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5 de 25

Doing the Right Thing the Right Way (From last year 2024)
The beginning of Parashat Shemini tells us of the first day that Aharon and his sons served as Kohanim. Hashem commanded that several special sacrifices be offered in honor of this day, one of which was an עגל – a calf – which Aharon was to bring as a sin-offering. The commentaries explain that Aharon was required to sacrifice an עגל to atone for his role in חטא העגל – the sin of the golden calf. As we know, it was Aharon who collected gold from the people and turned it into the image of a calf, which the people worshipped. Aharon needed כפרה (atonement) for this act, and so he was required to bring an עגל as a sacrifice. This raises the question regarding Aharon's role in the story of חטא העגל . Clearly, Aharon was a righteous man who would never worship an idol or encourage others to worship an idol. There is no question that his intentions in this incident were pure. According to some commentators, Aharon saw that the people were insistent on making an idol, and so he went along with the plan to delay the process, hoping that Moshe would return from the top of Mount Sinai in the interim. Nevertheless, despite his good intentions, his actions resulted in a grave חילול ה' , as the nation sinned by worshipping the idol that he created. Therefore, although his intentions were pure, he was held accountable for the way he went about it, which yielded disastrous results. The simple lesson that this incident shows us is that good intentions are not sufficient. Even when we truly want to do the right thing, we need to go about it wisely. We need to think carefully about how to carry out our intentions in the most appropriate and effective manner. Just to give one example, I am sure most if not all of us have had the experience of being at a Shabbat table or social function when people start talking gossip or lashon ha'ra , and there's somebody present who, rightfully, wants no part in this forbidden conversation. Sometimes, the person simply remains quiet and does not participate. But sometimes the person chooses the less intelligent approach of condescendingly criticizing the people, telling them, "Oh, you talk about other people? You talk lashon ha'ra ? I don't talk this way!" His intentions are pure, but he goes about it the totally wrong way, making everyone at the table uncomfortable and upset. This is neither helpful nor constructive. Another example is the well-intentioned but very harmful comments that relatives sometimes make when a young man or woman starts becoming more religiously observant. Almost invariably, there is an aunt or uncle who says something to the effect of, "What's wrong? We're not religious enough for you?" "You're wearing only long skirts now – how will you get married?" "Oh, so you got brainwashed?" "You're going to yeshiva – how do you expect to make a living?" In some cases, the concern is legitimate. It is understandable that family members might be worried about a young person making drastic changes that perhaps they are not prepared for, or decisions that will impact their future in ways that they might not realize. The intentions might very well be pure – but these comments are very destructive. So many young people have told me that the greatest impediment to spiritual growth that they've encountered is the fear of these comments by family members. Here's an example of a well-intentioned comment made in the proper way. I once received a phone call from somebody I never met, who told me that he listens to my classes online. He told me how much he appreciates them and how much he gains from them. He then mentioned to me that he watched a short video message that I had made a couple of days earlier, and that he liked it very much – but there was one thing I said which he thought was not appropriate. And he politely explained to me why he felt that way. I told him how much I appreciated and welcomed his feedback, and especially how he expressed his criticism so respectfully. This is how it is done. If we are legitimately concerned about something and feel that a comment is in order, we need to go about it the right way. The fact that our intentions are sincere does not mean that we can say it however we want. The fact that our concern is legitimate does not make everything we say or do legitimate. Even the great Aharon Ha'kohen needed to atone for doing the right thing, since it was not done in the right way. Let's try to be smart, and not just right, and do the right thing in the right way. Our input is often valuable and necessary – but only if we ensure to say it the right way, with respect, with love, with warmth, and with friendship, showing our genuine concern.
