IT MUST BE HASHGACHA MIN HA SHAMAYIM

 How Could the Israelis be so Stupid . . .

. . . It Must Be Min HaShamayim

From an article by Adam Eliyahu

RABBI WINSTON: THE FINAL BATTLE

Rabbi Pinchas Winston blamed one person for the current violence.

“If you made a list of the worst political blunders in history, Moshe Dayan relinquishing Jerusalem after the Six-Day War would be in the top ten,” Rabbi Winston said. “It was totally illogical, and no other country has ever done anything like it ever in history. The political atmosphere in 1967 was so pro-Israel that if we had declared sovereignty on the Temple Mount after the victory, the other nations would have supported us and even called for us to build the Temple.”

“But Dayan’s motivations were clear,” Rabbi Winston said. “He was afraid that if the Temple Mount were in Jewish hands, it would become too powerful a symbol, and Israel would become a truly Jewish state. We see leaders of Israel in the Bible who did not want the nation to serve God, so Dayan was just following in their footsteps.”

Rabbi Winston understood the current events to be related to a midrash brought in the esoteric book, Sefer Eliyahu; Pirke Moshiach. In the *midrash, the Bnei Keturah (sons of Keturah) come to the Temple Mount at the end of days. Keturah was a concubine of Abraham. According to the Book of Genesis, Abraham married Keturah after the death of his first wife, Sarah. The midrash identifies Keturah as Hagar, the mother of Ishmael. Abraham and Keturah had six sons.

According to the Pirke Eliyahu, the Bnei Keturah will be friendly with the Jews in the end of days. She will invite them to a contest on the Temple Mount similar to the contest held by Elijah the Prophet on the Carmel against the Priests of Baal. 

The Bnei Keturah and the Jews each bring a sacrifice. Whoever’s sacrifice is not accepted must convert to the other religion. Shockingly, the Midrash states that fire comes down from heaven and consumes the sacrifice of the Bnei Keturah, indicating that their sacrifice was accepted. 

“This will be the final test of the Jewish people,” Rabbi Winston said. “Many will convert, but a small contingent will call out ‘Shema Yisrael, Hashem elokenu, Hashem Echad (Hear O Israel, God is our Lord, God is one). They will go out into the desert. Messiah will be among them. Forty-five days later, things turn around, and in the end, it is clear that the Jews are God’s Chosen.”

“It will only be a small group that hangs on faithfully,” Rabbi Winston said. “But the Arabs never give up, even when they get everything they ask for. There can’t be a negotiated peace with them. The two-state solution is the world telling the Jews to give up.”

The Temple Mount is where both Jewish Temple stood and is the holiest site in Judaism. It should be noted that the only Muslims who claim that the Temple Mount is sacred to Islam do so for political reasons based on a misunderstanding of Islamic theology. It is, in fact, deeply insulting to Sunni to make this claim as they believe that Al-Aqsa is located in Al-Ju’ranah near Mecca, in Saudi Arabia.

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Source:  Adam Eliyahu

Rabbi Winston: Nitzavim – Rejecting G–D’s “Advice”

 

L’Shannah Tova uMesuka

Kesivah vChashimah Tovah

IMAGINE HIKING OUT in the wilderness and coming across a small puddle. Where did the water come from? Intrigued, you look more closely and notice that it is being fed by a trickle of water so small that you could not see it at first from the distance. Looking more closely, you see that it continues on past the puddle. Then you decide to walk upstream to see where the water is coming from.

As you walk beside it, you notice that the water source starts to widen at some point, and actually become a narrow, shallow stream. If anything lives in the water, it is too small to see. Besides, the water itself is somewhat murky, mixing with the dirt that the water runs over. But unquestionably, it is an official stream.

Not much changes for the next while, but then all of a sudden, the stream widens a fair bit, and actually gets deep enough to become a river. The water has become a lot clearer, because it is deeper and the river bed is filled with stones. You take out your map to find out which river you have found, because it is too prominent not to be on a map. 

Sure enough, you identify the river, which begins a lot later on the map than the puddle you first began with. The map shows the path of the river, which leads to a waterfall you decide to find. Forty-five minutes later, you can hear the waterfall, though you can’t yet see it. But it has to be close you realize, since the water seems to have a strong current. 

A little longer and you see the waterfall itself. It is powerful and majestic, and sitting down to enjoy it, you consider the long journey the water has to make from where you are sitting to where you started. Even more amazing is how so much water can, over a distance, become so reduced to the point that it can seem cut off from all outside sources of water. 

But not by the waterfall. There, water constantly pours over the rocks, fed by a river above. The water comes crashing down into a large pool of water, a small lake even. You can swim there, and the water is even clean enough to drink. It’s where you want to stay, because everything up until that point now seems so mundane and trivial. 

THIS IS A good analogy for knowledge. Knowledge is like a stream of water: it has a source, and the further away it moves from its source, the weaker and more limited it becomes. It can even get to the point that the knowledge seems cut off from its source. This can make people believe that the source itself does not exist, leaving people with a limited amount of knowledge that can be dangerous to “drink.”

