Tomer Devorah with Rabbi Avigdor Miller's Commentary 16 Chapter 7 Yashuv Yerachamenu God Will Ag

Shalom. We are in the middle of chapter seven of Tom Devor. The character trait of mercy of Hashem called Yesu. He will again have compassion upon us. And yesterday [clears throat] we said that the place where Baltishes stands even a righteous person cannot stand. And we explained that that does not mean that such a place is impossible for a righteous man to achieve. Rather what it means is that everything being equal if they achieved the same um level since Besuva had to work much harder he has a greater reward and that is true for any mitzvah. Any mitzvah that a person does with effort is rewarded on a much greater scale than a mitzvah that a person does easily. And therefore, this is something that we should keep in mind. When we have an opportunity to choose a job, we should always choose a harder job because we're going to get more reward. But you'll ask, "What if I don't think I can do the job?" So, don't forget that we usually underestimate our own strength, both physical and spiritual. And number two, we have divine assistance. So if you are committed to something and you really want to do it and you will put your best effort into it with Hashem's help, you are going to achieve it. We're not asking you to jump to the 10th floor or from the 10th floor. No. All we are expecting of a person is that he should see what challenge is coming his way and say if Hashem sent me this challenge I am accepting it. I'm not afraid. I will take it upon myself and I will surprise myself with how much I can accomplish and I will be inspired by seeing how much help Hashem is sending my way. So with all that Hashem is giving assistance and Hashem gave the person tremendous physical strength and spiritual strength. Still we say a person who struggles achieves greater reward, receives greater reward. Why? Because even though Hashem gave you the strength to do it and he gave you the assistance, still he rewards us for the um decision, for the commitment because Hashem knows that it is difficult. Hashem knows that it's not easy to overcome your fear. You see a um a challenge and you get scared. And when you get scared, you have a choice. I can either run away or I can accept the challenge upon myself. And that decision, I'm not afraid. I'm going to put in my effort and I'm going to trust God. That is the reason you get greater reward. Once you make that decision, things become easy. And the main reward you get is for overcoming your fear and overcoming your laziness and pushing yourself and saying, "Yes, I'm going to do it." Once you make the decision, yes, I'm going to do it. [snorts] Everything else goes smoothly. you get divine assistance. And so we say that a Baltishes who had to overcome his habit and stop doing the sin and choose a harder way to go around in order to protect himself from sin in the future will get a reward much greater reward. So the reward comes in two ways. Number one, in the physical uh world, Hashem will show him more attention, more love, more blessing. And also in the spiritual um world, Rabbi Cordova says that ballet tishuva go to the fifth chamber of Ganed. Five is letter H. Since they were able to climb on top of hate, they were able to overcome all the the negative urges and fears. Therefore, they deserve the fifth level of Ganeda. And um um now Rabbi Mosh Card continues on page 102. The sadikim came in underneath through the wide open entrance of hay. That's talking about a person who from young age was in a good environment and was slowly rising up the ranks and he achieved the level of a perfect sadic a righteous individual. That is not to say that sadikim never had uh struggles and challenges because they also daily have to push themselves and say I'm not going to settle for the same as yesterday. I'm going to push myself a little bit more. I will wake up a one minute earlier. I will move a little bit faster than yesterday. I'll arrive to the synagogue 2 minutes earlier and I'll talk less to people and I'm going to prepare myself for prayer a little bit faster and I'm going to sit down and concentrate my thoughts on God and humility and if I have time I'm going to open a book and learn for extra few minutes And when I pray, I'm gonna push myself a little bit more so that I can be distracted less. So sadikim are going through struggles every day and they are greatly rewarded for it. The struggle that they are missing is that they never experienced such a failure that takes them out of the spiritual world, blocks their channels of communication with their nishama and makes it so much harder to come back. They didn't experience that. They didn't experience the pleasure of a forbidden um sin and therefore their desires are supposed to be less which is a good thing. We're not looking to increase our desires and take a risk and potentially fail. But with less risk comes less reward. So, Rabbi Cord says that since sadikim came from the bottom of letter H, they they had a wide open entrance, it was easy to come in. If you're in a good environment, it's easy to become religious. Again, I want to stress, we are not looking for challenges. We're not saying raise your children in a bad environment and let them struggle. No, shalom. Because unfortunately risks are higher for failure than for success. And therefore, just like in investments, you might want um to get a lot of money quickly, but that requires a greater risk and you might lose everything and then you'll regret. It's more safe to receive small um um uh reward dividend but a consistent one and a safe one so that when you come to the end of your life meaning retirement you are guaranteed to have a lot of money. Young ones, young investors take a lot of risks and they might become extra wealthy or they might lose everything and become poor. So too it is with u spiritual endeavors. The sages say that uh for three years the academy of Hel and the academy of Shamai were arguing and for three years the question that they were discussing was is it better for a man to be created or not. After 3 years, the academy of hil agreed to the academy of shaman and they said it's better for a man not to be created because they looked around and they said majority of human beings fail. Majority of people misuse life and they