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Pesah- The Two Dippings
** This week's Derasha is dedicated in memory of Avraham ben Gemilah A"H ** As the child observes during the singing of מה נשתנה , there are two points during the seder when we dip some food before eating it. Early in the seder , after kiddush , we dip the karpas (a piece of vegetable) in saltwater, or vinegar (depending on one's family custom), and later, right before the meal, we dip the marror in haroset . What might these two dippings represent? The Ben Ish Hai explained that the two dippings, which are performed before and after the main part of the seder , correspond to two dippings that in essence bookended the period of exile in Egypt. The first dipping commemorates מכירת יוסף , Yosef's sale as a slave by his brothers, when they dipped his special garment in goat's blood to make it appear as though he was attacked by a wild animal. As we prepare to tell the story of our ancestors' bondage in Egypt, we bring to mind how it started – with hated among brothers, with divisiveness, with jealousy, with brothers turning against one another. Then, after we learn about the process of Yetziat Mitzrayim , we dip a second time to commemorate the night Beneh Yisrael left Egypt. In preparation for this night, they slaughtered a sheep and dipped branches in the blood, which they then smeared on their doorposts. These branches were bound together into a bundle, symbolizing unity, as the people corrected the scourge of hatred and divisiveness that had caused their exile and joined together in peace and harmony. I also saw an additional explanation of the two dippings. The first time, we take the karpas , a tasty vegetable, and dip it into something foul-tasting. The second time, we do just the opposite – we take the bitter marror and dip it into the sweet haroset . The karpas and the marror represent the two different kinds of stages we go through in life. At times, we enjoy " karpas " – good fortune, happiness and success. But we all go through phases of " marror ," of "bitterness." Every person, without exception, struggles at various points in life. Whether it's devastating loss, financial hardships, problems within the family, or challenges with physical or mental health, we all deal with " marror " of one kind or another. The two dippings instruct us how to handle both the joys and the bitterness. During times of joy and good fortune, we need to exercise caution not to become too confident or arrogant. We must not become overly self-assured, certain that we will always enjoy unbridled happiness and success. We must remind ourselves that life is fragile, that we are always vulnerable. The dipping of the karpas into the saltwater thus represents the tempering of our joy, teaching that while we are certainly entitled to enjoy our good fortune, we must ensure not to see ourselves as invincible, or that our continued success is guaranteed. But in times of "bitterness," when we are struggling, when life has taken a wrong turn, when we feel pain, sorrow or anxiety, we need to do the opposite – we need to "dip" these feelings into the " haroset ," and make them "sweeter." We must believe that Hashem is always helping us, and even the direst, most painful situation can be reversed. Instead of wallowing in sadness and self-pity, we need to "sweeten" our feelings through emunah , by reminding ourselves that Hashem is in control. The message of the two dippings, then, is we must never get too high or too low. Both in times of joy and in times of struggle, we need to place our faith in Hashem, and trust that He is managing our lives, and that we can and must always rely only on Him.
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Teaching Our Children About Sacrifice
This Shabbat we begin reading the Book of Vayikra, much of which deals with the laws of the korbanot , the sacrifices which were offered in the Bet Ha'mikdash . For many of us, these laws seem very difficult to relate to, as the Jewish People have been unable to offer sacrifices for nearly two thousand years, since the destruction of the Bet Ha'mikdash . Ironically, however, the Midrash tells us that it is customary for schoolchildren to begin learning Humash specifically from this book, Sefer Vayikra. Although these laws strike us as dry, uninteresting and irrelevant, and we would never imagine making this part of the Humash the first section to teach our children, the Midrash tells us that this is precisely what should be done. The Midrash explains: הואיל וקרבנות טהורים והתינוקות טהורים, יבואו טהורים ויתעסקו בטהורים . Since the sacrifices are pure, and the children are pure, let the pure ones come and deal with that which is pure. Today, the custom is that when children begin learning Humash , they read the first several pesukim of Sefer Vayikra, and then they are taught the story of creation at the beginning of the Humash . But let us delve a bit deeper into this notion, that the children must be taught the concept of sacrifices already at an early age. A researcher named Dr. K. Anders Ericsson once conducted a major study, involving students at the Berlin Academy of Music. This school trains some