Kabbalah speaks about two types of knowledge, penimi and chitzoni. In simple terms, penimi knowledge can easily be traced back to G–D. Some people would call this “religious knowledge,” the implication being that it is non-intellectual, more a matter of belief than actual demonstrable fact. 

Chitzoni knowledge does the opposite. It is not necessarily false, but it does not implicate G–D in any obvious way. It may actually seem to counter the idea of G–D. Religious people tend to refer to this as secular knowledge for this reason. It includes a whole gamut of useful information that we depend upon in daily life. There is a lot of science behind dry cleaning, but it does not tend to point in the direction of G–D.

Referring back to the analogy, chitzoni knowledge is like the puddle, and penimi knowledge is comparable to the waterfall. To look at the puddle, one would never guess that there was a waterfall upstream feeding it. A person might even assume that the puddle evolved on its own, perhaps left over from a recent rain shower.

But if you were to look more closely at the intellectual “puddle” that chitzoni knowledge is, you would see a small, almost imperceptible trickle of knowledge feeding it. And if you were to follow that trickle, you would find it eventually becomes a stream, then a lake, then a waterfall of knowledge that makes it perfectly clear that all knowledge has one Source, G–D. 

But really, this is nothing new. Everyone who knows about the Aitz HaDa’as Tov v’Ra, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, probably also knows about the Aitz HaChaim, the Tree of Life. Two trees, two different types of knowledge, chitzoni and penimi. 

That’s why G–D warned Adam about death if he ate from the Aitz HaDa’as. It wasn’t a punishment, but a consequence. G–D told Adam, “If you eat from this tree, you will learn a lot, but it is knowledge that will take you away from Me, and I am the Source of life. Every little bit you move away from Me is another level of death.”

The Torah reports the result of rejecting G–D’s “advice”:

He (Adam) said [to G–D], “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I am naked; so I hid.” (Bereishis 3:10)

And there you have it, the basis of thousands of years of atheism and agnosticism. The “emperor” found out he wasn’t wearing any clothes, so he hid, and he has been hiding now for thousands of years. As Rashi points out: 

And they knew that they were naked: Even a blind man knows when he is naked! What then is the meaning of “and they knew that they were naked”? They had one commandment in their possession, and they became denuded of it. (Rashi, Bereishis 3:10)

What they found out they did not like. We know that feeling too, the one that comes with doing the morally incorrect thing. It doesn’t matter where that moral comes from, as long as the person thinks it is a “moral” thing. A person feels undignified, unworthy, and has an overwhelming desire to hide.

The honest person admits their mistake and does teshuvah. Had the first man done that, then the rest of us would be living in Gan Aiden today. 

Everyone else just runs for cover, sometimes physically, but most of the time, intellectually. 

There is just no basis for the Judeo-Christian G–D. (Richard Dawkins, Evolutionist)

Even in the world of chitzoni knowledge, this is not true. As so many scientists have pointed out, there is no basis for the Theory of Evolution, at least not as people say Darwin imagined it. The odds are incredibly against it. But if you’re not going to follow the “puddle” back to its source upstream, then all you’re left with is the improbable, and lot of explaining, rather, rationalizing to do.

We pay a heavy price for hiding from G–D.

NOW YOU GET to choose which group you belong to. But before you do, we need to further discuss the idea of hiding. 

The expression is, “hiding in plain sight,” which is kind of an oxymoron. Something is usually hidden or in plain sight, but not both. But we know from experience how it is possible to be looking right at something, and not see it. It can be that a person does not realize what they are looking it, or that they are distracted at the time and their brain is busy processing something else. Either way, for all intents and purposes, the thing is hidden.

Sometimes people do it purposely. For example, they pretend not to see someone, and act as if they are not there. They consciously hide the other person from themself, so that they won’t have to interact with them. It is as if treating the person as if they are invisible makes you invisible to them.

That’s basically how many people treat G–D. G–D is right there, in front of us, and in plain view. We look right at Him, and yet we don’t see Him, or see Him enough. For the evil person, G–D is seven levels of Heaven away. For the tzaddik, G–D is among us. For the beinoni, G–D is on one of the six levels in-between. 

That’s why on Rosh Hashanah, a tzaddik is immediately judged for life, and an evil person for death. Rosh Hashanah is when G–D says, “Excuse me, but here I am, right in front of you. So stop pretending like I’m hidden from view. I’m only hidden from you.” The tzaddik is already real with this, the evil person refuses to comprehend it, and the beinoni, well, they seem to need ten days to work it through. 

The difference between each group? The tzaddik is into the penimius of life, the rasha—evil person, the chitzonius. The beinoni has some of both, each of which can tend to pull them in one direction or the other. It causes them to waver between righteousness and evil. 

It’s like two people who have a common friend. “What do you talk about when you’re together,” one asks the other.

“Spiritual matters, you know, the purpose of life…the potential of man…things like that.”

“Really?” the other says very surprised. 

“Sure. Why? What do you talk about?”

“Financial markets…politics…I never knew he had a spiritual side to him!”

“Why don’t you try talking to him about something more spiritual?”

