּרֶם רֹבֵץ בֵּין הַמִּשְׁפְּתָיִם: (טו) וַיַּרְא מְנֻחָה כִּי טוֹב וְאֶת הָאָרֶץ כִּי נָעֵמָה Yisachar is like a donkey with strong bones, he sees that serenity and tranquility is good. And what does he do? וַיֵּט שִׁכְמוֹ לִסְבֹּל : He tilts his shoulder to carry the load. This pasuk is the first time the word Sovel shows up in the Torah, and Rav Sadok HaKohen says that the first time something shows up is the source of the concept. Yasachar is the tribe who carries the load of Torah. Very nice. He carries the load. But what does that have to do with peace and tranquility? If someone wants peace and tranquility, they don't carry a load, They sit down and relax, seemingly . But Rav Yerucham Levovitz (a student of the Elder of Kelm) says in his Sefer Da'at Torah that people make a mistake- they don't understand how character traits work in the human psyche. They think that menucha , emotional tranquility comes from giving the body rest. But it says it's the exact opposite. If your tranquility comes from physical contentment and fulfillment and having everything that you need, that's the source of all confusion . It's the source of the opposite of menucha . If you are only used to serenity under certain conditions, and you need to have all those conditions met to have serenity, then when you don't have those conditions, you're going to be totally out of whack. For example, if you only know how to fly business class, you're going be quite miserable when you fly coach. If want train yourself to be able to enjoy a flight, train yourself by sitting in baggage class. If nothing bothers you, then you have menucha . I remember an older man from Europe who lived in Brooklyn, named Mr. Lowy. It was a cold day, and he walked with a limp and I said, “ Mr. Lowy, Why don't you go to Florida? Why are you in this cold weather in Brooklyn? Take a vacation.” And he said, “ I went through Siberia during the war time, through Russian winters without a coat. I'm in America now. And I have a coat- that's a vacation!” And that's the point. If you went through Siberia, you don't need Florida. And if you need Florida, you're actually not having Menuchat HaNefesh. When you come back from Florida, you start being feeling even more miserable about the cold in Brooklyn. So feeding your wants, he says, is like trying to put a fire out with oil. Yes, for a moment, the fire will go down, but it comes back even more fiercely. It's like trying to quench your thirst with salt water. For a moment it works, but then you get even thirstier. So what do we do? He says, Look to the outside world- how do they train a soldier? They don't train a soldier by giving him air conditioned cockpits. The Navy Seals have to go through a very heavy training course with no pleasures or extras . And then they are able to have clear minds and fight in all situations. He says that's what it means that Yisachar saw menucha is good. He saw what menucha means. He said, If want to have menucha, I have to be Sovel. I have to be able to tolerate difficult situations . The Mishnah in Pirkei Avot says (chapter 6, mishna 4), What is the way of Torah? Eat bread with salt, have water in a measure, sleep on the ground and live a life of pain. And then you'll toil in Torah . And that's menucha , because you don't need anything else. You've trained yourself to survive on less. He says that today in the world, we are so fragile. He says, a chatan that is missing his cuff links can't handle it. We can't handle when every little thing doesn't go exactly the way we like it to. We think that we're making ourselves stronger and better by putting recessed heat in the bathroom, on the tile, so when we get out of the bathtub , our toes don't get cold… and everything that we have. We're constantly trying to avoid things, because we don't know how to tolerate them . We don't know how to tolerate. We're not talking just about tolerating insults- that was yesterday's class. We're talking about tolerating anything that doesn't go right. How do we tolerate pain? We take aspirin, or go running for a shot. But this inability to tolerate causes a lack of peace of mind, and not the peace of mind you would think. It's a heavy concept, to be continued...

In our previous lesson, we spoke of the trait of being Sovel , which we said has different meanings in English- either patience, tolerance of pain or carrying a load . And we explained from Rav Wolbe that there's really one theme. One who is patient, or one who is tolerating pain is, in essence, carrying a load. There's that that need to react, that uncomfortable feeling that you're just holding inside of you and being Sovel , carrying the fact that this person is dealing with you in a certain way. The Elder of Kelm says that this is the source of all good Middot and Rav Wolbe brings a source for the Elder of Kelm, from the Sefer Tomer Devorah , written by the great Kabbalist Rav Moshae Cordevero, where he discusses the 13 Attributes of Mercy delineated by the prophet of Micha. And the first trait is called Mi El Kamocha, Who is a God like You? He says that God is a King who is disgraced. He is Sovel Elbon / God carrie s or tolerates the disgrace in a way that's not humanly fathomable. And he makes two points. Point number one is that there is nothing that God does not supervise or see. Point number two is that there isn't a second that man is not being sustained by God. So when we put that together, the equation comes out that at the very same moment that any one has ever sinned against God, God continued to pump energy into to the person. That means God allows the person to sin against Him, with the very energy that God gave him. Imagine someone driving a car that is controlled by you. You have to hold the button on you computer control system to control his car, and you're watching him on a video camera. He's about to make a left turn, but you told him to make a right turn. What would you do? You'd take your finger off the button and not allow him to take the left turn. But God doesn't do that. God allows the person to sin. He says, Don't think God can't stop a person; He can cause a stroke in a millisecond, just a little microscopic brain clot and it's all over. And yet God continues to mashpia . That is, in his words, Savlanut / tolerance, patience and carrying, that cannot even be described. And that's Mi El Kamocha means. Who is a God like You? Who is a God that continues to bestow His bounty, even though He has the power to hold it back. And yet, God waits and is Sovel until the person repents. And he says, This is a trait that a human being has to have, Savlanut , to be disgraced and embarrassed to such an extent, and continue to bestow your bounty. And Rav Wolbe says, this is really a step further than the previous level. The first level is if somebody upsets you, someone says something that's upsetting or frustrating and you don't respond. You don't explode. This is more than that. He says, To continue to bestow goodness means you smile at that person. That's your goodness. He says, God is Noseh Avon/He carries the sin and without that the world would seize to exist. So too, he says, a person has a world around him; his coworkers, his siblings, his parents, his spouse, his teacher, his students. All of these people are his world, and they do upsetting, frustrating things and you have to hold it, he says. Otherwise you're going destroy the world around you- just like there comes a time when a Hashem doesn't hold it, and that destroys the world, such as in the Dor HaMabul and Dor Hapalaga . For whatever reason, there comes a point in time where God doesn't hold it anymore, but we have to hold it, or it will destroy the world around us. And the example is, imagine you're having a meeting and somebody walks in 15 minutes late. So you could explode, but you didn't. But did you give him the same smile and hello as if he came on time? Sovel is to the extent that I continue to bestow my favor on that person, and he still gets the same warmth and smile, because I'm using the trait of God, Who continues to benefit us, even when we go against Him. And it takes the trait of Savlanut . Have a wonderful day.

This Saturday night is Hoshana Raba, which is connected to Achdut . Rav Yerucham Olshin, in his Sefer Yerach L'Moadim (page 533) explains a fascinating concept. In Parashat Ki Tetzeh (21/13) the Torah tells us about the Yefat Toar, וּבָ֥כְתָ֛ה אֶת־אָבִ֥יהָ וְאֶת־אִמָּ֖הּ She cries over her father and her mother. The Zohar tells us that this is symbolic of the Jewish people doing teshuva , crying in the month of Elul. The father refers to God and the mother refers to Knesset Yisrael, which literally means the gathering of the Jewish people . The Sefer Shelah HaKadosh explains that although the Jewish people down in this world look like they're separate, in the heavens above, in the secret of their souls, they're really united and they're one. So when there's a separation down here amongst Jews, it impacts a separation in the heavens above. As such, there are two aspects of teshuva. One is to fix the sins that impact on our relationship with God, and the other is to fix the sins that cause of the separation between the Jewish people. He says that the first 10 days are Aseret Yeme Teshuva, but there are another 10 days from after Yom Kippur to Hoshana Raba. The first 10 days are to work on our disconnect with God, and the second 10 are to work on the disconnect from man to man. This continues the theme of unity that we've been talking about until now, with the Lulav and Etrog , Aravot and Hadassim that symbolize unity, and also the Succah- as we mentioned, the whole Jewish people could fulfill their obligation with one Succah. He adds a beautiful thought: on Hoshana Raba, which is the final judgment day, we bang the Aravot because symbolize the lips. What do the Aravot have to do with lips? Mainly, we are talking about fixing the divisiveness among the Jewish people, which is all about Sinat Hinam , and the Chafetz Chaim says that the main cause of Sinat Hinam is Lashon Hara. Therefore, our job on Hoshana Raba is to fix our lips. That's the Aravot . And as we mentioned in the past, we are supposed to bang the “lips” on the ground. If someone says something that bothers you, what should you do? Put dirt in your mouth, put a cork in your mouth. Don't respond. That's the fixing of the lips. And he brings down a beautiful thought from the Gaon of Vilna. There are different areas where our speech is made- we pronounce things with our teeth, with our lips, with our palate, and our throats ( the tongue is in a separate category as it's the main part). The letters that come out of the teeth are Zayin, Samech, Shin and Resh. Then we have letters that come from the lips. Bet, Vav, Mem and Peh . Then we have the letters that come from the Palate-the Gimmel, Yud, Chaf, and Kuf . The Alef, Heh, Chet and Ayin come from the throat. (The tongue letters are Daled, Tet, Lamed, Nun and Taf ) He says that the word Succah has a letter from the four enabler units. It has a Samech from the teeth letters, It has a Vav from the lip letters. It has a Chaf from the palate letters and the Heh from the throat letters. The point is that we're trying to fix the different parts of the body that are involved in speech. Because, again, the main theme of Succot is to fix the divisiveness that's comes from speech. One last little tidbit is that on Shabbat Mincha we say Atah Echad V'Shimcha Echad, Umi K'Amcha, Goy Echad B'Aretz. You are One, Your Name is One, and who is like your people Israel, A unique nation on earth? Why do we say this on Shabbat? One explanation is that when the Jewish people are goy echad b'aretz/when we are united, then it brings about that Hashem Echad U'Shmo Echad. Since Shabbat Mincha is a time that symbolizes Mashiach's times, that is why we talk about that concept. (There are three Shabbats, that we've mentioned in the past- the Shabbat of creation, the Shabbat of Torah, and the Shabbat of Mashiach). The Shabbat of Mincha is the Shabbat of Mashiach, so we talk about the Jewish people being united. That will bring about the Oneness of God and the Oneness of His Name. So B'Ezrat Hashem, we will dedicate ourselves, this Shabbat and the following Sunday, to being cognizant and introspective of the concept of Lashon Hara and B'Ezrat Hashem that will give us a good final judgment. Have a wonderful day, Shabbat shalom and a pitka tava , which means a good note because the notes are given out on the judgment day of Hoshana Raba. All the best.

