Tomer Devorah with Rabbi Avigdor Miller's Commentary 13 Chapter 6 Ki Chafetz Chesed Hu Hashem De

Shalom. We are learning Tom Devor by Rabbi Moshe Cordovo. And it so happens that today is his yard site. Today is the anniversary of his passing and therefore it is very appropriate to study his work and to learn from him. This will be married for him and because of this we will receive special uh influence from above. He will be praying for us. Now we are in the sixth chapter of Tom Devor in the character trait of mercy of Hashem that is called he desires kindness. And we said that Hashem loves to do kindness and at the same time he desires kindness means that Hashem loves when we do kindness and in the merit of the kindness that we do, Hashem protects us. And an example is given that at a time when [clears throat] Beta Mikdash could have been destroyed, Hashem already sent the Mala called Gabriel and he was about to destroy Beta Mikdash. But at that moment, Keruim showed Hashem the image of a hand. And the image of the hand represents kindness that we do with our hands that we extend our hand and we give we go ahead and we um use our hands to help those in need. And [snorts] therefore, as soon as Hashem saw the image of the hand, it reminded him of all the kindness Jewish people do to each other. And he said to Malik Gabriel, "Stop. They do kindness to each other." And [clears throat] therefore, Hashem said that hand of doing uh kindness is going to save the Jewish people. And even if they were guilty because of other sins, they were rescued and a remnant was left over which implies that some unfortunately were destroyed. Many people were destroyed at the time of the qurban but some remained and we are here today because of that. Why are we the remaining survivors? Because our ancestors did sedaka. They did kindness to each other and that kept them alive and that is the only merit why we are still alive today. What is the reason that it was so effective? Because of this trait of Hashem, he desires, meaning he wants the Jewish people to bestow kindliness to each other. [snorts] And God reminds himself of that side of their behavior which saves them from destruction. even though not all the other sides of their behavior are good or cauter. Abamil explains, "We will see soon that the word has although it generally means kindliness can mean other things too. For example, if a person is careful about one mitzvah, that one thing can sometimes be the factor that saves him. Because the word can also mean doing something beyond the letter of the law, being extra careful about something. And that means if a person chooses one mitzvah that he's going to do perfectly, more than the law requires better than anyone near him are doing, he is going to become a he's going to become the one that does kindness to Hashem. In this particular commandment, it means that he's telling Hashem, Hashem, although you only ask me to do this much, I will do more for you. I will do kindness, so to say, to you. Whenever we give someone more than he asks for or more than he deserves, we're doing kindness for him. And Hashem says, "Please keep kosher." And I say, "Hashem, I'm gonna be extra careful about kash." So that's kindness. Hashem says, "Keep Shabbat." And I say, "I'm going to do extra things for Shabbat." That is going to be kindness. put on teilin and hashem I'm going to do extra perfection in the mitzvah of that is considered kindness for example if a person always arrives first to the synagogue to pray that is considered kindness or always comes to learn Torah Even though it's difficult, he has to close his business early. He has to overcome his tiredness or he's under the weather and he still pushes himself. Says it's very important for me. I want to show Hashem how much I value learning Torah. That is considered kindness. Even though in general he has faults in other areas, this one good practice may make a big difference in saving him from destruction, God forbid. So our sages recommend that each person should choose one area that he's going to learn about and that he's going to perfect that he's going to try to be um extra extra good in extra careful. He'll invest his time, money, effort into one area. Why? Because in that one area, he's going to be considered aid doing something for Hashem special. A person is not composed of just one character trait. A person has many personalities within him. In one way he might be blemished and in other ways he might be a sadic doing it correctly. Hashem is a he desires kindness and therefore if he sees something good in a person that good thing is enough for Hashem to allow him to continue to exist and even to prosper. We might see people who hurt us, people who are generally sinners, and we see that good things are happening to them. And we might ask ourselves, why is Hashem not punishing them? God forbid. And the answer is because Hashem loves kindness. If he sees that even a sinner does something extra good in one area that will protect him maybe he will do touva why because if a person recognizes God and he says for you God I'm going to be extra good in one area that's a good sign because he shows that he has this quality of striving for perfection, of doing more than he is asked and therefore he has a chance. He might do toua, maybe he will get better. So if Hashem sees in a person at least one good thing, then because of that good thing, he has ramanut mercy on him and gives him an opportunity to continue. Now, Rabbi Corda continues, "If so, a person should try to follow this character trait. As always, we try to emulate Hashem and the way Hashem treats us, we want to apply ourselves to others." And that is we should try to emulate the ways of Hashem. And even if we see that somebody is doing us harm and is causing us distress, if we know that this person has one good side, for example, he does kindness on others or has another good quality in which he behaves properly. Even though to us this person demonstrates the opposite of kindliness, we should take that into consideration. This is Rabbi Mosha Cordovo and Rabbi [sighs and gasps] Nakman of Brela says the same thing that we should