“I think I will.”

G–D works the same way. If He sees that we’re more interested in chitzonius, then that is what He will show us, leaving us to get lost in an ultimately meaningless world. But if we “talk” penimius with G–D, then you cannot imagine what He will show you, and you will never stop being excited that He did.

FEAR HAS A bad name. We spend a lot of time, and some people a lot of money, just trying to overcome it. But clearly not all fear is bad.

For example, a parent or teacher who excessively uses fear to keep children in line will give fear a bad reputation. But when a doctor tells us to change our unhealthy lifestyle or else, which is clearly for our own good, then fear is a good motivator to use life more meaningfully.

One of the first things we do in the Yemai Norayim Shemonah Esrai, is appeal that G–D make us fear Him. We actually ask to fear Him, and that the entire world do so as well. It’s our way of acknowledging that we know that all G–D does to us is for our good, that our wanton behavior is a function of our yetzer hara, and that we need fear to overcome it. We need fear to come out of “hiding.”

Take a look. When the world has nothing to fear, people tend towards the superficial. It’s, “eat, drink, and be merry” all over again. Enter fear, and people wax philosophical. They become…well…more penimi. While Adam HaRishon didn’t fear, he took the biggest chance of his life, and lost. Then G–D put the fear into him, and he spent the next 130 years doing teshuvah.

We’re about to stand before G–D on Rosh Hashanah and again, come out of hiding. How should we deal with it? By staying hidden, meaning, by not opening our mind’s eye and seeing G–D everywhere we went, every we are, and everywhere we will ever go? Do we stay chitzoni…superficial…fearless?

Or, do we go inside? Do we get philosophical, and look beyond the superficial realities that vie for our attention all year round? On the day that “we” first hid back at the beginning of history, we have a chance to personally unhide, and jump to spiritual hyperdrive. We can choose penimius over chitzonius, or in the language of this week’s parsha, we can choose life, that we may live. Truly live.

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Rabbi Winston: Ki Seitzei – Divine Providence

  

August 23 and 30, 8:30 pm Israel time:

In Advance Of The Ten Days, 

two sessions on rising to the task between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. 

Register here: 

The Talmud relates that G–D will make a seudah for tzaddikim in the World-to-Come, and when it comes time to bentch after the meal, He will offer the Kos shel Brochah to Avraham. Avraham, however, will decline the amazing honor to lead the bentching because he fathered Yishmael, blemishing him.

The Talmud continues and says that G–D will then to turn to Yitzchak and make the same offer. Yitzchak too will decline for the same reason, having fathered Eisav. Ya’akov will likewise pass up the great honor, but for having married two sisters while both were alive, something the Torah would later forbid. The cup will eventually be passed to Dovid HaMelech who will not only accept the honor, he will enthusiastically point out that he is fitting to do so (Pesachim 119b). 

It’s an interesting piece of gemora that raises some questions and leads to some fascinating answers. But one question is not so obvious that comes up only because of a mitzvah in this week’s parsha: 

If a man has two wives, one beloved and the other despised, and they bear him sons…and the firstborn son is from the despised one, when he bequeaths his property to his sons he cannot give the son of the beloved birthright precedence over the son of the despised, the firstborn son. Rather, he must acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the despised, and give him a double share in all that he possesses, because he is the first of his strength and has the birthright entitlement. (Devarim 21:15-17)

And that is exactly what Ya’akov had and did. He had two wives, one which the Torah says he loved, Rachel, and one which the Torah says he hated, Leah. But it was Leah who gave birth to a son first, Reuven, whom Ya’akov later refers to as “the first of his strength.” And yet, his firstborn right was usurped by Rachel’s son, Yosef. Another reason to defer the right of bentching?

Granted that this prohibition is not as severe as marrying two sisters during their lifetimes, but was giving birth to Yishmael and Eisav a prohibition at all? Why wasn’t this a strike against Ya’akov Avinu as well?

The answer is in the Torah itself, with the help of Rashi:

Reuven, you are my firstborn, my strength and the first of my might. [You should have been] superior in rank and superior in power. [You have] the restlessness of water; [therefore,] you shall not have superiority, for you ascended upon your father's couch; then you profaned [Him Who] ascended upon my bed. (Devarim 49:3-4) 

[You have] the restlessness and the haste with which you hastened to display your anger, similar to water which hastens on its course. Therefore, you shall no longer receive all these superior positions that were fit for you. You ascended upon your father’s couch, and profaned that name that ascended my couch. (Rashi)

Apparently, Reuven himself undid his right to the firstborn, not Ya’akov.

THE TRUTH IS that, even without Reuven’s mistake, the birthright seemed destined to pass from him to Yosef, something his name actually name hints to: 

Leah conceived and bore a son, and she named him Reuven, for she said, “Because G–D has seen my affliction, for now my husband will love me.” (Bereishis 29:32) 

She said,“Look at the difference between my son and the son of my father-in-law, who sold the birthright to Ya’akov. This one (Reuven) did not sell it to Yosef, and he did not contend against him but even sought to take him out of the pit.” (Rashi)

Clearly if Reuven was modeh to the switch before it happened, there can be no complaint against Ya’akov Avinu. And if Leah named him this way, it must be that she too accepted the inevitability of the future situation. Everyone knew that Rachel was the akeres habayis, the “mother of the house,” even Leah.