I'd like to put together two famous midrashim , to come away with a beautiful lesson in Ahavat Yisrael. The first midrash, which we've mentioned before, is that the Arba Minim/the four species correspond to four types of Jews. One of them, the Etrog, has taste and smell, which corresponds to a Jew who has Torah (which is taste) and good deeds ( which is smell). The Lulav , which comes from a date palm. It has flavor (from the date) but no smell, corresponding to our Jew who learns Torah, but does not do good deeds. Our next Jew is the Hadas , that has a good smell but doesn't have any flavor or any fruit. And that's why it says Esther is Hadassa . Because a lady's job is to do maasim tovim/ good deeds, not necessarily to learn Torah, therefore she doesn't have the fruit. And lastly, we have the Arava that has no taste and has no smell; that's the Jew that doesn't have either Torah or good deeds. We put all four species together and that creates the unity of Jewish people. Then there's another midrash that says that the four species correspond to four main organs in the body. The Lulav , which stands tall, corresponds to the spine, the Etrog , the pri etz hadar/ the beautiful fruit symbolizes the lev / heart . A “ Lev Tov encompasses everything” The Hadassim that look like eyes correspond to our eyes. And the Aravot are our lips. And the Aravot become wilted first because our lips are the things that get us into the most trouble. “ Life and death is the hands of the tongue. ” So those are the four species as symbols of the four organ parts of the body. And now we take the next leap, which is that if we view these four species as one body (that's what these species symbolize- Each organ has its own function and together they create the human body), then our four types of Jews also create one body, called the Jewish people. And that's the Mussar takeaway. The Yerushalmi tells us that antidote for Sinat Hinam is to realize that we're all one body. And just like if the right heel stubs the left toe, the left hand doesn't go and stab the right heel for stepping on the left toe. It's all one body, that would be ludicrous. So too, the Jewish people are one body. So these two midrashim link together, looking at the four species as organs in a body, and the four different types of Jewish people, in a sense, also as organs of one body- the body of the Jewish people. That's the Achdut/unity lesson that we take from the four species, as it pertains to being a human body. Have a wonderful day and a Hag Sameach.

This Succot is a very special Succot, because it's a Succot that comes after Shemitta . The pasuk tells us in Devarim 31/10 וַיְצַ֥ו מֹשֶׁ֖ה אוֹתָ֣ם לֵאמֹ֑ר מִקֵּ֣ץ ׀ שֶׁ֣בַע שָׁנִ֗ים בְּמֹעֵ֛ד שְׁנַ֥ת הַשְּׁמִטָּ֖ה בְּחַ֥ג הַסֻּכּֽוֹת Moshe commanded them saying, “At the end of seven years, on Succot (in the year after Shemitta) gather the people.” So there's a special mitzvah, once in seven years, to gather the entire Jewish people. The king gets up and reads to them from Sefer Devarim . It's called Mitzvat Hakhel and it's done on the holiday of Succot. It's not a coincidence that Kohelet is read by many on the holiday of Succot, as Kohelet has the same word as Hakhel . What is it that Hakhel does for us, that specifically connects to Shemitta ? For one thing, we're joining and gathering everyone together. Rambam writes in Hilchot Hagiga (chapter 3, Halacha 6) that the king is a messenger from God, and we have to stand united, like at Har Sinai, with fear and trepidation. So every seven years, it's a repeat of Har Sinai, and that happens during holiday of Succot. What is it about the Succot specifically after Shemitta that allows us to have a repeat of Har Sinai? Rabbi Schorr, in his Sefer Lekach V'Libub , on the holiday of Succot (page 59), explains that there are things that stop us from achdut/ uniting . One thing is that we chase desire. As Rabbenu Yona says in Shaare Teshuva, based on a pasuk in Mishleh 18,1, “ לְֽ֭תַאֲוָה יְבַקֵּ֣שׁ נִפְרָ֑ד בְּכׇל־תּ֝וּשִׁיָּ֗ה יִתְגַּלָּֽע׃ One who is searching for desires becomes separated .” If I have my own agenda, my own desires, my own wants, that causes me to separate from people, because I'm being driven by the desire. And people that are driven by desire ignore other people's wants and needs. That's one reason why we get into divisiveness. The second reason is a lack of bitachon, a lack of relying on God which is a source of jealousy and hatred. When I rely on Hashem, I don't have jealousy or hatred, because I realize that everything comes from God, and I don't get into arguments. Shemitta gives us both of these lessons: Number one, we don't work for the year, and therefore we rely on God. And secondly, having a limited amount of food, and limited pleasures during the Shemitta year (because we're abstaining, because we don't have as much as we usually have in the Shemitta year), also bring us to achdut . It brings us to a unifying force. Shemitta has those two factors, and Succot further accentuates those two factors. As we mentioned, the holiday of Succot is about uniting in one Succah, and uniting the four species. The holiday of Succot is about bitachon, relying on God. So therefore, the holiday of Succot in a regular year is there to continue the important lessons of Shemitta, which we had last year. Now one might say, “ Hold on, I'm not on the Shemitta program. I live in America. My loans were canceled- I wrote a prozbul. I didn't have that either.” But, in the words of Rabbi Schorr, words that he wrote close to 10 years ago (which was before the Shemitta before this past one), discussing the previous Shemitta, “ The Hinam that we see in the year of Shemitta…God brings a tightening of parnasa on people even outside of Eretz Yisrael.” Unbelievable. If we would've known this, we could have shorted the stock market or something. If we knew that there'd be a recession, or inflation happening, because of Shemitta…wow! Why is it so? He says that it's because this is a year that you're supposed to work on Bitachon, and it's not only for the people of Israel but worldwide. We're going to have to work on our bitachon and relying on God, so things get tougher in a Shemitta year. Unbelievable. We were the beneficiaries of this past Shemitta, whether we lived in Israel or not, (especially those of us that helped support the Shemitta movement). So Succot is the time, especially after a Shemitta year, to further strengthen these two important points - of not chasing desire, - and relying on God. And with those two important points, we will strengthen our Ahavat Yisrael, our love for our fellow man. Have a wonderful day and a Hag Sameach.

Today we have another class on connecting the holiday of Succot to Achdut/unity . Yesterday we spoke about the actual Succah. But as we know, there's another Mitzvah on Succot, which is the Arba Minim , and they also symbolize unity. The four species, as the midrash tells us, correspond to four different types of people. Like the four species, there are some people that have taste and smell- Taste referring to Torah, smell referring to Mitzvot. Then there are people who have taste and not smell. Some have only smell and no taste, and others have neither smell nor taste. And each one of the four species corresponds to one of them. The Etrog has a taste and a smell. The Lulav has a taste and no smell. The Hadas has a smell and no taste, and the Arava has neither. And on the holiday of Succot, we bind them all together as a symbol that all the Jewish people need to be bound together and influence each other for the better. And why is it that on the last day of the holiday we bang the Aravot ? There's a joke about this, with either a positive twist or a negative twist depending on which camp you want belong to. The positive twist is that we bang the Aravot because this Arava , which has no taste and has no smell, and symbolizes the Jew who doesn't do enough mitzvot (that a smell comes from it), and doesn't learn Torah, now that he is bound together with the other three, he's so uplifted that now we can do a service with him alone. That's the upbeat approach. The pessimistic approach is that we tell the Arava , “ You've been around the three other types for a full week, and you still remain the same Arava with no taste and no smell? Now we're going beat you and you're going to get five lashes from being pounded on the ground. ” Those are jokes, but the bottom line, which is real, is that we want all Jews to unite together and to influence each other for the good on the holiday and therefore we have these sign of unity, firstly in the Succah, which we spoke about yesterday and symbolizes that all the Jews could be together in one Succah, and also have the four species, which represent the four types of Jews. Both aspects of the holiday have the symbolism of unity. Regarding Succot and Shalom , Rabbi Dessler explains that one of the reasons we have dissension is because we're focused on the physical aspects of this world, which causes jealousy and hatred, etc. But when we go out into the Succah and we lower our physical standards and don't stress worldly matters, it's a great source of bringing peace. That's why it's not just the Mitzvah of the Succah that has the power to bring unity. It's also the aspect of limited physicality that enables us to unify with each other. And that's the power of the Succah-That message of Succot, which he calls Bitul HaYesh nullifying the worldly existence, is the source of the shalom that the Succah has. And to continue with the shalom theme, it's no coincidence that the Succah that we sit in reminds us of the clouds of glory. The clouds of glory came in the merit of Aharon HaKohen, who was Ohev Shalom V'Rodef Shalom, he loved peace and chased peace , and therefore his trait of peace is infused into the Succah. Aharon was known as making peace among the Jewish people, and the Shalom Bayit of husbands and wives was enhanced by Aharon HaKohen. As it says about the Mitzvah of Succah, if it's done properly, it can help one's shalom bayit. So let us take advantage of all the shalom aspects of the Succah: -The unifying force of the Succah because all Jewish people could fulfill their Mitzvah in one Succah, -The unifying force of the four species, -The fact that we don't stress physicality, -And the spiritual force of Aharon Hakohen… All those factors together allow us to get the shalom , the peace of the Succot, and that's what we are aiming for. Have a Shabbat Shalom and a Hag Sameach.

