VAETCHANAN 2013

THE FATHER WHO FELT SOMETHING MISSING

There is an unassuming man that prays on the other end of my bench in shul. He is a quiet fellow, but he prays with fire. He must be about sixty years old and looks somewhat of a loner. He never comes with kids or grandchildren to shul. I have never said a word to him. Not that I am not friendly or social. It is just that this fellow prays with such fervor, by the time we are all finished and ready to leave, he is still deeply immersed in his talking to G-d.

Just recently, my wife showed me something that shook me to the core. There was a front page article in the Mishpacha magazine (Hebrew version) of a sixty-year-old living in my neighborhood in Jerusalem who just had his first child after many years. I could not believe my eyes when I saw the picture of my bench-mate from shul, smiling and holding a new born baby in the hospital. I thought  he was just “praying nicely”. Now, I realized how much of his heart he put into beseeching G-d in his prayers. How much heart he put now into thanking G-d in his prayers. This is one of the things I love about living in Jerusalem. The spirituality of the people, the closeness to G-d here is just so unassuming. A regular-looking Avreich can have vast knowledge of Shas at his fingertips. At the still of midnight, in the Three Weeks, I hear from my bedroom window a neighbor wailing Tikkun Hatzot (all my neighbors denied it was them). And the man on the other end of the bench in shul, who did not have kids all his life – turned over the Heavens in prayer and merited a child at a ripe old age.

“These are the people in your neighborhood, the people that you meet each day.” Whenever I contemplate moving back to America, this thought buckles me down in Bait Vegan, Jerusalem. My greatest wishes, my deepest desires are that people like these might make an effect on me and my family. I might one day pray the way a Jew is supposed to. Maybe I will know some part of Shas well. And, hopefully, I will cry for the Beit Hamikdash along with that neighbor. It is not that the whole of Jerusalem is filled with such people. It is just that they exist here. Just a reminder of what things are supposed to look like.

Whenever  I see the sixty year old young father, a thought floods my thinking. When someone has a child after waiting so long , the happiness is no less than ecstatic. If we would make some kind of a scale of all the happiness of the world, including the greatest happiness that a person feels, it could very well be that this fellow has experienced it. The reason for this is that when someone wants something so very much and then gets what he felt he was so sorely lacking, the happiness is in proportion to how much he wanted it.  Whenever there is something lacking, like a missing part of a picture, the more its absence is felt, the greater the happiness when what is missing is filled. A couple without a child is a family missing a member. Immense happiness is felt when the picture is complete.  This is the way G-d made the emotion of happiness – it springs from the heart when the missing thing is found. Unhappiness is wanting something and not getting it . And this sort of “wanting”, deep yearning, comes when a person feels there is something significant, basically necessary and important to his life, missing. Like the feeling that things, in general, are not the way they are supposed to be.

On the half hour bus ride to the Mirer Yeshiva from Bayit Vegan, one of the budding young Torah scholars would give a class each Thursday. I heard his class every Thursday for four years. The last class before Tisha B’Av, he would tell about the time he took a walk alone with his Rabbi, studying deep parts of the Talmud. “At sunset, we stood in a place where we saw the sun disappearing over the horizon,  and my Rabbi stood, quietly, watching as the sun went down. I just stood next to him, not knowing what to say. Then, he pointed to the sun, and said: ‘We still have a chance to bring the Korban Tamid of the afternoon. We still have a few more minutes, if Mashiach just comes…’   As the sun set, he frowned, and said, ‘We just lost another Korban.”

R’ Shimshon Pincus was quoted once as having said: If you would find out that you were mistaken in thinking that you are Jewish – that you are actually a gentile, what is the first thing that you would do? –  Each person gave a different answer of things that are forbidden to them that they wished they could do. R’ Shimshon answered, “If I would be able allowed to do what a Jew can’t do ,  I would go up to the Temple mount and bring a korban.”

When someone wants holiness so much, when someone feels that Honor of Heaven is lacking in the world, then he can be happy and rejoice when it is restored. כל המתאבל על ירושלים זוכה ורואה בנחמתה . Anyone who mourns over Jerusalem will merit and witness it in its consolation.

There is something missing in the world. There is a lack of Honor of Heaven. This explains a part of Kaddish that otherwise has no explanation. לעילא מן כל ברכתא שירתא תשבחתא ונחמתא דאמירן בעלמא  (The name of G-d is ) Greater than all the blessings, songs, praise and consolation that we can express in this world… What is the word נחמתא , consolation, doing in this context?