of the greatest young musicians in the world, many of whom go on to become the most accomplished people in their fields. Dr. Ericsson studied the work habits of these students, since they began learning music. He and his team found that all of them had begun learning when they were very young, and all worked hard throughout their youth. However, there was a vast difference in the number of hours that the students had devoted to practicing. Some had spent a total of 10,000 hours of practice by the time they were twenty, some around 8,000 hours, and some just 4,000 hours. The researchers discovered that this factor – the number of hours of practice – was the main determinator of the students' level of achievement. Those who invested the most effort were the ones who showed the most promise and were on track to become the world's leading musicians. Natural talent was not nearly as significant a factor as hard work and effort. The most important thing we need to teach our children, already at a young age, is the value of korbanot – sacrifice, exertion, hard work, and effort. If our children get the message that success is determined by natural talent, by how smart a person is, by one's good looks, by the wealth of the family he was born into, or by any other factor other than hard work – we are lowering their chances of success. King Shlomo says in the Book of Mishleh (24:30-31): על שדה איש עצל עברתי, ועל כרם אדם חסר לב – "I passed the field of a lazy man, and the vineyard of a person without a heart." He then proceeds to describe how it looked: overgrown, abandoned, and in ruins. The lazy person's field does not produce much, if anything. There are so many people in our society – even adults in their 20s, 30s and 40s – whose lives look like these fields, who fail to produce, because they were never taught about the central importance of korbanot , of making sacrifices – giving our time, our energy, our attention, and our money for the sake of pursuing valuable and ambitious goals. This message needs to be taught to our children when they are still טהורים , when they are very young and still developing their habits. The earlier in life children learn this message, the easier it will be for them when they grow older to make the sacrifices and effort that they need to make in order to succeed and maximize their potential.
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Why You Need A Rabbi (From the archives in 2008)
After the people in charge of building the Mishkan completed their work, they brought it to Moshe. The Torah relates: וירא משה את כל המלאכה והנה עשו אתה כאשר צוה ה' כן עשו ויברך אתם משה. Moshe saw all the work – and behold, they had done it as Hashem had commanded, so did they do it. Moshe blessed them . Rashi tells us what blessing Moshe gave the people. He said: יהי רצון שתשרה שכינה במעשה ידיכם – "May it be the will that the Shechinah shall reside in your handiwork." At first glance, this means that Moshe prayed that the Shechinah , the divine presence, should dwell in the Mishkan . This prayer seems very puzzling. After all, Hashem had stated very clearly when He first commanded the people to construct a Mishkan that He would dwell within it – ועשו לי מקדש ושכנתי בתוכם ("They shall make for Me a sanctuary, and I will then reside among them" – Shemot 25:8). Once Moshe saw that the people constructed the Mishkan properly, he should have known that the Shechinah would come to reside within it, because this is precisely what Hashem had promised. He did not need to pray for this to happen. Rashi's comments seem difficult also for another reason. Normally, when we offer a prayer that begins with the words יהי רצון ("May it be the will"), we explain that we are talking about Hashem's will. We add, יהי רצון מלפניך ה' אלוקינו ואלוקי אבותינו – "May it be the will before You, Hashem our G-d, and G-d of our forefathers," or something to this effect. In Moshe's prayer, however, as Rashi writes it, he simply said, יהי רצון , without specifying whose "will" this should be. The Ketav Sofer answers these two questions by presenting an entirely new reading of Rashi's comment. Moshe was not praying to Hashem, but was rather guiding and instructing the people. He was telling them that their will should be that the Shechina should reside among them. He was blessing them that מעשה ידיכם , everything they do, should be done with the hope of bringing Hashem into their lives. In everything they do, even their ordinary, mundane affairs, their primary goal and aspiration should be connecting to Hashem. If we would ask people what they think about Rabbis, and the role of a Rabbi, we would receive many different responses. At one extreme, some people think that Rabbis are perfect, infallible figures who speak absolute truth all the time, and cannot ever make mistakes or be challenged. On the opposite extreme, people dismiss Rabbis as charlatans, driven solely by personal agendas and politics. In the middle, we find people who view Rabbis as formal functionaries, whom they call when their child is getting married to perform the ceremony. Others think that a Rabbi's job is to provide halachic guidance, and no more. I believe that the insight