Rav Chaim Pilaggi, in his sefer Moed L'Kol Chai ( chapter 20) discusses a beautiful concept connecting Ahavat Yisrael to the holiday of Succot , quoting from a rabbi called Lachmei Todah . He says that the Succah symbolizes unity, because it comes to remind us of the clouds of glory that engulfed the entire Jewish people and carried them as one unit . And that's why it says, “ The entire Jewish people can sit in the Succah.” The Gemara learns from this that technically, if you have a large enough Succah, the entire Jewish people could fulfill their obligation in one Succah. This hints at the unity factor of the Succah. Additionally, when the word Succah , is spelled סכה (without a Vav ) using the concept of Mispar Katan( reducing the number to its lowest value) , then the ס Samech which is 60, becomes a 6. כ Chaf ( usually 20) becomes a 2 , and the ה Heh is 5. 6+2+5= 13, the numerical value of אחד Echad / One . Again, this shows us that the Succah symbolizes unity. And the Gemara in Masechet Avodah Zara says that at the end of time, the nations of the world will complain that they want an opportunity to prove their loyalty. God will says, “ I'll give you an easy mitzva. It's called a Succah. ”Why is that the one? Because it's something that they can't connect to. They cannot connect that concept of unity. The Gemara says that the reason it's called a Mitzvah Kallah , a light Mitzvah, is that it doesn't cost a lot. How can that be ? Succot cost a lot of money. But the answer is that since all the Jewish people could chip in together, it would cost less than a pruta per person, (a small amount of money), so it really doesn't cost anything. Rav Chaim Pilaggi adds (and this is always the rule) thar whenever we're supposed to reach a certain level, there's a bigger test. And therefore, Rav Chaim Pilaggi says that at this time of the year, there are a lot of Ahavat Yisrael challenges. ln his times, people would fight over getting Aliyot, Hoshanot, or Hataneh Torah. Or more commonly, neighbors would have difficulty getting along, complaining about the Succah blocking them etc. Therefore he says, it's a Mitzvah to tell people that it's a time to have salvalut/tolerance, and that it's a time to increase peace, as we say, “ God spreads the Succah of peace upon us and all the Jewish people .” Amen. Have a wonderful day and wonderful preparation for Succot.

This is our final class before Yom Kippur, The Meshech Hochma in Vayikra (8,7) tells us how the process of the Kohen Gadol/ the high priest, brings the Kapara/atonement on Yom Kippur. He says that when the Jewish soul is disconnected from its physicality, automatically it connects to its source, which is God and this purifies, just like the law that impure waters that connect themselves to pure waters in a mikveh become purified (there's a concept called hashaka - they sort of say, kiss each other or meet together). So too, the Jewish people are connected to God. Bu how do we connect ourselves to God on Yom Kippur? He says, “ We have to connect ourselves to the Jewish people at large ,” because, (and this is a tremendous Hiddush) “ the Jewish people as a whole are constantly connected to God.” You, the Jewish people, are connected to God and you're all alive today. So, in order for me to get my Kapara , I must connect myself to God. But how do I do that? I have to connect myself to the Jewish people. And he says, That's why we give Sedaka and do acts of Hessed during Aseret Yeme Teshuva. Because that's the way to connect yourself to the Jewish people. And he says, it's like you're grafting a new sapling to an old tree.. (there's a law of Orla that within the first three year of a fruit tree, the fruit is called Orla , and it's forbidden to eat. But if you take a new sapling and graft it to an older tree that's more than three years old, the new sapling becomes part of the old tree). And so too, when we, as individuals, connect ourselves to Jewish people, we become purified, because we're connected to Jewish people that are constantly connected to God. That's what it signifies when the Kohen Gadol walks into the Holy of Holies. He's representing the Jewish people at large, and connecting them to God. What an unbelievable thought. Chacham Ben Sion brings down that especially on Erev Yom Kippur, a person is supposed to give charity. Everyone can find someone to give charity to today. There are many organizations. There are people that need money for Yom Tov. But if you're looking for somebody ( if it's not too late) call the Yad Yosef Torah Center and find Rabbi Ozeri. He always has a list of people to help. He's been giving out cards for Moisha's, a local, supermarket. This is not an appeal, but if you're stuck, you can always come to the Yad Yosef …we'll find somebody for you to help. The bottom line is that we must connect ourselves to the Jewish people. It's not just about me and you . It's about us . That's the secret to the purification process. And that's why you must ask forgiveness before Yom Kippur, because, as Chacham Ben Sion says, it's not just that if you don't ask forgiveness, you don't get forgiven on the man- to- man sense. There will be something lacking for your entire Yom Kippur; your whole Yom Kippur will be missing if you don't ask forgiveness from somebody; if you're not getting along with someone, it impacts your entire Yom Kippur.That's why it's a big thing to do today, Erev Kippur, to forgive people- even that guy that really wronged you. Great things happen when people forgive other people. Rabbi Spiro tells a beautiful story in his book, A Touch of Purity . He tells of a man who had a business partner who swindled him terribly. He was extremely upset and wanted to press charges, defame him, and really go to war. Not long after that, there was a Hatzalah ambulance in front of his neighbor's house, whose young wife, a mother of three children, was very sick with the disease. The neighbor came over and said, “ We're going to the hospital now. Could you please follow with my children in the car? I think they need to be near their mother.” So he takes the children to the hospital, and after a while they see that really there's no need for the children to be there. She's not going to need them. They stay a little bit longer, and then he ends up taking the children back home, giving them supper and helping them out. And he is just so overtaken by the horrible situation of this young family with a sick mother, that he bursts out crying and says to Hashem, “ I'll make a deal with You. This man wronged me. I'll forgive him. I'll forget it like it never happened. I won't press charge. I won't do anything. But please, grant this lady a refuah shelemah.” Not long afterwards, her condition started to improve. And almost miraculously, she eventually pulled out of it and was given a clean bill of health. That's the power of forgiving- It's not an easy thing, but that's what makes us part of the Jewish people. That's what gives us power. We see here that when you forgive somebody, you can ask for something for somebody else- What a powerful tool. Let us take advantage of becoming part of the Jewish people on the special, final day before Yom Kippur and make that difference. *The 10 Commandments correspond to the 10 days of Teshuva. The last commandment is Lo Tachmod/Thou shall not covet, don't want what other people have. Care about other people, forgive other people. Get along with other people. And that's the secret to our success. Have a wonderful, meaningful fast.