It’s interesting how this was even an issue for the Avos at all. Ya’akov took the bechor—right of the firstborn—from Eisav by purchasing it for lentils. Yosef seemed to get it by appointment. Everything is a function of Divine Providence, especially birth (Shabbos 156a). If someone is born a bechor, is that not the will of Heaven? Why change it?

Just because someone is born a bechor does not mean that Heaven wants them to remain the bechor. Just as Divine Providence arranges for someone to be born a bechor, it can also arrange for someone to lose the bechor, or take it from them if they are unworthy of keeping it. That’s what happened to all of the bechorim at Mt. Sinai when they didn’t respond to Moshe’s call, “Who is for G–D, come to me!” They lost the right to be kohanim. 

In a more general sense, the entire Jewish nation is called G–D’s bechor. It’s a right. Actually it is more a merit, like being a Mamleches Kohanim—Nation of Priests. It is a potential that every Jew has to live up to, which we do by “being for G–D,” like Moshe called out. As the Chofetz Chaim told a young Rabbi Shimon Scwabb on his way to America back in the 30s, “Next time G–D calls out, ‘Who is for G–D, come to me!’ be sure to answer it.” This advice applies to all of us.

The problem is, it is not so clear cut that it is being said. When Moshe asked the question, everyone could see and hear him, and what he was saying. Today, how do we know we’re even being asked such a question? 

Issues. Over the last 15 years at least, events have forced people to get off the fence and make decisions about moral issues. The way things happen make us think that it is only other people causing them, and that no one really cares what they decide. They are wrong. It is G–D causing the people to cause the events that compel us to make a stand, one way or another, to go one way or another. 

Who is for G–D, come to Me, meaning, who is for morality and on My side?

ANOTHER DIFFERENCE BETWEEN the case in our parsha and Ya’akov Avinu is that the hated woman in the parsha supposedly was a yafas toar, a captive woman who was forced to convert to marry her Jewish captor. It was another ugly result of listening to the yetzer hara. Leah may have been a convert to the way of the Avos, but certainly not forcefully, and not through any choice of Ya’akov’s. 

As the Talmud says, the entire mitzvah of the captive woman is speaking to the soldier who can’t control their yetzer hara. If the Torah shies away from desired conversions, how much more so is it against forced conversions. 

Besides, what kind of marriage can come from such a scenario, and what kind of children will they have? The Torah says, she will be reviled by her husband and they will end up with rebellious children. 

Imagine how she must have felt. She was stolen from her home and then forced to make herself look ugly. That alone was probably enough to make her cry, if mourning the loss of her parents did not. What person wants to be put through such humiliation and base behavior?

Exactly. It’s like what the Talmud says elsewhere about a person who cannot stop themself from sinning. The Talmud advises they go to a town where no one recognizes them, put on black clothing like a mourner, and then do the sin. Tosafos explains that the Torah is not providing a “kosher” means of sinning. It is creating an emotional shakedown that should wake the person up to how low they are sinking, so that they will do teshuvah before they sin, not after it. 

Likewise, the Torah makes the soldier treat his captive this way with the hope that he will catch himself and end the episode early. This way he can avoid profaning the name of G–D, and humiliating himself in this world and the next one. It is mussar that gives him the opportunity to discourage himself from sinning.

And it is mussar to all of us. Before a person does anything questionable from the Torah’s point-of-view, they have to stop and consider the cost. It doesn’t have to actually be something forbidden, like eating treif food. The food can be totally kosher, but the overwhelming desire to eat it might be extreme and out of place. When it comes to spirituality, you can be a little “extreme” sometimes. But when it comes to material fulfillment, just the opposite is true.

LAST WEEK’S PARSHA included a mitzvah to be tamim with G–D. Rashi explains that it means a person should not try to figure out the future before it happens. You can plan for it, but you cannot go predicting it. Learn from the past, do the best you can in the present, and let G–D take care of the future.

 

The root of the word is “tam,” a word that was used to describe Ya’akov Avinu back in Parashas Toldos. Some say it meant he was pure, or innocent, or even naive of the world, but in a good way. But since Ya’akov Avinu is also the representative of the trait of truth, it has to also mean that he was truthful.

He didn’t just not lie. He also walked the walk that he talked. In other words, his actions were consistent with what he knew. If he learned a truth, he quickly integrated it into his worldview and adapted his life to live by it. This is how he, and his father, and grandfather before him, earned the title of being a “chariot for G–D” 

I was told a “joke” last Shabbos that many might relate to. Two study partners sat down to learn, and one told the other, “Last night I dreamed about G–D.”

“Can’t be,” his friend told him. “The gemora says we only dream at night about things we think about during the day. When you got up in the morning, you prayed. Then you came and learned the whole morning, after which you prayed again. Then you learned the entire afternoon, and prayed again at night. This was followed by some more learning. So when did you have time to think about G–D?”