of the Ketav Sofer shows us what a Rabbi is supposed to be, and why we all need a Rabbi to look up to and learn from. A real Rabbi is someone whose primary ambition is שתשרה שכינה במעשה ידיכם – to bring Hashem in their lives. A real Rabbi is someone who works very hard, and makes considerable personal sacrifices, to achieve this goal, to immerse himself in Torah study, to selflessly help other people, and to serve Hashem and the His beloved nation. This is what being a Rabbi means. It doesn't mean that he is perfect, that he never makes a mistake, that he never says the wrong thing, that he doesn't have an ego, that he does not struggle with the vices and temptations that all human beings struggle with. It just means that his primary goal, for which he invests a great deal of time and effort, and for which he makes a great deal of personal sacrifices, is to bring the Shechinah into his life, to connect with Hashem. He might occasionally err, but he is constantly striving for spiritual greatness, and this is his main ambition in life. And this is why we all need a Rabbi – to help us redirect our focus and attention. It is so easy in our world to lose sight of our purpose, to get distracted by materialism, to pursue vanity instead of what really matters. We all need someone who will set an example of the רצון שתשרה שכינה , the desire to connect with Hashem, to strive for something far greater than the ordinary, mundane things that we get bogged down with. This is the role model we should be looking for, and the role model that we need, so that in all מעשה ידיכם , in everything we do, we have our priorities straight and understand the purpose for which we were brought into the world.
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Creating Our Golden Identity (From Last Year 2024)
Parashat Vayakhel tells of the construction of the Mishkan , the site that represented Hashem's residence among the people. In the center of this structure stood the aron , the ark, and it was from atop the aron that Hashem would speak to Moshe Rabbenu. The aron was made from wood, with gold plating on the interior and the exterior. Meaning, the aron had three layers: the gold on the outside, which is what people saw; the golden interior; and the wood in the middle. The Gemara in Masechet Yoma teaches that the two layers of gold plating convey to us a crucial lesson – that a Torah scholar must have the quality of תוכו כברו – "his inside is like his outside." His interior must match the piety and religious devotion that he projects externally. The image that he presents to the people around him must be an accurate reflection of who he really is inside. But if this is true, then why isn't the aron made entirely of gold? If the Torah wants the aron to represent the quality of תוכו כברו , then why doesn't it require making the aron pure gold, to symbolize that a talmid hacham should be "pure gold," inside and out? The answer is, quite simply, that nobody is perfect. The aron shows us that we all have "three layers" to our beings. The first is our exterior, our appearance, the way we present ourselves, the way people see us. The second is the "wood." This refers to our embarrassing faults, our mistakes and our mess-ups, that probably only our immediate family members know about. We all have a part of us that isn't "gold," that is flawed and far from perfect. But the main thing is to ensure that our interior, the innermost part of our beings, is truly "gold." This refers to our core identity. Yes, we are going to make mistakes, we are going to mess up from time to time. But the question is what kind of person we identify as, how we define ourselves. It's ok to have "wood" – as long as our inner beings are "gold," as long as we identify ourselves as genuinely Torah-committed Jews, and we strive to live in a way that reflects that "golden" identity. It is common to refer to a Torah-committed boy as a ben Torah – literally, "son of Torah" – and to a Torah-committed girl as a bat Torah – literally, "daughter of Torah." No matter what a person does, he cannot ever change the fact that he or she is his or her parents' child. Our biological relationship to our parents is a permanent and unalterable part of our identity. Similarly, we should be aspiring to be a " ben Torah " or " bat Torah ," a "child" of Torah. Our commitment to Torah must be a core element of our identity, of who we are, that will never change, even if we occasionally slip. We are going to make mistakes. And, living in our world, with all the lures and all the crazy influences all around us, we are going to be tested. The key to our success as Torah Jews is maintaining our core identity, defining ourselves as Torah Jews. Once we firmly establish that we are Hashem's children, that we are members of His special nation, that we are the ones who received the Torah, which offers us the opportunity to live the most meaningful and beautiful lives possible, then we can withstand every challenge, and we can recover from every failure. The most important thing for us is to make sure that our interior is "gold," that our commitment is genuine and real.
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