As Aseret Yeme Teshuva wind down, we have to realize how important our middot are. The Rambam ( in Laws of Teshuva chapter 7 Halacha 3) tells us, “ Don't say, ‘I only need to make teshuva from something that has an action such as …. I stole, I did ate something unkosher…' That's a mistake. “ Just like you need Teshuva from those, so too, you have to check your bad De'ot/mindsets.” We've mentioned in the past that the Rambam calls middot ‘De'ot/mindsets' because, as Rav Wolbe explains, it's really your mindset that determines how you're going to react. And what are those De'ot Ra'ot/ Bad mindsets that you have to do Teshuva from? -From getting angry. That's a very scary one. Is it on the list of teshuva? Yes. It's on our standard confession list. כעסנו We got angry -From hatred- hating somebody -From jealousy. These are all man-to-man middot issues, and most people don't put them on their list of things to fix. “ From all of these… middot issues, and he lists more… one must repen t. And he adds, “ For these sins ( he calls anger a sin, he calls hatred a sin, he calls jealousy a sin), “ it's harder to do Teshuva.” It's harder to do Teshuva from getting angry than it is from eating unkosher. Because when you get entrenched, or immersed in these, it's very hard to disconnect from them. “Let the evil man leave his way .” And when we say that the “ Rasha has to leave his ‘Derech' It means his path in life, which refers to middot . Middot are a path in life. But, as Rav Yisrael Salantar says, It's easier to learn Shas than it is to change one Middah. The reason for this is, like the Rambam is saying, an action is one thing. But Middot, or mindsets, as the Rambam calls them, are what modern terminology calls hardwired. It's the way the brain is wired. So you have to rewire your brain circuits on how to react. That's much harder than saying, “I won't do xyz.” Your actions are in your control to a certain extent, but the way you look at things, is more ingrained. We have spoken about the concept of reframing . To cause your brain to reframe how to look at things takes years and years of conditioning. If you go outside and it's a rainy day, do you think to yourself, ‘ It's a nasty day!' or do you say ‘ Rain is a blessing ?' That's hardwiring. Most people have been hardwired to say, Rain is nasty . When you get up and see it's raining, you think it's a horrible day. But you need to rewire your brain to say, Rain is blessing . That's much harder than deciding to keep chalav Yisrael or yashan. It's easier to decide to keep Yashan than rewire De'ot . But that's part of our responsibility. And we're talking about Ahavat Yisrael- a lot of which has to do with this kind of rewiring. All of that goes into Teshuva. As the Elder of Kelm says, You can't change in one day of Yom Kippur.” What you can do is commit yourself to say, ‘ I'm going learn about this topic. I'm going work on this topic, ' and that's the way you start Teshuva. Yom Kippur is a time to start to, so to say, right the ship, and put it in the correct direction. You're not going to get there on Yom Kippur, but at least you're going to put yourself in the right direction. Have a wonderful day.

In this week's perasha Vayelech , ( Devarim 31 6), Moshe Rabbenu says חִזְק֣וּ וְאִמְצ֔וּ אַל־תִּֽירְא֥וּ וְאַל־תַּעַרְצ֖וּ מִפְּנֵיהֶ֑ם כִּ֣י ׀ ה אֱלֹקיךָ ה֚וּא הַהֹלֵ֣ךְ עִמָּ֔ךְ לֹ֥א יַרְפְּךָ֖ וְלֹ֥א יַעַזְבֶֽךָּ Strengthen yourself and have courage . Don't be afraid, don't be broken in front of them, God is going with you. He won't let you go. And He won't forsake you. The Alshech points out that the pasuk starts off talking in plural. Hizku V'Imsu/ You should be strong, you should be courageous is written in plural form. Then it ends off with Holech Imach/ God is going with you,Yarpecha, yazbecha/ He won't forsake you in singular form Why this change in tense, from plural to singular? He explains that the Jewish people can be referred to as many , but that is not good. Like by Esav it says Nefashot , whereas by Yaakov Avinu it says Nefesh. When it says Hizku V'Imsu , in plural, that's not a good thing. It should be hazak v'imatz, which indicates talking to the whole Jewish people as one unit. Therefore, the Alshech says that when we are many and we're fragmented , then we need to have Hizku ; we need God to come and tell us to strengthen ourselves. We need Imsu / God should tell us to have courage, not to be afraid and not to be broken. But when we're Imach , when we unite yourselves and become one unit, then Hashem is with us, and there isn't even a discussion of fear. We don't have to say, “Don't be afraid,” because God is with you He's holding on and He won't let you become afraid or weak. That's the difference between individuals and the masses. And this is especially important at this time of the year, during Aseret Yeme Teshuva . We want to unite ourselves. And that way, we have ה אֱלֹהֶ֗יךָ ה֚וּא הַהֹלֵ֣ךְ עִמָּ֔ךְ God is going with us , in singular. Furthermore, the Sefer Yaarot Devash says there's a pasuk in Yeshaya, (60,21) that says, ועמך עלם צדיקים The entire nation is righteous. Even the empty ones are full of Mitzvot, like a Rimon . But that's provided that we are united. When we're united, the blemishes, so to say, go unnoticed. He gives a mashal : If someone is buying a large flock of sheep, he doesn't go and check every sheep individually for every little blemish or issue they may have. But if a person buys one sheep, then he wants to check if there's a cut in the lip, or there's a cataract on the eye, etc. He goes back to Haman, who wanted to wipe out the Jewish people, and said, “The Jewish people are scattered. ” And if they're scattered, then God will see their blemishes; to which Mordechai and Esther respond, “ Then bring them together, ” because when they're together, they're one unit and their blemishes are not as noticeable. And it's interesting- there's a famous Arizal on Yom Kippur- it says Yom Kippur is K'Purim/ it's like Purim . The obvious question is, How can we compare Kippur to Purim? Yom Kippur is the greater one. You say someone is as rich as Rothchild. You don't say Rothchild is as rich as somebody else. Rothchild is the epitome of wealth. It's not Rockefeller's as rich as some smaller wealthy man. So why do we say Yom Kippur is K'Purim/like Purim? They answer that Purim has that special quality where everyone's together and united. All of the things that we do, like Mishloach Manot, unite the people. And that's what we need to do. We hope that Yom Kippur is K'Purim/ like Purim , in the fact that we are united and we have that power of Knos et Yehudim/ gathering together, and that God sees us as one unit and doesn't see our blemishes. When God sees us as one unit with no blemishes, then God is with us; He doesn't let go and He doesn't forsake us. Have a wonderful day and Shabbat Shalom.

Yesterday we mentioned the importance of praying for people in need during Aseret Yeme Teshuva. Someone told me a beautiful thought: On fast days, we read Vayechal Moshe et Pene Hashem, Moshe prayed to Hashem (after the sin of the golden calf). The Rishonim discuss the exact etymology of “ Vayechal .” Normally, the word “ Vayitpalel” is used to indicate prayer. The Gemara in Masechet Berachot 32A explains that the root of the word Vayechal is chol/sickness, and that Moshe Rabbenu prayed until he felt sick over them. What kind of sickness? The Gemara says it was a fever of sorts, that makes the bones feel warm or hot. The Meshech Chochma says the term bones is used because the bones are the person's actual self. This means that Moshe Rabbenu felt their pain to the point that it was his own pain. Vayechal Moshe/ And Moshe prayed a prayer to the point that he felt sick. This is the high level of Moshe Rabbenu when he prayed for the Jewish people at large. The Gemara in Berachot 12B says that David Hamelech prayed for Talmedei Hachamim / Torah scholars that were sick. The term used is that he became sick over the Talmidei Hachamim that were sick. The Gemara explains that If someone is able to pray for his friend and doesn't, he's called a sinner. Rava adds that if the man is a Talmid Hacham, he has to get sick over him. This means he has to pray to the point that it bothers him so much that he literally feels the person's pain, to the point that it's like he's sick. Moshe Rabbenu prayed like that when he prayed for the Jewish people at large. So when we pray for the sibbur , which definitely has the power of a Talmid Chacham, we have to pray to that level. Rav Yehezkiel Levenstein brings down, regarding this perasha of Vayechal, that the reason that we read this on a Taanit/fast is because we want show that the salvation of Jewish people depends on having someone that feels their pain. That's the fundamental. Moshe Rabbenu was the ultimate Noseh B'Ol. He's the one who leaves the palace to see the Jewish people in their suffering… and throughout his life, the theme is always Noseh B'Ol/ carrying the yoke. Rav Levenstein says that this is to show the future generations, “ One individual, it's in his power to save, if he truly feels the pain of a fellow person, he can save them and that can tear up the decree.” And to this day, we're living off of that. Moshe Rabbenu went even further. He said, “ Erase my name.” That's how partnered up he was with their pain. And that's why we read this on a fast day, when we're fasting and feeling the pain. When you're fasting, you feel sick. That's what it means to to feel sick. To fast means to really feel the pain. We're going into Yom Kippur- a fast day, a day that we're supposed to feel the pain of the Jewish people at large. That's a tremendous Ahavat Yisrael takeaway. Our job is to reach the level Moshe Rabbenu. He was the one that undid the sin of the golden calf. How did he do it? Vayechal , by feeling sick over someone else's problem. Have a wonderful day.

I'd like to share a beautiful thought that Rabbi David Ozeri said over before the blowing of the shofar. Although we're past Rosh Hashana, we have Aseret Yeme Teshuva, just in case we didn't fix it all on Rosh Hashana. In the last year of the life of Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel, Rosh Yeshiva of the Mir Yeshiva in Yerushalayim, he got up to speak before the blowing of the the shofar on Rosh Hashana, and he said, “Do you know what kavana/ intent you should have when the shofar is sounded?” Most people think of all the different high and lofty things. But he said, “ Think about the person next to you. Think about the person near you who's crying. Think about the challenges and struggles of your neighbors and friends and pray for them.” That's an unbelievable thought. Everyone has what they call their bag of problems, their troubles, their difficulties. We know what everybody has, and we're thinking about ourselves. But he said No. Think about the other person. As we've said in the past, there is a principle that “Whoever has mercy on others, they ( in Shamayim) have mercy on him .” The Tiferet Shlomo said that the reason Rosh Hashana is called Yom Hazikaron / the Day of Remembrance is that it's a day when each and every one of us should remember our fellow Jew and pray for their wellbeing and safety. This is a wonderful means of creating unity, and enjoying Hashem's much needed mercy and bringing Beracha upon all of us. Rosh Hashana has passed, but we still have Aseret Yeme Teshuva. As we've said in the past, the Pele Yoetz wrote a prayer specifically designed to be said during Aseret Yeme Teshuva, because it's a time when we have extra power to pray (see below). It's a time when even the individual has the power of the sibbur/ the power of a group of 10 people . Therefore, we are elevated to the level of a Kohen Gadol of sorts, where the Kohen Gadol is held responsible if something happens in his proximity, because he should have prayed that it shouldn't have happened. We, too, have a responsibility to pray at this time of the year. You can't say, “ Who am I to pray?” You're elevated. It's Aseret Yeme Teshuva . You have extra power and extra abilities. This is what we should have done on Rosh Hashana, and that's what we can still do, during Aseret Yeme Teshuva, because what arouses God's mercy is when He sees that we care for others. Sometimes the way you show your concern is not by doing . You may see a person who has a problem, and there's really nothing you can do, but there is something to do. You can pray for that person. Let's try to do that for the next few days. Let us see who's in need, and let's pray for that person. Have a wonderful day. Link for Pele Yoetz prayer: https://www.learntorah.com/contentlibrary/guides/Peleh%20Yoetz%20for%20aseret%20yemeh%20teshuva.pdf