That is the difference between only talking the talk and walking the walk. Anyone can learn and do mitzvos, but it takes a thoughtful and spiritually sensitized individual to connect to G–D while learning and doing mitzvos. That’s the consistency G–D looks for in us, and that is the kind of consistency we are being judged for on Rosh Hashanah. 

Rabbi Winston: Shoftim – What is a False Prophet?

In memory of Yosef ben Moshe, z”l. May his Neshamah have aliyah after aliyah, and be a meilitz yoshar for all of Klal Yisroel.

WHAT IS A false prophet? It’s when someone tells you that you made money in the stock market, but they got it wrong. Sorry, that’s a false profit. A false prophet is someone who claims to be prophesying on behalf of G–D, but they’re really just making it up, even if they are telling you something G–D actually wants you to know. 

Prophecy is serious business. It’s one thing to interpret what G–D was known to have said. It’s another thing to tell people that G–D told you to say what you are telling them when He didn’t. That is not only lying, it is misrepresenting the will of G–D, and offenses don’t get much more serious than that. 

One of the best phrases I ever heard was, “Vos zucht Got?” According to Rabbi Berel Wein, it was his rebi’s response to a discussion in the early days of the OU regarding the giving of a hechsher to a certain product. Some said yes, some said no, and they turned to the rabbi for his halachic resolution. His answer: Vos zucht Got—What does G–D say?

“We wish we knew!” was probably the mental response of all those taking part in the kashrus debate. “But prophecy ended millennia ago, in 3448, or 313 BCE to be exact, which is why we are turning to you, rabbi, for direction! We’d like to know the mind of G–D, and you’re the closest thing to this we have in the room!”

What the rabbi was telling them was something different. He was indicating that all of their logic and arguments were only valid, for or against giving a hechsher to the product in question, in a halachic framework. The Torah is prophecy, and even though we no longer have prophets today we still have the prophecy of Torah. 

Torah was given to us to guide us through history, long past the time of the last real prophets. There is no question that can ever be asked that cannot be answered by Torah, albeit with the help of a competent posek. That’s someone who not only believes in the divinity of all of Torah, but is so familiar with all of it that they can marshal together every relevant source that has something to say about the halachah in question. 

Asking the mind of G–D from anyone else is like turning to a child out of public school to invest all of your money for you. It is even worse, because the worse the child can do is to bankrupt you. A false “prophet” can cost you life in this world as well as in the next one.

WHAT WERE THEY thinking? This is probably one of the most common questions people ask themselves when studying the artwork of someone else. It is assumed that whatever they built or painted is an expression of something the artist was thinking about the time. “What inspired you?” is always asked if the answer is not obvious from the creation itself.

How many people ask these questions of G–D when looking at His work, Creation? It’s not like He hammered together a couple of boards just to keep a bunch of chickens from running away. He used the Torah as His blueprint, which means just as the Torah tells us the mind of G–D, at least as much as G–D doesn’t mind telling us, Creation has to do the same thing. 

That was the assumption Avraham Avinu made to kickstart the Jewish people. He didn’t have Torah yet, but he was able to figure it out just by looking at the world that the Torah led to. According to the Talmud, he was even able to reason out future rabbinical laws, like Erev Tavshillin (Yoma 28b). That’s beyond remarkable.

The Talmud also says that in three instances Moshe Rabbeinu made a decision on his own that G–D later agreed with, one of which was to break the first set of tablets he came down the mountain with. If you saw people practicing idol worship, would you ever consider taking a Sefer Torah and throwing it to the ground and then ripping it up to express your anger on behalf of G–D? 

That essentially is what Moshe did by breaking the tablets, and they were not only engraved by G–D, but hewn by Him. A Sefer Torah is the word of G–D, but it was made by man and scribed by man. If anything, we’d probably put the Sefer Torah back in the Aron HaKodesh where it is safe before giving the sinners a piece of our minds!

True, we’re not prophets, and Moshe Rabbeinu was the greatest prophet to have ever lived. But that was one time he didn’t receive prophecy to tell him what to do, and he acted on his own. It was a HUGE risk, but one that paid off in spiritual and physical terms. Later, after being told to hew out the second tablets to replace the broken first ones, he was allowed to keep the sapphire shavings and this made him rich.

But there is nothing “richer” than being on the same page as G–D. Nothing safer, too. Elul Zman has begun. The Sephardim have started saying Selichos, and the Ashkenazim will at least begin blowing shofar and saying L’Dovid. In a month we will stand in judgment before G–D’s Bais Din and the entire judgment will be a comparison between the “page” we all lived on this year, and G–D’s “page” for our life. The judgment will be on whether or not we fell short.

As black-and-white as a sin might seem, it is really not. There are plenty of times that the same act can be either a mitzvah or a sin depending upon the circumstances in which it occurred. Breaking Shabbos is punishable by death, but breaking it to save the life of another is a mitzvah. Most people do not equate underachieving with the idea of sin, but they might if they knew what was at stake.