end up damaging their position in the spiritual world. And even though we come to the world in order to gain aba and to raise our soul higher so that when we go for another cycle we are on a higher level. But for majority of people it works against them. They fail miserably and they are punished and they lower the level of their nishama in the spiritual world. But they said even though it would have been better for a man not to be created, but now that a man is created against our will, we have to do our best to succeed in the world. And you ask the next question. So then why did God create us if chances are that we're going to fail? And the answer is for those few righteous people who will do the right thing, who will overcome the temptation and the negative inclination and they will succeed. And it's worth it for the entire universe to be created and for billions of people to be created to achieve such success of a perfect hum human being. And therefore, who was the world created for? For those that succeed in life, not financially, but those that succeed in life in leaving this world better than they came in. We come in pure, innocent, but empty of mitzvot. And our goal is to leave this world also pure and innocent, but this time with a lot of mitzvot. Now, Rabbi Cordova continues, "Therefore, when a person does tou someone who sinned and fell out of the bottom of hay, he goes back to the place, the chamber of hay in Ganedan. And then Hashem who forsook him in his sin returns with even more influence on him. Hashem loves someone who tried um bad and decided that he's not going to do it anymore. Hashem loves such a person even more. Doesn't mean we should try. That's what Adamarishon uh said. He said, "God, I want to achieve an even higher level. I'm going to sin. I'm going to go against you and I'm going to come back." And Hashem said, "No, we don't play games." If you fail and then you want to come back, good. But don't plan to fail hoping that tishuva will save you. Because the Talmud says someone who says I will sin and then I will do Hashem doesn't accept his tush because ability to do actually caused him to sin and therefore is at fault and therefore Hashem says I'm taking away uh from you the ability to do shalom. But if a person without planning it failed, then Hashem says, "I will take you back if you put in effort and I will love you even more than before." And that's what the Talmud says that someone who does, he comes back to God out of love, his sins turn into mitzvot. Why? because his sins caused him to become more connected to God and more beloved to God and therefore his sins at the end became positive. Again, this only works if a person didn't plan it. Um, Hashem does not return to the sinner with the previous love that he had for every good Jew. Rather, he has exceedingly more love for this man because he exerted himself with so much effort to come back. And now just one more point about what we said. We said that um it is better for a person not to have been created. However, now that we are created, we have to use our life to the best of our ability. Majority of people do fail because Hashem created very difficult tests. And this is the same that the that we see in a classroom. A good teacher will not make a test that everyone will pass. That means he didn't test them enough. To test students, it means you have to give them questions that they will have to use their mind and they'll have to use the entire knowledge that they learned in class and they will have to apply themselves to the utmost. And if not that means the teacher is not bringing out the potential. But together with bringing out the potential the test is very difficult and most of the class will not get a perfect score. Not only that there might be no one who will get 100%. Because as soon as someone gets 100% it means Hashem potentially could have made it harder because who knows maybe this person could have achieved greater and God doesn't want anyone to come to him and say God you didn't give me opportunity to prove myself to you Hashem I could have exerted myself more but you didn't give me a chance and therefore you took away from me an extra level in the next world. And therefore, Hashem is going to give a test that is slightly above our ability so that we just touch it, but we're not comfortable going on top of it and saying, "Yes, I did it. I could have done more." No, we will never have a test that we will easily accomplish and say, "I could have done more." because that is a blame towards God saying you didn't give us opportunity to earn more reward. So you don't have to be afraid that [clears throat] if you put in too much effort life will become easy. Life will never become easy because Hashem has a lot in store for you. Um now Rabbi Cordov continues and this is the meaning of this mida of Hashem. God will again have compassion upon us which means even more than before. He will increase his love for Israel, for the Jewish people, and he will bring them closer to himself. This is a prayer for all Israel. When we say yes, Hashem, please come back to us and love us again, Hashem should come back to us because we are going to repent today to have the same month's mindset, the same hashkafa. Hashkafa means philosophical outlook, perspective, proper perspective on life. So today to have the same hashkafa and attitudes that our forefathers had even 200 years ago is extremely difficult. Our forefathers never encountered the wicked things that now fill the streets of America and other countries. Society is full of every kind of degeneracy and abomination. Even among non-Jews, there is no precedent for the degree of wickedness that we have today. This fits well with today's para which speaks about laws of spiritual impurity. And Rabbi Samson Rafal Hersh says that purity is equivalent to morality and to freedom. freedom of mindset that you choose to do good as opposed to following the society. When you lose your freedom and you just blindly follow the societal pressures, peer pressure, you follow your urges, your evil inclination, that is called lack of freedom. That is called slavery. And that is called impurity, immorality, tuma. So we live in a world where there is plenty of impurity. There is plenty of um tuma and that tuma comes from lack of moral barometer. People have lost