Rav Wolbe, in his sefer Alei Shur (vol 2, page 430) talks about what we're supposed to do as we prepare for the high holidays. He quotes a Ramban on the pasuk when God revealed Himself to Moshe and said one of His names, אהיה אשר אהיה “I will be that I will be. ” The Ramban says it means, “ The way you act with Me, I act with you. ” If you open your hands to give charity, I open My hands to give you. If you don't open your hands, I close My hands… it's the concept that God is called your Shadow. If you show a shadow your finger, the shadow shows back a finger. If you show the shadow a hand, the shadow shows back a hand. God's ways of acting is based on the way we act. There's a famous statement in the Gemara in Rosh Hashana, 17A: “Whoever is easygoing and lets things pass, God lets things pass.” This doesn't mean that God just forgets, says Rashi, but that God is not Medakdek / God is not exacting . You could be exacting, or you could be less exacting. You could find the minuscule mistakes in something, or you could just, so to say, not get as analytical . And he says, that is a great hope for us as we get ready for Rosh Hashana. We have to act with people in an easygoing way on Rosh Hashana; we have to be aware of getting angry or being Makpid , which means to get upset over a little things, for example, if somebody sat in your seat, bumped into you, or came late to the meal….etc. As we mentioned many, many months ago, every day, before you pray, the Arizal says that you're supposed to accept upon yourself the Mitzvah of V'Ahavta L'Re'echa Kamocha/to love your friend like you love yourself, and especially on Rosh Hashana. When start our Rosh Hashana prayers, we should think like that. A little later in Rav Wolbe's sefer (page 433), he says that on Rosh Hashana, we're careful not to eat anything that is sour or tart, because of the concept called Simana Milta , which means there's a, so to say, good omen when you do certain things. That's why we eat all those special foods, and why we stay away from the foods that we shouldn't eat. And we dip our bread (depending on the custom) in sugar or honey… But he says, if we're careful to have a good omen in what we eat, then it's surely so in the way we act and what we do… All of our actions have to be sweet.” It's not just about the signs and the symbols. This is an important concept to focus on, as we get ready for Rosh Hashana. And furthermore, Rav Wolbe says in his sefer (page 243), that it's quite difficult, in just a day or two before Rosh Hashana, to dive into this. Hopefully, he says, if we've been working on it all year, it's easier just to arouse it as we get closer. Those of us that get this lesson every day have been working on Ahavat Yisrael, and are aware of all these different concepts. So B'Ezrat Hashem, we will just be extra cognizant of how easy going and soft and sweet we have to be during the high holidays, being that the way we act is the way God acts with us. Have a wonderful day.

We are in our final middah called V'Nakeh , which means to clean; God cleans the sin. The Tomer Devorah explains that when God forgives, it's not through a messenger. God Himself forgives, like it says, “ With you is forgiveness.” Which means that God cleanses the sin. As it says in Yeshaya (4,4), אִ֣ם ׀ רָחַ֣ץ ה׳ אֵ֚ת צֹאַ֣ת בְּנוֹת־צִיּ֔וֹן "God cleanses the excrement of the daughters of Zion. That means God Himself, for lack of a better term, is, kal v'yachol, so to say, changing the diaper. He's cleansing the person. He's putting them in the shower, or in the bath. And that's the way a person has to act, says the Tomer Devorah Don't say,” Now I have to clean up his mess?!” Hashem does it, and we also have to clean up the mess that someone else made. Again, this will go back to God, who says about the Jewish people that we're a dear son; ‘ Yeled Sha'ashu'im /the child that He plays with, 'which means, as the Or Hachaim HaKadosh says (quoted by one of his students), that when a person has a young child, their “dirt” does not get the mother upset. The mother has no problem changing the diaper. It's her biggest pleasure. Why? Because she loves her child; Someone else's child, she might not be able to do that for. Hashem looks at us as His dear child, and, so to say, He cleans up our mess and our dirt, and it doesn't bother Him. He's happy to do so. That is part of what we have to do for our fellow, to have this Middah of V'Nakeh - that we're ready to clean up the mess, and more than that, we don't get disgusted by the other person's mess, because we love them like we love a child. These are all very high levels of Ahavat Yisrael. But again, the way we act and measure that's way God measures for us . These are the traits that we need to work on as we get closer to Yom Kippur , because that's what the day is all about. Repeating the 13 attributes of mercy, which were revealed to Moshe on Yom Kippur. And therefore, before Yom Kippur, we ask forgiveness from each other because we want to arouse God's forgiveness of us by us forgiving others. Have a wonderful day.

We are up to the final attribute. V'Nakeh which means that He cleanses . Nikayon means to clean. Rashi says that it means He cleanses those that sin from their punishment and from the sin, Rabbenu Bachye adds that it means that even if a person goes back to sin after teshuva and God had forgiven him, and he repeated this sin, God doesn't go back to the sin. Those sins have been forgiven and we start a clean slate. That's important, because although we don't plan on sinning again after Yom Kippur, and we really are serious about our teshuva, and we really regret, and we mean it, sometimes we fall back. But Hashem says, “ I forgave you. I forgave you.” You're clean. And again, we have to act like this with our friends. Sometimes someone asks you forgiveness, and you forgive them. But is it really clean? A great example of this Middah is the story with the Rav Moshe Feinstein. There was a man that was upset about a certain decision that Rav Moshe Feinstein made in Halacha. This man felt it was too liberal and he actually came out in a very disrespectful way against Rabbi Feinstein's decision. A few weeks or months later, this man needed a letter of approbation from Rabbi Feinstein for something. And he had the arrogance, so to say, to approach Rav Feinstein and ask for a letter- after he had done this disrespectful thing. Rav Feinstein happily gave him the approbation. When the man left, Rav Feinstein's son said, “ Don't you remember what this man did to you? Don't you remember what happened?” To which Rav Feinstein answered, “ Of course I remember, but Yom Kippur passed already, and I forgave him. ” This is very important. Sometimes we'll forgive somebody, but that doesn't really mean that we, as we say, “forgive and forget,”' But that is what V'Nakeh is, to forgive and forget. It's not in our minds anymore. It's a clean slate . It's a difficult challenge to really, truly forget what a person did to you and give them a clean slate and a new start, but that's what we want from God, so that's what we should do for others.

We continue with our 13 attributes of mercy. We last spoke about Noseh Avon, which means that God carries the sin; after we've sinned and created a negative force, God is the One that gives nourishment to the negative force. But, as we said, there are three terms for sin- Avon, Phesha and Chata'ah We say that in our confession Hatati, Aviti, Pashati, and we will explain how they're different: The commentaries are basically agreement a Chet is a sin that is done B'Shogeg/It was done by mistake. Even when a person does a sin by mistake, he needs to be forgiven. For example, if a person didn't realize that he couldn't do something on Shabbat, he still needs to be forgiven. That's a mistake. Then we have an Avon, which is a sin where, “I knew it was wrong. It wasn't a mistake, but I was driven by my desire. I couldn't control my desire. I just had to eat that slice of pizza. It was just too delicious.” That is an Avon. Phesha is what is called “to get God angry.” You weren't being driven by desire. You were just upset. You wanted to do it anyway. It wasn't an issue of desire. It was a sin that had no desire involved. You weren't in the mood, or didn't want to do what was supposed to be done. This is a bit more severe because you don't have the desire factor. But regardless of what kind of sin it is, God forgives. And again, we have to apply this back to people. People sometimes sin, and they say it was a mistake. And you say, “be more careful next time…” but it was a mistake. So we have to learn how to forgive mistakes. Then we have the sin of desire. A person sinned against you because he couldn't control himself. For example, you child could not control himself and he ate the cake that you made for someone's birthday party. Lastly is the worst of the sins, when there's no real excuse. Just somebody who did something wrong to you, without any real excuse, or desire, he just didn't care. There was no concern or respect for your feelings… And you'll still forgave him. Those are the three ways we emulate God. And again, as we always end off, the more we act that way, the more God reciprocates to us.

