english HUKAT 2013

B+

Then, there are people who, when they wake up, go for a bit above their own average. There are less chances to fail at that. When they see themselves meeting  their expectations in their daily lives, the sign SUCCESS blinks in their brain. That sign gives them energy, self confidence, and whatever else one needs to be successful. Without hesitation or thinking, they continue whatever it is that is bringing them success, because they felt that it was attainable, and they are happy to see that they are getting somewhere “successful”. This gives them more motivation to invest more effort.   At the end of the day, these people settle with a smile and see themselves 85-90 percent successful at whatever success means to them.  Each day, their average goes up, and they obviously live successful lives. The funny thing is that the first group of people will never believe that it may be more effective for them  to start their day aiming for above average, attainable success. Every day, they aim toward and go for the “perfect”. And every day they fail, because “perfect” is humanly unattainable. This is one of the secrets that lies underneath all motivation and depression.

Let us take this a step deeper. The cause for this “all or nothing” type of thinking is first cousins with pervasive thinking, which is an explanatory style, or a way of a explaining life’s events. Pervasive is a word that I have started using lately. This word is used when we make, verbally or mentally, an all-encompassing statement or judgment, although it is not at all precise. It is not at all true if I say to myself or to others, “I did not do well on the test”, when I scored an 85. “I was 85% successful” is more accurate. When someone is learning difficult text, they might say “I do not understand”, although they understood 35 percent.  A person who had kavvana when he prayed, but had kavanna in only 30% of his prayers –  that 35 percent has merit. If it does not, there will not be motivation to advance further, “getting into it” while praying. If we were to make our comments more precise and specific, instead of using sweeping generalities in our appraisals, we would conceivably be better at managing our emotions and our effectiveness.

In this week’s parasha, The Midrash notes that  Moshe was rather nervous about fighting Og, King of Bashan.  Og must have had a merit that granted him longevity. He was alive even before the days of Noach, and lived until the end of Moshe’s life. Og’s  name is derived from the Hebrew word Ugah, round cake, for when he ran from the war of the five kings to tell Abraham that Lot was in trouble, in Sedom, it was Pesach, when Avraham was eating Matzot (round cakes). There were two possible motives for this act of Og. It could have been that Og’s plan was that Avraham go to war and die, and this way, Og could marry Sarah. The other option was that he wanted to inform Avraham vital information about his nephew. Og’s longevity made Moshe nervous. It seemed that Og must have had proper intentions if he was rewarded so greatly. But, Hashem told Moshe not to worry about Og. For I have put him in your hands… In other words, Hashem was telling Moshe,along with Og’s good intention to help out Lot and pass this information to Avraham, he also had the bad intention of wanting to lead Avraham to his death, so that he, Og, could take Sarah for a wife. Moshe, you do not have to worry about Og’s merit. (See Klei Yakar)

I found this to be a big lesson about recognizing and validating the good, no matter how small, that we did accomplish. Here, Og, who ran from the war to tell Avraham to come fight and save Lot, was rewarded with over five hundred years of life, even though he also harbored an evil intention! The same act for which he was to be killed by Moshe did not take away from his merit. The reward one can get from even a percentage of goodness or positive intentions is amazing. There is no “pervasive” judgment in Heaven. Every thought is considered and accounted for. Everything has value. Even small percentages have precisely that amount of value.

FOCUSED DEAD

There was once a businessman who was very dedicated. Dedicated to his business, to his wife and kids, etc. He was so busy at work, he could not find the time to pray in shul with a minyan. He could not find the time to make a daily Torah study session. This went on for many years. It bothered him, but what could he do? Work did not let him get away. Life went on; he was getting old, his hairs turned white, and the following question could not escape his head. How can I go to Heaven without learning Torah, without praying in a minyan? What am I going to answer them in Heaven when they ask me the first question in that Final Judgement, קבעת עתים לתורה- Did you set aside time for Torah study?… This thought would give him no rest.

He needed to make some type of change in schedule. So he did. He went first thing in the morning to shul to pray with the minyan. Then, he stayed in the shul to learn for two hours. Only after that did he go to work.

When he got to his store, his wife was waiting for him there. The store was full of customers, and his wife was full of anxiety, running the store all by herself. She gave him a look, with her hands on her hips, and she asked, “Don’t you realize that these are our busiest hours? Where were you?” The husband somehow got out of it. He told her that he had gotten busy with some important and urgent matters.

This happened for a few more days.  His wife lost her patience, and she went out to search the town for him. What was he busy with every morning? Where was he disappearing to?

She was more than shocked to find her husband in shul, sitting with a study partner, surrounded by books. She let out a yell. “What is wrong with you? Have you gone crazy? The store is full of customers that we worked so hard to build trust in. Aren’t you worried we will lose our faithful customers, if each morning we open the shop two hours after our competitors?”

Our dedicated, hard working fellow answered his wife. “Tell me, my dear wife. What would you do if one morning I would not wake up? Or if one morning the Angel of Death took me with him?  Would you be able to tell him that he can’t take me, because the store is full of customers? From now on, make it as if the Angel of Death has taken me with him for two hours. After two hours, if I come to the store, pretend as if I have undergone resurrection, תחיית המתים .