find one good thing in every Jew and we should focus on that one good thing and by concentrating on the good and ignoring the bad spiritually we will inspire the person to be good. We will inspire him to be connected to Hashem. That is the goodness in him. And that goodness will expand. Whatever you pay attention to, whatever you concentrate on will grow. And therefore both we see Rab Mosha Cordova the great cabalist um the the the teacher of Arisal as well as the more recent Rav Nah of Breastlav. They both uh stress this point that we need to look for good points in people and if we do find the good we will find ourselves surrounded by only good people because we will inspire everyone around us to become good. We will connect them with their nishama. Now, Rabbi Miller explains in [clears throat] most cases, unfortunately, people do the opposite. They are oblivious to any good qualities that other people have. We see the good qualities in us. We give ourselves excuses. But for other people, we see the bad. They will condemn a person entirely for one thing they saw and didn't like. This in English is called don't spill the baby together with bath water. Let's say you have a a precious baby. You put him in a in a baby bathtub and you washed him with soap and sponge and now the water is dirty and you say, "Oh, disgusting. This is a mess. Let me throw the whole thing out." Together with the baby, you spill the whole water and say, "I don't need this dirt." That would be crazy. We recognize the good. We take the good out and we spill the bad. We for those that want to follow, we are on page 81 of Rabbi Avicta Miller's commentary for Tom Devor. So the same way unfortunately people condemn a person entirely for one thing that they're doing wrong. But let's say the person prays nicely. Yeah, he hurt me. He is not a nice person. But I noticed that when he prays, he seems to be speaking to God or he gets along with his wife. Yes, he's not nice to others, but one good quality he has is that he never hurts his wife. It's hard to find that not a nice person would get along with his wife. But let's say he hurt you, but you say, you know what, at least I see he respects his wife. Maybe he is polite to other people even though to you he happens to be rough and tough. The fact that he is good to others persuades you to look at him in a different light. Now I skipped a page. We are on page 82. The fact that he's good in one area should be enough reason to redeem him in your eyes. It doesn't mean you have to forgive his debt if he owes you money. But you cannot condemn him entirely just because of what he may have done to you. This one positive facet that you see in him should be enough to nullify your anger against him. You should behave just like Hashem does. You should love kindness. If you see goodness and perfection in one area, you should already feel happy towards that person. For example, sometimes we sit in a synagogue and we try to pray or in bed midrash and we try to learn and all of a sudden we see some guy or a boy comes in and he talks and he might even pull out his uh phone and he's playing a video game on his phone in the middle of prayer and people get upset. What kind of thing is this? In front of God. He's sitting with his feet raised up and he's playing a video game. He doesn't pray. He distracts others and we boil with anger and we want to tell him go play outside. But as an advice, how do we look positively at such a person? We might think, you know, this guy could have been sitting at home and playing the video game, but he got up and he felt that he needs to go to the synagogue and pray. Even though his prayer is only a few seconds, but nevertheless, he put in effort and he showed that he would rather be in the synagogue than on the street with his friends or at home playing video games. And that itself is so good because he's unique. Most of his peers unfortunately are not religious. Most of his friends are with bad friends. on the internet, on the phone, doing drugs with girls, God forbid, doing all the bad things. And he is a righteous man. He came to the synagogue. Yes, he's not yet mature. He doesn't appreciate what the synagogue is. He doesn't appreciate what prayer is, but at least he made the right choice to go to the right place. He doesn't know how to behave there, but he has something good. He came to the synagogue and with those thoughts we should be filled with love towards him. And those feelings of love all of a sudden you will notice start inspiring that boy and all of a sudden he might put away his phone and open the sidur or close his eyes and start communicating with God because he felt something good inside of him. And who gave him that good? our positive thoughts. So, Rab Miller says you should concentrate on the good that he may have done to someone else and forgive him and look at him positively. Just like Hashem is appeased from his anger because of one good quality that a person has, even though he has other character traits that are not good. Likewise, you should always keep that person's good quality before your eyes. Use it to try to gain a more favorable attitude toward him. You should have a certain favor toward him, Rabbi Corda says. And you should desire that kindness. You should love the one good thing that he does. You should love the good inside of him. You should say, "It's enough for me to recognize and appreciate this one good quality that he has." And surely he should not be angry with his wife. We personally should not be angry at our spouse even if there are re reasons to be angry. As our sages of blessed memory explained, it is enough for us that our wives raise our children and save us from yet. That means he's bringing a story in the Talmud that says that there was once a rabbi whose wife was evil. Pure evil. You from the outside. It seemed she did everything against him. She put him down. She didn't listen. She did things on purpose to hurt him. And his students told the rabbi, "Our teacher, why don't you divorce her? She's so bad. Look at her. She's disrespecting you. A great man." And he turned to his students and he said, "It is enough for me that