Yesterday we spoke of the trait called Noseh Avon , which means God sustains the sin. And the Tom er Devorah that told us that when a person sins, he creates a negative angel . God, instead of unleashing the negative angel on the person that sinned ( who is the creator , so to say of this negative force ) , God H imself sustains that negative force. He goes on to explain that that was the statement of Ka yin in Bereshit 4, 13, where he tells God, “ Is my sin too great to hold?” The M i drash exp ounds, “ Y ou're able to sustain the entire world , and my sin is too heav y? You can't sustain it until I do t eshuva?” That was the claim of K ayin after he killed his brother. So the Tomer Devor ah says, this is a tremendous level of tolerance and patience . He uses the term Savlanut Gedolah . Sovel means to carry a load. Here it means the load of this person's sin. And really , God should say, “ It's not my business. It's your business. ” How does this apply to us? And he says, “ F rom this , a person should learn how much he has to tolerate and be patient with his friend , to tolerate the iniquity and sin that the friend did to you, to the point that the evil is still there and you are actually fixing it for him. ” What does that mean? If somebody did thing wrong to you , and they're so to say suffering from it. Let's say they didn't listen to you. You gave them good advice , and they didn't listen to you , and now things are messed up . But you go and you actually continue to help them , even when they are si nning against you. There's a saying, “ You made your bed now sleep in it, ” which is an unsympathetic way of saying , “ You created a problem , it's your problem , Its not my proble m . Deal with it. ” That is not one of the 13 attributes of mercy. The 13 attributes mercy sa y “ You made your bed , but we aren't go ing make you sleep in it. ” Which means we'll help you out. We'll change the bed for you. We'll even c hange the sheets for you . E ven though you made the bed, we're not going to force you to sleep in it. That is this Middah of Noseh as it in, as it shows up in people. And again, the more that we do that to people, the more God acts that way with us.

We're going through the 13 attributes of mercy of God that are listed in the pasuk of El Rahum V'Hanun. We are now up to the middot of Noseh Avon, V'Phesha, V'Chata'ah, which are three separate Middot, the 10 th 11th and 12 th. V'Nakeh is the 13th. Avon , Phesha and Chatah are three different types of sins, so what exactly does Noseh Avon mean? (There are actually two listings of the 13 attributes. One shows up in the Torah and the other one shows up in the Navi. We say that one during Tashlich, “ Mi El Kamocha, who is like you, God, Noseh Avon, that carries sin.” Noseh Avon is the second in that listing, but the 10th in this listing.) The Tomer Devorah explains that Noseh Avon means to carry the sin. What does that mean? The Tomer Devorah explains an important principle: Everything in this world needs sustenance. Nothing in this world has its own independent existence, except God. When we sin, that creates a negative force, a prosecuting angel. (Mishna in Mesechet Avot) And angels also need sustenance. We might think that angels just fly around, but nothing survives without sustenance. It says the food of angels, a man ate. Moshe Rabbenu ate the food of angels in Shamayim . What's the food of angels? The Manna. It's a spiritual sustenance that the angels eat, and God sustains them. As we said, when a person commits a sin, he creates a negative force. Who is going feed that negative force? It needs to survive. So it comes to God like all creatures, and says, “ Feed me.” And God should say, “ I should feed you? Go to the one who created you, the sinner. Let him feed you.” But how do you feed a negative force? Well, if the sin causes the person to have suffering, for example, the sin causes that the man needs to break his leg, the angel sustenance is the broken leg. But God doesn't do that. God has patience, so we don't see the immediate reactions from our sins. That's God's mercy. We don't have Middat HaDin/ Justice. The letter of the law would say, just like when someone cuts his finger, he bleeds, or if a person with a nut allergy eats a sesame seed- there's an immediate reaction, so too, when you do a sin, there should be an immediate reaction. There's no patience, it just happens. And really, that's what should happen in the world of sin as well. There should be an immediate reaction, but it doesn't happen. What does happen is that God is Noseh Avon . He carries the sin. He feeds the sin. He sustains the sin. That is the trait of Noseh Avon . God sustains the sin. What does that mean for us? We'll continue tomorrow, B'Ezrat Hashem.

We are now on Middah number nine. As we said yesterday, eight and nine are connected. Eight is Noser Hessed/ God watches over kindnes s. Nine is L'Alafim/ for 2000 generations . How is that a separate Middah? The answer is that although we read them as once sentence- Noser Hessed L'Alafim/God watches kindness for 2000 generations, there is a difference between God's watching the kindness versus God watching sin. The pasuk, when it refers to sin, says, “ God remembers the sins of the fathers on the sons, and on the grandchildren, for three generations and four generations. ” So God remembers the bad for four generations (that is, if we continue sinning, of course) until He punishes them. So Rashi looks at the ratio of four generations to 2000 generations, and calculates that, “ God's good measure is better than His bad measure by a 500:1 ” ratio, because it says, “ God remembers the good for 2000,” whereas “God remembers the bad for four.” So four to 2000 is a 1:500 ratio. And that's Middah, number nine. When a person does good and bad to us, sometimes we focus on the bad. But we shouldn't. We have to turn it around. We have to focus on the good much more than we focus on the bad. Imagine a magnifying glass or reading glasses with different strengths from 1-4. You put on thr reading glasses, and you can see the bad four times greater; you focus on the bad a little bit. But when it comes to looking at at the good, you have this microscope that is able to enlarge things 500 times the amount. That's the difference of how you focus in the bad versus how you focus on the good,. There is a psychological term for this concept, as it applies to our brains, called unhelpful thinking styles, involving something called a mental filter, whereby people pay attention to failures and not to successes. When applied internally, certain people feel down because they notice their failures but not their successes. This mental filter works externally as well; when we look at other people. Do we use our mental filter to focus on one thing over the other? There are other psychological terms that apply- magnification and minimization . We sometimes blow things out of proportion or inappropriately shrink something to make it less important. These are styles of thinking, and we're supposed to use these thinking styles in our Middat of Rachamim. We're supposed to have the thinking style that minimizes somebody's bad and magnifies his good. I'm supposed to have a mental filter and notice the good things he does to me, and not the bad. Another unhelpful thinking style is called disqualifying the positive - disqualifying the good things that people do for us, that have happened or that we've done ourselves, thinking, “ That doesn't count. ” What counts is the bad things. These are all what we call thinking traps that interfere with us internally, but they can also interfere with the way we act toward others. And that's this Middah of LaAlafim - we're supposed to have a mental filter to focus on the good things that people do for us, much more so than the bad. And again, the more we do this with people, the more Hashem does it with us. Have a wonderful day.

We are up to the eighth and ninth traits of the 13 Attributes of Mercy. The eighth one, Noser Hessed, is God protects or watches over kindness. The ninth is L'Alafim /For 2000 generations. These are two separate traits, although seemingly in one statement, “ God watches kindness for 2000 generations ,” Today we will explain what God watches kindness means . There is a concept called Zechut Avot which means that our forefathers did great deeds, and in the merit of our forefathers, God acts with us in a kind way. It can also mean that person did something good many years ago, and we watch over that good deed. Noser Hessed is to watch over the good deeds of our forefathers , and this trait also applies to how we act with other people. For example, somebody's grandfather might have done something for me, or for my father or grandfather, and therefore I owe that person. I have to remember that, and act with him in a kind way. Lot's descendants, Amon and Moav, were held responsible for the fact that they did not greet the Jewish people properly in the desert, because Avraham took care of Lot. Avraham saved Lot. If not for Avraham, they would not have existed. Their great, great, grandfather from a few hundred years before would have been wiped out in Sedom. Therefore they owed us. That's why we can never marry from Amon or Moav, or we have to wait a certain amount of generations to do so. These nations are distanced from us because they did not have Hakarat HaTov to somebody for what their grandfather did for them. I like to use the example of a great man in the Syrian community, Mr. Isaac Shalom. He started Magen David Yeshiva, about 75 years ago, and it was the first Yeshiva in the Syrian community. Before that. People went to public school, followed by something called K'Tav, which was like an after school program. But until he started Magen David, there was no official Yeshiva with a rabbi, all day in a Yeshiva setting. My father was from the second graduating class. His older brother didn't have that opportunity. My father did, and that obviously impacted him, whom he married and impacted his whole life. So if I meet one of Isaac Shalom's grandchildren and they need a favor, or anything, I have to say, “ If not for his grandfather, I might not be where I not. If not for him. I wouldn't be where I am today. I have to take care of this man .” That's the trait of Noser Hessed. Or maybe a person helped you in school 40 years ago. I know somebody that invites a certain fellow to all of his affairs. The guy is not in his social circles, but when this man was in high school, people used to bully him, and this guy stuck up for him. This guy protected him and he never forgot it. So even though he's a very successful man and this other fellow is not in the same social circles or even in the same community, he never forgot that he took care of him when he came to the school as a new student, a newcomer. That's Noser Hessed. The more we act with Noser Hessed, the more God does the same. When we remember what people did for us years ago, or what their fathers did for ours years ago, that invokes this trait of God towards us. And therefore, it's important.