As the Leshem points out, the question the Bais Din deals with on Rosh Hashanah is a person’s worthiness with respect to the World-to-Come. At the time a person stands in judgment, the Bais Din asks, “If this person were to die today, would they go to the World-to-Come?” The answer to this question will determine what kind of year the person will have, if they will have it at all? 

How many people wonder where they stand with respect to the World-to-Come on Rosh Hashanah, or any other day of the year? And if you do wonder about your status regarding the World-to-Come, what do you answer yourself?

WHAT DOES IT mean to be a Ben Olam HaBa? It’s an interesting question with interesting answers. The most obvious answer is someone who learns Torah and does mitzvos to the best of their personal ability. If it’s the best they can do, even though we are unimpressed by it, G–D may hold them in very high esteem. 

Less obvious are some of the things the Talmud says. For example, someone who lives in Eretz Yisroel is a Ben Olam HaBa (Pesachim 113a). So is someone who makes Havdalah on Motzei Shabbos, and someone who walks about six feet in Eretz Yisroel (Kesuvos 111a). 

There are stories in the Talmud about people called Ben Olam HaBa who didn’t seem that way to others we might have thought qualified to notice such things. One person who fooled everyone was a jailor, and when asked what he did that might have made him a Ben Olam HaBa, he mentioned that he kept the men separate from the women to prevent illicit relationships.

The jailor didn’t act this way because he was trying to be a Ben Olam HaBa. He was just doing what he thought was the right thing to do, and it mattered a lot more to G–D than he probably thought it did. That’s when you really know you’re on the same page as G–D. 

It works both ways. Rashi mentions in this week’s parsha that Shaul HaMelech lost the monarchy because of a “light” mitzvah (Devarim 18:20). He had promised Shmuel HaNavi that he would not offer a burnt offering to G–D before Shmuel’s return after seven days.  But he got impatient and broke his promise, and its cost him and his family the right to the crown, and only then did he realize how such a small thing could have such a great impact. 

My Rosh Yeshivah used to tell us that five “extra” minutes of learning at the end of seder could be worth more than the entire day of learning. We were expected to learn three sedarim (sessions) a day, and when each one ended, most of us had no problem closing our gemoras and leaving. We were not obligated to stay longer, so we didn’t.

But there was always the “odd” person who did not close his gemora just because seder was over. He kept learning for another five, maybe ten minutes or more minutes. “That’s the guy who loves learning G–D’s Torah,” the Rosh Yeshivah said, “and his reward for those ten minutes in unimaginable.” But that is not what crossed the mind of the person who stayed longer. He was just happy to be able to learn a little bit longer.

THERE ARE SOME who acquire their world in a single moment, and some who acquire it after many years. This is the conclusion the Talmud draws in three specific cases: a Roman who saves the Jews and converts to Judaism moments before death (Avodah Zarah 10b), Rebi Elazar ben Durdaya who dies doing teshuvah (Avodah Zarah 17a), and Rebi Chanina ben Teradyon’s Roman executioner who had mercy on Rebi Chanina before killing himself (Avodah Zarah 18a). 

Each of these people, in a moment of great self-sacrifice, became a Ben Olam HaBa. Rebi, to whom the statement is attributed, cried when he heard the conclusions, because they seemed to have achieved in a single moment what was taking him a lifetime of self-sacrifice for Torah and mitzvos to achieve. And though it might make some cry that others had “cheated” the system they had devoted their lives to, it is hard to imagine that it would bring a single tear to someone has great as Rebi for the same reason.

But that’s not what made Rebi cry. Just the opposite, Rebi cried because he was so impressed. These people taught the world how powerful a single moment can be when it comes to teshuvah, and how what we might think should take forever to accomplish can actually be achieved in a single moment. It made him wonder what his life might have been like if he had pushed himself just a little more even just a couple of those moments. 

It would seem that it takes a lifetime to become a Ben Olam HaBa. It can, and probably does for most people. But that is only because they greatly underappreciate the power of a single moment to make them a Ben Olam HaBa. Rather than accumulate Ben Olam HaBa moments, they accumulate moments that will, hopefully, after many years will leave them a Ben Olam HaBa just before they die. 

Not only is this a risky approach to life, it is a wasteful approach to life. It is certainly not the kind of life G–D had in mind for us when He made man, and He makes this clear to us every Rosh Hashanah. We may not be able to know the mind of G–D as well as we would like to, but we certainly know what He minds. And the person who wakes up in time and realizes this can acquire their world in a single moment, over and over again. 

Rabbi Winston: VaEschanan – Consolation?

TORAH GLADDENS THE heart, so we are limited when it comes to learning Torah on Tisha B’Av, especially when it comes to gemora. One of the sections that is permissible is in Maseches Gittin, beginning on 55b, because it recounts the events that led up to the destruction of the Second Temple. 

The section begins like this:

Rebi Yochanan said: What is illustrative of the verse, “Happy is the man that fears always, but he that hardens his heart shall fall into mischief” (Tehillim 28:14)? The destruction of Jerusalem came through Kamtza and Bar Kamtza, the destruction of Tur Malkah came through a cock and a hen, and the destruction of Beitar came through the shaft of a leather.