the ability to recognize what is good and what is not. And so Rab Miller says that in the past even non-Jews had a moral com compass and um one example he says that in 1950s and60s public schools non-Jewish schools had two entrances. One entrance it said boys and another entrance it said girls. Public school was like yes. Yes. Girls dressed modestly with long skirts and long sleeves. They had separate entrances. Even non-Jews understood what morality is. And um um the world was more pure. The Jews of the past were more divorced from non-Jewish culture and they were surely more pure. They lived in an environment that was pure holiness. They didn't have any non-Jewish literature around them. no movies, no wicked newspapers or magazines or bad examples from the streets. And of course, they didn't have cell phones, they didn't have internet, they didn't have social media, they didn't see and they didn't know about all the wicked things that we know about today. They lived in holiness and therefore it was easier for them and Hashem loved them because of their purity. Now we are immersed in a sea of filth and impurity among low people and we try our best to fight back against an adverse environment. This is a big effort for us and therefore Hashem will come back to us even more and love us even more. So that's the good news. Hashem loves us living in the depravity of society even more than he loved our ancestors who lived in a pure world. Therefore, when there is a Jewish family that's behaving according to the olden principles of modesty, it's nude fear of Hashem, serving Hashem, then Hashem says, "I will love you even more than your forefathers because you are putting in more effort. It's harder for us today." This is the meaning of Yeshua. He will come back and give us his love more than before. And now Rabbi Cord continues in this way a person should behave toward his fellow Jew. We have to emulate Hashem. Someone who sinned against Hashem and wants to come back. Hashem accepts them and gives them even more love. If someone wronged someone and made and then made amends, asked for forgiveness and did what was right. So then he shouldn't keep a grudge because of the previous anger that he caused him. Rather, when he sees that his friend is seeking friendship again, he should give him compassion and love more and more than before. And he should say to me, he is like about to Hashem. He humbled himself and he approached me and apologized. And even though it was a half apology, but still I will treat him like Hashem treats me when I sin and I come back to Hashem. It's for sure not a complete apology, but Hashem still accepts me and gives me even more love. And he should say, "Hashem likes bales more than sadikim." That means I have to love people who hurt me and then apologize even more than people who never hurt me. And he should say it's true that he wronged me, but now that he's trying to come back, he overcame his previous yet against me and he's now willing to show self-restraint in order to be my friend. So therefore, he should bring him closer as much as possible, even more close than the completely righteous who never sinned against him. And we see this in families where you might have many kids and some kids are harder than others. And all the parents will tell you those kids that are harder, I love them more. Why? Because a closer relationship is built when a child does something against me and and I see that the child regrets and they fix it and I apologize and even though it happens a lot of times but that actually is the glue that binds us together. Of course, if there is a suspicion that this person is not really about towab toward you, then you have to fear that maybe he'll break out once more, which means you have to suspect and protect yourself. But suppose you see that he's sincere, he really means the attempt to come close to you again, then you should bring him even closer than people who never wronged you. Although this may seem like the author is demanding an extreme from us beyond the letter of the law, we should suspect that in most cases it's actually not so simple. In most cases, we also had some share in the quarrel and sometimes it's our fault entirely. So don't put the entire blame on the person who wronged you. It does take two to tango and it does take two to fight and therefore even though we got hurt but we have to say what was my part in it how could I have answered him differently to bring the tension down and maybe then he wouldn't hurt me but for the part that is his fault and he apologizes I have to forgive him fully when he comes to ask forgiveness in actuality you are not doing him a favor you are the one who should be asking for forgiveness as well because maybe you contributed let's say he was 90% wrong but without your 10% it wouldn't escalate and maybe it would end in a on a much nicer note people don't want to recognize this fact as it says a person does not recognize his own faults. We feel that we are always right and the other person is wrong. Therefore, it should be a benefit to learn this lesson from Tom Devor since in most cases we have good reason to forgive and accept people because we may have stumbled them. We answered wrongly. We poured oil into the fire and therefore it's to our benefit to forgive them and to make friends because then they'll forgive us because there is our part in it. In most cases there was no reason to have been displeased with them in the first place. They may have been justified in being angry and we were the ones who were wrong at least partially. When you see two other people who went through such an experience, you see that it's not so simple to know who was right or wrong. When people come to you and complain about someone else, you may feel that they are the victim. But then when you speak to the other party, you see that they actually did more harm to the other person. It's not so simple to know who was right or wrong. Often both were wrong. You will never say this about yourself because you are bribed by your self-interest. However, if we keep this principle before our eyes, it will help us repair our relationships. Even in cases where it is not as one-sided as the author described. Um, we finished chapter seven. Next week we will go to the next mida. In the meantime, thank you for joining.