We continue in our series of the 13 Attributes of Mercy. We previously discussed the Middah of Emet, which is Truth . The problem with this is that truth doesn't seem to be a trait of kindness, as we explained previously. But Rabbenu Bachye explains that Emet is going back on Hesed, meaning there's a concept called Hesed shel Emet/ A kindness of truth. A kindness of truth means you're not looking forward to being paid back. That's one of middot that Hashem has- that a person is receiving a kindness, even though there's nothing coming back. Of course nothing's normally coming back, but he explains that when the Jewish people keep the Torah, we don't need Hessed alone to survive. For the 26 generations, from Adam HaRishon to Matan Torah , it says God took care of the world with Hessed, because they weren't giving anything back. Conversely, there are times that God gives us, and so to say, there is something to look forward to. God could hope that we do Mitzvot, He could hope that we do good things. And then there's Hessed shel Emet, which means there is nothing coming in return, for the kind of person that it doesn't seem like there's going to be any dividends on investing in him. And yet Hashem still invests in him. That's Hessed shel Emet ; that's a kindness without any payback. And again, it's true as well, with people. A well known Rashi says that when Yaakov Avinu asked Yosef to bury him, he called it a Hessed shel Emet/ a true kindness. Because when you bury somebody, there is no waiting for the person to pay you back. He's dead. When you go to someone's Bar Mitzvah, he'll come to your Bar Mitzvah. When you go to his wedding, he'll go to your wedding. But when you bury someone, you're not looking forward to him burying you back. That's called a Hessed shel Emet. We have to cultivate that Middah of doing a kindness without looking forward. When you a favor for your spouse, it's like I scratch your back, you scratch mine. And often with other people, when we do kindness, we know that somehow it'll come around. Therefore, we are supposed to try to do a kindness without any expectation of repayment. In Rabbi Miller's 10 steps to greatness (and other Gedolim suggests this as well), it says that a person should do a kindness that nobody knows about. I often give the example that the garbage gets picked up on Monday morning but you notice that your neighbor did not put out his garbage. So you put his garbage out front, and you don't tell anybody. He thinks his wife did it, and his wife thinks her husband did it, and no one knows it was you that took out the garbage for them. That's a Hessed shel Emet . And when we do Hessed shel Emet , it arouses Hashem's Middah of Hessed shel Emet.

We are in our 13 Middot series, and are we up to Middah number seven, V' Emet/ and truth. How is truth one of the 13 attributes of mercy? It doesn't seem to match. If anything, Hessed/kindness is on one side, and Emet is on the other. If I want to be Emet , you might not be deserving. So how is Emet/truth considered one of the 13 attributes of mercy? Rashi says that the trait of Emet means To reward and pay back the people that deserve it. But once again, how does that fit in with the trait of Emet/Truth ? To explain, we have to go to a Rashi, in the beginning of Va'era (chapter 6, pasuk 3) where Hashem says about Abraham, “ ושמי ה׳ לא נודעתי להם in My name of Hashem I didn't tell them yet. What does that mean? Rashi says it means, “I wasn't revealed in that way. I wasn't recognized with My name of Emet ” So here we see there's a name of Emet , with the trait of Emet . What is the trait of Emet ? Rashi continues and says, “ God's name of Hashem is the name of Emet.. To bring what I said to truth . I promised Abraham, I guaranteed Abraham, and I didn't fulfill it yet . They did yet not have the name of Hashem that is the name of Emet , as it was not yet revealed to them. So in this context, Emet/truth means that God comes through on His promises. He promised us and Hashem will come through. It doesn't always happen right away, but God comes through. That is the Middah of Emet . There may be bumps in the road, but when God promises, He comes through. And we have to have that Middah with people as well. Sometimes people say “ I'll help you. If you need, come to me .” Then the person comes, but he forgot his promise. “ What did I say? Oh, I wasn't so serious.” I once had a fellow who made a pledge and I'll never forget the line he used. I hope no one learns from it. He said, “ It was a soft pledge. ” That means, “ Yeah. I told you, I'd give you money, but you know, it's a soft pledge- not the type you have to keep.” There are people who make pledges and don't keep them. And not just pledges to institutions, but pledges to people. They say, “ I'll take care of you… come to me if you need something. ” And then amnesia sets in. That is not the trait of Emet . We need the trait of Emet because Hashem made a lot of promises to us and He will come through, but there might be reasons in the middle- we might have done things wrong, things might have happened... We really want to have that Middah of Emet fulfilled upon us, speedily, and therefore, we need to keep that Middah of Emet as well. Have a wonderful day.

In our 13 Middot series, we are up to Middah number six, V'Rav Hessed / and His kindness is abundant. The Gemara in Masechet Rosh Hashana explains that God tilts to the kindness. This means that if somebody is 50/50, Hashem will give them a tilt towards the kindness. The commentaries explain that this means after you went through Aseret Yeme Teshuva and you are still 50/50 on Yom Kippur, Hashem gives an extra tilt. How does this work? There's a side that has mitzvot and a side that has averot , so how do we tilt it? The rabbis answer that, as the Rambam says, the way to weigh and measure things is only in the hands of God. What is a zechut worth? We don't know.. What is a smile to your friend worth? Well, it depends. What kind of day did you have? How much effort did it take the smile? Only Hashem can weigh these things. When somebody is 50/50, it doesn't mean they're exactly 50/50. It means they're pulled both ways, but Hashem will look at things in a different light, a different angle with a more positive look, and turn the 50/50 fellow into a 60/40 fellow. There was a man who had a life full of suffering and difficulties, and he so he went to the Chida for a beracha, and waited on line. But after his long journey, he fell asleep. In his dream, he saw that at his end of his life they were coming to weigh his deeds- his good deeds and his bad deeds. He saw black chariots with black angels coming. He asked what they were and he was told that those were all his sins. There was whole long line of trucks loaded up with the black angels. Then he saw one old, weak angel with a wheelbarrow- he was told that those were his Mitzvot, and they were put on the scale. Of course, it looked like it was all over. It looked like he lost. But then his little white angel said, “ What about his suffering? What about his Yissurim?” So they start throwing on the yisurim - a difficult child, a challenge in business… and all the suffering he went through in his life went onto the scale. Finally, it was just about even, 50/50, but not quite enough to tilt the scale. So he started yelling, “ More yesurim, more yesurim, more suffering, more suffering!” Then he woke up, and of course, it was just a dream. But he realized that the suffering was really good for him, so he turned around and went back home. That's a story about how only Hashem knows how to judge what to put on the scale, and what not to put on the scale. We need V'Rav Hessed , we need that extra kindness to tilt the scale and look at our deeds in a different way. The same is true for friend. We may want to give a negative verdict on whatever it may be in our relationship with him, but we have to take into consideration all the factors in his life, and give him a little more rope, be a little bit more easygoing, focus on the positive, discount the negative, and give him the tilt to Hessed. Have a wonderful day.

We're now up to the fourth Middah , but we're going to put the fourth and fifth Middot together. As we said at the start of this topic, there are multiple approaches on how to break down the 13 Middot. (In the back of the Metivta Gemara, I saw eight) We're going with the approach of the Arizal, which is that the two names of Hashem that are mentioned first do not count, so we start the count from El , and the last one is V'Nakeh . In order to make that work, we have to take some of those that seem to be one Middah, and break them in half. Erech Apayim , literally means slow to anger. Erech means long, and Apayim means nostrils . When one gets angry, smoke comes out of the nostrils (like in cartoons), which means it's like an anger coming out of your nose. That's why we say Haron Af/the anger of the nostrils. So Erech Apayim means slow to anger , and that's really one trait. So how do we break that into two? It says Apayim , in the plural form, therefore we break up the words.. Erech is the fourth, and Apayim is the fifth. Each word on its own doesn't mean anything, but together, the two words Erech Apayim are an additional two attributes. Why two? Tosafot says it's because God says, “ I act differently for Sadikim and Resha'im. ” God has an Erech Apayim for Sadik/ He has a patience for Sadik, and He also has patience for a Rasha. Tosafot explains that the Erech Apayim for the Rasha is that Hashem gives people time, so that eventually they'll return in Teshuva. We see that today. There are many people, who, 20 or 30 years ago, weren't doing the right things, and Hashem waited. Eventually, things turned around. They started joining classes and doing better things. By having patience, and giving people a chance, they turn around. We have to use that trait ourselves. We have to give people a chance. Not everybody is ready right now. Give them a chance and eventually they'll turn around. That is the additional Apayim . It's not just having patience for the good guy when he messes up, but even for the Rasha.