Rashi explains the fear mentioned in the verse is a concern about the potential future consequences of a current action. As the gemora says elsewhere, a wise person is one who sees what is being born (Tamid 32a). They project the present into the future to decide a prudent course of action now. 

This is the introduction to a section that will end with the following: 

Come and see how serious it is to embarrass a person, for G–D helped Bar Kamtza and destroyed His House and burnt His Temple. (Gittin 57a)

Remarkable, truly remarkable. Punish an entire nation because one insensitive party-maker embarrassed his enemy? 

A certain man had a friend Kamtza and an enemy Bar Kamtza. He once made a party and said to his servant, “Go and bring Kamtza.” 

The man went and brought Bar Kamtza. When the man [who gave the party] found him there he said, “See, you tell tales about me; what are you doing here? Get out.” 

Said the other: “Since I am here, let me stay, and I will pay you for whatever I eat and drink.” 

He said, “I won’t.” 

“Then let me give you half the cost of the party.”

“No,” said the other. 

“Then let me pay for the whole party.” 

He still said, “No, and he took him by the hand and put him out.” 

Said the other, “Since the Rabbis were sitting there and did not stop him, this shows that they agreed with him. I will go and inform against then, to the Government.”

Help an evil person destroy the Temple because he was embarrassed by someone? Brutally destroy entire cities because of a hen, or some kind of shaft? The accounting doesn’t make any sense. 

I ONCE HEARD a shiur that explained the role of Rebi Zechariah’s humility. As per Bar Kamtza’s advice to the Romans, they sent him with a sacrifice to see if the Jews would offer it up on the Temple altar. Bar Kamtza put a blemish in it so they wouldn’t to make it look as if they were rebelling against the Roman government.

The Rabbis were inclined to offer it in order not to offend the Government. Said Rebi Zechariah ben Abkulas to them: “People will say that blemished animals are offered on the altar.” 

They then proposed to kill Bar Kamtza so that he should not go and inform against them, but Rebi Zechariah ben Abkulas said to them, “Is one who makes a blemish on consecrated animals to be put to death?” 

Rebi Yochanan remarked: “Through the humility of Rebi Zechariah ben Abkulas, our House has been destroyed, our Temple burnt, and we ourselves exiled from our land. (Gittin 56a)

Being a Gadol b’Torah, he was part of the Sanhedrin. The rule of the Sanhedrin was that when a judgment was put to a vote, they began hearing opinions from the lesser talmidei chachamim, so that they would speak freely and not be intimidated by the opinions of those greater. 

Rebi Zechariah, in his humility, did not think much of himself, so he spoke his opinion early as if one of the lesser members of the Sanhedrin. The problem was that others on the Sanhedrin thought very highly of him, and once he spoke, they were uncomfortable contradicting his opinion. So they didn’t, and his opinion carried the day. 

But as Shmuel HaNavi told Shaul HaMelech, “You may be small in your own eyes, but you are the king of the Jewish people!” As such, he had to act his position for the sake of the people, no matter how uncomfortable he was doing it. Humility at the wrong time can be more deadly than a lack of it at the necessary time.

But how could Rebi Zechariah not have seen the fault in his own logic, and the potential consequences of his decision? The answer to that question is on the back side of the page:

“As for your question,” [Rebi Yochanan ben Zakkai answered Vespasian], “why if you are a king, I did not come to you until now, the answer is that the Biryonim (Jewish rebels) among us did not let me.” 

He said to him: “If there is a serpent wound around a jar of honey, would they not break the jar to get rid of the serpent?(i.e., get rid of the Biryonim to save Jerusalem and its people)? 

He could not answer him. Rav Yosef, or as some say Rebi Akiva, applied to him the verse, “[G–D] turns wise men backward and makes their knowledge foolish” (Yeshayahu 44:25).  

In other words, it wasn’t Rebi Yochanan’s own shortcoming that caused him to ask for the wrong things from Vespasian. It was G–D Who put it into his mind what to ask for, which sounds like a reason for concern. We rely upon our Torah leaders to get help from G–D to always make the right decisions on our behalf, even miraculously if necessary. Does this not say that they aren’t as reliable as we thought they were, because G–D can deliberately send them in the opposite direction than the one that benefits us? 

If so, yikes? 

MOSHE MENTIONS IN this week’s parsha how G–D rejected his plea to enter Eretz Yisroel, saying, “But G–D was angry with me because of you” (Devarim 3:26). There are different Hebrew words for angry, but Moshe chose “vayisaber,” which Rashi explains to mean “became filled with wrath.”

The Arizal saw in this word usage a hint to a very important point about Jewish leadership, especially Torah leadership, though it involves some Kabbalah: 

As known, just as Zehr Anpin has the levels of Ibur—impregnation, Yenikah—nursing, and brains of Gadlus, so too do all souls have these [three levels]. The Holy One, Blessed is He, gives wisdom to the leader of the generation based upon the merits of the generation. 