The answer is that as much as we can praise G-d and say how much we pray that He should be accorded Greatness in this world, we still do not realize how much we lack His Presence. Consolation is needed when there is a lack and the degree of consolation must be to the degree of the lack; as much as the lack is, that is how great the consolation must be when the missing item is found or restored. There is no greater lack in this world than the open revelation of G-d’s Honor, the Beit Hamikdash, and the Jewish People living in accordance with the Torah. The world is one big, incomplete picture. The Talmud in Berachot 3a says ,” I heard a Heavenly Voice that was wailing like a dove and saying, Woe is to Me that I destroyed my Home…” In Kaddish , this is part of our expressing G-d’s greatness. We sanctify His Name saying how much we need Him and His Glory, and  that the greatest consolation of all consolations will be when the world will recognize Who is Boss. That is when G-d and His people will be consoled, and in the biggest way.  לעילא מן כל נחמתא…

Let us take a look at the Hebrew word נחמה. The word נחמה means consolation. The word נחם  also means to regret, take back or feel bad. (שוב מחרון אפך והנחם על הרעה לעמך  and(כי נחמתי כי עשיתים  .  G-d does not regret, for He knows the future before it happens. But the connection between the two meanings of the word in relation to humans is that although they seem to have contradictory meanings, they  actually just signify one stage before the next. People who feel bad about  something, who regret, will eventually be consoled. The same is true about mourning the Temple.

So, G-d tells his People, those who mourned His Temple, those who went through and are going through this bitter exile, נחמו נחמו עמי  – Be consoled, Be consoled , my people…

May those who mourn on Tish’a B’Av cry no more.

A MINUTE WITH G-D

My son asked me a good question. We recite Kriat Shma in the morning and at night. The purpose of this recital is to accept on ourselves the yoke of G-d’s Kingship. Why does the Torah say only בשכבך ובקומך   when you go to sleep and when you wake up? Why don’t we have to accept the yoke of Heaven in the middle of the day, when we pray Mincha?

The answer I gave my son satisfied him. In the way the world ran for thousands of years, people would work during hours when there was sunlight. They would get up before sunrise and go to sleep not long after the stars came out. The light hours were used for working. We are supposed to accept on ourselves G-d’s kingship every day, all day. But to say the Sh’ma needs proper focus and thought, and during the day people are busy at work. The Sh’ma recital cannot be done properly if you just speed through it. If you do not have the proper concentration during the Shma, you missed the reason for reciting it. You have to say it again slowly. This is time consuming. However, when people first got up in the morning, before beginning their day, and at the end of the day’s work, when they went to bed , they could be more focused on prayer, instead of on work. During the day, when one could not dedicate proper Kavana (concentration) to saying the Sh’ma and accepting G-d’s kingship, they were not required to do so. At night, when the people who did not have artificial lighting finished their work and could enjoy the stillness of the night, it was the opportune time to recite the Sh’ma and devote to it the proper concentration. Nowadays, people have no time for concentration; their minds are always at “work”. If they get up early, they check their e-mails. They overwork themselves during the day and come home overly exhausted.  You may have religious people reciting Kriat Sh’ma every day, but never once saying it properly. Is there any way that we can get just a few minutes with G-d into our daily schedule?

 WHO REALLY BURNT DOWN THE TEMPLE?

In the Nacheim prayer we say on Tisha B’av afternoon, we recall the destruction and rebuilding of the Beit HaMikdash with these words:   כי אתה באש הצתה ובאש אתה עתיד לבנותה וכו’    You set it on fire, and You will ultimately rebuild it with fire.  The Midrash  cites this statement – together with the verse in the Torah teaching that the one who sets fire to the possessions of others is liable for damages (שמות כ”ב:ה) And then the Midrash quotes the Holy One as making the following amazing statement: “I have to fix the damages that resulted from the fire I set”.   (ילקוט שמעוני-זכריה ב:ט)

Now, this is all very strange. We have all been taught that the Temple was destroyed because of the sins of our People. Through sin, our forefathers caused G-d’s Presence to leave the Holy Site, making it vulnerable to the torches of our gentile enemies. How, then, can we understand that G-d is liable for its rebuilding, and not the Jewish Nation?

Oddly enough, this paradox can be explained by another paradox:

The Talmud (ברכות לא:) tells us that when Eliyahu HaNavi (Elijah) attempted to defend the Jews against the charge of idolatry, he went out on a limb, and pointed an accusing finger at G-d: “You caused their hearts to go astray by creating the Evil Inclination(מלכים א יח, לז)”               . ]The Talmud criticizes this statement, but goes on to say that G-d actually agreed to this charge.]

How are we to understand this?

The Siftei Chaim offers an explanation which, I think, resolves both these paradoxes. Indeed, Man has freedom of choice, which ultimately makes man liable for sin. But once a person repents, G-d judges him favorably, and acknowledges that “I was the One who created him with such a strong evil inclination and passion; I will therefore take responsibility for the sin.”

In other words, although the sin was committed by the sinner, his liability continues only until he repents sincerely. After repentance, G-d is willing, as it were, to bear the responsibility, since, ultimately, the sin was a result of the negative drive (yetzer ha’ra) created by Him.

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Taking responsibility for our foolish actions can be very difficult. We often find ourselves denying responsibility for our mistakes, making all kinds of excuses and trying hard to keep up a self-image of perfection. But, if we can internalize the refreshing concept discussed above – that G-d forgives us when we candidly admit our sin – we will have a great new source of hope. And we will be able to approach Elul and the Days of Repentance in the right frame of mind.