This is our third lesson on Middah number 3 of Hashem's 13 Attributes of Mercy- Hanun . Tosafot, in Rosh Hashanah, 17B, says the word Hanun comes from the root o “ Matanat Hinam .” As we have said previously, Hanun means a free gift, like it says in Berachot 7A, where Hashem says to Moshe, “ I will have the Middah of Hanun on the one that I decide to,” and the Gemara explains that it means even if he's not befitting. This means that one of Hashem's middot is that even though the person does not deserve it, even if the person is not befitting, Hashem still gives him, like Moshe Rabbenu's famous prayer of V'Et hanan , that he from learned from God. God uses this trait. We're never supposed to ask God for what we deserve. We don't deserve anything; we aren't befitting, and still, God takes care of us. That has to be our way with people. Sometimes people come to the door to collect money, and you don't know whether the guy is befitting or not. He comes with a letter, but is it real? You don't know. You could just ignore him, or you can invoke the Middah of Hanun. You can say, “ I don't know who this guy is; I don't know what his story is, but he looks like he's a bad luck case so I'll give him something, even if I don't know if he deserves it… “ Whether he deserves it or not, that's the Middah of Hanun , and we need that more than anything else. It says that at the beginning of the year, we're supposed to come to Hashem with supplications, a poor man speaks. We're supposed to be like poor, impoverished people, and bang on the door. When we come to God during Selichot , we're like a poor man banging on the door. Do we want Hashem to go check His security camera? When the poor guy knocks on our door, do we tell our kids to say we aren't home? Maybe we have an excuse- maybe he's an armed robber. But you can still slip the money through the mail slot. There are always ways around it… but without going into the details of everyone's security systems, the bottom line is that people knock on the door, and we don't know if they're deserving or not. Invoking the Middah of Hanun causes God to answer the door when we are knocking, whether we are deserving or not. We knock on the door every day, and that's not an exaggeration. The Gemara in Yerushalmi (quoted in Rashi Masechet Berachot) says that every day, when we get to the words Ga'al Yisrael right before the Amida, it's a mashal for a man who's knocking on the King's door; the King opens the door and you have to be there. That's why we have to say Gaal Yisrael right next to the Amida. We're banging on God's door throughout our prayers, for Him to open it up at the Amida. There's a fellow that bangs on the table every day in shul. People think it's Rosh Hodesh every day because he's banging on the table, but he's really, “ knocking on the door” to remind himself that he's knocking on God's door. If we want God to answer the door when we knock, we have to answer the door when others knock. Have a wonderful day.

We have been discussing the 13 Attributes of Mercy of Hashem. We left off last week with Middah number three- Hanun, which we are going to spend more time on. In order to figure out what a word means, we use context clues. As we mentioned in our previous lesson, one of the context clues for Hanun, brought down by the Rishonim , is a story in Mishpatim (chapter 22, pasuk24- 26) where a man lends his friend money and takes a collateral. In our example, Joe has no money, so he borrows from Abe, and gives Abe his pajamas as collateral. When night comes, Joe says, “ Abe, I need my pajamas back.” Abe says, “ What do you mean? I need a collateral.” So Joe says he'll switch his pajamas for his winter coat. And this keeps on going. The Torah says, “ It's his only set of pajamas. What's he going to sleep w ith? כִּֽי־יִצְעַ֣ק אֵלַ֔י וְשָׁמַעְתִּ֖י כִּֽי־חַנּ֥וּן אָֽנִי If he cries out to Me, I'm going to hear, Because I have the trait of Hanun ( which we'll call merciful) . We explained that Hanun means that God responds even when a person doesn't have a claim, as we can see from this case, where the borrower really has no claim. He borrowed money with a collateral, which is legal, and it's not the responsibility of the lender to run a clothing gemach, switching back and forth between various collaterals. But it does sound like the lender is the bad guy here, because the borrower is going to cry out to God and God is going to listen. It sounds like Hashem is going to punish the lender for not giving back the pajamas.But how can that be? The Seforno says that it's true that when Joe was crying out to God that he didn't have pajamas, he really had no claim against Abe. But he explains that the bottom line is that if Abe would have given the pajamas back to Joe, Joe would have had his pajamas and would not have cried out to God. And now that he is crying out (because of Abe, albeit indirectly), God is going to divert some of Abe's charity cash flow to Joe. That is how charity works. We are responsible to give out the money. Hashem puts the charity cash flow in our hands. So Hashem says, If Abe would have given the pajamas back to Joe, and Joe wouldn't have cried to Me- no problem. I would be able to give Abe whatever he needs. But now that Joe needs his pajamas, I'm going to divert some of the money away from Abe to Joe, because Joe's crying out and complaining, “ Hey, it's not fair, How come people are going on trips to Honolulu, and I don't even have pajamas. ” God says, “ You're right. We're going to take some Honolulu trip money, and give it to you. ” It's not a punishment. It's just that God says, “ When someone calls out to Me, even though he has no claim, I have to respond. And if I don't have the money, so to say, to give it to him, Abe, I'm going to have to take it out of your surplus charity fund and divert it to Joe, because Joe cried out.” So ultimately, you're better off giving the pajamas back. That way, Joe doesn't cry out, and the slush fund remains by you Abe. Again, it's not meant as punishment that Abe is going to lose his surplus slush fund if Joe cries out, it's just, that this is the way it works. God says, “ If he cries, I have listen to him, I have to come up with money. And it's going to come from your slush fund Abe, because, indirectly, you're the one that caused him to cry out.” What a fascinating Seforno on this concept of Hanun . Our job, again, is to emulate God. When people cry out, we have to take care of them. Have a wonderful day.

We're going through the 13 attributes of mercy, and we are now up to attribute number three, Hanun . Tosafot explains that Hanun is something different than Rachamim/mercy . He explains that rachamim,regular mercy is when a person is not in a time of challenge. Before the challenge comes, Hashem is merciful that he should not come into the situation. He says that the term Hanun is when a person is in a tight situation; to redeem someone who's crying out for help. He quotes a pasuk is Yeshaya 30, God will be Hanun ( we can call it gracious but there is no exact word for it for it) for your cries . He says that this works. God has mercy when someone cries, even if he's not correct for screaming out; even if the person doesn't really have a case. His source, Shemot ( כב , ) talks about a man ( we'll call him Abe) that lent somebody (Joe) a thousand dollars. Joe needs that money, but he has to give Abe collateral because Abe doesn't trust him. So Joe gives Abe his pajamas, but at night he wants his pajamas back. What is Abe supposed to do? Abe is supposed to give the pajamas back to Joe every night, and take his coat (that Joe doesn't need at night) as collateral instead. So every night he is supposed to switch back and forth between day clothes and night clothes. If Abe doesn't do that (which is really beyond the call of duty), then when Joe cries out to God, Hashem says, כִּֽי־יִצְעַ֣ק אֵלַ֔י וְשָׁמַעְתִּ֖י כִּֽי־חַנּ֥וּן אָֽנִי If he cries out to Me, I'm going to hear, Because I have that Middah of Hanun when someone cries out. Hashem says, “ I can't see it. I can't watch somebody crying out and not do something.” That is Hashem's Middah. And again, we also have to use this Middah . It's a big responsibility. Sometimes you're in a situation where someone cries out to you, begging you for help. And you just want to continue on your merry way and say, “ I'm not the guy. What are you coming to me for? You have no claim. ” That's basically what it means. You have no claim. And sometimes we go to God and we really have no claim. But we cry out to God and God says, “ Oh, you cried out, I have to use that Middah of Hanun.” We arouse Hashem's Middah of Hanun by doing that with other people. When someone cries out to us, even if their cry is unfounded, we still need to respond. Have a wonderful day.

We continue discussing God's 13 Middot of Mercy, which are necessary for us to act with during the high holiday season. Middah number two on the Arizal's list is Rahum . The question is, if we start off with saying A-donai, A-donai, which is already mercy (because God's name of Yud and Heh and Vav and Heh is inherently mercy), Why do we repeat the word rahamim/mercy ? Tosafot explains that it's because there are two levels of mercy, and in his words (and it's actually a quote from the Gemara), “ Here it's before repentance, and here it's after repentance.” This means that before a person sins, there's a certain level of mercy that God has. Then the person sins. But once he does teshuva, there's a new creation of mercy for after the sin. The rabbis actually connect this to the concept of the two sets of luchot/tablets. The first set of tablets was given to us on Shavuot. They were broken after the sin of the golden calf on the 17 th of Tammuz, and Moshe Rabbenu took two sets of 40 days, until, on Yom Kippur, he brought down a second set of luchot . That means there was a set of luchot before the sin, and a set of tablets after the sin. God gave us a new Torah after the sin, for how to deal with people after sin. With the first Torah, it was assumed that there would be no sin, and no death. Moshe Rabbenu went up for an equal amount of days to create a new Torah, for dealing with the person after the sin. It's almost like saying Has v'Shalom , that someone had a child that went off to rehab because he had an addiction problem. When he comes back, they have to learn a new parenting style. How do I parent him after he comes back? With the same love and the same kindness, but with a different approach. So God has a new approach for after we do teshuva. God, so to say, create a new parenting approach, called the second set of tablets. And with that comes a second name of mercy called Rahum , for after the person sins and comes back. This may a hard one for us to emulate, because sometimes someone sin to us, whether it's a child, a friend, parent, spouse, sibling or business partner… they sin to us and it takes a while for us to get over it. When we finally get over it, we're lukewarm. We don't have that same love. But Rabbenu Yonah says that God does. After our teshuva, He rekindles the same love for us, like we had beforehand. That's difficult. We celebrate Simchat Torah only after we received the second set of luchot . Why don't we celebrate Simchat Torah when we received the Torah, on Shavuot? Because that marriage didn't last. Imagine a couple who get married, then divorced, and then get remarried. When do they celebrate their anniversary, the first wedding or the second wedding? I've never asked anyone that question, but we see from God, that we celebrate the second wedding, because the first wedding didn't really make it that well. We celebrate the second wedding. The after-the-sin wedding; that's the new beginning. And that has to be our celebration with our friends. Even though someone wronged us, there's a new mercy that comes after they repented and came back to us, and that arouses the way God acts with us. These are difficult , difficult things to work on. It's not easy. Anyone who has experienced someone who wronged them and now get along, may still harbor something. It's a life's work, but B'Ezrat Hashem, we will overcome this, because the dividends are great. The the more we do this to others, more God does it to us. Have a wonderful day.