she raises my children. She might be not good towards me, but she's good towards my children." and that's enough. And she saves me from sin. She's my wife. Rabbi Miller explains, "Therefore, concentrate on that good quality. It shouldn't just be a thought in the background. Put it in the front of your mind. that that good thing should always be in the front of your mind when deciding how to judge your wife and should lead to a friendly and kindly attitude toward her. Just like Hashem says, Hashem says, "I remember for you, for the Jewish people, the kindness, how special you were when you were young. And it continues, "When you just came out of Egypt and you followed me into the desert, that was a kindness that the Jewish people did for God. They believed, trusted him, and followed him into the desert. And many centuries later when the Jewish people were sinning against God and God wanted to destroy them, Hashem said, "I remember that one kindness that you did to me, that you trusted me and you followed me into the desert and therefore I will save you." So too, a man has to remember one good thing that his wife did for for him. It's you can probably find a thousand thing things but at least find one good thing that his wife did for him today, yesterday, sometime in the distant past and concentrate on that and say at least she did that for me. I will forever be grateful to her for that. And same for a wife. She should find one good thing that her husband did or is doing and be grateful to him for that. And that should lead to a friendly and kindly attitude between them. You might ask, should I just ignore the other sides of someone's character that are not good? And the answer is yes. If you wish to emulate Hashem, concentrate on the good. As uh Mablo says that they once asked an old man, how did you succeed to live peacefully with your wife for so many years? And he said, when I got married, I made myself blind. Whenever I come home, what does it mean? I would not see anything bad in my house or in my wife, I became blind. I didn't see the mess. I didn't see anything wrong with her or with h the house or with the children. And that one trait made us happily married for so many decades. Now, Rabbi Cordov continues, "You should say about everybody, it's sufficient that he once did me a certain favor or he did a favor for somebody else or he has a certain positive quality. By doing this, you will be one who desires. Even if you heard that this man did kindness to somebody else, not to you, that alone should persuade you to look at him in a different light. Suppose a person is strict about something. Even though you don't benefit from his stringency, it's only between him and God. He's careful about keeping a certain law on Shabbat. nothing to do with me. But still you uh you should say the fact that this man is stringent in one thing is a sign that he has something good in him. He is a servant of Hashem at least in one part of his character. And even though I have a reason to be angry with him, I am going to be appeased by him, other people may look at his stringencies and think that he's a phony, that he's not a good person and he just tries to be good in the eyes of God. But this character trait of yours of that you love kindness means that you should desire to see the good in others and love it. You have to remember that bribery blinds people. The biggest bribery is your own character traits. If you're angry, that's a bribery to your intellect. and you will view everything according to your anger. If you have a grudge against someone, you should know that you are blind to seeing his good qualities. You're not a good judge at that moment. You have to fight back against that and keep your eyes open. Then you're sure to see he has certain good qualities. Just like a judge who feels that one of the litigants is treating him extra well, he should understand that it's going to be hard for him to judge him. And he has to pull his mind away from that bribe and say, I will be impartial. I will see the situation for what it is and I will notice not only the bad, I will notice the good. In this case as well to give a chance to the other side. You have to fight back against your influence of your character traits and keep your eyes and mind open on the good qualities of people. In most cases, what you see in other people is merely a reflection of your own shortcomings, your own characteristic blemishes. Maybe you are the one who is wrong. The truth is in most cases you are the one who is the sinner. Because like one rabbi said, if I see a person who is wealthy, I say to myself, he probably has more merit than me because he was rewarded by God with wealth must be he is good. If I see a person who is more poorer than I am, I say God expects more of me and I'm not doing enough with my wealth and he is poor. He can't be blamed for anything. So therefore, he is more pure. If I see a person who knows more, I respect him because he knows more. If I see a person that knows less, I respect him because he's less guilty. God expects more of me because I studied more and I should be better and I'm not. So therefore, maybe you are the one who is wrong. And the truth is in most cases, you are the one who is the sinner. You see wrong in someone else when he is actually right because I want to be right. We're not talking about a denier of God or a heretic or a wicked person. We're talking about a typical Jew. Many times there is hatred even between religious Jews. Why? Because of their character traits deficiencies. One who is angry at another cannot see any good in him. That is blindness. Hashem says, "If I would be blind to your good qualities, you couldn't exist even a moment. I would judge you for what? For that which you did wrong, one thing at the beginning of the day and goodbye." Therefore, to emulate Hashem, don't be blind to good in other people. Look for the good qualities in others and concentrate on them. We finished chapter six. May this be for aliat of Rabbi Moshord and may he be mayos may he pray for us that peace and good should come to the Jewish people and the entire world. Thank you for joining. Have a great day.