This is the parable that the Chafetz Chaim would give to explain the first passuk in the parasha . זאת התורה אדם כי ימות באוהל This is the Torah, (the laws,) of a man who dies in a tent… Our Rabbis (Berachot 63b) teach, אין דברי תורה מתקיימים אלא במי שממית את עצמו עליהן. The words of the Torah are only found in a person who is willing to die for them. The Chafetz Chaim would bring from the above parable that the only way one can learn Torah and transcend daily, worldly matters, is to perceive one’s self as if he were dead, with nothing in his mind. N/A – not available. There is no cell phone, and there are no emails. No need for food, no one needs me. Imagine, theoretically, the thoughts that would be going on in the mind of a buried person, one hundred years after he is dead. Quiet. This is the only way to learn. If our cell phones are on, our focus is off. If we are connected to our emails, then we are disconnected from our learning. There are no cell phones in the grave. There are no emails. Just quiet.

One of my favorite hobbies is to help yeshiva students read faster, learn better, focus more. One serious yeshiva boy, 20 years old, who was told all his life that he needed to take medicine to focus, tried everything, but nothing worked for him. I shut the lights in the room. I asked him to imagine that he was dead, 200 years from now, buried. I asked him to think like this for five minutes, and to have no other thoughts except imagining himself, two hundred years from now, six feet under. I left him in the room alone. I came back, and he said he never had such a peaceful five minutes for as long as he can remember. We opened the Gemara and started learning. He said that this was the first time in his life that he knew what “focused” feels like.  He was able to pick up on that focused zone, of that session I had with him, and duplicate that state of mind. He rose to the top of his Yeshiva, and is now learning way above what people had expected of his capabilities!

This is what happens when we apply a d’var Torah from the parasha. When we live by it…

CHOOSING G-D’S CHOICE

There is a strange scene in this week’s parasha that we must not overlook. G-d assigned Moshe a difficult job – to be the one to tell his older brother, Aharon, that on that very day he was to die and not enter the Land of Canaan. Understandably, Moshe had a hard time coming to terms with this. So, the last day that Aharon was to spend among the living, Moshe behaved toward him in a peculiar fashion. Aharon noticed this, and he said to his younger brother: Moshe, tell me.  What do you need from me? Moshe responded – “Could it be that G-d entrusted something to you,  (a soul) and  now He wants it back?” Aharon answered  that all the utensils of the Mishkan were still intact, and nothing was missing. This went on for a quite a while without Aharon having a clue as to what Moshe was hinting at, until Moshe finally asked Aharon to ascend the mountain Hor HaHar, together with his son Elazar… Moshe finally asked Aharon, “If G-d would tell you to die in a hundred years from now, would you accept what He said? Aharon answered, “Tzaddik Hadayan” – the Judge is all-Righteous, and I have faith in Him and would accept! Then Moshe asked Aharon- And if G-d were to ask you to die today, would you accept willingly? Aharon answered in the affirmative. Moshe then said, “Follow me to the top of the mountain, for that is precisely what G-d asked me to tell you!”

Aharon walked behind Moshe like a sheep going to slaughter. G-d then said to the Angels – At the Akeidat Yitzchak, you stood in shock as you stood by and watched. Come, now, and see how the older brother is walking behind his younger brother to accept death upon himself.(Midrash Yilmedenu)

The Sifri in Haazinu(and Rashi here) describes Aharon’s last few minutes in detail. Moshe told Aharon, “Enter the cave.” Aharon entered. Get up onto the bed. And Aharon did. Stretch out your hands, stretch out your arms, close your mouth, close your eyes…Aharon obeyed every direction he was given.At that moment, Moshe said, “Fortunate is the man who has such a death.” Moshe, too, wanted to die in such a way, and G-d granted him his wish.

R’ Chechik, zt”l, asks two very obvious questions in relation to this. How can we understand the comparison that G-d makes between the self sacrifice of our Forefather Yitzchak, at the age 38 on the Altar, to Aharon’s acceptance of death at the age of 123?  And what exactly did Moshe mean, asking to die like his older brother?

The answer here is powerful and applicable to every turn we take in life. When Aharon chose to obey the will of G-d, accepting G-d’s will that he die, that acceptance was no less significant in the eyes of G-d than Yitschak’s stretching out his neck under his father’s knife  .

There are things in life that G-d chooses for us. It is for us to choose if His choice is what we (think we) want, or if we do not want what G-d has chosen for us. When we pick option two, we are in for misery. The moment we feel with the greatest clarity that our choice is being taken away from us is in the face of death. This may be why subconsciously people are so afraid of death. For in the grave, there is no choice. It’s “game over.”  When Aharon faced death, he accepted it. No complaints. This is called choosing what is. This is a great level for a human to achieve. When G-d chooses things that may not be our preference, like death, or any other situation in life where G-d puts up a road block for us, if we can choose to recognize that the decision G-d has made is good, and that this is what I want to happen, then G-d will accord us the credit He accorded Yitzchak on the Altar. Although Yitzchak was a mere 38 years old, his willingness and passion to accept G-d’s decree for his self sacrifice was in some way equal to that of  someone at the age 123, and in his last breaths, he says, G-d if you want me to die, I want it, too. As much as we may not think so, our job, income, family, health, can change from one day to the next. Suddenly, a family member may be gone. We must accept this, if G-d chose it, and we cannot do anything about it. It is the best for the deceased, and, somehow, the best for us. Because that is what G-d chose.

Of course, when someone is sick, he must not choose to stay sick. The Torah shows us that one should make every possible effort to attain a cure (ורפא ירפא). If one is fired from a job, he should not choose to stay out of a job. But he should choose to recognize that the place where he was working must not have been the right place for him. The place for his success, financially, ethically or in growing as a person must be somewhere else. If one loses all his money, then he is to choose the realization that he was meant to lose his money, and there could not have been anything better for him. What’s left is to go figure out how to make the best of what is at hand. Why? Because that’s the only rational choice that is left.

And this is what Moshe wished for. To accept and choose what G-d chooses.