Therefore, when the Jewish people sinned they caused their leader, Moshe, to return to the level of Ibur, and to lose the rest of the illuminations he had in the beginning, [the levels of] Yenikah and Gadlus. He was left with only the illuminations of Ibur. Then he forgot all those laws that he knew, as it is known, because the level of Ibur of Zehr Anpin is [when it ascends to inside] Imma Ila’a, called “Yovel”…The Hovayah in this verse is b’sod Imma, and this is “vayisaber—and G–D became angry with me,” and  “because of you,” since it is the sins of the generation that cause this to happen to the leader. (Sha’ar HaPesukim, VaEschanan)

Without a background in Kabbalah, this will make little sense other than the last line. Simply, a Torah leader is not only about their depth of knowledge, but also about the depth of the divine insight they receive to help them understand a situation they must make a decision about. A certain amount of this will be the result of their own merit. The “extra” they might receive to better lead the nation will be in the merit of those people they have to lead.

Hence, Moshe Rabbeinu’s complaint. He was telling the people that, due to their own spiritual shortcomings, he was spiritually demoted, as Rashi states here by the episode of the golden calf: 

G–D said to Moshe: “Go, descend, for your people that you have brought up from the land of Egypt have acted corruptly.” (Shemos 32:7) 

Descend from your high position. I gave you this high position only for their sake. At that time, Moshe was banished by a decree of the heavenly tribunal. (Rashi)

In Kabbalah, the level of prophecy to which Moshe had reached is called Gadlus. The level to which he descended because of their sins is called Ibur, the root of the word vayisaber in the parsha used for “became angry with.” In one word, Moshe Rabbeinu alluded to the net effect on him of their sinning and his ability to lead the nation. 

This is how the Maharsha explains the verse from the gemora as well. He says that Rebi Yochanan did not think to ask to save the Temple or Jerusalem, because the people inside were not worthy of being saved. Had they been, then G–D would have put it into his head to ask for their salvation, and Vespasian would have been compelled to grant it.

Likewise, had the people been worthy of it, then Rebi Zechariah would have realized a better answer to save the nation. The series of events that led to the Churban were a reflection of the nation, not of Rebi Zechariah. They reflected the decree against the people, as the next piece of gemora makes clear.

ONCE THE ROMANS bought Bar Kamtza’s argument, they sent legions against Jerusalem to begin what would become a disastrous siege and eventual destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem around it. 

He [the Emperor] sent against them Neron the Caesar. As he was coming he shot an arrow towards the east, and it fell in Jerusalem. He then shot one towards the west, and it again fell in Jerusalem. He shot towards all four points of the compass, and each time it fell in Jerusalem. He said to a certain boy, “Repeat to me [the last] verse you have learned.”

He told him, “And I will lay my vengeance upon Edom by the hand of My people Israel” (Yechezkel 25:14). 

He said: “The Holy One, Blessed is He, wants to lay waste His House and to lay the blame on me!”  (Gittin 56a)

As they say, the die was cast. Neron may have received his marching orders from Rome, but he was being sent by G–D. The destruction had been decreed on high, and the Roman general was meant to carry it out, and that disturbed him to the point of turning to a Jewish child for confirmation.

How did Neron know? Because of the fourth arrow he shot in the direction of Jerusalem that landed in Jerusalem. Had it been the first shot, he wouldn’t have taken note of it. But after sending arrows in other directions and they fell in Jerusalem, the fourth should have gone somewhere else if the entire incident was just some kind of weird omen. The fact that it too landed in Jerusalem meant that Jerusalem was in fact the target, and that the people lacked the merit to survive.

It shook Neron up so much in fact that rather than be emboldened by the divine encouragement, he declined the advantage, deserted, and converted. He had read the divine sign and had not liked what he read. Curiously enough, the gemora felt compelled to tell us that, as a reward, he became the ancestor of the great Rebi Meir. For allowing his eyes to be illuminated by divine signs…for projecting into the future what he saw in the present…he was blessed with a descendant who illuminated—meir—the eyes of his generation.

Which brings the gemora to the next part of the story about Rebi Tzaddok. He was the one who fasted for forty years to try and avert the destruction of the Temple. How did he know it was coming? Because he paid attention to the divine signs, and responded to them. 

Therefore it was no coincidence that the very wealthy and pampered Marta bas Baysos accidentally ate the fig of Rebi Tzaddok, and died because of it. After forty years of fasting failed to avert the decree, Rebi Tzaddok was nursed back to health by sucking the juice out of a fig which he later disposed of. Desperate for food during the siege despite being rich, she picked the fig up, ate it, and was disgusted to the point of dementia from it.

How could she have such resources and yet be caught so unprepared for the famine that came up? The Torah answers in next week’s parsha, where it warns that success will be breed overconfidence which will lead to the forgetting of G–D. The gemora also says that the generation of the flood and Sdom only forgot about G–D because of all the success He gave them. 

Success blinds people to the messages of G–D.

This leads to a reduction of merit.

That leads to a reduction of leadership.

And that leads to destruction.

The consolation? We haven’t reached that point yet in our history. If we break the chain of negative events, we can reverse the trend and save ourselves before things become as bad as they did in the gemora.