A Fraction of Infinity | Rabbi Menachem Feifer

The days of Elul are upon us, and during this Chashuve Tkufah of the year, it's so important for a person to take some step towards Teshuva. A Kabbalah, some change, some positive... something in עשה טוב, something in סור מרע, some change in his life that could show the Ribono shel Olam that we're on our way back. And even a small change means so much in Shomayim. I once heard from R’ Yaakov Galinsky zt”l, he related that he was visiting in Antwerp, by R’ Chaim Kreiswirth z”l. And R’ Chaim said to him: R’ Yankel, I just had a Din Torah, it was ממש a joke, but it was a serious Din Torah. And he explained, I had a broker and a business owner arguing. What was the fight over? The broker claimed he was promised 0.06% as his cut in this deal, and the business owner claimed he only promised him 0.04%. Is that something worth fighting over? 0.02%? Why would you fight over that? But the thing was, it was a $50 million diamond deal. And in a $50 million diamond deal, even a small percentage is a lot of money. When we're talking about Ruchniyus, a small percentage has tremendous value. Ruchniyus is infinite in value, and a fraction of an infinite number is also infinite. We can't measure what it means a small Kabbalah that a person makes. Every single step that we take towards improvement makes us a totally different person. If a person says: You know what? The first few minutes of the day I don't look at the internet, for the first few minutes of the day, that's a different person than the one who immediately when he goes in, starts browsing, looking around. One small step and the person changes for the better, and by the Ribono shel Olam, it's already a different person. The Sfas Emes says a pelediker vort on a Medrash in Parshas Ki Tisa. There it says on the pasuk HaKadosh Baruch Hu tells Moshe, Klal Yisroel turned away quickly. The Medrash says: How quickly did they turn away? Seemingly, 40 days after Kabbolas Hatorah. But actually there’s a מאן דאמר that says it was 29 days, there's one that says it was 11 days later, one that says one day later, and even one that says, At the time when they said נעשה ונשמע, the Kabbalah was insincere, and really, they were already having thoughts of Avoda Zara. How could Chazal say this? The world stands on the נעשה ונשמע. Crowns were given for נעשה ונשמע. Says the Sfas Emes, This is teaching us that even a Kabbalah that's not completely, completely through and through the person, not completely ernst, could keep the world standing, could get us two crowns. The smallest Kabbalah, even if it's not everlasting, even if it's not through and through, makes a person a different בריה.